Tag: Ben Fritz

It may be the largest entertainment production in history. More than 800 people on four continents have spent six years and nearly $200 million creating it. The story runs 1,600 hours, with hundreds of additional hours still being written. Nearly 1,000 actors have recorded dialogue for 4,000 characters in three languages. The narrative is so huge that writers created a 1,000-page “bible” to keep the details straight, and the director recently asked a colleague not to spoil moments he hadn’t yet seen. It’s not a movie or a TV series. It’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, the most expensive, ambitious and riskiest video game ever produced. Created out of a 60,000-square-foot converted warehouse next to a cooking school on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, the Old Republic is proof that while box-office, network TV ratings and music sales are slumping, ...

The week before Christmas was a big one for J.J. Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, with the wide release of “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.” which quickly gave Bad Robot the bragging rights to the biggest hit of the holiday season. But the week was also notable for another landmark: Bad Robot is now in the iPhone app business. The app is called Action Movie FX and it gives users the ability to insert special effects into any video they take with Apple’s smartphone. The two effects included with the app are a missile attack and car smash, allowing anyone to get all Michael Bay on unsuspecting family members, sleeping pets or the guy who cut them off on the 405 Freeway. In an e-mail interview, Abrams called Action Movie FX the first of a “slew” of “cool projects” that his ...

Kevin Tancharoen didn’t originally intend for the world to see his “Mortal Kombat” work. The 27-year-old director of “Fame” and “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” made an eight-minute video last year called “Mortal Kombat: Rebirth” that featured a new, grittier setting and origins for characters from the 19-year-old video game fighting series. His intention was to show the short to executives at Warner Bros. and its label New Line Cinema and demonstrate  that despite his background in choreography and directing the unsuccessful 2009 remake of “Fame,” he was the right choice to bring Mortal Kombat back to the big screen after a 14-year absence. However, a YouTube snafu resulted in “Rebirth” being posted publicly on the site, where it garnered millions of views thanks in part to supportive tweets from celebrities such as “The Guild” creator Felicia Day, who, like ...

Video game fans love to debate whether their favorite game could be turned into a movie, but Dan Trachtenberg went out and did it. The 30-year-old commercial director and aspiring feature filmmaker made “Portal: No Escape,” a seven-minute movie inspired by the critically acclaimed video game series from Valve Software that features a woman trapped in test chambers that she must escape using a gun that can create entries and exits on any surface. (While Valve was not approached before the shoot, the company has posted the video on its Facebook page). Trachtenberg shot the movie a year and a half ago for just a few thousand dollars (plus an invaluable amount of free labor) and finished the effects a few weeks ago. The final version hit the Internet last Tuesday and has already racked up more than 5.7 million views on YouTube alone ...

DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio was at a comic-book store in New Jersey when he noticed something alarming. Over the course of an hour, only two customers came in. And, this was a Saturday — the busiest day of the week for most retailers. “The walk-in, casual fans have gotten away from us,” DiDio observed. “We are down to just the die-hard buyers.” Comic-book stores have become increasingly barren, with sales dropping consistently over the last three years and down an additional 7% so far in 2011. Theories abound as to why. Some blame convoluted story lines, while others point to cynical publicity stunts like killing key characters only to bring them back a few months later. But the main culprit more likely lies beyond the page: Today’s youth is far more interested in spending its leisure hours in the ...

Green Lantern may have a future on the big screen, but likely not with the same director. Despite the big-budget superhero movie’s disappointing box office performance so far, Warner Bros. executives still want to find a way to make a sequel work. Bringing superheroes from its DC Comics unit to the big screen is a top priority for the studio, and executives believe that the problem with “Green Lantern” was in execution, not concept. They even have ideas on how to turn things around next time. “We had a decent opening so we learned there is an audience,” said Warner Bros. film group President Jeff Robinov, pointing to the film’s box office debut of $53 million. “To go forward we need to make it a little edgier and darker with more emphasis on action…. And we have to find a ...

Hogwarts vs. Gotham City? Harry Potter and Batman fans will never find out who would beat whom on the battlefield, but the young wizard has proved himself dominant at the box office with the biggest global opening weekend in film history. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2″ raked in just over $169 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada, according to a final tally Monday morning by Warner Bros. That’s significantly more than the previous record for the biggest-ever weekend at the North American box office, set by “The Dark Knight” three years ago with $158.6 million. The David Yates-directed fantasy film also set a record for the biggest international opening with a massive $309-million take in 59 foreign markets. And that’s with China still yet to come. Call it magic or chalk it up to the ...

Let’s face it, the Personal Access Display Devices (PADDs), those tablet computers that Geordi LaForge and Dr. Beverly Crusher were always carrying around on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” were essentially Starfleet-issued iPads.  Actually, they weren’t even as tricked out as the iPad – no video chat, no 3G (because they were always handing them around) and by all appearances, not a single game, despite the obvious need for Angry Romulan Birds of Prey  during slow shifts down in engineering. So it only makes sense that CBS Interactive is launching an app today that essentially turns an iPad into a PADD. The PADD app features an interface that’s an exact reproduction of the LCARS interface used on the various “Star Trek” series. But instead of transmitting data and order for Starfleet officers, it features tons of information from the shows, including aliens, ships, technologies and episode guides. ...

Today’s box office is ruled by tricky tides — pricey tickets, especially for 3-D and Imax screenings make historical comparisons a slippery business — which is why “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” can described as a record success (the film scored the biggest international opening of all time with $256 million in theaters beyond the U.S. and Canada) and also a bit of a disappointment (it fell short of the domestic opening weekend performance of the second and third “Pirates” films). To make sense of it all, we turn to Ben Fritz of The Times’ Company Town blog, who goes into the numbers: Captain Jack Sparrow no longer rules the high seas at domestic movie theaters, but took home record-breaking booty overseas with the biggest international opening of all time.  ”Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” debuted to $90.1 million in ...

For people who have played video games the way Aaron Staton has, L.A. Noire will be something very, very different. The actor best known for his role as Ken Cosgrove in “Mad Men” says when he plays video games, he sticks to the most popular fare: “I played a lot of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto games. The only one I got near completing was Vice City.” Like most popular video games, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City features a lot of shooting. It’s one of the few game-play techniques – along with racing, fighting, and platform jumping – that designers have truly mastered and gamers have shown they love. But in L.A. Noire, which stars Staton and hits stores Tuesday, players do something very different: They interrogate. Australian development studio Team Bondi spent 82 days working with Staton and ...