The Simpsons Headed to That Big Couch Gag in the Sky?

If you talk to any Simpsons fan, you're never going to get a definitive answer to that question we've all pondered, "When did you realize it was going stale?" For me, it dates back to November 18, 2001.

I was, and remain, a devoted fan of the rock band R.E.M. and you couldn’t find a more excited person to hear the news Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills would be animated into yellow-skinned, Simpsonized caricatures shooting the shit with Homer. Then the episode, titled "Homer the Moe," aired and despite my initial reaction to friends saying how I liked it, I was in denial.

It was just another "Moe wants to change" episode and the alternative rock band got shoe-horned into the last ten minutes concluding with them and the Simpsons clan enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with environmentally-friendly tofu-Turkey. Jesus, what happened to the show we all quoted right after the end credits rolled? After that, I tuned it out with the occasional viewing out of curiosity (the "Oh what the Hell?" watch, as I call it) with no-better results. The irony isn't lost on me two weeks after the afore-mentioned rock-band announced their retirement (and it coming up on ten years since that awful episode first aired) that we bring you this news.

First broken by the Daily Beast, the pioneering animated sitcom looks like it will shut its doors for good effective next May in lieu of salary-disputes between the cast and 20^th Century Fox. Neither side is budging in their demands. Fox is calling for their salaries to be reduced from $8 million to $4 million a year while the cast is willing to take the smaller checks-that-are-still-more-than-you-or-I-will-ever-earn if they can get a piece of the back-end.

Not the first time the two parties butted heads over money. You may remember them from such disputes as 1998 on the eve of the show's then landmark 200^th episode, 2004 when the actors didn't show up for several table-reads and 2008 when negotiations caused such a ruckus that particular season produced less episodes due to the downtime.

Even if there is a settlement (The actors have until Friday at noon to agree or reject the new proposed deal), The Wrap says the twenty-fourth season would be its season thanks to the high-cost of production (If you've seen any episode in the last few years, the animation’s quality has matched that of The Simpsons Movie from 2007), the above-mentioned salaries of the cast and ratings, which was a long way from its glory-days of being Fox's flagship show.

You know, it's like my feelings on George Lucas and his OCD tinkering with the Star Wars trilogy. I'll always have those classic Simpsons episodes to enjoy (I have the first thirteen seasons on DVD and watch them frequently) and it will forever be in syndication. As long as we all have those shows readily available to watch, laugh and quote, then fine put it out of its misery.

New War Horse Trailer Grabs Your Heart Just Like the First One

The last time I can recall people getting emotionally-connected to a non-human character in the lead of a major motion picture was Wall-E. You take one look at that little robot and your heart melts, and that all came from the design of his eyes. Steven Spielberg confessed that was the secret to his success with E.T. to the late great Gene Siskel.

Looking at the first trailer for War Horse, you see that all over and that trend continues with the latest trailer. Not too much of a difference with this second go-around of selling the WWI-set drama. It has same the layout, same John Williams-score playing, simply more dialogue and some of the footage we saw from the initial trailer is re-arranged and the same result at the end.

Which is me getting misty-eyed watching it.

Oh Yeah...That Looks Like Russell Crowe as Superman's Dad

It wasn't out of any spite that I didn't initially cover Nuke the Fridge's scoop of just how Russell Crowe would appear as Jor-El, the wise, but royally fucked, father of Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El in Zack Snyder's The Man of Steel. I believed them. I think most did because it sounded too plausible. I was just bitten by the "My day job is killing me and I don't give a shit about movie-news right now!" bug that particular day.

Oh, here the site's exact description:

"Jor-El is wearing a goldish/white armored suit that looks almost like the one in the video game Halo. The suit has the traditional 'S' is the middle of his chest and it blends in with the color scheme of the suit. Jor-EL looks more like a soldier than a scientist.

Crowe’s head is completely exposed and HE LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE STAR WARS EPISODE 2's Obi-Wan with the beard and hair. The only difference is that Crowe's hair looks darker. If I didn’t know that Crowe was cast for the part I would have sworn it was Ewan McGregor."

The celeb-stalkers over the Daily Mail grabbed a nice, juicy picture of Crowe (who appears to be following in the tradition of Marlon Brando with a slight gut poking) in costume on the set, now lensing up in Vancouver. That looks pretty much like what they described and check out that sick-looking cape.

