Author: Robert Greenberger

BBC Video Unveils Palin Box Set, ‘Sarah Jane’, ‘Doctor Who’

  • News
  • September 14, 2008

Coming to stores next month, BBC Video offers a 19-disc Michael Palin Collection – on October 7, 2008.

All of eight of Palin’s fascinating travelogues — Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Himalaya, Sahara, New Europe, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, and Great Railway Journeys – will be included, the last three new to DVD.  The box set contains 36 hours of content and over seven hours of bonus features, include interviews with Palin, behind-the-scenes featurettes, outtakes, deleted and extended scenes, as well as Polish and Russian subtitles on New Europe. The box set will retail for $249.92.

Michael Palin: Full Circle ($49.98) and Michael Palin: Hemingway Adventure with Great Railway Journeys ($34.98) will also be released individually.

Also being released on October 7 will be The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete First Season. This Doctor Who spin-off provides science fiction adventure for the whole family by melding the same mystique and wonder featured in the contemporary Doctor Who series with fun-filled hilarity. Elisabeth Sladen reprises her role as the investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith — one of the classic Doctor Who‘s most beloved companions. Accompanied by a fresh, young team including 13-year- old next door neighbor Maria Jackson (Yasmin Page, The Mysti Show), Sarah Jane sets out on a whole new round of escapades ranging from discovering mischievous alien plots to helping lost extraterrestrials return home. Boasting six hours of content, this four-disc set features all 10 episodes as well as cast and crew interviews, a Sarah Jane Smith video timeline, behind the scenes footage, and character and alien profiles. The box set will retail for $49.98. (more…)

David Boreanez may Take the Oath

  • News
  • September 13, 2008

Marc Guggenheim, Greg Berlanti and Michael Green are just about done with a rewrite to their Green Lantern feature film script and told Moviehole they anticipate turning it in this coming week.

One of the things that excited Warner Bros. about the proposed project were the production drawings from former comic book artist Brian Murray.  He based Hal Jordan on actor David Boreanez, known for Angel but also was Jordan’s voice on the New Frointier animated movie released earlier this year.  Carol Ferris was modeled after Sin City’s Carla Gugino.

Boreanez, currently starring on Fox’s Bones, has tested for super-heroes before, first as The Thing in Fantastic Four and later as Superman for Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns.

Now word is bubbing that he may be considered for the live-action version as well.

For George Miller’s stalled Justice League film, GL was going to be John Stewart and played by the rapper Common.
 

‘Last of the Funnies’ Explores News-less Future

  • Uncategorized
  • September 13, 2008

last-of-the-funnies-front-cover-sample-9315506Last of the Funnies is a new novelette from Mike Cope, a Canadian cartoonist.  The 80-page book has garnered some positive comment with Editor& Publisher noting, “One thing the book wrestles with is the issue of digital copyrights in a virtually paperless world. Cope also pays homage to characters, people, and organizations tied to comics — including The Yellow Kid, Rube Goldberg, Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, and the National Cartoonists Society.

"The Last of the Funnies concludes with an eight-page illustrated appendix featuring selected reference images from sources such as the NCS, Creators Syndicate, King Features Syndicate, and the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library.”

Daily Cartoonist describes it this way, “After a worldwide energy and economic crisis, newspapers have ceased production and nearly every form of art and entertainment is a digital simulation. In this seemingly impossible (but plausible) future, a crusty old cartoonist named Frost has a great gift to leave Giles, his only child. Frost is the creator of Li’l Nibs – the most celebrated comic strip about four little aliens who crash-landed on Earth during the crisis and aptly announced, ‘Weez Comez in Peez!’

“However, to Giles, the funnies have caused nothing but conflict in his life. He’s grown to resent Frost’s crudely hand-drawn creations. But as the young Virtual Art professor soon learns, things aren’t always as they appear.

“Like a cartoon wizard behind ink-stained curtains, Frost weaves a whimsical tale about the origins of the funnies, web comics, and a terrorizing menace that threatens to kidnap every artist’s childhood dreams!

“Whether Giles believes it or not, the fate of the funnies is in his hands . . .”
 

‘Doomsday Protocol’ Housed at Fox

  • News
  • September 13, 2008

The Seven Samurai remains one of the classic storytelling devices invented for movies and has been the template for many films beginning with The Magnificent Seven.  It has now also proven to be the inspiration for Doomsday Protocol, a science fiction thriller.  The original script by Shane Salerno was purchased by 20th Century Fox for development.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “a group of aliens and humans with various abilities who are brought together to save Earth.”

Salerno’s previous writing credits Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, Ghost Rider, the remake of Shaft ,and Armageddon.

‘Fear(s) of the Dark’ Coming to America

  • News
  • September 12, 2008

Fear(s) of the Dark, an animated horror film from France, will receive a limited US release in October through December.  The movie screened this past January at the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam and garnered good reviews.

Coming to America via IFC Films, the movie is an anthology of six intertwined tales about phobias and nightmares from a variety of international creators including Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire.

The film will run between October and December at mostly independent theaters.  See IFC’s website for additional details.
 

