Producer Jordan Kerner told the Moviehole.net Web site that his upcoming feature-film version of The Smurfs would be computer-animated. “It’s a 3-D/CG Smurfs,” Kerner told the site. “You just can’t make those guys live. It’d be a little weird. But a 3-D Shrek world of them—that’s fantastic.”Kerner says he has been researching the popular ’80s cartoon extensively. “Having seen all 234 episodes of the show numerous times, Herb Ratner and I have been working really hard at looking where all the holes were in the episodes. You know, like all of a sudden another woman appears—it’s not just Smurfette—and what we’ve done is we’ve plugged all those holes in a trilogy of three movies, and we reveal things as we go along.”

Kerner said it took five years to win the rights to the cult franchise. “They were very uncertain about what story we wanted to tell—we weren’t going to tell them until we had the rights, either. Then we got the rights on everyone’s faith that they also had an ability to veto and presented them with the treatment. They just loved it. To be told that they loved it—not just liked it—and to be told that [creator] Peyo would’ve loved it, is a huge blessing and a great thing to have happen.”

Among other things, the trilogy will examine Gargamel’s backstory. Audiences will learn more “about Gargamel and Smurf Soup and how all that began and what really goes on in that castle,” Kerner said. “What his backstory really was. There’s an all-powerful wizard. … There’s all sorts of things that get revealed as we go along.”

HBO is developing a new series called “Preacher”, a one hour drama based on the comics series from Vertigo. Per Hollywood Reporter, Preacher has been possessed by a combination of angel/demon, and as such has enormous powers, and with two companions is traveling the States in search of God, who the Preacher believes has neglected his heavenly duties.

The series was created by Irish-born writer Garth Ennis and British artist Steve Dillon, who will serve as co-executive producers. Ken F. Levin, who reps the duo, also will serve as co-exec producer.

The series — which developed a rabid fan base — was known for tackling religious and political issues, its dark and violent sense of humor and its observations of American culture. It also was one of the series that helped define Vertigo, the adult-oriented line of comics from DC Comics.

There have been several attempts to bring the comic to the screen, whether big or small, but nothing stuck. A movie version, to have been produced by Kevin Smith’s View Askew, among others, got to the casting stage, with James Marsden attached for the title role and a reported budget of $25 million.

Sean McKeever confirmed on his website that the new artist on “Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane” will be David Hahn. Hahn has done “Bite Club” and a few other small press books. I’m not sure if he will be a replacement for Tak, but I’m willing to give him a chance. (Update: McKeever has an interview now posted at CBR)

In other McKeever news, rumor has it that he’ll be writing “New Warriors” after this whole Civil War mess settles down. When I asked him about it he had this to say:

I generally try not to respond to rumor items; that way, “no comment” doesn’t become a defacto “yes.”

However, McKeever’s often partner and crime/comic book artist Mike Norton later comments in the same thread:

Can I say “no comment”?

So does this mean that McKeever and Norton are preparing another team-up? Fans and critiques alike have been loving Norton’s fill-in work on Runaways so it wouldn’t surprise me if the two were doing “New Warriors” together.

Forget the Brittney/Paris anti-christ joke I made yesterday. The TRUE anti-christ has shown its face: Verizon & Google! Google has made a deal with Verizon to allow YouTube videos to appear on cell phones. Soon we will be able to access stupid videos via Verizon’s V-cast service.

The concept sounds like a good one, except Verizon will be heavily filtering which videos are available and which aren’t. So don’t expect to watch episodes of “How I Met Your Mother” (Just watched the whole second season last week) or any other show on your phone through You Tube.

Even worse than just filtering videos, Verizon will be picking one by one, which videos they deem worthy for their V-Casts. That’s sad because most of us know that Verizon has no taste and would never understand the humor behind watching such clips as Darth Vader being a jerk (of course the filters would probably never allow it anyway).

Last night Masi Oka (Hiro) was on Conan Obrien and he let it slip that the first time he appeared on a magazine cover was in 1987! In the photo to the right he’s on the left.

He told O’Brien that a friend of the families was a photographer and was looking for Asian kids for the photo. Oka wasn’t in the article, but still got featured in the cover photo.

