40 entries from July 2007.Paul Anderson Makes Bloody Mess of Resident Evil 3 Cinematical ran across a trailer for the next Resident Evil flick on Sony's website, apparently notable for the trailer featuring R-rated violence and gore (which I can personally attest to.) That, I'm afraid, is about all this film is going to be notable for. Paul W. S. Anderson should have been banned from making movies a long time ago, even if the first Resident Evil was mildly entertaining, the second film was not, and the third...well, based on this trailer, I thought I was watching a promo for a new Mad Max flick, only with zombies in it.Seriously, it was that mind numbingly unoriginal. Anyone could have written the script for this, it's so brazenly generic. Just watch the trailer,... Resident Evil 3 Kevin Smith Talks About His Heroes Gig As promised yesterday, here's a link to Kevin Smith's blog entry, talking about his announcement at Comic Con that he'll be writing and directing an episode of the Heroes spin-off, Heroes: Origins. In his typical down-to-earth style, he starts right off saying he doesn't want to be known as the guy that "ruined Heroes." I know the feeling.Here's a video, which I just scammed from his blog. What a entrance man...just watch.The greatest thing is seeing the cast respond to Smith walking onto the stage, and seeing how they were as excited about it as the fans and the rest of us are.This was ComiCon's biggest year, with over 123,000 people in attendance over the weekend. Sadly, I never got... Heroes, Kevin Smith In Story on TV Show Piracy, Reporter Admits Piracy. Arrr. On April 29th, TelevisionWeek published a story written by reporter James Hibberd that documented the posting of several of this fall's big network pilots on websites dedicated to indexing files available for download over BitTorrent. This is happening more and more every year as the networks are forced to deal with consumer technology able to capture and transfer high quality digital videos faster than business technology is moving to protect the content.While Hibberd wrote that network executives were surprised that these videos were available so soon before they air, Hibberd and TelevisionWeek apparently neglected to inform those same executives that they themselves had pirated the videos in order to confirm they were the real thing, according to the story itself.... BitTorrent, Piracy, TV Week Beowulf Movie Trailer This trailer is an international R-rated version for the film Beowulf, which apparently just came out yesterday. The quality isn't all that great, so if you want something better, you can always hit up Apple's movie trailer site.Beowulf is a 900-year-old poem about a hero who fights a monster (Grendel) and presumably other things throughout his life, though I do not know how many of the battles made it into the film. Angelina Jolie plays Grendel's mother, while Beowulf is played by Ray Winstone. The film also features Crispin Glover as Grendel, along with Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Dominic Keating, and a ton of other people.Neil Gaimen co-wrote the script with Roger Avary with Robert Zemeckis directing.... Beowulf, Trailer Batman: The Dark Knight Movie Trailer Apparently, this trailer was debuted at Comic Con. Given the relatively poor quality compared to real trailers, I don't know if this video is even a legit upload. Probably not, but since it's not mine and I don't believe that a trailer hurts the copyright owner (it's a movie trailer for crying out loud, it's pure free PR) I'm posting it here.Who's ready for some Dark Knight?! I want this out, right now.... Batman: The Dark Knight, Trailer Kevin Smith to Write, Direct 'Heroes: Origins' Ep1 Crapping myself here, and bummed that I didn't pick up on this earlier. Apparently Comic Con is someplace I desperately need to go to next year, because this is quickly becoming a place where all the cool stuff is being announced for both television and film. Cool stuff like Kevin Smith (yes, that Smith) will write and direct the first episode of Heroes: Origins. This spin-off will air in between the second and third seasons of Heroes sometime next year. The limited-run series will introduce new heroes outside the main story, and one will be voted by viewers to join the original series as a regular cast member.No mention of these happenings on Smith's blog, but I'll keep an eye... Comic Con, Heroes, Kevin Smith Masi Oka talks Heroes Season 2 TV Guide is carrying a short interview with Masi Oka (Hiro) from Heroes, spilling a few tidbits about what's going to happen in the second season. The good news is that the premier is just eight weeks away, coming up on September 24th. The bad news is that the premier is still eight-freaking-weeks away. Shit.TV Guide: Alias regular David Anders has been cast as Kensei, but he isn't Japanese. What's up with that?Oka: If you remember, Kensei didn't look Japanese in the ancient tapestry [seen in Season 1]. But I have no idea where the writers are going with this. Here's another mystery: They told me something terrible will be happening in the present, maybe because Hiro isn't there. When... Heroes, Interview, Masi Oka Heroes Season 2 Teases If you like being teased without any pay off, this video from TV Guide featuring short segments of interviews with the Heroes cast from some recent press event may be to your liking. I was disappointed, personally, believing that "Dig in for lots of dish about new locations, new characters and new powers..." actually meant you'd be getting something solid