Thanks to an economical $34 million budget, the recent “TMNT” CG-animated feature took in nearly three times that cost in its theatrical release - and is expected to do loads more on DVD.

Suffice it to say sequel possibilities have seemed likely, and according to Mirage Studios’ Steve Murphy at The 5th Turtle, they just got even likelier this week.

“As of two weeks ago Imagi Entertainment (the TMNT movie animation studio) informed Mirage Studios that there was a 50-50 chance of a CGI film sequel. Last week they upped the odds to 70-30 in favor of a sequel, as talks between Imagi and their distribution partners Warner Brothers and the Weinstein Group seem to be heading in a positive direction.”

Hopefully we’ll get a decent story and villains next time around.

In one of the oddest pieces of recasting you’re ever likely to see, Jason Dohring is joining CBS’ “Moonlight.” Dohring is the latest piece of recasting on the vampire private investigator drama, which has undergone some reimagining since “Angel” veteran David Greenwalt came on as showrunner.

Alex O’Loughlin still remains on board as the show’s central blood-sucking gumshoe. That hasn’t changed. His human love interest has gone from Shannon Lucio’s intrepid TV reporter to Sophia Myles’ dogged Internet reporter.

Dohring will step in for Rade Serbedzija as the ancient vampire Josef, the main character’s mentor. Serbedzija is a 60-year-old Croatia-born actor most recently seen in “Shooter” and on this past season of “24.” Dohring, of course, is a 25-year-old Ohio-born actor most recently seen breaking hearts as Logan Echolls on The CW’s “Veronica Mars.”

One good bit of news is that Fox’s turning of the “Die Hard” franchise into a PG-13 effort hasn’t yielded the extra rewards that it was hoping for - and thus will hopefully put the kabosh on other studios considering similar ideas.

The moderately well-reviewed “Live Free or Die Hard” took in $9.1 million on its opening day yesterday (including Tuesday night previews), a solid but relatively quiet debut that slots it in between “Cats & Dogs” and “Legally Blonde 2″ as the 27th highest Wednesday opening of all time.

Both those films went on to make just over $20 million on their first weekend (ironically enough the last “Die Hard” film had a $22 million opening weekend in 1995), around $35-40 million in their first five days, and garnered just over $90 million in total. The previous three “Die Hard” films have all hovered between $83-117 million domestic totals, and despite higher ticket prices it’s looking likely that this one will fall into that range as well.

The big question will be foreign box-office with the first film’s international take just over half the domestic tally, yet by the third film the foreign cume was nearly triple that of the domestic haul. The very jingo-istic tone of the advertisements and July 4th angles of the film’s storyline itself may have a negative impact on that front which is why international marketing has downplayed those aspects as much as possible.

I got this photo in my email today from Apple with the message “Say Hello To iPhone. Today.” So I figured I will explain why I won’t be saying hello to an iPhone. There are three main reasons I don’t want one.� The first is that it costs just as much as a Playstation 3. If I’m going to spend that much money it would so be for a Playstation.

The second reason is that the iPhone will only work with Cingular. I wouldn’t mind switching from Verizon to Cingular except for in MD and the DC area, Verizon gets the best reception and EVERYONE has Verizon.

Then finally, Apple really screwed up the iPhone because the largest one only has 8 gigs of memory. I have an iPod with 80 gigs and I have trouble fitting TV shows and music on it. What the heck would I do with something that only has 8 gigs?

This is about the most extreme sport anyone’s ever dreamed up: space diving. A group of space scientists who aren’t actually insane aim to give it a try by 2009, jumping from 120,000 feet in a specially designed space suit that looks like a buggy-rollin’ getup, but without those silly roller skates. The daredevils hope to develop the technique not only as a sport, but also as a possible escape route for astronauts in low Earth orbit.

