At the premiere of Avatar, director Bryan Singer told a reporter:
I just yesterday signed a deal to do an X-Men: First Class Origins picture, which is kind of cool. I’m very excited.
Fans of the series will be glad to have Singer back in the director’s chair, but many remain skeptical about the prequel concept for this film. Still … Singer … X-men … should be fun.
Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter takes center stage in this new trailer for Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton’s take on the Lewis Carroll classic.
Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation studio behind Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, are set to adapt Mary Norton’s classic children’s book “The Borrowers”. They will be changing the location from England to Japan. The film is set for release next summer.
Sounds like a perfect project for this fine studio.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a regular feature in which they publish the first lines of new books that hit the stores that week. It always makes for a fun read. But in all our time reading this column, we never encounter one we like as much as this:
Shortly after Star Wars hit box office records, a group of ninety-seven locusts sat down to watch the film.
This just looks like a mash-up of clips from 300, Troy, and Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, it isn’t. The makers of this film aren’t that clever.
For fun, let’s look at how they sold the original back in ‘81:
Cheesy, even by eighties standards, but, frankly, it still looks like more fun than the new one. And it has Laurence Oliver … as Zeus!!
New Trailer for the remake of George Romero’s cult classic The Crazies.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz ….
In an interview with Channel 4, Signourney Weaver offers some interesting bits of info about the new Ghostbusters sequel, including one massive spoiler:
I’m afraid to say it [Ghostbuster 3] is happening, I hope people are excited about that. I don’t know if I’m going to be in it, I have had a couple of calls asking ‘would you read the script.’
I know that my little son Oscar – who was kidnapped from me – I think he has grown up to be a ghostbuster,” she added. “I might be in it; I see nothing wrong with being in it, although I don’t think I will have a big part. I think Bill Murray has a little more to do with it – he’s a ghost.
Murray a ghost? Hmmm … not sure what we think about that.
Neilson Business Media announced on Thursday that they will cease operations of Kirkus Reviews. A huge loss to the publishing industry.
Kirkus Reviews, generally only known to the general public for blurbs on book jackets, was nonetheless an important part of the industry. With libraries and booksellers unable to read every book before ordering, prepublication reviewers like Kirkus helped them make informed choices. The classic Kirkus review provided a brief synopsis and several lines praising or denigrating the book.
Neilson also announced the closure of the magazine Editor and Publisher, and the fact that they’re putting Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Magazine on the auction block.
And, before we forget, Kirkus was one of the many publications to give Ghost Radio a rave. They said of the book:
“A first novel that moves with deserved confidence into Stephen King territory …. Palpable, almost visible cross-cultural creepiness that never lets up: very smart thrills.”
– Kirkus Reviews
So, needless to say, we’ll definitely miss them.
The controversial, award winning Science Fiction writer Harlan Ellison wants a crack at penning the sequel to J.J. Abrams’ hit motion picture reboot.
Ellison had this to say on his website:
Yes, I would likely try to steer him toward the original film idea I was asked to pitch, by the late Gene Roddenberry and a production exec whose name I have blissfully flensed from memory (but he had been, if I recall, a hairdresser or clothing designer or ex-boyfriend of someone or other, and he kept trying to press me to include the Mayan Calendar.
Ellison is no stranger to the Star Trek universe. He wrote an episode for the original series called “The City on the Edge of Forever”. An episode considered by many not to only be the best episode of Star Trek but one of the best bits of television ever produced.
However, he’s also been both critical of both the series and its fans. Which forced many on his website to question his desire to get involved in the franchise. Harlan responded with his usual panache:
What the hell are you guys…nuts? Where’s the ‘downside’ to getting topside the radar of J.J. Abrams? This guy ain’t Roddenberry! He also ain’t the ex-hairdresser with the jones for Mayan calendars! He’s a writer I respect, whose work has frequently blown the lid off my box of surpriseability. But, then, he already KNOWS that. It isn’t as if I’d kept my admiration chained in the darkest cell of the basement of Bedlam.
It’s highly unlikely that Ellison will get the chance at doing anything on the new Star Trek film. But we’d love to see what he’d do with the it.
