Alice In Wonderland Getting IMAX 3D Release March 31, 2009 6:58 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in IMAX, Movies, News, Walt Disney Pictures.Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton
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Walt Disney Pictures also announced today, along with IMAX, that Alice in Wonderland, from director Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen and Mia Wasikowska as Alice, will be released to IMAX theaters simultaneously with the film’s wide release on March 5, 2010. The full press release follows after the jump. (more…)
Disney To Release Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D Double Feature in October March 31, 2009 6:36 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Movies, News.Tags: Toy Story, Toy Story 2
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At ShoWest today, Walt Disney Pictures announced that 3D presentations of Disney-Pixar’s animated features Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will be released in theaters starting on October 2, 2009, for a limited two-week engagement. The double feature will play exclusively in 3D.
The double-feature will lead into an all new chapter the following year, when Walt Disney releases Toy Story 3 on June 18, 2010. The full press release follows after the jump. (more…)
Orci & Kurtzman Talk Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen March 31, 2009 5:05 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DreamWorks, Movies, News, Paramount Pictures.Tags: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman recently spoke with SCI FI Wire to discuss what’s coming up with the new story, what robots we may see in it and the possibility of getting Leonard Nimoy to voice a character. Here are a few excerpts:
Talk about the process of deciding what robots to keep, what robots to add. There are so many of these characters that you have to pick from. How do you winnow them down, how do you add the new ones, integrate them?
Orci: Well, the easier one, obviously, is the fact that we inherit certain ones from the previous movie and from the fact that Prime and Bumblebee are kind of the two front-and-center relationships. … In terms of villains, it was again going back to all the source material. … We got a bunch of the comics again, we got a bunch of the old cartoons, and just started looking for kind of the most elemental bad guy that kind of jumped off the material, and we found one in the Fallen.
And you’ve got to bring Megatron back.
Orci: Exactly. But part of it, too, was because of the oddity of the strike, what happened before the strike is that Alex and I and Ehren wrote up kind of a 20-page treatment of … kind of, basically, the moves of the movie. And so many of the robots were selected there. But then many of them were also selected during the strike while we couldn’t do anything, as a matter of necessity, by Hasbro and by [director] Michael Bay for some of the action sequences. They literally had to start designing somebody. And they were prohibited by the law from calling us and saying, “Who should that other somebody be?” So it was a mixture of the characters that we had in our treatment and some of the characters that were designed specifically for the movie for production.
And here’s what Orci had to say about the possibility of Nimoy voicing a character in the film:
And you, Bob, were quoted as saying you were trying to get Leonard Nimoy to do the Fallen?
Orci: He originally was the voice in the animated movie, and at one of the conventions, Alex and I actually spoke to him about it, and he’s like, “Yeah, I’d be open to that.” But it’ll be Michael’s decision.
Have you talked with Michael about that?
Orci Oh, sure. … He’s like, “Hmm.” And we’re like, “You know you’re cousins, right?” [Nimoy’s wife is Michael Bay’s cousin.]
There was also some talk about Frank Welker, the original voice of Megatron, and whether he’d actually end up in the movie after all?
Orci: Exactly, and I think they’re in the middle of hashing that out. We’ll see who we get.
Read the entire interview over at SCI FI Wire.
True Blood Season Two Set for June 14th + First Photos March 31, 2009 1:41 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in HBO, Images/Photos, News, Television.Tags: True Blood
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HBO has set a June 14th date for the second season premiere of its hit vampire drama True Blood. The network has also released several new publicity photos from the second season. Click through the jump to see more. (more…)
MTV Orders Four More Seasons of The Real World March 31, 2009 1:32 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in MTV, News, Television, The Real World.Tags: The Real World
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MTV has ordered four additional seasons of its 17-year-old reality hit The Real World. The renewal will bring the reality series to an amazing 26 cycles. The network is also ordering another four seasons of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, bringing the competition series to 21 cycles.
The early extended renewal will help spur creativity among the show’s creators:
“This allows us to plan,” executive producer Jon Murray said. “It helps us figure out where we’re going next and allows us to do some long-range thinking.”
Source: THR
Paramount Moving Foward on Star Trek Sequel; Writers on Board March 31, 2009 1:04 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Movies, News, Paramount Pictures.Tags: Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci, Star Trek
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With just a little over a month before Paramount Pictures releases Star Trek (May 1, 2009), the studio is moving forward with a sequel and has hired Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman (who wrote the first film) and Damon Lindelof to pen the screenplay.
Director J.J. Abrams will be back to produce alongside his Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk, but no decision has been made yet on whether Abrams will return to direct the sequel. The three screenwriters will also be receiving producing credit for the sequel.