After they’ve mastered the 120,000-foot jump, their ultimate goal is to engineer survivable jumps from 150 miles or even higher above the earth. In a controlled dive, the jumpers would reach blistering speeds of more than 2500 mph, and as they begin to enter the earth’s outer atmosphere, a special drogue shoot opens, stabilizing their descent and preventing uncontrolled tumbling which could be fatal.

As soon as they get closer to the Earth’s dense atmosphere, their freefall slows to escape velocity, a mere 120 mph. At 3000 feet, a conventional chute opens, lowering the intrepid adventurer to terra firma. That’s going to be one brave soul who first attempts this apparently maniacal act. But with the right technology, it might just work. Sign me up.

Ever chopped part of your finger off in a bagel slicer? I’m more of a waffle man myself, but if you’ve ever sacrificed a chunk of skin to the bagel gods, you know that getting skin grafted on is a doubly painful experience. Not only does it involve surgery on your wound but you also need to cut some extra skin off somewhere else to serve as the donor. Owies!

Looking our for non-masochists, a Cambridge, U.K., company has created a “skin-graft replacement product” — essentially a synthetic skin. Since it uses much of the same elements in normal human skin (collagen-based fibroblasts, for you med students), it’s technically called an allogeneic replacement, which means it’s from an unrelated donor. In a trial, six volunteers had the lab-manufactured product, called ICX-SKN, grafted onto a wound or burn. After 28 days, the synthskin had fully integrated with the patient’s, closing the wound.

Not much going on in the Entertainment industry, so here are so pics of Me and Sarah picking blueberries! We went yesterday and in an hour we managed to pick over 8 and a half pounds. What’s odd is that during the hour she only ate 3 berries and I ate a LOT more than that, but I still managed to pick .12 pounds more than her!

By picking them ourselves, we only had to pay $1.75 a pound. I’ve never bought a blue berry in my life, but Sarah says that’s SUPER SUPER CHEAP and well worth it. (Read on …)

Lisa, of Neptune Comics (where I get my comics), and I had a phone convo today about her new group P.O.W.E.R. and how we can get the word out. The purpose of the organization is Promoting Ownership, Writing & drawing, Editing and Reading by more women and minorities in the comic book industry… so it’s a good cause.

Basically POWER is putting out feelers and trying to come up with a positive pro-active campaign… whether it be some sort of book drive or a letter writer session.

Now that we have a good start at growing our network, it’s time to take some action. In order to get ourselves noticed we need to do more than just join an on-line network — otherwise we’re not much different than MySpace. This is a call for action! I’m looking for ideas that will grab attention and show the comic book industry that we’re serious. Maybe a letter writing campaign where everyone sends in the letter along with a bra, or an offensive comic book cover that publisher released. Maybe a HUGE book drive that we all work on together and send the books to an inner city library somewhere. What do you think? Any ideas/suggestions? It’s time to act!

So if you have any good ideas or want to sign up for P.O.W.E.R. check it out here.

Speaking of Pop Candy, here is an AWSOME find that Whit just posted about. Someone merged “Pirates of the Caribbean” with “Goonies!” Maybe if they had actually done this, the final two “Pirates” films would have been watch-able.

I guess I’m moving up in the world. The first four and a half minutes of Pop Candy’s weekly podcast is a phone conversation between me and Whitney. If you aren’t familiar with USA Today’s blog “Pop Candy” or Whitney Matheson you should be. Whit is one of the few people in the mainstream press who covers comics. She regularly visits conventions, covers indy stuff as well as the big two, and was a judge for this year’s Eisner Awards.

But anyway if you want to hear Whit and I talk about phone sex and the pressures of blogging, you can find the podcast here� or go onto iTunes and just do a search for “Pop Candy.”

I think Isaiah Washington never wants to work in Hollywood again. Remember when I posted about him being fired and he made a nasty comment about it? Well expect to hear more nasty comments because next Monday he will be going on Larry King Live to tell his side of the whole story.