It seems Oka isn’t too far removed from his geeky Hiro-character. Once he finished school he went to work for George Luca’s Industrial Light & Magic, doing special effects for films like “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” “War of the Worlds” and the Star Wars prequels. Then, even though he is in a hit show, he’s still working part time for ILM.

This time it’s the New York Post that is talking to comic book artist Tim Sales about his roll on “Heroes”

“Heroes” has introduced characters with extraordinary abilities that have made the show the most popular new series of the season. But the real hero behind this incredibly creative and fresh drama is the show’s artist, Tim Sale.

Sale, 50, not only produces the giant paintings done by artist and “precog” Isaac Mendez (played by Santiago Cabrera), he also creates the all-important “9th Wonders!” comic book, also drawn by Mendez, that’s followed religiously by Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka).
(Read on …)

If you haven’t been checking out the “Heroes” comics you really should. They offer interesting side stories or background info. Also, the NBC site says there are secrets hidden in them and I finally found them! Ever comic has a hidden link which I’ve compiled in the list below.

To find the links yourself, use “Interactive Mode” then switch to “Read Mode” and normally the link is on the second page of the comic.

1. The Hiro comic preview
2. The Nathan comic preview
3. The Nathan campaign commercial
4. Claire Bennet’s MySpace page
5. No secret hidden link in 5th comic (besides the regular Nissan Versa ad on the first page)
6. The painting of Peter with locker doors in the air? (A clear view of the picture in the upper right of the set Peter arranged) Note: This link was on the third page of the comic in “Read Mode”
7. A colorized version of the unfinished painting that Peter completed that Jesse Alexander shared here. Click for original image. Found on the last page of the comic.
8. Painting of Hiro and Ando under the Homecoming Banner. If that link doesn’t work, try here.
9. Behind The Scenes Pic from “Homecoming”.
10. A Pic of Audry and Matt with guns drawn found on first page of the comic.

Also, as a quick way to get to the graphic novels, change the number 001 in the full URLs to get to another one, if it is available. For the interactive novels, novel_001.shtml can be changed to novel_002.shtml, etc., and likewise the pdf version of the novel, Heroes_novel_001.pdf, can be changed to Heroes_novel_002.pdf.

Last night was the first episode of “Heroes” that I was disappointed with.

Spoilers beware…

(Read on …)

Scott McCloud finally posted chapter 5 ½ on his website. The mini-chapter is a supplement to his latest book “Making Comics” and covers things like creating color art, and panel layouts for web comics.

I’m a tad disappointed he didn’t go into the details of HOW to do coloring because in the book he implies that was what he was going to do. But even so, its an interesting read and if you were unsure about buying “Making Comics” this should give you a good idea of what the book was like.

Major leaders in the African-American community asked the entertainment industry to stop using the “n” word. Reverend Jesse Jackson (and others) met with film studios, record labels, tv networks, and the media asking everyone to ban the “n” word.

“We want to give our ancestors a present,” Jackson said at the press conference. “Dignity over degradation.”

…now I’m sorry, but I wonder if Jackson is aware that the “n” word is most commonly used by BET, rappers, and black comedians. The major networks don’t use the word on their TV shows nor do you find it in country music. I mean come on! He’s preaching to the wrong audience.

Of course all of this is steaming from Michael Richards (Kramer) using the word last week. Richards hired a publicist and has been doing the media circuit making apologies. He even appeared on Jackson’s radio show, though this didn’t stop Jackson from telling everyone to not buy the “Seinfeld” season 7 which goes on sale tomorrow. However, I think someone forgot to tell him that only white nerdy guys buy the “Seinfeld” DVDs and most don’t even know who Jackson is.

I dunno the whole thing seems silly. You can’t ban the “n” word from rap songs because of free speech. You also can’t get rid of it because… DUH … it’s rap. It’s sad but I almost feel Jackson and the rest are just using the media coverage of the Richard’s incident for their own self serving purpose.

Don’t get me wrong. It would be nice if no racial slurs were ever used, but its unrealistic to think you can just get rid of one of them because you told the media not to use it. If they really want to make a difference they should target the rappers, actors, and educate children.

The trailer for “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” has hit the internet.

