Author: Robert Greenberger

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David Tennant Officially Announces Departure from ‘Doctor Who’

  • News
  • October 29, 2008

doctor-who-tenant-5393629David Tennant announced his departure from Doctor Who during the National Television Awards broadcast.

The BBC’s Doctor Who website confirmed the news mintues later complete with a video from the actor.

The website went on to report:

David Tennant first appeared as The Doctor in 2005 and has gone on to star in three series and three Christmas specials as the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord. The BBC has confirmed that David will continue to play The Doctor in the four specials that will make up the 2009 series before a new Doctor takes over for Series 5. Tennant will also star in the Doctor Who Christmas Special titled The Next Doctor this year.

David Tennant comments "I’ve had the most brilliant, bewildering and life changing time working on Doctor Who. I have loved every day of it. It would be very easy to cling on to the TARDIS console forever and I fear that if I don’t take a deep breath and make the decision to move on now, then I simply never will. You would be prising the TARDIS key out of my cold dead hand. This show has been so special to me, I don’t want to outstay my welcome.

"This is all a long way off, of course. I’m not quitting, I’m back in Cardiff in January to film four special episodes which will take Doctor Who all the way through 2009. I’m still the Doctor all next year but when the time finally comes I’ll be honored to hand on the best job in the world to the next lucky git – whoever that may be.

"I’d always thought the time to leave would be in conjunction with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner who have been such a huge part of it all for me. Steven Moffat is the most brilliant and exciting writer, the only possible successor to Russell and it was sorely tempting to be part of his amazing new plans for the show. I will be there, glued to my TV when his stories begin in 2010.

"I feel very privileged to have been part of this incredible phenomenon, and whilst I’m looking forward to new challenges I know I’ll always be very proud to be the Tenth Doctor."

Russell T. Davies Executive Producer of Doctor Who comments "I’ve been lucky and honored to work with David over the past few years – and it’s not over yet, the Tenth Doctor still has five spectacular hours left! After which, I might drop an anvil on his head. Or maybe a piano. A radioactive piano. But we’re planning the most enormous and spectacular ending, so keep watching!"

Doctor Who returns to our screens on BBC this Christmas. The Next Doctor starring David Tennant, David Morrissey and Dervla Kirwan will be screened on the 25th December on BBC1.

Let the speculation over the next incarnation of the Time Lord continue.
 

Hollywood News & Notes

  • Uncategorized
  • October 29, 2008

american-pie-6069443Universal Studios helped pioneer the direct-to-DVD concept for film franchises with American Pie. The series of videos — American Pie: Band Camp, American Pie: Naked Mile and American Pie: Beta House — has brought them much cash and provided Playboy with many an actress to peel for their pages. Now, Moviehole says the studio is eyeing an actual feature film to pick up the story of the original characters. After all the first film, released in 1999, brought in an eye-popping $235 million. No cast or crew has been signed or announced so speculation can run rampant as to which characters will be brought back as the focal point.  Stifler? Stifler’s Mom? Jim and Michelle? We vote for Nadia, since after all, Shannon Elizabeth could always use the work.

Ian Jeffers has written an original werewolf tale and according to Bloody Disgusting, he has sold it to director Ridley Scott.  Jeffers has previously written Death Sentence and the screen adaptation of the video game Castlevania.

Madagascar 2 director Tom McGrath told Skiewed and Reviewed, “While we never know how well the film will do, I have been kicking around ideas for another film in the series.” He went on say he’d like to see the characters return to their home, the Central Park Zoo, in the third film.

As we mentioned the other day, M. Night Shyamalan is producing three films in his new three-picture deal with Media Rights Capital. Now we hear the first picture will be Devil, written by Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night). John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine) will direct and produce alongside his brother, Drew Dowdle. Devil comes from an original story by Shyamalan. The Unbreakable and Sixth Sense director will produce the film with Sam Mercer under Shyamalan’s new Night Chronicles banner. Night Chronicles was set up by MRC as a financing and production partnership with M. Night to create one genre film per year over three years. Shyamalan will come up with the ideas, select the creative team and oversee the creative direction. He’ll also co-own the film copyrights and retain artistic control.

