BREAKING MOVIE/TV NEWS

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Harryhausen Lends a Hand to "She"


Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen, in addition to pacting with Mindfire Entertainment for the development of remakes of "Mysterious Island", "Sinbad" and "Jason and the Argonauts", is also a consultant to the restoration of Merian C. Cooper's 1935 feature "She", based on author H. Rider Haggard's adventure novel.

Premise of the original story focuses on 'Leo Vincey', told by a dying uncle about a 'lost land' visited 500 years ago by his ancestor.


An intrigued Leo, with family friend 'Horace Holly', sets out to discover the land and its secret of immortality, said to be contained within a mystic fire.

Picking up 'Tanya', a guide's daughter in the frozen Russian arctic, the group eventually discover 'Kor', a hidden underground civilization ruled over by the immortal queen 'She', who believes Leo is her 500-year old long-lost lover.


Happy Canada Day !!!

Marvel's 'Mysterio' in Raimi's "Spider-Man 3" ?


Speculation as to the identities of the Marvel Comics' super-villains appearing in director Sam Raimi's currently filming "Spider-Man 3" continues to swirl, with the confirmation of 'Sandman', 'Venom' and 'Hobgoblin' and possible cameo appearances by 'The Lizard' and 'Man-Wolf' in their human guises.

Now comes word that actor Bruce "Evil Dead" Campbell may briefly appear as 'Mysterio' .

The original character of 'Mysterio' as conceived by "Spider-Man" comic book creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko was professional criminal ''Quentin Beck', whose former occupation was movie special effects designer and stunt man.

Born in Riverside, California, Beck was a film school graduate, whose abilities included designing special effect 'holographics' and stage illusions. Beck was also a proficient hypnotist, prestidigitator, chemist and roboticist, wearing a fishbowl, one-way plexiglass helmet, with gas jets mounted in his gloves and boots capable of emitting hallucinogenic, 'web' dissolving gases.

Looking for a new challenge, Beck entered into a partnership with the 'Tinkerer' to steal industrial/military plans. As the scheme was foiled by Spider-Man, Beck sought revenge, fighting Spider-Man as 'Mysterio: Master of Illusion'.

Eventually imprisoned at 'Ravencroft', Beck was diagnosed with a terminal illness, afflictions caused by toxic SFX products he had used as Mysterio.

With one year to live, Beck hired 'Daredevil' villain 'Bullseye' to kill DD's girlfriend 'Karen Page'.

Before he shot himself, Mysterio trained his cousin 'Maguire Beck' and movie stand-in 'Daniel Berkhart' in his specialized SFX technology, with Berkhart ultimately becoming his sucessor.

SANDMAN
HOBGOBLIN
VENOM
MAN-WOLF

"Blade: The Series" Makes the Cut

The premiere of Spike TV's "Blade: The Series" drew record ratings for the network with a 2.0 household rating and 2.5 million viewers, the highest premiere in network history for an original series: