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‘Three Stooges’ Moves from Warners to MGM

  • News
  • November 5, 2008

The Three Stooges has gained new life with MGM becoming the new parent to the Peter and Bobby Farrelly project. The brothers had spent five years trying to develop the film at Warner Bros. but now they have a new lease on life and will give their script a polish then turn it over to Michael Cerrone to direct.

Peter Farrelly credited Mary Parent, MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group chairman with having the enthusiasm to go out and grab the moribund film from Warners plus secure rights to the Stooges from C3. She sees the $45 million production as targeted as a PG or PG-13 project complete with the trademark slapstick the trio is known for. The movie will actually be three 20-25 minute segments loosely tied together to recreate the feel of the shorts the act made from the 1930s through the 1950s.

"It’s not a biopic. It takes place in present day, and they look, dress and sound exactly like the Stooges," Peter told Variety. "When the economy started turning, we felt like the world could use a Stooges slapfest. Bobby and I haven’t done a real physical comedy in a while, and it’s the most exciting thing we could think of now, to have people go to the movie, see some great slapstick fun family humor."

A nationwide talent hunt, compared with the search for American Idol, will begin as the producers and director seek three comedians who can work well together and do the physical humor required to earn the Stooges name. A similar hunt will be conducted to find humorous short films to run with their feature.

"We know this is extremely difficult to pull off; we realize some Stooges fans will be upset no matter what we do," Farrelly said. "We love the Stooges and honor their memory, and we don’t want them to disappear. We hope that next Thanksgiving, dads will introduce their kids to the Stooges and create a new generation of knuckleheads."

MGM has already picked out November 20, 2009 to release the film. The studio may rethink that since Variety notes the competition that day is already thick with Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and the animated Planet 51.

4 Countries Unite for ‘Defying Gravity’

  • Uncategorized
  • November 5, 2008

ron-livingston-3072908Defying Gravity will be a new 13-episode series being coproduced by Fox TV Studios, Canada’s CTV, Germany’s ProSieben and the BBC, which will star Ron Livingston (The Time Traveler’s Wife). Created by James Parriott (Grey’s Anatomy) and Michael Edelstein (Desperate Housewives), The Hollywood Reporter says the series is “set in the near future and revolves around eight astronauts from five countries who take on a mysterious six-year mission through the solar system.”

The cast currently includes Livingston and German actress Florentine Lahme with the first episode, to be directed by David Straiton, scheduled to shoot in Vancouver beginning January 19.

Edelstein the idea for the series came to him when he watched the BBC docu-drama Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets on Discovery Channel in late 2006. "I was blown away by it," Edelstein told the trade. He acquired the rights to it from British producer Impossible Pictures (Primeval) and reteamed with Parriott, having previously worked together on ABC’s Threat Matrix.

Parriott is a self-described sci-fi geek whose credits include the original Bionic Woman and The Incredible Hulk.  He said of the new series, "Throw in a little bit of Grey’s and Lost and you have a pretty good international TV show."

New Site Promises Fresh Look at Graphic Novels

  • News
  • November 5, 2008

GraphicNovelReporter.com is coming later this month and intends to be “a fresh, in-depth look at these books and their creators. It’s a website designed for those who love the many genres within the format — and those who are curious as to what the excitement of these titles is all about.”

John Hogan, former editor of Pages magazine, will head up this new initiative, a part of The Book Report Network. His efforts will be cross-platformed as appropriate material is scheduled to be posted simultaneously on Teenreads.com and Kidsreads.com.

According to a press release, “The website will include reviews and interviews as well as news, opinions, blogs, bestseller and ‘Best Of’ lists, and Books Into Movies and Books Into Movies on DVD features, all written with the voice and tone that have become the signature of The Book Report Network and its flagship website, Bookreporter.com.”

"We have been following the phenomenal growth in this market for the past year and are excited and energized by the opportunity to showcase these titles and creators to our readers," Carol Fitzgerald, President of The Book Report Network said in the release. "We have been impressed by the market’s double digit growth — and the commitment from librarians and educators who are embracing graphic novels in record numbers, as well as interest from booksellers. The site will deliver content that attracts and engages those already devoted to the format as well as those who are new to this exciting medium." 

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Review: Primeval Volume One

  • Uncategorized
  • November 4, 2008

The BBC reserves its Saturday night prime time slots for genre-bending fare and it’s where shows vie for a place.  [[[Primeval]]] is one of the newer series to occupy the coveted slot on ITV and recently completed its run on BBC America.  Today, Warner Home Video collects the first 13 episodes, comprising its first two seasons, as [[[Primeval Volume One]]], which will have to tide us over until season three kicks off next year.

Totally unrelated to [[[Doctor Who]]] or other SF series, the show seems to owe more [[[Jurassic Park]]] than anything.  We’re in a world where spatial anomalies randomly open (throughout only England it seems) and objects animal, vegetable or mineral can cross through.