Robin Sparkles, Canadian pop-star, has a myspace account and if you are a fan of “How I Met Your Mother” you gotta go check it out, at least once to watch her video in full.

For those of you who don’t know, in the most recent episode of “How I Met Your Mother,” we learned that the very hot Robin (Cobie Smulders) had a secret past. Everyone thought she had done porn, but by the end of the episode we learn that she was a Canadian teen idol.

Her hit song was called “The Mall” and she spent the better part of her teen years, traveling in malls all along Canada performing, which is why in present day she hates malls and refuses to go to them.

Proof that the anti-christ isn’t a single being, but two separate people that when in union form the anti-christ.

Panda Porn is real(don’t worry the link goes to CNN not actual Panda Porn). I’m not joking.

What really gets me is, who are the people filming and editing the Panda Porn? Like working in the porn industry would be embarrassing enough, but Panda Porn has to be 100 times worse.

Can you image going home with a hot girl for thanksgiving? You meet her family for the first time and then when they ask you what you do you say, “Panda Porn.” Like that must be a crazy reaction. Actually, now that I think about it, I totally need to put this in a screenplay.

Sci-Fi Channel is doing a re-make of “The Wizard of Oz” which will run as a six-hour miniseries called “Tin Man.” The series will be based off L. Frank Baum’s novel as opposed to the classic 1939 movie. Production will begin in January and “Tin Man” will premier in December 2007.

The premise is a little odd because the film stars a young woman named DG (Dorothy Gale) who gets snatched and thrown into a magic realm called The Outer Zone (oz) that is oppressed by dark magic.

Along the way, DG befriends the half-brained man Glitch, the wolverine-like Raw who seeks courage and the emotionally scarred, heroic Cain, who was once part of the police force known as Tin Men in the O.Z. DG is journeying along the Old Road to seek the Mystic Man, but in the end, has a showdown with the wicked Azkeadellia, who has curiously close ties to DG herself.

Yeah its like “The Wizard of Oz” meets Neil Gaimen on crack and written by moronic TV execs who have no idea what they are doing.

Penguins rule again. “Happy Feet” managed to break the $100 million mark after just two weeks. Since last Wednesday it has grossed $51 million and from Friday through today it took $37 million.

Another film that crossed the “hit” line was Borat which has grossed a total $109 million domestically. Even with all the controversy you know Fox is very happy and thinking sequel.
(Read on …)

Slow news because of the holiday so I thought I’d pose a question… Why is Jack Bauer such a bad ass? ((Then just to remind you, “24” comes back in Januaray!!!))

In honor of Turkey Day Thanksgiving I’m posting one of my favorite articles from Ocean City Today:

By Scott King
Staff Writer
(Nov. 25, 2005) After years of suffering through the turkey day blues, the non-meat-eating community came up with a way of marching to a different drumstick. Its secret weapon: something called Tofurky.
(Read on …)

Why didn’t anyone tell me Cobie Smulders (Robin from “How I Met Your Mother”) is so hot? I would have been watching this show forever ago.

I just got the first season on DVD from netflix and I’ve been really enjoying it. The show is funny but did I mention Robin is HOT? Like HOT HOT! Also, weird factoid, she has a birthday exactly a month after mine: April 3, 1982!

In honor of my new found tv-crush, here is a spoiler for ya (sarah don’t read any further)…

In next week’s episode, Wayne Brady guest stars and we learn that he is Barney’s brother! Of course a problem occurs when Barney learns his brother is in a monogamous relationship! The ideal of being with only one woman, almost destroys Barney’s view on reality.

Awww Man. So I posted last week about “Veronica Mars” only getting 21 episodes this year instead of the normal 22. That’s not a good sign and apparently series creator Rob Thomas feels the same.

“There have been times in the past when the fans were very concerned, when I was pretty confident,” Rob Thomas told Ausiello. “I have to admit that in this case, I’m losing some faith.”

In other VM news, it seems LoVe (Logan&Veronica) maybe over after next week’s fall finale!

This post is for my cousin Molly… so if you aren’t her, ignore this.

