I’ve got something worse.
http://io9.com/5469917/roland-emmerich-wants-to-avatar+up-isaac-asimovs-foundation
Asimovs Foundation…in 3D.
“Hello, my name is Harry Seldon and whoops! Sorry, didn’t mean to spill this glass of milk towards you.”
Thanks for posting this. I found the similarity of the main theme to the Titanic song to be very distracting. It didn’t help that there was a preview for a Celine Dion concert movie right before our showing of Avatar. I thought there was another theme that reminded me of the Abyss, but it could have been the Glory.
Now that Santa Barbara-based hedge fund Pacificor has gained the rights to the Terminator Franchise, everyone is wondering what the future of the franchise might hold. William Wisher, the uncredited co-writer of Terminator and credited co-writer of Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (shared with James Cameron) has written a detailed 24-page treatment for Terminator 5, and a 4-page concept outline for Terminator 6. Mike Fleming, a self-confessed Terminator fanboy, has read both treatments and calls it a “a satisfying conclusion” to the six-film storyline.
Apparently the scripts follow the storylines set-up in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator: Salvation but turns the focus back to the core characters (Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, and the T-800) and time travel storyline of the first two installments. Here is an excerpt from Deadline:
“Wisher’s 2-picture construct takes place in a post-apocalyptic battleground, and factors in an element of time travel that allows for Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese to interact beyond their single fateful meeting when he traveled back in time to protect her in the original film. Wisher has created a role for Arnold Schwarzenegger that is as surprising as his shift from villain in the first film, to John Connor’s bodyguard in the second. Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be needed until the final film. … There are several new villains, and plenty of firepower. For instance, a swarm of “Night Crawlers,” 4 1/2-foot tall border sentries that are set like mines to spring up out of the ground and ambush rebel fighters with 10 MM pistols built into their wrists, and fingers and feet that are razor sharp. Also fresh off the Skynet assembly line are new shape-shifting cyborgs that can morph together in Transformers-like mode, and are more lethal than anything we’ve seen in previous Terminator installments.”
Sounds pretty cool eh? Well… so did ‘Salvation’ and we all saw how that turned out…
Sony and Lionsgate are both interested in producing the next film. And while everything appears to be done on spec thus far, it appears that Wisher has painted himself in the position of having a viable and interesting pitch which could quickly be crafted into the next film. James Cameron has seemed uninterested in the last couple films, but it would be interesting if Sony or Lionsgate could convince the filmmaker to come on board to produce. Cameron might be enticed with the possibility of concluding the series he created, especially considering that they will probably be filmed in 3D.
They should have stopped at T2… ):
I hold out no hope for a quality finish to the series. Look at how that article pitches the sequels: Kyle and Sarah get to interact again, new role for Arnold, super cool robots. Who. Cares. The stories for 3 and 4 sucked. Stop trying to make Terminator about the robots. I dont care about how badass the robots are. Heck I dont even really care if we see Arnold again or Sarah or Kyle Reese for that matter. What the franchise needs is quality scifi storytelling. Period.
Most recent NASA tweet:
NASA Shuttle crew awoke @4:14pET to theme song from “Firefly.” The Ballad of Serenity, performed by Sonny Rhodes, was played for Bob Behnken.
That …is…SHINY!!!
Most of the deals to come out of Sundance have been fairly small, from a monetary perspective. There’s just not much cash in indies these days, so the glory days of massive buys at the fest seem to be gone for the time being.
And now along comes this reported deal for Vincenzo Natali’s film Splice, which is all the more odd as the gene-warping creature feature certainly seemed like one of the more niche films at the fest. When the early films of David Cronenberg are regularly referenced by reviews that go on to insist that Splice gets more and more crazy, you don’t think of a massive summer release. But that’s what Joel Silver is reportedly planning.
I’ve been interested in this film since the first images were released almost a year ago and now Deadline Hollywood reports that Joel Silver is really interested in it. According to DHD, he and Dark Castle are in the end stages of a deal to give Splice a 3000-screen summer release, with a P&A (print and advertising) commitment of at least $25m and perhaps as high as $40m. That’s a lot of money for a movie like this. Will this be distributed via Warner Bros., with which Dark Castle is affiliated?
