“You”: Time’s Person of the Year December 16, 2006 11:21 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Magazines, News.add a comment
That’s right, you. As in me, yourself, your friends, your family. You name a person, they’re the person of the year.
From Time: “Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.”
Read the story about the person of the year here and be sure to pick up the Person of the Year issue on newstands this month.
“Pursuit of Happyness” appears to be Friday winner December 16, 2006 12:48 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Box Office, Movies, News.add a comment
Early estimates (courtesy Deadline Hollywood Daily and Box Office Mojo) show that the Will Smith powered “Pursuit of Happyness” and “Eragon” were in a tight race Friday for the number one spot, with ‘Pursuit’ taking in about $9.05M in receipts and “Eragon” around $8.62M.
Those two openers were followed by “Charlotte’s Web” at number three ($3.43M), “The Holiday” ($2.58M) holding well from the week prior at number four, “Apocalypto” (last week’s winner) dropping to fifth ($2.245M), “Happy Feet” ($2.07M) at number six, “Blood Diamond” dropping to seventh with $1.805M, “Casino Royale” ($1.575M) at number eight, “The Nativity Story” ($1.20M) at number nine and “Unaccompanied Minors” ($1.015M) at 1oth.
If those numbers hold firm, expect weekend takes of around $27M for “Pursuit of Happyness”, $24M for “Eragon” and $14M for “Charlotte’s Web”.
Box Office for Friday, December 15, 2006
1. “Pursuit of Happyness — $9.05M
2. “Eragon” — $8.62M
3. “Charlotte’s Web” — $3.43M
4. “The Holiday” — $2.58M
5. “Apocalypto” — $2.245M
6. “Happy Feet” — $2.07M
7. “Blood Diamond” — $1.805M
8. “Casino Royale” — $1.575M
9. “The Nativity Story” — $1.20M
10. “Unaccompanied Minors” — $1.015M
Top DVD sales for the week ending December 10th December 16, 2006 12:36 pm
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As was expected, and mentioned here a few days back, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” the second of an expected three films in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise, was the number one best selling DVD for the past week.
Dragon Quest IX Exclusive to Nintendo DS December 16, 2006 12:06 pm
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In a somewhat surprising move, SquareEnix has decided to release their next game in the successful “Dragon Quest” RPG series exclusively on the Nintendo DS handheld.
The game, now titled Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito (translated to Protectors of the Sky), was originally expected to be released for the Sony Playstation 2, Sony Playstation 3 or the Nintendo Wii.
The game has a tentative release date set for December 31, 2007 in Japan with an international release to other territories, including the U.S., also expected sometime in 2007.
ABC pulls “Day Break” and “Show Me the Money” from schedule December 15, 2006 5:51 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Cancellations, News, Television.add a comment
ABC has pulled both struggling shows from their lineup, effective immediately.
“Show Me the Money” had actually just recently been given an additional six episode order, but ABC has canceled that order and ended production of the program.
“Day Break” will be replaced with an hour block of comedies to be named in the future, while “Show Me the Money” will be replaced with an airing of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”.
Teaser trailer for “Live Free or Die Hard” released December 15, 2006 3:10 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Movie Trailers, Movies, News.1 comment so far
The teaser for the next movie in the Die Hard franchise, “Live Free or Die Hard” has been released.
Head on over to Yahoo! Movies or MovieHole.net to catch the short teaser.
“Dead Man’s Chest” sets one-week sales record for 2006 December 15, 2006 2:57 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DVD, DVD Sales, Movies, News.1 comment so far
As was mentioned on Entertainment Now a less than a week ago, first day sales of the second ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise were in excess of 5 million units. Experts were expecting when it was all said and done, “Dead Man’s Chest” would become the best selling one-week DVD of 2006.
Well, the movie accomplished the feat selling a 2006 one-week record of 10.5 million DVD’s. The previous record was held by Disney/Pixars “Cars” which sold 9 million units in its first week.
“With the incredible success of the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, it is evident that the home entertainment industry continues to flourish,” BVWHE president Bob Chapek said in a statement. “It also further illustrates worldwide phenomenon of everything Pirates of the Caribbean.”
The mark was just a tad short of the previous film in the franchise “Curse of the Black Pearl” which sold 11 million DVD’s and VHS tapes back in its first week in 2003.
The DVD continues to be a huge success worldwide as well, as it sold 1.5 million units in the U.K. (a first-week record) and 1 million units in Japan (the live-action release of all time).
Broadcast TV Ratings for Thursday, December 14, 2006 December 15, 2006 2:36 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Broadcast TV Ratings, News, Nielsen Ratings, Television.add a comment
CBS, once again, wins another night in all three main categories. A repeat of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” took the top spot in households and viewers, while “Survivor: Cook Islands” was the top rated show for the evening among adults 18-49.
Nathan Fillion gets attached to “Drive” December 15, 2006 1:04 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in New Show Orders, News, Television.1 comment so far
Nathan Fillion (of “Firefly” and “Serenity” fame) has been tapped by Fox to star in the midseason drama series “Drive”.
The series is executive produced by Tim Minear, Ben Queen and Greg Yaitanes and is from 20th Century Fox TV.
“Drive” chronicles an underground race across America and Fillion wil play the role of Alex Tully, a roque landscaper who is forced into joining the race to search for his kidnapped wife.
New japanese inspired game show on the way to NBC December 15, 2006 12:55 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in New Show Orders, News, Television.1 comment so far
Executive producer Vin Di Bona (“America’s Funniest Videos”) is preparing a one-hour pilot for NBC titled “Comedy Colosseum”, based on a popular japanese game show.
The program will be hosted by Saturday Night Live alum Dean Edwards and Olivia Lee (from Britain).
The format of the program has comics going head to head for $10,000 in the arena of a Colosseum, where the audience decides on the winners and losers. Each comic will be judged on the laughter they are able to generate from the audience.
U.S. edition of FHM suspended December 15, 2006 12:49 pm
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Emap Consumer Media, publisher of the U.K. based FHM, announced this morning that it is ending publication of the U.S. edition of the magazine.
Emap Consumer Media CEO Paul Keenan had the following to say about the decision, “Trading conditions in the U.S. market have deteriorated over the past 12 months and we do not expect an improvement in the near term. In these circumstances we do not anticipate that the title would be able to trade on a profitable basis going forward.”
Circulation for the magazine fell 3.2 percent in the first half of 2006 to 1.25 million compared to an increase of 1.9 percent of rival Maxim magazine, which had 2.58 million in the same period.
FHM U.K. is unaffected by this move.
‘Tarzan’ set for bigscreen return December 15, 2006 12:44 pm
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Warner Brothers studio and producer Jery Weintraub intend to bring Tarzan back to the bigscreen.
The studio is eyeing several people for roles on the film, as they are negotiating with Guillermo del Toro to direct and John Collee (‘Master and Commander’) to pen the screenplay.
“I’d love to create a new version that is still a family movie, but as edgy as I can make it,” Del Toro said. “There are strong themes of survival of a defenseless child left behind in the most hostile environment.”
Del Toro is also very excited at the opportunity to work with John Collee.
“John will be writing it alone, as I’ll be in production on ‘Hellboy 2’ and pursuing writing projects of my own,” Del Toro said. “He’s got a great sense of adventure and the wilderness.”
Del Toro’s most recent film, Pan’s Labryinth, opens December 29th.
Source: [Variety] — ‘Tarzan’ on vine for Warner Bros.
CBS getting into music business December 15, 2006 12:38 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Music, News.1 comment so far
According to Variety, in January of next year CBS will launch a digital record label, with the goal of using their television, iTunes and Innertube broadband channel to promote them.
CBS Records will use the exisiting CBS Entertainment and CBS Interactive infastructures and launch with three artists — Senor Happy, Will Dailey and P.J. Olsson, with plans to sign at least another five artists during the first year.Larry Jenkins, head of his own management company, L J Entertainment, and a former publicity and marketing exec at Capitol Records and Columbia Records, will consult for CBS Records during the primary launch phase, identifying talent and assisting with A&R administration. He will be working with Nancy Tellem, president of CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group, under whose aegis CBS Records will fall.
