China to Get Its Own Special Version of Iron Man 3

China to Get Its Own Special Version of <i>Iron Man 3</i>

With Iron Man 3 featuring multiple armors, is it a surprise that there'll also be more than one version of the movie itself in theaters this May?

Music Industry Reacts to Death of Producer Phil Ramone

Music Industry Reacts to Death of Producer Phil Ramone

Tony Bennett, John Legend, Josh Groban and many other artists paid tribute on social media.

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Legendary Music Producer Phil Ramone Dies at 79

Legendary Music Producer Phil Ramone Dies at 79

UPDATED: A former violin prodigy and expert engineer, he worked with Dylan, Sinatra, McCartney, Bennett, Charles, Streisand, Simon, Joel and Bacharach and spent more than 50 years in the business.

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Richard Griffiths Dies Following Heart Surgery

'Harry Potter' Actor Richard Griffiths Dies Following Heart Surgery

Daniel Radcliffe leads tributes to the English actor, who achieved cult status in the U.K. for his turn in the George Harrison-produced comedy classic, "Withnail and I."

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Prana to Acquire Rhythm & Hues

Prana to Acquire Rhythm & Hues

A court hearing on confirmation is scheduled for Friday.

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FX Announces New Network to Launch in September

FX Announces New Network to Launch in September

FXX will focus on a younger demo with renewed hits "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "The League" and "Legit" as well as a nightly installment of "Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell" moving from FX.

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Screenwriter, Former Academy President Fay Kanin Dies

Screenwriter, Former Academy President Fay Kanin Dies

UPDATE: She and her late husband, Michael, were a formidable Hollywood writing team, with credits including the delightful "Teacher's Pet."

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Matrix and Babylon 5 Creators to Make New Netflix Sci-Fi Series

Matrix and Babylon 5 Creators to Make New Netflix Sci-Fi Series

The Wachowskis are teaming up with Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski for Sense8, a new science-fiction series that'll debut on Netflix in 2014.

Untangling the Mad Men theme

Untangling the threads of the Mad Men theme

How’s this for tangled pop-culture roots: The theme song to a 1960s period piece originated as an instrumental on a hip-hop record from the mid-2000s. The primary sample from that instrumental, meanwhile, began its life as an easy-listening rendition of a French tune that became a pop standard shortly after the end of World War II. As such, RJD2’s “A Beautiful Mine” is the one thing that connects Edith Piaf, Enoch Light, Aceyalone, and Don Draper—that and the fact that three of those four weren’t born with those names. Appropriate for the history-remixing/reordering work of a DJ, it was the man otherwise known as Ramble John Krohn who connected these disparate threads, lifting the string intro ...

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R.I.P. Don Payne, writer for The Simpsons and Thor

R.I.P. Don Payne, writer for The Simpsons and Thor

Don Payne, a writer who penned both Thor movies, as well as many episodes of The Simpsons, has died. His longtime Simpsons associate Mike Scully broke the news on Twitter.

After working for many years on sitcoms such as Veronica's Closet and Men Behaving Badly, Payne, a longtime comics fan, co-wrote the screenplays for three comic-book movies—Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, Thor, and the upcoming Thor: The Dark World—as well as the superhero comedy, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. He also penned 16 episodes of The Simpsons, including "Thursdays With Abie," "Love, Springfieldian Style," and "Simpsons Christmas Stories." In 2005, Payne received a Writers Guild Award for his work on the episode "Fraudcast News." He served as a producer on the show since 2000, winning four Emmys for his work in that capacity.

Most recently, Payne had been working on the screenplay for Maximum Ride, the first ...

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Lena Dunham, Louis CK and Lorne Michaels Win Peabody Awards

Lena Dunham, Louis CK and Lorne Michaels Win Peabody Awards

HBO, ABC News and Univision also were named winners of the prestigious media honor.

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What Is a Daytime Emmy Worth?

