C Wayne Owens' Movie
& TV News is a daily newsletter featuring news gathered from all over
the net with the newest and hottest movie and tv scoops. It is heavily
weighted towards SF and Fantasy film, but if it's news (and not just Celeb
gossip) it will be here, and be here weeks before the TV News shows even
touch on it.
Thomas
Jane, according to MTV,
has joined the cast of the film version of Stephen
King’s "The Mist."
The movie is a passion project of Frank
Darabont, and Jane says: “Frank and
I are supposed to be doing [the feature].”
Superhero
Hype published a scooper
report that says Louis
Letterier was on French TV and said that the new film will have a $120
million budget, that he's looking for a bookish glass-wearing type for
Banner (which implies no Eric
Bana), and that it is definitely not be a sequel.
Video
Walkman
Sony
announced thay they are in development of a video Walkman that will compete
with Apple's video iPod. Few details were readily available and they did
not indicate how the device will be different from its PlayStation Portable
unit. Sony exec Hiroshi Yoshioka said: "We
are developing a product that handles images, but I cannot make any comment
on specific plans."
Bloom
Sunk?
Disney
bosses have resonded to reports that they're planning to kill off Orlando
Bloom in the fourth "Pirates
of the Caribbean" installment, by saying the story is completely unfounded.
British newspaper reports were that Bloom's character Will Turner was deemed
"not necessary,"
while Keira Knightley
and Johnny Depp were unaffected.
A Disney representative told moviehole.net they "haven't
even agreed on a fourth movie, let alone the cast."
He is quoted as saying: "We are working
closely with Disney and want you to know that while we cannot comment on
specific plot points, such rumors are completely unfounded."
I
Knew That! Question #1734 (Monday,
Oct. 16, 2006) Question
#1734: Your
Monday Quote: "We
don't have to like each other. We're family."
Answer
#1733: Name
James Bond's CIA liaison -Felix
Lieter. Sandy
got it first, then Kent, Duane, Verna, Duane, Lisa & Polly.
BTW: Jack Wade was added in the post Ian Fleming
books, and therefore doesn't
count. (Of course none of the actors after Goldfinger count as Bond in
my mind, but that's just me. Right, but just me.)
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.
Remember, every other Monday
there is a new
Serendipity Cinema (A film you may never have heard
of, but really should see) NOW SHOWING: "Rachel
and the Stanger"
#3050(C.
Wayne's $.02 Worth )Oct. 16, 2006 "Grown
men do not need leaders." -Edward
Abbey *+*+*+*+*+*+*+
You
can now get (in
both Trade Paperback &
E-Book form) The
First 1,000 Days of C.
Wayne's $.02 Worth
The
Hollywood Reporter says that NBC
will bring back its drama "Medium"
in the 10 p.m. Wednesday slot that has opened with the move of the low-rated
"Kidnapped." The Patricia
Arquette show will debut in the slot by mid-November.
The
Teshkeel Media Group has just gotten
$25
million in funding from a Bahrain investment bank to help finance the
company. Some of that funding will be used to develop an animated television
series based on "The 99,"
Teshkeel's comic book about 99 international superheroes who embody the
99 attributes of God in Islam. Here
is a link to the origin story for "The
99"
Neil
Gaiman in an interviewed in Bookslut
said: "They're editing Stardust currently.
Editing is where I tend to hold my breath a lot. While something is being
shot, you tend not to hold your breath. Everyone's just making a film,
what will be will be. In the editing phase, there is so much that can [go]
wrong. Everyone is so close to it. They showed me a scene when I was in
London the other day, and it was the opening scene of the movie. We got
to the end, and I said, okay, you half to put back a lot of the stuff you
cut down. They said, 'Well, we're really concerned about pace.' 'That's
fine, but what you shot was the absolute minimum needed to tell the world
that Dunstan and this girl at the faerie market really like each other,
really fancy each other. He's besotted with her, she's really taken with
him, and she's given him this flower, and now they're sneaking into caravan
in order to get up close and personal. And that information was what you
had. You actually trimmed that down for the purposes of pace and speed
and now what it looks like is she must be the market slag because they
meet and nip off for a quick one.' And they actually had the incredibly
had the good grace to hang their heads and say, 'Oh my god, we hadn't thought
of it that way, but you're right.' I very much hope that in the next edit,
they expand it again. Having said that, I also know that they spent an
interesting few weeks doing things like, they had a version of the film
where the opening of the film is a flashback halfway through. They decided
they should start with Tristran, stuff like that. Right now the film has
at least three endings. From the point of view of those people who have
endured 'Lord of the Rings,'
that's at least one ending too many. Which is in some ways my fault because
in a book I can do lots of different endings. I do them fairly fast in
an epilogue."
David
Wenham told MTV
about the Spartan film: "The new rules
are that there are no rules, and why should there be? You can break every
convention. This is based on a true story, a piece of history, but when
you see the film, you're like, 'Wow, it's out there!' You can see it's
solidly based in a foundation of truth but [at the same time] it's so different.
It's a contemporary retelling of that story infused through the mind of
Frank Miller."
Eat,
Pray, Love
Paramount
Pictures is developing the Elizabeth Gilbert book "Eat,
Pray, Love" for Julia
Roberts. The memoir follows a woman through a painful divorce, who
sets off on a journey of self-discovery around the world. Ryan
Murphy will direct and adapt the memoir.
SpongeDavid
SquareBowie
David
Bowie will make a guest appearance next year on "SpongeBob
SquarePants." Bowie said on his blog
that he will voice of a character called Lord Royal Highness: "It's
happened. At last. I've hit the Holy Grail of animation gigs. We, the family,
are thrilled. Nothing else need happen this year, well, this week anyway."
