jjabrams
Latest
I'm not paying CBS to watch 'Star Trek' online
Yesterday I got the best birthday present a lifelong Trekkie could hope for: Star Trek is coming back to television -- kinda, sorta. It's been over a decade since Star Trek ended TV production and, while fans have had two successful films to enjoy (or despise), corporate infighting between CBS and Viacom has kept the franchise from its rightful home on the small screen. However, it looks like the two companies have hugged it out with the news that a new Star Trek series will return to "television" in early 2017. And while this would normally be cause for celebration among Trekkies, the announcement doesn't come without a few caveats in terms of who's making it and how it's being distributed: The show will be produced by the team in charge of the recent films, and it will only be available via CBS' subscription streaming service, CBS All Access. It's a bit of a no-win situation (a Kobayashi Maru scenario, if you will) for die-hard fans who wanted to see Star Trek back on television. Star Trek may be back, but it comes at a cost: both figurative and literal.
Valve and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot made 'Team Fortress 2' football
Back when Valve and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot production company announced a partnership involving games and film projects it came as a complete surprise. That theme continues with the duo's first collaboration: a mode for Team Fortress 2 combining soccer, hockey and basketball dubbed "PASS Time." It's only in beta as of now (a concept that Bad Robot found immensely intriguing, apparently) though. The official game description is as follows: "RED and BLU face off in an epic battle to score more goals than their opponents. Coordinated passing, aerial shots, interceptions, team-based formations and plays, defensive lines and the like make for strategically chaotic play."
Hulu working on original series from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams
The extreme popularity of shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black means streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu are making an even bigger push for original content. Accordingly, Hulu today announced that it has given the green light to start production on 11/22/63, an original series based on the novel by renowned author Stephen King, who is also listed as a producer alongside J.J. Abrams. Hulu's newly introduced show, which will be done in collaboration with Warner Bros., is a thriller/love story that focuses on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Basically, as expressed in the image above, a character tries to change the outcome of the events which took place on that day, November 22nd, 1963. Whether it'll be worth watching is yet to be determined, but this shows Hulu isn't ready to let Netflix have all the fun when it comes to creating new programming.
Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan want to save the future of movies on film
The movie industry has seen its share of struggles as we transition into a digital future, and likely no one has felt the pinch more than film company Kodak. The struggling outfit is getting a life-raft, though, in the form of several studios committing to buy a set amount of celluloid per year regardless of if any of their movies are even made using film. As The Wall Street Journal tells it, directors J.J. Abrams, Judd Apatow, Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino -- all who've professed their love for celluloid quite publicly -- were part of the lobbying council for the business deal. Why? Because they adore the look and feel of working with the physical format. Nolan's Interstellar and Abrams' upcoming Star Wars are both being shot on film, but for better or worse, though, these filmmakers are a dying breed.
Now you too can watch Valve's Gabe Newell and Bad Robots' J.J. Abrams talk about storytelling
For some reason or another, Valve head Gabe Newell and Bad Robot head J.J. Abrams' DICE 2013 keynote wasn't available via livestream or on Variety's YouTube channel last week. We're guessing it's because they're both such nice gents that they wanted to give everyone else some time in the spotlight first. Good show! That politeness period, however, is now over, as the 20-minute talk on storytelling -- which features examples from both Newell's and Abrams' work, as well as their influences -- went up today on YouTube. We've dropped it below the break for all to see. If you're anxious to get to the part where the two discuss plans to work together on movie and video game projects going forward, we'd suggest skipping to the last five minutes. Or you could read our post about it right here, should the other option be currently implausible from the cubicle you're in.
Valve working with J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot on game and movie collaborations
Filmmaker J.J. Abrams (Cloverfield, Star Trek) and game creator Gabe Newell (Half-Life, Portal) just announced they'll be working together on creating movies and games, via their respective companies, Bad Robot Productions and Valve Software. "We sort of reached the point where we decided that we needed to do more than talk," Newell said of the partnership. The two were speaking at the DICE 2013 conference in Las Vegas, addressing "Storytelling Across Platforms: Who Benefits Most, the Audience or the Player?" After a half hour of speaking about storytelling in their respective mediums, Newell announced that the presentation came from an ongoing conversation between the two about storytelling. Today's news is the fruition of that conversation, with the two taking action. Newell specifically said that J.J.'s team could craft a Half-Life or Portal film -- something we've heard about in the past, albeit not with Abrams attached -- and Abrams said that Valve could help create a game with Bad Robot. Interesting indeed! Of course, the two have their jobs cut out for them -- Abrams is currently working on both the Star Trek and Star Wars movie franchises, and Valve's got a new hardware initiative set to debut this year.
Lucasfilm postpones Star Wars Episode II and III 3D, focusing on Abrams-directed Episode VII
While Lucasfilm originally planned to bring Star Wars Episode II and III back to theaters in 3D this fall, it's just announced that will not happen. In a statement posted on the official site, it says "we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on Star Wars: Episode VII." Lucasfilm is now owned by Disney, which just announced last week that J.J. Abrams (director of Star Trek and creator of TV series including Lost and Fringe) would direct the seventh installment, which is scheduled to hit theaters in 2015. The original trilogy was also reportedly on deck for 3D rerelease, but there's no word yet whether we'll see those again before Episode VII, just a promise to post "further information" at a later date.