Read the rest after the jump, plus check out some new photos and high-res art of the final U.S. poster. (more…)
Friday Night Lights Gets Renewed for Two More Seasons March 30, 2009 8:50 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DirecTV, NBC, News, Renewals, Television.Tags: Friday Night Lights
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DirecTV and NBC have finalized a deal to produce 26 more episodes, to be aired over the course of two seasons, of the critically hailed, but poorly rated, NBC series Friday Night Lights.
The 26-episode order will likely be the last for the series, given its low ratings. The 26 episodes will be produced consecutively without a break, but DirecTV will air the episodes as two 13-episode seasons. NBC will get a second window of Friday Night Lights episodes after they air on DirecTV, just as they’re doing currently with the third season.
Through 11 episodes this season, Friday Night Lights has averaged a 2.7/4 HH rating/share, 3.98M viewers and a 1.3/4 A18-49 rating/share on NBC.
But forget the ratings, I love this series and am thrilled to see it’ll be around for at least two more seasons.
Source: TV Week
David Cronenberg Talks Eastern Promises Sequel March 30, 2009 8:22 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Focus Features, Movies, News.Tags: David Cronenberg, Eastern Promises
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In a new interview with MTV, Eastern Promises director David Cronenberg said that he, star Viggo Mortensen, screenwriter Steven Knight, producer Paul Webster and the studio Focus Features, are planning on making a sequel to the 2007 thriller. Here’s a small excerpt from MTV:
“We are moving forward with it,” Cronenberg told MTV News. “We all are excited about the idea of doing a sequel.”
“We are going to have a meeting very soon between me, Steve Knight and Paul Webster to discuss what the script would be,” Cronenberg said. “I have some very strong ideas about what I would like to see, but I would like to hear what they have to say as well. And then after that, if all goes well, Steve goes away and writes a great script. If we all like it, we make it.”
Eastern Promises grossed just $17.3 million domestically, but did better in foreign markets, pushing its worldwide cume to $56.1 million.
Bruno Gets NC-17 Rating March 30, 2009 8:16 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 20th Century Fox, Movies, News.Tags: Bruno, Sascha Baron Cohen
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Sascha Baron Cohen’s latest film, Bruno, has received a NC-17 rating. The Wrap reports that the film got the rating, in part, due to a scene where the Baron’s character “appears to have anal sex with a man on camera. In another, the actor goes on a hunting trip and sneaks naked into the tent of one of the fellow hunters, an unsuspecting non-actor.”
This actually isn’t much of a surprise because Cohen’s last film, 20th Century Fox’s Borat, initially earned an NC-17 rating as well. That film was later re-edited and got the necessary R-Rating, en route to an impressive $128.9M domestically ($261.6M worldwide) on a budget of just $18M.
Bruno, from Universal Pictures, hits theaters on July 7, 2009.
CBS May Cancel Guiding Light March 30, 2009 7:46 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in CBS, News, Television.Tags: Guiding Light
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TV Week is reporting that CBS may soon decide to pull the plug on Guiding Light, the longest-running daytime drama in television history (it started on radio and together with its television run its survived more than 70 years). While no final decision has been made yet, the network’s deal ends in September and the network would likely settle on a decision within the next month.
Last February the show changed its storytelling approach to one that gave the show a more realistic, less stage feel. That was also around the time that CBS renewed the show for its current season and retaining an option for an additional season. But ratings haven’t improved since the switch. According to data from Nielsen, season-to-date, the show is averaging 2.17 million viewers and a 0.9 rating in women 18-49 rating (the target demographic for daytime soaps); that’s down 18% in viewers and 25% in the demographic season-to-season.
FOX Sets Summer Schedule March 29, 2009 11:10 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in 2008/2009 TV Season, Fox, News, Television.Tags: Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, Don't Forget the Lyrics, Hells Kitchen, Mental, So You Think You Can Dance, Teen Choice 2009
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Fox has announced their summer schedule, which will see the return of So You Think You Can Dance? on May 21st, new medical drama Mental on May 22nd, Hell’s Kitchen on July 21st, Teen Choice 2009 on August 10th and Don’t Forget the Lyrics! on May 22nd and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? on July 3rd. The full press release follows after the jump. (more…)
Harold Ramis Talks Ghostbusters 3 March 29, 2009 10:12 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Movies, News.Tags: Ghostbusters 3, Harold Ramis
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Harold Ramis spoke with MTV recently about the third Ghostbusters. Ramis revealed that he’s still waiting on a first draft of the script from The Office-scribes Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, but that he, along with Dan Aykroyd and original director Ivan Reitman, have been consulting on the project. The biggest news, however, was that Ramis confirmed that all the original core players will be part of the film, including Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd:
“We’re all going to be in it in different kinds of roles,” Ramis said. “We’re going to be the sage mentors. There are going to be young Ghostbusters.”
