Saturday, September 04, 2010

A Holiday Weekend of Links

Disney releases artwork on Pixar's unmade feature.

As most of you already know, "Newt" is no longer in development at Pixar. However, that doesn't mean we can't share some of the Pixar artists' amazing artwork with our Facebook fans! ...

Comicbook Resources details all the teevee incarnations of "Superman/ Superboy" (including the Fleischer cartoons) as it trashes the small-screen epic "Smallville.

... [T]here are almost as many hours of Smallville on film as there are of all the other Superman TV adaptations combined. ...

The George Reeves TV show from the fifties ran six seasons. ... The Filmation cartoon from the 1960s, The New Adventures of Superman (“my” Superman cartoon) ran 68 six-minute cartoons in various combinations, and additionally did 34 Adventures of Superboy shorts as well. ... The syndicated live-action Superboy ran 100 half-hour episodes. ... The animated Ruby-Spears Superman was 13 half-hour episodes. ... Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman ran four seasons in all. ... The WB’s Superman: The Animated Series aired 54 half-hour episodes ... Almost forgot to count the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 1940s. There were seventeen six-minute shorts. ... [S]ticking to just Superman-centric material, the total comes to 234 hours in all. If you choose to count the Fleischer cartoons as being part of the TV stuff ...

When Smallville wraps its tenth and final season, that will come to 217 hour-long shows. ...

The magazine I most enjoyed during my formative years comes to cable:

"Spy vs. Spy" and other Mad magazine classics will join a host of new animated sketches -- such as "CSiCarly," "2012 Dalmatians" and "Batman Family Feud" -- in "MAD," a new animated series based on the irreverent humor magazine. The 15-minute comedy show debuts at 8:30 p.m. Monday (Labor Day) [on Cartoon Network] ...

Here's a big non-surprise:

The movie industry had a record-setting season despite fewer actual paid admissions, thanks largely to extra costs for 3-D screenings. But it could be a one-time-only bump.

Fewer paying customers showed up for this summer's movies than in any summer since 1997, but Hollywood still raked in record receipts of $4.35 billion. The answer to this seeming contradiction: 3-D.

Thanks largely to higher admission prices for 3-D presentations — sometimes more than $15 per ticket in Southern California — revenue rose a projected 2% from summer 2009, even while the estimated number of tickets sold dropped 3% from last year to 552 million, according to Hollywood.com ...

About tied, but soon not. This is the weekend when Despicable Me passes Shrek Foever After's domestic gross. As it stands now:

Shrek IV -- $238,123,685

Despicable Moi -- $237,450,950

Have yourself a happy Labor day.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

based on the Newt images.........

I think they made the right choice to cancel it. It really doesn't spark any excitement.

Anonymous said...

Although Pixar would've redeemed some character out of the scientist subplot, we'd just been through the swamp with a couple of squabbling amphibians, and basic concept does look like "The Newt & the Newt" scared out the studio at the last minute.

Anonymous said...

I think it has more to do with the fact that Blue Sky's "Rio" is the exact same story.

Anonymous said...

I doubt that. I'm sure Pixar would have cancelled Rio for the same reasons: boring story.

Anonymous said...

The timing that Newt was cancelled VERY QUICKLY after Frog (around the same time as Snow Queen's drop and Tangled's title change) is also worth noting, however...

Floyd Norman said...

I didn't shut the film down, but based on the flaming I got, you would have thought I had.

Those fanboys can be nutty sometimes.

Anonymous said...

fanboys? - or pixar employees?

Anonymous said...

Disney needs to revive The Snow Queen, but leave out the freaking romance and tell the story the way Hans Christian Anderson did. It could be absolutely amazing in 2D.

Anonymous said...

I doubt that. I'm sure Pixar would have cancelled Rio for the same reasons: boring story.

So you've seen Rio then?

Anonymous said...

Yes.

Anonymous said...

And the story is boring?

Anonymous said...

Since the crew working on Rio hasn't seen the work print in months, and since it's only about 70% animated, you can be sure that anyone who claims to know how the entire film plays is completely and totally full of sh*t. But I'm sure that won't stop some trolls here from posting like the actually know something.

And, no, the last version of the work print was not boring.

Anonymous said...

Actually, it was--but at this stage they usually are.

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