Cult Classic Remake Planned by MTV

Did you ever dress like Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Eddie or Janet and yell funny lines (to you, anyway) at a midnight screening of “Rocky Horror Picture Show?” Well, tens of thousands did.

Every weekend, in towns across America and around the world.
In a move that will either delight or appall its notoriously dedicated fanbase, MTV has decided to redo the 1975 cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” as a made-for-TV film spanning two hours, Variety reported Wednesday. The same gender-bending screenplay, co-written by original cast member Richard O’Brien, will be used, though a little wiggle room will be allowed for added musical numbers.

The first movie, initially a financial flop, has aired continuously in movie theaters around the world since its initial release, earning nearly $140 million and attracting scores of costumed and vocal enthusiasts to special midnight screenings, where amateur performers often mimic the onscreen action and audience props are abundant.

Based on the stage musical of the same name, the 23-year-old motion picture followed two straight-laced fiancés, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, as they became stranded at a remote gothic castle and were taken prisoner and subjected to sexual debauchery by the building’s inhabitants: a transsexual alien bent on world domination, his bevy of twisted servants and his genetically engineered, muscle-bound sex slave. It starred Barry Bostwick, Tim Curry, Meatloaf and Susan Sarandon.

There hasn’t been any word as to the newer feature’s casting (or release date), though the movie’s subject material makes it unlikely the usual set of stars familiar to the youth-oriented cable network’s primary viewers (e.g., Zac Efron or Ashley Tisdale) would be considered.
MTV has already been doling out a bit of milder sexual decadence...

David Duchovny happy to be back as Mulder

After waiting six years, Duchovny returns in film based on the popular TV series

I thought I would fall back into Mulder very naturally, but at first playing the character felt a little odd,” says ‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe’ star David Duchovny. “I didn’t want to make any drastic changes in the way I played Mulder because the character is so well-known. But of course I’m older now, and so is Mulder, so some things had to change.”

The film reunites series stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson under the direction of series creator Chris Carter, who co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Spotnitz. ‘The X-Files 2’ encountered delays. Carter and Fox fought a court battle over royalties from re-runs of the television series, then the WGA writers strike hit.

“I’d say David was as responsible as anyone for getting this movie made,” says ‘The X-Files 2’ director Chris Carter. “He campaigned for it. He wanted to do it. David was really the key cheerleader in sustaining our interest in doing another film.”

David Duchovny says that presenting Mulder and Scully as they are today was a critical decision. “It was important to allow time to go on in the world of The X-Files as it’s gone on in the world at large,” says Duchovny. “I think one of the most interesting things we do as actors is to try and embody the same character as time goes by, working with the changes of life or consciousness that happen to us with time.”

“I think the reason The X-Files series was so successful was that Chris imagined a beautiful universe, perfectly devised,” says ‘The X-Files 2’ screenwriter Frank Spotnitz. “He created two very powerful characters, perfectly cast, with opposing views of the world, one a believer, the other a skeptic. Mulder and Scully dealt with the limits of what we understand about life and about the universe. It really is an incredibly rich and diverse universe, and an endless source of storytelling. I think the voice of this movie is still very clearly the voice that Chris defined in the series pilot, sixteen years ago.”

Duchovny has wanted to return to Fox Mulder and The X-Files since the show ended its long run in 2002. “I always felt that The X-Files as a movie franchise had real life in it,” says Duchovny. ‘The X-Files’ television series aired from 1993 to 2002. It won five Golden Globes. When Fox released the first ‘The X-Files’ movie in 1998, it grossed $187 million worldwide. For its first five seasons the televisies shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, before moving to Los Angeles. ‘The X-Files 2’ was filmed in Vancouver.

Release Date: July 25th, 2008 (USA)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material
Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Earthquake Rocks Hollywood, Disneyland Evacuated

5.8 magnitude earthquake shakes studios

Angelenos were stirred but not shaken by a 5.8 magnitude earthquake at 11:42:15 PST today. The quake had an epicenter 4.4 miles southeast of Diamond Bar, California. Diamond Bar, located 27 miles east of Los Angeles, is known for being the home town of rapper Snoop Dog.

Disneyland rides were evacuated, according to KABC. There are no initial reports of damages. The quake shook Irvine and was felt in San Diego.

Data Source: U.S. Geological Survey

Suspicious 9 Story Fall Death

Cover girl Ruslana Kazakhstani dead after fall from Manhattan apartment building

The life of successful fashion model Ruslana Korshunova was cut short Saturday afternoon after the young Kazakhstani fell from the balcony of her apartment in Lower Manhattan to the pavement below. According to an anonymous police source cited by local newspaper Newsday, Korshunova’s death, which occurred just four days before her 21st birthday, was being treated as a suicide.

It isn’t always psychologically easy for models who are suddenly flush with money and attention at a very young age. Drugs and a decadent lifestyle are always a temptation. Yet there was construction underway on the balcony which could mean it was accidental. And a cut in the temporary netting could indicate something more nefarious.

Korshunova dropped from the ninth floor of the Water Street building, which was under construction, at approximately 2:30 p.m. According to the New York Post, there was a gap (apparently cut) in the construction netting covering the balcony. Additionally, both publications reported that police found no obvious signs of struggle inside the model’s home.