Lipstick Jungle Officially Canceled March 29, 2009 9:42 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Cancellations, NBC, News, Television.Tags: Lipstick Jungle
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What’s been expected for months is now official, NBC’s Lipstick Jungle has been officially canceled, that according to star Brooke Shields:
“It was going to stay and we just were officially told it’s finally not coming back,” Shields, who played movie exec Wendy Healy, told E! “I think a lot of people were really sad, but I think we hung on a really long time. It was three great years that we’ve been working on it.”
While NBC hasn’t officially made the announcement of the show’s cancellation, a source to TV Guide confirmed Shields’ version of the story.
Source: TV Guide
NBC Cancels The Chopping Block March 29, 2009 9:21 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Cancellations, NBC, News, Television.Tags: The Chopping Block
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After just three weeks on the air, NBC is pulling its weak performing original cooking competition series The Chopping Block. According to THR’s James Hibberd, the network informed affiliates of the decision Thursday night.
Beginning this Wednesday, the show will be replaced with repeats of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The repeats will be episodes that have already aired on the network. USA Network episodes will still make their broadcast debut on NBC starting on April 29th.
The Chopping Block premiered on March 11th with just 3.77M viewers and a 1.4/4 A18-49 rating/share. In week two the show fell to just 3.40M viewers and a 1.2/4 A18-49 rating/share, before completely fizzling out last week with just 2.58M viewers and a 0.9/2 A18-49 rating/share (32 and 36 percent slides, respectively, from the already low series premiere).
NBC plans to burn off the remaining episodes sometime in the future.
ABC To Air Ben Hur Miniseries March 27, 2009 12:56 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, Movies, News, Television.Tags: Alan Sharp, Ben Hur, Steve Shill
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ABC will be airing a new four-hour Ben Hur miniseries. The $22.5 million production hails from Alchemy Television Group and Spain’s Drimtim Entertainment. Steve Shill (Rome) is on board to direct from a script penned by Alan Sharp (Rob Roy). Production is set to begin in May in Spain, Morocco and Canada. Casting is still underway.
The project will be presented by ABC as a limited series. No air date has been set yet.
Source: Variety
Sean Penn Set for The Three Stooges March 25, 2009 6:46 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Casting, Movies, News.Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Jim Carrey, Sean Penn, The Three Stooges
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MGM and the Farrelly brothers have settled on their cast for The Three Stooges. Variety has confirmed an earlier report that Sean Penn is set to play Larry, while negotiations are underway with Jim Carrey to play Curly and Benicio Del Toro being targeted to play Moe.
Jim Carrey is expected to gain 40 or so pounds to approximate the physical dimensions of Curly.
Variety reports that the film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts.
40.35M Watched President Obama’s Second News Conference March 25, 2009 5:25 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Nielsen TV Ratings, Television.Tags: Barack Obama, Broadcast TV Ratings, Cable TV Ratings
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The second press conference of President Barack Obama last night drew an audience of 40.35M viewers. The hour-long conference had a combined household rating of a 25.9 and was carried on 11 networks: ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and mun2.
President Obama’s previous news conference was seen by 49.46M viewers in February. Over the past week, the President has racked up impressive audiences for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (an 11.2 household metered market rating) last Thursday and 60 Minutes on Sunday (17.04M).
For comparative purposes, President Obama’s inauguration day celebration was seen by 37.79M viewers and his address to congress was watched by 52.37M viewers.
Seth Rogen Talks Green Hornet March 25, 2009 2:58 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Columbia Pictures, Movies, News.Tags: Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet
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During a press event for his upcoming comedy Observe and Report, actor Seth Rogen talked about the upcoming superhero film The Green Hornet. Rogen once again confirmed that the film has a “tentative start date” for the end of June. Rogen also talked a bit about Stephen Chow’s invovlement:
He’s kind of our mascot. (laughs) He may be Kato. I’m not 100% sure if that’s the case, but it’s a very likely possibility. I’m not sure. Honestly, we’re kind of in the very early phases right now. We’re just putting those elements in place so I’m being honest. I honestly don’t know yet.
Similarly to what he told SCI FI Wire, the character will be Lone Ranger’s grandnephew:
He’s actually the Lone Ranger’s grandnephew. The Lone Ranger is owned by Jerry Bruckheimer so that probably limits the amount of involvement we can actually have in that movie. We were inspired by the original. We kind of took what we thought was good and left what we didn’t. Honestly, we didn’t feel any real obligation living up to the original because the radio plays totally different than the TV show which is different than the comic book. There is no real set way.
