You know, I heard he had a double....
Friday, July 25, 2008
Two weeks worth of stuff...
You can vote on the box art for the upcoming DVD release of The Real Ghostbusters until the 27. (Submitted by Sitting Duck)
Heroes webshow Going Postal went live July 14.
“Milan Records is pleased to announce the American release of the Battle Royale OST on July 22, 2008. The release will be digital only (not available on CD) and available on Amazon.com, Itunes and all major online music stores.”
A rundown of upcoming horror musicals.
Miracleman lives on - on the Australian stage.
A comparative breakdown of the Watchmen trailer.
Scientists have named a protein after Pikachu.
Anthony Daniels on C3P0.
You can get a 1/2-scale model of the Sanka Mk B aerial fighter from the movie The Sky Crawlers for 3.9 million yen (about $36,000 US). (Japanese)
Donkey Kong Jenga
The Cylon Toaster
The Dust strategy game: "It's 1941, and you're sending a battalion of giant combat mechs to attack Russia. Your air support fighters were built using technology you recovered from a crashed alien ship in the Antarctic, and no one has bothered trying to develop atomic weapons because you're all too busy trying to gather a weird alien energy source known as 'VK.'"
The 10 Mental Illnesses Batman Indisputably Has
Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long
Top 10 Animal-Friendly Superheroes
The 10 greatest sci-fi films never made
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Games
Jim Lee unveiling DC Universe Online at E3: "Imagine being able to create your own superhero or supervillain. [You can] enter the DC Universe to fight alongside or against the world's most powerful characters. Imagine how cool it would be to help Batman take on the Joker. Imagine being a villain and helping all the inmates at Arkham Asylum escape to attack the Batcave. This is certainly a project that would make my 12-year-old brain explode with excitement." No release date yet, but will be available for Playstation 3 and PC. Trailer here.
Lego Batman has been pushed back from September 1, to late September. It will be available for PlayStation 2 and 3, PSP, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS.
Comics and Books
To celebrate the new website, Tor has free E-books up until Sunday, the 27th.
Commemorating Sandman’s 20th.
And here’s a look at the anniversary poster.
A one shot Ghostbusters manga from Tokyopop in the fall.
An interview with Brandon Jerwa about Battlestar Galatica: Ghosts, which comes out in September.
DVD Releases
Deception – September 23
Iron Man – September 30 (Australian release October – 9)
The Strangers – October 21
Hell Ride – October 28
The Real Ghostbusters: The Complete Series – November 15 (submitted by Sitting Duck)
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Movie News
MGM have green lighted Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s spec script The Cabin in the Woods. Goddard says, “It’s genius, it’s funny. It’s got a harder and darker edge, but it’s also got classic Whedon qualities. It’ll rip your heart out and be heartfelt at the same time. There’s a reason the title is so straightforward. It’s its own sub-genre, the cabin in the woods, and this is sort of our take on it. It’s fresh and new.” Whedon will produce, and it’ll be Goddard’s directorial debut.
Ron Underwood will direct S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock’s (aka, the three guys who did Tremors) script Night Crew. It’s “full of quirky characters, scary moments, and laugh-out-loud humor, but this time in an urban setting”.
Mark Johnson and Jimmy Miller produced, and Vince Gilligan scripted dramedy Two Face is starting to move forward. Will Ferrell will star as “a racist who, after a prank gone awry, develops a split personality.” They’re still looking for a director. Production will probably start next year.
Ricky Gervais says he’s finished filming and is now editing his feature directorial debut This Side of Truth.
Matthew Horne and James Corden say they’ve wrapped Phil Clayden’s comedy horror Lesbian Vampire Killers. Co-starring MyAnna Buring, Paul McGann, Ashley Mulheron, and Lucy Gasken, it’s about two guys who are tricked into being sacrifices. Says Corden, "Matt and I play these two guys who, for one reason or another, need to get away. So they go camping and hiking, and they end up in this fictional town in Britain and get chased by lesbian vampires, and we kill them." … "That's it: We kill them in a funny way.” Should be released later this year.
Woody Harrelson and Chin Han have been cast in Roland Emmerich's 2012.
Sean Young, Jeffrey Combs, and Timothy Bottoms will star in Parasomnia. It’s about “a woman who sleeps her life away and lives in a fantasy world.” Comes out later this year
Barbara Bain, M. Emmet Walsh, and Sean Young will star in ghost story Haunted Echoes. Releases later this year.
Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms will star in Todd Phillips’ Hangover. Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, it’s about three friends who lose the groom at a bachelor party in Las Vegas.
Prequels, Sequels & Remakes
Rob Cohen says Paramount has the remake rights to The Monster Squad, "I am talking with Paramount about the ownership rights, we just found out that because of all the different companies being bought and sold, but we believe all the rights are back at Paramount. I have been waiting to finish this (Mummy) film, to really start the talks about remaking it. Maybe I would direct, maybe someone else with me producing. I really think highly of that that film…I mean, how great is it with The Mummy, the Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Frankenstein they all were in it! It would be a prime remake!”
Carl Ellsworth will write the Dan Bradley directed Red Dawn remake from MGM. Ellsworth: “The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we’re in. As ‘Red Dawn’ scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people again?”
What’s going on with that RoboCop remake? Darren Aronofsky is interested (but not yet signed) in directing, and right now it looks like it might be a sequel instead of a remake. [maybe, possibly, etc.]
After asking for some minor edits, the Chinese government has cleared The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor for a post Olympic games (August 8-24) release date.
Roland Kickinger will be replacing Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.
Troy Duffy on Boondock Saints 2: "The boys (Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery) and their father Il Duce (Billy Connolly) have been living in seclusion, deep in Ireland on a sheep farm, away from everything, when Il Duce’s brother comes to tell them that a priest was murdered in Boston and it was set up to look like it was done by the Saints. The boys rush back to deal with it, while they’re supposedly ailing father stays on the farm. There’s a new character who’s kind of the Rocco character named Romeo; funny, but much more bad ass. As soon as the brothers land, they start picking off anyone who may be tied to this framing. Willem Dafoe is not in the sequel, a new FBI detective comes into play — a female with a strong southern accent. She wants to catch the Saints and is working with some of the detectives in the first movie (like Bob Marley) who, as we know, decided the Saints were good and began helping them, but they don’t think she knows this, so they need to go with that. Eventually their father comes back into play and tells them what’s going on, which sets in motion a full-on flashback of the story of Il Duce from day one." Duffy says filming should start in August.
Paramount has okayed a sequel to School of Rock, School of Rock 2: America Rocks. Director Richard Linklater, writer Mike White, and Jack Black will be back. This time Finn will take a group of summer school students cross country exploring the history of several kinds of music.
Nick Palatas, Robbie Amell, and Hayley Alcroft have been cast as Shaggy, Fred, and Velma, respectively, in the Scooby Doo prequel.
The synopsis for David M. Evans directed, straight to DVD sequel, Ace Ventura 3: “After his African adventure in ‘Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls,’ Ace returned to Florida, married girlfriend Melissa (Ann Cusack) and became the doting father of a baby boy. Never one to sit still, Ace’s curious nature took him on another remote case. The goofball gumshoe was never to be seen or heard from again. Single mom Melissa couldn’t fully put the past behind her. Now a zookeeper, she and Ace Jr. (Josh Flitter) have made a life carrying on without her husband. Much to Melissa’s chagrin, however, 12-year-old Ace Jr. has begun to follow in his father’s comic footsteps. He has recently become a pet detective for the 7th grade set, often trying to recover classmates’ missing pets, and always with big mishaps. But when a master animal thief abducts a baby panda and his mom is wrongly arrested of the crime, Ace Jr. must jump into action. Now, with the help of pals Laura and tech wizard A-Plus, young Ace must bring the thief to justice and do his inane and lovable dad’s memory justice.”
The unconfirmed rumors around Iron Man 2 (Marvel “doesn't comment on rumors”) are that Marvel has signed Jon Favreau to direct and that Justin Theroux will write. Robert Downey Jr. is contractually obligated to return. Iron Man 2 should release April 2010.
The Weinsteins on Scream 4: “The fans have been asking for a 4th Scream movie for years and we're finally giving it to them. As far as details go, we're only in the planning stages and we may not get around to it for quite some time, but rest assured, it will happen."
