First HELLBOY images coming at Comic-Con
According to the official HELLBOY website, the first art produced for the big screen version of the comic will be hitting San Diego at the Comic-Con International.
Specifically, the poster will be hitting the world's eyes first on Thursday, August 1, 3:00-4:00 pm in Room 6A where creator Mike Mignola, director Guillermo del Toro and star Ron Perlman will be having a panel discussion and answering Q&A. Thought all of you, making your reservations and plane plans now, might like to know. We did.
On the CBS Panel Front:
-The Premise: Anthony LaPaglia (Murder One) headlines this new procedural drama about the Missing Persons Squad of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
-Who Was There: Anthony LaPaglia, Poppy Montgomery, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Enrique Murciano, Eric Close, creator Hank Steinberg and executive producer Ed Redlich.
-The Scoop: With CSI as its lead-in no other new drama next season has such a prosperous lead-in. Hopefully, it will not squander the opportunity like The Agency did this season.
-The Reality: Although Without a Trace is generating a fair degree of buzz, even a diluted ER on NBC will likely win the hour by significant margins. But if the new drama can hold more of its CSI lead-in than The Agency did this season (that's not difficult to do) it could be a keeper.
WITHOUT A TRACE
CBS Sets Launch Dates for New Shows
Premiere week will live up to its title on CBS this fall.
The network will roll out all of its new series -- and nearly all of its returnees -- the week of Sept. 23, the official start of the 2002-03 TV season. A notable exception is "Survivor: Thailand," which will debut on Thursday, Sept. 19, giving the show a week to hook viewers before its main competitor, NBC's "Friends," has its season premiere.
The next installment of "The Amazing Race" will premiere Wednesday, Oct. 2, a week into the season.
CBS president and CEO Les Moonves made the announcement Monday (July 15) at the TV Critics Association press tour in Pasadena.
The Eye put most of its efforts into getting stronger shows on at 10 p.m. this season. Four of five weeknights -- all but Tuesday -- will have a new 10 p.m. series, and Moonves calls the new slate "the strongest group of 10 p.m. dramas we've had in years."
"It will obviously help the network, it will help our local news broadcasts and it will help David Letterman," Moonves says. Letterman has been vocal in the past about getting stronger lead-ins for his "Late Show."
Moonves also announced that Ving Rhames ("Mission: Impossible 2," "Sins of the Father" ) will play a recurring role as the U.S. attorney general on "The District" this season.
The premiere schedule for CBS is as follows (all times Eastern/Pacific):
Thursday, Sept. 26
9 p.m. "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation"
10 p.m. "Without a Trace"
'Twilight Zone' Update Was No Easy Sell
by Rick Porter
Zap2it.com, TV News
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Selling the idea of a new anthology series -- even one that carries "The Twilight Zone" name -- was no easy task for producer Pen Densham.
Forget that "The Twilight Zone" is one of the most recognizable shows in TV history. Forget that Densham has had success with an anthology show -- "The Outer Limits" -- in the past. As Densham says, "No one seems to do them, so they don't get on the air."
Still, Densham eventually wore UPN chief Les Moonves down, and the updated "Twilight Zone" will premiere on UPN this fall.
"I have worked for 3 1/2 years to persuade [UPN] that this is a tangible and reasonable thing to do because there was such a dogma that anthologies don't work," Densham said Sunday (July 14) at the TV Critics Association press tour in Pasadena. "And I've come up with every excuse I could possibly dream up, like 'Wait. CBS has an anthology series. ... It's called " 60 Minutes." Same host, different stories.' "
The new show won't remake any old episodes but rather tell new stories -- two half-hour stories per week. Forest Whitaker will take the role that creator Rod Serling did in the original series, introducing and wrapping up each story. The actor-director says he won't try to imitate Serling, however.
"I couldn't nor wouldn't want to try to re-create ... his behavior or the way he does things," Whitaker says. "Perhaps a phrase. I mean, there's very little you can do with 'Welcome to the Twilight Zone.' ... It's like something that is so imbued with a memory; I need to find how that translates through me today."
Whitaker, Densham and fellow executive producer Ira Steven Behr all count themselves fans of the old series. Behr, a former writer and producer on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," says it's been a great experience thus far developing stories with the show's writers.
"Something like 'The Twilight Zone' gives you the chance to explore stories, characters, situations that don't usually come up in your standard franchise television fare," Behr says. "And as a writer, and I guess also an audience member, that excites me."
"The Twilight Zone" is scheduled to premiere at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday, Sept. 18.