on those things. Not true at all, and yet there are nuggets revealed that open your eyes to what the deal is with season 2, given how the first season ended.Don't read the rest of this if you'd rather not see my speculation. Also, check out this news about Zachary Quinto and his new feature film role that could be... Heroes Cameron Diaz, Keira Knightley, Johnny Depp Find New Gigs Diaz, Knightley, and Depp have all found new things to do with their insanely rich and exciting lives - though not together, at least not right this second anyway. I would jokingly say that no studio could afford to have all three star together in a single film due to the inevitable price tag, but the real joke here is that studios will spend any amount of money to put pretty people on the screen, because you can always save cash by short changing the writer. Don't believe me? None of the Rush Hour films have a particularly riveting storyline and they wont be winning any awards for best screenplay anytime soon, in fact the first film was downright obvious... Cameron Diaz, Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley Labor Talks Unstable in Hollywood Talks between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the Writers Guild of America have begun, and already both sides are doing more verbal sparring in the media than they are sitting in a room together negotiating the next three-year contract between the studios and writers.Other unions, like the Screen Actors Guild have become increasingly concerned at the prospects of a work stoppage sometime within the next year driven by unhappy members that feel they've been treated unfairly by the studios. While SAG's contract doesn't officially expire until July of 2008, and while the Writers Guild expires later this fall, they appear to have many common goals and fears: a general labor strike.... Labor Weekend Box Office The numbers are in for the last weekend of July, and surprise surprise, The Simpsons feature film took the weekend handily. The Fox flick grossed $71 million domestically in a little over 3900 theaters. Though I'm entirely confused as to how an animation as primitive as The Simpsons (visually speaking) could ever cost $75 million to produce, this weekend is good news in that the feature recouped about half its cost to make.Universal's comedy I now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry cost just a little bit more, but made far less than did The Simpsons. It earned just $19 million for the weekend on a budget of $85 million. Coming in third was the latest Potter film with a domestic... Box Office Leonard Nimoy, Zachary Quinto on board for Trek XI I suppose it's cool news that Leonard Nimoy will be reprising his role as Spock in Star Trek XI, though he won't be a star from what I gather, the spotlight will fall to a younger actor who will portray Spock along with Kirk's early days at Starfleet Academy -- supposedly. The really cool news? That younger actor was announced at Comic Con to be Zachary Quinto, who recently portrayed the wonderfully evil Sylar in NBC's Heroes.And then comes the bad news, J. J. Abrams picked a couple of duds to pen the script in Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Kurtzman co-wrote The Island, Mission Impossible III, and a couple of other screenplays. Both stunk. Kurtzman's television glory is writing... Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek XI, Zachary Quinto 'Dark Shadows' to Silver Screen A trilogy of film companies are getting together to bring Dark Shadows to the big screen. Warner Brothers being the big player, while the other two are just fronts that actors and producers use to simply paying taxes and as entities to help fund film ventures, one of them being owned by Johnny Depp.From Variety.A rights deal just closed with the estate of Dan Curtis, the producer/director who created the soap that aired weekdays on ABC, from 1966 to 1971. Depp and King will produce with David Kennedy, who ran Dan Curtis Prods. until Curtis died last year of a brain tumor. Infinitum-Nihil's Christi Dembrowski served as the point person on the deal.There isn't much solid on this, it's... Dark Shadows Theater Watch: 2007-07-27 I know who killed the box office this weekend: Lindsay Lohan. Yes, I'm not clever and since I'm getting paid pennies for this, you get a couple of pennies worth of effort. Sorry.While Lindsay may be headlining the tabloids for chasing former-assitant's mothers while drunk and holding, she won't be topping the charts this weekend when her new film - which by the way actually looks pretty damn good - goes up against The Simpsons. I have the trailer for I Know Who Killed Me laying around and after watching it a couple of different times, I think it might be decent thriller entertainment.... Theater Watch More Comic Flicks Coming A number of pundits and even indy studios have been wondering if we're in the midst of a horror-genre overload this year, while the audience is telling them as plainly as possible, practically asking if they need to spell it for them and go really so, that there will never be such a thing as real horror overload. They are simply sick of torture porn, and the way it taints everything around it.Now I can't help but wonder if the false start on horror overload might actually be true, yet unrealized, for comic adaptations. They are they hot property over the last few years, and there's definitely no shortage of old comics to dig out of the garbage for... Comics, Dark Horse 'Lovely Bones' casting news Peter Jackson's next project is