The Flickcast – Page 680 of 1030 – Stuff Nerds Love

Jeph Loep Named EVP, Head of Television at Marvel

In not entirely surprising news, Marvel Entertainment has appointed Jeph Loeb as Executive Vice President, Head of Television, a newly created division of Marvel Entertainment. In this new role, Mr. Loeb will work alongside Dan Buckley, Publisher & President of the Print, Animation & Digital Divisions, Marvel Worldwide, Inc., to translate Marvel’s popular characters and stories to the television medium, in both live-action and animation formats.

In addition to these responsibilities, Mr. Loeb will oversee the development and distribution of live-action, animated and direct-to-DVD series. Mr. Loeb was previously a Marvel-exclusive Eisner-Award-winning comic book writer and an Emmy-nominated writer for his work on NBC’s Heroes. The announcement was made today by Alan Fine, Executive Vice President, Office of the President and Chairman of Marvel Studios’ Creative Committee, and by Mr. Buckley, to whom Mr. Loeb will report.

Mr. Fine stated, “It’s with tremendous pride that I announce the creation of our Marvel Television division and the appointment of Jeph Loeb as Executive Vice President. His work in the comic book field is in a class of its own, showing his passion and talent for bringing Marvel’s finest characters to life in an innovative manner. Jeph’s work on multiple award-winning television series and popular films has shown fans worldwide his ability to deliver thrilling entertainment in a number of media. With Jeph as our EVP, fans will experience the highest quality and most exciting television projects featuring their favorite Marvel characters.”

“I couldn’t be happier to accept this new position at Marvel Entertainment, working with both Dan and Alan to deliver exciting, cutting edge television projects,” said Mr. Loeb. “Marvel continues to break new ground in storytelling in both their comic book and film ventures, so, along with everyone here, I’m excited to bring the same brand of excitement into homes across the globe.”

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Check Out Two New Clips From ‘Louie’

It’s very rare that a TV show gets resurrected for a second chance. Fox has been known to do this with a few of its shows, but they’re also known to pull the plug on a show about 30 seconds after they greenlight it. HBO, however, wanted to give plenty of chances to Louis C.K.’s raunchy sitcom Lucky Louie, even though it really wasn’t that good.

The show was inevitably canceled, leaving for some mixed feelings. A few years go by, Louis has a Rocky-style montage in the woods somewhere, and now he’s back and stronger than ever. Louie is basically the exact same premise as his late HBO series, with a few minor changes (including dropping that terrible laugh track). This time? The show actually looks watchable.

The series debuts on FX this Tuesday, and promises to have some pretty great cameos along the way, one of which you can see in a clip after the jump. Catch Louie on FX Tuesday, June 29th at 11pm ET/PT.

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War Movie Mondays: ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’

This week’s pick is the 1989 drama directed by Roland Joffe Fat Man and Little Boy which were the code names given to the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan, ending the war in the Pacific during World War II. The film stars Paul Newman in a tour de force role as Gen. Leslie Groves, the military head of what was to be known as the “Manhattan Project.”

The film also stars Dwight Schultz (better known for his role on the hit TV show The A-Team playing Murdock) as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist which brought the scientific minds together to help create the project. Rounding out the cast is John Cusack (Michael Merriman) who is a young physicist who acts as the film’s narrator while keeping a secret journal of his time in the New Mexico countryside while research and development of the “gadget” was underway.

The film is a brilliant examination of how the hypothetical became reality. Groves and Oppenheimer begin pulling in some of the best minds in the world who are eager to create a super weapon which will smash the Nazi’s hold throughout Europe. Ironically, Hitler’s own notions of racial purity drove some of Europe’s greatest minds to England and the United States to help the allies come up with an atomic device that would grant them the terms to wage war on the aggressors.

Many of the scenes show how the scientists met crushing deadlines, near fatal accidents with high explosives, radioactive materials, and whether or not the $2 billion project was ethical in the hands of military men like Groves, and what the fate of the world would be with such an awesome new weapon?

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Apple Sells 1.7 Million iPhone 4s in 3 Days

We’re you one of the people waiting in line lasts week to get your hands on a shiny new iPhone 4? If so, you weren’t alone as Apple has released the first official sales figures for the last three days and, to say the least, things are looking pretty good.

According to Apple, Inc. the company managed to sell 1.7 million iPhone 4 units from Thursday the 24th through this Saturday the 26th. At an average of 200 bucks each, that’s a good chunk of change the company received during that time. Hey, we hate math too, that’s why we run a website. However, that adds up to at least an additional $340 Million for the three days.