Next at Bat: UPN
In an opening session with Les Moonves (whose got quite a few zingers himself!) and recently appointed president Dawn Ostroff, the focus was on beating the WB, growing year-to-year on four nights of the week, integrating UPN into the CBS infrastructure and focusing on the future with three new series. Although many might think only two-and-one-half hours of new programming makes UPN the most stable network (I didn't say weblet!), WWE Smackdown! on Thursday and the Friday Night Movie (a time period Band-Aid) limits the time period opportunities. Although Buffy was costly, it did put UPN back on the map.
On the UPN Panel Front:
The Premise: In this third incarnation of the classic sc-fi anthology series, Forest Whitaker will take viewers into the world of fantasy and suspense with unusual and offbeat stories.
-Who Was There:
Forest Whitaker, Pen Densham, Ira Steven Behr
-The Scoop:
According to one of the executive producers, each episode of The Twilight Zone will feel like an orgasm. This must be some show!
-The Reality:
Although the fit out of Enterprise is seamless, nothing can -- or will -- match the original version of The Twilight Zone. Based on the two former non-successful remakes sometimes it's better to leave well enough alone.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE Wednesday 9:00 p.m.
New Trailer! "Star Trek: Nemesis" (Trailers)
From darkhorizons.com
Adventure Inc.: The second month of shooting is underway in Toronto
on this new Michael Biehn "Doc Savage"-style explorer show according
to Command Entertainment.
Maine International Film Festival
LIBERTY, MAINE
Josiah Emery's first fiction feature, set in Liberty, Maine (shot in
Gorham) centers on a son returning home to come to grips with his
overwhelming father.
Sat-Jul-20 1:00 PM OH
Blade 2 video release date
Video Release Date: August 30th, 2002
Breaking News' Story Almost Got Killed
by Rick Porter
Zap2it.com, TV News
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - You're head of a cable network. You hire a veteran writer-producer to develop a pilot for you about behind-the-scenes intrigue at a cable news channel.
You OK the hiring of several well-known actors for pilot. Upon seeing the pilot, you decide to order 12 more episodes, all of which you say you like. Then, shortly before the series is scheduled to premiere, you decide it's not a "breakout hit" and decide to ax the whole thing.
So, the question is, why?
"That is the $20 million question, isn't it?" says Gardner Stern, executive producer of "Breaking News," which premieres on Bravo next week after having the scenario described above play out at TNT last year.
"The short answer is, I don't know, because no one from TNT ever called me to explain why they decided not to run it," Gardner told reporters Thursday (July 11) at the TV Critics Association press tour. "If I had to speculate, I'd say it was a combination of factors including sort of corporate events that were taking place over there [at AOL Time Warner, TNT's parent]. Possibly a decision by people at TNT that they wanted to appeal to an audience that was different from the audience for this show."
Brad Siegel, president of Turner Entertainment Networks, provided an answer during a separate session Friday (July 12). He confirmed Stern's speculation about the show being a casualty of the murder of AOL and Time Warner, and also said that TNT believed "Breaking News" would not be "an out-of-the-box hit."
For that to happen, Siegel says, a show has to be significantly different from broadcast network fare -- a la "The Shield" or "Witchblade" -- as well as of exceptional quality.
Given that it's often harder to build audiences for dramatic series on cable, "[a show] has to be not just good, but nearly perfect," Siegel says.
Whatever the reason for TNT's dumping of "Breaking News," the cast -- which includes Tim Matheson ("The West Wing"), Lisa Ann Walter ("Emeril") and Clancy Brown ("The Laramie Project" ) -- took the news hard. The three all felt very good about the series and say they would have traded the paychecks they collected to get the series on the air.
"When we were all doing it, we were aware that we were in the middle of something very special," Walter says. "And speaking as an actor ... sometimes you don't -- you know that you're in the middle of something that you maybe would prefer to get paid and not seen."
"Whatever happened at TNT, it was like 'The Twilight Zone,' " Matheson adds. "It was so bizarre for us. And the reason ... why all of us would do anything we could to continue to do this show is because we love the show, we love the cast, and we loved what Ken and Gardner did."
Bravo will air all 13 episodes of "Breaking News" starting Wednesday, July 17. Should it perform well, there's a chance the network will order more.
"If it does as well as we hope it will, we will try to do more," says Ed Carroll, executive vice president and general manager of Bravo. "Will everyone be available? I don't know. ... If this works like we hope it will, yeah, we'll want to do more episodes. There's no question about it."