Comic-Con International 2006 fans will be the first to watch an exclusive 72-minute special cut of NBCs HEROES pilot episode, created just for the annual event in San Diego. Debuting this fall on Mondays at 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET, HEROES chronicles the lives of ordinary people who discover that they possess extraordinary abilities.
Warner Bros. Ent. will have a significant presence at this year's Comic-Con. For the first time, the Studio will have a booth on the convention floor, with a full slate of activities with all divisions of the Studio (Animation, Pictures, Television, Home Video, Interactive Entertainment, Worldwide TV Marketing, etc.) are participating with Booth Signings, as well as major presentations throughout the Comic-Con schedule.
Warner Bros. Pictures three big panels are:
Thursday, July 202:00 3:30 pmRoom 6CDEF
Pierre Spengler, one of the first three SUPERMAN films, will return to comicbook inspired films with a 12-picture deal drawn from titles in the catalog of French graphic novel publisher Humanoides Associes, according to the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
The first will be the live-action film I AM LEGION, adapted from the World War II political intrigue written by Fabien Nury and illustrated by U.S. graphic artist John Cassaday.
Spengler's company, Clubdeal Ltd., will produce the films, whike he is talks with a U.S. distributor to release all 12 films in the U.S.
Jamie Foxx and his manager Jaime Rucker King are set to produce THE POWER OF DUFF, joining Marc Platt, who already has been developing the feature film via his Marc Platt Prods, according to the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Foxx and King will help develop the drama, which Foxx may star in.
Universal won the script in a bidding war last year, paying $900,000 against $1.25 million. Russell Crowe, Ron Howard and Tom Hanks have circled the project as well.
Imagica Holdings Inc. has reorganized its group companies. The parent company has been renamed Imagica Robot Holdings Inc. Imagica Technologies Corp., the engineering solutions division responsible for developing the Imager XE and HSX Film Scanners and the Imager HSR Film Recorder has been spun off as an independent entity.
Bionatics announces the release of the version 4 of its 3D plant modeler natFX for 3ds max.
This latest version was developed to integrate even better into an Autodesk 3ds max production workflow, explains Stephan Gourgout, vp/sales director. It answers, in large part, the needs requested for the last 12 months by our clients from the varied industries such as architectural visualization, to the production requirements of the videogame industry and the 3D animation film studios, who need to build rapidly complex realtime or pre-rendered scenes.
Stargate Digital answered the vfx call to duty on the premiere episode, "Battlefield," of TNTs chilling all-star television event NIGHTMARES & DREAMSCAPES: FROM THE STORIES OF STEPHEN KING. This four-week collection of eight mind-bending tales from the master of horror, set to premiere July 12, 2006, at 9:00 pm, opens with an effects extravaganza to kick off the series with a bang.
SCIFI.COMs broadband channel SCI FI Pulse will premiere two outrageous sci-fi originals on July 13, 2006 a full two weeks prior to their broadcast debuts on SCI FI Channel. Pulse viewers will have the chance to affect the future of the off-beat animated half-hour pilot, AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD, featuring the voice talents of Paul Giamatti (SIDEWAYS), David Hyde Pierce (FRASIER) and Molly Shannon (SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE).
STAN LEE'S LIGHTSPEED, the latest in a series of POW! Ent.'s projects, will premiere on NBC Universal's SCI FI Channel. The live-action Stan Lee Original will air the evening of July 26, 2006, at 9:00 pm ET/PT.
Lionsgate has picked up the Cruise/Wagner-produced remake of THE EYE out of turnaround from Paramount, reports VARIETY. The studio is now in talks with Jessica Alba to star and French helmers David Moreau and Xavier Palud to direct.
Lionsgate hopes to shoot the film this winter.
Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang, the original thriller follows a cornea transplant recipient who starts seeing disturbing images, which spurs her to find out what happened to the donor of her new eyes.
Visual effects studio FrameFlows, including its US-based producers and international staff of artists based in Chennai, India, worked directly with the vfx team at Sony Pictures Imageworks to provide 3D tracking, wire removal, rotoscoping and compositing work on effects shots for CLICK from Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios.
Samuel L. Jackson has leapt on board Regency Enterprises' sci-fi thriller, JUMPER, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. Doug Liman is set to direct.
Based on the Steven Gould novel, the tale follows a kid from a broken home who discovers that he has the ability to teleport. As he searches for the man he believes is responsible for the death of his mother, the kid draws the attention of the National Security Agency and another youth with the same abilities.
