Believe it or not, the answer might be the Ghostbusters. This just in from a Variety article:
Columbia Pictures is getting serious about scaring up a new installment of its blockbuster "Ghostbusters" franchise.
The studio has set "The Office" co-exec producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to write a script for a film designed to bring back together the original cast of Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson.
Studio would not comment on the development and has been mum on recent rumors that there was interest in making another installment of the franchise.
The scribes just wrote "Year One," a comedy that was directed by Ramis. Ramis with Aykroyd wrote the first two installments of the films. Ivan Reitman directed both the 1984 original and the sequel that was released in 1989. The close proximity between the writers and original Ghostbuster Ramis is evidence that the ghost chasers have sparked to the idea of returning.
"Ghostbusters" was Columbia's highest grossing film ever, until it was beaten by "Men in Black" and then "Spider-Man." An attempt to make a third installment of the franchise was stymied in the dealmaking stage. Sources said so much gross was pledged to the participants that it was next to impossible for the studio to make any money on a third installment.
No deals will be made with the original cast until the script is ready, but the gross percentage will certainly be an issue. Sony has a standing policy not to allow more than 25% of first dollar gross out the door.
There was a lot of talk down at Comic-Con International about a new "Ghostbusters" movie and it seemed like the natural place to announce it considering Aykroyd and Hudson were scheduled to appear at a panel promoting the upcoming video game based on the 1980s paranormal comedy. But the two stars ended up not appearing (it was probably the biggest cancellation at this year's Con; I know I was bummed because I had an interview scheduled with Aykroyd on site).
Mary McNamara, one of my favorite writers and the television critic for the Los Angeles Times, has a "True Blood" review that says the show, well, pretty much sucks, and not in that good vampire way.
Borrowing heavily from many genres, "True Blood" aspires to transcend them all but instead quickly deposits the viewer waist-deep in a literal and figurative swamp.
Vampire fantasy, murder mystery, star-crossed love story, political satire, "True Blood" is all and none of the above. Not quite funny, not quite scary, not quite thought-provoking, the show's attempt to question the roots of prejudice is continually undermined by its own stereotyping.
Seriously, isn't it time to stop portraying every small town below the Mason-Dixon line as populated by drunken, racist, testosterone-charged lunkheads? Apparently not. In Bon Temps, the tiny Louisiana town where "True Blood" opens, all the men seem obsessed with booze and sexual assault while their wives quietly devour fried foods and despise them.
Early in the review, McNamara expresses disappointment that executive producer Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under") has "decided to take Charlaine Harris’ light, fun series of Southern Vampire Mysteries and turn it into a heavy-handed political fable with vampires." I haven't read the books at all, maybe that is one of the reasons we had such different takes on the show.
I just saw that Chris Carter,the mastermind behind "The X-Files," is reportedly getting medical care for exhaustion and "an acute sleep disorder." Whitney Pastorek at EW.com has this brief item:
Chris Carter, writer, producer, and director of "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," was hospitalized on Tuesday due to "physical exhaustion and an acute sleeping disorder," a source close to Carter tells EW.com. The source says the hospitalization stems from Carter "working on multiple films back to back over a two year period" -- the recently released "X-Files" sequel and "Fencewalker," a covert project he is rumored to have begun shooting earlier this year. He is expected to recover quickly.
This news follows the announcement last week by David Duchovny's attorney, Stanton Stein, that the "X-Files" and "Californication" star is in rehab to deal with his sex addiction. Roger Friedman at FOX is reporting that Duchovny was in a program to deal with his pornography addiction and went public with it because a fellow patient took that tidbit to the tabloids, which were about to pop the story.
It was a grim summer for the X-folks. "X-Files: I Want to Believe," was an afterthought even among sci-fi and genre fans because of the massive competition in the sector this summer. The $30 million film pulled in about $21 million in the U.S. (and about $57 million worldwide), far below expectations. I think it will do quite well as a DVD (people are accustomed, after all, to watching Mulder and Scully on the small screen), but I can't imagine we'll ever see another "X-Files" project at theaters.
