Bitch What - TV and Film

New Site Launched

2007-07-17T22:56:00.000-04:00

Though it won't be terribly different from this one on the outside, on the inside, it's a whole new world that I needed to have to continue doing what I've been doing here. Now, the move has been made, and I invite you to come along with me to the new site.

http://www.mediapundit.net/

Check it out, and give me some time to get back up to speed with news on television and film development. It'll be fun, trust me!

pwt

Evan Almighty drowns

2007-06-23T20:39:00.000-04:00

I wrote my most recent box office prediction early this morning before the numbers were in for Evan Almighty, and while I wasn't confident in how I called it at the time, I should have trusted my instincts. Evan only made $11 million on Friday and is projected for just $33m for the weekend, barely half what Bruce Almighty made. With its enormous budget of between $175m-$210m, it will never make a profit in theaters.

Won't even be close.

Topics: Film, Evan Almighty, Box Office

Breaking it Down: Evan Almighty

2007-06-23T03:16:00.000-04:00

Typically I write these articles in the week or two prior to a films theatrical release, but I didn't realize that Evan Almighty opened yesterday. In fact it is a little past two in the morning on the 23rd as I write this, and I don't think the Friday returns have been publicized yet so I'm filing this one a little late.

Evan Almighty is a sequel to the 2003 comedy Bruce Almighty, staring Jim Carrey as a man who is given all the power and responsibility of God (played by Morgan Freeman who briefly reprises his role). Not much else needs explaining here, the plot from that point forward is fairly thin with Carrey's character abusing his new found power for his own personal gain and amusement, but later finds the responsibility more than he can handle.

The film was a wide success, grossing $484 million worldwide on an $81 million dollar budget.

This time around, co-star/supporting actor Steve Carell is given the staring role and tasked by God to create another Ark, and from what I've heard of the film based on early screenings, this film follows the path forged by Bruce Almighty with a thin plot and lots of obvious jokes, but with somewhat strong religious overtones. Universal has made no attempt to hide its interest in courting large religious institutions to draw in an a captive audience of the faithful.

Evan opens to a few more screens than did Bruce, about 3600 for the former against 3500 for the latter, which should make comparisons a lot easier.

Before I examine the production staff, I first have to express great concern over the films irresponsible budget. Laden with special effects, this film should easily set a record for the most expensive comedy ever produced, with rumors circulating that production costs range anywhere from $200-250 million. That's nearly two-and-a-half times the first films cost, even at the low end of media estimates.

In fact, the runaway production saw a meltdown of sorts for director Tom Shadyac in front of studio executives during which Shadyac accused the studio skimping on the marketing campaign in retaliation for the overruns. I'd like to note that while I have no specific knowledge of what happened, other than what I've read, I find it very easy to believe that the studio did in fact cut the marketing budget significantly, but not out of petty retaliation. They did it out of self defense when saddled with an outrageously expensive movie that may turn out to be a stinker.

The worst case scenario for Evan is that it'll have to gross (worldwide) about half a billion just to break even. Best case, if it was say around $180 million, it'll need $360 million to break even. It's possible that if Evan is equally as popular as Bruce was, it'll make back its costs and Universal will have a good year. But as I said, based on early screenings, a positive reception by the public is anything but certain.

What It Has Going For It
Director Tom Shadyac has returned for the sequel, giving it the advantage of having the same feel as the first film. That always plays in favor of the feature unless the director didn't do a very good job the first time around. Shadyac did alright, so he apparently earned the studios favor enough to come back and try to do it again. The writers I will address below.

Steven Carell is a known commodity, though I wonder if his recent success has been the result of his ascendancy as a legitimate comedy leading man, or if his quirky style of delivering dead-pan comedy is simply fresh to the larger audience of movie goers who will soon tire of it if he can't grow beyond it.

Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume it is the former while I personally learn towards the latter. For now though, there's no arguing against his recent streak of success, so he brings more good mojo to the film than he does bad. If it turns out that he blew this role precisely for the reasons I've noted, make sure you remember that I'm saying here and now: this could go either way.

What It Has Against It
Unfortunately, neither the studios nor directors show much respect for writers, and two of the co-writers from Bruce were jettisoned in favor bringing back Steve Oedekerk, who was one of three who wrote the original script for Bruce. Oedekerk can't seem to decide what he wants to do in life; the man has roughly an equal number of credits for writing, producing, and acting. The latter of the three concerns me, and makes me think he's an actor first , one who snuck into other projects by being a good weasel. Nothing on his resume stands out as qualifying him for going solo on a tent pole film that cost $250 million to produce - but then again, hardly anyone in the business warrants that kind of excess.

Speaking of that ridiculous budget, it is undoubtedly the most significant drawback to the production, and sadly it is the toughest to overcome. This summer has seen a ton of tent pole sequels already, Pirates 3, Spider-man 3, Shrek 3, with Potter 5, Die Hard 4 and others yet to come. They can't all make $400 million domestically - they just can't. People only have so much money to spend, especially with a slowing economy, hotter weather, and higher gas prices.

If there are must-see films this year, I fear the ones I just listed above were at the top of most peoples lists.

What It Means
This is a tough call. Carell may end up drawing in a very large, and even while disappointing them, theaters wisely take peoples money *first*, so it won't really matter if they liked it or not. If they go to see Carell, the film will succeed. If they don't, the film will bomb. Universal's attempt to stir up the evangelical audience probably won't pay off as much as they'd like it to, though it may a little.

The only thing that matters right now is money. With an assumed budget of $250 million, it needs $500m to break even. It took Spider-Man probably two weeks to make that while setting all-time records along the way, and Evan Almighty isn't going to do that. It needs to stay popular for a long time, and the summer box office is just too active for that to happen.

I really wish Universal had brought in a more significant supporting cast to take some of the heat off of Carell, and not canned two of the original three writers. That crew knew what they were doing and there was absolutely no reason to break it up. Nothing Oedekerk has done impresses me and I can name a few of his scripts that really stunk. This isn't the crew that made the first film and there have been public questions over the direction of the film - overt preaching instead of good, solid, and happily pointless comedy.

Universal screwed with the formula, going with a new lead and dicing up the writing crew, all while allowing Shadyac to nearly run the studio into the ground financially. They really need this film to succeed, and I'm afraid that it isn't going to happen.

I'm calling Evan Almighty for a loss in theatrical run and after rental. It will take the #1 spot from Fantastic Four 2, but only barely - and maybe not at all, and fall off seriously after the first weekend. It will be easily knocked out of first on the following weekend when Die Hard 4 hits screens, but it may have problems of its own to worry about.

Topics: Film, Evan Almighty, Preview

Q&A with Michael Bay

2007-06-20T19:46:00.003-04:00

I can't really say that I'm a Michael Bay fan, because what is there to be a fan of, explosions? The man's reputation is built on making movies that have no content or plot to speak of, no character development, pretty much nothing but visual effects.

A movie that breaks the golden rule (movies are about people, not things) actually seems like the perfect fit for Bay, and I wonder why he bothered casting actors in the film at all. Why not just go with the flow and start directing all-CGI movies from now on? No story, no heart - it's a perfect fit if you ask me.

Question: One thing I kept hearing from this movie, from the actors is what a great actor's director Michael Bay is, which is a whole new theme we haven't heard before, did you do something different?

Michael Bay: No, listen, the sound byte – press is very weird, because a sound byte gets out there, Michael Bay yells. Listen, I am very similar, I visited Jim Cameron on "Titanic," I'm very similar the way he directs, he's an assistant director, I'm an assistant director of my own sets, I move my own sets, I shoot very fast, I never leave the set, and I love working with actors, I love giving actors freedom, I love improv-ing with actors, it freaks studios out because they're like, "That wasn't in the script, what's this, he's wrecking the movie."

Oh wow, where to begin. The studios freak out because we're not talking about improving lines, but entire scenes, which is why you end up paying $200 million to make a movie that was only supposed to cost $100 million, and a film that doesn't really resemble the script they bought because the additions done "for fun" or to "be funny" completely fracture what normally is a painstakingly crafted story.

The bit about Cameron, oddly, seems apt, but not for the reason Bay mentions. I've heard that for all of the mans Godly talents, Jim Cameron is a control freak on his films, will blow up when primed, and doesn't give a damn about worldly concerns (little stuff, like budgets.) The story of Cameron walking off the set of Titanic for three days, shutting down production and essentially quitting to the face of Fox studio chief Bill Mechanic - that's the stuff of legends. Cameron got away with it because everyone knows he can produce, but Bay? Not the same deal.

If you want to read the rest, be my guest. I shall leave you with this.

Question: Do you ever foresee a time where you might want to do an intimate low budget character study?

Michael Bay: No [..]

Topics: Film, Michael Bay, Transformers, Interview

Gordon Ramsay sued for faking 'reality' TV

2007-06-20T18:32:00.003-04:00

The ~~actor~~ chef star of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is being sued for faking reality TV. Isn't that kind of redundant, haven't we gotten past that debate already? All reality is fake, otherwise it wouldn't be entertaining. Real reality is boring as hell, that's why we have television and theaters.

That said, there is naturally a line to be walked between "edited reality" which is the category that almost all reality entertainment falls under, and fraud. A&E's Flip This House got a taste of that very important difference recently when the authorities began investigating Sam Leccima for fraud in connection with episodes of that reality show which were supposed to feature Leccima buying, renovating, and reselling a house over the span of just a couple of weeks. Leccima is accused of using clever editing and shooting tactics to conceal the fact that most of the work he was doing was just for show.

Gordon Ramsay, for his part, is now being accused of crossing the line between clever editing, and not actually doing the job he is supposed to be doing.

Says Variety on the lawsuit, "Ramsay falsely claimed meat was spoiled, used a defective chair to imply that Dillons' furniture was shoddy and even hired actors to pose as customers to make the restaurant look busy at the end of the week."

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares features the famous British chef spending a week with a failing restaruant, using his expertise to revitalize the business. I wonder though why they bother. If his expertise is being a chef, what makes him capable of turning around a business?

As for Sam Leccima, that's just a shame. I liked watching his crew work and it was a fun and entertaining program, but there's no room for con artists. If he did what he was accused of, and it's hard not to believe that he did, then he's got to go. And so do Ramsay.

Topics: Television, Gordon Ramsay, Sam Leccima, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare, Flip This House

Indiana Jones 4 gets movin'

2007-06-20T17:07:00.001-04:00

Indiana Jones: And The Unknown Subtitle has finally gotten underway after churning through at least four different scripts and writers if memory serves, finally settling on a tale written by David Koepp. Although it'll probably shoot something in foreign territories at some point during production, it appears that Steven Speilberg decided not to contribute to the problem of runaway productions by opening shooting somewhere in New Mexico, with other scheduled locations including Connecticut and possibly Nevada.

Though I'm not certain why this is worth noting, veteran British character actor Jim Broadbent has signed on for a small role as a professor at Yale. Broadbent has played over 90 roles in his career, most of them in U.K. productions.

Broadbent will be in good company though, as Variety notes the pics star heavy lineup of Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett (hopefully she ate something recently,) and John Hurt. Even though the character of Henry Jones had been written into the script and remained there as recently as two weeks ago, Sean Connery made his intentions known when he announced that he was staying in retirement.

It is unlikely that the role will be recast, instead it will probably be written out of the script, if it hasn't been already.

Topics: Film, Indiana Jones 4, Jim Broadbent

Good news for Silver Surfer fans

2007-06-19T01:42:00.003-04:00

There were some concerns that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was going to bomb in the theaters, and nuke any chance of the pending spinoff feature that has already been written by comic & TV veteran J. Michael Straczynski. Defying a couple of extremely negative (and probably accurate) reviews, the film pulled in $58 million over this past weekend which should at least do nothing to hurt the prospects of the spinoff going into production, and ought to help it along considerably.

The film was produced for what today is considered a moderate budget of $130 million, meaning that while it'll have to pull twice that globally to break even, it's pretty much a lock at this point for that price, with that opening.

For those who were not impressed with this sequel, remember what I said. JMS has already penned the spinoff, so Mark Frost and Don Payne won't have anything to do with it.

Topics: Film, Fantastic Four 2, JMS, Box office

Eli Roth on piracy

2007-06-19T01:32:00.001-04:00

I agree with Nikki on Deadline Hollywood, Eli Roth doesn't care or really know anything about piracy, and he's blaming it for Hostel 2's box office woes out of ignorance. It made back its money which is more than he could have hoped for, and I figure he might have let the hype to go his head.

A couple of set visits and some masturbatory early screening reviews from AICN are not representative of real world audience reaction, and it's not like Hostel tried to be anything other than what it was - torture porn rather than a risky horror film.

To save you the horror of having to visit his MySpace page, Nikki reproduced the entire missive on Deadline Hollywood, and I've got to respond to a couple of these things to set the record straight.

However, piracy has become worse than ever now, and a stolen workprint (with uninished music, no sound effects, and no VFX) leaked out on line before the release, and is really hurting us, especially internationally. Piracy will be the death of the film industry, as it killed the music industry, and while it makes a smaller dent in huge movies like Spider Man 3, it really hurts films like mine, which have far less of an advertising and production budget.

Obviously the music industry is anything but dead, they are pulling in hundreds of billions if profit year after year, and while music purchases has been falling for several straight years, companies who monitor file sharing networks - the primary venue of music piracy - have noted that there hasn't been a corresponding increase in piracy at all. What's that mean? People are buying less music, but not stealing more of it.

Online music stores like iTunes are doing record levels of business, so we've already got a problem with this rant right off the bat. I do agree however that Roth's ignorance of the state of the music industry aside, the film industry is in a far more precarious position. In general, music gets a fixed return for their effort, whereas the film industry fails nearly one-out-of-ten times and relies on summer blockbusters to make up the loses for the year.

Note though that Roth admitted that piracy doesn't hurt the tent pole films anywhere nearly as bad as it does smaller flicks, so maybe it's not as big of a threat as they make it out to be. In fact, it is generally recognized (even though you need to get this acknowledgement at gun point) that physical DVD bootlegging outside the United States are responsible for the overwhelming majority of film piracy.

Most of that happens over seas, even though a studio print of Hostel 2 made its way onto the streets a couple of weeks before it hit the theaters.

The excuses for stealing abound, though the most popular one I hear is that people who pirate weren't going to go see it in the theater, nor would they buy the DVD either, so there's not really a lost sale at stake. Yet those same people cower when you challenge them to have the balls to try stealing it from a store where their ass is actually at risk.

Pardon the rant of my own, I absolutely feel sympathy for Roth and the studio being ripped off, but I harbor my own doubts as to the reason Hostel 2 didn't meet Roth's expectations. Put simply, it was too gross to do solid business.

Studios feel the public doesn't want them any more, and so they are only putting PG-13 films into production. The only way to counter this perception is to get out there and support R-rated horror.

This is true to a degree, studios are putting mostly PG-13 films into production, but for good reason: they sell. R-rated films eliminate younger audiences (for good reason) and when you do that, you're going to make less money. It's the nature of the business, it's the same reason nobody makes NC-17 films if they can possibly avoid it - fewer people can get in to see them. And there's nothing wrong with that, and I don't believe studios are doing it because people don't want horror. It just so happens that people want more family entertainment, not less horror.

Nor is Hostel 2 horror. If you have lots of funny jokes in a horror film, at some point it becomes a comedy. If you go past a certain point with gore and violence, you've left the realm of horror (which is to scare) to something entirely new, and you've instantly cut down on your potential audience. If there are fewer people that want to see horror, how many fewer are there that want to see torture porn?

I don't blame Roth for being bummed, but he can't just shrug off reality and blame it on piracy. Hostel is two steps beyond Saw and really exists to exploit the torture and gore, and it pays the price for serving that very narrow segment of the public.

People love the movie, and even though it only cost $10 million dollars (as opposed to the other summer tentpoles which cost $300 million), and has already earned its money back, if it's not a massive money earner then they'll just continue to make the same PG-13 films everyone complained about a few years ago.

Again, reality differs in opinion. Saw has its fourth installment coming out this fall and I don't know whereas it plans to stop anytime soon. Same fundamental source genre, same low budgets, but not stepping over the line like Hostel does - it makes money. The first two films combined cost less than Hostel 2 did to make, and brought in about $100 million in box office revenue.

People want horror, it appears they just don't want Eli Roth's brand.

Topics: Film, Eli Roth, Hostel 2

My Apologies

2007-06-18T16:10:00.001-04:00

I've been busy lately working on a new site to replace this one, in preparation for the move off of blogger.com. Blogger has been good to me and I have no complaints, but there's little else I can do with it other than continue what I've been doing. There simply isn't enough flexibility on this hosted platform to do what I want to do.

I have my eye on a specific domain name that should expire in July, and I'll grab that if I can. Meanwhile, I'm working on some new graphics but nothing special - I'm not graphically inclined if you will - and learning the new publishing system so that when the move is made, I can just turn it on and go. Because of that, I've been less interested in updating this site because I know it'll be a rough transition, and that I'll basically be starting over.

When the change happens, I'll make sure anyone coming to any page on this site knows where the new site is. It'll probably be a little while still, but it's coming.

Therefore, I don't expect to be able to make 7-10 posts every single day like I was doing there for a while. I'll try to maintain at least 4-7 if I can, it's hard to "get into it" when I know I'll just be leaving this site behind, and subsequently losing most of the traffic it gets today, in just a month or so.

That said, if you enjoy the news I find and the commentary I provide, stick around. The quantity is only going down because I'm working on the move, not because I'm just giving up on this new thing.

Babylon 5's JMS to pen 'Silver Surfer' spinoff (with exclusive NEW info)

2007-06-14T17:30:00.001-04:00

Well, I have an exclusive on part of this, but not the whole thing. First from AICN,

20th Century Fox is soooooo certain FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER will be a hit that that plans for a SILVER SURFER spin-off movie are already afoot.

An article in yesterday's LA Times says this:
Feeling bullish on the eve of the release of its "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," Fox has already put a feature spinoff into development that will star the enigmatic Surfer, with J. Michael Straczynski currently crafting the screenplay.

If there is any truth to this at all, chances are excellent that someone has asked about it in the moderated Babylon 5 newsgroup that Joe haunts, so I dipped in there just a moment ago and found as good confirmation as you are likely to get anyplace until the official announcement comes out. This is the exclusive part: nobody else has this.

> Anything more you can tell us?

Not as such...I don't really know how much I should or shouldn't say
on this because I've been waiting for the official studio announcement and this kind of precedes that...they haven't told me *not* to comment on it, but they haven't told me that I could, either...so with luck I can say more in a few days.

There's another little surprise in the imdb listing, btw....

jms

That's it, he's doing it. If it wasn't happening, Joe would have said so outright, he's real good about being straight with people. As for the hint about the credits, Straczynski confirmed that he's writing the screenplay for They Marched Into Sunlight based on an outline by Paul Greengrass, who is also directing.

Straczynski has been writing comics since the 80's, including work on Teen Titans, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 for DC. For Marvel, it's been The Amazing Spiderman, Supreme Power, Fantastic Four, Dream Police, Silver Surfer: Requiem, and more.

So that's cool, everyone has the first bit, but I have the virtual confirmation. Who said the USENET was dead?

Topics: Film, J. Michael Straczynski, Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four

Goyer to helm 'Invisible Man' sequel

2007-06-14T16:45:00.001-04:00

Either David Goyer is a workaholic, or there's like five clones of him running around Hollywood making really corny sequels while the original farts out a decent film once every three years or so. I'm going with the latter, now that Variety says he's going to write and direct a sequel to H.G. Well's The Invisible Man, as if that's a story that hasn't been told a thousand times already.