Source: Superhero Hype!
Bob Barket to Guest Star on The Price Is Right! March 25, 2009 2:25 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in CBS, News, Television.Tags: Bob Barker, Drew Carey, The Price Is Right
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Bob Barker, the legendary emcee and former host of The Price Is Right!, will return to the show Wednesday to tape a guest apperance. His appearance is part of the promotional tour for Priceless Memories, his new autobiography.
CBS plans to air Mr. Barker’s guest spot on April 16th.
Bob Barker stepped down as host of the hit daytime game show in 2007, after 35 years. Drew Carey currently hosts the show.
Source: TV Week
George Lopez to Host Late-Night TBS Show March 25, 2009 2:19 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, TBS, Television.Tags: George Lopez
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TBS is entering the late-night talk show ring, tapping actor/comedian George Lopez to host a new talk show. The network handed the project, still untitled, a 34-week order after seeing a presentation. The show will launch in November, airing at 11pm Monday-Thursday.
“If change can come to the White House, then change can come to late-night,” Lopez said. “Yes I can!”
According to THR, the show will feature celebrity guests, live music and comedy acts and the audience will be encouraged to interact with Lopez and his guests.
Survivor: Live Opening in Theme Parks this Summer March 24, 2009 1:06 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in CBS, News, Television.Tags: Survivor: Live
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CBS Consumer Products has sealed a deal to bring the stage show Survivor: Live to three theme parks this summer.
“Audience involvement is key to the success of ‘Survivor,’ and we’ve been looking to make that tangible and real,” said Liz Kalodner, exec VP and general manager of CBS Consumer Products. “It took us a little time to create something that replicated the essence of the show.”
According to Variety, the half-hour program will use clips from the TV series — as well as actors portraying previous contestants — and divide the audience into four “tribes.” Volunteers from the crowd will go through a series of four challenges, leading eventually to a sole winner.
The show will debut May 2 at Denver’s Elitch Gardens and Oklahoma City’s Frontier City. On May 23rd a third show, at the Darien Lake Theme Park Resort in Darien Center, N.Y., will open.
Chelsea Handler Inks 3-year Deal March 24, 2009 1:02 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Casting, E!, News, Television.Tags: Chelsea Handler, Chelsea Lately
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Chelsea Handler, host of the E! Entertainment latenight show Chelsea Lately, has inked a new 3-year deal with parent company Comcast Entertainment Group that will keep her at the network for at least the next three years.
The deal, said to be worth as much as eight figures, means that Handler will continue as the host and executive producer of the latenight show through 2012.
Source: Variety
Big Boost for Battlestar Galactica Series Finale [Update] March 23, 2009 5:54 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Nielsen TV Ratings, Sci Fi, Television.Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Cable TV Ratings
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Updated on 3/25/2009 at 1:05PM: The final numbers for the episode were 2.36M viewers. Among the demos, it drew 1.5M adults 18-49 and 1.6M adults 25-54. In terms of the season 4.5 average (based on live + same day DVR playback) the show averaged 1.77M viewers. SCI FI reports that the season 4 average (based on live+7-day numbers with the exception of the penultimate episode and the two-hour series finale) is 2.3M.
Original article follows below.
The two-hour series finale of Battlestar Galactica drew 2.4 million viewerslast Friday, according to preliminary data (final data will be released by Tuesday/Wednesday). While on its own, that’s not all that impressive (after all, a normal airing of Ghost Hunters on the network drew 2.7 million viewers the week before last), but when compared to its most recent episode, the show was up 41%. Overall, the 10-episode season 4.5 averaged 1.77M viewers.
The finale was also the most-watched episode of the series since the season 2.5 premiere nearly 3 years ago on January 6, 2006.
Source: THR
Twilight DVD Sells 3 Million Copies March 23, 2009 5:40 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DVD, Movies, News.Tags: Twilight
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Summit Entertainment has announced that the DVD release of Twilight sold an impressive 3 million copies in just its first day of release, placing the title in the top 5 of first day releases in the past two years.
Twilight grossed $191.4 million domestically and an impressive 373.4M worldwide.
Check out the full press release after the jump. (more…)
Roseanne Barr Looking to Return to Primetime March 23, 2009 5:32 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, News, Television.Tags: Roseanne Barr
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Roseanne Barr, star of the long-running and successful ABC sitcom Roseanne, may be returning to primetime. Jim Vallely (Arrested Development) is attached to pen the script for the project, which has been pitched to Fox.
According to THR, Barr has teamed with one of the Roseanne producers, Caryn Mandabach, for a family comedy where Barr will play the matriarch.
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