David Goyer on the next Batman movie: “We’re not going to tell you [the next villain] other than to say Batman has been published for 70 years. In the first movie we used Ra’s Al Ghul and the Scarecrow who had not been in the movies before and had not been in the 60s TV show and there are dozens, if not hundreds of other characters that fit that bill. Everyone says you have to use the Penguin or Catwoman. Well, I completely disagree.” … “’I think Warner Bros would like to do another one. As far as Chris [Nolan] goes, we haven’t had any long conversations about it yet. It wasn’t until three or four months after Batman Begins opened that Chris and I sat down and talked about another one. We’ll have to see. It’s definitely a much scarier proposition. It was a scary proposition trying to do Dark Knight. It’s sort of a geometrically proportionate scary proposition to try to do another one, but we’ll see.’’
Eric Brevig on the possibility of a sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth: “At the end of the movie, they find a book about Atlantis. That might be something. If people embrace the movie and want to see these characters on another adventure, we might come up with something.”
Adaptations
Patrick Wilson says the ending of The Watchmen will remain the same.
Warner Brothers and Rawson Thurber are developing a fantasy movie based on Wendy and Richard Pini’s cult comic Elfquest. Thurber will write, direct, and produce, the format is as yet undetermined. It “follows a tribe of elves known as the Wolfriders in their attempts to survive and link with other dispersed elves on an Earth-like planet with two moons while on the lookout for tribes of humans and trolls, both of which act as allies and enemies.”
John Woo will direct action movie Caliber based off Radical Comics’ story that has King Arthur and his knights as gunslingers in the Pacific Northwest during the 1800’s.
Michael Rymer will direct the Witchblade movie.
Producer Bob Ducsay and Universal are developing a feature based on Terry Brooks’ fantasy novel Magic Kingdom for Sale. "Basically, it's about a man whose life has fallen apart because of the death of his wife who is met with an opportunity to buy what turns out to be a literal magic kingdom. And when he enters this magic kingdom with his family, he discovers that the magic kingdom was not what it was sold to be and in fact was in complete and total disarray. And over the course of the picture, he mends the magic kingdom and his family." Right now the biggest obstacle in getting it made is that it will be an expensive project. Stephen Sommers is attached to direct and co-produce.
Robert Downey Jr. is in final negotiations to play The Great Detective for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. This one will have Doyle’s character “more adventurous and less stuffy,” taking cues from Lionel Wigram’s upcoming comic.
Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall will star in CMT Films Crazy Heart. The Scott Cooper written and directed movie is based on Thomas Cobb’s novel about an alcoholic country music singer who gets back on track through his relationship with a reporter. T Bone Burnett will do the music and filming starts in August.
Luke Goss on the Tekken movie: “The same producers were very adamant to make sure that the characters that were in the game translated quite literally to the movie — visually and everything. Their fight styles were studied and the way they looked, the producers wanted people that looked similar to the actual characters in the game. They understood that genre fans and game fans would want that. I think they did a good job.”
David Hayter will be writing Warner Brothers and CapCom’s Lost Planet movie.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
MRFH Stuff
Main site Mutant Reviewers from Hell will take a break until the 27th.
Meanwhile, we have the Mutant Music Contest running in our forum the Mutant Cafe.
And finally, as you might've noticed, the Annex's posts may be a bit off schedule for the next week. Please be patient. Thanks!
Trailers
Some of these links may contain mature material, and MRFH is not responsible for their content.
Watchmen
The Spirit
Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins teaser
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince teaser
Twilight trailer 2
Max Payne
Outlander
High School Musical 3
Sixty Six
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
Beer for My Horses
Red
Mad Detective
Quarantine
Hell Ride red band
Other:
Hulk vs. Wolverine (Straight to DVD)
Heroes (TV)
Heroes (TV)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TV)
Sons of Anarchy (TV)
Videos
Some of these links may contain mature material, and MRFH is not responsible for their content.
Sixty Six 1 clip
American Teen 3 clips
Rain of Madness Tropic of Thunder mockumentary
Transsiberian 2 clips
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Joker's Nikes
Talk of a posthumous Oscar nom for Ledger's Joker before the movie even comes out? (Thanks to LadyStarblade)
Game Factory’s search for The King of Cubicles.
Dirk Gently 2 to feature Hitchhiker's crossover
What’s coming down the G.I. Joe pipeline?
Dark Horse Comics has acquired Osamu Takahashi’s manga Shin Seiki Evangelion: Ikari Shinji Ikusei Keikaku (Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Shinji Ikari Raising Project). Based on an Evangelion game (where the player "raises" main character Shinji Ikari and determines what path his life will take.) it adapts the game’s storyline, especially the school sequences. Dark Horse will release it in late spring or early summer of 2009.