What Is a Daytime Emmy Worth?

Once the redheaded stepchild of awards, the statuette has new relevance as morning and talk shows scramble for viewers and ad dollars.

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Microsoft Updates Core Windows 8 Productivity Apps: Mail, Calendar and People

Microsoft Updates Core Windows 8 Productivity Apps: Mail, Calendar and People

Microsoft is finally releasing an update for its built-in Mail, Calendar and People apps to make them more useful to Windows 8 and Windows RT users.

French 'Survivor' Season Canceled After Death of Contestant

French 'Survivor' Season Canceled After Death of Contestant

The 25-year-old died of cardiac arrest during a tug-of-war segment on the first day of filming in Cambodia.

 

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Game of Streams: HBO's Schizophrenic Relationship With the Internet

Game of Streams: HBO's Schizophrenic Relationship With the Internet

HBO's Game of Thrones has a strange relationship with the Internet, with a rabid online who have no legal way to stream the episodes. But recent comments by HBO CEO Richard Plepler may indicate a chance on the horizon.

FCC Head Julius Genachowski Confirms Departure to Staffers

FCC Head Julius Genachowski Confirms Departure to Staffers

The departure won't happen for weeks, but the Obama appointee earns praise from a fellow Republican commissioner at the agency.

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How FX's 'Legit' Became the Darling of the Disabled Community

How FX's 'Legit' Became the Darling of the Disabled Community

The comedy's creators worried its disabled characters might offend viewers, but found those portrayals have earned the show some of its fiercest fans.

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Netflix Resurrected Arrested Development. Next Up: Television Itself

Netflix Resurrected Arrested Development. Next Up: Television Itself

In the social media era, when reputation and buzz are everything, networks, advertisers, and new players like Netflix are taking bigger gambles on smaller shows and rising stars. Inside the new data-driven, hyper-social, actor-friendly rules of great television

HBO considering HBO GO for non-subscribers

HBO starting to think letting people without cable have access to HBO GO might be a good idea

After it was revealed last year that Game Of Thrones is far and away TV's most illegally downloaded series, most analysts came to one of two conclusions: 1) There are people downloading TV shows illegally and the cops are powerless to stop them, therefore we need to invent some sort of "RoboCop;" and 2) HBO should really find a way to make content available to those without premium cable subscriptions, now that viewers are increasingly turning to streaming services instead of overstuffed cable packages. At the time, HBO co-president Eric Kessler scoffed at such responses, characterizing the numbers of cable-free adopters as "minimal" and representative of temporary "macroeconomic" conditions, and not believing any "RoboCop" could ever replace old-fashioned Detroit police street smarts.

But HBO's chief executive Richard Plepler now seems to be coming around on at least one of those: He tells Reuters that the network is considering ...

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Jimmy Fallon is pretty much a done deal to take over The Tonight Show

Yeah, Jimmy Fallon is pretty much a done deal to take over The Tonight Show

All but confirming the weeks of rumors, The New York Times is now reporting that NBC has quietly made an offer to move Jimmy Fallon to The Tonight Show no later than fall 2014, a one-and-a-half-year transition that matches the pace of the retaliatory barbs Jay Leno is currently lobbing the network’s way. The news comes from The Late Shift and The War For Late Night writer Bill Carter, who admirably refrained from yelling, “Oh boy! New book!” in his passing along the news, citing several unnamed sources close to the situation.

Also backing Carter up is the fact that NBC has “quietly begun work on a new studio in its headquarters building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza as the home for the new Tonight show,” presumably using very quiet rubber hammers. So, the new Jimmy Fallon era would also mark a return for The Tonight Show to its former ...

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'Deep Throat' Star Harry Reams Dies at 65

'Deep Throat' Star Harry Reams Dies at 65

The legendary porn star lost a battle with pancreatic cancer after building a second life in real estate.