a film adaptation of the novel Lovely Bones, a murder mystery about "a young girl who watches over her family -- and killer -- from heaven", that looks like a real snoozer. Jackson's run of successful ventures looks to end here, even though Rachel Weisz came on board, and the pic has now been joined by Susan Sarandon. This is so far not a particularly strong or young cast, which it desperately needs with such a slow and unappealing theme.I said this before when I heard about Jackson shopping his deal around - he got the book rights, then packaged himself in as director - this is exactly the kind of story that thrives... Peter Jackson, Susan Sarandon, The Lovely Bones FX lands 'Superbad' Variety reports that FX has bought the broadcast rights to Judd Apatow's next comedy flick, Superbad. The movie, written by scribe Seth Rogen, is about two friends who are outcasts that are forced to adjust to life without each other when they both move off to college. Not terribly inspiring, but with the recent success of Apatow's directorial work with Steve Carell, I'm sure studios would snap up just about any project he attaches himself to.For now, that is. Apatow is bound to pick a real stinker at some point, and I'm pinning Superbad as the one that dents his shiny new reputation for revitalizing original non-romance comedies.FX apparently wasn't the first in line, though, as Variety says they won't... FX, Superbad Offsite Stardust Reviews AICN made its bed by getting people who got into test screenings to write reviews they could publish, leaking plots and starting the ball on early negative press. Studios hate the negative press because it's usually accurate, in that the film people are writing bad reviews for typically suck. Rarely have I seen these kinds of reviews that were positive help a film in any way.Most reviews for Hostel 2 were gooey and full of much ass kissing, yet the film did pretty poorly at the box office. Roth blamed piracy, I blame Roth, but whatever. So if there are early reviews to be found, they inevitably collect at AICN, such as a couple of new ones for Stardust.Right off... Review, Stardust, Sunshine CNN Presidential Debate Links The Democratic candidates debated on CNN Monday evening, working entirely from questions recorded and uploaded to YouTube. I thought the idea was stupid at first, because which questions would be presented was still up to the organizers of the debate - not the public. This was partially true, as quite a few of the questions were very inappropriate and some very irrelevant to election. Some were downright stupid.... Presidential Debate Apologies For Missing Monday My new and current Internet provider, WildBlue satellite service, appears to be an incompetent company to say the least. After 11PM EDT, the connection is extremely stable and fast. It degrades as morning rolls into afternoon, and becomes unstable as afternoon turns to night. Anywhere from 8PM through 11, it bounces between unstable and not working at all.... Site Rob Zombie interview from Movieweb I'm sorry, but when did Rob Zombie become a "visionary genius"? Isn't this guy a heavy metal musician or something? I suppose anyone can accomplish something if they put enough time and energy into it, but calling a guy who used to sing for a living a "visionary genius" in film making after making two B-horror flicks that barely made their money back is really stretching it too far. The Devil's Rejects did make back its costs, but made no profit in its theatrical run.Compared to horror luminary Saw (as far as horror films go these days, and I only compliment Saw like that in comparison to these movies) Rejects was a failure. With a budget seven times in size,... Halloween, Interview, Rob Zombie Gavin Hood set to direct 'Wolverine' for Fox Gavin Hood has been set as director for the X-Men spin-off Wolverine, according to Variety. Hood can't seem to decide what he wants to be when he grows up, writing, directing, and acting for television and film. The only material I recognize were two acting parts in the SciFi Channel's Stargate: SG-1, although he has a number of awards for films I've never heard of, half which I cannot even pronounce. That list, by the way, is quite lengthy and impressive, we may be looking at one of Hollywood's newest stars.It's an interesting choice, and it's always nice to see studios take a chance on new talent both in front of, and behind the lens. Hood's Oscar win for... Gavin Hood, Wolverine Senate Commitee Passes Censorship Bill I'm a notorious opponent of censorship in pretty much any form. Government simply should not be in the business of telling citizens what they can and cannot say - within reason. Obviously common sense dictates that threatening to kill someone shouldn't be protected, and yet a plain reading of the United States constitution quite clearly states that the government cannot, under any circumstances, prohibit speech of any kind.We ignore that, sometimes justifiably so, but not this time. After Janet Jackson showed her breast during the Super Bowl, the conservative-leaning FCC went on a Bush administration-sponsored Jihad against practically any and every form of perceived indecency on television. They of course, as governments tend to do, went overboard in their... Censorship, FCC 'Drive' Mocks Fox From TV Grave I missed this when I wrote both news that 'Drive' was making its final goodbyes to the world when Fox stopped dragging its pathetic feet, placing the final two un-aired episodes online for free viewing - though they for unfathomable reasons