I interviewed Duchovny over coffee a few months ago for a feature on the film and he was great, very droll but bright and engaging. I wish him well with his efforts to keep his marriage and family intact. I'm sure he loathes that this happening in a public space now. It's hard to tell if there is some Hollywood code-talk at work, meanwhile, in the announcement about Carter's medical treatment. I hope things go well for him. I absolutely adored the early seasons of "The X-Files," and Carter has always seemed like a cerebral innovator as a storyteller.
UPDATE An earlier version of this post had some box-office figures for "X-Files" that were incorrect. So I have excised them and subbed in a correct figure.
Photo by Max Nash (AFP/Getty Images) shows Chris Carter at British premiere of "X Files: I Want to Believe" in London in July 30, 2008.
Photo by David Hogan/Getty Images, showing Frank Spotnitz, David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and Chris Carter at the July premiere of "The X Files: I Want To Believe" in London.
Thirty years ago, the Man of Steel was flying high at theaters. But will he ever get off the ground again?
Richard Donner's "Superman," released in December 1978, was a box-office triumph and critics were, for the most part, cheering right along with the fans. Roger Ebert called the film "a pure delight," while the late Jack Kroll wrote in Newsweek that Donner had pulled off "a major feat in filmmaking."
It was by nature a sunny film, sentimental and playful, never embarrassed while soaring with its John Williams score and (literally) with its special effects. But show it to a teenager today and he or she will snicker and roll their eyes. These are kids who have sat in dark theaters with Wolverine, Hellboy and Heath Ledger's Joker. If they're holding out for a hero, you can bet he's not going to be plucking kittens out of trees, reciting patriotic mottos and chasing down bumbling bad guys named Otis.
This brings us to the Superman problem. Warner Bros. just pulled in half a billion dollars in the U.S. alone with the relentless nihilism of "The Dark Knight," and the other hero films of the summer ("Hancock," "Iron Man," "Hellboy 2," etc.) presented troubled protaganists who struggle as much with themselves as they do with bad guys. So, of coruse, Warner now wants Superman to tone down the Boy Scout stuff.
Lauren A.E. Schuker had a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal that quoted Warner Bros. executive Jeff Robinov (who, by the way, is apparently the man who came up with the idea of postponing the sixth "Harry Potter" film until next year) about the plans for the Man of Steel's next flight in Hollywood:
Like the recent Batman sequel — which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far — Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as "The Dark Knight." Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well.
We've heard this before. There was a series of Superman projects announced that had the hero dead, dying, powerless and, perhaps worst of all, portrayed by Nicolas Cage in a suit of armor. The thing is, Superman has always been a daytime hero; he's not Batman prowling the gutters of Gotham looking to exact revenge on every street punk in the world.
Today's mail brought plenty of politics. I'm just back from vacation and there was a large pile of parcels waiting for me in the newsroom, and the first one I opened contained "MAD About Politics" (Insight Editions, $34.95), a fancy new pop-up book from "the usual gang of idiots" at MAD Magazine, and the second one contained a T-shirt featuring an especially heroic vision of Democratic candidate Barack Obama drawn by Alex Ross, one of the true superstars in comics since his landmark 1990s work on "Astro City" and "Kingdom Come." It's pretty clear it's election season, isn't it?
First, the book: I'm a big fan of MAD and, in fact, I don't really trust people who don't like it. I was talking to the novelist Brad Meltzer last week and he mentioned that MAD usually seems to be the common link between him and the people who become his closest friends. Roger Ebert has said on several occasions that MAD inspired his entire approach to film criticism and Joyce Carol Oates and Patti Smith are other vocal devotees. So I expected big things from this pop-up book. And it delivers -- although it's not as long as you would hope, neither in page count nor in historical depth.
The book is only 12 pages long but, of course, with its intricate assembly of pop-ups and pockets, this is a book you climb into, not one built for a "scan and flip" reader. There's great stuff in here, all previously published, but still great to see again. I especially enjoyed "Goodnight Room," a parody of "Goodnight Moon" as ode to the winding-down days of the Clinton administration ("Goodnight lies, Goodnight fries.Goodnight soft money with Chinese ties") and a recovered legal pad covered with George W. Bush's notes and doodles from a cabinet meeting ("Change name of state to Oilaska!").
