Showbiz Sandbox 52: Recruiting Sandra Bullock’s Baby
May 3, 2010
Things could have gone better this past week for the hosts of Showbiz Sandbox. J. Sperling Reich couldn’t connect to the Internet, Michael Giltz was almost washed away by a flood in Nashville, Tennessee and Karen Woodward showed up at her 20-year high school reunion only to find out that her high school crush was happily married. Thankfully there was plenty of entertainment news to discuss.
The remake of “A Nightmare On Elm Street” topped the box office, scooping up $32.2 million in North America, more than the first, second, fifth and seventh installments of the original franchise. “How To Train Your Dragon” continues to perform strongly and came in second. Oversees “Iron Man 2” opened to just over $100 million in 53 territories. The only question now is how much money will it make in North America, and will poor advance reviews affect the gross. (Don’t bet on it).
Lots of big names broke their silence this week. Director Roman Polansky blogged about being arrested in Switzerland. NBC programming chief Jeff Gaspin, told the New York Times Conan O’Brien was no longer a problem or a threat to his late-night lineup since he’s moving to cable. O’Brien gave his first televised interview since departing “The Tonight Show” to “60 Minutes”. Actress Sandra Bullock gave an exclusive to People magazine about her personal life and the adoption of her son. Read more
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Showbiz Sandbox 13: Hooliganism At Comic-Con (Or Lack Thereof)
July 28, 2009
We had a plethora of panelists this week, all of whom were in San Diego over the weekend to experience Comic-Con first hand. KPBS’ Cinema Junkie blogger Beth Accomando covered the event for National Public Radio, Todd Gilchrist was there for Cinematical, SciFi Wire‘s news editor Patrick Lee made the trip, as did Phillip Nakov from MovieSet.com and Harry Medved, who helped out with Fandango’s coverage of the event as their director of public relations. Also joining in on this week’s fun is New York Daily News writer and Huffington Post blogger, Michael Giltz.
If you weren’t one of the 126,000 people attending Comic-Con, this episode will fill you in on what you missed. There was whole day devoted to 3D movies, which apparently isn’t just a gimmick anymore. The big hits of Comic-Con were “District 9”, “Avatar”, “Kick Ass” and “Iron Man 2” and the biggest miss was Roland Emerich’s next movie “2012” which is either so bad it’s good, or so bad it’s just plain bad. Irrelevant whether it wowed people at the convention or not was “Twilight: New Moon”, because fans just wanted to see Robert Pattinson . Hundreds of young girls, their moms and a bunch of sensitive men camped out overnight to get into a jam packed “Twilight” panel. The festival was “the redemption of “New Moon” director Chris Weitz, who was clearly adored by his cast. It was definitely the panel with the most security.
This year marked the first appearance by Tim Burton (as a presenter), Peter Jackson and Terry Gilliam. Johnny Depp stopped by to say two words (literally) in promotion of Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Read more
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