Let's see what tidbits of entertainment news I have this time...
With Iron Man 2 finished (please let it be as awesome as the first!), Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau are considering making Cowboys & Aliens, based on a graphic novel in which warring cowboys and Indians (excuse a debatably un-PC term--it just doesn't sound right to use any other word in that phrase) in the Old West are set upon by aliens when the aliens' spaceship crashes (Variety blog). The script is being rewritten by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci (both co-writers of the recent Star Trek), and Damon Lindeloff (of Lost). The high concept is kind of cool, and the people involved have certainly caught my attention.
Warner Bros. has recruited Guy Ritchie to direct Lobo, a live-action movie based on the DC Comics interstellar bounty hunter (Variety blog). I'm not that familiar with the character, but I'm always keeping an eye out for comic adaptations. Sounds interesting.
Speaking of DC Comics and movies, Warner Bros. has recently taken control of the comic book publisher, creating "DC Entertainment" (Variety). The major restructuring was done in the hopes to turn out more projects--movies, comics, TV shows, games, merchandise--with more characters more efficiently. I don't really have an opinion on this matter--mainly what I care about is if they keep giving us more good movies.
Ellen DeGeneres will be Paula Abdul's replacement as judge on American Idol this coming season (Variety). Why? IMDb had a poll on the decision, and I was very disappointed to find it did not have among its many choices anything resembling my opinion on the matter. I adore Ellen. I timed my lunch break most days back at my previous job so I could walk home and watch her talk show. But one of the things about her that always slightly annoyed me was her love of the reality shows. I do not like most reality shows (So You Think You Can Dance is a notable exception). I do not like American Idol. What is Ellen doing on American Idol? What good can come of this?
Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, and Liv Tyler are signed on to star in "Super", a superhero comedy written and to-be-directed by James Gunn (Variety). From what I can tell, it sounds like it might be a spoof of the superhero genre, rather than a simple comedy with superheroes. We'll see.
A sequel to last summer's Hancock is in the works (Variety). I didn't end up seeing that movie, though my understanding is that it wasn't very good. Oh, why must they make sequels to sucky movies?
Christoph Waltz, who recently caused a lot of buzz with his role in Inglourious Basterds, has signed on as the villain in the Green Hornet movie (Variety). He replaces Nick Cage in the role of Chudnofsky. I haven't seen him in Basterds, but if his performance is a great as everyone says, then hopefully he'll serve the Green Hornet well.
And last (and least?), Universal has recruited Peter Berg (director of Hancock) to direct the Battleship movie that it's doing in partnership with Hasbro (Variety), part of a multi-picture deal with the toy company that I have been casually tracking for no particularly good reason on this blog. The film is a live-action project involving a five-ship naval fleet. I wonder how many of them will sink. The movie is scheduled for a July 2011 release. More depressingly, the Hasbro-Universal Stretch Armstrong movie is scheduled for release in April 2011. Why must they do these things?
Well, that's all for now!
Showing posts with label DC Comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DC Comics. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Fleeting members, Graysons, Sonic, and Pushing Daisies
My thoughts on assorted news from this week in the entertainment industry:
I am not a fan of reality shows. Correction--I have an intense distaste for reality shows on principle. Some of them, such as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, do great things, but I still think they exploit people's misfortunes and emotions. And I actually watched about half of one season of Beauty and the Geek because Dave the Larper and Jasmine the Babysitter were really adorable. But all other seasons of that show and every other reality show are pretty trashy TV. So the fact that Survivor: Gabon (Survivor is still on??) has experienced an unfortunate "wardrobe malfunction" and has gotten CBS into a little trouble does not particularly concern me. But I do give the show and this wardrobe situation credit for inspiring the following quote, brought to you by the Parents Television Council: "The number of 'fleeting' penises we expect to see on broadcast television is zero." (IMDb)
The CW has picked up a new DC-based series to be called "The Graysons" about the young Dick Grayson (and presumably his family) before he became the first of Batman's sidekicks known as Robin (Variety). It's basically supposed to be for Robin what Smallville is for Superman. My only question is, well... Clark Kent is (basically) the last of an alien race living on Earth with superpowers that he uses when he must to fight baddies without arousing suspicion. So while Smallville is about how Clark copes with life as a teenager/young adult with these secret abilities, The Graysons will be about Dick Grayson coping with life as... a normal kid? Or, at best, a kid growing up in the circus. A show about a kid in an acrobat family could work, but the point here is to make a show about Robin. The executive producers say they've come up with an original take on the character, so we'll see what they put together.
> Update 11/7/08: The CW has apparently scrapped plans for The Graysons (Variety)
I have just learned about the new Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Nintendo DS (Variety). It caught my attention because it's a BioWare game, and as I have made known through previous posts, most of my favorite games are by BioWare. But as for this Sonic game... I think I must be getting old. Firstly, I'm not going to play this game because I don't have a Nintendo DS and I don't expect ever to get one. I don't know what the deal is with that touch screen--why should any game need more than one screen? Does a person have two separate fields of vision? No. Secondly, hearing the phrase "Sonic on the Nintendo...", I just have to shake my head; it triggers in me almost the same reaction I would have seeing Iron Man in the Justice League (*shudders*). Back in the day, Sega was a top competitor of Nintendo--the day of the Genesis vs. the Super Nintendo. My family was in the Genesis party, and we had a lot of fun with it, but as later generations of consoles came out, the Saturn and Dreamcast disappeared under the N64 and PlayStation's success, thus leading to Sega's demise as a console-maker. But in the height of my console days, Sonic was for Sega and Mario was for Nintendo, and Sonic had not one but two TV shows. That sassy Sonic with his love for chili-dogs has been reduced to an adopted Nintendo tag-along makes me a little wistful. At least he's getting some BioWare respect.
