23 years of this site still chugging along...
Chewbacca actor to help out on Tuesday’s Heroes of Cosplay
by Doc on Sep.13, 2013, under Television
Actor Peter Mayhew, the giant who played Chewbacca in four the the Star Wars movies, will make a guest appearance on Tuesday’s season finale of Heroes of Cosplay. The world’s most famous Wookie helps Jinyo woo Victoria with a surprise she’ll never forget.
Mayhew, who regularly tours the conventions, is currently recovering from double knee replacement and tendon lengthening surgery in the hopes he will be able to walk unaided again. Of course, he had to wait until someone built a machine that could build replacement knees large enough…
Tune in Tuesday, September 17th at 10/9c on Syfy!
Haven returns tomorrow night! Catch last season bloopers, and more!
by Doc on Sep.12, 2013, under Television
Haven finally returns tomorrow night for Season 4 on Syfy! To celebrate, check out the bloopers from Season 3, plus a preview of “Inside Haven”, a quick peek inside the production that will be shown after each episode…plus, the Darkside Seekers have a few more things they are looking in to…
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J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros to develop Harry Potter-inspired film series
by Doc on Sep.12, 2013, under Movies
We knew she couldn’t keep away from the world she created for long…it appears that Warner Bros and J.K. Rowling have agreed to develop a new film series set within the magical world first seen her highly successful Harry Potter series.
The films would not be related to Harry Potter specifically, or for that matter Hogwarts – but rather will follow the adventures of the fictional author of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, Newt Scamander. Warner Bros actually approached Rowling with the idea, and she has decided to write the script herself.
“It all started when Warner Bros. came to me with the suggestion of turning ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ into a film,” she said. “I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of ‘Fantastic Beasts,’ realized by another writer was difficult. Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood.
“As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.”
Defendant fires back at Hasbro in Dungeons & Dragons movie rights suit
by Doc on Sep.10, 2013, under Movies
It appears that Sweetpea Entertainment has cast its counterspell to Hasbro’s fireball…they filed a 102 page counter-complaint against Hasbro, and aren’t pulling any punches. They aren’t just asking for clarification of rights, but “damages, including its actual damages (or statutory damages for certain acts of copyright infringement, if Sweetpea so elects), Counter-Defendants’ profits, treble and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees and costs, in an amount to be ascertained pursuant to applicable laws.”
Hasbro filed suit again Sweetpea Entertainment in May to shut down production on D&D movie being set up at Warner Bros, saying it owned the rights as Sweetpea did not meet the requirements to retain the rights after 2000’s Dungeons & Dragons and the 2005 sequel Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God.
Doctor Who Anniversary episode called “The Day of the Doctor”
by Doc on Sep.10, 2013, under Television
We now know one more thing about the 50th Anniversary special episode of Doctor Who – the name. No, not of the Doctor – the episode! It is called “The Day of the Doctor”, and the BBC has released a poster:
Emmerich to reboot Stargate movie franchise
by Doc on Sep.06, 2013, under Movies
Apparently we were a little overdue for our annual Stargate movie update… 🙂
We’ve heard for years about how Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin intended to make two more Stargate movies after the original, but instead MGM decided to take the franchise to television instead in the form of Stargate SG-1, plus the followups Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. But now a few years removed from the television franchise, Emmerich appears poised to bring the movie franchise back on track – but as opposed to making outright sequels to the original, he wants to start over, given the amount of time that has passed.
In an interview with Digital Spy, he said, “We went to MGM, who has the rights, and proposed to them to do a sequel, but as a reboot… and reboot it as a movie and then do three parts. Pretty soon we’ll have to look for a writer and start.”
As for the original actors returning, “The actors look totally different… it would not work,” he stated. Thus the impetus to start fresh.
Disney wins yet another round on Marvel character rights
by Doc on Sep.06, 2013, under Comics
Stan Lee Media has lost yet again.
Back in October 2012 the company (no longer associated with the real Stan Lee) filed a $5.5 billion lawsuit against Disney, stating that Stan Lee had signed over the rights to his characters to the predecessor company of Stan Lee Media, and therefore Disney does not own any of the rights when they purchased Marvel in 2009. They have sued in other courts before, notably in New York and California, and been dismissed. This time it was in Colorado, but U.S. District Judge William J. Martinez agreed with the previous rulings, even noting them in his own, and adding that those decisions preclude it from litigating the matter further, and dismissed the case with prejudice (in other words, cannot be refiled.)
William Atherton, Anna Hopkins join Defiance cast
by Doc on Sep.05, 2013, under Television
Syfy announced today additional casting for Season 2 of its highly-rated and groundbreaking drama series, Defiance, with the addition of William Atherton (Real Genius, Ghost Busters, Die Hard) and Anna Hopkins (Barney’s Version).
Slated for a June 2014 launch, production is currently underway in Toronto, ON for the 13-episode second season of the ambitious series, which delivered an average of 1.5 million viewers 18-49 and 3.2 million total viewers in its first season, based on Live +7 data. Defiance is produced by Universal Cable Productions.
Atherton steps into the supporting role of the jaded, Earth Republic official Viceroy Mercado, Major Pottinger’s (James Murray) commanding officer. Mercado is ruthless, quick tongued and sarcastic, fond of peppering his sentences with obscure old Earth cultural references and mocking younger subordinates for being too young to understand. He sees Pottinger for the manipulative person he is, but grudgingly admits the man gets results. Mercado also has a dark secret that would shock his colleagues and the townspeople of Defiance.
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Full Gravity trailer – intense!
by Doc on Sep.04, 2013, under Movies
The official trailer for Gravity is out now…and it is just as intense as the teasers…I REALLY want to see this movie…but I’m almost afraid of it!
Star Trek: Into Darkness Blu-ray review
by Doc on Sep.02, 2013, under Movies
Star Trek: Into Darkness, the second adventure in J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek franchise, is out on [sfs=1342]Blu-ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1343]DVD[/sfs] next Tuesday…is the Blu-ray worth it? I’d say a conditional Yes. What may be a deciding factor is how much you like special features.
First, some of the technical details…I will talk about the film later for those who would still like to avoid the “big spoiler” that is probably widely known across the interwebs by now…
The Blu-ray version of the movie comes on a single disc, with the 3D version on another disc, and both come with the feature alone on separate DVD…there is no additional special features disc included. The feature is in full 1080p, with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track (no DTS-HD track), as well as Dolby 5.1 English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, plus English Audio Description. It is also captioned in English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
The feature looks amazing on Blu-ray…and that is very important to this film, because the visuals are top notch, and there are a LOT of them. Spectacular scenes abound. The audio quality is good, although when listening just through my TV set was a little unbalanced volume-wise. At times the audio had to be turned way up to hear dialog, but then blasted the ears during fight scenes. I think this may be fairly typical however of most Blu-rays through my TV system, however, but I’m still on the search for a new HD-capable receiver.
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