Not bad, not bad at all. Especially for a company that has been declared dead at least 53 times since 1995. How things have changed.

Click through to check out the full press release from Apple.

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First Teaser for Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ Arrives

Spend a lot of time on social networks like Facebook? Well then, this movie is for you. The Social Network, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, tells the story of the founding of the most popular social network around, Facebook, and we’ve got the first teaser for the film to share with you today.

Like many teasers this one doesn’t give much away except that the film will take a look at the darker side of Facebook’s creation and follow its founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and president Sen Parker (Justin Timberlake) as they create the site just six short years ago and see it grow into the juggernaut it is today.

The trailer, courtesy of Mashable, gives us at least something to work with, though it’s really only lines of dialogue. However, the tagline (also seen in the poster) of “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies” should also be telling in that this film probably won’t gloss over the troubles, both internal and external, that inevitably plague an undertaking as huge as Facebook.

Check out the teaser after the jump. The Social Network hits theaters on October 1st.

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Exclusive Interview: Director Breck Eisner on ‘The Crazies’, ‘Flash Gordon’, ‘Escape From New York’ and More

In anticipation of the DVD release of The Crazies , I got to speak with director Breck Eisner about that movie and some upcoming projects he has planned. While I was doing my research on Eisner, I saw that he directed an episode of Fear Itself, an anthology that played on NBC in the summer of 2008.  As luck would have it, I just happened to have seen the episode Eisner directed (“The Sacrifice”) , so we began by talking about it.

THE FLICKCAST:  I was looking at your IMDB, and I saw that you did an episode of Fear Itself, and it just happened to be one I saw.

BRECK EISNER: Oh really, you’re one of the few. Fear Itself, I think it was miscast putting it on NBC in the summer.

FC: I know, I really pull for anything horror related on TV, and none of it makes it.

BE: No, it just doesn’t, unfortunately.

FC: Well, there are definitely horror fans out there, but I think that they just don’t bother with television.

BE: Certainly not network television.

FC: You previously directed Sahara. How do you get from Sahara to this movie? They are so radically different. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got drawn to The Crazies?

BE: Sahara was my first movie, and it is a very long story about how I came to be directing it. The short version of the story is that I initially was involved with optioning the material with a producer many years before with no intention of making it, it was a much bigger movie than I could make.

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Marvel Costume Packs Coming to ‘Little Big Planet’ July 7th

According to the Little Big Planet website,  the worlds of Marvel and Little Big Planet will be colliding on July 7th. Starting on that day and continuing each week, there will be four costume packs for a total of 20 of Marvel’s greatest heroes and most despised villains.

It hasn’t been revealed which characters will be getting paired up for the packs as of yet. It is possible that they may be grouped by team such as an Avengers or X-Men pack or it may be a complete free for all where players can get Captain America, The Punisher and the Human Torch all in one oddball purchase.

In addition, there will be a Marvel Level Kit which contains four missions pitting the Sackboys and Sackgirls against Magneto. Beating these four stages will unlock Marvel music, objects stickers and a “Rooftop” background for your own level creations.

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Box Office: Toys Win Over the Grown Ups

Toy Story 3 had another stellar weekend at the box office and held off new releases Knight and Day, and Grown Ups.  It made over $59 Million over the weekend.  That is a drop of around 46%, but that is not unusual when a movie has a huge opening weekend.  The film still enjoyed a healthy $14,600 per/screen average.

Toy Story has now made $226.5 Million in its first 10 days in release.  It is on the fast track to becoming the number one animated movie at the box office this year (Shrek Forever After currently stands at $229 Million after five weeks.)  It’s also doing a bang up job abroad, earning another $100 Million overseas in the same time frame.  So far, it looks like Toy Story 3 will become one of the biggest films of the year.

Grown Ups may have taken a critical drubbing, but audiences didn’t seem to mind.  They snatched up a cool $40 Million in ticket sales, to make the movie the number two offering of the weekend. Love him or hate him, Adam Sandler is reliable at the box office.  This will be his tenth movie to open at above $34 Million.  There are not  many stars working today who can match those numbers.

The same cannot be said for Knight and Day, the Cameron Diaz/Tom Cruise spy caper/romantic comedy. The movie opened on Wednesday, but benefited very little from that early opening. Wednesday night the film earned a little over $3 Milion, a paltry sum for two former box office draws.

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