Ted 2 set for June 2015 release

Seth MacFarlane's sequel to 2012's Ted, appropriately titled Ted 2, will hit theaters on June 26, 2015.

Ted, starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, told the story of a man living with a teddy bear who came to life when he was a young boy. It was Universal's biggest hit in 2012 making $550 million at the box office. MacFarlane will return to voice Ted and will also be writing and directing the sequel.
The sequel will join a very busy 2015 schedule including Jurassic World, Inside Out, Assassin's Creed, The Terminator, and Independence Day 2. Ted 2 will hit just 2 weeks before Universal's Despicable Me spin-off, Minions.

I personally hated Ted, so this is definitely a 2015 release I will be skipping.

Focus Features will absorb FilmDistrict

Universal has announced that the subdivision, Focus Features, will be absorbing FilmDistrict. The reasoning behind the move is FilmDistrict CEO, Peter Schlessel, taking over for Focus Features. This will give Focus the opportunity to release a wide variety of films and increase them to at least 10 films per year. All FilmDistrict films released after January 2014 will be released as Focus Features.

This year Focus only had four releases this year (Admission, The World's End, Closed Circuit, and The Place Beyond the Pines), and they are looking forward to absorbing the specialty projects FilmDistrict has enjoyed such as Insidious, Evil Dead, and Drive.

World of Warcraft film set for 2015

Add another movie to the long list of 2015 releases.

Legendary Pictures and Universal have announced their intent to release Warcraft on December 18, 2015. The film is indeed based off the popular computer game World of Warcraft. The Duncan Jones film will compete directly with Ron Howard's Inferno and could potentially compete with Star Wars: Episode VII as the film is expected to announce a December 2015 release.
Recent news reported that Paula Patton was in negotiations for a lead role. Other sources are saying Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, Paul Dano, or Anson Mount could join her as a male lead.

This release comes after Legendary decided to break ties with Warner Bros. earlier this summer.

Paramount eliminates 110 positions; layoffs in marketing, finance, and more

I guess distributing Michael Bay movies has finally taken its toll on Paramount.

The company announced they are eliminating 110 positions from the company including spots in finance, IT, legal, and marketing. This follows previous layoffs Paramount made in 2008 where they reduced their workforce by 7% across the board.
This also follows a rather low income year for the studio. Ironically enough, the biggest hit they had this year was World War Z which brought in over $500 million at the box office. It is joined by flops such as Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Pain & Gain. Despite the flops Paramount is expected to end on top with the releases of Nebraska, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Anchorman: The Legend Continues. Marketing is currently working on campaigns for these films, but seeing that the marketing department is suffering layoffs who knows how in depth the campaigns will be.

In addition to Paramount layoffs, NBC announced that NBC Digital will be reducing their workforce by 5%. Not a great time to work in the entertainment industry, I guess.

Mark Gordon planning to revive Chronicles of Narnia

It has been three years since we got the third Chronicles of Narnia film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and it appeared that the film series had faded away and died. The first film of the existing trilogy, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, was a hit but it proved to be difficult to keep an audience.

We now have word that the Mark Gordon Company has paired with the C.S. Lewis Company and is taking over for Walden Media with their intention to finally release the fourth installment, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair. Walden Media had previously announced, while they were still attached, that they wanted to skip ahead to the sixth book, The Magician's Nephew. However, Walden Media and Narnia seemed to fade altogether giving no reason for another film.
The Silver Chair brings us less than a year ahead but decades ahead in Narnia. Aslan calls Eustace Stubb and Jill Pole back to help find Prince Caspian's son, Prince Rilian.


There is currently no writer or director attached along with no word on whether any previous cast members will be returning for a fourth installment.
The Mark Gordon Company has produced a number of films and television shows including Saving Private Ryan, Source Code, The Patriot, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, and Army Wives.

I am personally very excited for this. I love The Chronicles of Narnia and liked the movies as well. I was wondering when they would finally release a fourth movie.

Breaking Bad finale breaks series record

The series finale of Breaking Bad brought in a total of 10.3 million viewers for the Sunday finale shattering ratings records for the series and dominating all network show premieres on ABC, CBS, Fox, and Showtime. "Felina" is now the most watched episode of Breaking Bad and the third most watched finale on cable. It is right behind The Sopranos (11.9 million) and Sex and the City (10.6 million). Breaking Bad beat out the numbers of Monk (9.4 million) and The Closer (9.1 million). As far as the most watched finales on television, Breaking Bad didn't even get close. The top three most watched finales of all time are M*A*S*H (105.9 million), Cheers (80.4 million), and Seinfeld (76.3 million).