"I've always been a fan of the original H.G. Wells book as well as the Universal film and felt the property was ripe for reimagining," Goyer said.

Yeah, well, it's not. Somebody put a leash on this guy already.

Topics: Film, David Goyer, H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man

SpikeTV changes focus...again

2007-06-14T16:36:00.001-04:00

The only thing I used to watch on SpikeTV was Star Trek, which isn't just because I'm a Trek fan, but because Star Trek: Voyager moved to UPN very early in its run, and I didn't get it. Having not seen almost the entire series, I was happy when Spike acquired the rights to both Voyager and Deep Space Nine, but bummed because of the deal structure which meant Spike couldn't actually air Voyager until everybody else's rights had expired. It took over three years, but with the help of my home-built DVR, I finally got to see the entire series.

I didn't miss much, but the only two things I watched the channel for (DS9 was fantastic compared to Voyager) now don't hold any value. I've seen all of Voyager and they stopped running DS9 entirely, and from what I gather, the much talked about strategy of "the definitive mens channel" didn't really pay off. So now, Spike is trying to reinvent itself all over again, this time it appears with standard cable fare original programming in the form of comedies and dramas.

As part of that focus, net is developing "The Factory," a comedy from Mitch Rouse, a co-creator of cult comedy series "Strangers With Candy." Show is described as a sitcom in the vein of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in which actors will improvise off of an outline.

Rouse will star, write and direct; he will exec produce along with management and production shingle 3 Arts. (The) Net has yet to officially order the series but could be close to a greenlight.

Spike is developing several other sitcoms and has a number of comedies coming out of its reality division this year, including the barstool trivia game "Manswers" (Daily Variety, April 3).

Kind of a snoozer, but still news.

Topics: Television, SpikeTV

Variety: 'Silver Surfer' crap that sells

2007-06-14T14:47:00.001-04:00

If I had to summarize this film review by trade mag Daily Variety, it would be that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is a virtual clone of the first film (which I have not seen.) I don't think it takes a genius to guess just from the trailers though that Tim Story must be a big fan of Michael Bay, meaning cardboard characters, thin plots, and 90% special effects to make up for a hugely non-special film.

The problem I have with movies adapted from comic books are how comics are such a poor source for movie material - this is the opposite of what I believe when it comes to novels which are actually the complete opposite, an embarrassment of riches in source material - and you end up with one of maybe three scenarios.

Either the creative force sticks to the source material and you get a very dry script, the creative force makes it up as he goes using the comic as inspiration - and screws it up because they suck at writing, or someone with real talent takes the comic as inspiration and creates lightening in a bottle.

I say creative force instead of writer because as often is the case, directors improperly insert themselves into the equation and try to do it themselves. No professional likes having an amateur walk into their world to muck around, and directors do it constantly. Certainly, there are times when the fourth scenario comes into play: the director tries to do more than direct.

I think that Bryan Singer, while not exactly a James Cameron type, is extremely talented. What he did with X-Men was fantastic, even though what he did with Superman was very generic, I doubt he had anywhere near as much freedom on that project as he did with X-Men.

Again, not being familiar with comics of any kind, I can't judge how faithful he was to the source material, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he wasn't really all that faithful when it came to building the story. The characters had depth and probably were true to the comic, but the story was unique to the film which is how it has to be. Films are not comics, you have two hours to fill and you can't take a comic and stretch it out that far.

So that's an example of the best scenario where a good director leaves it up to a good writer to be inspired by the comics theme, while crafting a solid original feature idea. Silver Surfer it seems is an example of a combination of the two negative scenarios, where the director tried to be somewhat faithful to the comic, but sucked at his job anyway.

To some extent, the noncommital perfs, lazy dialogue and retro-cheesy visual effects could be chalked up to the pic's refusal to take itself too seriously; one would be hard-pressed to recall the last time the apocalypse was treated this breezily onscreen. But at a certain point, even the most popcorn-hungry moviegoers may find themselves craving something in the way of real dramatic stakes. To defend "Fantastic Four" on the grounds that it is unpretentious is to make too generous an excuse.

Back in the director's chair, Tim Story ensures the pic's stylistic consistency with its predecessor, though the finale -- with its images of the Earth beset by cataclysmic forces -- suffers from visual bloat. F/x work overall is a mixed bag, lacking the polish and seamless integration most auds have come to expect from superhero extravaganzas.

Not being a comic fan, I need a feature-valid story to drop my defenses and just enjoy the film, and Fantastic Four never gave that to me. Didn't even try. A lot of the things in the first two X-Men films (I try to ignore the third, when at all possible) made that hard, but the compelling story and wonderful acting and spectacular directing made up for it. But a 100% CGI silver guy, on a surf board? That kind of liquid metal effect stopped being cool in 1995, now it just looks stupid, and makes it all the more harder to accept it as a person, as a character with depth, with motivations and flaws and goals.

All I see is the CGI, and four other actors who want to be actors without playing hard parts, and it's going to suffer the second time around - at least at the box office. Especially with so many tentpole films this summer, there just isn't room for sympathy viewing.

Read the rest of the short review at the Daily Variety.

Topics: Film, Fantastic Four 2, Tim Story, Review

Movieweb interviews 'Sawi IV' star Tobin Bell

2007-06-13T18:12:00.001-04:00

I've always liked Tobin Bell, he's got a very creepy and scary sounding voice. It wouldn't matter if he said "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Birthday", you just know it's going to be the last one you'll ever see when you hear it from that voice, and this isn't in direct relation to the character he plays in Saw either. Bell was every bit a scheming shadowy character in the last third of 24's second season.

It didn't matter what he was doing, what he was saying, and you don't even have to see him on the screen. All you have to do is hear that voice, and you know you've come to your end. He has that power, that air of doom, and it can be the most wonderful thing in the world to write for.

Read a bit of this interview and just imagine Bell reading his own response, and it's also creepy all by itself -- a movie interview. I love it.

Question: Will we see any more of Jigsaw's love interest, the mystery girl that comes to him in the flashback while his brain is being worked on?

Tobin Bell: What makes you ask that? Is that something you are interested in?

Question: What do you mean?

Tobin Bell: Was that little flashback interesting to you?

Question: I found it very interesting, then they didn't go any further with it.

Tobin Bell: Oh, okay. That's right. That's right. You are going to find out more about that in this film. That's why I asked you. Yeah, you will find out who she is. But you just never know how things register in people's minds. Especially when something comes up as quickly as that did. So, that's good. I'm glad you were interested in that.

I haven't seen hardly any of these films other than the last half-hour of the first one, but I love a good performance by a good actor like Bell, and it's enough to make me sit through the unnecessary gore and stuff to see what he does with the material. I'm looking into checking them out this weekend, so that'll be 'interesting.'

Read the rest at Movieweb, it's a good read.

Topics: Film, Saw IV, Tobin Bell, Interview

Denis Leary on the new season of 'Rescume Me'

2007-06-13T17:53:00.001-04:00

I was expecting an interview with Denis Leary when I followed a link to this article on TV Guide's site, but instead I found an article written by Leary himself, talking about some of the things they have planned for the new season.

First, I've only seen maybe half a season worth of Rescue Me before, and I thoroughly enjoyed what I did see, but it just wasn't enough to make me want to come back for more. Leary is a talented actor, a pretty fine writer, and he made a hell of a show for FX, but it never quite seemed to live up to the preseason hype. It seemed to me, from the portion that I saw, that it quickly fell into a typical melodrama soap style, not the kind of thing I tend to watch.

That said, the way Leary started off his TV Guide feature once again managed to catch my interest, will it do the same for you?

Writes Leary, "This season on Rescue Me, everybody dies. In the third episode, the entire cast gets killed, and then a whole new cast comes in."

Yeah, it was a sucker opening, wasn't it?

Actually, my character, Tommy Gavin, makes it through the fire he was trapped in at the end of last season. He goes through a midlife crisis because he's got a new baby. While he's taking care of the kid, Tommy becomes "pu--yfied" — that's what we're calling it. He starts to watch Oprah and listen to Dr. Laura on the radio, and he's having problems performing in the bedroom. Basically, everything's going wrong.

That's what bugged me the first time around, it seemed like he was perpetually stuck in a midlife crisis, and I'm not really interested in seeing someone struggle with that. A lot of people are though, because it gets the viewers and it gets the critical acclaim, just not mine.

However, there is a glimmer of hope for people like myself.

"And if that doesn't work", Leary wrote, "we're killing everybody off." Read the whole thing at TV Guide.

Topics: Television, Rescue Me, Denis Leary

Fox masters human exploitation

2007-06-13T17:38:00.001-04:00

What else is there to say? Fox is the king of reality television, and reality television is nothing but the exploitation of societies misfits for the amusement of the rest of us. Nobody watches American Idol to see who will be the next spoiled music star with too much money and no common sense, they watch to see Simon be mean to people who can't fight back.

Nobody watches Dancing with the Stars to see what actor, actress, or other "celebrity" can prove they are nothing but highly trainable dogs, as opposed to skilled tradesmen in their chosen craft. They watch to see who is going to fall on their ass the most, and fail the most visibly.

Nobody listens to Rush Limbaugh because they like what he says or because they agree with him, the listen to hear what crazy and hateful nonsense will come out of his mouth next. Same as they do with Howard Stern.

It's all about exploitation; what poor schmuck can we put in a lose/lose situation next, just so we can have a good laugh? That's all it is, and Fox knows it, and so Fox has mastered it. As if something that plain needed to be stated, lest it be proven today with yet another show meant to degrade privileged young women.

No, there's no doubt about it, Paris Hilton surely inspired this one. Called Lady or a Tramp, "girls in love with the party life will be sent to a charm school where they will receive a stern course on debutante manners."

It's not even a competition, it's just screwing with privileged young women who had bad parents, watching them get run through the ringer, entirely for the amusement of us commoners. I mean come on, we might as well turn football stadiums into death bowls filled with gladiators. Don't get along with your neighbor? Fight him to the death, live on Fox following American Idol (Wednesdays!). We aren't very far from reverting to that, because the goal was the same as it ever has been: watch people suffer for the entertainment of the masses.

Things like this truly are a disgrace to society, and the fact that people watch and enjoy this crap says more about our problems than sex and violence ever will.

Topics: Television, Fox, Lady or a Tramp, Reality

New places, new things for 'Dead Zone'

2007-06-13T17:14:00.001-04:00

Sci Fi Wire has quotes from Dead Zone star Anthony Michael Hall on the recent change in production location, plus an apparent revamping of the entire production staff. I wonder if Dead Zone has been struggling in the ratings, and this is a response to that struggle. I've never seen the show, so I can't comment on its quality, and cable shows are a bit harder to follow in the ratings unless it's in the top 15.

Hall said the change has been good for a lot of reasons. "It's been nice to take it to a new city and have all those production changes occur," he said. "Like, we have a new writing staff, new directors, a new cinematographer, all these things that keep it fresh. It makes it new, in a way. And at the same time, it's been a challenge from a production standpoint of catching this whole French-Canadian crew up to speed on how we do the show. But they've all adapted really well."

You know it's all well and great that Hall is enjoying his visits to Canada, but it's actually fairly embarrassing that so many American shows are shot up there when they could easily be shot here in the states, and probably for less money. I don't buy that Canada is a cheaper place to shoot, I've heard that Vancouver is actually one of the most expensive places to shoot these days.

And this isn't really about pride, it's about money. Money spent on production is going to their government, helping their economy, when hardly anyone in that country even watches the show. It would be better to shoot it here in the states, contributing back to our local economies who really need the money and deserve the attention. You need sound and graphics studios, stages to shoot, local crews for location shoots, local talent for extras casting -- it all feeds back into the local economy, and it's ridiculous for us to be sending so much north when we get almost nothing in return.

There are just tons of people living in Hollywood sitting at home wondering when or if the next job will come, out of work, because of runaway productions. Thousands of them.

And it needs to stop.

Topics: Television, The Dead Zone, Sci Fi Channel

Entourage Q&A with Doug Ellin

2007-06-12T16:38:00.001-04:00

Doug Ellin is the creator of HBO's Entourage, which a lot of people seem to like, but I can't watch because I don't have HBO. It seems like a show I'd really like too, which is a shame. Here's an excerpt from the Q&A by Deborah Soloman at the New York Times.

Deborah Soloman: “Entourage” is itself a study in “shortcut culture,” to coin a phrase. The male characters don’t work very hard, except at playing video games and having casual sex and wanting to be famous. Is the show intended as a sendup of Hollywood excess?

Doug Ellin: No. In fact when we first started, HBO would say satire, and I said this is not satire. This is scripted reality. I consider the show 100 percent realistic. I have friends who wake up in the morning and want a Bentley and they go get it. I find it funny.

I don't find that funny at all, but then again, I am a raging liberal socialist. Good interview, go check it out.

Topics: Television, Doug Ellin, Entourage

Peter Jackson casts Rachel Weisz for new boring flick

2007-06-12T16:29:00.001-04:00

Peter Jackson's next flick will be a feature adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones. Described as "..the story of a teenage girl who, after being brutally raped and murdered, watches from heaven as her family and friends go on with their lives, while she herself comes to terms with her own death" on Wikipedia, you can see why I said it was going to be boring. And it will be, and it won't do well in the theaters either. People don't go to the theaters to see that, they read books to see that.

That said, it may have some redeeming qualities in that news has come out that Jackson will cast Rachel Weisz as the mother of the murdered girl, and DreamWorks is producing which gives it more credibility in my mind for quality than some other independent studios have.

It's still going to bomb, though.

Topics: Film, The Lovely Bones, Peter Jackson, Rachel Weisz

Tom DeSanto on G4

2007-06-12T16:21:00.001-04:00

Just a quick press release from G4 posted on Superhero Hype.

"Transformers" producer Tom DeSanto will be a special guest on this Thursday'ss "Attack of the Show" (6/14 @ 7 pm et/pt). DeSanto will talk about his upcoming robot movie spectacular and reveal some new behind-the-scenes secrets. DeSanto will also talk about his recent announcement of a "City of Heroes" movie adaptation.

Typing errors faithfully recreated for your enjoyment.

Topics: Film, Transformers, Tom DeSanto, G4

Sopranos nearly sets record

2007-06-12T16:13:00.001-04:00

What record could that be? Worst series finale in history? debatable, but not the one I'm speaking of, nor did I even give this a thought when I saw the ratings numbers come in this morning.

The 11.9 million viewers who watched "The Sopranos" finale brought HBO to the edge of a historic feat: a show on a pay cable network available in about 30 million homes was more popular last week than all but one show on the far larger world of broadcast television.

That 'far larger world of broadcast' accounts for something like 110 million homes, which is huge. Nearly one out of every three people with HBO watched this finale (and nearly one out of every three people with HBO are now really pissed.) 11.9 million is creeping into network territory, where I think NBC's Heroes as an example floated between 9-13 million viewers over the course of its first season.

But that's not the real milestone.

Only the premiere of NBC's "America's Got Talent," with 13 million viewers, did better, Nielsen Media Research said.

That is. It booted every show on network television last week except one junk reality show, which is amazing. Not as amazing as it would have been had we not seen the end of all the big network dramas like House and Lost, but still very impressive.

Will this open peoples eyes to pay cable as a new outlet that can actually compete with the broadcast networks on the low end? Probably not. I doubt The Sopranos ever had numbers like that during its run and even 11.9 will get you canceled on some of the big 4. It's still quite an achievement.

Topics: Television, HBO, The Sopranos, Ratings

'1408' interviews

2007-06-12T15:32:00.001-04:00

No, I don't have 1408 interviews or even 5 interviews, but IESB does have two interviews, eight clips, and a bunch of stills from 1408, a feature adaptation of a Stephen King short story about room 1408 of Hotel Dolphin, which is haunted. John Cusack plays a nonfiction author who has had a string of success writing about haunted places, but isn't a believer in the supernatural.

If they are faithful to the story, it should be pretty good no matter what. It's hard to screw up a Stephen King story when you don't deviate from it.

I read that Eli Roth was considered for the directors chair but ultimately rejected due to the gore factor he was selling - and this was before Hostel mind you - but they ultimately they went with Mikael Håfström. Supposedly Samuel L. Jackson is in this flick too, but I haven't been able to find any information about what part he plays.

1408 will be released in theaters on June 22nd.

Topics: Film, 1408, Stephen King, John Cusack

IGN interview with Bruce Willis

2007-06-12T15:15:00.001-04:00

IGN has an interview with Bruce Willis, pending the theatrical release of his latest film and most recent in what was a dying franchise - Die Hard 4. I'm really unimpressed with some of the previous IGN interviews I've read, especially one with writer-director/God Joss Whedon. That interview ran ten pages (would have fit on two if they didn't have a scrolling phobia) and didn't get around to anything interesting until the halfway point.

IGN: Why do you think the movie is as good as the first? What makes it just as good?

Bruce Willis: Well, two things. [Director] Len Wiseman and I both were of a similar mind in that we wanted the film to have as little CGI effects in it as possible. We wanted the film to be as hardcore as possible and as smashmouth when it came to the violence as possible, to have stunts and kills in the film that were unique, which posed a particular set of problems because you not only had to compete with our own first three films, but with the Lethal Weapon series and all the other knock-offs of the Die Hard films that have been done since 1986, of which there are many. Also, you know, not to mention how good stunts and special effects have become on TV shows like 24, of which I'm a big fan. ... Yeah, so… and TV's come a long way, you know.

First, he didn't even answer the question, and IGN let him get away with avoiding it. Second, Lethal Weapon was simply a better film than Die Hard on all counts, which hardly makes it a knock off. Third, ... you can read the rest at IGN.

Topics: Film, Die Hard 4, Bruce Willis

Saw IV poster

2007-06-12T14:59:00.001-04:00

Movieweb has a (supposedly new) poster for Saw IV. In typical fashion, they listed the cast and the director and completely ignored the writers, even though I did kind of take Melton and Dunstan for a ride last night, they still deserve top billing. Without them, the director wouldn't have anything to shoot and the actors wouldn't have anything to do or say.

Ignoring their contributions like this is the kind of bullshit I expect from studios, but not from media sites. We already get paid far less than actors and directors, we don't need to be ignored too.

Topics: Film, Saw IV

'Punisher 2' loses another

2007-06-12T01:41:00.001-04:00

The sequel to The Punisher lost Thomas Jane recently over concerns about the scripts quality. On May 15th, Jane sent a letter to Quint of Ain't it Cool News, part of which I've selected below to give context to the situation.

Punisher fans are already fighting an uphill battle as it is. And I’ve always felt a responsibility to fight that fight for them and with them so that Frank Castle gets the treatment he deserves.

I'm sharing this with you because I know you're a fan, like me, and you've got your ear to the ground, and because we seem to share the same sort of taste and passion when it comes to movies and stories that get us off. What I won't do is spend months of my life sweating over a movie that I just don't believe in.

Now it looks like director John Dahl is bowing out for nearly the same reason, according to this interview with Collider, Dahl didn't believe the script would do justice to the potential for the character. What that means exactly in relation to the comic isn't something I can comment on, because I am not personally familiar with it. Regardless, Jane - the star of the first film who did a fine job if you ask me - backed away because he didn't want another unfaithful and crap filled adaptation. Now Dahl is out essentially for the very same reason.