Brace yourself for a new wave of clichéd Bat headlines like "Holy Box Office, Batman!" and "Holy Half-Billion, Batman!" The reason is "The Dark Knight" has broken the $500-million mark at the U.S. box office. The AP story has the numbers:
“The Dark Knight” on Sunday became the second movie in Hollywood history to top $500 million at the domestic box office, raising its total to $502.4 million, according to estimates from distributor Warner Bros.
The film hit that mark in just over six weeks, half the time it took “Titanic,” which reached $500 million in a little more than three months. “Titanic,” the biggest modern blockbuster, remains No. 1 on the domestic charts with $600.8 million. Despite its brisk pace, “The Dark Knight” is not expected to approach the total for “Titanic,” which put up smaller numbers week after week but lingered at the top of the box office for months.
Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., said he expected “The Dark Knight” to finish at about $530 million, though it could reach $550 million if business persists as strongly as it has.
“The Dark Knight” will climb to about $505 million by Labor Day, the conclusion of Hollywood’s busy summer season. That amounts to nearly one-eighth of Hollywood’s overall summer revenue of $4.2 billion, which beats the previous summer record of $4.18 billion set last year, according to box-office tracker Media by Numbers.
Moviegoers everywhere seem mesmerized by Christopher Nolan's grim Batman film and Heath Ledger's startling performance -- well, wait, maybe not everywhere. It seems that Nolan's vision of Gotham by moonlight isn't really clicking in the Land of the Rising Sun.
What a way to kick off the Labor Day weekend for "Twilight" fans.
In a note posted to her official website Thursday, author Stephenie Meyer tells her readers she has decided to discontinue "Midnight Sun," her planned retelling of "Twilight" from the teenage vampire Edward's perspective, after an unfinished draft was illegally posted and distributed on the Internet without her knowledge or permission.
If I tried to write "Midnight Sun" now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on "Midnight Sun," and so it is on hold indefinitely.
Meyer had originally made the only first chapter available on her site. Because the project is now virtually killed, she's made the incomplete draft available as well, but cautions that "the writing is messy and flawed and full of mistakes."
I rather my fans not read this version.... It was only an incomplete draft.... But to end the confusion, I've decided to make the draft available.... I hope this fragment gives you further insight into Edward's head and adds a new dimension to the Twilight story. That's what inspired me to write it in the first place.
This has been a roller-coaster year for Meyer, who just completed a successful concert book series but has also had to answer for some of the backlash directed at "Breaking Dawn," the fourth and final installment of the "Twilight" saga.
But fans shouldn't fret: There's only three months until "Twilight" hits movie theaters.
Randy Lewis, who has written about music for the Los Angeles Times since the 1980s, has a truly heroic music collection. Here's his thoughts on Superman taking flight in pop music through the years.
When it comes to superheroes making their way into popular music, it's hard to beat Superman. Here's a list of my Top 10 favorite instances of the Man of Steel in pop tunes.
10. “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” Jim Croce (1971): “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape/You don’t spit into the wind.” Timeless advice.
9. “Kryptonite,” 3 Doors Down (2000): The Mississippi rock band is more interested in the super guy’s fatal flaws than his mission to protect truth, justice and the American way (seen above).
8. “Superman Lover,” Johnny "Guitar" Watson (1976): The R&B-funk-rap set often fantasizes about super powers in the boudoir, other examples including Mario’s hyper-romantic “Kryptonite” to Eminem’s outrageously self-aggrandizing and vindictive “Superman.”
7. “So Long, Superman,” Firewater (1998): A catchy pop-punk ditty anticipating Lois Lane’s Pulitzer prize-winning commentary (in “Superman Returns”) about a world with no need for the favorite son of Krypton.
6. “Superman (It’s Not Easy),” Five For Fighting (2001): The emo crowd just can’t get with the notion of invincibility, does it?
The spell Alohomora may not be able to unlock the entanglement going on between Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter" and an Indian production company whose new film is called "Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors."
Expelliarmus! The Bollywood company hopes to disarm the WB's claims, saying that they filed the title over two years ago, and that the title (pronounced Hurry Put-ter) bears no resemblance to "Harry Potter." Really? They're really saying that? Wow.