A professor in Florida wants to make the world's first flying saucer.
Mandalore the Ultimate miniature preview.
Marty McFly’s Nikes.
Obi-Wan Sculpture to Appear in Manhattan Exhibit.
Does ‘Batman: The Animated Series’ Have the Best Joker Ever? I have to admit that Mark Hamill is my favorite Joker. At least right now, who knows how I’ll feel in a week.
DVD releases
Funny Games (remake) – June 10
In Bruges – June 24
The Ruins – July 8
The Bank Job – July 15
Vampyr (1931) Criterion Collection – July 22
88 Minutes – September 18
Pathology – September 23
What to expect from The Dark Knight DVD.
Funimation’s schedule for the first of the former Geneon titles releases.
Metropolis’ next re-release will have the found footage in it.
BlobFest 2008
This weekend, July 11-13, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, the Colonial Theater will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original The Blob with BlobFest 2008. (The Colonial Theater was eaten by the gelatinous monster in the 1958 B-movie)
Special guests include:
Tom Savini
Wes Shank.
Movies:
The Blob
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
The Tingler
An American Rebel
More info here.
Auckland International Film Fest
Running through the 27, the 40th Auckland International Film Fest.
“Founded in 1968 as a component of the Auckland Festival, the Auckland International Film Festival in time became a fund-raising event subsidising live arts. Rescued from this role by the intervention of the Federation of Film Societies in 1984, the Festival in 2005 achieved an audience in excess of 100,000. The year 2000 marked the Festival’s return to the fabulously refurbished Civic Theatre, the South Pacific’s most insanely beautiful picture palace.”
Guests and screening schedule here.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
ReelAnime 2008
In Australia, running through the 16, Madman Cinema will present ReelAnime 2008 at select theaters in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.
Titles include:
Appleseed: Ex Machina
The Girl Who Leapt through Time
Vexille
Batman: Gotham Knight
More info here.
Touring Spaced
Source: SciFi Wire
"BBC Video announced a four-city tour to promote the DVD release of Spaced: The Complete Series, the British SF-tinged comedy TV series, which becomes available for the first time in North America on July 22.
"Creator-stars Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) and Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson), along with director Edgar Wright, will travel to New York, Los Angeles, Comic-Con International in San Diego and Austin, Texas, for special screenings, a marathon, panel sessions and signings for fanboys and fangirls.
"The weeklong tour kicks off in New York on July 21 and stops in Los Angeles, Comic-Con and Austin's famed Alamo Drafthouse. The final stop on the tour is The Late Show With David Letterman, on which Pegg will be a guest, on July 28."
TV News
The first, of a possible three, Battlestar Galactica TV movie is now in development. According to actor Aaron Douglas, it will take place during the first season’s timeline and start production in September. Edward James Olmos will direct and Jane Espenson will write the script. Reportedly deals have been offered to Dean Stockwell, Michael Trucco, Grace Park, Michael Hogan, and Katee Sackhoff.
A rundown on what the cast says about the upcoming season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Writer/producer Adrian Hodges says that the Survivors remake will be ready for the UK’s BBC One this fall. "We completed the pilot, and it's ready to premiere, and we're well into shooting the second block.” The post viral apocalypse show stars Julie Graham, Max Beesley, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Freema Agyeman. "It confronts our deepest fears when everything else is stripped away. Do you fall apart or fight or retreat?"
Adrian Hodges also said that Primeval is coming to BBC America in August.
Remaining producers Kelly Souders, Brian Peterson, Todd Slavkin, and Darren Swimmer say that the next season of Smallville will start with Green Arrow teaming with Aquaman and Black Canary to rescue Clark. Later Clark will take a job at The Daily Planet. Sounders says, "It's about the Superman identity emerging as Clark Kent tries to maintain a normal life — or the appearance of a normal life." … "The camaraderie as they work side-by-side that everyone loves from the DC Comics and all the Superman lore is going to come to fruition this year. The two of them are thrown together in some unfortunate situations for Clark. She becomes a little bit of an obstacle to him saving the world, when he's on a deadline."
Bandai Entertainment announced that anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00 will premiere on SciFi Channel. Two episodes will run every week, starting November 17.