But let’s just recap a little. Washington called a co-worker the “f” word. This almost led to a physical fight on set. Then he denied it. Then at the Golden Globes he snatched the mic away from his boss and told the media that he never did use the “f” word three months ago. After that he started doing PR stuff for gay rights… PSA’s and all this other junk. He went on TV saying he did use the “f” word and that he was sorry.� —ok so what’s his side going to be this time? “uhh I was just lying before when I said I said it.”

I’m guessing he had to go to Larry because no one else wanted him.

The dog to the left is the former reigning champ of the World’s Ugliest Dog contest who passed away last year. The mutt to the right is this year’s winner.

The dog, named Dick Cheney by his owners, is a mixed breed. His owners say that he really likes just sitting around growling at people and licking his crotch. When they throw a ball for him to fetch, he snaps at the other family pets to go and bring it back to him. His favorite pet to boss around is neighborhood dog Georgie. He makes this dog clean his bottom and seek his approval for all of his actions.

When asked how she felt about winning the competition, Mrs. Cheney was pleased. “It went down to the wire. There was this on bitch from New York named Hillary who thought she was top dog, but I think even she had too much attitude for the judges. Dick just seemed to take the whole thing in stride. After the contest, he sat down and licked his scrotum.”

Hmmm is it just me or does Dick Cheney (the one on the right) look a little like Paris Hilton?

“Underworld” director Len Wiseman heads to bigger budget action fare with the upcoming “Live Free or Die Hard” which he helmed. How well it does will impact where he may go from there, but one of the most likely places is at the helm of the first “X-Men” spin-off “Wolverine” it seems.

“‘Wolverine’ is something I was interested in way before I was talking to these guys about ‘Die Hard’” he tells Superhero Hype. “I think it would be a great story to tell, and in the case of that film, it wouldn’t be [as big] in terms of large-scale action, but it’s something I’m interested in, in his origin story and the character story with that, and I know how Hugh would play it, and that would be awesome.”

He adds “So that would be my passion for that is that I think the character story is really cool, and I’d love to see it and be there the first day [it opens] anyway. There’s so many things that have been going on and I know that there are so many other directors. There’s nothing set in any fashion, but it has been talked about.”

What? Is Tom Brevoort human? Does he have feelings?

It’s amazing how fragile all of us are. It takes so little to irritate or depress us. I just came back from Wizard World Philadelphia, a great show with an overwhelmingly positive crowd. Couldn’t be better, more upbeat, more excited about what Marvel is doing. And even the people who didn’t like everything, like the fellow in the “For a Universe to Live, Brian Bendis Must Die!” homemade t-shirt was articulate and respectful about his complaints. I may not agree with his point of view on everything, or he with mine, but these felt like fruitful exchanges.

And then you see a line in a review, or a post on a message board, and it completely knocks you for a loop.

Neil Gaiman has taken a break from posting on his blog and is letting his daughter post for him. She posted about meeting the Helboy and Stardust casts.

I met more of the cast members today including Doug Jones who plays Abe. He is very nice but his costume is kind of smelly. I think it’s the leather. Oh, and I have some simply brilliant news!! Selma Blair thinks I’m cute, Claire Danes thinks I’m funny, Doug Jones thinks I’m gorgeous, and Guillermo del Toro thinks I should eat more ice cream. Pretty mind-blowing, I know!

I guess I can’t really complain since I was lazy and let my niece post for me last week.

So the newest rumor about the next season of “24” is that Jack Bauer will be reporting to a female president.

Word on the street is that the Commander in Chief on next season’s revamped 24 will likely be a (drumroll, please) woman. Casting could begin any day now on the sure-to-be-plum part. A show rep, however, cautions, “Nothing about next season has been absolutely decided as of yet.”

Assuming it does happen, 24’s lady prez would be in office just as Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House kicks into high gear. Coincidence? Hmmm….

What’s funny about the rumor is that what has really got the bloggers riled up is that they feel this is just FOX’s way of saying they are supporting Hilary in the upcoming election.

Are you really paranoid? Do you fear data theft as well as germs? Do you wish there was some way to protect both your precious computer from hackers and your delicate immune system from disease all in one compact device? Good news.