This presents an opportunity for the studio to stop jerking around with the script, get a real pro in there to fix it quickly (compared to what they'd be paying Jane to do the film, believe me, it'd be cheap and well worth the money) and entice them both back into the fold. Or, on the other hand, they could just keep screwing around until the sequel dives nose-first into the ground and explodes in a ball of raging fire.

That works too...for ending studio careers.

Topics: Film, Punisher 2, Thomas Jane, John Dahl

Saw IV enters post

2007-06-12T01:29:00.001-04:00

With Hostel 2 crapping out at the box office this past weekend and Eli Roth steadfastly declaring beforehand that he wasn't going to make another sequel, it appears that what figured to be an exploding sub-genre of horror (torture porn & gore) about to be filled with dozens of ripoffs and competitors has wilted down to its progenitor already.

Sure, there are still horror flicks out there to see and more coming every year, that genre itself won't be going anywhere anytime soon, but with the unlikely financial success of Saw 1-3 and Hostel, we all figured a half-dozen or more people would jump into the fray trying to out gore everyone else one disgusting flick at a time until Congress threatened to regulate, audiences threatened to stay home, and I threatened to vomit all over my couch.

Turns out it was much ado about nothing. Hostel 2 didn't bomb, but it didn't set the world on fire either, and Roth said he's done with that material either way. Saw is on its fourth installment and there's not telling how much longer it can go, but I think they should get out while it's still bringing in decent returns.

I wouldn't be surprised if people shirked Saw IV already making this feature one too many.

Either way, I made you suffer through all that bullshit just to tell you that Saw IV has in fact finished shooting, and is officially entering post-production.

Over on his MySpace blog, director Darren Lynn Bousman proclaims, "Saw IV shot - and onto editing!!! HELL YEAH!!!!" Based on all the capital letters and exclamation points, I take it the dude is just a tad excited about the whole thing. And why wouldn't he be? After helping kick-start this whole "torture phase" that the horror genre has been in as of late, it's the only franchise still alive and capable of making a killing at the box office.

Well now, I don't think I'd quite go that far. I haven't seen any of the Saw movies except the last half-hour of the first film - which wasn't bad, scary, or gross by any means - and if that is anything to make a judgment from, there wasn't much torture anywhere to be seen. I liked what I saw even though I generally dislike gore, pain, and suffering movies when they exist just to exploit those things. They must exist to service the story, not the other way around.

I have seen Hostel, and comparing the bits of one to the entirety of the whole, I'm sure that I'm probably missing a lot here, but if one of those two "kick-start(ed) this whole 'torture phase'", it was Hostel, not Saw.

That said, I've written several times about Saw's financial success at the box office. It can't help but be so, when we're talking about budgets under $5 million (though the most recent two I think went over $10, which is still pocket change.) To give you some idea of just how cheap that is, a summer tent-pole film like Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End probably send upwards of $30-50 million in marketing alone, piled on top of it's $200+ million production budget.

Even if Saw XX only makes $40 million, that's a big profit margin when it only cost $10m to make. So far, every single Saw film has been profitable, which all by itself warrants yet another sequel, and who can blame the studio for taking that kind of attitude?

They say that only one of of every ten films makes a profit, and so that one film must be a blockbuster to make up for the losses generated by the other failures. Films like saw won't make $250m in the theaters, but if they guarantee you a profit every single time out, a couple of them per year can serve as insurance against those nine other failures when your planned tent-pole extravaganza disappoints.

An interesting bit of information that has eluded me until today, Saw IV was written by partners Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (seen at Cinematical) which could be good, and could be really bad. Melton and Dunstan won project Greenlight not because they wrote the best script in the competition, but because they had a top three script and gave the best pitch of those three.

If you didn't see it, it was really obvious that there were two camps dividing the decision makers. The first group was concerned only with the quality of the script, and therefore the ultimate quality of the film. They wanted the best script so they could make the best film. That group included Wes Craven, Matt Damon, and Ben Afleck.

The other group consisted mostly of producers and studio representatives who were also producers. They were enthralled by the pitch that Melton and Dunstan gave, and I was pretty impressed as well. They identified with these guys because they were spewing the kind of bullshit that studio execs and producers eat up. High concept, not a lot of detail.

Because the creative group won out of the past few competitions, the studio guys won out this time. The first two movies were probably very well done, good quality, great cinema, but they bombed at the theaters (which had more to do with zero marketing, a small opening, and a cast of unknowns than it did with the quality of the movie.) So the studio guys said to hell with the best quality script, they wanted something they thought they could make money with, which is exactly what they get with Dunstan and Melton.

Unfortunately, there's a divergence here in reality. That's what they thought they were getting from the writers because that's what the writers sold them on, as opposed to looking at the top three scripts and evaluating them objectively on their merits. The producers did what typical producers and studio execs did, they let themselves get sweet talked into a bad deal.

Feast - the film that came out of Melton and Dunstan's script and the Greenlight contest - wasn't very good. It was entertaining, I laughed my ass off at times, but really, it did stink up the room. There were other scripts in that competition that would have made better films but lost out to greedy profiteering.

And this is an indication of what you're going to get from Melton and Dunstan on Saw IV. These guys are not the pinnacle of literary achievement in screenwriting, these guys wanted to make the next Evil Dead 2, not something that was going to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Maybe that's for the best, I don't think Saw is the kind of film that goes after that audience. Maybe they are perfectly suited for this -- hacks hired as hit men to produce bad horror films. We'll have to wait and see.

Topics: Film, Saw IV, Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton, Feast

Will 'Evan Almighty' bomb?

2007-06-11T16:00:00.001-04:00

Cinematical noted that a few early reviews of Steve Carrell's latest film Evan Almighty, sequel to Jim Carry's Bruce Almighty, aren't anything to write home about. That's very bad news for the studio and the future of writer-director Steve Oedekerk. Oedekerk experienced a near-famous meltdown in front of studio executives within the past two weeks over the studios marketing budget. The film reportedly cost somewhere between $200-250 million to produce, an outrageous sum for a comedy, one that will make it hard for this film to see any kind of profit.

I would be very concerned right now if I were Universal. I can't possibly express how bad this is. A $250 million budget needs half a billion in worldwide gross just to break even, and this summer has already sustained probably too many films that have so far, and will soon break into the 700's. There's no room for viewer sympathy, there's only so much money to go around in any given season and there's just not enough to cover mistakes like this.

And it was a mistake, letting a comedy run out of control with that kind of budget. Oedekerk had a right to be angry at the studio for skimping on his films marketing, but it's his own fault that it was necessary. When you break the studios bank, you can't cry about it to them later.

The biggest complaint between both reviewers -- the words behind it -- "Bottom line, the plot is silly and stupid, with obvious comedy beats throughout," and "Pretty much everything in the movie is a stereotype of what you've seen before... The script is lazy." While one would imagine words like that would be the kiss of death for the flick, that's not the case.

From Cinematical, I completely disagree. It is the kiss of death, because we're not talking about a film that can survive on moderate reviews and moderate box office returns. This thing cost a quarter of a billion to make and needs twice as much to break even for the studio, if it isn't bringing in $90 million over its first weekend, it's officially a historic bomb.

And hopefully Oedekerk has learned a lesson here as well, first being (and this is personal opinion) that if he wants to play director, that's what he should do, leaving the writing to the professionals. Second, he should probably leave directing to the professionals too, if he can't control his budget. I wouldn't give this guy $5 to take a picture of me for fear he'd break the camera and end up costing me $200.

I need to find out when this film opens and break it down, since I haven't done one of those in a while. Should be fun, counting all the ways it's going to fail. $1..$2...$3...$4...$400..$40,000...$250,000,000. It's going to be a long article.

Topics: Film, Evan Almighty, Steve Oedekerk

Another year, more bad sequels.

2007-06-11T15:41:00.001-04:00

10,000 -- that's the number of original scripts that are written in Hollywood every single year. You wouldn't know it, based on the number of book and toy adaptations, and sequels reaching in the 4's and 5's bombarding us every year. Sure, some just beg for a sequel and a few actually deserve one, but we wouldn't spontaneously combust if we didn't get one. The world wouldn't end. The studios, though, wouldn't get as rich, and they'd be spared the horror of having to take actual risks.

It's truly shameful, and writers aren't the only ones complaining even though we're the ones suffering the most. Actors are sick of playing the same character three or four years in a row and are thrilled to get away from these franchise films, and who can blame them? Sure, it's practically free work for as long as they are willing to suck it up and be bored for a while...wait, what the hell are they whining about anyway?

Directors too, it's not like the studios phobia of all things new costs them anything. Sequels still need directors.

Every day I wake up I hope not to see any news about another sequel being rushed into development, and every day that's exactly what I find. It doesn't matter if the original material was good or bad, blockbuster or bomb. If the idea has been tried, it must be safe to try again.

So over the weekend came news that a remake of Westworld is in the works by a guy who has 1 moderately decently script to his name and 7 others that I've never heard of, and has probably never seen the original. (Neither have I, but I'm not talking about remaking it because the idea sounds cute.)

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is trying to push another Beverly Hills Cop into production, as if the third film wasn't enough to revoke this guys film making rights for all time. I can't for the life of my figure out why.

Bonaventura had nothing to do with the first two successful films and made the third one bomb. Either he sucks, or the idea was mined out. Or both. Who cares which? There's just no reason to go back there. Even if it were moderately successful, it won't ever be as big as the first film was, because it's not new anymore. There's zero chance the writer from the first film will be back for this one, studios and directors use them like lenses on a camera, interchangeable and in most cases disposable.

In most cases one would think that with a random writer, and probably not a good one, chances are about even that it'll do as well as an original screenplay, only that's not the case, because we already know that either Bonaventura can't hold his own or that the franchise is played out. Either way, both of these films have odds weighing against them.

I hope Murphy stays far away from this and just keeps working on original material. The public, or at least speaking for myself, is getting increasingly sick of this bull.

Topics: Film, Beverly Hills Cop, Westworld, Eddie Murphy, Lorenzo di Bonaventura

Hostel II craps out

2007-06-11T15:08:00.001-04:00

Ocean's Thirteen	$37m
Pirates 3	$21m
Knocked Up	$20m
Surf's Up	$18m
Shrek the Third	$15m
Hostel 2	$8.7m

Man, what a disappointment. It has been nothing but Eli Roth interviews, set vists, and Holstel 2 reviews for weeks and weeks and the culmination of all that crap was a sixth-place debut, and just under $9 million in ticket sales. I guess people only have so much tolerance for torture porn. Here's this past weekends box office numbers.

Topics: Film, Box Office, Hostel 2

Tim Story inks another comic deal

2007-06-11T12:33:00.001-04:00

Fantastic Four director Tim Story has signed a deal to direct a feature film based on The Losers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Naturally, the studio treats Story as the sole creative force behind the two films, ignoring the contribution of writers Mark Frost (1&2), Don Payne (2), and Michael France (1), heaping praise and career rewards on the people who actually wrote the film. Yeah, forget the guys who sat down in front of a blank page and wrote every line of dialog, every word of action, turned nothing into something; just give all the credit and rewards to the bone head who sat behind the camera.

The camera, recording the lines of dialog they wrote, sitting in the location they decided it would sit at, while the things they created were captured on film.

Yes, I'm bitter. While there are some truly creative and genius directors out there, most of them are glorified coffee-fetchers. It's not that damn difficult to decide where to put the camera once literally everything else has been decided for you. If there are new deals to be signed and rewards to be handed out by the studio for the success of these films (and honestly the first one looked really, really bad) it needs to go to the people who were most responsible for the creative drive -- and that ain't the director.

Especially not a rookie like Tim Story, a guy who had a grand total of four directing credits to his name over the course of eight years before somehow landing Fantastic Four.

From the article..

"I told my agents I didn't want to do another comic book," Story said. "I had been in the world of fantasy and I wanted to do something very edgy, a realist action movie. I wanted to find something like a 'Bourne Identity' or 'Black Hawk Down."'

Sorry buddy, people like you don't get movies like Black Hawk Down. There's a reason Ridley Scott got that film and it ain't because he was lucky, and there's a reason you'll never get a film like that, and it ain't because you're not.

Hacks like Story have no business going anywhere near real films, let him drown in these mid-tier comic adaptations if that's what he wants. There are lots of good comics to adapt out there, but those are for good directors. If Story wants to live his life directing the bad ones, that's great. It keeps him from wasting good scripts and other peoples time.

Topics: Film, Fantastic Four, The Losers, Tim Story

CBS orders double dose of voyeurism

2007-06-11T12:03:00.001-04:00

If you like Big Brother, then you're in luck. If you think society is going to hell in a handbasket for or lust for human exploitation and voyeurism, then you're probably right. Either way, there's something for everyone to celebrate as news came last night that CBS was ordering up a spinoff of sorts for Big Brother.

According to Variety, CBS has ordered Big Brother: After Dark, a continuous three-hour feed from the house cameras is said to contain footage shot in between the hours of 9PM and midnight. Because the feed originates from the west coast, it will be seen on the east coast beginning at 3AM, even though it is live.

The footage will still be censored by producers to review racist language other things, but should otherwise remain unedited as they do with all other reality shows, creating story where there basically is none. The show will air on Showtime's companion ShoToo (wtf is that?) beginning July 5th. See the Variety article for details and more information.

Topics: Television, Reality, Big Brother

Dispelling myths on 'Transformers' trilogy

2007-06-08T15:35:00.001-04:00

I've been reading news lately saying that two more Transformers have already been greenlit and that a production date has been set for the first sequel, all based on a misunderstanding of how contracts work. I need to set a few things straight, first being that it's standard practice to include options in all the principle players contracts for sequels on just about every film. They exist for the studios benefit, in case the first film does well, they have the cast locked in for a set price.

Without that, the cast could demand double their fee - or more - and hold the studio hostage over the sequel. It doesn't mean anything either way, it's the default thing done on most all productions.

If a date has been set for production of the sequel, that's likely just a stub to make sure nothing else is slated to start production during that time pending the release of this first film. It's basically the studio covering all its bases, something that would happen even if they thought this movie was going to bomb.

Once the returns come in and we can see how well the film does, everything else that has been setup before hand, the contract options, the hole in the studios schedule, all that is ready to go. That's all this is. If the first film flops, they will never make more of these.

And I want to be clear on this, I'm not predicting success or failure for this film (yet), just explaining how people are getting all excited over something that happens all the time. Relax, it's no guarantee. The best thing fans can do to ensure there will be sequels is to go see the movie, and bring three friends along. Nothing spurs sequels like profitable tent pole films.

Topics: Film, Transformers

Jessica Simpson shoots another bomb

2007-06-08T15:09:00.001-04:00

Jessica Simpson needs to do one of two things: A. get new management; B. stop acting. It doesn't matter which though I prefer the latter, she hasn't picked a single good project to act in yet and shows absolutely no sign of gaining better senses in the future. This latest project, Major Movie Star, will be directed by Steve Miner, who has a history of extremely lame popcorn movies. Just look at the films description from IGN:

The story reportedly centers around a pampered actress who joins the Marines to convince a movie producer that she's fit for an upcoming military film. When she arrives at Camp Pendleton, she realizes she's made a huge mistake but decides that she has to stick it out.

Shockingly, this plot doesn't sound like it's all that far from the intelligence of Simpson in real life. She seriously needs to stick to singing.

Topics: Film, Major Movie Star, Jessica Simpson

Isaiah Washington leaves 'Grey's Anatomy'

2007-06-08T12:29:00.001-04:00

I don't really think this is big news, Washington made a bigoted comment about gays and all of his co-stars and much of the entertainment media freaked out as if things like that don't happen on a daily basis. Now it seems ABC is dumping him for it.

Multiple sources are telling me that Isaiah Washington will not be returning to Grey's Anatomy next season. An ABC Studios spokesperson confirms that the actor's contract option has not been picked up, but declined further comment.

One insider, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, speculated that the decision was likely due only in part to the T.R. Knight homophobic-slur scandal and the subsequent fallout. "There was a pattern of problematic behavior going back before he used the F-word," says my spy. "I imagine [his dismissal] was the result of all of that."

From Matt Ausiello, who was the first person to report (correctly) that CBS was ordering new episodes of canceled series Jericho for air next year.

Topics: Television, Greys Anatomy, Isaiah Washington

Ron Moore writing 'I, Robot' sequel

2007-06-08T11:59:00.001-04:00

There was a big shindig in Hollywood recently that sounded like a giant press junket for the upcoming Battlestar Galactica TV movie, which is kind of an overreaction for something that small, but there were some interesting bits of information that came out in interviews with Moore, such as what his next few projects might be.

I'm actually a bit bummed here, Moore claims that he's working on THE THING for Universal. I've had it in the back of my mind to write a treatment for a series based on that property as it's one of my favorite films of all time, and I thought it could work reasonably well since they haven't been able to get another film off the ground for quite a while now. No one else seemed interested, and I was really looking forward to doing that at some point. With Moore working on a feature, that pretty much rules that out for a while.

Oh well, the big news of the day was that Moore has written a first draft script for a sequel to I, Robot. That's awesome news, not that the first feature was bad, only that Ron Moore is a better writer than Akiva Goldsman is. Unfortunately, Moore wouldn't talk about either project beyond the fact that he's doing scripts as part of his development deal with Universal.

Both video interviews are available at collider.

Topics: Television, Film, Ronald D. Moore, I Robot, THE THING

'I am Legend' Trailer

2007-06-08T11:23:00.001-04:00

I am Legend is a Will Smith film based on a 1950's novel of the same name, written by Richard Matheson. Back then the subject matter may have been new, but today it has been pretty well mined. A pandemic sweeps the planet, infecting everyone but our main character, Robert Neville (played by Smith.) The "infection" is essentially vampirism attributed to a disease. Yeah, like I said, it may have been a new idea in the '50s, but not today.

I'm yapping about this flick because of a trailer that popped up on firstshowing today. That doesn't mean the story can't be brilliant or entertaining, or both. I don't know that I've ever seen Will Smith be brilliant, but he's beyond entertaining, and the right material may just get it done for him.

The central plot point of the novel revolves around people who are only partially infected, who capture Neville (yes, I'm regurgitating this from Wikipedia (book, film), I've never read the book) and cry on his shoulder about their plight.

This book has been adapted twice, and failed twice. Ridley Scott was supposed to be doing the third version and I'm extremely disappointed that it didn't happen, that would have been an extremely interesting film. Instead, we get the guy who directed Constantine, which was an entertaining film, but hardly creative in a visual sense.

Now here's a bit of a wild card - Akiva Goldsman has writing the script this time. Many writers think Goldsman is a complete hack who got extremely lucky, and since he wrote the two previous Batman scripts that proceeded Batman Begins, I'd tend to agree. Then again, I really enjoyed Lost in Space and I, Robot, and he won an Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind.

Take of it what you will, this film will not be wanting for expensive visual effects and may in the end be a damn good flick. The book supposedly focused heavily on the mental state of Neville and went to lengths to portray him as an everyday man dealing with impossible circumstances, which is generally what you want to do in any character driven drama. I just hope Goldsman and Lawrence recognize the brilliance of telling stories that way, and don't turn him into an action hero cliche.

We don't need another Blade, thank you very much.

Before I run off, I've got to complain about this silly poster. "The last man on Earth is not alone", sounds about as stupid as "we stand alone, together." Forget stumbling across the line, this poster got drunk and puked all over the line, passed out, and is now sleeping on the middle of the street.