Bones, just right click the links and select “save as”

Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Pic 4 Pic 4 B&W

Like a post-college-age-girl after a night of partying, the entertainment industry is reallllllllllllyyyyyyy quiet, if not asleep. I’m guessing it has something to do with Thanksgiving being a day away.

How can you be a “Heroes” fan and not be reading Beaming Beeman? The co-producer/director of the show recently updated about last night’s episode “Homecoming.”

One thing I was wondering about was if the show would drop the “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” slogan now that Claire was saved by Peter. But Beeman clears that up for me by saying, “Anyway… last night the cheerleader was finally saved… At least for now!”

Anyway here are some more words of wisdom from Beeman, but you really should check out the blog yourself.

Jack Coleman continues to be awesome. In this one, we show (I believe) that he is, in fact, a worried father. Whatever his overall assignment is, he genuinely loves Claire. I wonder if his love for her will eventually bring him into conflict with whoever he works for? I also wonder if whoever he works for knows that Claire has powers? I know I work on the show, but I legitimately don’t know the answers to things like that and I speculate along with you.

Finally, this episode also fulfilled most of the paintings that were created in episode 4 and 5… i.e. the one that Peter and Isaac discuss in episode 5 that “Tell a story like a comic book.” They are: frightened Claire close up, Cheerleader running up the stairs, Sylar standing over the dead body of the cheerleader, locker door being hurled telepathically at Peter, Hiro and Ando standing under a bloody Homecoming banner.

But for real… check out his blog. It also has a lot of cool pics like the very top one of Sylar.

Good ‘ole Ausiello has a scoop for us about the “Veronica Mars” fall finale. This year the show is running in three story arcs instead of having one mystery last all season. The first arc wraps up next Tuesday.

Just received my DVD of next week’s Veronica Mars rape mystery finale, and here are the things the CW is allowing me to say:

* Veronica solves the Hearst rapist case.
* Dean O’Dell hires Keith to find out if his wife is cheating.
* Someone will die.
* Mel Stoltz, Hearst’s most influential alumni, shows up to see the dean.
* The Lilith House girls pelt Dea O’Dells car with spit and eggs.
* Lilith House girls celebrate the expulsion of the Greek system with a one car float parade.
* Keith and Dean O’Dell strike up a friendship.
* Dean O’Dell announces his decision to reinstate Greek Life on campus.
* Dean O’Dell pulls a gun out of his desk and makes sure it’s loaded.
* In the cold open, Veronica stumbles out of a dorm room bloody, disheveled and panicked. As she yells to Wallace and Piz for help, a mystery person’s feet enter frame behind her. (Yikes!)
* The rapist has posted an ad in the Hearst Free Press announcing that the next rape will take place the night of the Pi Sig Phoenix Rising party.
* Veronica, Mac, Wallace and Piz team up at the Pi Sig Party with the assignment to test drinks in an attempt to find the rapist’s next victim.

Now, for hints about I’m not allowed to say, read tomorrow’s Ask Ausiello.

What I find funny, and I discovered this last year, is that UPN/WB sends out leters with advance copies of their shows that have a long list of things that cannot be repeated. As to the rapist… I still say its the black chick.

Duh— spoilers
(Read on …)

“Battlestar Galactica” has said “Frak You” to Fridays, or at least Sci-Fi Channel has. The show will air Sundays at 10p.m. starting Jan. 21.

I don’t see how this will really help the ratings since there isn’t much competition on Friday. The show lost rating points because Sci-Fi screwed up their Friday night line up and because it let there be such a huge break between the second and third season of Galactica.

Oh— it’s also annoying because its up against “Brothers & Sisters.”

Kristin has some big “Scrubs” news, the worse of which is that there is going to be a major death this season.

The Grim Reaper Checks In: The time has come to say farewell to…someone. When sources told me that someone was dying on Scrubs this season, I thought it was perhaps intended to counterbalance the baby boom. But that’s not the plan, according to creator/mad genius Bill Lawrence. “Circle of life?” he cracked. “We should do that thing with The Lion King and holding the kid up—nah. [We] don’t want to be the type of show that has people in high school when they are 40. We try and make things move along. We’re going to kill someone, and I haven’t told him or her yet, so it’s mortifying to me.” Aw, jeepers, Bill. I asked John C. McGinley about the death rumor, and he said he’d just heard the same thing at work. McGinley believes it’s someone “out of left field.” My guess? Nurse Laverne. “That’s not who I heard,” he said. Sigh. No matter who it is, this is gonna suck!

