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(Source: The Hollywood Reporter) Universal has won a four-studio bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game “Asteroids,” says The Hollywood Reporter. Matthew Lopez will write the script for the feature adaptation, which will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
In “Asteroids,” initially released as an arcade game in 1979, a player controlled a triangular space ship in an asteroid field. You can play an unofficial version of the game below!
Universal is also developing movies based on Hasbro board game properties such as “Battleship,” “Candyland,” “Ouija,” “Monopoly” and “Clue.”
(Source: techradar.com) Fed up with the amount of abysmal CGI effects abounding in our movies, games and on TV, our colleagues over at 3D World have put together a list of the very worst.
So we’ve nabbed some of the list and brought it to you here for your amusement. But before we go any further – no, the awful ice-sea-surfing bit from Die Another Day isn’t here. Truly the worst Bond moment ever perhaps, but it falls into insignificance up against this tomfoolery. Any other nasty CGI suggestions? Add them in the comments.
1. Star Wars trilogy Special Editions
Woody Allen has said he never rewatches his films once they’re finished. If only George Lucas could take the hint… Lucas’ pillage of his once-treasured heritage saw the addition of incongruous, unnecessary and (infamously) plot-changing CG, to the betterment of nothing much and the baffled rage of countless fanboys. And that was only the beginning.
(Source: connecticutplus.com) Governor M. Jodi Rell today announced that students at the University of Connecticut and Wesleyan University will benefit from state-of-the-art animation computers donated by Greenwich-based Blue Sky Studios, the creator of a number of award-winning digital animation features, including the Ice Age series.
Blue Sky, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox Filmed Entertainment, relocated to Connecticut from New York in January, bringing with it more than 300 jobs. The company, which continues to expand, said it was attracted to Connecticut because of the state’s efforts to promote the film industry.
Owners of more recent Macs with fast video cards were given an extra speed advantage on Monday with a new set of Adobe Creative Suite 4 plugins.
The suite includes four plugins from third parties and centers on Elemental Accelerator 1.2, a video processing add-on. Those using Mac Pros with a Quadro FX 4800 video card can use the general-purpose computing feature of these graphics chipsets to accelerate video encoding for H.264-formatted videos well beyond what would be possible with the processor alone. NVIDIA estimates that the task can run 11 times faster than it would without the plugin.
(Source: news.awn.com) Dr. Ed Catmull, President, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, has been selected by the VES Board of Directors as the recipient of the “2010 Georges Melies Award.” The award will be presented at the 8th Annual VES Awards, which will be held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles on February 28, 2010.
(Source: latimes.com) Warner Bros. has emerged as the only bidder for Midway Games Inc., all but assuring that it will take control of the bankrupt video game publisher previously owned by Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone and become a major force in the video game industry.
Midway had hoped that the film studio’s $33-million offer, made in late May, would spark a bidding war that would boost its price. A Chicago investment group and several game publishers kicked the publisher’s tires, according to a source familiar with the discussions, but none pulled the trigger.
(Source: MarinIJ) In today’s terrible economic times, it is rare to hear of any employer seeking to grow his business. George Lucas’ readiness to complete the final phase of the master plan for Lucasfilm, Ltd. – which was approved in 1996 – is a welcome counterpoint to the news of layoffs and businesses leaving Marin.
Lucas’ desire to execute this final phase of the plan is truly a vote of confidence for Marin County’s sustainability.
Instead of criticizing the design of a private complex, we should be applauding the benefits it will bring to our community.
(Source: AnimationGuildBlog) Here’s the way the visual effects industry goes:
1) Big Fat Conglomerate puts most of the work on its new, $200 million effects-laden blockbuster out for bid.
2) Effects houses from far and wide bid on the project, busily low-balling one another.
3) BFC picks the cheapest price among the houses, gives a few high-end “money shots” to a prestigious effects studio in San Francisco, and hands off wire removal and other mundane chores to Mumbai, India (which is even cheaper!)
(Source: realfilmcareer.com) A sweetening of the film and television tax credits in the province of Quebec has yet to cause a stir in British Columbia, as the industry here will monitor the impact the move will have on this province’s fortunes.
In fact, the changes in Quebec could actually bolster one segment in B.C. — the visual effects industry.
On June 12, the Quebec government changed the tax credit for foreign production companies shooting in the province from 25 per cent of labour costs to 25 per cent of total budget expenses in the province. This means that an American studio could write off not only one-quarter of wages paid to Quebec workers, but also one-quarter of other costs incurred in the province, including studio rental, equipment acquisitions and rentals, building materials, software and catering.