Update: all the trailers are available on Apple's website. You should be able to download them directly to your hard drive with these links: small, medium, large, 1080p High Definition.

Topics: Film, I Am Legend, Will Smith, Akiva Goldsman, Francis Lawrence

CBS' 'Jericho' lives again

2007-06-07T18:21:00.001-04:00

As I reported about a day ago, based on reports from TV Guide editor Matt Ausiello, CBS has ordered an extremely small run of new episodes for what was probably the seasons second biggest disappointment in the ratings race next to Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60. Jericho debuted to good ratings but fell steadily until CBS put the show on extended hiatus, which has never had a good effect on any series before, much less one that was already struggling.

The result was immediate and obvious, many of the shows fans that had stuck around until the season's midpoint didn't come back when it returned to the air, causing CBS to leave Jericho off the fall schedule during the networks upfronts, effectively cancelling it.

I've seen some people attributing fan-lead petitions and a "nut drive" with the shows temporary revival (but not renewal) and CBS seems thrilled to play up this aspect of the deal, but I have serious doubts as to what has been accomplished, and why CBS is sinking more money into such an expensive show that has already lost at least one regular cast member.

Among the numerous questions remaining are how many of the original cast will come back, now that their deals have all expired. We know at least one won't be returning, Gerald McRaney who played mayor Johnston Green has announced through his representation that he intends not to return to Jericho, no matter what happens with the show.

It's understood that the shows budget will be scaled back, to better fit with a show with a low viewership.

There is also the question, as I noted, of CBS' motive on all of this. They don't stand to gain financially from bringing back a ratings-challenged series for a limited run, but it does provide great cover as a mid-season replacement for one of the new shows on the fall sched that will inevitably fail. There are always shows that fail, and here is a series that will bring at least 7-9 million viewers (maybe, with it being canceled and then brought back for a limited run, it could drop even further) the network has at its disposal a "known property", even if a hobbled one, that can shore up an even weaker timeslot next year.

This could also lead CBS to experiment with trimming the budget, and shifting the series from television to the web to finish out a later full season order.

Showrunner Carol Barbee won't be available to devote her full attention to Jericho next year, as she already found work as an executive producer for Swingtown, a possibility I raised when the petition drive began, and has already come true for Gerald McRaney.

It's fantastic that CBS is giving Jericho a second chance, but fans shouldn't get their hopes up. If the show doesn't do any better the second time around, it's going to end up back on the scrap heap, and it won't be coming back for a third dance.

This is when the real work begins. Signing a digital petition and spending a few bucks on nuts isn't work. Fans need to talk to their family and their friends; find five people that have never seen Jericho before, and get them to watch all seven new episodes next year. No exceptions. If the ratings don't improve, this will be the shortest revival in history.

This is the letter CBS President Nina Tassler posted on CBS' website, in its entirety. Be appreciative of her sticking her neck out, and put some real effort into getting this show a new and growing fanbase. The same old numbers won't cut it again.

To the Fans of Jericho:

Wow!

Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime-time television series. You got our attention; your e-mails and collective voice have been heard.

As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of Jericho for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But for there to be more Jericho we will need more viewers.

A loyal and passionate community has clearly formed around the show. But that community needs to grow. It needs to grow on the CBS television network, as well as on the many digital platforms where we make the show available.

We will count on you to rally around the show, to recruit new viewers with the same grassroots energy, intensity and volume you have displayed in recent weeks.

At this time, I cannot tell you the specific date or time period that Jericho will return to our schedule. However, in the interim we are working on several initiatives to help introduce the show to new audiences. This includes rebroadcasting Jericho on CBS this summer, streaming episodes and clips from these episodes across the CBS Audience Network (online), releasing the first season DVD on Sept. 25, and continuing the story of Jericho in the digital world until the new episodes return. We will let you know specifics when we have them so you can pass them on.

On behalf of everyone at CBS, thank you for expressing your support of Jericho in such an extraordinary manner. Your protest was creative, sustained and very thoughtful and respectful in tone. You made a difference.

Sincerely,
Nina Tassler
President, CBS Entertainment

Congratulations fans, you did a good job. Now get out there and get this show an audience.

Topics: Television, CBS, Jericho

'Knocked Up' may be 'Knocked Out' in court

2007-06-07T17:40:00.001-04:00

They say that you don't have to worry about plagiarism in Hollywood very much because nobody is stupid enough to rip off a script that's already been written, given how much it could cost should the ripoff be produced and become a hit. On top of that, ideas aren't allowed protection under intellectual property law (nor should they be) and even if they were, ideas are worthless. And idea isn't the same thing as a stellar script, and that's what they pay people for, that's what they want from writers - someone who can turn any old idea into a great script.

Given how many ideas float around the business in any given year, there are bound to be an incredible number of similarities, and somebody always gets sued over it. The studio and producers behind Knocked Up can now count themselves as the most recent unwilling participants in a court room fight, and I think they may be in some trouble.

This is a case that could very well go to trial, as there's two existing properties that can be readily compared to judge how much, if at all, one stole from the other. In this context, we're talking about the screenplay written by Judd Apatow, and a book written by Canadian novelist Rebecca Eckler.

One thing studios will do to insulate themselves from frivolous suits is not to accept screenplays, manuscripts, or even idea pitches from people without representation, or without invitation. It'd be far too tempting to walk into a studio, pitch the idea you've been slaving over for the past five years (why weren't you writing the script all that time?) only to find out that the studio already has something just like it in development.

That happens all the time, and most people are professional enough to understand that's just how things work. Ideas are a dime a dozen and most of them aren't really all that dissimilar from each other, it's when a writer takes the idea and turns it into a unique story (script) that it has any sort of value, and usually that's when the need or wish for a lawsuit vanishes.

I've read people who have been writing for television for decades that if you give ten writers the same idea and send them home, they'll come back with 10 completely different scripts. That's how the game works, and some people don't understand that, or don't want to understand it. Sometimes though, you actually can get ripped off.

She claims that while pitching her book to Hollywood producers, she learned of Apatow's project and the script, which she says had on it a picture of a martini glass with a pacifier around the stem -- the same as the cover of her book.

Apatow said in a statement through his representatives that the book and film were very different.

"Anyone who reads the book and sees the movie will instantly know that they are two very different stories about a common experience," said the statement, posted on celebrity Web site TMZ.com.

Normally Apatow would be right, most people see a couple of similarities between someone else's work and their own, and that's naturally going to happen when they come from the same basic idea - and that's not even speaking to the fact that as with any genre, there's structure underlying the story that is known to work well, and can be mined for greater success.

Even if there are similarities, that's not going to win you a lawsuit. I've seen cases where both sides acknowledged there were as many as 15 or more big points that were the same in both properties, but that simply wasn't enough to win. Copyright infringement protects you from literal copying; it doesn't protect themes or plot twists.

I can legally read your book, and "rewrite" it if I wanted, so long as I changed enough that it was without question original on the whole. New characters, new locations, different interactions, but it's still about a woman to got accident knocked up at a party. It happens, you know? It just does.

Still, while that covers 99% of all lawsuits over this stuff, the fact that the script was going around with a picture on the cover that was identical to the one on her book is hugely damaging. I've never heard of that before, how stupid can you get? And from the sounds of it, I would so that Apatow probably read her book and "reimagined it" for his script, only he didn't do enough leg work to make it original.

I foresee a settlement for this one's future.

Topics: Film, Knocked Up, Judd Apatow

No Sean Connery for Indiana Jones 4

2007-06-07T16:58:00.001-04:00

Even though it was reported that the character of Henry Jones had been written into the script for Indiana Jones 4 - which is scheduled to begin shooting this month in New Haven, Connecticut - it appears that Sean Connery isn't interested in coming out of retirement to reprise his role as the father if Indiana Jones.

Per Variety;

After months of talks, thesp has decided not to come out of retirement to star opposite Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg's "Indiana Jones 4," which begins shooting this month. Connery would have reprised his role as the father of the archeologist-adventurer. John Hurt, however, is joining the cast. Already starring are Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett and Ray Winstone.

"thesp" meaning thespian, or actor, is Variety's way of being cute with their news. They like to eliminate the word "The" for leading off sentences, and are fond of dropping nouns randomly and occasionally making words up entirely. I'm finding it increasingly annoying because it's not cute, it makes Variety look like it was written by a highschooler trying to impress his English teacher, succeeding only in butchering the language so badly that it barely makes any sense.

I'm no English major, but I'm also pretty sure you can't use a noun that way.

Of his decision, Connery said: "I thought long and hard about it and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun."

Well, that's a bummer. Connery worked beautifully with Harrison Ford and the two are a delight to watch together in the movies, especially when they don't get along. Maybe it's just as well though, this addition to the franchise is probably one too many. It's due for a full-on jump, and this is a perfect opportunity for it.

Topics: Film, Indiana Jones 4, Sean Connery

Black Donnellys returns

2007-06-06T15:55:00.001-04:00

But not to any network; HDNET has bought the syndication/rerun rights to Paul Haggis' short lived series. They intend to air all 13 produced episodes, which includes 7 that were never shown on NBC, but were available on NBC's website.

Keep a sharp eye out, beginning next Wednesday, June 13th.

Topics: Television, The Black Donnellys, HDNET

Comic-Con film list

2007-06-06T14:04:00.001-04:00

Comic-Con has announced a list of films that will have sneak peek screenings this year, and there are some big names out there, including many films still in production, even right this second. National Treasure 2, Resident Evil 3, Star Trek XI... wait a minute, the script for Trek XI hasn't even been written yet.

I don't know how this is supposed to work out, Trek XI isn't in production yet as far as I know, but they intend to give a sneak screening in late July? That's not gonna happen. Trek XI isn't scheduled for release until December '08.

Anyway, Sci Fi Wire has a partial list of the films which I guess is actually locked behind this page at comic-con's site for preregistered people only.

Anyone have the full list they'd like to send me?

Topics: Film, Comic-Con

'Alien vs. Predator 2' A 'True Piece of Crap'

2007-06-06T12:12:00.001-04:00

I'm knocking on the MTV movie blog's headline from yesterday that read 'Alien Vs. Predator 2' A 'True-Blue Monster Movie'. My first thought was that's supposed to be a good thing? Neither Alien, Aliens, nor Predator were monster movies. Alien was solid science fiction mixed with suspense/horror. Aliens was a blending of science fiction, action, and a little bit of horror. Predator was mostly suspenseful action. So how is saying that AvP 2 will be a "True-Blue Monster Movie" serve as a compliment to a blending of two franchises that weren't monster movies in the first place?

Well, it doesn't. It shows just how badly this studio doesn't get its own films, and that's really quite sad. Aliens improved a lot on its predecessor and stood proudly beside it, without rehashing old material or trying to out-do it. Predator stood just fine all by itself and was the kind of film that didn't need nor would have been served by a sequel. Danny Glover did an ok job with the followup, but it fell to the sins of sequels: it replayed the first story in a new setting with new actors, but played all the same tricks that didn't look so new and fresh the second time around.

To drive my point home, check out this quote from Steven Pasquale who (stars?) in AvP 2.

"[We're] trying to get back to the basics [with] the suspense and the gore," actor Steven Pasquale told MTV News, revealing that 'AVP2' will be considerably scarier than its predecessor. "I think it's going to be really fun. [Directors] Colin and Greg Strause really know what they're doing in terms of a sort of true-blue monster movie."

And now for my second thought, what gore? There were a few nasty spots in Predator, but they were few and far between. There were none that I remember at all from Alien or Aliens, and to be quite honest, Alien 4 was more funny than it was gross or scary. Again I ask, did these people even watch the films that came before? Do they have any clue what they are talking about, and do they even care?

Pasquale will tackle the role of Dallas - not to be confused with Tom Skerritt's Dallas from the original "Alien" movie - a character caught in the middle of a battle between the two iconic extraterrestrial villains.

That's just cheap.

"[He's] our convict who returns home to his small town in Colorado to find aliens and predators," he said.

Aliens and Predators...in Colorado? What the fuck?

"Haven't we always wondered what would happen if they made it to Earth? [..]

Yeah, we did, then Universal made AvP and we regretted wondering that in the first place. Now we're in for real punishment, Hostel style.

Unlike the first film, which saw criticism over the small amount of actual screentime between its spacey warring factions, Pasquale says that won't be an issue this time. "Aliens and predators will be fighting to the death," he stated, also hinting at something big in the offing.

Consider the grand lesson from AvP unlearned: movies are only compelling when they are about people. The first two Alien movies weren't scary because one alien was stalking another one, it was the solidly defined characters trying to survive a frightening and impossible situation in dark creepy places. It was about the characters. How many times have hackish film makers decided to get cute by trying to eliminate the only reason people go to see movies in the first place?

You know where the audience is for Alien on Alien action? Sitting at home, playing video games. And that's not a knock on that crowd by any means, it's simply reality. People who want to see stories about other people go and see movies. People who want to interact with non-humans all day play video games.

AvP makes a great video game. Motion pictures..not so much.

Note: Steven Pasquale co-stars in FX's Rescue Me, which as MTV says, comes back for season 4 tonight.

Topics: Film, Alien vs Predator, AvP2

Jericho back for 8 episodes?

2007-06-05T14:38:00.001-04:00

Michael Ausiello, a TV Guide editor, wrote this afternoon that canceled CBS drama Jericho may yet see air time later this fall.

Multiple sources are telling me that CBS is this close to sealing a deal to bring Jericho back for at least eight episodes, possibly at mid-season.

Ausiello believes word on this could come as soon as this evening. He won't name sources and even if true, this isn't renewal, however, it's still great news for fans of the show who have been working a hard campaign to make something happen.

I'll report updates as Ausiello does.

Topics: Television, CBS, Jericho

Russ Crowe goes it alone

2007-06-05T14:09:00.001-04:00

One of the biggest primadonnas in the industry has gone into business for himself, eliminating another person in between himself and the studio chief who can tell him no on any given film. I'm talking about Russell Crowe of course, who thinks he's God's gift to acting and thought the script for The Gladiator was total shit, and it was only his own brilliance that made it palpable.

Not content with simply pushing people around, Crowe has discovered a better way to deal with the problem of people getting in his way: remove them.

Russell Crowe has formed Fear of God Films and set up his first feature project as a producer. Using his own coin, Crowe optioned "Dolce's Inferno," a spec script by Mark Staufer. Crowe will develop the project as producer, and does not plan to star in the film.

He's a fine actor, and maybe being on the other side of the camera will teach him a few lessons about what it's like to deal with asshole actors who have no regard for anyone or anything but themselves.

Topics: Film, Russell Crowe

Burnett loses 'Family Guy' lawsuit

2007-06-05T13:50:00.001-04:00

As was expected, a federal judge as dismissed Carol Burnett's copyright infringement lawsuit against Fox over a parody of herself and her show on Family Guy. It seemed very unlikely that this case would ever go to trial, because it was so horrendously without merit. Copyright law is all about reserving the right to copy your work yourself; it can't be copied without your permission, giving it and your position economic value, encouraging you to go out and create even more stuff that only you can copy.

It doesn't cover material that you yourself do not own, such as was the case with Family Guy. They didn't use any material that Burnett owned, therefore there could be no finding of infringement. The judge dismissed the case out of hand, and I was be hysterically thrilled of the judge allowed Fox to seek attorneys fees from Burnett for filing such a frivolous case.

Personally speaking, I also think her own lawyers that handled the case ought to be permanently disbarred for being universally stupid, and incompetent.

Topics: News, Copyright Infringement, Carol Burnett, Family Guy, Fox

Michael Bay is 'On the Lot' tonight

2007-06-05T13:36:00.001-04:00

Transformers director Michael Bay will be joining Carrie Fisher and Garry Marshall on Fox's reality series On the Lot tonight, along with actor Shia Labeouf as guest judges. Yeah, I never heard of the kid until this year either, but he's in Transformers and Indiana Jones 4, and I think he's slated for the next The Mummy as well, so he's got some game.

I don't really think it's appropriate for an actor (and a noob at that) to be judging a film making competition though. Then again, it makes more sense that having Michael Bay do it.

Fox's press release; On the Lot airs at 8PM EDT tonight on Fox.

Topics: Television, On the Lot, Michael Bay, Shia Labeouf

Ron Moore press call: full transcript on BSG ending

2007-06-05T13:03:00.001-04:00

I just ran across a full transcript of the press call where Ronald D. Moore announced that Battlestar Galactica was coming to an end after its fourth season. The news has been out, but I've not actually seen a recording or a transcript of the call until now. Here's an excerpt from the full transcript, via E! Online.

Reporter: Since Battlestar is so highly rated, was there any pressure from Sci Fi to try and drag it out for a fifth season or beyond?

Ron Moore: Well, there was a discussion as to how long it should go on, and to their credit, they were very sensitive as to what we wanted to do creatively on the show. It came from David and I approaching them and saying we felt the show had reached its third act and that it’s about the resolution of the series—and we feel that the storyline is propelling us toward the conclusion. They asked us questions about why we felt that way, and they understood the reason and wanted us to think about it for a while and make sure that this is what we wanted to do, but they didn’t really fight us on it. They expressed concern that the show might be able to go on longer and they we wanted to make sure we weren’t passing up opportunities to continue telling stories with the series. They were very accommodating, and when we, David and I, were clear that this is what we definitely wanted, they supported it.

I'd just like to note quickly that when the reporter said that BSG was "highly rated", he/she wasn't talking about actual television ratings -- those were falling, and in fact BSG hasn't been the Sci Fi Channels #1 rated show for a couple of years now. Last I checked, Eureka was holding the title.

What that person meant was that it was unversially liked by fans and critics alike, unfortunately that's just not enough most times.

The final season of Battlestar Galactica is already in production and will air sometime next year.

Topics: Television, Battlestar Galactica, Ronald D. Moore

Interviews: Eli Roth

2007-06-05T12:38:00.001-04:00

Eli Roth is getting absolutely smothered in attention this month with Hostel 2 coming out this Friday (June 8th.) I've linked to at least two other interviews so far, and there's two more (which includes this one) coming from Ain't it Cool News. I've made my feelings about torture porn quite clear, but I seriously want to reiterate how much I respect Eli Roth. He's a very fine film maker, I just don't care for his last two projects is all.

That said, I love interviews with film makers, and there's no treat better than somebody who genuniely loves films asking the questions. You get that from AICN, you don't get that from Reuters or E!. What makes it better is that the guys from AICN have visited the set during production. Like these particular films or not, how cool would that have been?

Capone: And I should applaud you for really exploring the homo-erotic themes that were only hinted at in the first film.

Eli Roth: Getting some lesbionics.

Capone: And a shocking amount of cock as well.

Eli Roth: There's a lot of sausage.

Won't see that in Variety. Read the whole thing. Roth may be a twisted bastard, but he knows exactly what he's doing.

Topics: Film, Hostel 2, Eli Roth

Interviews: Bruce Willis and Justin Long

2007-06-05T11:05:00.001-04:00

If you don't know who Justin Long is, he's the kid who get his eyes eaten in Jeepers Creepers. 'Nuff said, right? Well I thought he did a pretty good job acting in that film, and I was a little surprised that he didn't show up in another big movie right after Creepers came out. Sure, it wasn't a huge hit itself, but it was a damn fine horror flick, and it was original. Shit, that alone should have qualified it for an Academy Award: films this year that were actually originals. (Interviews follow the rant.)

Justin Long has gone from being eaten by a monster to being shot at just for being in the same general area as Bruce Willis. Die Hard 4 is just around the corner, and Jen Wiseman interviewed them both recently about working together in the latest installment of the DH franchise.

