a christmas carol
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Apple's first TV+ holiday special will star Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds
If Apple TV+ is going to take Netflix and streaming rivals head-on, it's going to need a key weapon in its arsenal: star-laden holiday specials. And sure enough, its first special appears to be on the way. Hollywood Reporter sources say Apple is finalizing a deal to acquire a musical reinterpretation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. This might not be a cinematic masterpiece when it's directed by the team behind the Daddy's Home movies (also starring Will Ferrell). However, Apple was reportedly very interested -- tipsters said it "moved aggressively" on the production.
The Road to Mordor: Figgy pudding
For those of us who celebrate the holidays, right now is an insanely busy time of the year. There are presents to be wrapped, eggnog to be nogged, and looks of annoyance to be thrown at the radio when the music station decides to play that Do They Know It's Christmas? song for the sixth time that hour. It also means that winter holidays are hitting most major MMOs, including our beloved Lord of the Rings Online. This year, the Yule Festival is marked by the addition of a whole new area -- Winter-home -- and players are already neck-deep in the quests, snowball fights and theatrical hilarity. Turbine's done a spectacular job this year infusing a lot more life and fun into the festivals, from the shrew stomping this past spring to the Haunted Burrow this fall. Winter-home is, in many ways, a perfect capstone to a terrific year for the game, and it's a pretty enjoyable event from what I've seen so far. So grab that cute Hobbit or Dwarf and join me as we travel to the merriment of Winter-home this week!
Hyperspace Beacon: Homage to we hope this never makes it into SWTOR, but knowing our luck, it probably will
One of the best compliments you can give a creator is to make an homage to his work. The title of one of the Hyperspace Beacons was an homage to TOROCast articles. It's a way to tell the creator, "You're doing a good job. Keep up the good work." Not to mention, homages are a lot of fun. In fact, my first published work was an homage to the work of Charles Dickens. I wrote a story about what happened to the Cratchit children. But what happens when an homage goes too far? Every once in a while, the Hyperspace Beacon takes a side track and asks about ideas that should end up on the cutting room floor. We all know games have concepts that just don't work. Star Wars: The Old Republic will be no exception. This little humorous segment is called We hope this never makes it into SWTOR, but knowing our luck, it probably will -- or WHTNMIISWTORBKOLIPW, for short. Follow me after the break to see what "homageneous" ideas should never make it into the release of SWTOR, but knowing our luck, they will anyway.
Disney's A Christmas Carol Blu-ray 3D box art -- and $50 srp -- revealed
Disney announced its first Blu-ray 3D disc Disney's A Christmas Carol would arrive in the fourth quarter during CES, but now TheHDRoom has box art for what will be a 4-disc combo pack including a 3D edition, 2D Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy. "Scrooge's Wild Ride" is exclusive to the 3D version, but both will have a 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack. The only bad news is a $49.99 srp for the pack, so we hope you really, really liked Jim Carrey's take on Scrooge -- the 2D Blu-ray version has a $39.99 srp.
Broken Sword creator designed Disney's Christmas Carol game
Unlike Dante's Inferno, there's a very good chance that the new game based on (Robert Zemeckis's upcoming movie version of) Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol won't make us want to go back in time and apologize to the original work's author on behalf of the industry we love so much. The main reason: it's designed by Revolution Software's Charles Cecil, best known for his work on Broken Sword. Cecil's experience with smart adventure games means that this new game is unlikely to turn Ebenezer Scrooge into a musclebound avenger who tears apart the ghosts invading his home. "The approach I took was to place the player as the hand of fate," Cecil told Develop about the Sumo Digital-developed game, "guiding a very willful protagonist down the road to redemption, and he doesn't want to down that road at all. Players have to interact with people and the environment to make that happen, and it tells the story in really different way. I'm very happy with it." We never thought we'd find a licensed Disney game about Christmas so interesting! Another different way this story is being told: with Cecil's own narration. He did some placeholder voice work, and "the Americans" insisted that it remain in the final game. Though Cecil didn't specify platforms, a game based on A Christmas Carol is set to come out on DS on November 3, just before the November 3 release of the film.