Ron Perlman on FX’s Sons of Anarchy: “It’s about a motorcycle club not unlike the Hell’s Angels, in a town called Charming, California. I’m the president of the club. And the guy who was the head writer on The Shield writes it. We have an order for 13 episodes on the air, so we’re going to get a chance to spread our wings a little bit and truly begin to explore this twisted, sick world. It’s The Shield on steroids. These guys are completely ruthless. Let’s put it this way: the character I’m playing in Sons of Anarchy has the least feminine side of any character I’ve ever played. In fact, he has no feminine side. Hellboy has a huge feminine side compared to Clay Morrow, the character that I play. He is the quintessential alpha male in terms of anything that I’ve ever attempted to do.”
Friday Night Lights exec producer Jason Katims on Scott Porter and Gaius Charles’ eventual phasing out next season, “Pete Berg, myself and our fellow producers have enormous respect for Scott and Gaius both as actors and individuals. In short, we love them. However, both of their characters have now graduated and in the creative spirit of the show, we have decided to give them powerful four episode arcs that will observe their characters as they launch themselves into the next phase of their lives. We certainly will keep the door open for both actors to return in the future, depending on the actors’ availabilities. We know both Scott and Gaius will go on to have enormous success and we wish the best for both of them.”
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Trailers
Some of these links may contain mature material, and MRFH is not responsible for their content.
The Dark Knight international trailer
Bender’s Game
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Mutant Chronicles teaser
Mutant Chronicles (Russian)
Blindness
College
Mirrors red band
Videos
Some of these links may contain mature material, and MRFH is not responsible for their content.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army featurette
The Dark Knight 13 clips
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor featurette
Watchmen video journal #4
Mamma Mia! 14 clips
Monday, July 7, 2008
Movie News
Producer Charlotte Huggins on Fly Me to the Moon: "It's the first animated feature made for 3-D and released only in 3-D. It's a great little G-rated movie, pure G, as G as any movie you'll ever see. Great cast, with Tim Curry and Nicolette Sheridan and Christopher Lloyd and Kelly Ripa [as well as Adrienne Barbeau, Robert Patrick and Ed Begley Jr.]. Three little flies go to the moon with Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, and they help get the Apollo 11 spaceship back. It's fun and has got a lot of good music." It releases August 8.
Simon Hunter’s independent scifi Mutant Chronicles will screen at Comic-Con, where Ron Perlman and Thomas Jane will host, and fans will be asked how the movie could be better. A leader of a cult foresees mutants taking over Earth and that they can be stopped by The Chronicles, which he takes to try to save the world. It stars Ron Perlman, Anna Walton, Thomas Jane, Devon Aoki, Benno Furmann, Sean Pertwee, John Malkovich, Luis Miguel, and Tom Wu.
The Murnau Foundation reports that lost scenes of Fritz Lang’s silent movie Metropolis have been found in Buenos Aires.
Prequels, Sequels & Remakes
David X. Cohen says the next Futurama movie will be called Bender’s Game. It’ll be in a "land of magic and dragons. You'll get to see the fantasy versions of all of our characters. Visually, it's going to be very spectacular, I think." DVD release later this year.
Sony has okayed a Van Wilder prequel. While Ryan Reynolds won’t be back, it will be about Van Wilder (unlike the sequel). It “explores what happens after Wilder graduates high school. Apparently it involves Amsterdam.”
The next Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will move to Mexico. The Michael Apted directed movie will need several soundstages and a large water tank and so will film at Baja Studios, with location shoots in Australia. Production has been pushed from October to January.
Guillermo del Toro says that the second Middle-earth movie will only be able to use certain source materials (The Silmarillion, for instance, was finished by Tolkien’s son). "We're talking, utilizing the materials that are available to us, and the discipline has been to try and, from my part, know everything else. Not to know it and use it, but to know it and not step on those things. There is enough ... narrative abridgement and some other pieces of narrative and suggestions and appendix notes and this and that to guide and create something that will not infringe anything else. But it's too early for me to swear by it. I think that that's the real creative endeavor on the second film."
Christopher Guest [who is great. Just sayin’] has been cast as Ivan the Terrible in Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum 2.
Kimberly Joseph has been cast in Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons.
Helena Bonham Carter will, according to JoBlo, play a character named Serena in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.
According to People magazine, Rose McGowan and Robert Rodriguez have not broken up and the Barbarella and Red Sonja remakes (and TV project Women in Chains!) are still a go. [*shrugs* Meh.]
Val Kilmer and Xzibit have been cast in Werner Herzog’s re-imagining of The Bad Lieutenant. Kilmer will play Nicholas Cage’s partner and Xzibit will play nemesis Big Fade.