Twentieth Century Fox has announced its sequel will be titled Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel opening Christmas Day 2009.  Fox has also moved the kid/family movie Tooth Fairy to Thanksgiving 2009 release. Chris Columbus other movie, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, based on Rick Riordan’s books, has been kicked back a year to July 2, 2010.   Another kid’s series, Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, will become a feature film, to be released March 19, 2010.

Sir Roger Moore has been added to the voice cast of Gnome & Troll: The Forest Trial. The animated feature is coming from Swedish film company White Shark and is set to debut in 2009. The film is a sequel to this year’s Gnome & Troll The Secret Chamber.   Moore will play King Leif, with Peter Stormare to voice Ogar Mini.

Director Rob Cohen confirmed for Collider that xXx 3 is being developed with an eye towards being ready summer 2010. "Yes, they’re doing it with me and producer Joe Roth”, he said. “We made the deal recently, it’s named xXx: The Return of Xander Cage. We met the writers yesterday and we’re trying to get into production by late spring, to have it out for the summer of 2010." Diesel will first be seen in the summer 2009 sequel to the Fast and Furious.

Producer Gale Anne Hurd confirmed for Moviehole that her recent comment about trying to reboot the Alien Nation franchise was more than wishful thinking. “I dropped Hurd a line to see whether she’s actually pitched the film or whether it’s just something she bought up in conversation,” Moviehole wrote, “with no plans to actually convince someone with money to bankroll it. “The good news is? Hurd has indeed talked to the powers-that-be about doing the film but, in her words, there’s ‘no traction yet’. The 20th-Century Fox film spawned a beloved weekly series which aired on Fox in the 1980s.
 

3 More ‘Star Trek’ Pics Beam Down

  • News
  • October 29, 2008

Three more stills from Star Trek have appeared in the United Kingdom’s Empire magazine.  The current issue, now on sale, has a cover story on the making of the film.  Since not everyone stateside can easily find the magazine, we present the images for your viewing pleasure.


 

Who is the Iron Patriot?

  • News
  • October 29, 2008

Marvle this morning released a teaser for a new event in the Marvel Universe.  No creators, timing or content was released with the teaser. We’re going to guess that it maybe a part of the 2009 Dark Reign event spinning out of the end of Secret Invasion.  It does not resemble the future Iron Men seen in last week’s New Warriors.  Any guesses?

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‘Total Drama Action’ Joins Cartoon Network

  • Uncategorized
  • October 29, 2008

total-drama-island-2702184Total Drama Island is getting a spinoff as the Cartoon Network has announced the addition of Total Drama Action.  According to Variety, the new series, debuting in 2009, will also satirize reality television and was created by Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch of Canada’s Fresh TV.

TDI first debuted on the network July 8, 2007 and mocks the Survivor-style shows with contestants seen on a deserted island.  They have to form teams and complete challenges to win prizes. Since its start, the 27 episodes have been the anchor for the channel’s "Har Har Tharsdays" comedy block.

In December, The Total Drama Island Season 1 Movie is expected on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Total Drama Action is actually the second season of the series from the producer’s point of view. This time, the contestants will be placed within an empty studio lot. Plans calling for Total Drama the Musical! in its third season followed by Total Drama Comedy. Cartoon Network has yet to pick up the last two seasons as yet.

Total Drama Island Interactive is an online game tied to the Flash-animated series, produced by Xenophile Media. Players can register for a free account and earn points by competing in events based on that week’s episode for marshmallows. The top 22 players will be placed in a drawing and the winner will have their TDII avatar added to the 27th and final episode of the series.
 