Korshunova, who was represented in New York by IMG Models, had previously appeared on the covers of major magazines, including international versions of Elle and Vogue, and had done extensive work for a variety of major designers, including Vera Wang and Libertine.

‘Harry Potter’ Actor Stabbed to Death

Robert Knox killed in senseless act of violence outside bar

“Harry Potter” fans were forced to deal with somber news Saturday, when young actor Robert Knox, who will appear as Hogwarts student Marcus Belby in this fall’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” was stabbed to death outside a London bar.

“We are all shocked and saddened by this news, and at this time our sympathies are with his family,” read a statement released by Warner Bros., the film’s distributor.

The 18-year-old was defending his younger brother in an early-morning argument with the 21-year-old suspect outside southwest London’s Metro, according to U.K.-based Web site Times Online. Paramedics attempted to revive Knox at the scene, but were unsuccessful. He was later pronounced dead at nearby Queen Elizabeth hospital.

Principal filming on the penultimate “Potter” film (third-to-last, if the two-part “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is counted twice) finished just days earlier on May 17. The movie was the native Londoner’s first big-screen feature, Knox having appeared twice before on English television.

“Iron Man’ Downey Says ‘I’m Back’

“I’m making a hell of a comeback,” says Robert Downey, Jr. who has the starring role in the Paramount’s summer tentpole, ‘Iron Man’. “What I’m loving lately is hearing that Iron Man was always a second-tier superhero…operative word, was,”

Downey met with director Jon Favreau at Marvel. “In the hallway on the way out I’m looking these posters films they have that have done fairly well,” says Downey. “I’m thinking, this could be cool. I said, Jon, I think I’m really the guy for this role. He says, I think you’d be perfect, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I said, well I think it’s going to happen. Let me know if it comes down to a screen test or something. It would be a pleasure. And, that’s how it went down.”

“The hardest part was trusting that all this gack and gear was going to balance out with how we do the acting,” says Downey. “It was $165 million, or something like that, that was going to go down the tubes if we didn’t try to make something entertaining. My feeling about when I’m working is it’s an athletic endeavor. I’m trying to make or beat a time. The hardest part of this is it was a really big science project.” That was the mental part. The other challenge was physical.

“It was a physically demanding part,” says Downey. “I figured, if I was going to look like I could be in shape, I might as well do it before I’m too old to have it be feasible. Sometimes you just train in order to be able to survive what you’re going to have to do on the job.”

“The coolest for me was John and I at the end of a 12-hour day got into some cars in Seoul, Korea, went out to the military base and did an impromptu screening for the soldiers and some of their kids,” says Downey. “That was something else! That really gave us a shot in the ass.”

“I think that mythology and science are practically the same thing these days,” says Downey. “We’re getting on the plane to come here and it says Popular Mechanics ‘The Real Iron Man’ and it’s talking about these Raytheon super-soldier things that they’re building. They say that by 2020 we’ll have these things.”

Downey compares his comeback to Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco. “There’s this tank of crabs and you pick them out,” says Downey. “Every once and a while this crab will flit to the top like it’s going to get out. Every time one of them gets to the top, one of the other crabs will pull him back down. So, you’ve got to try to get out of the tank.”

‘Iron Man’Rating: PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content

Distributor: Paramount

Running Time: 2 hours, 6 minutes

Release Date: May 2, 2008 (wide)

CSI Star Arrested Long List of Drugs

Perhaps not content with a common DUI like other actors, CSI’s Gary Dourdan arrested for crack, smack, X and more...

In a scene reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson’s famous “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas” and his bag full of mixed drugs, CSI star Gary Dourdan was arrested for a remarkable slew of substances after being found “slumped unconscious” in his car upon leaving the Coachella Music festival.

Police found substances believed to be crack cocaine, heroin and ecstasy in the vehicle and various prescription-only drugs, said by police to be “a virtual pharmacy’s worth of prescription and illegal drugs” as well as “items relating to drugs.”

The 41-year-old was held after being found “asleep” or “unconscious” according to police was found in a parked car in Palm Springs, California.

The Palm Springs PD said the actor was busted at approximately 5:12 a.m. when officers approached his vehicle and found him “asleep” or “unconscious” in the vehicle’s drivers seat, “parked on the wrong side of the road with the interior lights still on” according to the police report.

The actor - whose character, Warrick Brown, has battled an addiction to pills on the crime drama was taken into custody at the scene and booked at the Palm Springs jail for possession of narcotics and possession of dangerous drugs. He was held for several hours and ultimately released at 10:30 a.m. on $5,000 bail.

The arresting officer described Dourdan (identified on his California driver’s license as Robert Gary Durdin) as “disoriented” and appearing to be under the influence of either drugs or alcohol.
Earlier this month, CBS and Dourdan confirmed he would not be renewing his contract or returning as the pill-popping Warrick Brown on the smash crime procedural after the show’s May 15 finale.

Perhaps he was looking for the escaped giant floating Pink Floyd Pig that was accidentally released or did he merely stop to “top off” and then pass out?