This mouse has both a built-in fingerprint scanner to protect your data as well as a Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) and Silver (Ag) nano-particle compound coating that kills of all sorts of bacteria, funghi, and algae that would just love to grow all over. It should put your mind at rest, at least a little bit. That is, until you think about how hackers won’t physically sit at your computer when they access your data and that such anti-bacterial features will only promote the development of superbacteria that are impervious to your fancy mouse. But hey, don’t sweat the small stuff.

This is a freaky design for a building in Siberia. It looks like something form a fantasy novel and you KNOW the final structure will look nothing like this.

Rising above the skyline of Khanty Mansiysk in Siberia, this mixed use tower will be a new landmark, providing crucial amenities for the city, sheltered from the harsh local climate. The concept is driven by a progressive environmental strategy that is expected to establish new benchmarks for the region. Set high on a hill in a densely wooded area, the tower rises above two podium buildings each facetted like a cut diamond, reflecting and refracting natural light to illuminate the interior. At the summit, a viewing platform and restaurant offer panoramic views over the city.

More pics after the break. (Read on …)

This is sad. A girl was riding a Superman ride at Six Flags in Kentucky. The ride is straight up and down and works by brining the riders 177 feet off the ground and dropping them. It seems that the ride broke and a cord that snapped decapitated the legs of a 13 year old girl.

“The people on the ride just came and hit the ground,” she said. “When I got up there, the lady she was just sitting there, and she didn’t have no legs. … And she was just there, calm, probably in shock from everything.”

The girls legs couldn’t be reattached.

So the Star Trek fan fiction contest is in full swing and I NEED your help to win some cool prizes (real prizes, like a computer, iphone, trip to vegas …not geeky stuff)!

I need you to please go here and sign up for the contest. You will then be sent an email. Click the link in your email to activate your membership. Login and after you do, go here (Temporal Convergance) and here (Quotient of Time). Scroll down to the bottom of the page and where you see “rate this story,” give both stories five stars.

Then that’s it! You don’t need to read my stories or comment or anything. The goal is to just keep the stories bumped so that people can notice them. There are sooooooooo many submissions that many are just getting lost in the chaos.

“The Office” has really made it. The show went from the verge of cancellation (multiple times) to signing a syndication deal valued at more than $130 million.

NBC Universal’s syndication wing has orchestrated an unusual deal to sell the rerun rights to the Peacock’s Emmy-winning comedy “The Office” to TBS in cable and to 10 Fox O&O stations in a shared-window deal valued at more than $130 million.

Thee pact for “Office” is notable for giving TBS an early window on running repeats of the show twice a week in primetime starting this fall, a full two years before the Monday-Friday strip-rerun rights kick in for both TBS and the Fox O&Os in fall 2009. The granting of that early-syndie window to TBS on “The Office” is a first for a comedy series, though it happens often in syndie deals for dramas, including Lifetime with Disney’s “Desperate Housewives” and TNT with NBC U’s “Las Vegas.”

The first three seasons of “The Office” will start re-aring this fall on TBS. Even though I’m happy for the cast and crew, I’m sort of Jealous. I feel like syndication means new people will watch the show, but for some reason, I just don’t want to share it with anyone else new!

WB’s new Spider-Man cartoon, which was supposed to be called “Amazing Spider-Man” has been renamed to “Spectacular Spider-Man.” ICV2 speculates that the reason for the name change has to do with “Amazing Spider-Man’s” (the comic) new schedule to come out three times a month.

The name change was probably intended to avoid confusion with the Amazing Spider-Man comic book series, which is tripling its frequency to three times per month later this year as it replaces both Sensational Spider-Man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man once the JMS/Joe Quesada “One More Day” storyline ends in Amazing. Marvel plans to have three different teams of creators working on the three-times per month Amazing Spider-Man, so having a cartoon series with the same name might well have been one “Amazing” too many.