First, Willis made statements a few weeks ago about how unhappy he's been with all the sequels, apparently DH2 in particular, believing none of them hold up against the original. I agree that they all fail where the first succeeded, which was one of the best examples of taking an ordinary guy and putting him in an impossible situation, allowing us to gleefully watch him try to extricate himself from the situation while killing as many bad guys as possible.

If you start off with that, you'll be just fine, but you need a unique and fun situation for that to work, and I didn't feel like 2&3 were all that unique, especially the second one. Oddly, I liked that one better than the third film.

Now that I've ranted, I'll actually give you the interviews. They were recorded, so you have two choices: video, or text. Here's an excerpt of the text.

Bruce Willis: All three of us are going to talk to you at the same time. [sounds of jets flying overhead and beeping of truck as it backs up] You couldn’t have picked a quieter place. Right? Unbelievable! [to Justin Long] Justin, c’mon buddy, double time. Hop on over. Quit flirting! Here you go! [to Len Wiseman as Justin runs over to join them at press table] Runs like a chicken! C’mon buddy! Get in there! We gotta get Len back to the editing room so he can actually finish the movie. I’m Bruce Willis from RC Cola [holds up can of RC Cola]. We’ve got to play to the microphone [rearranges microphones]. How you doing? How’s everybody doing? You guys aren’t smoking weed out there, are you?

Unidentified Journalist: I’m smoking weed.

Bruce Willis: Nice. Well then, there goes my second question.

I love Bruce Willis, the guy has done so many crappy movies over the years, yet so many excellent ones too. That's really the biggest compliment you can give an actor of actress, is that they just want to act. They love it, they can't not do it. If there aren't any good parts floating around, then they'll do some bad ones, just because that's what they love doing.

Can't say enough about Willis, and I'll see Die Hard 8,727,347, just to see him do his thing. It's always worth it.

Always.

Topics: Film, Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Die Hard 4, Interviews

New Transformers clips

2007-06-04T15:38:00.001-04:00

Firstshowing and Comingsoon have clips from MTV's movie awards show which featured new trailers and clips from Michael Bay's Transformers. I'm going to link you to comingsoon since they have a page with all the clips released so far. If you'd rather hit the video, you can go directly to MTV or YouTube.

I wrote something about the company that Transformers is getting its licensing rights from, Hasbro. For anyone interested, they changed representation from CAA to WMA, which ought to kick a G.I. Joe feature into development.

*Yawn*

Topics: Film, Transformers

More dumb toy movies coming

2007-06-04T15:20:00.001-04:00

Putting my natural excitement for explosions and destruction aside -- the only thing Transformers has going for it with Michael Bay at the helm -- I can't express strongly enough how ridiculous it is that Hollywood continues to turn a blind eye to the mountain of original material written every year in favor of sequels, adaptations, and licensing conversion for things like toys.

Transformers may, in the end, turn out to be a fun film, but it's not going to be great, and it won't win any awards (if you discount MTV's retarded attempts to be relevant again.) It won't be a cultural icon, it may not even turn a profit, but it saved Hollywood from having to come up with an original idea, so it got greenlit while 10,000 original scripts written this year get recycled back into printing paper.

Hasbro (yes, the toy company) apparently wasn't happy being repped by CAA, so they've now moved on to the William Morris Agency in part of a deal that will get a feature film based on their G.I. Joe toys into development.

"Our focus is on creating immersive brand experiences for Hasbro's brands," said Brian Goldner, the toymaker's chief operating officer, who is also an exec producer on "Transformers." "We felt our partnership with William Morris would enable us to activate our brands in the right entertainment forms and create those experiences over time."

So it's pretty obvious what the companies want out of it -- money. Not selling enough toys, so sell some rights, make some really bad movies, sell some more toys! But what do the studios think they are getting out of this other than a bomb in the making? They are the ones putting up the capital to make these things, now the toy companies, they have to see how self-destructive this practice is becoming.

And it has got to stop. These "entertainment vehicles" for big stars and egotistical directors are not making big profits, and they aren't in the running for awards. They gain nothing, while thousands of scripts that could become the next Star Wars don't even make it past studio readers.

I hate torture porn more any just about anyone, but you can't really argue with the Saw franchise from the perspective of an original property being wildly successful. Since theaters take half of all ticket sales, a film needs to see double its production cost to make a profit.

Transformers cost about $150 million to make, which means it needs $300 million in the box office just to break even. A film like that probably won't make that much until the very end of its run, if at all, meaning it was an incredible waste of money. Then look at Saw, where the first two films probably cost under $6 million to make, but grossed over $100 million.

Think about that. Transformers needs $300 million to break even, Saw needed $10 million. Saw made $100 million, so it was sitting on $40+ million in profit. That's huge, that money could fund another 4-5 Saws and bring in another couple hundred million in profit.

At that cost, it wasn't even risky. Distasteful plain and suffering exploitation yes, but it was a good deal to make.

I wonder if studios will ever learn from this?

Topics: Film, Transformers, G.I. Joe, Hasbro

Indiana 4 looking for extras in Connecticut

2007-06-04T14:56:00.001-04:00

Over 18? Live in or around New Haven? Not busy on June 11th & 12th? Bored? Get your ass down to the Omni Hotel at Yale, 1pm-9pm on the 11th and 12th for an open casting call (extras, don't expect much.)

You must be 18 years or older, and you must bring a headshot with you to the casting call. (Photos will not be returned, so make sure that it’s not your only copy.) Filming of the New Haven sequence will take place between June 28 and July 7.

Topics: Film, Indiana Jones 4

FirstShowing celebrates anniversery

2007-06-04T14:52:00.001-04:00

Kind of funny how things work, how sometimes effort pays off, and sometimes laziness is reported. I'm not trying to take away from their accomplishments, but I question whether or not the effort was deserving of the result. They act like 1145 posts over the course of a year is actually a big deal. Well, it ain't.

1145 in 365 days is just 3 posts per day, and for that, they've been rewarded with an average of nearly 27000 hits per day. What gives? There are places like TV Squad that literally post nine times more per day. Here, I've got them by about 2.5 times on most days, 3x on some. I sure as hell don't get 27000 pageviews per day and by the time I'm rounding the year mark for the focus chance from politics to entertainment, I will have amassed probably around 2500 posts tot heir 1100.

Anyway, some people are just lucky, and today they are celebrating theirs.

Topics: News

'Captivity' opening moved up

2007-06-04T14:42:00.001-04:00

Torture porn horror flick Captivity has had its opening moved up by nine days, to July 13th. Captivity stars Elisha Cuthbert and is produced by After Dark Films. As they did on cinematical, I have to question the wisdom of pushing up its release date to just two days before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's going to get positively crushed.

What's the point?

Topics: Film, Captivity, Elisha Cuthbert

MTV Movie Awards rundown

2007-06-04T09:06:00.001-04:00

I don't think MTV has any business presenting movie awards. Would rappers and other music artists accept and value awards from ~~TechTV~~ G4? And I'd also ask if either music artists or gamers would accept, respect, and value awards from the Academy, but that answer would be an enthusiastic yes since those awards actually mean something. Either way, it's like a plumbers association giving awards to painters, it just doesn't make sense.

That said, and I really enjoyed saying that, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest won the best movie award while Johnny Depp won for best performance. Per Variety:

Other big winners during the live broadcast from the Gibson Amphitheater included Mike Meyers, who won the MTV Generation Award, and Sacha Baron Cohen, who collected two trophies. Cohen earned the comedic performance prize for his starring turn in "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

"Unfortunately, Borat can't be here tonight," he joked. "He's been feeling the pressures of fame and had to check himself into rehab."

I'm a little concerned about this..

The 16-year-old awards show unveiled two new categories Sunday: best movie spoof and best summer movie you haven't seen yet. Andy Signore, a filmmaker from Pennsylvania, won for "United 300," a hybrid spoof of "300" and "United 93."

Someone spoofed a 9/11 film? What the fuck? Some people are so pathetically desperate for attention that it just defies your imagination.

Here's the full list that I stole from Variety (facts can't be copyrighted, so kiss my ass.)

Best Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Villian: Jack Nicholson in "The Departed"
Performance: Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"
Breakthrough Performance: Jaden Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness"
Comedic Performance: Sacha Baron Cohen in "Borat"
Kiss: Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby"
Fight: Gerard Butler vs. "The Uber Immortal" in "300"
Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet: "Transformers" (Ed.: Over Potter 5? That's ballsy.)
Movie Spoof: "United 300"
MTVu Best Filmmaker on Campus: Josh Greenbaum
MTV Generation Award: Mike Myers

Topics: Film, MTV Movie Awards

Movie-only game publisher 'Brash' debuts

2007-06-04T08:47:00.001-04:00

According to trade papers, a new game publisher called Brash Entertainment has announced nearly half a billion in venture funding. Brash exists solely to adapt feature films and television properties into games, some of which don't make any sense at all.

It's already working on a dozen movie-based titles, including one based on Lionsgate's "Saw" franchise and another, sources confirmed, based on "300." First games will come out this holiday season. While Brash is remaining tight-lipped about its initial release slate, one title will almost certainly be tied to "Saw 3."

A torture porn game? Well, okay...I guess explotation knows no limits.

Variety writes that Warner Brothers is said to be the game companies distributor, which sounds a little odd. Not sure I would have went the route of using a movie studio as my distributor, but at least you won't have to worry about them pinching pennies when it comes marketing time and money. Given how long some films take to produce and the wait time between the end of post and opening in theaters, I can see the possibility of parallel development going on here for a simultaneous release.

I still have my concerns though, this is not a typical art-house game development company that spawned from somebody's garage. It has a board of directors and practically needs a bank of its own to store all that funding in. There's no way in hell a normal game company would need that much money, hell, you can still get away with a decent seller with a team of 15-20 people, 1-2.5 years of development time, and a couple million in funding.

You've got to think that Brash intends to take the Walmart approach to game development, putting dozens of teams together, trying to break and ship these things as fast as they do box office bombs. And that's probably a very apt relation, because these guys don't see to care about quality or purpose, they just want to capitalize on films to make money.

That places this company in direct conflict with the other companies they will be partnering with, the ones actually doing the development work.

Because so many of its operations are outsourced, Brash has a lean staff of about 50 people, many of whom are game producers with previous experience working on licensed titles.

This is a fantastic opportunity for small game companies to get sweet licensing deals they couldn't get within smelling distance of on their own, and a chance to establish themselves within the industry as a quality development house. Beyond that, the funding wouldn't be touch and go, meaning less stress and better resources.

Maybe it'll work out, maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see.

Topics: Games, Television, Film, Brash Entertainment

'Evan Almighty' director goes batshit insane

2007-06-03T11:52:00.001-04:00

Considering that Hollywood is 90% ego and 10% film making, you aren't going to hear about disagreements, tirades, fights, and pouting in the trade papers very often. Some directors are legendary for being the biggest assholes in the world, even while having extraordinary power, because they get the job done. Some people apparently can't handle the stress, like Tom Shadyac.

I've seen reports in two places over the week that Shadyac totally lost it over how the studio was handling the PR campaign for Evan Almighty, a sequel staring Steve Carell that's based on Bruce Almighty, only these two films share little in common other than premise.

Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston are out, Steve Carell is in. Director Shadyac dumped writers Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe who worked on the first script with Steve Oedekerk in favor of having the latter go it alone. Bruce Almighty cost just $80 million to produce, where the new Evan Almighty is rumored to have cost Universal between $200-250 million, absolutely unprecedented from a comedy. I am shocked Shadyac actually going enough stuff to spend that much money on to begin with. That Universal didn't him and sell his kidneys to pay off a debt the film will never recover, that's even more surprising.

That's all just background noise to what's going on now, though. Shadyac is accusing Universal of skimping on its PR budget as punishment for his inability to manage his own production, and keep its budget sane. I agree, Universal is probably scaling back on advertising, but it's not punishment and Shadyac really left them no choice. You can't spend $250 million on the film and another $50 million on marketing for a comedy. This film is already going to sink, and they know it.

[...] so much so that he had an explosive meltdown at the most recent Universal meeting about it. "He made a fool of himself. He was completely out of control," one insider told me. Said another source: "He was abusive, aggressive and obnoxious. People were really shaken by his huge blow-up. He acted like an asshole and was hurting himself and hurting his movie." Shadyac also fired his long-time marketing consultants Buffy Shutt and Kathy Jones

Nikki from Deadline Hollywood makes some good points about the air being flooded with adverts the huge summer pics still to come (Potter 5, Transformers, Die Hard 342) but it's no excuse for this. You don't spend $200 million of a studios money, then throw a temper tantrum in the boardroom, or where ever this happened.

I've got to think that, for the most part, this will blow over and only take a chunk of out Shadyac's reputation in the long if, but only if Evan Almighty brings in the almighty bucks. If it flops, and I don't see how it can't with a disgustingly irresponsible and unnecessary budget like that, this could be the last movie he ever makes.

At least at Universal.

Topics: Film, Evan Almighty Tom Shadyac, Steve Carell

A trio of trailers

2007-06-03T11:25:00.001-04:00

A trio of movie trailers are making the rounds this weekend, leading off with Sicko, award-winning documentary maker Michael Moore's latest flick about the current state of America's health care industry. That says a lot about the problem, doesn't it? We have a health care "industry", where companies make billions off of sick people -- the ones who can afford it -- while countless others suffer and probably die because they can't. Way to make everything about money, America.

IGN also has a trailer for National Treasure: The Book of Secrets, sequel to a 2004 film of the same name, staring Nick Cage. The first film was pretty good, not really sure it warranted a sequel, but I can't argue with another chance to see Diane Kruger on the silver screen.

Last up and purposefully least is a blurb and a trailer for Skinwalkers, an Underworld rip off. 'Nuff said.

Topics: Film, National Treasure, Sicko, Trailers

Babylon 5 site Ups Trailer

2007-06-02T13:54:00.001-04:00

Warner Brothers official Babylon 5 website has added new content for the upcoming straight-to-DVD movies that JMS has been working on this year, called The Lost Tales. They've added two behind the scenes videos of JMS touring some sets, along with a short teaser for the DVD, though they promise more content is to come.

From what I understand, lots of video from the cast and others has already been shot and is being embargoed until the DVD release approaches. The site is flash intensive (it's all flash, actually) so be patient, it's worth it. You can pre-order Lost Tales right now, if you'd like.

Topics: Film, Babylon 5, The Lost Tales

What to think about 'Knocked Up'

2007-06-02T13:48:00.001-04:00

This comedy hasn't appealed to me much at all, most of them don't. I want the funny, but I want a story first, you can't have a movie without a story that's just a collection of laughs. This film struck me as one of those that forgot the story, and I was going to speculate as to how well it would do at the box office this weekend. With Friday returns in, there's no point, I know how it will do already, and some people just might be surprised.

Review site Rotten Tomatoes claims that according to their data, Knocked Up is the best reviewed film this year, among those that got an initial wide release (meaning many theaters.) That may be, but it's still a hot summer weekend, it's going up against incumbent Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and features no significant acting talent (notice I said significant talent, not pretty faces.)

If I had to guess without looking, I'd have said there's no way this movie breaks $30 million this weekend, probably half that. From Deadline Hollywood:

[...] they've gone from projecting it to finish in 3rd place with gross receipts of $20+ million, to 2nd place and $25+ million. People close to the film are wishing for more. "First, we hoped for $20M, then $25M and if we can make $30M we'll be ecstatic," one insider told me.

Friday proceeds saw Knocked Up bring in $9.8 million. Last weekend, every film but Pirates 3 went up on Saturday (avg 38.95%) and down on Sunday (avg -10.05%) which would put Knocked Up at 35.65 for the weekend. Not too shabby, and I'd have been wrong, but does it matter?

The film cost $30 million to make and will end the weekend with $35, but after you figure in theater share, you end up with $17.5. You know what? That's not bad either, it'll make back over half it's cost in the opening weekend, even though it looks fairly lame.

Well played.

Topics: Film, Knocked Up

Variety Q&A: Tim Kring

2007-06-02T13:27:00.001-04:00

Daily Variety dumps these short articles onto the 'net on the weekends, usually 50 at a time, but this one should hold some value for fans of NBC's drama Heroes. It features a little background and a Q&A with the shows creator and executive producer, Tim Kring.

Q: What shows have influenced your career?

A: The idea of these big twists and turns that 'Heroes' has very much came from wanting to duplicate the experience that I had watching the Rod Serling shows 'Twilight Zone' and 'Night Gallery' -- those kinds of shows where there was always some very big twist at the end that made you rethink everything that you had just seen.

It's mostly fluff, but there are some interesting tidbits about the man behind the show. Hit Variety for the digs.

Topics: Television, Heroes, Tim Kring

'24' pirate on YouTube gets nailed

2007-06-02T13:18:00.001-04:00

20th Century Fox served YouTube and LiveDigital with subpoenas some weeks ago in search of the identity of a man they claimed had been uploading copies of their hit drama 24 days before it was broadcast on network television. As as expected, both video sharing sites complied with the request and gave to Fox all the information they had on the user, who has now been criminally charged by the FBI for his actions.

From The Hollywood Reporter.

The FBI's criminal complaint charges Romero "with uploading copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network knowing the work was intended for commercial distribution, a felony that carries a statutory maximum sentence of three years in federal prison."

This is great news, because hopefully it will scare some of the little shits who upload this stuff to YouTube and the like into respecting other peoples intellectual property rights and to cease actions that harm the very shows they seem to enjoy. The fewer people that watch these shows on TV, the less money the networks will make from commercial advertisers, which means fewer shows on the air, which means big budget dramas like 24 will disappear.

I am all for this activity from the studios, and I realize that cases like this won't stop everyone, but we need to have enough of them to scare the majority into growing up a little. Three cheers for 20th Century Fox, and as a writer, their stock with me just went up a bit.

Topics: Television, Fox, 24, YouTube

Shuttle launch schedule posted

2007-06-02T13:05:00.001-04:00

For those not aware, the Space Shuttle is scheduled to launch this coming week on Friday, June 8th. NASA has released the TV sched for STS-117, with the following launch-day highlights.

FRIDAY, JUNE 08 FLIGHT Day 1

....STS-117 LAUNCH COVERAGE BEGINS...KSC..............01:30 PM...17:30
....LAUNCH...........................KSC...00/00:00...07:38 PM...23:38
....MECO...................................00/00:08...07:46 PM...23:46
1...LAUNCH REPLAYS...................KSC...00/00:13...07:51 PM...23:51
1...ADDITIONAL LAUNCH REPLAYS........XP5...00/00:45...08:23 PM...00:23
1...POST LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE......KSC...00/00:52...08:30 PM...00:30
2...PAYLOAD BAY DOOR OPENING...............00/01:25...09:03 PM...01:03
3...RMS CHECKOUT...........................00/02:55...10:33 PM...02:33
3...RMS PAYLOAD BAY SURVEY.................00/03:40...11:18 PM...03:18
3...MCC VIDEO REPLAY.................JSC...00/03:52...11:30 PM...03:30
4...CREW ET SEPARATION VIDEO...............00/04:20...11:58 PM...03:58

This sched runs from Tuesday the 5th through landing on the 19th. The middle timestamp is the one that matters, that's when everything is happening in the EDT timezone.

STS-117 will see the Space Shuttle Atlantis resume construction of the International Space Station, bringing home Sunita L. Williams and leaving Clayton C. Anderson onboard the station. You can read more about the mission on NASA's page for STS-117.