Rictusempra! The film, that is supposed to open September 12, is about a boy (the eponymous Hari) fighting two criminals who are trying to steal a secret formula devised by his scientist father. Sounds like a "Home Alone"-ish adventure comedy that is not on a "Potter" track. But that name?
Stupify! "We confirm that we have recently commenced proceedings against parties involved in the production and distribution of a movie entitled 'Hari Puttar'," said Warner Bros. spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln to Reuters in an e-mail.
Confundus! Hopefully both sides can produce an Orchideous spell and make up. Though the titles are similar, the premises are pretty far apart and wouldn't confuse anyone. Hate to go against the little guys, but the producers of "Hari Puttar" should rethink their title. Naming their property two years ago is probably not going to sway the courts, and they could put that court money towards new promo material!
I'm working on a long article about the author Brad Meltzer, and we had a great steak dinner last night in Hollywood Beach, Fla. I grew up here in Broward County and Meltzer spent a chunk of his childhood here too, and it turns out that we bought our comic books at the same shop, a long-gone little shop called Starship Enterprises. It's pretty amazing, actually, how much we have in common. When I told him that I'm of the opinion that "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" from 1978 is the greatest single comic book ever, his jaw dropped.
"Maybe we should just get married right now. That is my all-time favorite too." He then started rattling off the celebrities who appear in the famous wraparound cover that shows the ring-side audience watching the bout. "Lucille Ball, Jimmy Carter, the Sweathogs ..."
Two of the people also depicted in that spectacular cover by Neal Adams are Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the creators of Superman. Siegel is a key part of Meltzer's new novel, "TheBook of Lies," which hits stores Sept. 2. Meltzer is fascinated by the fact that Mitchell Siegel, the father of Jerry, died in a robbery just months before his teenage son created the most famous bulletproof hero in American pop culture. Meltzer melds that story with, believe it or not, the biblical story of Cain and Abel. "I know, it sounds crazy right? You can imagine how thrilled my publisher was," Meltzer said with a grin. Meltzer can make any mystery work, as far as I'm concerned; not only did he write bestsellers such as "The Tenth Justice" and "The Zero Game," he penned "Identity Crisis," which is one of the finest and most deftly written comic books you'll ever read.
Expect to hear a lot more about this new book in the weeks to come. I'll be posting the feature on Brad in the weeks to come. In the meantime, check out the compelling trailer for the book, which you can find at Brad's website. It features Joss Whedon, Christopher Hitchens and other pals of Meltzer's.
And if you want to check out that brilliant "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" cover, it's after the jump.
-- Geoff Boucher
Cover of "Book of Lies" courtesy of Grand Central Publishing
For those who have wondered what Alan Moore is thinking, not just on the upcoming "Watchmen" movie (only 195 days left!), but "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and other titles, then "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" is probably for you.
We say probably because we haven't seen it. But we have seen this:
Wow. Do we really want to be inside the mind of Alan Moore? Could we handle it? Sites like Comic Book Bin have put out the word that the Shadowsnake Film DVD is coming Sept. 30, and they are excited about it.
The documentary won a special recognition award for creative achievement in documentary filmmaking at the San Francisco World Film Festival. The film's website is not up yet, but you can be sure it'll get traffic once it's functional.
Those who aren't heavily into comic books may not know him, but just as an interesting individual with different ideas about what we might think are mundane things, Alan Moore is really someone you should learn more about.
T.J. Kosinski, one of our talented interns this summer here at The Times, wandered around Comic-Con International a few weeks ago and interviewed some of his favorite comics creators. Here is his third guest post.
Like the undergound comix scene in those roiling days of the 1960s, the burgeoning online comics sector is a wide-open frontier now making up its own rules and picking its leading voices. I'd say one of the strongest players at the moment is Act-I-Vate, the webcomics collective with about 30 creators on its roster. It's both smart showcase and wild laboratory, providing consistently updated (and thoroughly interesting) comics to readers across the Web for free.
