Speed Racer Goes

The live-action feature “Speed Racer” will start its engines to open on May 9, 2008, two weeks earlier than previously slated. In addition to opening wide domestically, the actioner will be released day-and-date in a majority of the international markets.

Based on the classic series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida, “Speed Racer” is being written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, marking the brothers’ first writing/directing collaboration since their groundbreaking “Matrix” movies. The film is being produced by Joel Silver.

Rumor has it that the movie will be shot entirely on green screen with CGI effects, like Sin City and 300.

Classic Remake

Klaatu Barada Nikto.

Possible remake by 20th Century Fox of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Angelina Jolie has been offered the lead role in "The Day The Earth Stood Still;" and the remake is currently out to Scott Derrickson to direct.

Flushed Away

Just got around to seeing Flushed Away. Somehow this movie fell through the cracks- it's actually pretty good! Made by Aardman Animation and Dreamworks. It compares favorably to Over the Hedge and Open Season.

The singing slugs are fun throughout the movie, but my favorites are the ninja frogs.

After watching, compare notes with Wikipedia and see if you spotted all the "hidden" references to other movies and characters.

Dennis Muren Interview

In the 6th grade, I became fascinated with movies and movie special effects. I poured through magazines, books, etc. One name I came across frequently was Dennis Muren. He is responsible for the visuals of many of my favorite movies including Star Wars, They Abyss, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and others.

From CG Society.com:

On February 11, the Visual Effects Society honored Dennis Muren, one of their own, with a Lifetime Achievement award. Muren began working at Industrial Light & Magic in 1976 on the first ‘Star Wars’ film, for which he won his first Oscar. He has gone on to receive 15 Oscar nominations and win nine Oscars, the most of any living person still making movies. In 1999, he became the first visual effects artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6764 Hollywood Blvd). His most recent Oscar nomination was last year for the visual effects in ‘War of the Worlds’. We talked with him to find out what’s keeping him interested today.

Read more.

Matt Groening Interview

From Crave Online:

What took so long to do the movie?

For me, part of the reason was, we're coming up on the 20th year of the show, we're coming up on the 400th episode, and if we're ever going to do it, we should do it now. I don't want to do it [when] for some reason the show goes away and then do a movie. I thought it would really be neat to do a movie while the fans are still clamoring for it.

You'll see more of The Simpsons than you really should see and probably things, people you don't want to see. Whoever you don't want to see naked on The Simpsons, you know that's who you're going to see. Sorry about Marge.

Futurama is coming back!

Talk about a day job and night job, my night job after The Simpsons is Futurama, which is coming back on Comedy Central in 2008, 16 new episodes, and we're going to be running the old episodes, as well.

I always felt like we were a little bit like the original Star Trek. I always thought that working with my partner, David X. Cohen, that we knew that the people who loved the show really, really loved it and they wrote petitions, they wrote letters and e-mails and it just seemed right. And also, everybody that worked on the show loved it. So when it came time when the show did come back, everybody without exception said, "I'm on board." At this point, I said, "We're thinking of gearing up the show again." They said, "I'm on board." Everybody, Katy Sagal, all the actors, John Dimaggio, Billy West. The original animation team, the original animation house, the original writers. Everybody came back. It was great.