Mark Millar on the possibility of doing a Superman remake: “Since I was a kid I’ve always wanted to reinvent Superman for the 21st century. I’ve been planning this my entire life. I’ve got my director and producer set up, and it’ll be 2011. This is how far ahead you have to think. The Superman brand is toxic after that last movie lost $200 million, but in 2011 we’re hoping to restart it. Sadly I can’t say who the director is, but we may make it official by Christmas. But fingers crossed it could work out, that would be my lifetime’s dream.”
Adaptations
Dark Horse Entertainment, animation studio Blur Studios, and David Fincher will turn Eric Powell’s The Goon into a CGI movie. Powell will write the screenplay for the comic book about a brawler who claims to be a mob enforcer with a paranormal slant. There is no studio attached yet.
Seth Rogen says that the final touches are being put on the Green Hornet script, and that he will be playing the lead. "To us, it was just this funny notion that, when you say Green Hornet to someone, the first thing they say is, 'Hey, Bruce Lee played Kato in that show.' We really wanted to make this hero-sidekick movie. ... For years we'd really been trying to write a movie that was kind of about a hero and his sidekick. When we heard the Green Hornet movie was up for grabs, we thought that could be the perfect way to do this story, because he is the only hero whose sidekick is more known than he is. We thought it would be a good way to tell this relationship story and just do a big crazy action movie." ... "Luckily, the MPAA decided that violence is fine. When you're doing an action movie, you can really have as much violence as you want. I'd say, action-wise, we've been able to do everything that we could have ever wanted."
Director David Bowers on the Astro Boy movie: “The characters are all there. It is the original characters, but we have new characters, and Astro's basic journey is the same. He starts off in a slightly different environment. Astro's living in this floating city. But that's where the differences end, really. I must say, I just wanted to get to the emotional core of the movie and have people have a few laughs along the way and hopefully make them cry a couple of times. Then I'll be happy."
Gary Oldman says he’ll play Tiny Tim, Marley, and Bob Cratchit in Robert Zemeckis' motion capture animation A Christmas Carol.
Columbia Pictures has an untitled comedy that will have Sacha Baron Cohen as Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell as Watson. Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller will produce, and Etan Cohen write the script inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective. Columbia co-proxy Matt Tolmach: "Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh. Sacha and Will are two of the funniest and most talented guys on the planet, and having them take on these two iconic characters is frankly hilarious." [....]
Thursday, July 3, 2008
“I… will be not sit here accepting this.”
Ah, Dark Shadows, the ‘60s Gothic soap opera that was “live to tape.” With scenes done in only one take there were bloopers. Lots and lots of bloopers. And the actors just keep going. I mean, when a whole piece of the set just falls down and they don’t bust out laughing… Bless.
“Tell them you saw no one here.” “That’s fine, what am I gonna tell them?” “…That you saw no one here!”
[This is a four part playlist so it’s just over 30 minutes]
Sing-Along Cryptozoology Toys
A look at Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. “Part 1 will be available Tuesday, July 15, with the following segments (each roughly 14 minutes) available July 17 and 19. All three parts will stay up only through July 20, but deals are currently underway to make it available for downloading shortly thereafter.”
After GDH announced a net loss of 3.752 billion yen (about $35.44 million US) on 6.853 billion yen ($64.45 million US), the Tokyo Stock Exchange has notified investors that the parent company of animation studio Gonzo and Gonzo Rosso Online is on a one year grace period (April 1, 2008 – May 31, 2009) to improve finances or face delisting. The company will continue to operate, with Gonzo working on S.A, Strike Witches, Rosario + Vampire Capu2, Linebarrels of Iron, and The Tower of Druaga: the sword of Uruk.
Save the International Cryptozoology Museum.
The Dark Knight’s Dominoes Pizza tie-ins.
Toys “R” Us will start selling the new line of Star Wars: The Clone Wars toys at midnight July 26.
Sideshow’s 10 minute video on making the 12” G.I. Joe figures.
How Stormtroopers are made.
Predator on a horse figure. $250?!
Off World’s Cthulhu designs. I like My Little Cthulhu and KFC (Kids for Cthulhu “Tentacle licking good”).
