Lou Ferrigno Lends Voice to Hulk; New Trailer Unleashed
During The Incredible Hulk panel at the New York Comic Con, director Louis Leterrier asked the original tv hulk Lou Ferrigno to give an on-stage “audition” for a chance to provide the big green guy’s voice in the new movie. It seemed like one of those staged bits just to get Ferrigno to yell out “Hulk Smash!” for those in attendance. But apparently it was legit, and Lou Ferrigno’s voice is in the new film!
“Lou did this amazing, ‘Hulk smash!’” producer Gale Ann Hurd told Variety. “And (director Louis Leterrier) said, ‘Come in, we’ll record you next week.’ Everybody thought it was either a staged event or we wouldn’t really do it. But the next week Lou came in in L.A. and his voice is the voice of the Hulk.”
Meanwhile, a new trailer for The Incredible Hulk titled “Awaken” can be found on a new Best Buy promo DVD, which is free with select DVD purchases. A not so great looking copy has shown up on YouTube (found via AICN). Watch it embedded!
The Incredible Hulk hits theaters on June 13th 2008.
Update on film critic Roger Ebert
I love movies. I’m a movie buff and always have been. I appreciate film critics, even when I don’t agree with them. So, today, on the anniversary of Roger Ebert’s 41st year reviewing movies for the Chicago Sun-Times, I’m glad to report that Roger Ebert will soon be back reviewing movies. Unfortunately, the same is not true of his ability to appear on his syndicated TV show, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper.
In a letter to his fans, Roger wrote: “I am at last returning to the movie beat. After my current stay at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, I’m looking forward to opening night of my annual film festival at the University of Illinois on April 23, and I will resume writing movie reviews shortly thereafter. Are you as bored with my health as I am? I underwent a third surgery in January, this one in Houston, and once again there were complications. I am sorry to say that my ability to speak was not restored. That would require another surgery.”
I feel bad for Roger that he cannot appear on the show anymore; his last appearances were in 2006. I miss hearing his voice. I still read his reviews online, but the enthusiasm he would bring to the TV show — for good films and stinkers — has never really been equaled by Roeper. I’m also old enough to miss the great back and forth Roger used to have with Gene Siskel, his original TV partner.
Get well, Roger, and if you do someday are up to a TV return, I’ll tune in for sure. Thumbs up to that.
The Saint is coming back to TV
Hello! The Saint is rising again. The venerable character, who was created by writer Leslie Chareris in novels in the 1920’s, will be back on television in a contemporary setting, and actor James Purefoy (Rome) has been in talks to play Simon Templar, the suave, British “good guy” thief. Aside from Purefoy, the Hollywood Reporter writes that the production team includes first class talent: Homicide’s Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana (Oz), writer Jorge Zamacona, Bill Macdonald, and the original TV Saint himself, Roger Moore, and his son Geoffrey Moore.
Mr. Levinson will direct the two-hour TV movie, which will be the pilot for a proposed series. TNT had been interested, but has since backed off from the deal. Now, the film will be produced independently and then shopped to the networks. Producer Macdonald had previously worked on a Saint project in 1991, when acquired the rights to the books for producer Robert Evans. In 1997, they created a big-screen version of The Saint starring Val Kilmer. It was not deemed a hit and failed to produce a sequel.
The man with the previous, successful connection to The Saint in this new version is Roger Moore. Before becoming James Bond in the 1970s, Moore starred as Simon Templar for seven years on TV. His imprint on the role is more famous that any of the actors who’ve played in on screen, including George Sanders, Louis Hayward and Hugh Sinclair, who all were Simon Templar at one time or the other. It’s hoped that Moore’s involvement — along with his son — will bring some of the charm from his Saint to this new one.
Simon Templar (ST - the Saint) is a character who’s been described as a Robin Hood type, stealing from the rich and doing good deeds along the way, all the while being dogged by Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, the Interpol agent determined to catch Templar red-handed. For this new incarnation, they’re also casting Patricia Holm, a romantic interest/assistant, Patricia Holm, and an enemy-turned-partner in crime, Baldwin Aleppo.
At one point, Macdonald, Zamacona and the Moores interested TNT in The Saint as conceived, but they passed. Zamacona, who had his first writing job in the business on Homicide: Life on the Street, which Levinson and Fontana created, turned to them and they became attached to the project, too.
“One of the things we lost a little bit of in the movie but want to bring to the TV series is that Simon Templar is very funny character with great lines and situation humor, and I don’t think there is anybody better than Levinson to tackle that,” Macdonald said.
The Equalizer: Season One - DVD review
Did you know they’re making a big screen version of The Equalizer? It’s true, and it seems like a really bad idea to me.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the show (as you’ll see in my review after the jump) it’s just that this type of lone, ex-spy hero bit has been done to death in the past 20 years, and there’s nothing really special about it anymore. And like all big screen versions of a TV show, it’s not only going to miss the boat by just being BIGGER than the show (big name stars, celebrity villains, explosions, explosion, explosions), it’s going to miss the point of what makes an audience love the original TV show in the first place. It’s not the plot or how they did the show, it’s that the show came at a certain time (in our lives and TV-wise), in a certain way, and it starred a certain person. Just look at the Charlie’s Angels movies or that horrid Beverly Hillbillies movie. It’s not that either of the original shows had original plots or any incredible innovation, it’s that they were of a time, the way we experienced them.
So I cringe when I hear there’s going to be a big screen Equalizer. Thank God we have the DVDs of the original.
This is actually one of those shows I thought would never come to DVD. It lasted a few seasons, but I thought it would be one of those “in the middle” shows: not short-lived enough to guarantee that there would be no DVD and not long-running enough to guarantee a definite release. But so many shows are being released now; I just hope this one sells enough that it makes Universal take notice and release the other three seasons.
Packaging: Nothing incredibly innovative, but that’s not an insult. Sometimes a DVD set is either overly intricate or overly flimsy. This is neither. There’s a plastic case that slips inside of an outside box, which has a picture of Edward Woodward and the skyline of New York City on the front. No booklet inside, but a lot of sets don’t have booklets.
Audio/Video: Both are quite good. It’s really nice to have Stewart Copeland’s music loud and in stereo. Surfing around the web, I’ve noticed that some people are saying that much of the original music that was used in the show is missing here, because they couldn’t get rights to the songs. Now, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen the show, so I’m not sure how many songs from that time period were used and in what episodes they might be missing from. If anyone has any concrete info on what songs are missing and from what episodes, please leave a comment below.
Extra Features: There’s only one commentary, and sadly, Woodward isn’t on it. It does have creator/producer Michael Sloane, and once you get past his constant explanations of what line was crucial to the entire plot of the series, it’s filled with some neat trivia. For example, CBS had no desire to cast Woodward in the role of Robert McCall (they wanted Robert Culp or maybe Ben Gazzara), but once they saw the test footage they jumped on board. There’s also an explanation of how some characters (such as McCall’s old agency buddy, played by Jerry Stiller!) didn’t return for the rest of the series.
It’s funny to see who guest starred on The Equalizer in its first season: Tony Shalhoub, Bradley Whitford, J.T. Walsh, David Alan Grier, Luis Guzman, Lori Petty, Esai Morales, William Zabka, Ed O’Neill, Christine Baranski, Charles S. Dutton, Kim Delaney, Patricia Richardson, even Adam Ant.
There is a good episode from the second season included in the set, “Beyond Control,” so that’s a nice bonus.
This set is a Godsend if you’re a fan of the show. Isn’t it great to be in a world where we can actually have The Equalizer on our shelves to watch over and over again, instead of having to wait for some local station or cable station to “buy” the series and start showing repeats?