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MOVIE & TV NEWS
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"Star Trek"
To Get Prequel Trilogy
"Enterprise" wasn't
enough, now AICN
reports on a potential new development:
"First, the good news.
No Berman. No Braga. Instead, Jordan Kerner (Snow Dogs, Inspector Gadget,
The Mighty Ducks and D2 and D3) is being brought in to produce. Right now,
he's in the early stages of developing a prequel trilogy. First question,
obviously, is "a prequel to what?" After all, the various TV shows have
played all sorts of tricks with the timeline. When I hear "prequel trilogy,"
it sounds to me like we're going to see young Kirk and young Spock and
young McCoy. It sounds to me like we're talking about Starfleet Academy.
Instead, we're looking at films that sound like they're all about big intergalactic
events, but which don't appear to be about any characters, which is what
Gene Roddenberry's original vision was ALWAYS about. Characters. Don't
just try to tell some big budget spectacle story. I hear the first film's
about a civil war, the second film's devoted largely to the galactic switch-over
from a fission standard to fusion, and then there's a third film where
we'll finally see an Ensign Kirk show up for all of about the last 20 minutes.
Just Kirk. Nobody else. And no Enterprise. And that notion they're discussing
in hushed and excited tones about putting William Shatner's head on a younger
actor's body? Easily the goofiest bad idea I've heard since Lex Luthor,
flying Kryptonian. It almost makes me want to see them do it, just for
the laugh value"
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Alexander Site
Opens
Warner Brothers has
opened a teaser site for "Alexander" find it at alexanderthemovie.com.
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Green Toys With
Cartoon Network
<img
 According
to the Hollywood Reporter Seth
Green is executive producing an animated series for the Cartoon Network.
The cable channel ordered 20 episodes of the untitled project. It will
be a stop-motion cartoon depicting iconic toys acting out satirical vignettes.
Green described it as, "It's like 'Saturday Night Live' with toys instead
of actors."Possible scenarios include, superhero action figures could be
shown struggling to co-exist in a scenario lampooning MTV's "The Real World."
"We're ecstatic to be doing it with the Cartoon Network." Green said. He
created and produced the series with Matthew Senreich, of magazine publisher
Wizard Entertainment.
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Some DVD News
High-res shots of
The
Star Wars Trilogy casing are available, as are details on Showgirls:
VIP Special Edition, Simpsons:
Season 4, The Mask: SE, Copland:
SE, The
Butterfly Effect, Blazing
Saddles: SE & Eurotrip.
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Comcast Wants To
Buy TechTV, Marry It To Video Game Channel
Reuters reports that
Comcast Corp., the U.S.'s largest cable company, said it would buy TechTV,
the technology cable channel, for an estimated $300 million in in hopes
it would boost the subscriber base of its video game channel. TechTV, with
shows like "Robot Wars" and "Spy School" with 43 million subscribers, will
be merged with Comcast's G4 network, a channel devoted to video games that
has 15 million subscribers. Comcast will pay Vulcan, the investment firm
nearly $300 million for the channel, a source familiar with the matter
said.
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Flight of the Phoenix
Redux
Find details on shooting
taking place in Namibia at The
Age. <
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"The Passion of
Brian?"
IMDb reports that
"Movie distributors are planning to re-release Monty Python classic Life
Of Brian as a light-hearted alternative to Mel Gibson's harrowing epic
The Passion Of The Christ. To mark the 25th anniversary of the biblical
satire, the film will be shown in cinemas in Los Angeles, New York and
other US cities." Distributor Rainbow president Henry Jaglom says, "We
decided this is an important time to re-release this film, to provide some
counter-programming to The Passion," and adds that he hopes the film will
"serve as an antidote to all the hysteria about Mel's movie,"
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Smallville (TV)
Details on the second
Christopher Reeve episode are at Comics
Continuum.
