I’ve decided to consolidate a bunch of tv updates down to one posting, because, after-all this is still a movie blog.
The writers strike caused LOST to lose two hours of it’s planned fourth season. The show’s producers have announced that they will reclaim those hours in the show’s fifth and six season. That means that the finial two seasons of the hit show will now be 17 episodes in length instead of the planned 16 episode arcs. [THR]
Nikki Finke is reporting that the American remake of Edgar Wright’s Spaced is a no-go. This should satisfy fans of the original British fanboy series starring Simon Pegg. For those of you who have never had a chance to watch the original Spaced, it finally comes to DVD in the states on July 22nd featuring new Exclusive Commentary By Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Bill Hader, Matt Stone, Patton Oswalt and Diablo Cody.
Fox has picked up JJ Abrams’s Fringe, which follows a young female FBI agent who tackle cases involving unexplained medical and scientific phenomena. Abrams’ Bad Robot produced a two-hour pilot which was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers, Star Trek) and directed by Alex Graves (Journeyman). The series’ cast includes Anna Torv, Mark Valley and Joshua Jackson. [Variety]
And finally, NBC has started running a promo to promote Heroes Season 3. Watch it below.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Three hour season premiere? Is that all in one day, or split between a number of days/weeks?
May 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Thank god Spaced is canceled!
May 11th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
What is the deal with HBO? Entourage?
May 11th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I thought Lost was only going to be 5 seasons
May 11th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Fringe sounds like a “X Files” rip off.
May 11th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
WOO! Heroes!
May 11th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
@alexfromqueens: And you sound like a dufus if you think Abrams is just going to rip off the X Files in a new show.
May 11th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
@
I.E. Cooper:
He may rip-off X-Files.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Heroes sucks balls. Please cancel it NBC. PLEASE!
May 11th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Ha, why was I jumped on like that. Obviously a JJ apologist/fanboy.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Abrams is a talentless quack. Doesn’t have an original thought in his whole body.
May 11th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
After reading that little description about Fringe my mind immediately went to X-Files as well. Abrams doesn’t really peek my interests. After trying to get through LOST I “lost” all respect for him.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
“Diablo Cody”.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
-i was bummed when they cut the lost episodes from 23, so im really happy to hear the 17 announced.
-glad they’re not going forward w spaced.
-i hope cody earns the company she’s in by not being a one hit wonder.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
hooray no McSpaced, now i can watch my Spaced DVDs and keep them all to myself! Maybe I’ll take a tank and launch an invasion of Paris.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Jerry to the Biggy Butler Says:
May 11th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
“Abrams is a talentless quack. Doesn’t have an original thought in his whole body.”
For a talentless quack he has produced some memorable television shows and movies. People may not love Lost or Cloverfield, but rest assured you and the population will never forget it. Granted it may end up on one of those “I Love The 2000’s” shows, but my thought is that more people like Abrams than hate him. You’re just in the minority, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
That being said, Fringe won’t come close to The X-Files, one of the best shows of the 90’s.
Heroes has a 3 hour premiere? Damn, now they’re getting into Roots territory.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I’ve SEEN FRINGE! It was called “ALIAS” …just in the CIA, though.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Why on Earth would Diablo “horrible writer” Cody be on the Spaced DVD!? WHY!? WHHHY!?
May 11th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
@ Greyson
In the minority? just look at this little slice of opinion here concerning Abrams. Seems most agree that he’s ripping off other shows for ideas.
He’s like a little, talentless midget, standing on the shoulders of writers and directors who actually know what they are doing, while garnishing all of the praise and credit.
He’s a great Producer? lol Notice that there is no academy award for Producer? Wonder why, because they don’t actually do anything. Unlike the directors, writers, actors, visual effects supervisors, etc, etc, etc.
They are the ones that made anything with his named attached somewhat good. I honestly have no idea exactly why a project would even pay to have him around. It’s like he’s just around to offer uber suggestions like “what do you guys think about biting Godzilla” or “how about doing x-files again?”
What a schmo.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Jerry: Actually, the Best Picture award goes to the producer of a movie, not the director :P
May 11th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Granted, but typically, when best picture is won, the whole cast goes up to accept. How egocentric would it be if the producer went up there by himself to receive it?
Doesn’t happen because it would look ridiculous. Because we all know that the producer did not make that movie great.