“The cost of entry is so low that it was a great way of setting up a new model for a record label,” Tellem told Daily Variety. “If we can lower music costs while gaining an additional revenue stream, it’s a win-win.”
For more on this story, please follow the link to the Variety article below.
Source: [Variety] — CBS spins digital record label
Gears of War reaches 2M units sold December 15, 2006 12:31 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Video Game Sales, Video Games, Xbox 360.add a comment
Gears of War for the Xbox 360 is now the fastest-selling next-generation game of 2006.
The game has sold 1 million copies in the US alone, and another 1 million in other territories worldwide.
Both Microsoft (Publisher) and Epic Games (Developer) released a comment:
“‘Gears of War’ clearly has won the battle for the title of the must-have game of the year,” said Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing for the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft Corp. “Its phenomenal success is one of many reasons why Xbox 360 is the ultimate place to get together with friends to play this holiday.”
“We’ve always held high hopes for ‘Gears of War,’ but we never expected such an overwhelmingly positive response from critics and gamers all over the world,” said Michael Capps, president, Epic Games. “I can’t describe how stoked our team is right now. Our fans can absolutely count on Epic to keep delivering new gameplay through Xbox Live.”
The game has also done very well online, where it is being played by about 1 million users, about half of its audience.
Nintendo to replace Wii-mote straps December 15, 2006 12:25 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Nintendo, Nintendo Wii, Video Games.add a comment
Nintendo this morning has announced a program that will allow customers to voluntarily exhange their current Wii-mote straps (which are said to be defective, or simply break too easily) with new straps with a larger diameter string.
The original straps measured at 0.024 inches (diameter), while the new straps have a more sturdy 0.04 inch diameter.
The company will be replacing up to 3.2 million original straps (all new consoles and individual Wii-motes ship with the new strap) in a move that is expected to cost the company several million dollars.
Nintendo is stressing, however, that this is not a recall, just a voluntary upgrade if you will of your current Wii-mote strap.
Those interested can contact Nintendo here to get your replacement strap.
HD DVD/Blu-ray war heats up and system hardware sales for November December 15, 2006 12:16 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Blu-ray Disc, Hardware Sales, HD DVD, News, Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3, Video Games, Xbox 360.add a comment
With November out of the way, sales data is starting to trickle in for the Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox HD DVD add-on, one front of the High-Definition format war.
For the month of November, Sony sold 197,000 Playstation 3’s in the U.S., while Microsoft sold an impressive (for an add-on) 42,000 HD DVD add-on’s for its Microsoft Xbox 360 player.
It should be noted that while Sony had more PS3’s sold, it’s impossibile to gauge how many of those owners of the system are using the console as a Blu-ray device. On the other hand, it can easily be assumed that all 42,000 owners of the HD DVD drive are using that device specifically for HD DVD movie playback, since the device isn’t used in any form for video game playback (the Xbox 360 is equiped with a regular PC DVD drive, hence the need for an add-on).
Elsewhere on the video game front, Nintendo sold 476,000 units of its new Nintendo Wii console, taking an early lead on the Playstation 3 by more than double the units.
Nintendo is said to be having no problems with their production of the unit while Sony is having issues but are still promising 2M PS3’s shipped by the end of the year (Sony originally were hoping to have 400,000 units for the U.S. launch, but were only able to supply half of that).
For the month, console sales were paced by the Playstation 2 at 664,000, the Microsoft Xbox 360, which has been out since last Christmas, at 510,000 and the Nintendo GameCube at 42,000.
On the portable front, Nintendo’s DS was the best seller with 918,000 sold, followed by the Nintendo Game Boy at 641,000 and the Sony Playstation Portable at 412,000 units sold.
Here are the installed base figures as of November, 2006 for all current video game systems in the U.S. (Console and Portable):
PS2: 35.8 million
GBA: 34.3 million
DS: 7.6 million
PSP: 5.7 million
Xbox 360: 3.4 million
Wii: 476 thousand
PS3: 197 thousand
‘Sopranos’ set for April return, “Rome” in January December 15, 2006 2:16 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Television, The Sopranos.2 comments
HBO has set an approximate premiere date for the second half of the final season of “The Sopranos”. According to a note on the homepage of the series on HBO.com “The Sopranos final season starts in April”.