On the one hand, it’s a paleontologist’s dream, on the other hand it’s also a nightmare as long extinct predators arrive seeking dinner. A group of individuals, responding to what appears to the first such rift in space/time find themselves forming as a team, working for the British government to understand the rift and keep humanity from harm.

Over the course of the six episode first season, which ran late last year, we also discover that the wife of Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) went missing eight years ago and apparently went through an earlier rift.  Very quickly, we discover there’s a lot more to her and the rift than originally imagined and suddenly we have threads to tie the episodes together in an overall arc.

Cutter, who teaches evolutionary zoologist at university, is joined by in the adventure by his colleague Stephen Hart (James Murray), who just happened to have an affair with the missing Helen (Juliet Aubrey) which makes things just a wee bit tense.  Grad student and overly enthusiastic Connor Temple (Andrew-Lee Potts) brings a geeky charm to the team which is rounded out by reptile expert Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt). When the government figures out these guys are the answer to an unforeseen problem, they assign overly officious Sir James Peregrine Lester (Ben Miller) to run the operation, handing the grunt work over to Claudia Brown (Lucy Brown). Sparks fly between her and Cutter as they do for Abby and Connor.

While each episode is self-contained, we discover the threats both here and to the past.  This is shown in exceedingly dramatic effect at the end of season one as Helen does something in the past that changes the future, eradicating Claudia from the timeline. As season two opens, the government has figured out the team needs a proper HQ and they start working out of the A.R.C. building which is one of the niftier set designs I’ve seen since Alias. We then meet Jenny Lewis, a PR flak to help convince the public they really aren’t seeing dinosaurs.  She happens to look just like Claudia which sets Cutter’s heart a pitter pattering.

The stories range from outright terrifying to mildly amusing.  The anomalies open between today and various tomorrows so we’re getting glimpses from different parts of the world’s evolution. A great example of that is episode 8, as worm-like creatures and their toxic atmosphere find their way into a London high rise office building.

Overall, the show looks great and is well acted.  It helps that most of the episodes have been written and directed by a small team of people so there’s a consistency to look and performance which keeps the show comfortable.  The action quotient was upped in the second season so things move along more quickly which is as it should be now that we’ve learned the premise and gotten to know the characters.

And yet…the show is entertaining but not as compelling as Doctor Who or Torchwood.  The humor is a little on the juvenile end and Helen’s evil plans just aren’t feeling very dangerous yet.  The characters and relationships feel as if they were scaled for all ages and the threats, while interesting, don’t threaten humanity or the cosmos on the same scale.

The DVD is nicely packaged and has some episodic commentary plus two documentaries on the making of the show, each produced to air at the end of each season.  The latter, “Through the Anomaly”, includes neat bits on how the actors become models to their action figures and the process toy designers currently use.

Kring Promises to Simplify ‘Heroes’

  • News
  • November 4, 2008

Tim Kring, creator and executive producer for NBC’s Heroes, watched the dust begin to settle after the network insisted on changes which resulted in the dismissal of Jesse Alexander and Jeph Loeb on Sunday.  According to a story in Variety, the peacock network was concerned that Kring had delegated too much of the show’s storyline to others which has resulted in an uneven second season and a third season that is not bringing back audiences as everyone had hoped.

As he committed to the personnel changes, he also promised his bosses at NBC and Universal, which produces the series, that he will take the criticism – from the media, network and their rabid fan base – and tweak the series to reflect the issues.  Simplification may become the new watchword on the set.  The trade said the goal was to “get back to the show’s comicbookish good vs. evil themes and to emphasize character development more than plot twists.”

Kristin dos Santos at E! reports that Entertainment Weekly’s recent cover story on their perceived problems with the show was a public embarrassment and final straw.

The trade went on to note that Kring took his eye off the story because the series requires so much of his attention in terms of wrangling the expansive cast and the large amount f/x and post-production requirements which pushes the budget for each hour to $4 million. Even so, budget overruns have been an issue for Universal which deficit finances the series and will only make their money back from eventual off-air syndication, home video sales and merchandise.

The current volume, “Villains”, will wrap up December 15 with an episode Loeb wrote called “War”. Then the series will take an already scheduled break before returning in January with Volume Four, “Fugitives”. Kring told dos Santos, “There are a couple of more deaths planned. Someone you have come to know will not make it to the end of the season."

The ratings have been weaker than the first breakout season, with the show averaging just 10. 4 million viewers, a 21% drop from its weaker second season.
 

pettigrew02-5498772

Obama Walks in Pettigrew’s Footsteps

  • News
  • November 4, 2008

pettigrew02-5498772A black man could be elected president today.  But he would not necessarily be the first depicted in the media.  After all, we’ve already seen black presidents such as Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact but even he was beaten to the Oval Office in 1976 by New York Governor Timothy Pettigrew.

Pettigrew was the creation of Berry Reece and was featured in a serialized story that ran in A Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact from January through June 1964. Joe Sinnott, famed as inker on Fantastic Four, did the artwork as part of his long association with the Catholic Church’s magazine.