The Christian media company Good News Holdings is developing a horror film franchise based on the upcoming DUDLEYTOWN series of teen novels by Bodie Ingelvie, VARIETY reports. Good News previously optioned Anne Rice's biblical epic about Jesus.
Good News will team with Illinois-based Bible publisher Tyndale House Publishers on DUDLEYTOWN, which is set in a town that is deserted following a series of disappearances and murders.
IMAX Corp. and Warner Bros. Pictures announced that SUPERMAN RETURNS grossed $108 million at the domestic box office in 4,065 locations over the extended fourth of July weekend, and that SUPERMAN RETURNS: AN IMAX 3-D Experience contributed $6.83 million, representing a record seven-day per-screen average of $89,804. The film shattered every opening week record for an IMAX Hollywood simultaneous release, playing to sell-out crowds and strong audience satisfaction. The film also opened on 11 IMAX screens internationally and will launch on 24 more in coming weeks.
Starz sets sail on special adventures with Johnny Depp and Walt Disney Pictures eagerly anticipated PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MANS CHEST on July 6, beginning with BLOW at 9:00 pm, FINDING NEVERLAND at 11:15 pm and the exclusive special, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MANS CHEST on July 7 at 1:00 am.
Entertainment and design company Imaginary Forces (IF) recently designed and animated the dynamic title reveal in the TRANSFORMERS teaser trailer. The teaser for the Michael Bay-directed film is online now at the official website, www.transformersmovie.com, and will play in theaters with Disney's PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST beginning July 7.
It has been confirmed that Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards will play the father of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in a cameo role in Disney's PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END, reports THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.
In creating Jack Sparrow, Depp has said he used Richards body language and mannerism for inspiration.
"We're all looking forward to the idea of Keith coming in and doing a cameo," Depp said in London. "You never say it's definite until the guy steps on the set and the camera is rolling. But it's looking very, very good.
During a panel at Charlottes Heroes Convention, BABYLON 5 creator and comicbook writer J. Michael Straczynski slipped the news that David Goyer (BLADE, BATMAN BEGINS) is writing a treatment for a screen adaptation of THOR, reports EMPIRE. Its unknown whether Goyer will be rewriting the draft from Mark Protosevich (POSEIDON) or starting from scratch.
Realscan 3D, an industry leader in high resolution, high color structured light 3D scanning, announced its involvement on the forthcoming Disney film UNDERDOG (Aug. 3, 2007). Realscan 3D provided the production with animation-ready precision digital doubles of the lead character, Shoeshine, Underdog's alter-ego, and the heads and muzzles of the cast dogs in the film. Realscan also created a digital double of the film's villain, Simon Barsinister, played by Peter Dinklage.
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Tippett Studio has chosen cineSpace from Rising Sun Research for facility-wide color management. The cineSpace color management suite enables end-to-end pipeline calibration across multiple platforms and applications.
Framestore CFC was the sole London facility to contribute to SUPERMAN RETURNS vfx, and was responsible for the film's climactic sequences.
The premiere of Spike TV's first original scripted action-adventure offering BLADE: THE SERIES on Wednesday, June 28, 2006, drew record ratings for the network with a 2.0 HH rating and 2.5 million viewers, the highest premiere in network history for an original series. Additionally, show was the #1 entertainment show for the night with Men 18-34 and 18-49.
SUPERMAN RETURNS took off with a solid $21M for Warner Bros. on Wednesday, which includes Tuesday night preview showings. For opening days, it ranks 29th on the all-time list, surpassing BATMAN BEGINS ($15.1M, a Warner Bros. benchmark) and eighth for Wednesday openers.
Of that $21M total, SUPERMAN RETURNS collected about $1.2M from 76 IMAX theaters. On Friday, the movie bumps up from 3,915 theaters to 4,065, making it the fourth largest all-time release. Box office information obtained from boxofficemojo.com.
The Gnomon Workshop has released its first Maya Cloth DVD. The need for realistic clothing and fabric has become commonplace in today's effects films and feature animation. CLOTH 101: FUNDAMENTALS covers the process of modeling and animating cloth garments. Mark E.A. de Sousa, Cloth and Hair supervisor at Sony Pictures Imageworks, shares his production-tested techniques as he discusses how to control garment characteristics and demonstrates how to integrate dynamic fields.