However, it still didn't break any AMC records. The Walking Dead still holds the #1 most watched episode on AMC with 12.4 million viewers for the season three finale. However, it did shatter numbers set by Mad Men nearly three times as the fifth season of Mad Men premiered to a meager 3.5 million.

These numbers are pretty phenomenal due to the fact that Breaking Bad is pretty lucky it even made it to five seasons. After the first season in 2008 it was barely hanging on with 1.2 million viewers. Until the second half of season five, Breaking Bad hardly averaged 2 million viewers per episode. Viewer numbers seemed to grow not only after the first half of the fifth season, but after the existing episodes made available for streaming on Netflix. After that, season "5B" gained at least 5 million viewers per episode. Another fun factoid in addition to these finale numbers is the fact that the follow-up show, Talking Bad, totaled 4.4 million viewers. That isn't bad at all.

Disney to develop live-action Cruella de Vil movie

In addition to live-action adaptations for Snow White, Maleficent, and Cinderella, Disney is following suit and continuing the trend with a live-action movie for Cruella de Vil. You know Cruella as the rather famous Disney villain from 101 Dalmatians.

Cruella first appeared in the 1956 animated feature and was later portrayed, very well, by Glenn Close in a live-action version of the film in 1996. There is no word on exactly what this movie will focus on in regards to Cruella, but I am pretty sure the fate of this will depend on the success of Maleficent next year. If Maleficent isn't a hit I don't think they would move forward on another Disney villain movie.

Breaking Bad series finale review - "Felina"

In the series finale of Breaking Bad, Walter White returns to New Mexico to close the chapter of his life which made him a national fugitive and sent him into exile. It also serves as the perfect opportunity for him to carry out his final plans and wishes.


I just want to warn you, although it should go without saying, if you have not watched "Felina" yet you should not be reading this. There are spoilers.


So get out now.




 Last chance.







You can't say you weren't warned.

First of all we need to state the basics just to remind ourselves that it actually happened:

1. Walt is dead and wanted to be killed.
2. Jesse is free. He had been held prisoner by Jack and forced to cook the blue meth.
3. Walt seriously stuck it to just about everyone that ever got on his bad side. Lydia, Uncle Jack & the Gang, Todd, Elliott, and Gretchen all had a visit from Heisenberg himself. In a way he even stuck it to Jesse.
4. Skyler is alive and still under investigation... and is still a bitch.
5. Skinny Pete and Badger will do just about anything for money. 
6. Walt tells Skylar the location of where he originally buried his money and disclosed that is where they will find the bodies of Hank and Gomez.

I would also add that Walt is a damn ninja, but that isn't the important thing here.

Now that we have established everything, I would like to say that I wasn't a huge fan of this episode as a finale. Was it a bad episode? No. Was it a good finale for the show? No.
I personally think "Ozymandias" or "Granite State" would have been better finales, especially "Granite State." To begin with, the episode was still too short for me even though it was 75min. I think they should have at least brought it up to 90min. Second, it was too slow. They gave us 50min of slow pace and then suddenly made the last 15min crazy and anxious. I understand why they put bits of this episode in different episodes and it was to give some backstory to how it ends and let you know something is coming, but at the same time I think they should have left it alone and had one big, final episode.
What they did is they took the classy road for Walt. They didn't have him come barging back into Albuquerque and murder everyone in his path in cold blood. The first example being the fact that he doesn't kill Elliott and Gretchen, but he sure leaves an impact in a way that only Walt can. He approaches them with his $9 million and tells them they will give it to Walter Jr. in the form of a trust fund when he is 18. He doesn't ask, he tells them. As his personal insurance, he leaves the impression to them that if they choose to not use the money for Walter Jr. or go to the police they will be hunted down and murdered by hitmen. The hitmen pointing the laser sights at them for the price of $200,000? Skinny Pete and Badger with basic laser pointers. This move was effective because it did show that Walt had bigger fish to fry and he realized that. He knew that without Elliott and Gretchen his money would not only never see the light of day, but it would never make it to his children.I think everyone, including myself, figured that Elliott and Gretchen were screwed after Walt saw them publicly deny Walt had anything to do with the founding of their company. The truth of it was he saw the two of them as pawns that he could put wherever he wanted.
The second example of this being the Ricin in the Stevia. Walt surprises Lydia and Todd during their weekly tea party and he sneakingly replaced Lydia's Stevia sweetener with Ricin and she unknowingly adds it to her tea. Walt could have easily taken out both Lydia and Todd another way, but he chose to slowly stick it to Lydia and tell her he poisoned her when she comes down with severe flu-like symptoms.
The third example, and most important, is Jesse. Walt went to Jack's with the armored car fully intending to kill everyone including Jesse. However, when he saw that Jesse was basically a slave he made a different call. Instead of killing his former partner because he assumed the blue meth was willingly being cooked by Jesse, Walt took the high road and saved Jesse's life and gave him the choice of killing him or going free. Jesse decided to leave Walt to deal with death his own way and drove Todd's car to freedom. In reality, the only person Walt killed face to face in this episode was Jack.