Topics: Television, News, NASA

411 Mania interviews Eli Roth

2007-06-02T10:17:00.001-04:00

I came across a site called 411 Mania this week while looking for new news sources, and they've posted an interview with Eli Roth, writer-director of Hostel and its about-to-be-released sequel, Hostel 2. Here's the kicker, this interview is from the future. Now that's what I call getting a scoop baby! I've got a few excerpts from the interview and my thoughts on Roth and the new film, and neither are very pleasant. You've been warned.

Make of it what you will, but the byline says this interview was posted on "06.08.2007" which is Friday of next week. Must be cool living in the future, where you get to score interviews with sick bastards like (yet totally idolized) Eli Roth.

TONY: I talked to Darren Lynn Bousman a couple of months ago, and he told me that he's on Rotten Tomatoes every day seeing what his film is getting rated. As a filmmaker, how much stock do you take in what the critics say?

ROTH: The truth of the matter is that I make films for my fans. When Hostel came out, it got all kinds of diverse reactions. The New York Times said it was misogynistic and homophobic. Art Forum magazine, which is a very high-brow magazine, called it the smartest comment on American imperialism they'd seen in any movie. Le Monde, which is the top newspaper in France, picked it as the best American film of the year. Not just horror film, but the best American film. There were only three American films on their top ten list. We were up there with The New World and The Departed. Hostel was number one on their list. They saw it as an incredible comment on capitalism gone too far.

I'm trying to temper my feelings about movies like Hostel 2 because I know there are a lot of people who are fans of Roth and the first film, and the fact it got a sequel is enough to make that plainly evident. Still, Hollywood is constantly under attack from religious conservatives and Republicans in general (with a helping of stuck-up Democrats too) for having too much violence, naughty words, and showing womens naughty bits.

Those complaints are not legitimate; the FCC regulates television with an iron fist and unlike TV, there's zero chance of anything more than a tiny minority of teenagers (and no kids at all) getting into a theater to watch an R-rated flick like this. It's a matter of choice, many people want to see this stuff, and many people find it offensive. The people that find it offensive want to obliterated from all existence, which makes them downright stupid in my mind.

But then you get films like Hostel which has garnered a new pop phrase -- torture porn -- and not only does it make the situation worse, it actually gives prudes a valid argument for censoring our business.

Elements of this interview just defy logic though, I mean were all these people watching the same film I was? I saw a movie about a bunch of sick freaks that paid good money to a shady nut who kidnapped tourists so his clients could torture them to death. What the f*** does that have to do with commenting on capitalism? How could anyone think that film was smart? It had nudity to draw in the young male crowd and then just blew every attempt at plot away with gore and torture that probably exceeds by a mile anything that has happened in real life.

I know movies are for exploring things that "could" happen or "would never happen" if that suits you, but the point is to tell a story, to get across a message; it's not an excuse to exercise your torture/gore fetish.

TONY: I'm sure you're very familiar with the term "torture porn," which seems to be very popular now. Why do you think so many horror films get branded with that name?

ROTH: I think it was started by David Edelstein, who writes for New York Magazine. He felt that people were getting off on the violence in movies. He immediately put the film in a sub genre of pornographic. A lot of critics when they watch these films, they just react to the violence. The violence becomes the lighting rod, and they don't see anything else beyond it. I think that the term "torture porn" says more about the critic than it does about the movie. I think it speaks volumes about a critics' limited capacity to understand what a horror movie can be.

I can't agree with that at all. I'm a writer, same as Roth. So what if I haven't sold a script, I've written them, I know the craft, I know what the deal is, and it ain't this. Roth can hum until the day he dies, I don't care, there was no discernible plot in Hostel, there was no character development, there were none of the classic elements of a good story.

The entire production existed to try to make people vomit, and now Roth blows it off as high-strung but low-class film criticism. I call bullshit. I know what makes a good script because it's my business to know, I've been studying this stuff for the better part of two straight years, and while I may not be an expert, I damn well know the difference between stupid critics and valid criticism about a terrible movie that seeks to exploit violence at its worst.

I want to be honest here, Roth isn't a bad film maker in general, but he is a terrible writer, and he's one sick bastard. I'm happy he's finding success writing torture porn, but only in the same way I'm happy for the producers of American Idol. They found a new way to exploit the audience rather than entertaining them. They should be ashamed, but they aren't, they are capitalists who found a way to warp the real horrors in life into entertainment. Give 'em their five bucks, they deserve it.

But they won't get mine.

If you're a fan of this film and want to read more, the same guy who did this interview posted a review, also from the future. Quint from AICN has part-two of his set visit report, with part one out there calling your name. Don't forget IGN's review either. Enjoy your torture porn.

Topics: Film, Hostel, Hostel 2, Eli Roth, Interview

Spook Marathon Tonight

2007-06-01T13:35:00.001-04:00

This may very well be the first time I've seen something original or useful from ~~cinescape.com~~ mania.com since they changed their name.

The Travel Channel will broadcast an unprecedented seven straight hours live on Friday, June 1, from 8 p.m. through Saturday, June 2, at 3 a.m. ET. Presenter Yvette Fielding, spiritual medium David Wells, and the rest of the MOST HAUNTED LIVE team will conduct the investigation.

I sent their editor something like four or five letters over the course of two months trying to find out if he was interested in having a new column where actual screenwriters could do essays and editorials about the business.

I know a handful of people, very successful writers some of them, would I thought might be interested in doing something like, and it'd be fairly unique. I never got a single response from him, not so much as a "no thanks." Talk about unprofessional jerks..

Topics: Television, Ghosts, Paranormal, The Travel Channel, Most Haunted

Hostel ends at II

2007-06-01T13:05:00.001-04:00

I can't say how relieved I am to report that Eli Roth won't be making a third installment of his torture porn series Hostel. That first one was just absolutely sickening. There was no plot, no point to it all, it was a sick pain and mutilation fantasy, and thankfully there's not going to be any more of them after this.

"No, there's part one and part two. There's Kill Bill I and Kill Bill II. There's Hostel: Part I and Hostel: Part II; no part III. I mean, never say never -- but, no. That's the story; there's part one and part two - it's over, I'm done with it."

Oh my god, tell me he didn't just mention his garbage in the same sentence as Kill Bill. That's just so incredibly wrong.

Speaking of torture porn, here's a fantastic new clip for your personal viewing pleasure, along with a slobbering IGN review.

The second review comes from Michael Guillen at TwitchFilm, who also praises the film. Here's a brief excerpt from his review: “Hostel 2 takes everything I found offensive about Hostel and ups the ante, becoming even more outrageous and, in the process, somehow funnier and—dare I say it?—more enjoyable. Perfectly pitched to the extreme, Hostel 2 emerges unabashedly camp and this is why it's a better movie than its predecessor." Another great bit of early feedback from a fairly anticipated big summer horror movie.

And people think porn is destroying our society? Give me a break..now we're laughing and enjoying films that are 95% about people torturing other people in the most sadistic ways imaginable. Smooth.

Topics: Film, Eli Roth, Hostel

Nielsen blames DVRs for ratings dearth

2007-06-01T12:56:00.001-04:00

I've written a couple of features this past month on DVRs and how they are affecting television advertising this year (Hysteria Over DVRs and Commercial Skipping, DVRs Take Center Stage) and now Nielsen is throwing down and blaming DVRs for the across-the-board ratings drop we've seen this year. I think only House and American Idol were the only two shows to gain viewers.

Prompted this month by questions from NBC, Nielsen began an investigation into the factors that could have led to the slide. Nielsen's probe is almost complete, but in the meantime the company has discovered several things.

"DVRs appear to be the largest factor in that," said Pat McDonough, Nielsen senior vp planning policy and analysis.

But there are other factors in Nielsen's early findings, among them the difference between an Olympic year (2006) and a non-Olympic year (2007) as well as a higher number of repeat programs this spring than in previous years.

This is kind of funny because I ran across an article named Endless repeats defeat purpose of satellite television this morning while looking for new news sources, and it's hard not see it so plainly right there in front of your face. There's simply less original programming on the air than in recent years, due mostly to the networks horrible phobia of trying something new only to see it fail, and that's entirely due to impatient advertisers.

You get Fox, currently in the top slot amongst the big four, killing of new series after airing less than six full episodes because of bad ratings. There's no one left that has the guts to stick with a show through its first season to see if it can build an audience, rather than being lucky enough to be born with one.

That bit of news about ratings isn't nearly as funny as this is, though.

More than half of digital video recorder users fast-forwarded through commercials while watching prime-time network fare, according to the first study of how many DVR users actually watch ads.

Advertisers are going to go through the roof when they hear about this one. They are already fighting the networks in an attempt to avoid having to pay for their commercials when people record a show but watch it later. They don't want to pay for that at all.

Among DVR households, viewership of the typical prime-time show increases by 73 percent when people who have watched it within three days on DVR are included. Yet the number of people watching the commercials goes up only 32 percent — meaning more than half the DVR viewers avoided ads.

Nielsen didn't have to do a study, I could have told them that. It's half the reason I own a DVR.

They can debate this stuff until the cows come home, what it means, what they can do about it, and all that. One thing remains clear and in my mind indisputable: the industry model for revenue is tanking and they need to come up with something different, and do it fast. Commercials are already history, and I don't want my favorite shows to go with them.

Topics: Television, DVR, Nielsen, TV Ratings

Confirmed: Battlestar done after 4

2007-06-01T12:30:00.001-04:00

I reported on May 11th (as did many places) that Edward James Olmos let slip that Sci Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica was going to wrap it up after just four unimpressive seasons. I'd like to make clear quickly that the first season was great, and the last season is likely to be stellar, it's just the middle that sucked, and the ratings agree with me.

Olmos was dead certain about this, he told iF Magazine (referring to what is shooting right now, but has not yet aired) that "We're heading into the final season. This is the final season as we speak." And it wasn't long before exec producer David Eick came out and flatly denied that the series was done, that no decision had been made, and that this wasn't the first time Olmos said something like this and that he's a bit of a kidder.

And now Eick is a bit of a liar.

"This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end," producers said. "Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end, and we've decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms."

I find it so odd that a show so universally acclaimed by critics could have screwed it up so badly. Everyone talked about it as the best science fiction ever done on television (sorry, that honor belongs to Babylon 5) and even I would put it in the top 5, but it didn't have mass appeal. In fact, it didn't even have niche appeal. BSG is pulling in similar ratings to that of Stargate: SG-1, and that show was recently canceled after a record setting 10 seasons on the air, albeit on cable, not broadcast.

You can sit and dissect it for hours, but there's nothing to be gained. There's a TV movie coming that probably won't involve the main cast, Katee Sackhoff has already quit the show and moved on (she's now on NBC's Bionic Woman remake) and there's supposedly an original spinoff in the works called Caprica that is set before the famous events of the original series. That, by the way, is still very much up in the air right now.

Oddly, Eick is also an exec producer on Bionic Woman, and Ron Moore won't have trouble finding new work out there.

It's sad, but I'd rather see the show wrapped the way the showrunner wants, than to have it just cut off abruptly or have it slowly bleed to death. At least we'll get to see the end.

Topics: Television, Battlestar Galactica, David Eick, Ronald Moore

Rumor: Transformers triology

2007-05-31T15:26:00.001-04:00

Firstshowing is spreading a rumor that studio executives have already agreed that Transformers (Michael Bay) will become a trilogy/franchise, which is really pretty stupid since they don't have the first clue how well the film will do in theaters. I don't mean to call them dumb, or their decision dumb, really it's this retarded rumor coming from a British site called Digital Spy.

Studio bosses have given early approval for two sequels to the Transformers remake due out in July. Director Michael Bay has also told how his version of the 1980s cartoon classic is heavy on the special effects and has cost some £50 million.

I have a hard time believing that any studio, much less Steven Speilberg's DreamWorks would make such a blind leap of faith. This is the movie business we're talking about here, these guys are more serious about money than the banking industry is. I could see them getting together and making this decision within 24 hours of seeing opening day returns, but not beforehand.

As far as I know, it's not uncommon for studios to add options to contracts for potential sequels, but that's pretty standard stuff. You want to get the cast and producers locked in at a moderate price for subsequent films, no matter how well (or badly) the first one does. If it bombs, the options quietly expire. If it explodes, they can't use it as leverage to get better deals right off the bat.

That, however, is far from what we're talking about here. This rumor is that DreamWorks has already ok'ed two more films, no matter how this one does. I don't believe it, and since this "article" doesn't cite a single source (not even an anonymous source) for where this information comes from, I'm inclined to think they are just making it up.

Not cool.

Topics: Film, Transformers, Michael Bay, DreamWorks

Because you can't get anymore pathetic than Uwe Boll

2007-05-31T15:17:00.001-04:00

The notorious film maker with a reputation for doing nothing but game-to-film adaptations with the intention of making them bomb, Uwe Boll has found new lows in the world of "legit" scam artists. From what I know, Boll gets foreign (German) investors to pay for all the films he makes, then sinks them intentionally, giving the investors some sort of tax break due to loopholes in German tax law.

I can only hope this is true, because every single film this jerk has ever made has been absolutely terrible. Why people keep giving him content to ruin for all time is a concept I can't wrap my brain around, but this little one really is the cherry on top: Boll is auctioning off a role in the film version of Ubisoft's Far Cry.

Bidding (on eBay naturally) started at $3000, and you've got to pay your own airfare and accommodations for however long they agree to use you. I'm pretty certain you won't be getting paid for the apperance itself, and I have a feeling this is a violation of SAG rules, which is a bit confounding.

If this production were a breach of SAG's contracts, they'd be all over it by now and we'd see it in the press. Since they aren't, I guess that means this production is working outside of SAG's influence which means a non-union deal -- yet that ought to mean SAG or AFTRA would be boycotting it.

I wonder what the deal is? Maybe they are filming it outside the United States with a completely foreign crew. Either way, ugh, don't waste your money. You'd be better off spending it on acting lessons or something.

Topics: Film, Uwe Boll, Far Cry

Lindsay Lohan is totally screwed

2007-05-31T15:00:00.003-04:00

I've been accused more than once of having a slight obsession with Lindsay Lohan, and I want you, my favorite reader(s), to know that nothing could be further from the truth.

I'm actually obsessed with train wrecks.

You know she's in rehab (again), you know she has a drinking problem and a drug problem. You know she passed out in front of a club less than 24 hours before the rehab visit, but every day seems to bring worse news, and I'm just wondering what to start with, because it's all equally bad.

This story claims that Lohan backed out The Edge of Love due to the producers demanding she be drug tested, which she refused. I previously reported that she had renegged on the deal due to a conflicting schedule, which is what she was saying at the time, which now also makes her a big fat liar too.

Another story reports that Lohan's drinking escapades have goaded police into investigating clubs where rich young celebs hang out, finally having put two and two together, coming up with what was plainly obvious to anybody else with two eyes and a brain: these clubs pander to underage drinkers so long as they are filthy rich.

Now we're hitting rock bottom, with "anonymous friends" of Lohan are telling the press she attempted suicide not once, but twice in the same night. Once by slitting her wrists (or trying to) and another by over-the-counter drug overdose. This in the same month she was photographed snorting coke in a bathroom, and later when she crashed her Mercedes into a tree while intoxicated.

I used to take pleasure in making fun of Lohan because I have a singular hatred for wealthy and privileged people that piss their life away, and even more so those that place other peoples lives in danger. If she wants to OD in a bathroom, that's one thing, but to drive drunk and possibly take a family of four with her -- that really gets to me.

Not anymore though, at this point I actually feel bad for her. You can easily argue that with all that wealth, she above most people can afford to get help for these problems, the best help available on the planet, and that all the drinking, partying, and drug abuse is hell she brought onto herself.

Once you sink below a certain level, it's out of your hands, and I do think that's where Lohan's at right now. We'll see if she's serious about getting help this time, I recall her leaving the last rehab facility on a daily basis, having the balls to show up with her friends in bars during that stint.

She better mean it, otherwise she'll be dead before she hits 21.

Topics: Film, Feature, Lindsay Lohan

Potter 5 debut date changed

2007-05-31T15:00:00.001-04:00

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been moved up two days for a new debut of July 11th, landing it oddly on a Wednesday. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this had something to do with the massive box office recordings that have been set and repeatedly smashed as each successive tent pole film comes out this summer. Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, ... looks like daddy is home, with Potter 5 looking to maximize its opening earnings by squeezing more weekdays into the equation before the weekend hits.

The following Monday after the opening weekend and pretty much the entire workweek drops enormously, so I wonder if we're seeing a trend where Friday is being shunned for an eventual Tuesday, or even a Monday opening. Seems strange at first, but it makes sense after you think about it.

The Stateside launch of "The Order of the Phoenix" will now match up with the first foreign openings in such markets as Belgium and France. The previous four pics have combined for worldwide grosses of more than $3.5 billion, with two-thirds of that from overseas markets.

"The Order of the Phoenix" will open a week before J.K. Rowling's final book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" goes into bookstores on July 21. The six Potter books have sold more than 325 million copies worldwide.

You know, I haven't read any of these books or seen any of the movies yet. Maybe I should wait until the entire series is done, then watch it all at once so I can marvel at how the actors seem to age a few years in between the time I take a leak, get some nachos, and pop the next disc into the DVD player.

Fascinating.

Topics: Film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter

Mark Burnett Brings 'Pirates' to Reality TV

2007-05-31T14:00:00.001-04:00

Oh, how I loathe reality shows. Mindless, boring, explotative jerk fests is what they are. Mark Burnett (Survivor) is undoubtedly one of the masters of bringing this junk to television, and as most reality shows do, this one sounds like something that was dredged from the bottom of sewer.

“Pirate Master” features 16 Americans out of their element, 33 days in a tropical setting, weekly eliminations and a million-dollar prize purse.

Instead of a deserted beach, the contestants live aboard a 179-foot pirate ship as they use clues to find real gold worth real money. The “pirate master,” or last contestant standing, gets the grand booty of $500,000.

* Nine of the 16 prospective pirate masters are in their twenties;
* Five are in their thirties;
* The remaining two are in their forties.
* Two are bartenders.
* One is a male stripper/scientist. (Ed. Note: wtf?!))
* Eight are from California.

AICN has the scoop on the cast, which apparently includes an about-to-be-fired Deputy District Attorney from Nevada.

Topics: Television, Reality, Mark Burnett

Sexism is Not The Problem, Bad Movies Are

2007-05-31T13:00:00.001-04:00

Reuters is carrying a feature from the Hollywood Reporter today attributing the lack of films with female leads to sexism in the business, and that's actually a decent point worth making, but the proof provided as ridiculously pathetic. If anything, it leads me to the exact opposite conclusion, that the problem isn't sexism so much as bad movies.

Recent history has left a graveyard of tombstones reading such names as "Elektra," "Catwoman" and "Aeon Flux," while mausoleums house "Tank Girl" and "Barb Wire." There are exceptions, of course, such as the "Tomb Raider" and "Underworld" movies, but their sequels failed to capitalize on any goodwill created by the first movies.

For what it's worth, and with respect to fans of these films, they were all terrible movies. The beginning to Elektra was cinematically beautiful and entirely uninspiring. I saw nothing in the first ten minutes that made me want to stay put in my seat for another hour and a half. Aeon Flux was convoluted and lacked any kind of story telling discipline.

