Legendary Hollywood manager, producer, author, innovator and mentor, Bernie Brillstein (1931 – 2008) passed away last night.

He was 77.

Everyone at the Safran Company and Safran Digital extend their condolences to Bernie’s family and friends.

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Today, Safran Digital went public with the details of our partnership with Xbox. In particular, we’ve announced the directors for our slate of original web video pilots, which launch this fall to coincide with Xbox’s user-interface redesign.

The directors involved include James Wan (Saw, Death Sentence), David Slade (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy), James Gunn (Slither), Lucky McKee (May), Andrew Douglas (The Amityville Horror) and Marcus Nispel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th).

I’m extremely proud of the filmmakers and their camps, the deal we’ve put together and what I believe it represents for the future of digital content economics. (more…)

The news that Fox Interactive Media (FIM) was decentralizing, (as scooped by techcrunch and covered elsewhere) and carving out its individual brands, most notably MySpace and IGN, into standalone silos should be welcomed by the technology, creative and business communities.

This is the first step in a maturing process for intrinsically rebellious MySpace, which despite the multiple doom-and-gloom rants about its eminent demise, remains an 800 lb gorilla in the web ecosphere and will continue to do so as long as it moves towards independence from its corporate parent.

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