Bowie and his wife Iman
have a six-year-old daughter, Alexandria.
The
Comic Reel tells us that Virgin Comics
has signed a deal to co-producing an animated film based on the Indian
myth of Ramayana. The other half of that producion team is Kahani World,
Inc.
Everything
On DVD!
Sonic
Solutions and Macrovision have announced
that they will soon enable retail stores to download thousands of films
for their customers, burn them onto DVDs, including "extras,"
even printing cover art work. An analyst at Parks
Associates, Kurt Sherf, told Bloomberg
News: "This would let retailers stock
the titles that sell the most and still have a kiosk that could provide
thousands of more films." Since three-quarters
of most archived films are not in great enough demand to make their release
on DVD viable, this system would eventually enable studios to make their
libraries more available on DVD.
ComicBookMovie.com
writes that Neil Jackson
(Marcus Van Sciver on the series) posted on his MySpace page that the TV
series may not be dead. He wrote: "So,
I am sorry to say that SPIKE
have not commisioned Blade: The Series for a second season. NEW
LINE are still behind the show and are currently shopping for a new
home, so things may start a fresh elsewhere. Thank you to everyone who
watched the show, stood in our corner and rallied for the cause. It was
a blast to work on, and your encouragement and enthusiasm made it all the
more so. I know this sentiment is echoed by the rest of the cast and crew.
The series is yet to air abroad, and there are also DVD sales which all
could contribute to the show being picked up on another network, allowing
Blade to rise into a new and glorious dawn (sorry . . . getting a
little carried away). But for now I just want to thank everyone for your
comments, mails and support. Sincerely . . . Neil."
David
Eick has joined with Laeta
Kalogridis to create what he describes as a "completely
reconceptualized Bionic Woman." He says:
"We're using the title as a starting point,
and that's all. It's using the idea of artificial technology as a metaphor
for what contemporary women sometimes feel is necessary to do everything
that needs to be done."
Mira
Sorvino has joined Joaquin
Phoenix, Jennifer Connelly
and Mark Ruffalo in director
Terry George's "Reservation
Road." In the tragedy, two families clash
when the father of one kills the son of the other in a hit-and-run. Phoenix
and Ruffalo play the fathers. Jennifer Connelly plays Phoenix's wife and
Sorvino plays Ruffalo's ex-wife. Burnham
Schwartz adapted his own book (with some revisions by George).
Josh
Holloway told Men's Journal magazine
that he sometimes worries that the ABC show's
secretive plot will put him out of work. He said: "Everybody
in the cast worries about being killed off, and we wouldn't know until
they handed us the script - - three days before shooting. It's a sensitive
issue. People have houses here, kids in school. Most of us aren't in our
twenties anymore." About the character
of Sawyer he said: "It still shocks me
how people love him. But my take on guys like him is they're just dudes
who have a different perspective on how to survive. Truth is, there's a
little Sawyer in all of us, and that's why people get into him."
TheOneRing.net
reports that MGM has
held talks with Peter Jackson
about doing a movie based on J.R.R.
Tolkien's The Hobbit. MGM responsed to a fan petition to New
Line and MGM on Sept. 22 with more than 39,000 signatures Their statement
read in part: "We would like to give you
the official statement from Rick
Sands, [chief operating officer] of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studios Inc. . . . Peter Jackson's phenomenal success with The
Lord of the Rings trilogy makes him the first and most ideal choice
for directing The Hobbit. . . . MGM would be thrilled to collaborate
with the Academy Award-winning director on this MGM New Line Cinema production.
And, I'm sure to the delight of the 50,000 filmgoers who have petitioned
us in recent weeks, demanding we bring this film to fruition, we have had
a few initial conversations about the project with Mr. Jackson's representatives."
Serials
Not A Cinch
Extended,
One Hour Serial dramas are not finding the audiences of the recent past.
CBS is pulling "Smith"
from its schedule, NBC
is moving "Kidnapped"
to the graveyard of Saturday night and ABC
lost five million viewers for its hot "Lost."
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Tim Goodman
disclosed ABC's plan to put "Lost"
on hiatus for 13 weeks starting next month to avoid repeats. "What
if five million more people don't come back?"
Goodman asks.
Priscilla
on Stage
A
musical stage version of "The
Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," has premiered in Sydney.
The stage show has a budget triple that of the movie. Director Simon Phillips
said: "It's a great responsibility to something
that's such a treasure in the Australian film iconography to find a vivid
and exciting and joyful way of putting it on stage."
Dr.
Grave
ComicBookMovie.com
says that GigaPix Studios will produce a live action/CGI film based on
the crass comic series Dr. Grave. Ed Vis, creator of the underground comic
published by Slave Labor
Graphics, adapted the comic to screenplay himself, with a projected
budget of $40 million-50 million. Kenneth
Kokin and Bruce L. Berman
will produce the film about the sarcastic anti-hero Dr. Grave and his trusty
assistant Shandar.
Franka
Potente play the title role in Volker
Schlondorff's adaptation of the Donna
W. Cross novel "Pope Joan."
The story follows a medieval legend aboutthe life of a female pope who
supposedly reigned from 855 to 858. The legend circulated in the Middle
Ages about a woman who disguised herself as a boy in order to join a monastery
in her quest for knowledge and quickly climbed the ranks by impressing
her superiors. Production starts in May. The story was filmed
in 1972 with Liv Ullmann
starred in the title role.
Najimy's
Got Their Numb3r
Kathy
Najimy starts filming next week when she joins the cast of the CBS
crime drama "Numb3rs,"
which has just began its third season. She plays the recurring role of
the division chair of the physics, math and astronomy departments at the
university where Charlie Eppes (David
Krumholtz) and Larry Fleinhardt (Peter
MacNicol) work.
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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