<
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Showtime Planning
Gay Panel Show
Philadelphia Inquirer
TV columnist Gail Shister, pointing out that the pay-TV channel Showtime
"has had great success with its burgeoning gay franchise" (Queer as Folk,
The L Word), reported Wednesday that Showtime has ordered a pilot for a
show titled "Movies for Guys Who Like Guys." The panel program will be
hosted by former E! Entertainment anchor Steve Kmetko. Four gay men
will discuss gay-themed or campy features running on Showtime. The show
will reportedly air at 11:00 p.m. on Sundays after Queer as Folk.
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The Day After Tomorrow
IFilm
has an exculsive, behind the scenes clip
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Johansson Voice
Added To "SpongeBob"
The Associated Press
reports that Scarlett Johansson has been added to the list of voice actors
in "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," set for release on Nov. 19.
Johansson, who was a star of "Lost in Translation," will giove voice a
new character named Mindy, daughter of the curmudgeonly undersea leader
King Neptune voiced by Jeffrey Tambor ("Arrested Development," "The Larry
Sanders Show"). Alec Baldwin will play Dennis, a ruthless hit man, Nickelodeon
Movies announced on Wednesday.
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Singleton: "Luke
Cage: Hero For Hire"
Director John Singleton
attended last weekend's Wizard World: Los Angeles convention according
to The Comics Continuum, and spoke about the upcoming Luke Cage movie.
Singleton said, "It's a fun movie. It's hip. It's so cool." Singleton ("2
Fast 2 Furious") went on, "Imagine if 50 Cent got super-powers." Ben Ramsey
wrote the screenplay for Columbia Pictures. "We're working on a new draft,"
Singleton said enthusiastically,"And we should be casting really soon."
"I'm doing the movie for one reason," the director said, "To have him break
out of Seagate Prison with his bare hands." The Continuum reports
that "the villain will be Diamondback, the original Hero for Hire comics
villain who framed him and had him sent to prison.I'm trying to get in
some of the other characters, like Chemistro, and maybe the Wrecking Crew
or some of the obscure Marvel villains."
For more of what Singleton
had to say, check out The
Continuum.
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The Love Boat,
Making Another Run
Reportedly, according
to Variety, Paramount will be bringing back “The Love Boat,” in the satirical
handling, like ‘The Brady Bunch Movie’. They're aiming the project as a
broadly comic reinvention of the TV series, this time with the Bermuda
Triangle as a destination. Paramount assembled the project with Permut
in becasue of Warner/Dimension's movie version of TV series “Starsky &
Hutch”, which has grossed a $67 million domestically in three weeks. Permut
is looking for writers and planning a hip-hop version of the theme song,
originally sung by Jack Jones.
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BatmanBegins.com
is Online & the New Logo!
Superhero Hype' 'phaser'
alerted us that the new official website for Christopher Nolan's Batman
Begins is online. The site features the logo for the 2005 film at
this time, but promises more to come. You can check it out either here
or here!
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The Batman: The
New Series
Kids'
WB!, this fall will introduce a brand new animated Batman series, titled
The Batman. Animation Insider has launched The Batman resource,The
Batwave. It will feature (According to Bill Walko, the webmaster of
this and Teen Titans Animated.),)news,
pictures, sneaks and lots more.
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The Mark About
To Hit The Mark
Cinescape tells us
that Will Smith is still looking forward to making his own superhero flick,
The Mark. It was first announced about seven years ago, one of a handful
that comic book superstar artist Rob Liefeld had sold to Hollywood. Since
then, the project has been bogged down in development hell and practically
forgotten...until now . Originally Smith had been interested in playing
the main character, a man who discovers he has fantastical abilities and
is stuck in wonders what to do with them. But, as anyone who has been watching
the movies in the last 7 years knows, Smith's dancecard was booked solid.
The news is that Nickelodeon Movies has become involved in producing the
film with Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. The new plan is to make the
movie and then spin it off as an animated TV series for broadcast on Spike
TV. Screenwriters Gregg Chabot and Kevin Peterka (Reign Of Fire) will begin
working on a new draft of the screenplay immediatley.