Here’s how David Chen summarized the plot’s early stages when he covered and reviewed the film from Sundance:
Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody) are a brilliant couple, biochemists who have figured out how to successfully combine different forms of animal DNA into a single creature. Their breakthroughs have many implications for the fields of science and health, but they have yet to crack the final frontier: an animal-human hybrid. When their superiors threaten to shut down their engineering project and put a stop to any further innovations, Elsa and Ed decide to take matters into their own hands.
He went on to say “I was expecting a standard-issue monster horror film. What I can state confidently is that Splice is definitely not that…Splice is less a horror film and more a quasi-serious exploration into the implications of playing God.
That as a summer release? Might be the best move Silver has made in years.
David Twohy and Vin Diesel are confirmed to be reteaming for a third Riddick picture. Unsurprisingly, this one is said to be leaner and meaner than the second installment, the astonishingly baggy Chronicles. This is how Variety put it:
…insiders say the third outing will hew closer in tone to the cult hit Pitch Black and will focus on the character of Riddick as opposed to the universe he inhabits.
Somehow I don’t think it will actually end up a “character study” though. We know nothing of the plot so far, though Vin Diesel has been talking about potential sequels for some years. In 2006 he claimed a third film would be set in the “Underverse” and the fourth would be set on Furya, Riddick’s homeworld; last August he said that Twohy was writing two scripts but not what they were.
The film’s scheduling depends somewhat on how shooting for Fast Five, the next Fast and the Furious sequel, is slotted into the calendar. (Another F&F movie??)
In 2007, it was announced that Jerry Bruckheimer would be producing a new adaptation of The Lone Ranger, with Pirates of the Caribbean/Shrek screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio penning the script. A year later, in 2008, it was revealed that Johnny Depp (BAAAARFFF) had been cast as Tonto, and George Clooney (SPEEEWWWW) was rumored to be in talks to play The Lone Ranger. Over the summer it was rumored that Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco, Prince of Persia) was in talks to direct. We haven’t heard anything since August… until now.
Heat Vision is now reporting that a new screenwriter is in negotiations to write a new draft of the project. Justin Haythe, who adapted Revolutionary Road, is in talks to come aboard the project. Haythe was most recently working with Walt Disney Pictures on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo before a recent change in staff put the project in the trash. Haythe also wrote the screenplay for the 2004 dramatic thriller The Clearing, and was developing a modern day take of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale of the scientist Dr. Jekyll and his monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, titled Jekyll and starring Keanu Reeves.
Adapted from the 1930’s radio show, which later became a popular live-action television show in the 1950’s. The Lone Ranger is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic American Indian sidekick called Tonto, and his horse Silver. He would famously say “Hi-yo Silver, away!” to get the horse to gallop. Hollywood has tried to remake the Lone Ranger twice now, a 1981 film titled The Legend of the Lone Ranger and a 2003 WB television movie/pilot, both of which were not well accepted.
They can com up with better people for LR and Tonto… Chakotay for instance…
“Battlestar Galactica” star Michael Trucco (Anders) has joined ABC’s alien invasion drama “V” reports Digital Spy. The actor will play John May, the head of the underground rebel group The Fifth Column which opposes the visitors.
…and he’s a Cylon 
At what point is he typecast as “rebel leader fighting an alien menace that’s disguised as humans”?
When he has a basketball or other sports background on the characters too? (:
http://io9.com/5472264/when-space-opera-becomes-art/
"When Space Opera Becomes Art
Spaceships roaring across depthless vistas, weapons flaring into the vacuum. Can any visions really live up to our mental images of the glory of space opera? Hell yes, and here’s the concept art to prove it."
EVE Online is featured. (Not ST:O though… :rolleyes: )
Nice pieces! 
The Francis Tsai one though looked like a Album Cover though, one I have in my collection from the 70’s, for Tomita. But that is always bound to happen, I am sure it is unintentional.
