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: Guardians and Good Grief

Coming in a bit late today, but still technically Friday morning, at least in my time zone, it’s this week’s dose of News Bites. As always there’s a fair amount of superhero movie news and speculation, and some odd film and TV adaptations. There’s news on Martin Scorcese’s next project, and Luc Besson’s as well. So read on for what’s going on.

News Bites: Trolls and Tomorrow

Good morning folks, it’s Friday, time for the News Bites. For my regular readers, a quick update on when I’m getting back to regular content: very soon. The bad tooth was pulled out Tuesday, and while I’m still catching up on sleep and awaiting eating solid food again, I’m feeling pretty good. I want to build up a small buffer of watched films before I start posting reviews again, but hopefully those will start going up on Tuesday. The MMV will be along on Monday; I’m undecided right now on whether I’ll be posting a Sunday article or using the time to build up the buffer. It depends a bit on how things go; got a busy couple of days today and tomorrow.

But enough about me. You’re here for news about the movies. And there’s quite a bit of that, with sci-fi films, comedies, and family films all being heavily represented in this week’s News Bites. Read on to find out what’s going on!

News Bites: Heroes and Heat

Good morning, folks. Another outage on my internet connection left me unable to post or read for a few days (I’d like to exchange 2013 for a better year, please), but it’s working again in time for this week’s News Bites. Now, given that I missed a few days of browsing the web, it’s certainly possible I missed some interesting news. But what I did find is certainly interesting in its own right. A few more roles being cast for films, yet another remake, a TV series name change, and a rumor debunked while another is seemingly (if unofficially) confirmed. So read on for this week’s news!

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: Turtles and Transformers

This week’s assortment of news bites largely consists of superhero movie news and other adaptations. There are a few denials of things, a few rumors, and a few confirmations. There’s also a distressing amount of Michael Bay news. Such is life.

Read on to find out what’s going on.

News Bites: J.J., J. Michael and J. Malko

Friday morning has rolled around once again, and if I had thought that previous weeks were indicating an increase in the amount of press releases coming out of Hollywood, this week’s the mother lode. Even with the usual caveat that there are things I miss or overlook or just don’t attribute any significance to, there’s a lot. In fact, there are just shy of two dozen news items this week.

Sheer volume indicates at least some of it should catch your interest, so let’s get to it, shall we?

News Bites: Bonaparte and Birdman

Once again, Friday morning brings with it your weekly supply of News Bites. And this week, I’ve finally gotten around to creating a logo for the section, so it looks just a little less ramshackle. It seems that when it comes to Hollywood, spring means more than just the start of blockbusters; just as the movies start picking up in both quality and quantity, the news also appears to be increasing in both magnitude and volume. Even counting only the confirmed stuff, this week’s interesting news is at least a full page long. So read on to see what’s been revealed this week.

Turning Back the Clock: Some Guidelines for Reboots

It’s been a while since I last gave my thoughts on Hollywood’s franchise-building techniques; almost exactly six months, in fact. Back then I talked about when it’s acceptable for Hollywood to remake a film. This time I thought I’d take a broader approach and look at when it’s appropriate for Hollywood to reboot an entire franchise.

Now, technically, even a single film can be viewed as a franchise. But for the purposes of this discussion, I’m looking at those situations where there is either more than one film in the franchise (e.g., Rocky), or where there’s one film but a pre-existing character and story from other media (e.g., The Phantom). (I’ll note that those examples were chosen specifically because I am unaware of any reboots in the making for either… and in the case of Rocky, I hope there never will be. But more on that later.) I’ll also note that I’m not really counting cases like Robin Hood and King Arthur, where there are dozens of films on the same characters, but they aren’t really connected as such.

Rebooting a franchise has a certain logic to it. It’s a known money-maker, or at least is strongly hoped to be. But for one reason or another simply continuing the series as it stands is untenable. So, assuming Hollywood wants to reboot a franchise, what are the things to consider?