From what I know of marketing and such, I find it hard to believe WB would rename the cartoon because of schedule/name changes in the comics. If anything, it makes more sense for the series to go by the same name.

On street eyewitness reports of filming often reveal very little due to distance, security, or most often just plain dull sequences being shot - all the good stuff happens behind sound stage doors of course. Today however is may be an exception as a scooper for Superhero Hype watched some of “The Dark Knight” filming in Chicago this week and claims to have witnessed a potential spoiler already gossiped about.

That spoiler? That The Scarecrow is back. Actor Cillian Murphy had previously stated that he hadn’t heard that he would be returning as The Scarecrow, and then later slyly hinted that he would make a brief appearance in the “Batman Begins” sequel (but wouldn’t confirm).

Now it seems according to the scooper that some of that sequence has been shot and claimed seeing Murphy in control of one gang who is engaged in a firefight with another gang. Later on a Batman stunt double was said to be seen fighting with the Scarecrow, being gassed by the villain, and falling to the ground holding his face and screaming.

Ain’t It Cool News reports Samuel L. Jackson will appear in the upcoming “Iron Man” film as another Marvel hero - Nick Fury. Jackson will do several scenes as iconic super spy Nick Fury on the set in the next few days, though there’s no idea how big his role is.

“Nick Fury” is one of the films Marvel Studios announced as part of their independent film slate and has Andrew Marlowe attached to write. Sounds like Jackson’s role may be expanded then should “Iron Man” do well.

Related to this, The New York Times reports this week that the financing raised by Merrill Lynch for Marvel’s slate includes an interesting clause. Seems that “If the movies are not successful, Marvel will forfeit the film rights to the characters in the deal, including Captain America, Thor, Nick Fury and the Avengers.”

“Cowboys & Aliens” has been optioned by Dream Works. The graphic novel mixes genres of the old west and sci-fi, but is best known for the ordering scandal from earlier this year (or was that late last year?) where it earned a top place at the top of sales charts by paying retailers to buy copies. The option allows for the graphic novel to be adapted to screenplay with no further green lighting to be completed until after that point.

Several studios have been intrigued by the concept, but the deal was finally pulled together by DreamWorks production president Adam Goodman and U production prexy Donna Langley. The studios have teamed successfully in the past on such pics as “Gladiator” and the Imagine-produced “A Beautiful Mind.”

Hmmm… is it possible that Platinum Studios never really cared about the graphic novel and was only thinking about movie deals?

Everyone and their mother has posted this pic from the set of Indy IV so I figured I would too.

This is a random pic I’ve had saved in my blog to post about for MONTHS (since Oct. 16, 2006) and just never bothered. This is from a panel at SPX where Publisher Weekly’s Heidi MacDonald and Calvin Reid with USA Today’s Whitney Matheson discussed how books can get reviewed and attention of the mainstream press/publishers.

I really did mean to post about the panel because I have a full transcript. I just was always too lazy to clean it up and make it look pretty to post becuase its so darn long.

Scotty is busy taking care of Edit because she’s really upset about getting shots so I decided I’m going to write on his blog for him. Last weekend he and I watched “Die Hard” it was a movie with Bruce Willis from back when he had hair.

Well the first thing that I liked about Die Hard is………… I like all the cursing cause it goes with the movie and in the end my favorite part of the movie is they show that even though girls wear girlie clothes they still punch pretty damn hard. Man, I wished I could have punched the reporter.

I also liked like when the main character, Bruce Willis, said yippy-ki-yi-ya mofo! haha it was the best quote I’ve ever heard in a movie. I want to say it all the time now, but I’m worried about getting yelled at (I’ll be 13 in less than a month).

The action was very well done… actually. I don’t know if there was even a lot of action. It was more like a lot of explosions. Yes. There was a lot of explosions and a lot of cussing. That is how I would define “Die Hard.”

The only thing I didn’t like was the bloody feet. Ohhhhhhhhhh man. If the movie were real (and clearly it isn’t) I don’t know how a person could function for that long while in so much pain from bloody feet.