The original plan had the final episodes of the series debuting in January, however the filming schedule had to be pushed back when James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) had knee surgery.
“Then we looked at the fact that we would be launching sort of in the middle of the [NFL] playoffs and the Super Bowl and all that stuff, and it seemed that for everybody’s sake we would push back a few weeks,” HBO chief Chris Albrecht Albrecht said.
HBO will re-air the first half of the sixth season of “The Sopranos” (currently available via HBO on Demand) beginning January 15th, 2007 .
In other HBO news, the second, and final, season of “Rome” is set for premiere on Sunday, January 14th, 2007.
TNT about to pick up two new series, “Saved” future in doubt December 15, 2006 2:10 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in New Show Orders, News, Television.63 comments
TNT is about to pick up two new series to go along with its hit “The Closer”.
One of the shows, “Grace”, stars Holly Hunter as a burned-out cop and the other titled “Heartland”, features Treat Williams as a heart-transplant surgeon whose work is affecting his personal life.
With the two new series set to join the TNT lineup sometime in 2007, it appears that “Saved” will not be returning after only one season one the air.
“Saved,” a drama about a Portland paramedic (Tom Everett Scott), drew good ratings, but was never able to hold more than half of the audience of its lead-in “The Closer”. TNT is commited to improve upon that performance with these two new shows. “Heartland” appears to be the series which will get the timeslot of “Saved”.
ABC pulling “Help Me Help You” in favor of bigger dose of “Big Day” December 15, 2006 2:03 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Cancellations, News, Television.add a comment
Effective next week, ABC is pulling all remaining episodes of “Help Me Help You” and replacing them with an extra half-hour of the new comedy “Big Day”.
The network will run back-to-back episodes of “Big Day” starting next Tuesday. ‘Help Me’ is on hiatus effective immediately. Nine of the show’s 13 episodes have aired, with no decision yet made on whether or not the remaining four episodes will be shown.
At its current rate of double airings, “Big Day” will reach the end of its 13-episode order by mid-January and ABC has not yet made a decision on the future of the series nor made plans known on what will air in the 9:00 PM timeslot after the show’s 13 episodes have been aired.
CBS is mulling new animated Trek December 15, 2006 1:04 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Television.add a comment
CBS and Paramount have apparently been considering an animated Trek series ever since the cancellation of the most recent live-action series, “Star Trek: Enterprise” (which begins its off-net cable run this January 8th on Sci Fi).
The animated series would take place in the distant future and have a darker tone.
The Trek Movie Report has the scoop.
In other Star Trek related news “Star Trek XI” appears to be on track for a 2008 release.
“He (Abrams) said work is on track to release the new “Star Trek” pic, which Abrams is overseeing for Par, in 2008.”
J.J. Abrams has staffed up his Bad Robot Productions and seems to be ready and willing to make the next Trek film a reality sometime in 2008.
Sources:
[TrekMovie] — CBS Considering New Animated Trek Series For The Web
[Variety] — Abrams hires ramp up film, TV units
New Stargate series in development December 15, 2006 12:51 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in News, Sci Fi, Science Fiction, Stargate, Television.add a comment
According to GateWorld.Net, a third television series in the Stargate franchise is now in development.
The series is still early along in the concept phase, and is being worked on by the creative forces behind “Stargate SG-1” and “Stargate Atlantis”. The premise behind the show is still not yet known.
Gateworld reports that the series is not likely to be put into production until 2008 at the earliest.
“Stargate SG-1” returns in April of next year to where it will air its remaining 10 episodes of its 10th, and final, season.
It was reported about two months ago that though this will be the final season of ‘SG-1’, the series will continue on in two Direct-to-DVD (most likely) productions which should premiere in the fall of 2007.
“Stargate Atlantis” returns to finish off its third season this April, and a fourth season has already been greenlit for a as yet determined 2007 premiere.
Source: [GateWorld] — Third Stargate series in development
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