Games
Konami has announced Castlevania Judgment for Wii. This time around it will be a 3D fighter with characters from 22 years of the series (so far the line up includes Simon Belmont, Alucard, Dracula, Maria Renard, and Shanoa). The game will be produced by Koji Igarashi and manga artist Takeshi Obata will do character designs in an “anime style.” It’ll use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk capabilities, environmental elements will be available to the player as weapons, and monsters to complicate things. Nintendo WiFi will be used for head to head online play and the game can connect to Castevania: Order of Eccelsia on the DS for unlockable bonus gameplay.
Square Enix has announced that Chrono Trigger will be remastered for the Nintendo DS and released in North America this holiday season. The first time the game will be available on a handheld, it will maintain the original’s “elements and spirit” while using the dual screen and Touch Screen of the DS.
Activision’s Quantum of Solace video game will also tie into previous Bond movie Casino Royale, including the construction site chase and collapsing Venetian house scenes. Co-design director Jeremy Luyties says, "It really gave us an opportunity to create a completely different Bond experience. Now we have this really cool element that gets to kick in, and we allow things where we're rocking the camera back and forth, making you feel dizzy, making you feel sick and really bringing in, like, a nice breath of fresh air from the action and the combat and stuff." The game will release this fall for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, and PC.
Comics and books
An interview with Dark ‘s Scott Allie about, and preview pages for, Solomon Kane. (Submitted by Sitting Duck)
Comic book company Devil’s Due Publishing and manga distributor Digital Manga Publishing have an agreement for DDP to develop an original comic based on Hideyuki’s Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D novels named Vampire Hunter D: American Wasteland. It will ship in monthly issues, but there are no announcements for the creative staff or a release date as yet.
Japanese publisher Kodansha has established Kodansha USA and will transfer rights to its manga titles directly to this subsidiary that will be based in New York. This way the company can publish and sell directly, which should start this year in September. Publisher Del Rey says that Kodansha has not pulled any of their titles.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
TV News
AMC will remake the 1960’s Cold War paranoia TV show Prisoner. Ian McKellan will play Number Two and Jim Caviezel will play Number Six in the Bill Gallagher written and exec produced six part miniseries scheduled for 2009. The story is about a man (Caviezel) who wakes up in the Village and is renamed Number Six. Christina Wayne, another executive producer, says, "There will be nods and winks and references back to the original, but I don't think that they'll feel in any way that their [the fans'] original has been tarnished. Even though this would fall under sci-fi traditionally, this is a drama at its core." AMC says they’ll replace the Cold War metaphor with “21st-century stressors such as constant surveillance and the conflict between liberty and security.”
Tim Kring on the upcoming Villains “volume” of the next season of Heroes (the season will be divided into two volumes): "One of the things that this volume is going to do that, I think, is really going to be fun for the audience is that there were very initial sort of primal questions that the show asked. Who am I? What's happening to me? How am I connected? Where are these powers coming from? All of those questions get reframed and turned on their head in a very interesting way in this volume." … "You're going to see a lot of bad guys in this one. The idea, also, is we're playing off the idea of our characters as heroes or villains. So it's really the duality of good and evil. ... We're playing off of this duality of good and evil. All of our characters were given these powers and possess these powers, and at some point it becomes sort of free will and human nature as to what you're going to do with that. And all of us are given the choice to make decisions that lead us down very dark paths or towards heroic ends. And so, literally, every one of our characters gets faced with that dilemma." Also, while originally Zachary Quinto’s character Sylar was going to be written out in the second season because of his commitment to Star Trek XI, the Writer’s strike shortened it so much the point became moot, and Sylar will definitely be back.
Malik Yoba and Warren Cole will play detectives in Fox’s Inseparable pilot.
Eril Jensen, Jose Pablo Cantillo, and Clea DuVall have joined Fox’s Virtuality as the navigator, a mathematician, and the co-pilot and engineer, respectively.
The live action series adaptation of Yukie Nasu’s manga Here is Greenwood will premiere in Japan in July. The cast includes Yuuki Izawa, Kengo Ookuchi, Yukari Fukui, Hiroki Suzuki, Shun Kisaragi, Riki Kiura, Yuichi Suzuki. Izawa will play “Kazuya Hasukawa, the boy who moves into a dorm to escape a love triangle with his brother Kazuhiro and his brother's new wife Sumire - only to discover that the dorm houses an even more oddball cast of characters.” Voice actor Mitsuo Iwata (who played the anime version’s Mitsuru) will narrate, and Access will perform the opening theme "Dreamrunner."
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