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The Ex ‘Ex-List’

  • News
  • October 29, 2008

he-ex-list-8619073After poor reviews and worse ratings, CBS has given up on the Elizabeth Reaser-starring vehicle The Ex List.  The Friday night dramedy, based on an Israeli television series, was a creative problem for the network.  Show runner Diane Ruggiero left the series when it was clear she and CBS couldn’t agree on a direction. Rick Eid replaced her but his efforts hadn’t aired in time to change its fortunes.

The series averaging just 5.3 million viewers, according to Variety, driving viewers away after its more successful lead in, The Ghost Whisperer, and keeping people away from Numbers. As a result, the show has been removed from the schedule with a rerun of NCIS in its place this week.

With only four episodes aired but ten filmed, the network may bring the series back at a later time.  This is the first hour-long dramatic series to be canceled after the failures of two reality series, Fox’s Hole in the Wall and ABC’s Opportunity Knocks. The first sitcom to go was Fox’s Do Not Disturb.

It is not a good season for the freshman series with most receiving tepid ratings and none being a clear breakout hit or pop culture sensation. Several such as 90210, The Mentalist, and Knight Rider have already received full season pick ups showing patience and faith on the part of the networks.
 

Plastic Man’s Animated Adventures Coming to DVD

  • News
  • October 28, 2008

Warner Home Video is apparently readying the Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Hour for a DVD release. On Friday, Mark Evanier mentioned on his News from Me blog, “This afternoon, I had to go out to the Warner Brothers lot to be interviewed for little behind-the-scenes videos that will appear on two upcoming DVDs of cartoon shows. One is of the 1979 Saturday morning Plastic Man series, which I worked on for one season. The other is of the 1985 syndicated Jetsons revival, which I worked on for about an hour.”

TV Shows on DVD notes that when they surveyed people in 2007, the series topped their charts. When a Warner exec was asked during a chat earlier this year, hey replied, "We are looking at all of these, and hope to have news for you in 2009."

The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show ran from 1979 to 1981 on ABC. Produced by Ruby-Spears, it aired right after Super Friends and was either 90 minutes or two hours and was comprised of segments featuring Plastic Man (voiced by Michael Bell), Baby Plas, Plastic Family, Mighty Man & Yukk, Fangface and Fangpuss and Rickety Rocket.

On this series, Plastic Man had Penny as a girl friend who became his wife, voiced by Melendy Britt and their child, Baby Plas, had his own escapades. Woozy Winks was unfortunately replaced by Hula Hula, a Hawaiian sidekick.
 

Sample ‘Legend of the Seeker’ for Free

legend-of-the-seeker-2188635Legend of the Seeker debuts on Saturday as a first-run syndicated series.  To let people sample the series, an extended preview is available as a free download at Apple’s iTunes store. Legend of the Seeker: A First Look is actually the first 30 minutes of the two-hour first episode.

The series is from executive producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, who gained fame for their work on Hercules and Xena.

"Fans have been clamoring to get a first look at the series and based on the early response from the clips released on the Legend of the Seeker website, we knew this would be a huge success with audiences," Janice Marinelli, President, Disney-ABC Domestic Television said in a release.

Craig Horner (Blue Water High) and Bridget Regan (The Black Donnellys) star in the series originally entitled Wizard’s First Rule. The 22 episodes are being shot in New Zealand. Horner is Richard Cypher, a simple woodsman who becomes the magical leader who partners with Kahlan to put an end to a tyrant’s reign.

The book series launched in 1994 and the complex story has played out through eleven novels and one novella. Each volume is largely self-contained but the threads continue from book to book. Confessor, out last year, is said to end the current story cycle but Goodkind intends to revisit the world in future works.

For times and channels in your area, consult the show’s website.

Neil Gaiman Talks ‘Coraline’

  • News
  • October 28, 2008

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline has been turned into an animated film by Henry Selick and the popular author spoke with Premiere about the film, which opens in February. Much of the material is familiar to connoisseurs of the man’s career but he did fill in some gaps.