Of course Zach Braff’s contract runs out this year and he has said that he is “unsure” about resigning. Meanwhile, the producers have said they aren’t sure if they will continue the show without Braff, but are open to the idea of making Donald Faison, Turk, the main character. So could the upcoming death be Braff?

Probably not, but I figured I throw the possibility out there.

Victoria, British Columbia, is tired of having people peeing in the street. Taking a key from the cool hidden elevator in “Gremlins 2” the city has installed Urilifts. The 6 foot high alcove has three urinals, but no doors or anything else to add privacy.

The urinals only come out at night and must be manually up righted by a trained operator. It takes about two minutes for them to rise and in the morning the operator comes back to lower them.

Apparently the urinals are popular in Europe, but this is the first one to appear in North America and even crazier is the fact that each one cost $75,000. Though for that much money, you’d think the damn things would have a sink so people could wash their hands.

Michael Richards (Kramer from “Seinfeld”) turned racists over the weekend as he cussed out a group of hecklers who were giving him a hard time at a comedy club.

He was performing at Laugh Factory in West Hollywood and a clip of the incident can be found at TMZ.com. Since it may get pulled I’ll offer a basic sum-up of the video:

-Audience heckler, Kyle Doss, stated that he was only “playfully heckling.”

-Richards still lost his temper and yelled, “Fifty years ago we’d only have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass.”

-Not realizing that Richards was sincerely pissed off the audience claps and laughs. But as Richards continued his rampage whispers started swirling through the crowd.

-”You can talk, you can talk, you’re brave now motherfuckker,” said Richards at one point. “Throw his ass out. He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! A nigger, look, there’s a nigger!”

-The audience then yelled things like “You aren’t funny.” And “This is unnecessary.”

-That wasn’t going to calm Richards because he then said, “Well, you interrupted me, pal. They’re going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger.”

Today, Jerry Seinfeld issued the following statement about the incident: “I am sick over this. I’m sure Michael is also sick over this horrible, horrible mistake. It is so extremely offensive. I feel terrible for all the people who have been hurt.”

Then tonight on David Letterman (which was already filmed), expect to see Richards apologizing for the incident. In the interview, Richards explained to David Letterman and friend Jerry Seinfeld via satellite from Los Angeles that he had lost his temper on stage after some members of the audience interrupted his act and that he “took it badly,” unleashing the racist invective that TMZ first aired this morning. He apologize to the people who took “the brunt” of his abuse, saying he was “really busted up,” but then went on a strange tangent on race relations, saying he was “concerned about hate and rage” and about a “great deal of disturbance between blacks and whites” after Hurricane Katrina.

Remember last week when I posted about FOX airing an O.J. Simpson special where he hypothetically discussions how he would have killed his wife (I had it posted before it hit the media circuit)?

Well it seems FOX has sent out a press release saying that they are no longer airing the special. In its place will be a repeat of “House.”

“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” News Corp Overlord Rupert Murdoch said in the press release. “We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown-Simpson.”

Though last weeks press release said this: “This is an interview that no one thought would ever happen,” FOX’s reality programming director Mike Darnell said.

Two FOX affiliates refused to air the special while DontPayOJ.com collected more than 47,000 signatures expressing disgust for it. The site also has contact numbers for FOX and Regan Books (the publisher of OJ’s “If I did it” novel)

Contact ReganBooks/HarperCollins, the publisher of this terrible book, and FOX, the parent company of the publisher as well as owner of the network giving the killer hours and hours of free air time to try and sell his book, and let them know how you feel about their decision to make murder profitable.

Not that I care, because I’m trade-waiting, but I’m sure someone is glad to see this except from the cover of “Civil War” #6. It’s supposed to hit stands on Dec. 20th.