Two of the member creators are Joe Infurnari and Molly Crabapple. Infurnari is a writer and artist who values the benefits of creating comics strictly for the Web: “Going digital is great to get yourself to a wide audience. If I write something, [someone] can place a link to it on MySpace and it gets 60,000 hits. That sort of exposure can’t be done by handing out postcards or just talking to people.”
Infurnari is working on his latest webcomic, "The Transmigration of ULTRA-Lad!" It's a reverse-Shazam sort of story in which an old man transforms into a teenage superhero. The aesthetic of the webcomic is great. The story is told on "pages" that have the browning, battered edges of a vintage comic book (one that was not stored in a Mylar bag) and the art is a shadowy valentine to super-hero artists such as Mac Raboy and Wally Wood. Infurnari also has The Process, which had been nominated for an Eisner Award. One interesting dimension of Infurnari’s The Process is how tailored it feels to the Web. The website that hosts the comic is meticulous; even the table of contents is intricate. Infurnari took this approach seeking “an interactive experience.” He explained that “with the Web, I can control how the audience absorbs material. The whole thing is an immersive design. My goal is to teleport the viewer into the world of the story.”
Readers should check out The Process, not only for the tremendously detailed artwork, but for Infurnari’s surreal narrative. It’s self-described as “a journey and exploration through a personal ‘pleroma,’ an imaginary landscape populated by strange, wondrous creatures and archetypal characters." The Eisner nomination for Best Digital Comic speaks to the ability of Infurnari to relay his strange inner visions to a wide audience.
Photo from a 1970s issue of Starlog, used with permission from the magazine.You can find Starlog on the internet here or subscribe to the print edition here.
There was an intriguing post last week on Neil Gaiman's journal that suggests that the usually black-clad teller of tales is by now on a monthlong trek through the hinterlands of China on a story safari:
Tonight I'm home, sitting on the sofa with my daughters who are watching the Olympics. This morning I went out and bought lots of lightweight, quick-drying clothes and other useful travel things, with my assistant Lorraine. (At one point during the clothes-buying part of things Lorraine helpfully said, "Boss you're still wearing their pants. Why don't you go back into your own?" Which seemed like a sensible idea, so I grabbed my jeans and headed back to the changing room, overhearing the sales lady saying, "Is he a professor?" and Lorraine's reply of, "He's a writer. It's the same thing.")
So I now have lots of new, light, easily washed clothes, many of them grey or white, which means I will spend much of the next four weeks feeling like I am in disguise.
I don't know if I'll be able to post while on the road -- I'm going to be very much off the beaten track doing research for the next big project, and a lot of time I'll be on foot in rural China...
The next big project sounds mighty interesting. Gaiman also said in that post that he is in talks with publisher HarperCollins about making his first novel, "Neverwhere," available for reading for free online, as was done with his book "American Gods" this past February. "Neverwhere" could be everywhere as soon as September, he wrote, and it will "be done in some different ways" than the "American Gods" approach.
In other Gaiman news, the Los Angeles Times recently had a well-done piece on the stage production inspired by his unsettling 1995 graphic novel "The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch."
T.J. Kosinski, one of our talented summer interns here at The Times, wandered around Comic-Con International a few weeks ago and interviewed some of his favorite comics creators. This is the second of his guest posts.
To me, Paul Pope is a comic-book rock star. He's been called "the Jim Morrison of American comic books" for the delirious poetry he creates with his words and brushstrokes.
The creative mind behind Vertigo's riveting "100%" and the Eisner-winning "Batman: Year 100" is now pushing his art off the page and into toys, design, electronics and even wallpaper...
Yes, that's right, he is extremely busy.
In the past year, Pope designed exclusive screen-print posters for Diesel, worked on a clothing line for DKNY Jeans, released a monograph entitled "Pulphope," illustrated the cover of "Pop Gun: Vol. 2," and recently premiered his first action figure.
Then there's the icing on the cake: a reissue of Pope’s long out-of-print "THB" series is scheduled for sometime in 2009 with “a lot” of brand-new material, he says.
Scott Timberg is a good friend of the Hero Complex who writes insightfully about authors and literature for the Los Angeles Times. He recently interviewed Michael Chabon for a Q&A that appeared in the Sunday paper recently, but due to space considerations, it was edited down. Here is the full, "director's cut" version.
