Just forget the words and sing along

Monday, July 19, 2004

So, lots of entertainment news I wanna recap.  First, the one that all of Hollywood has been buzzing about since Friday:  two cast members of CSI have been fired for wanting more money.  This upsets me because these two played my two favourite characters.  There are conflicting reports over how it went down, and this is how I've pieced it together:
 
So, these two, they've been on the show since the beginning and their roles have expanded quite a bit over the years.  Now, going into their fifth season, they figured they were due for a raise.  They called up the network saying, "Hey!  We'd like to re-negotiate our contracts," and the network said, "No."  So, our stars decided to not show up for the first day of filming; quite a common practice, I understand.  When they didn't show up, the network called them and said, "Fuck you.  You're fired."  Seems rather cold on the side of the network, I believe.
 
Anyway, got even more news for you.  Producer Don Muprhy, who owns the movies rights to The Transformers, tells us that he'll be making a big announcement about his live-action Transformers movie this Saturday at the San Diego Comic-Con.  Rumor is this big announcement is that they've finally signed a deal with a movie studio to get this made, and the studio is Dreamworks. 
 
Speculation also says that they'll be announcing Robert Zemeckis as the director.  Zemeckis, of course, made Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the Back to the Future trilogy.  I think Zemeckis is a good choice.  He's all about technical innovation, so we know that he'd be pushing the envelop to make sure the Autobots and Decepticons look real.  If you want to see technical innovation, then download the trailer for his next film, The Polar Express, which comes out this Christmas.  When star Tom Hanks showed up for the first day of filming, Zemeckis said, "OK, put on this motion capture suit and stand in front of that blue screen.  I'll put in everything else with computers."  And everything has been put in with computers.  The CGI Tom Hanks looks rather creepy.  Most are regarding this as an animated film. 
 
Anyway, all or none of this will be confirmed with the "big announcement" on Saturday.
 
And one little piece of movie news I want to bring up.  It looks like AOL/Time-Warner is about to buy movie studio MGM.  AOL/Time-Warner already owns Warner Brothers and New Line.  So why do they want MGM?  Three little letters:  DVD.  It's a widely known fact that MGM boasts one of the largest film libraries of any movie studio, including the James Bond films, the Pink Panther comedies, and those infamous MGM musicals.  With DVD getting ever bigger every day, and the next gerenation of DVD poised to hit the market any day, AOL/Time-Warner wants the MGM catalogue.  AOL/Time-Warner isn't the only one.  Sony Entertianment (who owns Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star) are also bidding on MGM. 
 
Next Issue...Small Announcement

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