You might think that the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy on Blu-Ray might be an exciting time for Middle Earth fans. Finally, a chance to see Peter Jackson’s legendary trilogy in high definition, and without having to switch discs in the middle, no less! Head on over to the disc set’s Amazon page and you’ll see that the trilogy, which is scheduled to go on sale on April 6, 2010, has already garnered over 2,083 reviews. But look closer, and you’ll find that over 1,800 of those reviews are 1-star only, leaving the overall total languishing at around the 1.5 stars. These reviewers are pissed about something.
Consumers are upset because the discs that are included contain only the theatrical editions of the films, not the extended editions. If you’ll recall, each film was originally released in theatrical edition on DVD, followed by a 4-disc extended edition several months later. Jackson has made clear that even though the extended editions contain substantial additions, he does not consider them “director’s cuts,” since the two versions were made with fundamentally different purposes in mind.
Well, apparently, fans felt like they really got dicked over last time around when they bought both editions. Here is a characteristic review of the disc set (via Kottke):
I DO NOT RECOMMEND BUYING THIS PRODUCT/DVD. This product is being created FOR NO OTHER REASON than to dupe people into buying this movie twice…again. Those of us who were huge fans bought the original DVDs of the theatrical releases. THEN the studio FINALLY released the extended editions, even though they could have released both at the same time. Now that Blu Ray has won the High Def battle, the studios are salivating at screwing us all again the same way! Please do not let them get away with holding the extended edition hostage until everyone buys the theatrical versions.
Clearly, these people are as mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. As a DVD buyer, I’m definitely sympathetic to the dreaded double dip. But a lot has changed in the past few years, in terms of the information available to consumers. We already know that there are going to be extended editions available down the line, so hardcore fans can just wait for those if they want.
That being said, warning fellow DVD buyers against a potential double-dip is always a good thing.
For the last few years there has been a lot of talk about Comic Con moving out of San Diego. The show was born there, but in the last decade, as ‘geek culture’ has exploded into the mainstream, the con has been bursting at the seams. Once a playground for actual comic book fans, the show has become a massive promo market for movies, television and video games, as well as a meeting ground for those who like to dress up in Slave Leia costumes.
Currently, the organization behind the show has a contract to stay in San Diego through 2012. But other cities like Anaheim and Las Vegas are trying to lure the Con to their convention centers starting in 2013. Will Comic Con soon have a new home?
The San Diego Union Tribune has a piece about the business behind the Con, and the deals that are percolating to possibly relocate it. At issue is the show’s massive attendance (126,000) and the fact that passes and hotel rooms sell out months in advance. The two overarching problems are a lack of additional convention center space and limited hotel room availability. A proposal to expand the San Diego Convention Center has been endorsed by a citizens task force, but there is currently no plan to implement it.
The San Diego Convention Center Corp is trying to broker a deal to extent Comic Con’s stay in San Diego through at least 2015. In concert with city officials and the San Diego Unified Port District, hotels have been convinced to allocate more rooms for Con attendees. Three hotels (Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego Marriott and Hilton San Diego Bayfront) have committed to provide free meeting room space from 2013 to 2015, while the SDCCC proposes doubling the hotel rooms offered at discounted Con rates, from 7,000 to 14,000. But neither of these changes would take place until 2013. By then, even those figures might be too small.
“When you have to limit exhibit space and sell out early, those are negatives,” Comic Con spokesman David Glanzer said. “But by San Diego trying to increase hotel-room blocks and utilize space at adjacent hotels, that may neutralize some of those things.”
Meanwhile, Anaheim, which has a convention center with half a million more square feet of space than San Diego’s, is making a play for the Con to relocate. The city is currently the location for the music industry’s large NAAM show, which draws about 90,000 people each year. And without the attraction of the waterfront in San Deigo, Anaheim hotel room rates would also be cheaper and less in demand from non-Con tourists.
Anaheim is drawing up a plan to formally bid for Comic Con, and the board at Comic Con International is expected to make a decision about whether to move within the next month.
“The convention would be a big deal to anyone who would be able to bag it,” said Charles Ahlers, president of the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau. “Everybody gets immediately healthy with Comic-Con.”
Thanks for the heads up. That news warrants it’s own thread I think.
Edit: I think some of the anger is held over from Lucas deci-dipping (gotta be over ten editions) Star Wars. Imagine how that’s gonna be when the Blu-rays are released.