Katee Sackhoff Gains New Series

  • News
  • September 12, 2008

katee-sackhoff-8960338Katee Sackhoff will star in a new series created by Chris Levinson, Lost and Found for NBC according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Battlestar Galactica star had originally been contracted with Universal Studios and NBC to become a regular on The Bionic Woman should that series make it to a second season.  Instead, it was a ratings and writers’ strike casualty, freeing her for other work including a stint on the next season of Nip/Tuck.

Once she completes her work on the BSG telefilm, now shooting in Vancouver, she will go to work on the Dick Wolf production which will cast her as an LAPD detective who is punished for clashes with authority and sent to work on John and Jane Doe cases.

Levinson developed the show for the 2006-07 development season finally received a cast-contingent order from the network last month.  Sackhoff’s casting moves the show to a guaranteed pilot.

 

‘Locke & Key’ Collected in Hardcover

  • News
  • September 12, 2008

IDW has announced an October 1 release for the hardcover collection of Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft. The book is from novelist Joe Hill who created the miniseries for the publisher and was surprised by its enthusiastic reception. It has since been optioned by Dimension Films.

Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, written by Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show), will include the first six-issue storyline, cover gallery, conceptual sketches by Rodriguez, and an all-new introduction from best-selling mystery novelist Robert Crais (Chasing Darkness). The 152-page book will carry a $24.99 cover price.

Locke & Key tells of the Locke family, who relocate after an unspeakable tragedy to Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them… and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all…

The Locke & Key story continues next year as well. Hill and Rodriguez pick up where this story leaves off with the next story in the ongoing saga, January’s Locke & Key: Head Games #1.
 

‘Smallville’ Schedules a Break

  • News
  • September 12, 2008

As Smallville prepares to premiere next week, word from the CW is that there will be a long break between episodes ten and eleven. This is being done for two reasons: one, it provides the network somewhere to run the second season of Reaper, and two, it allows them the opportunity to retool for a ninth season if ratings and casting issues indicate that makes sense.

The eleventh episode is currently scheduled to be the Geoff Johns-penned introduction of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Look for a season 7 recap next week before the new season kicks off.
 

Favreau Ponders ‘Iron Man 2’ for IMAX

  • News
  • September 12, 2008

Director Jon Favreau says if Paramount and Marvel Studios pony up the money, he’d love to shoot some or all of Iron Man 2 in 3-D and for IMAX.  At a Paramount Home Video press conference with Stan Lee to promote the September 30 release of the smash hit film on DVD, he described The Dark Knight’s IMAX sequence as a “game changer”.

With Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard all set to return, the question of an opponent came up and he mentioned the Mandarin, set up in the first film, often without committing. Instead, he described the Asian foe as a behind-the-scenes manipulator who will likely be seen more in the second film but not be the main antagonist until the third or fourth film, the first time the length of the franchise has been discussed.

Similarly, “The Demon in a Bottle” storyline about Tony Stark’s alcoholism would be held until at least the third film and not be the core story for the immediate sequel.

Instead, the next film, yet to be scripted by Favreau and Justin Theroux, will likely introduce Rhodey’s War Machine armor and possibly introduce a modified version of the Iron Man suit. Happy Hogan, played by the director, will have more screen time most likely. More links to the other Marvel Studio films will be seen although Favreau admitted to being stumped a bit as to how to reference Thor.

Favreau insisted he wanted a straight forward story next time so he could concentrate on the emotional stakes. He hopes to keep the new film’s tone light and engaging without crossing the line to the dark side.
 

‘Trek’ Convention Co-Founder Joan Winston Passes Away

  • Uncategorized
  • September 12, 2008

winston-trek-book-9437225Joan Winston, one of the founders of the very first Star Trek convention, passed away this week.

Mark Milton, a relative of Winston’s, posted on a Doctor Who mailing list overnight, “I came home today to learn that Joan Winston, co-founder of the Star  Trek conventions, author of Star Trek Lives! and The Making of the  Trek Conventions as well as many other books and short stories, had  passed away. As some of you know, she’s my father-in-law’s first cousin and I enjoyed her greatly. She was quite a gal. Details of how/why are still sketchy but services are Sunday at 9:30 at (as best  as I can tell) the Plaza funeral home in Manhattan. I don’t know if that is what it’s actually called, we’re contacting the rabbi tomorrow.”

Winston was part of what became known as The Committee, the fans who figured out how to run a convention dedicated to a single subject, something previously untried. The very first con, in 1972, expected a few hundred people and wound up hosting 3000 rabid fans eager to hear Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction author Isaac Asmiov chat. By the time the group retired in 1976 with their final show, over 10,000 fans would pack New York City hotels, spawning a new kind of fan-run show that endures around the world today.

Her chapter in Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak’s Star Trek Lives! provided people with a glimpse into the birth of the conventions along with a take on the Star Trek fan fiction world. She continued to talk about those days, providing information to William Shatner for his Get a Life! memoir and can be seen on camera in Denise Crosby’s documentary Trekkies 2.

After retiring from running cons, she became a professional author and later worked as a literary agent before illness confined her to an assistant living facility earlier this year.
 

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