Universal Already Thinking Long-Term with Fast & Furious Franchise

They've had many a financial misstep, but Universal knows it has one sure-fire money-printing machine in The Fast & the Furious franchise. Add an extra 0 or two at the end of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker's already-handsomely paid checks, highlight the latest slick vehicles on the market and let Justin Lin concoct crazy action set-pieces and they're good to go at the box-office.

The studio is ramping up for Fast Six as the centerpiece of their 2013 summer line-up handing it a prime Memorial Day release date. But Twitchfilm reports like any smart set of fat-cat executives, the decision-makers at Universal are already thinking past Movie #6.

Their spies are telling them one idea being toyed with is having Lin and the gang shoot Fast Six and a Fast Seven back-to-back next year when production begins in Europe. Furthermore continuing the trend of getting established action-stars to the Fast brand-name (following how well Dwayne Johnson turned out in Fast Five) a new name has been bantered about to join the franchise: Jason Statham.

Not that these plans are 100% locked, mind you. Talks between Universal and Statham's people are in "preliminary conversations" (i.e. getting a feel of his interest level) and it isn’t known if the hypothetical plan would entail him being in both films or having him appear a la Eve Mendes and Michelle Rodriquez at the tail end of Fast Five as the sequel setup/hook to get the audiences game for the next one.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol IMAX Poster Promises Spider-Cruise

Let it not be said we didn't know Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was sporting IMAX action with the highlight being a set-piece of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) climbing the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world located in Dubai. They've made that very clear in all the marketing so far.

In case you didn't see the "Meh" trailer, this new IMAX poster (courtesy of Yahoo! Movies via Coming Soon since it was a pain-in-the-ass to get an embed file from the former) reminds you the most famous IMF agent in the world is hanging from yet another high altitude location.

Guess Who Was Supposed to Croak in Rise of the Apes?

No, not the franchise since Rupert Wyatt shocked everyone and directed a quality prequel (Very few can make that claim!) to the Planet of the Apes series and not the general public since they made Rise of the Apes into the surprise hit of this past summer.

Via THR, Ted Gagliano, big-cheese of post-production at 20^th Century Fox, relayed a story during a panel this weekend about a last-minute decision on Apes that caused a frantic scrambling to get new shots rendered in lieu of its August 5^th release – remember it got moved to Thanksgiving 2011 for awhile there. James Franco's character of Will Rodman originally took a dirt nap at the end. Funny they admit that because a lot of us got the impression he wasn't going to make it in those trailers and it was a real surprise to see him still rocking a pulse when the credits rolled.

If you're curious to know how the scene played out and don't want to wait for the DVD/Blu-Ray (which Gagliano confesses will be there and speaks frankly on the subject of how deleted footage is a big selling point for the home market), The Playlist has the script-pages. I won't cut-and-paste them here but needless to say you can see how this would trigger Caesar (Andy Serkis) into screaming, "Fuck all humans!" and wiping out the race.

Where it stands now, it's not a given Franco will return for the inevitable Rise of the Apes sequel. Certainly, it'd be a nice payday for the actor since his days of being Tobey Maguire's onscreen BFF are long over. Were he included, I feel like his only purpose would, in fact, be to die...and they already passed that up the first time.

J.J. Abrams Manages to Squeeze Billy Ray into His Mystery Box

Hearing J.J. Abrams has sold a pitch to Paramount isn't a surprise. He pumped adrenaline into the heart of a dead property (Star Trek) and off that success turned a "One for me..." pet project into a commercial hit (Super 8). In between he convinced the studio to make Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol with Tom Cruise firmly secured in the lead still. I can't prove it but I get the impression Abrams, and his power at the studio post-Trek, made that happen more than anything else after the public fallout between Cruise and Viacom big-cheese Sumner Redstone.

So when Abrams walks into the top executives' offices and spit-balls ideas for another genre adventure film, they're going to buy it for no other reason than it came from him. Been there, done that, yes the man has a lot of projects on his slate from a producing stand-point in addition to his (recent) official commitment to helm Star Trek 2.

What makes this any different?

According to "TOLDJA," because the screenwriter onboard for the "mystery adventure" project is the great Billy Ray, writer/director behind Shattered Glass and Breach (both recommended viewing) as well as screenwriter on State of Play (which I liked despite some miscasting and it not being the BBC mini-series) and The Hunger Games, the latter may be a gravy-train hit that'll put his grandkids through college.

