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Entertainment News O’ The Day – Monday, June 20
Transform into a douche, an idiot, and a human explosion. (courtesy of /Film)
Welcome back from the weekend to real life. Well, quasi-real life anyway or as close to real life as the entertainment industry gets (not very). Hopefully you didn’t suffer from a case of the Mondays, but here are the best entertainment news from the interwebs, collected for easy digestion. Enjoy.
Finalists: Danny Pino, Kevin Alejandro, David Conrad & Michael Raymond-James to Test For “Law & Order: SVU” Male Lead (Deadline) – This headline was also subtitled, a bunch of guys you don’t know are testing for a show that you didn’t know is still on the air. Yeah, it’s true. It’s so hard to keep track of all the Law & Order reruns and new episodes and new shows popping up here and there that an article like this pops up and you have to scratch your head and think, “Wait, is SVU still going? Good for them.” Here’s the thing though, Christopher Meloni is as important to SVU as Mariska Hargitay (not even Hargitay’s mom would have seen that coming, trust me) and you can’t do the show without both of them in the cast. Just can’t be done. This move reeks of desperation and trying to get one or maybe two more years out of a solid show when they should just move on and thank their lucky stars.
Penn Badgley to Play Singer Jeff Buckley in Biopic (Deadline) – What’s the opposite of Hallelujah?
Q&A: Imagine Partners Brian Grazer and Ron Howard on 25 Years Together (Deadline) – Honestly, this is one of the scariest gay couples I’ve ever seen. Seriously though, these guys have put together quite the resume over the years. Very solid, occasionally great, this pairing has made some epic movies and a shit-ton of money over the years without delving into Bay territory, so good for them. Honestly, let’s give it up for Ron Howard as well. Star of not one, but two TV shows as a child actor and they guy is clean as a whistle. What were the odds on that one? You know why that makes me happy? Because Fred Savage, there’s hope for you yet big guy (imagine that last line voiced-over by Daniel Stern).
Jason Keller Writing “The Passage” For Director Matt Reeves (/Film) – Ok, so this is a SERIOUS book. If you haven’t read it yet, then you need to go out and pick it up. I’d loan it to you, but it’s only on my Nook, sorry bra. It’s a quasi-post-apocalyptic vampire novel (no teen love stories here), but delves through several generations and is the rare book that keeps 700+ pages fresh. It’s also the first part of what will be at least a couple more novels, though they aren’t saying when the next one will be coming out. As much as I am fiending for the next hit, I am always in favor of artists waiting for creativity to work rather than forcing something like this out. Like most great novels and especially the longer ones, I can’t imagine this being made into a film and it doing the book any justice. We will see though as there are a lot of really awesome visuals in the movie.
Darren Aronofsky Wants “Noah” to be a Big Event Film (/Film) – Ok, here we go. Is anyone really going to give Aronofsky $130 million to make this movie? I mean, $130 million is a lot of dough for a guy with ZERO big budget experience. Look at “The Fountain” for god’s sake? Actually, on the other hand, don’t. I agree that Aronofsky is a talented director who can do great things in the right scenario, but I just don’t think this is it. I see this as becoming one of the great busts of all time and really the main thing that it had going for it was the Christian factor, but if he is making it an R-rated sex-fest, then something tells me they are not going to be very happy with that. I know that’s going out on a limb, but I’m just sayin. I really do hope that this movie gets made, because I think it’s Godzilla potential is amazing.
“Flypaper” Trailer (/Film) – Now this is a good lookin trailer. I mean, check it out. Not too shabby, even if it does have McDreamy in it. Um, no, I don’t watch “Grey’s Anatomy”. It’s an original take on an unoriginal plot (aren’t most movies just that nowadays?) and it looks like it actually has the potential to be funny and entertaining. Plus, Ashley Judd is always fun to look at and her accent is just adorable. Plus, she went to Kentucky, so she’s got that going for her. What’s not to like? About the movie that is, not Ashley Judd. Ok, what’s not to like about both?
Michael Bay Refuses to Let This Megan Fox Thing Die, Claims Steven Spielberg Ordered Her Fired (/Film) – Ok, couple of thoughts on this one. I know she’s scorchingly hot, but does anyone really give a shit about Megan Fox anymore? Transformers was the only decent thing that she ever did (yes, I’m counting boning Brian Austin Green twice) and now she has fallen in to relative obscurity with that weird face tattoo on her arm. Hello Megan? Yes, this is porn calling, how are you? Great, great. On the other hand, why the hell is Michael Bay throwing Steven Spielberg under the bus? Seems like a poor career move for Bay when Spiels was just doing him a favor and getting rid of some trash. Plus, Rosie Huntington Whiteley! Yeah, she’s actually in the movie and we’re all hoping that she gets lots of screen time. Not lots of lines, but you know, walking, chewing, nakeding. The usual crucial Bay elements.
Watch Weird Al Yankovic Parodies Lady Gaga in “Perform This Way” (Hitfix) – You’re welcome.
Shadow of the Dark Tower
Yes, this is the best one in the series. No, I don't only post pictures of half-naked women. Just mostly.
I don’t know how many of you have read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, but it is one of the more amazing collections in literature. King is a master craftsman (yes, not everything he churns out is gold) and The Dark Tower is his master work. I haven’t gotten into the graphic novels as of yet, but I’ve heard they are fantastic as well. I doubted that anyone could ever properly make the Dark Tower into the masterpiece that it should be and was skeptical when I heard that Ron Howard was moving ahead with the project. The series is so long and it is all so critical to the story that you could never leave anything out. Could they make seven movies like they did successfully with Harry Potter? Sure, they could conceivably, but the Dark Tower does not have the type of following that HP does (sadly) and in order to make this the right way the movies would all probably be 3 hours and extremely budget heavy. My thought was always that in order to be made right, it had to be a mini-series. As weird as it is to say, the major TV networks have always done a pretty decent job of their King mini-series and their version of The Stand remains one of my favorite things ever put on celluloid. The more and more I thought about it though, the thought that kept coming back to me was that it would make the perfect HBO series. There is plenty of material in the series and graphic novels (if you wanted to go there) to fill years of episodes and if you’re being honest, only the pay channels can do it properly. ABC is fine, but you cannot make The Dark Tower and cut out the violence or any of the other “not fit for TV” parts that make it what it is.
It seems now that Howard’s whole project is teetering on the edge of being called off altogether. It’s too bad as it seemed like they actually had a decent idea. The books were going to span two full movies from Universal and two mini-series from NBC, all starring Javier Bardem who might just be one of the most perfect characters to play Roland unless Christopher Lloyd is able to travel back 30 years and bring us a 40 year old Clint Eastwood. “Marty! He shot me Marty and then lit his cigar from my boot. He left me there to die Marty and stole the Delorian!!!!!! What will happen to your kids?” Aaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back. In any event, there are conflicting reports all over the web about the project’s status, but AICN is usually pretty accurate when it comes to this kind of stuff. We’ll just have to stay tuned and see. Personally, I am still rooting for an HBO series. I would rather they never make it at all than make it half-assed. Bob out.
The Danger Blog 