Spent part of the morning at Film Roman By the Airport. The Simpsons Section, usually a beehive of activity, was still as quiet as a high desert ghost town ....
A few people have trickled back from the Long Hiatus, but mostly the cubicles are still empty. A staff person who returned last week said to me:
"A bunch of people should be back next week for a new show. The actors have already recorded quite a few scripts, and I hear they're going to be doing a bunch more in the next few weeks ..."
The actors better record a cluster of scripts in the next few weeks, because if the Screen Actors Guild goes out, they'll be recording nada ... despite the lucrative new contracts.
Happily, SAG hasn't yet made a peep about calling for a strike vote, and once they do, the process takes three weeks. With luck, The Simpsons will have a majority of the new season's scripts down on tape by then, and the artists won't have to take another lengthy hiatus.
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Someone told me today that a new original show was all but ready to start cranking into full production over at Starz, and with a new crew freshly hired but everything was scrapped at the last minute. I was told a lot of people left previous gigs to work there and now they are S.O.L.
But I don't work at Starz and its just a rumor, so maybe you heard something or someone else knows if this is true. If we can tack any purpose onto the internet it should be this kind of information sharing...
I hope it's not the show I was hired on. My start date is August 11th. I'll call the producer in the morning to see, unless someone beats me to it.
Starz was supposed to begin work on a Black Panther animated series for BET as well.
There's a scene in Lord Of the Rings where Gandalf and Pippin are watching the giant cloud from Mount Doom blot out the sun. Gandalf turns to Pippin and says, "This is the deep breath before the plunge!"
The approaching Actor's strike has frozen production all over town, live action and animation. Us IATSEites, who will never see a penny of this money that SAG and the WGA have been so hot for are the ultimate losers.
The film industry could become like the giant dying-of-bloat dinosaurs in the domestic auto industry if things get pushed too far.
One of the Marvel shows (a direct-to-video feature, I think) as canceled. There's another Marvel project that, if my info is correct, is still on the calendar.
I was tipped off by a couple of artists about this when I went through the place Monday.
I wonder which Marvel DTV got cancelled.
Going by process of elimination as to what is happening and a post at Newarama's blog http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/06/12/its-all-hulk-all-the-time/, I think we can say Hulk: Gamma Corps is no more if this quote is correct
"Hulk: Gamma Corps, which is contingent on the movie’s performance, is a TV cartoon that sees the Green Goliath teaming with other gamma-fueled characters, such as She-Hulk and Doc Samson."
Planet Hulk is being done by Lions Gate, the X-Men and Iron Man series are still being done.
The only other possiblity is Marvel Super Hero Squad is canned http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/05/07/marvel-adds-super-hero-squad-to-animated-lineup/
"Film Roman will provide production services for Marvel Super Hero Squad."
I'm leaning to Hulk since the movie underperformed and Marvel really wants to get kids excited about their characters at a younger age, meaning Squad would be a keeper.
There were two new Marvel series that were supposed to start there. A Hulk show and a Tiny Heroes type of thing. I assume one of these were cancelled. The DTV are done at MLG productions not FR/Starz
The new Hulk series has been shelved probably because retailers can't move the Hulk movie merchandise. So they don't want new Hulk merchandise from a new TV show and since these shows were being paid for by the toy company....
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