Stuff You Need to Know, Sunday, August 10, 2008

Why spend your time reading press releases hopped up as features? We run the stuff through a juicer so you can get your 100% RDA of pop culture updates in less time.

It that should surprise no one that Kenneth Johnson is shopping a V feature film. What’s new is that Latino Review has a review of the script, which sounds like a heavily condensed and slightly less interesting version of the beloved 80s series. I say beloved because, well, I might be speaking for myself–but I dug the hell out of the original miniseries and the followup. When it went to full-on series territory, it got a little too cheeseball even for me, but still: the original concept was solid. I almost feel like I’d rather see a small screen update rather than a sequel or a feature film remake; the whole Visitor reveal was effective because they really played it out before letting it rip. Also, the giant saucers have already shown up on screens, borrowed from this series by Independence Day. But what do I know? Found via io9.

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A $22M biopic about Confucius is in the works for next year, which is the 60th birthday of the People’s Republic of China and the 2560th birthday of Confucius. Which means that to calculate the age of Confucius in dog year, you would need fourteen Lorne Greenes. Production starts November and will be released on October 1st, 2009. Casting has been thrown into a tizzy after Shia Labeouf became unavailable following his wreck. I’m kidding. This is interesting: “In order to settle the debate about what the ancient philosopher looked like, the China Confucius Foundation published a standard image of him as an old man with a long beard, broad mouth and big ears, wearing a robe, with his hands crossed on his chest.” His hands were crossed on his chest but his arms were flailing about. So that was Really Weird. Source: Variety.

The Dark Knight is #1 at the box office for a fourth weekend. It’s about to pass Star Wars on the unadjusted box office chart, but it’s the adjusted box office chart that shows the most interesting stuff. It’s still #49 on that listing. It will pass the Tim Burton Batman this week and it’s within grabbing distance of the first Spider-Man. And unless I’m missing something, when it passes Spider-Man that will make the #1 comic book movie of all time, fair and square. Wow. See all the charts at Box Office Mojo.

MGM is reissuing The Outer Limits: The Complete Series as a single set. Sorry to say, but the damn thing’s double-sided discs again. And there’s nothing in here about a remastering/restoration. So same thing, but at least this time it’s only $60 SRP. Which is…still pretty close to what it cost before. No idea. Pre-order it here if you like, released on November 4th.

The aforementioned Warner Brothers Blu-Ray releases Interview With the Vampire and Poltergeist are now available for pre-order. Click the titles to snag one for yourselves.