At least most of us know. There still seems to be some slower folks meandering about online, judging by this greyson kid’s assumptions that Abrams is the creative visionary behind say, Lost, or Cloverfield.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
3 hour premiere? i guess theyre making up for the writers strike.
May 12th, 2008 at 1:43 am
@ Jerry:
The guy has been in the tv/movie industry for 10 years, he knows what he’s doing. He’s had plenty of writing and directing jobs, it’s just at this point in time he’s into producting. Star Trek is another directing job for him.
If you’re saying that an idea he has is somewhat ripped off from another similair idea, than I must say what isn’t? I haven’t seen a complete 100% original idea on film in quite some time. Everything’s been done before. Remakes, sequels, prequels, and even semi-original ideas are based off something else to begin with.
This “Greyson kid’s assumptions” (mid 20’s btw) over him being the creative visionary behind, say, Lost & Cloverfield are completely true. He wrote and directed the pilot of the show but left to do other projects and gave up his full writing credits to his co-writers, but he’s still the “genius” behind that, same as Cloverfield. He came up with the idea about a monster attack in New York being told through the viewpoint of only a handful of NY young adults. I say “genius” because anybody can say,” Oh he ripped off Lord of the Flies & The Most Dangerous Game,” or,” Yeah that’s totally another Godzilla flick, or Blair Witch gimmick.” A producer also helps to fund the project. Steven Speilberg helped produce both Arachnophobia and Independence Day, yet he had hardly any input in those what so ever, so it depends on how well they contribute.
But like I said, everything steals from everything nowadays. J.J. just gets paid more because people feel he does it so well.
And umm, who said anything about a producer receiving awards to begin with? And he’s actually won 2 Emmys for Television Producer of the Year and Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series.
And where are the examples of him being a talentless midget? Could he be over rated? Sure. A midget? Well he’s…let me check…5′7″, and the legal height for a midget is like 4′9″ or something so go back to the drawing board Butler Sir.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:31 am
“Fringe” actually sounds a lot like “Medical Investigation” starring Neal McDonough…
May 12th, 2008 at 9:17 am
After the first season of Heroes I stopped watching. Mainly because it didn’t interest me. I don’t really think, if the three hours is in one night, that people are going to sit and watch it all.
After watching plenty of Lost episodes I got mad and stopped. When you’re stranded on an island and have limited amount of food, wouldn’t you be losing weight?
Simon Pegg is radtasticly awesome. So I’m going to go out and buy Spaced even though I don’t know what it’s about.
Fringe sounds stupid. One, because we have Moonlight, CSI, Law and Order, ect, to watch people go around solving cases.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Greyson sad “But like I said, everything steals from everything nowadays. J.J. just gets paid more because people feel he does it so well.”
Nuff said.
July 19th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I can’t describe how relieved I am that any plans to try and remake “Spaced” here in the states have been axed. It’s the baby of Wright, Stevenson-Hynes, and Pegg, anyone else fiddling with the concepts would only create a grotesque Frankenstein of the original.
Which brings me to my main beef. “Spaced” might be teeming with pop culture references up, down, left, and right, but they did it in such a way that anyone who watches it can feel the true affection and reverence they have for every bit they pull into their creation. Watching it, you know the creators feel the same giddy love for the material that the viewer does.
I don’t think the same can be said about writers such as Seth McFarlane and one Miss Diablo Cody. They treat pop culture references like badges to show off and have quite a knack for cheapening all of it. Instead of getting the feeling that folks like McFarlane and Cody really love those they reference, I often get the feeling they cherry pick which references are most likely to come off as impressive. They want to buy affection, and so they use references as currency. Funny enough it seems a lot of people willingly fall for their parlor tricks.
While I felt irritable when Miss Cody brought home an Oscar, I’m not ashamed to say I almost shit when I found out she was brought in for commentary on “Spaced”. I can only imagine what kind of self congratulatory cooing, gushing, and snarky “Ha ha! I get it! Look at me!” rubbish is going to come out of her mouth. Sure, I’m a high horse riding geek muthaf***a, but putting Diablo Cody anywhere near “Spaced” is kind of like having a gorgeous new pair of exquisite underwear and purposely marring them with a skid mark. That’s just how I feel about it. I don’t think she’s worthy, and I don’t think she ever will be.
I’m sticking with my UK special edition (even though I would like to hear what Smith & Stone have to say)(Not so much Tarantino, I bet he’d probably just sit there with Cody dribbling all over the series, on Cody, and on himself)