By Dan Calabrese —— Bio and Archives April 10, 2015
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After two recent, successful sojourns on the silver screen, including this summer's Muppets Most Wanted, ABC is currently in the process of bringing The Muppets back to television. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the network wants to reboot the beloved children's variety show that hasn't been on the air since 1981. Bill Prady, who is a co-creator of mega-hit The Big Bang Theory is already onboard to write the script. Prady got his start working for Muppets creator Jim Henson in 1982 and reportedly shopped the Muppets' return to Netflix (too busy with Full House?) before it landed at ABC.A Lynch-less Twin Peaks? Or a negotiating ploy? - Twin Peaks fans, including your two favorite columnists (well two of the three; we don't think Herman indulges), were crestfallen this past weekend when David Lynch announced that he would not be directing the upcoming season of Twin Peaks on Showtime as previously announced. The story is apparently this: Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost completed the initial scripts for the planned nine episodes and submitted them to Showtime, which quickly concluded that the money required to produce the episodes would be a lot more than they previously thought. That led to renewed discussions over how much the network would kick in, and while both Showtime and Frost seemed to believe they were working toward a resolution, Lynch surprised everyone this past Sunday by announcing via social media that he was out. But is he? Showtime insists it's still trying to bring him back in the fold, and in the meantime they say they remain committed to the series with or without Lynch. Could it work? If they use the original Lynch/Frost-written scripts, at least it's still a Lynch story. But don't try telling that to the original cast members who made the following video (which interestingly does not include Kyle MacLachlan). We don't think this story is over, but we wish Lynch wouldn't put us through this! Daredevil on Netflix - Last night at midnight, Netflix added all 13 episodes of Marvel's original "Daredevil" series. We haven't seen it yet, but we're hearing really good things, and Rob's pretty interested in checking it out. So, we thought we'd share this "launch day" featurette with you. Lost in Space 50th Anniversary - As part of Hollywood's ongoing effort to make you feel really old, Twentieth Century Fox has announced it will celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space" by releasing a huge, 18-Disc box set of the complete original series. In addition to all the episodes remastered in high-def, it will boast the slew of extras listed below.
It's interesting, because there's lots of talk about it coming back. Here we are in the digital world, and the whole conceit of the show was 20 minutes into the future. Well, we've arrived. It could be wonderful. It's still somewhat tied up in a log jam of rights issues and so forth, so it's difficult to explore it fully. But it would be great fun, as I played Max again in a series of commercials for Channel 4 when they went digital. We made him grumpy because he was older and crotchety; a liver-spotted version of Max. [Laughs] I remember thinking just before the cameras rolled, I distinctly remember thinking, "Holy s***, it's been 20 years since I've played this character!" Then I immediately went into it and time was out of joint and fused together two decades suddenly.So it sounds like a longshot, but those of us who'd like to see the return of Network 23have our fingers crossed. Is Blank Reg still out there? The Haunted Mansion - If you know the history of Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, you know it tells (vaguely) a great story that would make a pretty solid film. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the 2003 abortion starring Eddie Murphy. That was just...awful. For the last five years, director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) has been talking about a new, supposedly-in-the-works, take on the property. Given Del Toro's long track record of announcing projects that don't happen, people were starting to assume it would never see the light of day. Now, it looks like it might be coming after all, starring Ryan Gosling. As The Wrap reports:
Gosling and Del Toro have developed a close friendship of late, with the Mexican filmmaker moderating a panel with Gosling at SXSW last month to discuss the making of "Lost River." The duo were also photographed together at Disneyland over Oscar weekend, where they rode the Haunted Mansion ride in addition to Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. "Haunted Mansion" has been in development at Disney for several years, as the project was first announced at Comic-Con in July 2010. D.V. DeVincentis ("High Fidelity") is currently working on the script for the supernatural family film. "Haunted Mansion" represents a homecoming of sorts for the actor, who is a former Mouseketeer. He also co-starred in Disney's beloved sports movie "Remember the Titans."
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