As per usual with Abrams, who the Hell knows what it's about. But it's an intriguing enough combo to strike my curiosity.

"Arrested Development Movie is Happening We Swear!" Update #223452 - But This Time with a Mini-Season!

"Everything that is old is new again" as the saying goes and nothing applies better than the arrested development of the Arrested Development movie and how the Internet, every six months or so when another non-news quote gets dropped by creator Mitchell Hurwitz or someone from the cast (usually Jason Bateman or Will Arnett with rare occasions from David Cross or Jeffrey Tambor) about how this time it’s "really going to happen this time we swear sometime next year!", suffers from Alzheimer's and reports the same bullshit we've heard numerous times before. Followed by absolutely nothing happening - rinse, lather and repeat.

In what at first glimpse looks like them filling their non-news quote quota, Hurwitz and the entire cast reunited at the New Yorker Festival and guess what? They said the movie was happening. Who didn't see that coming? But there's a twist. The plan involves a mini-season comprising of nine-or-ten episodes following each member of the Bluth family and their whereabouts since the series-finale that would transition into the movie. All of this would go down sometime in early 2013.

That's a Hell of a plan. If we hadn't already heard claims that never came to be, the optimistic Arrested Development fan in me would out-weight the questionable "Is this really a good idea?" fan in me. But again, we’ve heard this all before.

Subsequent news dropped, courtesy of EW, that Showtime (who tried to save the series back in 2006 to no success) and Netflix (in a move that would turn their bad-press around in the geek circles) are in talks with 20^th Century Fox to take the reign on the mini-season four.

Talked to a reliable buddy of mine who reassures that this time it's for real. It's not that I doubt him. But once again, we've been in this place with this property and these claims from Hurwitz and the actors before. I'll believe it when I see it.

WB Aiming High for Twilight Zone Director

Anthology films are a tough nut to crack. The reason they fail is the lack of a singular voice in charge. The formula of hiring several directors, letting them run off with their individual teams, making their short individual films and gluing them all together into a two-hour feature doesn't work.

Its with that we can all agree no matter if this sees the light of day or it does and still doesn't turn out as hoped, Warner Brothers has learned from that mistake made by Twilight Zone: the Movie from 1983.

The studio wants one director to tell one story for their new Twilight Zone movie (that for some reason is untitled – who the Hell are we kidding, it's going to be called The Twilight Zone) being produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Variety says their short-list for helmers is comprised of Michael Bay, Alfonso Cuaron, Christopher Nolan and Rupert Wyatt.

With his status as their Pope, it's no surprise the trades' source say Nolan is the front-runner and the still-hot-off Rise of the Apes Wyatt is deemed the dark-horse. Although I have to say, Nolan is the least interesting choice because one could already imagine how he'd do a Twilight Zone movie. No offense, bud. Michael Bay is actually the intriguing in that group. If you're going to make me guess, I'd say Wyatt wins due to his being the most economic choice. Translation: he's the cheapest.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, let's see if this moves forward and doesn't stall in development Hell. Plus none of these guys could get the job at the end of the day. We'll see.

Rooney Mara May Continue "Female Lead with Issues" Trend with Oldboy Remake

It's a point we've made here at TMT towards Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds and Sam Worthington. But it just as much applies to Rooney Mara.

After The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opens in three months, you're going to hear two possible things said about her from your family, friends and co-workers who see the David Fincher-directed, Daniel Craig-co-starring thriller. Either "Oh my God, I love her!" or "Who?"

If the reception to the film and her performance is the former, then it's all about the next step she takes with that success. Beyond her commitment to playing Lisbeth Salander again, that'll leave an open space (depending on how quickly Sony wants The Girl Who Played with Fire) to make an impression with John & Jane Doe Movie-Goer and show she can play more than her iconic, career-making role and avoid the dreaded trap-falls of type-casting. Like I said...it's something we've harped on multiple times about a number of actors.

Twitch says one such project that could serve that agenda is Spike Lee's American remake of Oldboy with Josh Brolin in the lead. Word from their sources (and before anyone starts mouthing off to their detriment, they were the guys who broke that both Lee and Brolin were up for it – thus adding legitimacy to this news-item) is Mara's name has been bantered about for the female lead and if you've seen the 2003 Korean film then the phrase "Oh boy..." comes to mind.

It would most definitely be a different kind of part compared to Salander but continue to show Mara can go to dark places as an actor.