put them on their MySpace page, but also when I wrote of the recent Emmy Nominations, in which HBO cleaned everybody's clocks.Apparently, and this is what I get for not reading the entire list, 'Drive' was nominated for an Emmy Award.... Drive, Emmy Awards, Fox Negotiations That Could Kill TV Heating Up I realize there isn't very wide appeal for news and information on the talks taking place between the major studios and the Writers Guild of America, but you should read this anyway because it's extremely important. If a deal isn't had this time around that satisfies the Guild's demands, there will be a strike.I feel the personal need to make these issues clear, because the deal between the Guild and the AMPTP hasn't been fair since the 1980s, and if the studios get their way, it'll stay that way for a long time to come. Stick with me while I try to explain this as fast as humanly possible.... AMPTP, Writers Guild Potter Franchise The Exception, Not The New Rule With so much over-coverage of Harry Potter on the Internets, it's hardly worth spending any time over. There's nothing I can write that you can't get anywhere else, except perhaps to pick a fight over the attempt by some to throw out conventional industry wisdom when it comes to the shelf life of franchise films.According to Variety, "[Potter 5] has demolished the notion that franchise properties are destined to eventually run out of steam."This is in complete contrast to conventional wisdom for a very good reason: it just happens to be true. Franchise films don't continue to do well in theaters because they have infinite legs and it's what people crave the most, it's because that's practically all there... Harry Potter Fox Conned Comic Con Leave it to Fox to ask for a date, then not show up. According to the LA Times, Fox has pulled out a number of its coming features from the San Diego convention where every major studio is set to give sneak peeks at their upcoming films, virtually all of which have nothing to do with comics oddly. Though I suppose AvP 2 might count, it doesn't anymore because that's one of the properties that's been pulled, along with Vin Diesel's new flick Babylon A.D., and the movie based on video game Hitman.Says Fox quoted from the Times, "The material wasn't ready and we only want to go out when we can put our best foot forward." Yeah, I don't... Comic Con, Fox Agent's Assitant Hits The Big Time...Over Lunch. There's a wonderful little story coming out of Hollywood Reporter today about an assistant at CAA that pitched a story idea to Brian Grazer (24, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13), had it bought, and now is in the mix as a player himself, rather than representing other people - or worse, fetching coffee for agents.The story is more about the unique process at CAA where Grazer sits down with assistants at the agency once a year, and listens to pitches over lunch. It questions the wisdom of allowing people who are supposed to be training to become top tier agents to pitch to mega-producers, invariably encouraging them to spend time working on their own material instead of finding ways to... Brian Grazer, CAA See Who Got The Nod, Who Got Snobbed: Emmy Nominations The list for the 59th annual Primetime Emmy Awards was released by the ATAS today, and it's a big one. Well, they're all pretty big, actually. Here are the highlights along with the full list for your consumption.... Emmy Awards CBS Entertainment Prez Talks 'Jericho' A lot of what TV Squad posts is fluff repeated on a daily basis, but a decent amount of it isn't because of the media access being owned by AOL gets them. The last open job I saw at the site was for a roving reporter that would go to movie premiers, interviewing cast members and production staff, amongst other duties. Requirement: must live in LA. Doh.So apparently the big four networks have been having press conferences recently, talking up their recently cemented fall schedules, and CBS Prez Nina Tassler answered some questions about canceled and then resurrected Jericho. Jericho ran for one full season, saw dismal ratings after being put on a ridiculous audience-killing hiatus, only to see a... Jericho 'The Closer' Wins Cable Ratings Race, July 9-15 TNT's The Closer did its thing on Monday, winning the week on cable with 7.4 million viewers. That's outstanding for cable, but would probably get you canceled on network television for that time slot. It's fewer viewers than Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip got on Mondays at 10PM after Heroes, but then again, Studio 60 cost a hell of a lot more than a cheap Law & Order knockoff like The Closer does.The top 5:The Closer (7.4)Home Run Derby (6.77)Nextel Cup: Chicagoland (6.36)Hannah Montana (5.5)The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (5.7) You can see the top 15 in this AP report. I keep hearing about this Hannah Montana show from people that have kids, and since it's the... Cable Ratings People Skip Ad's, But Watch Movie Trailers The title pretty much says it all, studies based on data collected by TiVo show that people who skip advertisements tend to watch trailers for feature films. That's not exactly a surprise, or should be, movie trailers are pretty big draws on the Internet and they aren't advertisements so much as condensed creative content - or ultra fast bits of entertainment.On March 27, for example, DreamWorks scored a 21.1 rating for its "Disturbia" commercial that aired during Fox drama "House," which scored only a 20.2 rating. Movie ads in general scored