Well until next time, I’m guest writer…

-Aubrie-

Here is your weekly dose of edit, who I’m taking to get her second round of shots today. In the photos above you’ll see her in my bedroom window looking at our neighbors bet duck. The all black duck was our neighbors mother’s duck but she passed away a few weeks ago, so our neighbors adopted the duck. They tried to let the duck go at a pond but it jumped right back into the car and refused to leave. So now they are stuck with it.

This is just a random pic of the bay I took a few days ago (Yes, it really is called the “Assawoman Bay”). For you non-locals, Ocean City has the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Assawoman Bay to the west, and the two bodies of water meet south of town at the Inlet (Ocean City connects to land on the northside of town at 144th street, right at the MD DE state line).

I get TONS of random emails that are not spam. Normally they are really dumb and normally I never reply. However, I got one today that cracked me up:

Dear Scott Kink.I am a big fan of Cobie Smulders.can you please send me her autographed picture.it would really mean so much to me.Because I am such a big fan of hers.all the Best.Donald Fink.my address IS 41 WEBB AVE.XXXXX, XX -thank you.and GOD BLESS YOU.

Yes I put the XXX’s and blocked out the person’s actual home address. But seriously, who emails their HOME ADDRESS to people on the internet that they don’t know?! Also I LOVE that they made a typo and called me “Scott Kink.”

The first “scene mission” for the Star Trek fan fiction contest was posted yesterday. The mission consists of a detailed outline which contestants must turn into script form and add all the dialogue and other details. Here is the outline:

Your mission is to write a scenario in which the following occurs: Kirk and a landing party stand before the Guardian of Forever as a violent storm rages. As Spock works his tricorder, Kirk questions the Guardian, but its answers are erratic, incoherent. Scotty hails them: Enterprise is losing power — they have to beam up now!

Back on the Bridge, Kirk learns that warp drive and impulse engines are down. The ship is running on emergency power. More dire news: their orbit is decaying. Unless power is restored, the ship will burn up in the planet’s atmosphere in less than 24 hours.

We learn that Kirk came here to investigate disturbances in the local space / time continuum. The Guardian is malfunctioning, and if it can’t be repaired, it could disrupt timelines throughout the sector — the history of the galaxy could be in jeopardy. It’s imperative they get to the bottom of what’s happening.

A short time later, another starship closes on their position. It isn’t in the registry. On the viewscreen, the unmistakable shape of Enterprise-D appears… a Federation Starship, but like none they’ve ever seen.

On Enterprise-D, Picard and the Bridge Crew take in the view of the original Enterprise, suspended in time like a fly in amber…

I wrote my rough draft of the sequence yesterday. Today I’m going to work more on the overall structure and plotting (it may seem very simple but I’ve added a HUGE twist to my version). Then tomorrow I’ll really focus on the dialogue and on Saturday I’ll clean up all the action lines (narrative descriptions). Once I post my scene, I don’t need anyone to read it for me, but I will need people to vote for it. So just be ready in a few days to vote and to have everyone else you know vote for me!

I don’t understand Wizard. They don’t do news. They do like weird ass features that are basically nothing but advertising. So I’m even more perplexed as to why they commissioned the Marvel Zombie’s artist guy to do a DC Zombies picture. Man, more and more I really think I need to start an online comics magazine that covers real news with people who have worked as reporters.

We all know Scientologist are whack, but John Travolta took things to a new level. In an interview with W magazine he talked about how he agreed with Tom Cruise’s (and his cult’s… I mean ‘religions’) stance on psychiatric drugs.

“I don’t disagree with anything Tom says,” Travolta says in the July issue of W magazine, on newsstands Friday. “How would I have presented it? Maybe differently than how he did, but it doesn’t matter. I still think that if you analyze most of the school shootings, it is not gun control. It is psychotropic drugs at the bottom of it.”

Seriously? Man, this is a “South Park” episode waiting to happen!