Peter Jackson was in negations with New Line to direct “The Hobbit” and a second film to fill the gap between “The Hobbit” and “LOTR,” but it seems that is no longer happening, according to an email Jackson sent to TheOneRing.net

Dear One Ringers,

As you know, there’s been a lot of speculation about The Hobbit. We are often asked about when or if this film will ever be made. We have always responded that we would be very interested in making the film - if it were offered to us to make.

You may also be aware that Wingnut Films has bought a lawsuit against New Line, which resulted from an audit we undertook on part of the income of The Fellowship of the Ring. Our attitude with the lawsuit has always been that since it’s largely based on differences of opinion about certain accounting practices, we would like an independent body - whether it be a judge, a jury, or a mediator, to look at the issues and make an unbiased ruling. We are happy to accept whatever that ruling is. In our minds, it’s not much more complex than that and that’s exactly why film contracts include right-to-audit clauses.
(Read on …)

IESB reports that Keanu Reeves is returning for a sequel to “Constantine.” The film only pulled in $75 million domestically but racked up $154 million in its world wide gross.

“Yes, with Keanu [Reeves],” producer Lauren Shuler Donner said. “We have been working with a team of writers to come up with a story and yeah, you will.”

“Constantine was huge foreign, international, therefore, there is a good financial reason to make a sequel,” Donner said. “And, I think we really want to do it as a hard R, I mean, really go into the Constantine world and do it even more justice than the movie, even though I thought the movie was true to its core. We have a terrific idea of the world we want to go into, it’s a nice, really terrifying world and Keanu is willing so we should do it!”

I do not and I will never get the mainstream appeal to Chris Ware. It seems the artist is so popular, that he has now designed four variant covers for The New Yorker.

According to The New York Times, each cover will show a Thanksgiving scene, two set in 1942 and two in the present: “The stories become intertwined in a fifth installment, a comic strip that will appear on the magazine’s Web site.”

The covers are online here.

So almost everyone on the planet, including starving Ethiopians in line to be adopted by Madonna and Angela Jolie, are aware that Tom Cruise is now married to Katie Holmes. The legal work and papers were filed in L.A. while the wedding took place at a castle in Italy.

I wouldn’t normally deem this event news worthy, but I HAVE to re-tell a joke I saw last night on “Saturday Night Live.” So enjoy the pic I made below, which is a basic seating chart that Tom and Katie used for the wedding reception.

The annoying dancing penguins from “Happy Feet” managed to pull in 42 million, just barely beating out James Bond’s “Casino Royale.” In fact the total grosses are so close that when the final numbers come out on Monday, the penguins may have been beaten by 007. Even so, its big news that two movies passed the 40 million mark on the same weekend.

Although $40 million is great, its not good enough to edge out Pierce Brosnan’s record. His last movie “Die Another Day” premiered with $47 million

Then do I even need to point out that even in third place, “Borat” managed to add another 14 million to its domestic gross.
(Read on …)

It was just announced on the 24HCD blog that there will be a book collecting comics from this year’s 24 Hour Comic Day.

The good news is that I just sent off to Diamond Comics Distributors a solicition with the cover that you see here. That’s right, there will be a highlights book for this year’s event. It will come out in March.

What 24 Hour Comics make it into the book, hasn’t been decided yet. I’m hoping that even if they don’t’ pick “Rotund” they may show an excerpt from it.

The CW has bumped the order of “Veronica Mars” up to 20 episodes. It isn’t a full season but it’s awfully close. Of course the big question is, “how does this affect the final two mystery arcs” but word on the street is that executive producer Rob Thomas is already hammering it out.

In other TV News:
- CBS is holding onto “The Class,” at least for now. It’s the final new show that has not been picked up or canceled by the network. They are waiting to see how the next few episodes do before making a decision.

- Brad Garrett’s “Till Death” received a full season pick-up from Fox.

- Fox has also ordered six more episodes of Ron Livingston’s “Standoff.”

The fifth Harry Potter film, “Order of the Phoenix” won’t hit theaters until July 7^th, but buzz and Poter-Mania is already starting to spread.

-USA Today has a preview article. There isn’t anything too juicy, other than that the film is almost finished and a teaser is running in theaters with “Happy Feet.”

-The first poster of the new movie has been leaked (I have it posted on the left).

-Then finally, ABC family has a few quick shots of footage from the new film.