What is so unsatisfying about this? For me, it felt too... calm. I think I was just expecting more than we got. I had predicted and assumed Walt would die but I didn't think he would die of a single gunshot wound to the abdomen while covering Jesse from gunfire. He just staggered around and bled to death in the meth lab. It is symbolic and I get it, but I don't think it was the best way to have Walt go. Sorry.
As for Jesse going free I am a bit torn. I have been rooting for Jesse through this whole thing, but I had kind of hoped that either Jesse would die or wind up in jail. As Walt said, he was always more of a danger to himself than anyone else. You know and I know now that Jesse is free he is probably well on his way back to using to forget the pain and will wind up dead anyway. And the scenario everyone has of him running to save and/or raise Brock is bullshit and I will get to that in a little bit.

Another issue I am having is the loose ends. Fanboy it all you want people, but the finale did not wrap everything up in a nice little package.

1. The main loose end is Brock. Most people don't see him as an issue, but I do. He was a big part of Jesse's priorities and when Todd killed Andrea that threw a lot of things into the air. At this point we have no idea if Brock is even alive. Todd got back into the car, but it was brought up that they still had the kid to deal with. Did Todd go back and kill Brock or did they take off and leave him alive?
Like I mentioned a second ago, Jesse going free to get to Brock isn't feasible. If Brock is even alive he would have nothing to do with Jesse. He would have gone to Andrea's grandmother. Jesse would never legally get Brock or have any claim over him.

2. What happens with Skyler? Sure, Walt gave her the information so she could make a deal with her prosecutors but does it work? Does Skyler go to jail or does she get off? Not only that, but with all of the legal attention on her does the illegal activity at Beneke ever come back up?

3. What ever came of Huell being tricked by Hank?

4. What became of Jesse? Did he come back to his house and just reappear or did he take off and go to Alaska? Was the vision of him making a wood box a jump to the future showing that Jesse does eventually find peace or was it just a dream?

5. Who wrote "Heisenberg" in Walt's house? It obviously wasn't Jesse seeing that he was being held prisoner. Was it Jack? Was it Todd? Was it Lydia? Was it one of the random skate punks?

6. What happens to Lydia's daughter? She is now motherless and will no doubt learn at some point that her mother was in the meth business. 

It might just be me, but I like finales that wrap everything up. I think the issue is the way I witnessed Six Feet Under end. That show by far has the best finale I have ever seen and I love how it ended everything. It showed you what happened to the characters and you got to see how their lives played out after the events of the final episode. For a show like Breaking Bad it would have been great to have that for an additional 10-15min. We could have seen where Jesse went or what happened with Skyler. It wasn't terrible it was just bland.


But there were good moments!

1. The laser pointers on Elliott and Gretchen. Genius!
2. "I did all of this for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive."
3. Todd's creepy ringtone for Lydia was hilarious.
4. Jesse finally letting go of his rage and leaving Walt to deal with death on his own.
5. Walt's ninja skills with the tea meeting, breaking into Elliott and Gretchen's house, and breaking into Skyler's apartment.
6. Walt telling Lydia that he poisoned her and then hanging up on her. I clapped. 
7. "It's over and I needed a proper goodbye."




Any thoughts from you guys on the finale? Did you like it? Did you not like it?
Any favorite Breaking Bad moments?

It's been fun.

#GoodbyeBreakingBad #BreakingBad

Emily the Strange gets a new writer; Moretz still attached to star

It has been three years since it was announced that Chloe Grace Moretz had signed on to play Emily in a long awaited film adaptation of Emily the Strange. Dark Horse Comics started the project in 2008 and officially settled with Universal and Moretz in September 2010. Since then there has practically been nothing else said about this project. No plot, no script, no additional cast, etc.. The closest we got was the announcement that Melisa Wallack was writing the script.