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Hyper-Realistic CGI Is Killing Photographers, Thrilling Product Designers

Hyper-Realistic CGI Is Killing Photographers, Thrilling Product Designers

Computer-generated images are moving out of theaters and onto store shelves and catalog pages, thanks to new software that makes it nearly impossible to distinguish the real from the photorealistic.

British Producer Tim Hampton Dies at 65

British Producer Tim Hampton Dies at 65

Tributes to the producer of Ridley Scott's "Legend," starring Tom Cruise, flood in from former Monty Python members Terry Jones and Michael Palin, Roman Polanski and others.

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'Digital Omnivores' Devouring Video on Tablets, Study Says

'Digital Omnivores' Devouring Video on Tablets, Study Says

Research firm Deloitte says 26 percent of the U.S. population over age 14 own a tablet, smartphone and laptop.

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Supreme Court Rules Against Entertainment Industry in Landmark Copyright Case

Supreme Court Rules Against Entertainment Industry in Landmark Copyright Case

Justice Stephen Breyer delivers majority opinion holding that the "first sale" doctrine applies to works bought overseas and resold in the United States.

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The Nielsen Family Is Dead

The Nielsen Family Is Dead

From Game of Thrones to the new Arrested Development, television is better than ever. And it's not just a lucky accident. Turns out that networks and advertisers are using all-new metrics to design hit shows. Under these new rules, Twitter feeds are as important as ratings, fresh ideas beat tired formulas, and niche stars can be as valuable as big names. Case in point: Mad Men and Community?s Alison Brie.

Why are VFX houses struggling?

Movie magic's finest/darkest hour?

Emily Rome: Why are VFX houses struggling at the same time their work drives Hollywood's biggest hits?

The letter from a school librarian that’s responsible for Francis Ford Coppola directing The Outsiders

The letter from a school librarian that’s responsible for Francis Ford Coppola directing The Outsiders

Last week, Letters Of Note compiled a series of correspondences from 1980 between an elementary school librarian and a Fred Roos, a hotshot Hollywood producer. Jo Ellen Misakian, the librarian, reached out to Francis Ford Coppola suggesting he adapt her school’s favorite book, The Outsiders. Shockingly, Misakian received a response from Roos that Letters Of Note wisely qualifies as “cautiously optimistic.” The letters chronicle the pitching process, and lead up to Coppola actually directing the film, keeping the school children updated along the way with a bevy of behind-the-scenes production notes.
It’s a very neat story that demonstrates the power of the organized fan’s opinion in the brutal Hollywood industry, which couldn ...

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VFX Artists to Hold 'Pi Day' Town Hall Meeting

VFX Artists to Hold 'Pi Day' Town Hall Meeting

Thursday's multi-city discussions aim to address the troubled visual effects business.

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Inside the Weird World of International Dubbing

Inside the Weird World of International Dubbing

How do you say "Argo f--- yourself" in 40 languages? With technology allowing for more seamless lip syncs, fewer hits are traveling with subtitles in a bid to boost foreign returns.

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MPTF Strike to Start Monday After Talks Stall

MPTF Strike to Start Monday After Talks Stall

The labor dispute concerns staffing levels, wage rates, proposed new health-insurance premiums and a proposed freeze of employees' existing pension plan.

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Netflix Social Shares Your Horrible Taste in Movies With Friends

Netflix Social Shares Your Horrible Taste in Movies With Friends

Sharing a wonderful film or television series with friends is a great way to spark a conversation. Netflix Social brings that sharing to Facebook, eliminating one more reason to talk face-to-face with friends.

On Wednesday Netflix began rolling out Netflix Social integration with Facebook for customers in the United States. The new service adds two sections ...

Vevo Launches 24-Hour Music Network for Web, Pay TV

Vevo Launches 24-Hour Music Network for Web, Pay TV

Vevo TV will target similar audiences as Viacom's MTV and VH1 and MSG's Fuse, with CEO Rio Caraeff targeting TV carriage deals by year's end.

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