Michael Chabon is well known as the author of novels such as the coming-of-age tale "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," the exuberant, Pulitzer-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and "The Yiddish Policeman’s Union," an alternate-universe story that just came out in paperback and recently won the Nebula Award.
But Chabon has long harbored a related passion, which has run alongside and sometimes overlapped with his novels: to make the literary world safe for genre fiction and to expand the notion of what a serious work of fiction can be. "Entertainment has a bad name," begins the book’s opening essay, "Trickster in a Suit of Lights." "Serious people learn to mistrust and even revile it. The word wears spandex, pasties, a leisure suit studded with blinking lights."
The pieces in "Maps and Legends" range far and wide, including one on Chabon’s hometown of Columbia, Md. (a planned community that reflects some of the writer’s concerns), and memoirish pieces that give the background to his novels.
The heart of the book, though, concerns his crusade to save comics, science fiction, fantasy, horror and detective fiction from condescension.
He wants to move past the ambivalence of the Moderns — whether novelists, poets or surrealist artists — who played with pop elements such as popular songs or comics but did so behind what Chabon calls "the line of irony."
I spoke to Chabon from his home in Berkeley about a process by which sophisticated writers are kept in the genre ghetto and readers are scared away from novels and stories they might otherwise love.
Timberg: Let’s start with some of the pulp or genre writers who have spoken to you over the years and perhaps inspired your own books.
Chabon: There are so many. Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, Ross Thomas, Ursula K. LeGuin, Frank Herbert, Michael Moorcock, Ray Bradbury, Jack Kirby, Steve Gerber, Alan Moore. And there is a whole list of borderland writers — John Crowley, Jorge Luis Borges, Steven Millhauser, Thomas Pynchon — writers who can dwell between worlds.
I talked Tuesday with Chris Bridges (a.k.a. Ludacris, a nickname he wants to leave behind for his Hollywood career, much like 50 Cent, The Rock and Andre 3000) for an upcoming feature I'm doing on "Max Payne" but we also talked a bit about a different movie he's filmed that also has a connection to video-game culture: "Game," the Lionsgate film due next year.
"The first thing I thought of when I read the script was the 'The Running Man,' but this goes off in a dark direction," said Bridges, who is compiling quite the acting resume after roles in "Crash," "Hustle & Flow" and "2 Fast 2 Furious," as well as two-episode appearance a while back in "Law & Order: SVU."
"Game" is a near-future thriller about a massive game in which the battles aren't between sim characters, they're fought by convicts are manipulated like flesh-and-blood puppets by gleeful gamers playing at home. Gerard Butler ("300") plays Kable, a death-row convict who is plucked from his cell and dropped into the rock-'em, sock-'em combat. He's proves so adept at carnage that he becomes a pop-culture star to the global audience watching the grisly game unfold. Bridges plays a character nicknamed Humanz who is not a fan; he's part of a resistance effort that sees the game as an ethical affront and have a plan to use Kable to bring down the entire game.
"I'm a renaissance man, a guy who is upset about what's going on -- people getting these chips put in their brains that control them -- and is one of the guys trying to stop it," Bridges said. "It's intense, I guarantee it. It's a movie by [writers and co-directors] Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the guys that did 'Crank' with Jason Statham. And I also worked with Gerard on [the upcoming Guy Ritchie film] 'RockNRolla,' so that's great, it makes it smoother when you get to know people. It's definitely going to be a great sci-fi film."
Richard Abowitz writes The Movable Buffett, a blog about Las Vegas and all its gaudy pursuits. "Star Trek: the Experience" at the Las Vegas Hilton is in its final month of operation, and Abowitz was curious how that was echoing at the recent "Star Trek" convention in Sin City. Here's an excerpt:
I first saw Bill Lyons, 50, and his wife, Pam Lyons, 54 (pictured), dragging a suitcase behind them like any tourists going to a convention. I decided to follow them because I thought they would lead me to the convention I was covering. I did not say to them "I am from Earth. Take me to your leader." But maybe I should have.
Bill Lyons says: "We like the attention we get when we are in costume."
