News Bites: Downeys and Dragons

It’s Friday morning, and that means another batch of news bites. This turned out to be a fairly busy week in Hollywood, with a whole lot of movie news coming to light. There’s a big mess of Marvel news, a touch of Turtle news, a dash of Disney, and an assortment of news on other major film operations. What there isn’t, strangely enough, is the need for a rumors section this week. Everything is relatively solid, at least what I came across. I’m sure there’s some random speculation out there, but I only came across a few items that come under that header, and they’re all tied to more definite news.

So for once, we can have a Friday without any major rumor-mongering. Read on!

News Bites: Interstellar Cinderella

Good morning and happy Friday, everyone. It’s time once again for the News Bites. This week, there’s some casting news of both the confirmed and tentative varieties, the usual hubbub about Transformers and Turtles, a little bit about Disney, a little bit of Marvel, and the continued inability of terrorists to kill John McClane.

So if you want to know what’s going on, keep reading!

News Bites: Dory and the Dark Universe

Good morning folks, it’s time for your weekly bite-sized chunks of entertainment news. This week has some sombre stuff, unfortunately, but it also has some fun with remakes and sequels, and assorted superhero-ish action films. I’ve front-loaded the sad stuff so that it doesn’t bring people down for too long — and if you really want to just skip over it, hit the first bold line. I don’t judge; we’re mostly here to have fun, after all.

However you want to take it, read on for the news.

News Bites: Rebooting Reptiles

Once again, Friday morning brings with it a week’s worth of news out of Hollywood. And once again, a lot of it involves remakes and reboots: this time with appropriately metaphorical animals, including dragons, snakes, and phoenixes.

There’s even a theme park ride getting the revival treatment. So read on to find out what’s coming back to a theatre — or amusement park — near you.

Croissant de Triomphe

I subscribe to Disney Movie Rewards, as a means to ever-so-painfully-slowly work my way towards free movies from buying DVDs and movie tickets, and as part of this they also send me regular emails regarding other Disney related ephemera. Most of this is of little interest to me (I have no desire to throw a Disney Princess birthday party), but every so often something interesting turns up. In this case, that something was a “sneak peek” of a new Mickey Mouse cartoon, Croissant de Triomphe. I put “sneak peek” in quotes because it’s already everywhere on the web and hardly exclusive to people on Disney’s mailing list (you can view it here), but that’s not really important. What is important is that here is something I didn’t expect to see and which was at least potentially interesting. And after watching the short and reading up on it a bit, I have to say that potential interest is more on the lines of actual interest.

News Bites: Pilots and Planes

It’s Friday morning, and time for another weekly dose of entertainment news. This week’s news bites include a healthy dose of mighty Marvel Movie news, a little speculation on Green Lantern, some other sequel news, and a little bit of talk about television and music. So while the movie talk may be pretty fantasy-centric, overall it’s a pretty well-rounded batch.

News Bites: Toys, Turtles, and Teachers

It’s Friday morning, and that means it’s time for another weekly pile of news, with just a bit of snarky commentary from myself. This week there’s still more television news — this is the time of year when the big networks start planning their next years’ pilots — and a few more standard film franchise rumors. As well as a few other items of interest. As is becoming the rule, there’s a bit too much for the front page of the blog, so click through to see what’s going on!

News Bites: Planes, Lanes, and Submersibles

Took a brief break from this last week, but here’s another dose of short-but-interesting news items for you:

First off, some sad news; it was mentioned a few days ago that Charles Durning had died, but sadly he’s not alone (somehow these things always happen in groups, especially at the end of the year). Actor Jack Klugman, star of Quincy M.E. and The Odd Couple has passed away at the age of 90. Additionally, Gerry Anderson, creator of Thunderbirds and other marionette TV shows, has passed away at the age of 83. Both will be missed for their contributions to entertainment.

NBC has officially passed on picking up The Munsters reboot Mockingbird Lane as a series, which really comes as no surprise. The pilot was mediocre, and it’s doubtful a series would have been able to recoup the high costs.

Originally scheduled for a direct-to-video release, Disney’s Planes, the spin-off to Pixar’s Cars franchise which curiously isn’t under the Pixar label, is now being given a theatrical release of August 9, 2013.

After Disney became leery of the project with the failure of Mars Needs Moms, Robert Zemeckis has decided not to do a remake of Yellow Submarine after all. This is probably a good thing — it’s hard to imagine anybody was really looking forward to a Beatles movie without the Beatles.

The Austrian town of Oberburgl is hoping to find Alfred Hitchcock’s lost second film, The Mountain Eagle, which was filmed there.

And finally, Quentin Tarantino is considering a companion piece to Inglourious Basterds, tentatively titled Killer Crow, about disenfranchised African-American soldiers in World War II.

News Bites: A Million Ways to Die and Three Days to Kill

This Friday morning, we’ve got a few small things to discuss, and a whole lot of Golden Globe nominations. Those in a bit. Up first are a couple news bites that are intriguing, and a couple which are groan-worthy (not necessarily in that order.)

Apparently the new fad genre is going to be spoof-westerns. It was announced a few weeks ago that Adam Sandler is making The Ridiculous 6 for a 2014 release, but now comes the news that Seth MacFarlane is beating him to the punch with A Million Ways to Die in the West, which is planned for release in summer 2013.

Kevin Costner and Amber Heard will co-star in Three Days to Kill. Costner will play a Secret Service agent who is dying; Heard plays a woman who offers him a second chance at life through a wonder drug if he goes on a mission for her. Complication: the drug is hallucinogenic. The movie will be directed by McG (This Means War). It sounds pretty interesting, but I’d be a little more interested if storywriter Luc Besson (The Professional, The Fifth Element) directed it instead.

Some concept art of Frozen, Disney’s animated feature for next year, has been revealed; see below. The film, which at one point was canceled and then revived, is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. Kristen Bell and Idina Menzell are lending their voices to the project.

At what point can we say a franchise has reached the saturation point? Angry Birds is getting a movie, to be released in 2016. Rovio Entertainment, the producers of the game, will be developing the film themselves, with Finnish animation studio Kombo. The producer is John Cohen, who produced Despicable Me; the director, voice talent, writers, and just how they’re going to stretch that game’s barely-there concept into a 90 minute film have not been announced.

Last and certainly not least, the Golden Globe nominations are out. Click through for the full list of nominees.

Top 10 Christmas Specials

It’s that time of year when TV stations start airing their annual selection of Christmas specials. Well, OK, technically that “time of year” started the day after Thanksgiving; I notice some of the cable stations such as ABC Family are going into absolute glut mode already. The production of Christmas specials seems to have taken a minor nosedive from the 1990s onward, though there have been a few produced in recent years (often as an easy way to get further use out of 3D models from animated movies). But there is no shortage of Christmas specials when we turn our eyes to the past. There are dozens, possibly even hundreds of specials — and I’m only counting actual TV specials, not episodes of TV series, not movies, and not even TV movies (for the record, I’m drawing the line at one hour.)

I haven’t seen every Christmas special made, of course. And I hope to be able to watch some more this season and in seasons to come. But I’m comfortable enough with what I’ve seen to pick my top ten.