In the wake of record low viewership for last year’s Academy Awards ceremony, those involved with the show coming up in January are launching a pre-emptive strike to blame the switchover to digital TV as the reason nobody watches the show in 2009. The program will air five days after the initial switchover and some fear that confusion and/or procrastination could lead to a handful of old-timers… → Read More
Follow this. Concept art for an unmade movie to be based on a just-written script that was written to resurrect a movie franchise that disappeared even before it was actually made. Yes, an awkwardly named Web site claims to have exclusive concept art for Halo: Fall of Reach, a script that was written because the original Halo Movie was never made. (Once upon a time, a guy from Time Warner told a… → Read More
Oh, Back to the Future. It was because of you that during the run-up to the revealing of the Segway, I thought it was going to be a hoverboard. It was because of you that I was so bitterly disappointed. But your uppance has come! Your most precious wooden prop will be mine — for the paltry cost of only $30,000. No, it doesn’t hover, but it’s in excellent condition. I actually may… → Read More
Now you’ve gone and done it. “It” being, maybe, freaking out the entertainment industry by not buying as many DVDs as you used to. (That, incidentally, sorta gibes with a study that come out today.) One of them there Lehman Brothers analysts downgraded numerous industry stocks yesterday because he doesn’t like how people are now downloading movies more and more often. Studios… → Read More
That New World Order-sounding anti-copyright infringement treaty that we mentioned a few days ago has been leaked. The proposal, at least. And yes, it looks just as frightening as the original reports made it out to be. How does this grab you? The consequences of such IPR [intellectual property infringement] include (1) depriving legitimate businesses and their workers of income; (2) discouraging… → Read More
Flickr’d Now British and Canadian users can download moves from the iTunes Store. The UK Store has a selection of 700 movies from Disney, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and so on. Most of the major studios, it looks like. Even nicer, more than 100 of these are available in HD. The Cousins pay £10.99 for a new movie download (£3.99 library) and £3.49 for a new rental (£2.49 library). Canada… → Read More
We have a breach! Not only do they read “News Blog” but they know about IP addresses, a closely guarded secret among hax0rs. These CSI guys are getting pretty l33t. It’s short, but this video has to be one of the worst instances of bluff tech writing I’ve ever seen — worse than 24! And for your pleasure: A creative Redditor has put together an awesome artist’s… → Read More
Be on the lookout for an Apple announcement today regarding iTunes. The Hollywood Reporter says that Jobs & Co. have reached an agreement with several movie studios, including Diseny, Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Lions Gate and Sony that will let Apple sell movies on iTunes on the same day and date as their DVD release. That’s big because it could eat into DVD sales, which maybe means… → Read More
Microsoft has reportedly inked a deal with Hollywood producer Peter Safran to produce entertainment content for Xbox Live. Safran’s been tapped to produce genre-specific short episodes (less than 10 minutes) that appeal to 14- to 34-year old males. His client list includes Sean Combs, Nia Vardalos, and filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. I know — I’m excited too! Look… → Read More
[photopress:3D_Scream.jpg,full,center] If you saw Beowulf in 3D this past holiday season, you were no doubt blown away. It looked fantastic, and with Hollywood gearing up more 3-D releases, animated and not, the smart theater owner is upgraded his equipment. Thankfully, it’s starting now. Disney, Fox, Paramount and Universal will all start shooting with a standard 3-D system supported by… → Read More
Digital billboards are nothing new, but Clear Channel Outdoor will be testing ‘breaking news’ billboards in the Los Angeles area, starting today. The headlines will be controlled by the Los Angeles Times via a custom-built interface controlled from the newspaper’s offices. Ten billboards in all will run a ten-week test campaign consisting of eight-second rotational headlines and… → Read More
[photopress:strikeovertent.jpg,full,center] A tentative deal has been reached in the ongoing writers strike. The only reason why we paid attention to it here was because a primary reason for the strike stemmed from the use of “new media” like Internet broadcasts, DVD sales, mobile use, etc. Our bread and butter, in other words. There’s a PDF of all the terms and conditions of the… → Read More
[photopress:upsideholly.jpg,full,center] Thanks to striking writers, who are striking thanks to your changing media/entertainment consumption habits, NBC says this is a great time to completely re-think the way television is produced. No more pilot seasons, no more song-and-dance to prospective advertisers, no more glut. No more Hollywood excess, in other words. Pat yourselves on the back, writers… → Read More
Throughout the last century, the dominant method of film preservation was sticking the master reels into a temperature and humidity-controlled vault deep in the desert. This method ends up costing about a grand a year. Films stored on digital media, however, cost more than ten times as much to archive. And when the entire movie has been digitally created from start to finish (shot on digital or… → Read More
It’s a match made in Hollywood. I’m not sure why, but with the money and level of quality these players bring to their respective fields, I get the feeling that we’re going to be getting a lot of games in the “Kane & Lynch” genre, with a lot of push behind them but not too much under the hood. Except now they’re aiming for the 12-24 demographic, and… → Read More
In the face of the ongoing writers’ strike, NBC has struck a deal with online show Quarterlife and will likely start airing episodes in February. The show’s creator, Marshall Herskovitz, wouldn’t reveal the exact details of the deal except to say that NBC is paying a licensing fee and it’s not nearly as much as what’s normally paid out for regular TV shows. → Read More
If you hadn’t heard by now, there’s a strike brewing in Hollywood. The Writers Guild of America wants higher home video residual payments and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers isn’t giving in. The guild is meeting at 7:00 tonight in Los Angeles to further discuss how the strike’s going to go but its website already has the 2007 Strike Rules in place. → Read More
You kids, you’re causing starving writers to strike, crippling Hollywood and destroying our American consciousness. The Writers Guild of America, all level 70 rogues, walked out of a last minute “please don’t strike” meeting last night, setting the stage for picket lines as early as Monday. The guild is refusing to put pen to paper (or fire up Word, as the case may be)… → Read More
“Cavemen.” It was leaked and it sucks. “Son of a submariner!” That’s an expletive certain to be heard in the greater Hollywood area when TV execs find out that many of their upcoming TV shows, scheduled to debut this fall, have already leaked online. I mean, they all probably suck to high heaven, but that’s besides the point. Such works of art as NBC’s… → Read More
File this one under…awesome, I suppose. Turns out LG is hosting the world’s greatest sporting event. No, not the Super Bowl, but the National Texting Championship! Yes, this is THE premier event where all the best text messengers get together to see who can text the fastest. Those of you with a lot of free time on your hands and no girlfriend can apply for the semifinals in NYC and… → Read More
Wal-Mart has landed what at first blush appears to be a solid punch to Apple’s gut, signing a deal with all six major movie studios for movie downloads, a feat the inventor of the marketplace couldn’t achieve. Apple landed the first contracts to sell movies over iTunes, but not all studios got on board. So how did Wal-Mart convince the hold-outs to join in the game? With built-in… → Read More
Not exactly tech, but news that might interest a few of you nonetheless. Variety reports that Universal and Fox have pulled out of the “Halo” film. Sources close to the issue have cited financial squabbles as the root of the studio desertion. A representative for Peter Jackson, who is producing the film, stated that Universal called a meeting in an attempt to reduce Microsoft’s… → Read More
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