Neither of them jumped out at the audience which is evident to any critic or viewer right from the start, they were obviously stories that the writer wanted to tell, but not one the audience wanted to see -- and they were executed poorly on top of that.

I don't blame their failure on the leading ladies, and I reject the notion that more films such as those don't see the light of day because of misogynist studio executives and producers. I fault the creative minds behind these films entirely for putting crap on the screen and calling it art.

Oddly, the examples of films that did succeed, at least the first time around, aren't what I'd consider success either. Tomb Raider did well at the box office because Angelina Jolie was in it, which actually would rule out the theory that men are holding films like that down. It wasn't terribly good either, suffering from an egotistical director that fired writer after writer only to take it upon himself to write the script.

The Hollywood Reporter was right about the sequels failing, though, but again I argue it had more to do with their mediocre predecessors than it did sexism.

One manager says it doesn't take X-ray vision to see studio sexism as part of the trouble. Female-oriented action movies, he reasons, take a hit when one fails, whereas a male-oriented action movie that misfires bounces off a studio's back like a bullet off Superman.

One manager is an idiot. Action films attract just one demographic, and one demographic alone: young moderately affluent white men, and to a lesser degree young men in general. They aren't going to see great acting or riveting stories; they want shit to blow up. It's hardly surprising that brain-dead zombies like that aren't going to react well to a woman in the lead role, so if there are accusations of sexism to be thrown around, they really ought to be aimed directly at the audience.

Studio execs may be blind when it comes to separating good scripts from the bad, but they have 'X-Ray' vision when it comes to money. If a female lead could open a movie wide and turn it into a blockbuster, she'd be the star of a franchise that'd never die. I don't care how much of a misogynist an exec supposedly is, money matters more, and in Hollywood, there is no greater past time than milking crap for money.

There's another angle here that I'm going to look at, with this as a inspiration:

But television is another story.

On the small screen, female-starring genre stories become buzzworthy cult hits, such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Alias" and (the just-canceled) "Veronica Mars." The fall season will see a new crop of heroes in the form of a new "Bionic Woman" on NBC and Fox's "The Sarah Connor Chronicles," a spinoff of the "Terminator" movie series.

You can stop right there because I've got something worth thinking about. Perhaps the reason women don't get the kind of big roles men do in feature films is because our society is less willing to see women portrayed in risky ways. We think absolutely nothing of portraying a man as a drunk, drug addicted, murder-happy misanthrope. Look at Sin City, virtually every male lead in that film is a glorified murderer -- and it's awesome.

But then we have a societal contingent that shrieks any moment a role is written for a woman that portrays negative character aspects. Sometimes those complaints are justified when they focus on the obvious, like sex. How often do you see women in roles where they kill without conscience, and a quiet contingent?

If you redo Sin City with all the roles reversed, would you still have that kind of success? I think you would, if you didn't just replace those actors with females, but real actresses of equal talent and ability. You'd also have certain groups from all corners screaming of how the negative portrayal of women sends "all the wrong messages to young girls."

I'm not beyond reason, there probably are quite a few misogynist executives, producers, directors, and even writers in the business. But are they the leading cause for women getting second billing?

It's going to take a lot more than this flimsy concoction of excuses to convince me.

Topics: Television, Film, Feature

'Transformers' domestic debut at LA Film Festival

2007-05-31T12:00:00.001-04:00

A short note from Variety; Michael Bay's big budget action flick Transformers will debut domestically at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 27th, followed by a July 4th public opening. About the thing below, what is it with these studios opening movies internationally first? You shot it here, most of the money you'll make will come from here, maybe you shouldn't be elitest dicks and actually open it here.

Just a thought.

The premiere will be followed by a party on the Festival Promenade on Broxton Avenue.

"'Transformers' is the ultimate L.A. movie, with many of its most exciting action sequences shot on the city's streets," said Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced.

Paramount Picturers Intl. has also set international preems for June 20 in Sitges, Spain, and the next day at the Taormina Film Fest in Italy.

Topics: Film, Transformers, Michael Bay

Disney Drops TV-DVD Bomb on Us

2007-05-31T11:00:00.001-04:00

I didn't know it was such a big deal to make an announcement about all of your upcoming TV-on-DVD releases at once, but I guess even the most common sense ideas come pretty hard to thick headed idiots like Disney.

On the list released by Variety is Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Grey's Anatomy (all third season.) So what's the best part, that previously unreleased on DVD series are coming out, or that each of these sets will have loads of extras? No, it's the hilariously stupid names they're giving them: "Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Third Season -- Seriously Extended Edition"

I think I hear Peter Jackson clamoring outside my window, while I check that out, you can head over to Variety to see the rest of the list.

Topics: Television, DVD Releases, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy

M. Night Shyamalan flick gets a Star

2007-05-31T09:30:00.001-04:00

Alright, technically The Happening already had a star in Mark Wahlberg, but now it has a star chick too. Zooey Deschanel has signed on for Shyamalan's latest film, which has a bit of a history behind it that you should find pretty interesting.

I heard about this project a while back when Shyamalan was shopping it around to all the big studios looking for a place to set up production, and it was notable for two reasons: Shyamalan was meeting directly with the studio heads, which never ever happens; and every single one of them passed on his script.

Shyamalan went home with notes and advice in hand, spending some 6+ weeks reworking it while doing other projects. He then went back to shopping, starting a small bidding war over it before finally landing at 20th Century Fox.

The story itself is about a family trying to survive a "global environmental crisis" that is a "paranoid thriller", but you'll have a hard time finding anything more solid than that. Shyamalan and Fox want to keep this one under wraps at least until it begins shooting later this year.

There are other points of interest, such as this being Shyamalan's first film geared up for an R-rating, and will represent his second project made outside of Disney. And given the description, the stated $57 million dollar budget seems pretty cheap for what they are getting. If it works out with a budget that small, it could mean huge bucks for Fox, even if it's not a blockbuster.

Topics: Film, M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening, Zooey Deschanel

More Shrek on the way

2007-05-31T08:00:00.001-04:00

I sincerely hope you enjoyed the first three Shrek films, because DreamWorks has no intention of letting this franchise die off like Pirates of the Caribbean will be, or how the cast and producers of Spiderman want theirs to do. Fortunately for fans, Sony has no intention of letting that one dry up, even if they have to find another director and can Toby Macguire. DreamWorks animation on the other hand has plans for our friendly green giant.

The Age has a lengthy interview and story on Jeffrey Katzenberg, the kind of guy who defines power broker in this business. If you can get this guys interest, he can get your project greenlit faster than you can crap your pants. If he likes it and is willing to set it up at DreamWorks, you're practically made. Then all you've got to do is actually produce.

Well, it sounded a lot easier in my head..

The first Shrek amassed $US479 million in global box office receipts and sold more than 50 million DVDs. The second one became the third-highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide box office take of $US920 million (it sold 40 million DVDs).

Perhaps I'm missing something, but $920 while incredibly impressive, only pouts Shrek 2 at 7th best all-time. You need to do better than $1.06 billion to take third place from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and of course $1.8 billion to take the top spot. Somebody wasn't fact-checking me thinks.

The fourth Shrek instalment is in train, scheduled for release in 2010. The fifth, he says, will be the last. "It's a finite story, has been from the beginning and I think that's part of its integrity, part of its strength, that we're not thinking this up as we go," he says.

Okay so I lied a little, they are going to end this franchise eventually, and I suppose you have to do with everything. Then again, James Bond is still going, even though I'd rather it didn't.

I can't help but wonder what DreamWorks is doing with all this money. It has to be the most successful indy studio of them all, and yet you don't see them making very many films very often. Maybe that's their secret to success; only make the films you know will be good, only do the stories worth telling.

Check out the interview, it's long, but a fascinating read.

Topics: Film, Shrek, Interviews

NBC Pulls a Micahel Moore -- Heads to Cuba

2007-05-30T15:21:00.001-04:00

Now this is rich, it's been in the news that the U.S. Treasury Department is investigating Michael Moore for violating the travel ban on Cuba, where he took several 9/11 survivors to get the kind of cheap and solid health care they can't get in the United States due to our system which favors corporate interests and insurers over sick people.

Moore thinks it's just the Bush administration abusing federal agencies as a weapon for personal and partisan political games, and he's 100% right, because NBC is going to Cuba to shoot The Today Show live -- and they are publicizing it.

Although Lauer is a frequent round-the-world traveler for "Today," it took 18 months to arrange the visit to a country only 90 miles from the United States, said Jim Bell, the show's executive producer. Bell used his ability to speak Spanish in the negotiations.

News organization that hasn't had the balls to challenge the administration on anything for the past six years -- good to go. A documentary film maker illustrating how communist Cuba has better health care than the United States does -- childish persecution on baseless grounds.

That's our government in a nutshell folks.

Topics: News, NBC, Today Show, Michael Moore, Cuba

'Hostel 2' Being Pirated Already

2007-05-30T15:00:00.001-04:00

Everyone jumped on the chance to report that Spider-Man 3 was being sold on the streets of China two weeks before it hit theaters worldwide, and we were all wrong. Those came directly from the Associated Press which is increasingly becoming a home for shills and hacks, and it turns out they were completely wrong. Some enterprising pirate (minus the eye patch) had taken SM3 art off the Internet and made a DVD booklet out of it with random junk on the DVD inside.

Turns out fact checking isn't a requisite skill over at the AP these days.

Now though, I'm hearing that Hostel 2 is being passed around, a copy of a studio cut. The difference between this report and the last one is that this one is coming from the person who actually bought the disk (congratulations, you committed a willful act of copyright infringement in the name of blogging.)

While looking for a pair of cheap sunglasses and a velour leisure suit down in Santee Alley, I ran across a man in the middle of the street selling a pile of Hostel: Part II DVDs.

I asked him how it was already on bootleg, and we got in a small argument about the film's release date. After a fifteen-minute squabble, I purchased the disc for five dollars. The back of the case had the description for the first Hostel film. I thought I might have been hornswoggled.

Upon home inspection of the DVD, all I can say is that S. Mooridian is going to be in a lot of trouble. His name is watermarked on the print.

I'm sorry to say that I don't have the first clue who the hell "S. Mooridian" is, nor has my brief search brought up anything of value. I suppose it's someone who works for Lionsgate, the studio behind the film, albeit someone who won't be working there very much longer.

I for one will not be seeing this movie, ever. The first one was sick and had no real plot to speak of, it was just like a porn movie except they exchanged the nudity and sex for torture and killing. This stuff really is screwed up, and whoever makes this crap needs to get some help. Seriously, real psychological help.

But who am I to argue with success, it made enough money for a sequel, didn't it?

Topics: Film, Hostel 2, Piracy

'Haunting in Connecticut' is Gonna Rock (w/interview)

2007-05-30T14:00:00.001-04:00

I'm all over the map when it comes to movie genres, but if there has been anything in the past year that I've gravitated towards, it's (supposedly) real-life hauntings. I don't believe in ghosts, demons, or the supernatural on any level for that matter, but it's still scary all the same. Things you can't control, things you can't see, things you can't understand -- things that can hurt you, I'm really starting to love it, and Haunting in Connecticut sounds like it's right up my new-found alley.

One of the sites I monitor for news is shocktillyoudrop.com which is kind of an offshoot of comingsoon.net. Anyway, Ryan Rotten (like that name is real..) held an interview with Connecticut's Dan Farrands.

The movie tells the true story of a family forced to relocate near a clinic where their teenage son is being treated for cancer. There, they discover that the home they have rented is a former mortuary with a dark history that might account for the extraordinary manifestations of the boy's illness and the supernatural events that threaten the family.

I suppose that the stress of it all could have caused the family to make it up for the financial attention, or from mental collapse. Either way, it sounds like a good flick.

No information on when filming will wrap, what distributors they've lined up if any, or what kind of time frame we're looking at for release. It may end up going straight to DVD, who knows.

Just a quick gripe, I'm really disappointed with the interview. It wasn't confusing, short, and left much to be desired. No more interviews for Mr. Rotten this year.

Topics: Film, Haunting in Connecticut, Dan Farrands

Princess Di docu Takes Criticism

2007-05-30T13:00:00.001-04:00

I understand that Princess Diana was loved and revered in many parts of the world, but something about her death has bugged me all of these years, and in fact continues to befuddle me even today - why do people run from photographers? You'd think they were terrorists bent on kidnapping, or brain-eating zombies, or something that's actually worth fleeing from at 100mph.

Forget that the morons who run like this are putting other innocent people's lives in danger, they don't tend to give much thought to their own safety either. Had Diana been wearing a seat belt, the woman would probably be alive today.

Lindsay Lohan runs from them like the plague, and for what? So they can only get 73 pictures of you instead of 98? How could you possibly be that delusional that you'd put your life and everyone else's at great risk (breaking half a dozen driving-related laws in the process no doubt) just to run from photographers?

Never made sense to me, and now there's all this controversy of this documentary that's going to show "graphic" video from the accident scene, such as Diana laying on the ground with an O2 mask on her face.

Wow, that's pretty graphic. What kind of monster would do something like that? For shame.

Diana's body appears thrown in the footwell behind the driver's seat — and also has new interviews with photographers and other crash witnesses, the Observer reported.

Channel 4 said it had "carefully and sensitively selected" the images and that in a photo showing the car's occupants, the victims had been blacked out. It said that image had previously been published in the British press and that reports about the film's content were inaccurate.

"These photographs are an important and accurate eyewitness record of how events unfolded after the crash," Channel 4 said in a statement. "We acknowledge there is great public sensitivity surrounding pictures of the victims and these have not been included."

This has nothing to do with images that are too graphic to air, and everything to do with royalty not getting their way the way they used to in the good old days. Film maker won't bury his own movie? Off with his head!

Seriously though, I sympathize with the families plight. I'm sure they don't want to see her on the TV like this, but the answer isn't the conservative mantra of don't like it, take it off the air, it's don't like it, change the channel.

Also, let's not forget this little gem.

A French investigation ruled that Paul was drunk and lost control of the car while trying to evade photographers. The British investigation concluded that Diana was not pregnant or about to marry Fayed, and that the crash was caused by Paul, who was drunk and speeding.

Okay, let's leave aside the drunk speeding driver part for a moment, because I'd like to know why the hell an inquest into the accident determined that Diana wasn't pregnant or about to marry some guy. What the hell that all about?

See, they need to air this thing in the United States, I'm tired of seeing our own dirt, I want some of theirs for a change. They investigate totally unrelated circumstances just to make it all the more entertaining.

What pillars of journalism they are.

Topics: Television, Documentary, Princess Diana

Meet Keira Knightley's Ego

2007-05-30T11:00:00.001-04:00

Yes, I could talk for days about how much I hate egotistical actors, and today is no different than any other. Only the names change, and this time it's Keira Knightley. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise made her rich beyond rich, and famous beyond famous. Most people would be grateful, if not somewhat respectful. But not Keira, she's glad it's over with so she can go do something that revolves around her instead of that damn Johnny Depp guy.

"This is such a relief. Not that I don't enjoy all that Pirates stuff, but it's not about my character--it's about Johnny (Depp)'s character. It's not focusing on emotional turmoil. It's been great just to get my brain engaged."

Yes, we get it. The movie wasn't all about you, and you want to be in movies that are all about you. Just wait until her next film debuts and she's quickly reminded what it's like not to be in a movie with that damn Johnny Depp guy.

Hint: it's very, very quiet.

Topics: Film, Pirates 3, Keira Knightley

Casting News: Indy 4, Terminator 4

2007-05-30T10:01:00.001-04:00

Some fella named Marcus Schenkenberg (read the first paragraph of this, it's hilarious) supposedly went trolling at the Cannes Film Festival begging for work, and unsurprisingly landed a role for the next great box office bomb (in a bad way) - Terminator 4. No other information available, including the whereabouts of this mans acting talent. If you've heard of know anything, please call his agent immediately, I hear there's a reward available.

Of more substance and something I've been oblivious to, Cate Blanchett has come onboard for the currently-in-production Indiana Jones 4, and IGN is speculating as to what role she may play. (Actually it's a lot more than just spec.) Really there's a fair amount of speculation in general going on in that article, so don't bother going if you're going to be upset on a later date when it turns out that this particular speculation happens to have been true.

If you're brave enough to go, I have to say that the story sounds like it's very fragmented by locale. That could be good, but it also could be bad. I prefer my stories to be tightly woven that take my brain through a wild wide, not so much the characters physically to make up for that kind of intellectual ineptitude.

I will screw you over with this bit of information, however, the rumored working title:
Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods -- because, you know, that's really original..

Topics: Film, Indiana Jones 4, Terminator 4

Neil Gaiman adapting 'The High Cost of Living' to Film

2007-05-30T09:00:00.001-04:00

I don't know anything about Neil Gaiman or his work, but I've always heard good things about him, and it seems like he's in the verge of breaking into Hollywood with his work -- as firstshowing notes -- in much the same way that Frank Miller (Sin City) did. Gaiman is writing the script and may direct (both bad choices unless he's shown demonstrable talent for either) but I've got to take issue with this little quip:

The way Hollywood works these days is that any adaptation or idea always takes a long time to come about, moving in small steps, unless it sparks something in the mind of a big Hollywood exec.

This is all wrong, the only reason this film has been greenlit is because it has a star actor attached to it now (which you can read about if you head over to firstshowing which is host almost all films get going. Writers don't matter because the industry treats them like gutter scum; no respect and no weight to throw around. A big director or even a mediocre actor that comes on board can move a film from 3+ years of development hell to the fast-track in exactly 1.5 seconds -- no joke.

Anyway, it looks like Guillermo del Toro is on board as a producer which is actually no guarantee that he'll being quality to the project, that he'll be very involved with it, or that he'll even stay attached. Talent comes and goes with these things pretty fast.

I don't find it likely that Gaiman will be allowed to direct this film, though. There's a chance that del Toro is on board to throw his weight around to get Gaiman the directing gig, which is probably what happened with Frank Miller and Sin City (Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez got that project off the ground, not Miller.)

Something to think about.

Topics: Film, Neil Gaiman, The High Cost of Living, Guillermo del Toro

10 Movie Lines to Live and Die by

2007-05-29T17:00:00.001-04:00

Claus Jacobsen, one of the more insightful writers over on Newsvine has collected a list of 10 really great movie lines. Frankly, I've never heard of most of the films on his list, but the 11th and final entry (blame him, he said it was ten) should have been #1, and gets my vote as one of the greatest lines of all time -- no shocker, it was written by one of the masters of dialog, David Mamet.

11) Third prize: You're fired.
The famous speech from Glengarry Glen Ross, also written by David Mamet - with Alec Baldwin playing the vicious Blake who is sent to deliver this nasty little surprise (YouTube link):

“We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest: As you all know the first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? The second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is: You’re fired! You get the picture? You’re laughing now?”

I removed the YouTube link (which you can get at the original page) because it's a seven minute clip from the film which is definitely copyright infringement, which I absolutely do not support.

Baldwin's scene where he verbally rapes three real estate salesmen is only seven minutes long, he's doesn't appear anywhere else in the entire film, but it's so brilliantly brutal that it kind of eclipses everything else. This is without a doubt one of the finest films ever written, hands down.

No action, no nudity, enough swearing to melt your face off in the first fifteen minutes, and a masterpiece of personal conflict. Great stuff.

Topics: Film, Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet, Newsvine

Fansite Scores Interview with Ass. Art Director for Alien vs. Predator 2

2007-05-29T16:00:00.001-04:00

I didn't realize right away that this guy was so low on the totem pole, which I guess explains why the fansite alienexpereince was able to get an exclusive interview with the guy. Andrew Li has some interesting credits to his name over the years, mostly as a set designer, but I'm sure he has some interesting things to say about the coming AvP sequel.

