Showbiz Sandbox 429: Remembering the Genius of Stan Lee
November 13, 2018
In a career that spanned over six decades, Stan Lee became one of the most influential creators and publishers of comics that ever worked in the medium. He helped build Marvel Comics by creating dozens of superheroes including most notably Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and X-Men. Geoff Boucher, the new genre editor at Deadline Hollywood, joins us to discuss how Lee’s enduring work has heavily influenced the modern pop culture landscape.
Boucher also tells us how he got the exclusive story on Fox’s plans to release a PG-13 version of “Deadpool 2” in the midst of the holiday season. You might be interested to hear how this led to the kidnapping of actor Fred Savage, best known for his role in “The Wonder Years”.
Meanwhile a team from China just won the 2018 “League of Legends” World Championship. Though 110 million people in China play the game, it’s the first time the country has ever captured one of the most prestigious prizes in e-sports.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including how we’re headed toward a record year at the North American box office, why Fox News is chastising some of its hosts and pay TV loses over one million subscribers in the third quarter.
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Showbiz Sandbox 165: Neil Young Sings The Praises Of His New Digital Music Format
October 1, 2012
Singer-songwriter Neil Young has never been a fan of digital music. The rock legend despises the inferior audio quality of MP3s and CDs so much that he released an anthology of his of his music on Blu-Ray; the only medium that could hold digital files large enough to offer the quality Young demanded. Taking his quest for high fidelity one step further, next year Young will launch Pono, a portable music player and audio platform that uses technology to provide studio quality sound.
Time will tell whether high quality digital audio and Young’s notoriety will be enough to attract consumers to Pono, though the Beatles aren’t waiting around to find out. EMI is releasing the bands entire catalog of albums on vinyl LPs. Remember those? Now all we need is a phonograph to play them on.
Meanwhile the movie awards season has begun to heat up leaving pundits speculating whether Disney might have not one, but three, entries in this year’s Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars; “Brave”, “Frankenweenie” and “Wreck It Ralph”. How ironic that Seth MacFarlane, creator of the hit animated television series “The Family Guy”, has been tapped to host this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
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