They are both dressed as otherworldly characters from the movie "Star Trek: Insurrection." Pam Lyons tells me "My character doesn't have a name. I am a skin-stretching specialist."
The movie came out in 1998. That was the year Star Trek: The Experience opened at the Las Vegas Hilton. Since then the franchise has fallen on hard times. There has been only one movie since then, and the last television show ended in 2005. That is not the future but ancient history in Vegas, and the next "Star Trek" movie is not scheduled to come out until 2009. Vegas is not a town with patience.
By 2009 the convention will have to take place without what has come to be known informally as the Star Trek Experience ride, and the bar Quark's next door that has become a hangout for convention attendees. Both are closing at the end of the month. On Sept. 1, one of the most successful tourist rides in Vegas history will be "decommissioned" after more than a decade, twice as long as the USS Enterprise's five-year mission on the original series. The "Star Trek" convention in Vegas has lasted even longer. But it grew from a small affair at places like the Plaza downtown to a convention that attracted thousands with the arrival of the Experience. For a couple of years the convention and the ride were at different casinos. But inevitably the two proved a perfect complement after the convention moved to the Hilton. So perfect I wondered what impact closing the ride would have on the annual convention.
What did he find out? You can read the rest of his post here.
Christopher Nolan decided that for "The Dark Knight" his vision of Gotham City needed to be even more reality-based that the one he presented in "Batman Begins." That took to him to Chicago where, over 65 days, he and his crew used the Windy City's shining towers and darkened corners to bring Gotham to life in a dramatically different way than Tim Burton did back in the 1980s when he envisioned a Gotham that was a mixture of gargoyle gothic and funhouse cemetery.
Some folks at the Chicago Tribune had the clever idea of mapping out the locations used by the film crew and, through a nifty interactive map, showing how place like Daley Plaza and the Berghoff became the stomping crowds of the Caped Crusader and the people he loves to punch. Take a look at it here, although I should tell you there are some quasi-spoilers in the text if you are one of the few people left who actually haven't seen the movie.
Photo from "The Dark Knight" shows Batman astride his Batpod, which was in scenes filmed near the Metra entrance in the 200 block of E. Randolph St. in Chicago. Image from Warner Bros.
I just talked to Jon Favreau a bit ago, and he said that while there hasn't been an formal announcement on the sequel to "Iron Man," he's begun developing it. "We're working on it now," he said, "which hasn't been officially announced. It will be released in 2010."
No surprise there, of course. The first film in the franchise has pulled in well over a half-billion dollars in worldwide box office and was met with strong reviews.
As the state's budget crisis continues, Sacramento certainly has money on its mind, but it's hardly star-struck when it comes to Hollywood and its problems with runaway production.
Nevertheless, "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have become unexpected partners in a push to create tax breaks for film and television shows in an effort to keep their production in California, a political cause that has very little traction with state lawmakers and, to the governor's chagrin, even less footing in celebrity fundraising circles.
There's been a 40% decline in the number of film production days shot on location in Los Angeles since 1997, and the stampede east by the makers of high-profile projects is intensifying after New York Gov. David Paterson signed a bill in April delivering a lush new package of incentives.
Favreau is one the nice guys in the industry, and I think he has a lot of credibility. But I also think he will have a hard slog with this cause.
Growing up, Geoff Boucher always wanted to be a mild-mannered reporter working for a major metropolitan newspaper....or maybe a wookiee. He came to the Los Angeles Times in 1991 and, after years covering crime and local politics, he switched to the Hollywood beat covering film and music. Now he's the paper's go-to geek.
Also contributing:
The Legion of Super-Bloggers here at the Hero Complex includes Jevon Phillips, a Times staffer who specializes in our favorite television shows, especially "Heroes" and the frakking brilliant "Battlestar Galactica;" Denise Martin, another Times staffer, who has an undying passion for "Twlight" and anyone ever enrolled at Hogwarts; Gina McIntyre, a Times editor who learned her craft by watching too many slasher films; and Christie St. Martin from Funny Pages 2.0, who was recently voted geek queen of the Internet. Congrats Christie!
OK, I can't resist: Who you gonna call?