We now have word that the project has picked back up and a new writer has been brought on. Kealan O'Rourke has been hired to rewrite the script originally penned by Melisa Wallack. The story will apparently tell the origins of the punk, gothic cult-figure who gains abilities which fuse technology and imagination. It will also focus on her four cats Sabbath, Nee-Chee, Miles, and Mystery.
More potential good news? Moretz is still attached to star. There has been a lot of speculation that she may have dropped the project due to her rising popularity and busy schedule. Along with Carrie being released next month, Moretz has six films scheduled for the next two years. For 2014 alone Moretz has Laggies, The Equalizer, Sils Mara, and Dark Places. For 2015 and beyond she has If I Stay and The White Circus. My guess is that if this movie is going to be made at all we probably won't see it before 2015 if not 2016. However, Moretz will be close to 20-years old by then and pushing the believability of portraying a 13-year old. Especially with the way this girl is maturing.When she was originally cast she was 13-years old and most people, including me, jumped at it because we figured the movie would be filmed and released soon. She was the cute little girl from Let Me In and Kick-Ass. However, she went on to get older and star in Dark Shadows, Hick, Hugo, Kick-Ass 2, and Carrie. She also had a brief stint on 30 Rock. 
At this point I would re-cast and find a younger actress or I would can the project entirely. Either that or make this an animated feature and have Moretz voice the character. She probably won't even be available to film until she is 18+ anyway. It's one thing to play a high school student when you're that age, but not a 13-year old. The thought of them potentially making Emily older just to fit with Moretz rubs me the wrong way.

I love Chloe Moretz, don't get me wrong, but I just think her moment for this project has passed. Maybe the moment for the project in general has passed.

 

College Humor's Breaking Dead mashup is a winner

What happens when The Walking Dead meets Breaking Bad?
This is probably the best video College Humor has ever done. Holy cow, I wish this was real.

Rob Riggle joins Dumb and Dumber To; Jennifer Lawrence to have a cameo?

In addition to the announcements of Billy in 4C and Sea Bass returning for Dumb and Dumber To, we do have some news that the movie will indeed have some new characters. Rob Riggle (21 Jump Street) has joined the sequel to play twins; "a handyman named Travis and his unstable brother, Captain Lippencott." Other actors on board to bring new characters are Laurie Holden, Kathleen Turner, and Steve Tom.

Another rumor flying around Dumb and Dumber To is that Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence will have a cameo in the movie. Reports are Lawrence spent one day on set and is apparently playing the younger version of Kathleen Turner's character. She just happened to be in the Atlanta area as she is currently filming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Parts 1 & 2, so it will be interesting to see if Lawrence actually filmed or if she was just visiting.


Dumb and Dumber To tells the story of Harry and Lloyd trying to locate Harry's long lost daughter so she can hopefully donate a kidney.

Horrible Bosses 2 gets 2014 release date

Horrible Bosses 2 has received an official release date!

Sean Anders' sequel to the hilarious 2011 comedy will be released on November 26, 2014. It will face-off against the Fox animated film, Home, at the box office and will try to take away the second weekend numbers from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1. The sequel will have returning actors Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis and has been written by John Morris and Sean Anders.

I personally loved Horrible Bosses so I am really excited for more. I am a bit curious how they are going to do this, though. Are they now the hated bosses or do they have new bosses to hate on?

Paranormal Activity 5 gains director and new writers

Despite not having a 2013 Paranormal Activity release, the powers that be are working to give us two Paranormal Activity films in 2014. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a spin-off set for release in January and Paranormal Activity 5 is expected for the Halloween season in October. We now know screenwriters Jason Pagan and Andrew Deutschman are going to write Paranormal Activity 5 and newcomer Gregory Plotkin is on board to direct. This will be Plotkin's directorial debut. He previously served as an editor and co-producer of the previous films.

Plotkin is taking the directorial reigns from directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. The pair previously directed Paranormal Activity 3 and Paranormal Activity 4 as well as the online dating "documentary," Catfish. Pagan and Deutschman are taking over the writing after several different writers, mainly including Oren Peli and Christopher Landon.

Bryce Dallas Howard in talks for Jurassic World

Word on the internets is that Bryce Dallas Howard is in negotiations for a lead role in Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World (aka, Jurassic Park 4). Rumor has it Howard met with Universal alongside David Oyelowo (The Butler) when the release date was pushed from 2014 to June 12, 2015.
Howard has made a slight shift from acting to directing short films, but she has most recently been seen in The Help and 50/50. You also may recognize her from Terminator: Salvation and as Victoria in The Twilight Saga. She is also Ron Howard's daughter, but that isn't the important thing here.

There are currently no plot details for Jurassic World, but it evidently will return to Isla Nubar.

Boardwalk Empire renewed for fifth season

HBO has decided to renew the crime drama Boardwalk Empire for a fifth season. The show started its fourth season just three weeks ago and has a decent amount of Emmys to show for it.

Boardwalk Empire stars Steve Buscemi, Kelly Macdonald, and Michael Shannon. It tells the story of Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, the so-called ruler of Atlantic City who doubled as a politician and gangster in the prohibition era. It airs on Sunday nights on HBO and is in the fall lineup after True Blood ends. Interestingly enough, this news comes shortly after HBO announced True Blood will end after its next season and that The Newsroom will continue at least one more season.