Movie & TV News: Gaiman Directs?, Sallis to Screen, TBS,TNT Streamed, Shrek to the Future, MovieLabs Technology Open Challenge, Mike Fright, Comic Previews

Gaiman Directs?
Film Ick reports a rumor here that Neil Gaiman
is set to direct his first feature film later this year. The film would be Gaimin's own adaptation of his graphic novel "Death: The High Cost of Living." Reportedly Gaiman discussed the movie with Guillermo del Toro. The film will go into production in late autumn or early winter in the United Kingdom, and Shia LaBeouf is "almost certainly going to play the male lead."

Sallis Novels Come to Screen
Parallel Entertainment Pictures optioned the rights to the Lew Griffin crime novels of James Sallis. The novels acquired include "Long Legged Fly," "Moth," "Black Hornet," "Eye of the Cricket," "Bluebottle" and "Ghost of a Flea." The stories follow a world-weary African-American private investigator in New Orleans. J.P. Williams and Alan Blomquist are to produce.

TBS,TNT Summer Shows Streamed on Web
TNT and TBS are set to be the first cable networks to stream complete runs of their new original series online when TNT's " The Closer," "Heartland," "Saving Grace," and "The Company" and TBS's "House of Payne," "The Bill Engvall Show," "My Boys," and "The Frank Show" debut this summer. Those Turner Broadcasting cable networks's shows will be available on TNT.tv and TBS.com just a day after their run on cable, then each episode remains online for a month.

Shrek to the Future
Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation CEO, told the Australian newspaper The Age that there will only be two more Shrek films. He said: "It's a finite story, has been from the beginning and I think that's part of its integrity, part of its strength, that we're not thinking this up as we go. Ultimately we will come back to understand how Shrek arrived in that swamp. We will reveal his story." Katzenberg acknowledged that he is committed to making movies that will make money for DreamWorks' investors, but maintained that he himself never thinks about money. He said: "I've never done anything in my entire life for money . . . . I'm amazingly disengaged from it, always have been. I probably would have done even better had I ever paid any attention to it. [His wealth is estimated at $800 million.] My partner David Geffen is a genius at it. He's worth a gajillion times more than me because he does pay attention to it - - he's brilliant at investing."

MovieLabs Technology Open Challenge
All six of the major movie studios have joined to create the "MovieLabs Technology Open Challenge" (click here to check it out). The purpose is to find the best of the best of the techno-geeks, and let them solve long running problems like "Internet security, conversion of digital data to be played on multi-platform formats for the everyday consumer of Hollywoods's product and creating a universal movie screen that can play 2-D and 3-D movies and can be easily installed in every cinema throughout the world without huge cost overhead to theater owners." Steven Weinstein of MovieLabs, told Variety: "There were some problems we were thinking about where we said, 'Why not get the industry thinking about some of these things?' Why, if you’re in a hotel, shouldn't you be able to access your movies on the TV in your room?"
The Challenge offers grants of up to $100,000 for any techo-geeks who qualify and are chosen, and goes on until the end of September 2007.

Mike Fright: Stand Up!

#555
Check Out: The Mike Fright Site!

Infinity Express

Cecil W. McCall loved his Uncle Shelby. When the old man disappeared and was presumed dead, it affected him greatly. Then came the package, his uncle's legacy. In the package were Time Bands: devices that promised to take the wearer back in time. But Uncle Shelby hadn't left much in the way of instructions. So when McCall accidentally set them off, he was thrown back into the Victorian era, without much preparation. Being a comic and a trivia expert wasn't a lot of help, but being a history nut was. When he saw he was in the England of Jack The Ripper he knew what he had to do. With the aid of Arthur Conan Doyle & the Real Sherlock Holmes, he sets out to catch the Ripper, find his Uncle and go home. On the way he meets Adam Worth (The Real Professor Moriarty), Dr. Treves & The Elephant Man, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, Gaston Leroux, William Brodie, Rasputin and the Real Dracula.
He also runs into a time-traveling salesman,
Time Police and the forerunners of the Mafia.
And that is only the beginning . . .

Comic Previews
Comics Continuum has posted preview pages of
X-Men: Endangered Special One-Shot,