Now here's the good news: Fringe has received a full season order from Fox (Variety). It had me worried after its not-weak-but-not-strong premiere, but when the following week it had ratings-champ House as a lead-in, its audience increased significantly and it has now been receiving fairly strong ratings, particularly compared to other new shows which have overall failed to impress audiences. Fringe can be a little icky (and I can put up with a lot of ick), but I'm looking forward to seeing where they take the show. The bad news: Pushing Daisies's season premiere on Wednesday ranked fourth in its hour with less than half the audience that tuned in for the series premiere last year, getting a sad 4.3/7 with 2.0/6 in the demo (Variety, IMDb). This was the show whose return I had been most anticipating, especially since there haven't been any new episodes since the winter because of the writers' strike. I guess for other people, the long hiatus just weaned them of the show. *Sniffle.* This is a wonderful, delightful, whimsical, quirky, hilarious, lovable show. Help save Pushing Daisies! Watch the show! ABC Wednesdays at 8/7c.
I am not a fan of reality shows. Correction--I have an intense distaste for reality shows on principle. Some of them, such as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, do great things, but I still think they exploit people's misfortunes and emotions. And I actually watched about half of one season of Beauty and the Geek because Dave the Larper and Jasmine the Babysitter were really adorable. But all other seasons of that show and every other reality show are pretty trashy TV. So the fact that Survivor: Gabon (Survivor is still on??) has experienced an unfortunate "wardrobe malfunction" and has gotten CBS into a little trouble does not particularly concern me. But I do give the show and this wardrobe situation credit for inspiring the following quote, brought to you by the Parents Television Council: "The number of 'fleeting' penises we expect to see on broadcast television is zero." (IMDb)
The CW has picked up a new DC-based series to be called "The Graysons" about the young Dick Grayson (and presumably his family) before he became the first of Batman's sidekicks known as Robin (Variety). It's basically supposed to be for Robin what Smallville is for Superman. My only question is, well... Clark Kent is (basically) the last of an alien race living on Earth with superpowers that he uses when he must to fight baddies without arousing suspicion. So while Smallville is about how Clark copes with life as a teenager/young adult with these secret abilities, The Graysons will be about Dick Grayson coping with life as... a normal kid? Or, at best, a kid growing up in the circus. A show about a kid in an acrobat family could work, but the point here is to make a show about Robin. The executive producers say they've come up with an original take on the character, so we'll see what they put together.
> Update 11/7/08: The CW has apparently scrapped plans for The Graysons (Variety)
I have just learned about the new Sonic the Hedgehog game for the Nintendo DS (Variety). It caught my attention because it's a BioWare game, and as I have made known through previous posts, most of my favorite games are by BioWare. But as for this Sonic game... I think I must be getting old. Firstly, I'm not going to play this game because I don't have a Nintendo DS and I don't expect ever to get one. I don't know what the deal is with that touch screen--why should any game need more than one screen? Does a person have two separate fields of vision? No. Secondly, hearing the phrase "Sonic on the Nintendo...", I just have to shake my head; it triggers in me almost the same reaction I would have seeing Iron Man in the Justice League (*shudders*). Back in the day, Sega was a top competitor of Nintendo--the day of the Genesis vs. the Super Nintendo. My family was in the Genesis party, and we had a lot of fun with it, but as later generations of consoles came out, the Saturn and Dreamcast disappeared under the N64 and PlayStation's success, thus leading to Sega's demise as a console-maker. But in the height of my console days, Sonic was for Sega and Mario was for Nintendo, and Sonic had not one but two TV shows. That sassy Sonic with his love for chili-dogs has been reduced to an adopted Nintendo tag-along makes me a little wistful. At least he's getting some BioWare respect.
Now here's the good news: Fringe has received a full season order from Fox (Variety). It had me worried after its not-weak-but-not-strong premiere, but when the following week it had ratings-champ House as a lead-in, its audience increased significantly and it has now been receiving fairly strong ratings, particularly compared to other new shows which have overall failed to impress audiences. Fringe can be a little icky (and I can put up with a lot of ick), but I'm looking forward to seeing where they take the show. The bad news: Pushing Daisies's season premiere on Wednesday ranked fourth in its hour with less than half the audience that tuned in for the series premiere last year, getting a sad 4.3/7 with 2.0/6 in the demo (Variety, IMDb). This was the show whose return I had been most anticipating, especially since there haven't been any new episodes since the winter because of the writers' strike. I guess for other people, the long hiatus just weaned them of the show. *Sniffle.* This is a wonderful, delightful, whimsical, quirky, hilarious, lovable show. Help save Pushing Daisies! Watch the show! ABC Wednesdays at 8/7c.
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