well. The top commercials in late March through late April viewed by TiVo users who were watching shows -- and commercials -- that had been recorded were "Disturbia" (No.... DVR, TiVo New Doctors Check into 'House'; Celebs Gone Wild I've read news at a couple of different places that more than a few new characters are joining House for the new season. Before anyone jumps over the rail, I'd like to remind everyone that the entire supporting cast for House is already signed for the new year. I didn't want to write about this on the old blog too much, because I'm sure some people would rather enjoy the uncertainty the season finale brought in what appeared to be a mass killing of the three main supporting characters. One was fired while the other two resigned.As I said, Omar Epps and the other two co-stars are signed through 2008, but that doesn't mean they will continue to play the... House J. K. Rowling Apperance on The Today Show NBC is lowering itself to the role of media whore for the new Harry Potter film, extensively interviewing mega-rich author J.K. Rowling on The Today Show, and splitting the interview into two segments on back-to-back days. The interview will appear on July 26th and 27th, along with a disgraceful piece by Dateline on Sunday the 29th.Now, here's the problem: The Today Show has been doing lame stuff like this for a long time, so it comes as no surprise that when there is a media frenzy to be had, they'll try to be the most pathetic groveler at the top of the heap. But Dateline used to be an investigative news magazine. When is the last time they investigated something... Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling David Hackl Gets Promotion for Saw 5, 6 The only thing I've seen of the Saw "franchise" was the end of the first film, maybe the last thirty minutes or so, and I thought it was decently entertaining. It reaked of a SciFi channel original, though. Low budget, campy dialogue, a mishmash of every horror film that came before it without much thought or effort given to an original plot or circumstance. Still, it could have been a lot worse, and it actually did make really decent money in the theaters for what it cost.In fact, Saw thus far has been one most profitable film franchises in quite sometime, due not so much to its huge success and wide appeal (it has neither) but mostly because they make... Lionsgate, Saw CBS Finalizes Fall Schedule Quick news from Variety that CBS, like NBC a day ago, has set its new fall schedule in stone. Here's the goods on what to watch, and when. If you're curious, you can find more information on many of these shows from my article New Series on TV: CBS, written as a preview to the upfronts, which is a week-long period when all the networks announce what new shows they've ordered for the fall, along with what will and will not be renewed. Those posts are not hosted on this site as it did not even exist until a few days ago, but the information should be intact and usable.Sept 19: Kid NationSept 20: SuvivorOct 21, 8PM: Viva LaughlinTwo other... CBS Final Two Episodes "Drive" Home Fox has a bad habit of killing off series before they've had a chance to build an audience, choosing instead to only keep shows that come with stellar numbers right from the very first airing. This of course resulted in the murder of Firefly and most recently Drive. In a sad moment of irony, both these shows were produced by Tim Minear, and in realty is the like the third or fourth show he has done for Fox that didn't make it past 12 episodes.My suggestion to Tim: stop making shows for Fox.... Drive, Fox Leguizamo Cast in Shyamalan's "The Happening" A bit of news on M. Night Shyamalan's next flick after Avatar: The Last Airbender, where John Leguizamo has been cast as Mark Wahlberg's best friend in The Happening. For those who are not aware, The Happening is supposedly a straight drama/catasrophe film that Shyamalan wrote on spec, shopped around to all the major studios, but didn't couldn't get a deal the way it was written. He took some suggestions back home with him to Philadelphia, rewrote the script, and immediately got multiple offers, finally settling at Fox.This marks the second time Shyamalan won't be making a film for Disney, after a fallout over Lady in the Water.... Avatar, James Cameron, M. Night Shyamalan, The Happening NBC Rejiggers Fall Schedule Ken Silverman took over the reigns from Kevin Reilly at NBC too late to make any decisions about what new shows would be picked up for the fall season, so you can't really blame him if any of them fail. Silverman I suppose didn't take the job now just to sit back and watch from the bench for the next year, so news comes from AICN while I was preparing this site for launch that Silverman has thrown out the schedule that Reilly created in favor of his own.... NBC The Media Pundit Launches. Three months ago, I retooled my personal blog from untargeted essays on politics, poker, the law, science, and whatever happened to have my attention at any given time, into a source of news and commentary on the current state of television programming and film industry news. There are many sites like that out there, but none of them have my voice, which unique or not should at least be deeply informative.As an aspiring screenwriter, I know far more about the writing process and what the job entails than anyone who isn't a writer already does. I'm confident about that because I've been studying the job and industry while improving my craft for the better part of two years now, and... Site |