According to Reece, Pope Pius XI asked that American parochial school students becoming more aware of and active in civic affairs. The result was the six-part serial featuring the African-American’s run for office.  He came in second in New Hampshire’s primary and even survived an assassination attempt. In an eerie foreshadowing of the Kerry campaign, Pettigrew is accused of cowardice in Vietnam, a conflict ongoing at the time of the serial.

His efforts are aided by the children of press secretary Bart Blatt, getting the message across to the magazine’s readers. He is seen as a silhouette or shadow throughout the first five parts and it’s not until he wins the Democratic nomination that readers realize he is black.

"And so this man Pettigrew became the first Negro candidate for the President of the United States,” the final panel of the serial read. “He then went out across the land, this black man, to campaign for the highest office. Would he win? Well, the year was 1976. It was the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Could he win? Well, it would depend in part on how the boys and girls reading this comic grew up and voted … it would depend on whether they believed and, indeed, lived those words in the declaration — All Men are Created Equal."

Reece, a Yazoo City, Miss., native and Notre Dame graduate, told the New York Times today that he had entirely forgotten about the series until it s was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered back in February. “I wanted the students to judge him on the strength of his character before they made any judgments about his race,” Reece told the National Catholic Review.

“I was trying to conceive of a person, a hero, a protagonist, who could unite the allegedly United States of America,” Reece told them.

“What we wanted to do,” Reece told the Times, “was get the readers in deep through this Pettigrew’s integrity, his charisma, before we ever disclosed his race so that they would not prejudge him”

The serial ended with Pettigrew a candidate but not yet elected.  How did Reece see the conclusion.  He told the Times, “Could he win? Well, it would depend in part on how the boys and girls who were reading this grew up and voted.”

For another look at the serial, check out the clip below.

Max Allan Collins to Direct ‘Road’ Sequels

  • News
  • November 4, 2008

Max Allan Collins revisits the world he crafted for Road to Perdition by signing to write and direct movies based on the prose novel sequels, Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise.

Collins will be working with Illinois-based JBM Production Company (Leprechaun) and EMO Films (April Showers).

The prolific crime author wrote Road to Perdition as a graphic novel for DC Comics’ Paradox Press imprint and it was subsequently adapted into a big budget film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.  The film, directed by Sam Mendes, won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Cinematography with a nomination for Newman.

The initial story tells of Michael Sullivan, a hitman for he mob, who suddenly becomes the hunted when his son witnesses a murder committed by the son of Sullivan’s boss.

Road to Purgatory will follow the character of Michael Sullivan, Jr., the son of Tom Hanks’ character in the original film, who returns from World War II with a new determination to avenge his murdered father. His quest ultimately leads him to Frank Nitti, whom he is urged to kill on the orders of Al Capone. The second sequel will follow Sullivan’s continued plight.

The original graphic novel, illustrated by Richard Piers Rayner, remains in print as does Road to Perdition: On the Road, collecting the three-part miniseries, illustrated by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Steve Leiber, that covers events concurrent with Perdition.

The novels Road to Purgatory and Road to Paradise were released in 2004 and 2005.

In an extensive interview in the current issue of Write Now!, Collins discussed the origins of the entire project. “Very shortly after I lost the Dick Tracy strip, I was scrambling for gigs, including comics work.  I had a meeting with Andy Helfer – sitting in a hotel lobby, I believe – where he told me that he was planning to do a series of noir graphic novels, and wanted me to do one.  At that time, I was the only comics writer who also had a straight mystery writing career going (not so now), so I was a fairly obvious choice.

“Andy wanted me to do something along the lines of Nathan Heller, but not Heller, something new but in that vein and with that vibe.  I’d been toying with a Prohibition era variation on Lone Wolf and Cub, spliced with the historical story of John and Connor Looney, father-and-son gangsters in Rock Island, Illinois, and informed by my heavy interest in the time at John Woo’s Hong Kong crime melodramas, one of which was another Lone Wolf take, Heroes Shed No Tears.  I didn’t have anything on paper, but I pitched it, anyway.  

“My original title was Gun and Son, which Andy hated.  He despised all my punny, jokey titles (Ms. Tree, mystery, get it?).   What can I say, I grew up on Chester Gould.  What’s good enough for Charles Dickens is good enough for me.

“The only problem came late in the game.  We originally were going to do three volumes of Road.   I’d done the first two 100-page books (it was designed to be published in three smaller volumes, though it never was) when Andy called and said the publishing program was being scrapped.  I had to finish what had been conceived as a 900-page epic in another 100 pages.

“That was tough.   It plays well, but I was not able to do everything I planned to do, which is why I did Road to Perdition 2: On the Road.”

Collins went on to write the prose novelization of the film for Pocket Books, but discovered the producers disliked his embellishments. “I was forced to publish a book that was half the length of what I submitted, and I hope one day to have the real novel published.  (I was hired to write the novelization of the screenplay based on my own graphic novel, and then forbidden to write new dialogue or background for the characters I’d created.).”

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