A little about that, first, AvP was nothing but a fanboy film. I'm sorry to denigrate it like that and I know a lot of people liked it, but it was a complete disgrace to both the first two Alien films (you can't disgrace the most recent two) and the first Predator, and is it any surprise that those films were written and helmed by industry luminaries, while the sequels were made by second and third tier people for a studio that obviously has no interest in making quality films, only sucking every last drop of money they can from old ideas.

I am really hard on studios that time and time again avoid new ideas and risks like the plague, even though they wouldn't have these franchises to freeload off of had they not had the courage to experiment in the first place. Of course nobody thought Alien was going to be a hit, but they gave it a go, and look what happened?

AvP was moderately amusing, and it served its purpose (to make money at the cost of quality) enough to get another sequel made. So good for them, we get to suffer through another crappy film so they can make a few bucks to make up for all the other sequels and failed adaptations that nobody wants to see that blew up in their face this year, and last year, and the past five years.

Now that I've expressed my obvious displeasure with this kind of film making, here's a snippet of the interview with Andrew Li, an art and set guy who actually has two bosses above him when it comes to designing sets. Yeah, I think he's got a ways to go.

Question: Neither of you are strangers to science fiction and horror; what from your experience have you brought to the sets of AVP 2?

Andrew Li: I worked mainly on the sewer set and the predator spacecraft. Andrew drew from his experience in designing Dawn of the Dead to create the creepiness of the sewer set. We wanted to keep the sewer relatively small so that the aliens and predators would look very menacing and horrifyingly huge in the set. In fact, when the predator is standing in full costume, he is over 8 feet tall!!!

Aliens, fighting Predators..in a sewer. That's actually fitting because that's where this film belongs, floating next to feces at the bottom of a sewer. My apologies to everyone working on this film, my feelings do not represent a personal dislike of you or a lack of respect for your talents.

I am laying this entirely at the feet of a bored, cowardly studio. For all it's worth, I hope the film succeeds for the sake of these people's careers. And for what it's not, I hope it fails, because the studio deserves to eat this one.

Topics: Film, Alien vs. Predator

ComingSoon visits Industrial Light & Magic

2007-05-29T15:00:00.001-04:00

Comingsoon.net has a nice feature up that continues the recent theme of ILM and Pirates 3 news around here, where they were actually invited to visit Skywalker Ranch and have a chat with two key players working on the massive FX project.

[Supervisor John Knoll] went on to elaborate on the complexity of the visual effects process. "So often when you're doing visual effects, it's a very complex process, it's expensive and because of that it's often very carefully planned, the angles are all very carefully storyboarded and thought out and then you might try and shoot just those pieces so you're as efficient as you can and there's frequently a stylistic change when you get to those scene you just feel that there's something more deliberate and planned about it and the shooting methodology just gave us this nice just seamless thing where it fit into the rest of the movie."

I nominate Knoll for speaking - and comingsoon for dictating - the longest runon sentence in the history of the Internets. The piece is quite long and a wonderful read, so what are you waiting for? Go read it!

Topics: Film, Industrial Light & Magic, Pirates 3

New 'Transformers' Set Photos

2007-05-29T13:51:00.001-04:00

Michael Bay has uploaded some new still photos from the set of Transformers, which due to the cool nature of picasaweb, I will present to you below via a slideshow. Nothing special to see here, in fact it's pretty tame stuff, but hey, even a person such as myself that thinks the movie will stink beyond description (the Michael Bay effect, not directly related to the subject matter) is getting a little excited about all the coming CGI carnage.

Topics: Film, Michael Bay, Transformers

Hysteria Over DVRs and Commercial Skipping

2007-05-29T13:00:00.001-04:00

I wrote a feature a couple of weeks ago about a Variety story, regarding how people using DVRs to skip commercials has been totally freaking out the broadcast networks who are being crunched by advertisers. I think the entire situation has been manufactured by overly optimistic networks and blatantly greedy advertisers -- essentially meaning it's entirely their fault, and that they are imagining it all.

At that point, I thought things were coming to a head and would result in an uneasy but beneficial compromise between the networks and advertisers, but it appears that I under estimated the situation.

Before I get into that, I'll try to explain this as quickly as possible: advertisers do not want to pay for their own commercials that air on TV when those programs are recorded by DVRs and watched at a later time. Networks are hurting badly because some of the more popular shows are losing a significant chunk of their audience to DVR time-shifting.

Both groups have been trying to figure out how to stop people from skipping commercials, an invasion most people have no interest in tolerating. Gimmicks with commercials are starting to appear, and AP writer David Bauder is now calling the situation "desperate" for the networks.

"We all need to become more creative in how we incorporate sponsors into a program," said Ed Swindler, executive vice president for NBC Universal ad sales. "No one on the creative side or the business side wants to make commercials intrusive, but we do need to commercialize efficiently so viewers can afford to get free television."

I actually feel bad for the networks, because what they're talking about (subtly) is pushing advertising directly into the shows themselves. Rather than showing a couple of main characters in a half-hour sitcom eating pizza from a pan, or a plain unmarked box, Domino's Pizza might walk in with a $10,000 check, and that box suddenly says Domino's on it, and shot in a way where TV viewers can clearly see the markings.

It's called product integration, and it's making the creative minds behind the shows livid. There is zero chance the networks are going to push more product placements and endorsements into the shows themselves without an even bigger fight than the one they are having with the advertisers right now.

TNT aired a five-episode mini-drama about a young woman, with viewers directed to a Web site — plastered with the sponsoring credit card company's ads — for the finale. Fox created an animated taxi driver, Oleg, who would appear during breaks talking to his passengers. Next month Court TV offers a mystery about an unsolved murder with clues dropped in commercial breaks, online and via text messages; the game's winner gets $25,000. Fans of NBC's "Scrubs" were asked trivia questions at the beginning of a commercial break, the answer appearing in between ads.

Seinfeld will appear in several quick comedy skits for NBC next fall that also promote his upcoming movie.

That's creative, but it's not going to help in the least. People who have DVRs aren't going to see the changes in commercials because they're skipping them. They'll be totally oblivious to them, as will I. Often times, I'll forgo seeing a program live just so that I can use my DVR to skip the commercials.

Unlike with some people I suppose, commercials have zero influence on my life. I've never bought nor wanted to buy any product because of a commercial - ever. Even if it was physically impossible for me to skip a commercial, I'd still mute the TV, get up to take a leak or get something to snack on.

Nothing they do will change my habits, which means as a viewer, I'm worthless to the networks and the advertisers -- and that's kind of my point. People with DVRs that skip commercials are not potential converts for new ideas, they are dead to networks and advertisers. Period.

The networks need to wake up and realize that the value of their audience is far less than they think it is.

What needs to happen is that the networks and studios need to innovate an entirely new revenue model that is not based entirely on ads. Now that people have experienced the ability to skip commercials, they are simply not giving it up.

Not by a long shot.

Topics: Television, Feature, DVRs, TiVo, Commercials, Advertising

Pirates 3 Gets it's Game On

2007-05-29T11:00:00.001-04:00

According to Sci Fi Wire, the recently released Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (or more likely the franchise in general) will be adapted into a game in the form of a MMORPG. The Wire has a bright yellow safety sticker that says they'd like you to know that this game is not to be confused with the console game -- also based on the franchise -- that was just released.

Participants will be able to play the game a third of the way through without subscribing, though they will see ads. For unlimited access, players pay a monthly fee of $9.95. To date, nearly 100,000 people have registered on the game's Web site, requesting information about the game as well as a chance to participate in its current beta status.

Supposedly this game has been under development for eight years now, and no date for the games release has been set.

Topics: Film, Games, Pirates 3, Pirates of the Caribbean

Reminder: House Finale Tonight

2007-05-29T10:09:00.001-04:00

I've only recently become a fan of House, mostly because I have a severe allergic reaction to both American Idol and Fox itself. I can't really stand either of them and try to avoid them at all costs, which can be a bit of a trial. Firefly was on Fox and it was a terrific, if short lived show, and now that I've been sucked into it, House is something I can't really get enough of right now.

I borrowed the first season on DVD and will be writing a spec script for the show this coming month, so I should be a bit of an expert on the show in very short order. Before I decided to write a spec, I was really nervous about watching this show because it all seemed so very complex. I'm no more of a doctor than anyone else and it seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, like the best you could do without spending eight years actually becoming a doctor is just sit back, and enjoy.

I actually enjoy it more, now that I've spent some time breaking it down, figuring out what kind of things they like to do for the act breaks and whatnot. As the first season progressed, I noticed that they started going to commercials more often on a sudden change in the patients condition, usually for the worse, while early only they used the prototypical drama structure, ending acts on moral dilemmas for the main characters more than anything else.

I won't bore you with the minutia of specing, and I generally don't write television show reviews because I don't see the point. If you were interested in what happened, you'd probably take the time to watch it, and then you'd already know what happened, right? It all seems a bit too wasteful.

Don't expect a review of the finale on this blog here tonight, you can get plenty of those tomorrow around the Internets and I'll probably link to several of them. I really just wanted to drop in and remind people that after the silly break, tonight is the last night you'll get to see any new House until January of next year.

I'm going to do whatever it takes to get my hands on more DVDs from previous seasons, and write my spec script since there are few shows hotter than this one right now. What will you be doing in between now and January?

Here's a suggestion, read this TV Guide interview I wrote about with Omar Epps -- just don't get mad when it reveals things about his character before you see the finale. You've had fair warning.

Topics: Television, House, Fox

Industrial Light & Magic Re-invents Water for Pirates 3

2007-05-29T09:00:00.001-04:00

The Hollywood Reporter has a great piece up today about the enormous challenges the 2,000+ CGI effects shots for Pirates 3 placed on companies such as George Lucas' ILM. In fact, they went beyond simply using the most advanced computer imagry they had for this job -- they invented some new stuff along the way.

"We had a lot of very difficult shots that featured the water," Knoll said. "The maelstrom was about a mile and a half across, and in order to get enough detail, the fluid simulation has to be at very high resolution. That is a very difficult thing to do because of the shape of the water surface ... in all three dimensions."

As someone who has a moderate understanding of what goes into CGI shots such as this, I can personally testify as to how incredibly difficult it is just to get realistic looking water from a single still frame, but here we're talking about an epic 20-minute long sea battle during a storm.

As a result, the team at Industrial Light + Magic -- which was the lead VFX house on the film and which completed about one-third of the film's estimated 2,000 VFX shots -- developed new tools to warp and composite the fluid simulation in the sequence.

Not only do they have a lot of hot shot animators working for them, they have beefy software engineers and a health heaping of mathematiticians as well. Again, like this article I posted the other day, this is a great read if you're interested in magic behind the movies.

Topics: Film, Industrial Light & Magic, Pirates 3, Special Effects

Batman Sequel Gets IMAX Treatment

2007-05-29T08:00:00.001-04:00

USA Today reports that Batman: The Dark Knight will have a number of scenes shot with IMAX camera equipment, which will give those scenes significantly better quality than the rest of the film. In addition to these scenes looking better in normal theaters, they'll be screened in IMAX theaters without having to be stretched or distorted to fill the entire screen -- you'll be able to see them in all of their original glory.

If they actually decide to screen these scenes in IMAX theaters, that is, I don't know if that's planned or not. There are only 280 IMAX theaters in all the world, with typical screen sizes of 72 feet wide by 52 feet high, and only about a third of those even show theatrical films, so says USA.

Nolan will shoot four action sequences — including the introduction of the Joker, played by Heath Ledger. "There's simply nothing like seeing a movie that way," Nolan says. "It's more immersive for the audience. I wish I could shoot the entire thing this way."

There are two low-resolution pictures provided with the story, one is a still from the film, and the other is a shot of the production - both featuring Hedger as The Joker.

This news in and of itself really doesn't mean much of anything, it's just studios and directors playing with really expensive toys just because they can. I don't know if the entire movie will be remastered for IMAX or not, but if it is, it won't be for a long time, so again, this is probably just more for fun and publicity than anything.

Topics: Batman, The Dark Knight

Lindsay Lohan was Fighting with Girlfriend Before Crash

2007-05-28T17:00:00.001-04:00

I know, I've heard a couple of times that I seem to have an obsession with Lindsay Lohan. That's not true at all, really. I have an obsession with the traffic that Lindsay Lohan brings me. See, that makes it all better, right?

Lohan was arrested over the weekend when she crashed her car into a curb/tree, and police found cocain in the vehicle -- which will pretty much get everyone in the car arrested. Lohan, though, was said to be drunk at the time.

Now the real dirt starts to come out as reports are saying that Lohan was trying to chase down a friend of hers, Samantha Ronson, a club DJ. I've heard rumors that Ronson is a lesbian (which there is nothing wrong with) and that Lohan and her were more than just "friends." So, well, you can make up your own mind about this:

Reports suggest the 20-year-old was embroiled in a bitter exchange of words with Ronson, the younger sister of producer/DJ Mark Ronson, when she smashed her car into a palm tree. A source tells British newspaper the Daily Mirror, "She was trying to talk to Sam--they were screaming, obviously arguing, and Lindsay was heard to shout, 'You fucking lesbian bitch.'

There, aren't you glad I updated you on the very latest that is Lindsay Lohan's tragically shattered life? She can't even have an honest quarrel with her ~~lesbian lover~~ best friend without having that mean, nasty press ~~run her off the road and into a tree~~ take pictures of her drunk ass crashing her car for the fifth time in a year.

Man, I wish I was rich. I'd have like three lesbian lovers, and I'd crash my car into palm trees all the time too. Damn press!

Topics: News, Lindsay Lohan, Samantha Ronson

Dominic Monaghan is Pissed

2007-05-28T16:00:00.001-04:00

According to Hollywood.com, former Lost actor Dominic Monaghan is upset that his character was killed off in the season 3 finale, though presumably he's more upset about losing his job that what happened to his character.

"I think lots of people are gonna be pretty pissed off. Especially as there are others on the show they are more keen on having disappear."

People are more upset about Lost's inability to pay off things they spend all season setting up. From what I've heard from fans, the finale was much closer to what they remember enjoying about Lost from the start, and that's the very first time I've heard such a compliment from them since the second season debut.

Lost has lost over half it's audience between then and now, and ABC has decided to cancel the series in two years in a bizarre attempt to placate diehard fans and the shows producers, even as the series continues to struggle in the ratings.

I think Monaghan should be thankful that his career is no longer stuck in the mud. Lost has been a sinking ship for over a year-and-a-half now probably won't make it the two more years it's been promised by the network.

Topics: Television, Lost, Dominic Monaghan, ABC

Ashley Judd is 'Bug'ed

2007-05-28T15:30:00.001-04:00

Cinematical has part of a Q&A held between ~~entertainment reporters~~ journalists and some of the cast and producers of the film Bug, which I've heard isn't terribly good. The film starts off with typical fare -- Agnes White (played by Judd) has to deal with a violent ex played by Harry Connick Jr. (which is either brilliant, or incredibly stupid.) White's new found savior goes native on her, exhorting wild conspiracy theories about cults and UFO's, which somehow degrades into a movie about people having to deal with "infestation of parasites and insects."

And to think, somebody actually greenlit this thing. Wow. Bug debuted on Friday up against Pirates 3, but that's still no excuse for only bringing in $3.3 million for the entire weekend. This one is a certifiable bomb, as far as I'm concerned.

Question: Was it an easy decision, for you to sign on for this one?

Ashley Judd: It was very easy for me to decide to do Bug. Billy had been good enough to send the script to my agent. [..]

Suggestion to Judd: fire your agent, you both are clueless when it comes to knowing the difference between a good script and a roll of toilet paper with your name on it.

Read it if you must, but there are better things to do today. Like eating. Or taking a nap.

Topics: Film, Bug, Ashley Judd, William Friedkin

Pirates 3 Plunders Box Office

2007-05-28T15:00:00.001-04:00

Depending on where you look, Pirates 3 either brought in $112 million over the three-day weekend, or about $126m. It doesn't really matter since it's way off Spider-Man 3's domestic record breaking $159 million take, but also because that's still just an absolute ton of money, good for 5th all time for opens. When you look at over seas box office gross though, it's clear who the champ is today, and it ain't Toby Macguire.

On the overseas front, "At World's End" took in a monstrous $205.5 million internationally at 17,500 playdates in 102 markets.

That's $401 globally for Pirates 3 against Spideys $382 (first six days), and Pirates 3 hasn't even opened in China yet. I'd like to think that my predictions will hold true, that the third and (for now) final entrant into this trilogy will climb into the Top 10 for all-time gross sometime next month, something SM3 has failed to do.

Variety has all the details above.

Topics: Film, Pirates of the Caribbean, Box office

AICN Finds 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' Trailer (animated)

2007-05-28T14:40:00.001-04:00

Ain't it Cool News found a trailer for the new Star Wars: The Clone Wars trailer at StarWars.com. This is not the "trailer" that was circulating over the past few days that turned out to be created by fans, this is as official as it gets (as if the fact it's on starwars.com wasn't enough to tell you that.) I haven't seen it yet, but if the animation in the series is anything like this poster, then I'm very disappointed.

Those graphics look like a FPS from five or six years ago, they are that primitive. Very disappointed, actually, doesn't do it justice. I know ILM doesn't do TV shows (no time, plus I doubt anybody could afford them) but that's no excuse for animation this poor.

I know there are a lot of Star Wars fans out there, but movie fans are not the same thing as TV fans, much less a show that's pure animation (and bad animation at that.) Does Lucas really think there will be a draw out there for this? I'm just not seeing it.

The coming live-action series, however, could be huge. It could bust American Idol huge, or it could blow out from a lack of solid writing. There are a million ways to screw this up, and I'm betting the crew Lucas puts together will find a way.

Topics: Television, Star Wars, The Clone Wars, George Lucas

Star Trek 11 Gets a Composer

2007-05-28T14:30:00.001-04:00

Jerry Goldsmith was one of the most talented composers I've ever had the pleasure of hearing in my lifetime. He composed the music for over 230 projects and contributed to the soundtrack of another 49 films and TV series over the years. The world lost one its best when he passed away in 2004, and one of our cultures lonest living legacies has been forced to find a replacement.

I'm talking about Trek; Nemesis, Insurrection, First Contact, The Final Frontier, The Motion Picture, and episodes of Voyager and The Next Generation.

My favorite scores are probably Medicine Man and The Edge, but there are so many more than you can't keep them all in your head.

I knew that if I was ever in a position to both write and direct my own film, I wasn't going anywhere else to get my score, no matter how much it would cost or how long I would have to wait. But time ran out.

The Trek franchise moves on and the 11th installment helmed by Lost creator J. J. Abrams needs a composer.

Paramount Pictures has confirmed to FMW that Michael Giacchino is indeed attached to the new Star Trek movie.

I'm not impressed by Michael Giacchino's history, where at least a third of his credits are video games. There's nothing wrong with that per se, and I've heard some pretty damn good original music for some games before, but it's not very confidence inspiring for such a huge task. This is not the kind of person you replace a Jerry Goldsmith with -- this is Abrams going with a guy he knows and has confidence in, not someone who's really earned the right to do this.

He may be good, we'll have to see. I have hopes, but I also have doubts.

Star Trek XI will probably be released sometime late next year.

Topics: Film, Star Trek