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Van Helsing
MySan
has some interviews and Q. & A.
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The Budget Tapeworm
The average cost of
a Hollywood film has broken the $100m barrier, Jack Valenti has said,
as reported by the BBC.
The outgoing Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) president said
the average cost of releasing a movie reached $102.8m in 2003 - up 15%
on the previous year. The costs involved $63.8m to make the film and $39m
for marketing. Valenti said the rising film budgets were "the cost tapeworm
wiggling so energetically in film production, nibbling, chewing, eating
the fiscal molecules of the business". He said film producers msut keep
budgets tight, and said doing so was "a fervid priority".
Mr Valenti, 82, commenting
at an industry conference in Las Vegas, also confirmed that he would retire
soon after 38 years as president. He said the MPAA would find a new president
in the next two or three months. "I look at this with mixed emotions because
when you've done something so long," Valenti said, "It's difficult to tear
yourself away from it."
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Frankie Valli Joins
"The Sopranos'"
The Associated Press
reports that the newest hit man on the hit "The Sopronos" is a long time
hitmaker. With such songs as "Sherry," "Walk Like a Man," "Rag Doll" and
the theme song from "Grease," Frankie Vallie has been at the top of the
charts for years. Now he will be a bad guy from New Jersey. "Coming from
Newark, N.J., I've certainly been around a lot of that," Valli said, "Growing
up pursuing a singing career, all the little bars and clubs were the places
where these guys would congregate. In a lot of cases they owned them. I
never got to know exactly what each guy was doing, but I did know several
guys. I mean, they didn't call me in and say, `Hey, this is what we're
doing this week,' ya know. There are probably a couple of them in my character."
He said it will not be unfamiliar territory for him. "I think back to being
a kid and these guys," Valli said, "There's a lot of familiar-looking people
in `The Sopranos.'" Valli's previous acting jobs have included 1998's "Witness
to the Mob" starring Nicholas Turturro and Tom Sizemore, Robby Benson's
"Modern Love" in 1990 and the 1978 feature "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band." "I certainly want to do more acting if I have any opportunities
to do it," the singer
said. "I want to do
roles that are challenging. It's a creative part of me that really
has to be a little bit more active."
Question
#803: This animated series was originally
called Mysteries
Five, then Who's Scared? What was
the title they
finally decided on?
Answer
#802: Disney originally wanted to reunite
Mary Poppins stars
Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke
in its made-for-TV
musical Gepetto, but the deal
unfortunately fell
through despite the enthusiasm of
both actors, and
the parts of the Blue Fairy and Gepetto
went to Drew Carey
and Julia Louis-Dreyfus instead.
Rachel got it first.
And Jesse gets the smart alec of
the week with his
suggestion of: "Ernie Sabella and
Nathan Lane" (Who
were Timon & Pumba in "The
Lion King")
You
can join in the fun, Subscribe
Here
to get the question
the
night before it shows up here, if you answer, your name
will
be listed for the world to see.
New Feature: Serendipity
Cinema:
A
Recommended Film You May Never Have Heard Of,
But
Should See.
#1: 7
Faces Of Dr. Lao
This won an Oscar
for Make up, but it is not
the kind of film
that one would think of as an
award winner. It
has the feel of Roger Corman
and George Pal,
with a hint of Harryhausen thrown
in. It is simple,
and while seeming simplistic it
is far from that.
It humbly powerful. There are a
thousand reasons
to belittle and put down this film.
And if you go in
with that mindset, you will find
them all. But,
if you give it a willing suspention of
disbelief and let
the magic that hints around every
corner over take
you, this will be a little gem that
you treasure.
<img
--posted by Wayne
Thursday, March 25, 2004
--posted by Wayne Thursday, March 25, 2004
If
you're interested in what's happening in the entertainment world, then
signup for this newsletter. Wayne scours all the top websites for the
latest entertainment news and sends them out every day for your pleasure.
There's a particular emphasis here on Science Fiction and Fantasy. Big
news items like Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and just
about anything by Steven Spielberg.
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