He discussed how he had the book sent to the director 18 months prior to publication. “That’s true. I mean, Henry didn’t even get the final draft. But the moment I finished it, I gave it to my agent, the redoubtable Jon Levin at CAA, and I said… ‘Well, I want it with Henry Selick and I quite like it with Tim Burton, ’cause I love The Nightmare Before Christmas, and they were the two people who did that, and I think, if it’s gonna be a film, it should be something like that.’ And I don’t know if it ever made it through the ranks to actually land on Tim Burton’s desk and get read, [but] it was really a moot point, because by the end of the week, Henry had read it, said that he wanted to do it, and had put the mechanisms in place. You know, the contract negotiations had already started.”

Gaiman was very pleased with Selick’s fidelity to the source material but clearly things had to be modified between print and screen. “He wrote a first draft that was incredibly faithful,” Gaiman said. “And I think I actually wound up saying to him, ‘Look, I think it’s a bit too faithful,’ because it didn’t feel like a movie, it felt like you were just reading the book. And I sort of encouraged him to expand it into a film a bit more. And the next one he rather nervously added a character and added events, but now the script read like a movie script. And then it was just a matter of him having another six years to find a studio that would give him the money to make the ultimate stop-motion movie.”

He remained uninvolved in the production but remained curious. “I’d go about my life and then I’d sit up one day and think, You know I haven’t seen anything for three or four months now, and I’d phone Henry and I’d say, ‘Have you got anything for me to see?’ And he’d say, ‘Yeah, I’ll get you off a DVD.’ And I’d get a DVD with another 10 minutes of footage on it! [laughs] What’s actually been fun is, because they’re pretty much shooting it exactly in order, the DVDs have been getting scarier and scarier. They started off [and I thought], ‘Well this is rather sweet and rather friendly,’ and the last one that I got I could actually say, ‘No, this is scary, this is really scary.’

Gaiman also addressed the long-delayed film version of his Death: The High Cost of Living. “Well, I think the latest is that we’re all waiting to see what happens to New Line. Death is a very odd thing because, unlike Coraline or Anansi Boys, which I’m doing for Warners, or The Graveyard Book or any of those kinds of things, I don’t own and control the rights to Death. I’m attached to it, I’ve written a script for it, I’m meant to be directing it… but I don’t control it, and for reasons having to do with corporate relationships between DC Comics and Warner Brothers, it has to be done by a Warner Brothers company, and then you have to find a Warner Brothers studio within Warner Brothers that will be a good fit for that film, and of course New Line was a really good fit for that film, and it remains to be seen right now what New Line is when the dust is settled and whether there is a New Line or not.”
 

‘Secret Invasion’ #8 to be a Week Late

  • News
  • October 28, 2008

Marvel has issued a release indicating the final issue of Secret Invasion will now be in store the first week of December, a week later than anticipated.

“The additional pages in #8 did both Leinil and the schedule in,” explained Executive Editor Tom Brevoort in a press release. “Anybody who pored over the artwork from #7 a week ago can easily see how he and Mark Morales have been putting their all (and then some) into every page and every panel, and that effort has finally caught up with us. Hopefully, retailers and fans will forgive us these extra two weeks as we make sure that everything is in the shape it should be in for the extra-sized climax—and from there, it’ll be smooth sailing straight into Dark Reign.”

David Gabriel, Marvel’s Senior Vice President of Sales, said in the release, “In speaking with retailers, Marvel decided it was more important to preserve the creative integrity of the series, rather than rush out the final issue. This not only creates a stronger product for our loyal readers, but also for our retailer partners, whose support helped make Secret Invasion a huge success.”

A mammoth event like this shipping late is no surprise and keeps the creative team intact as opposed to DC’s Final Crisis that recently announced the final issue will be illustred by Doug Mahnke and not J.G. Jones. (more…)

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