Alec Baldwin Isn't Going Anywhere
The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: Alec Baldwin is staying at NBC, so is Mariska Hargitay, and another Disney ride becomes a Disney movie.
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The Television Critics Association tour, which is the semiannual tradition of TV executives going around and making television journalists feel special, was happening today and it was NBC's turn to face the firing squad. (They fire questions about TV shows.) Aside from the Community news non-news, the big headline from the meeting/conference/orgy is that Alec Baldwin will, despite some rumors to the contrary, be returning to 30 Rock next season — that is if the show comes back at all, which isn't guaranteed but seems reasonably likely. So that's a sigh of relief for some folks probably. Us? We love 30 Rock but also think it's just about run its course. Why drag a good thing out? Oh because it gives hundreds of people jobs and earns a smaller amount of people millions of dollars? Oh, well, carry on then. [Vulture]
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While we're on the topic of actors staying on long-running shows, Mariska Hargitay will in fact be on her popular rape and murder show Law & Order: SVU past this season, which was supposed to be her last. (Chris Meloni left after last year, and actually rescued the show in the process.) Why is she staying on? Well, other than her gargantuan paycheck? She says, "I can’t leave this show, I’m having too much fun." Hm. Uh... Obviously she means with the cast and crew and whatever, but it is a show about the horrible rapes and/or murders of hundreds of men, women, and children, so... "fun" is something of an odd word choice. Oh well, it's futile to complain. You put one gay hook up on the television and everyone's writing gooopy articles about it, but oh something like a thousand molestings and stabbings and vodka-up-the-butt-ings (it happened) and we don't even blink an eye. We live in the new dark ages, probably. And Mariska's living like a queen. [Deadline]
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So Disney is making a movie out of the Disneyland ride Matterhorn (the original rollercoaster, for which the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is the DisneyWorld counterpart), because why the hell not, might as well make a movie out of every ride in the park. Heck, make a movie out of the bathroom line and the churro stand! Go nuts! Anyway, they've just hired a music video director named Brian Beletic to direct the movie, so it's moving along. And just what is this picture about? Well, let's let this description do all the talking:
In the pic, the explorers, each with a specific skill set, are brought to the remote backcountry of the Pennine Alps, where the Matterhorn is located, under various guises for a trek across one of the planet's remaining untouched realms, skiing, snowboarding and mountaineering as they encounter some of the world's most beautiful, but also perilous environments. In the face of life-threatening mountain conditions, they unravel the truth about one another, as well as why they were brought there, and ultimately uncover a mountain secret that may cost them their lives while facing off against a covert organization with a long, yet secret history of global exploration.
Yuppppp. So it's a ski movie meets Cliffhanger meets Alaska meets The Westing Game. Sounds bizarre! And probably awful. But oh well. Probably a bajillion people will see it and then after that we'll have one of the Hemsworth boys in Mad Teacups ("In a world where spinning is king and throwing up is sport..."), and then there will be Adventures in Goofy Parking Lot Section 5, and then we'll all be dead so it won't really matter what happens next. Keep on keepin' on, Disney! [Variety]
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Oh good grief. Tiresome circus act James Franco is in talks to star in a movie based on tiresome novelty act Neil Strauss's book The Game, which is about how to pick up ladies. Franco wouldn't be playing Strauss, though. He'd be playing Mystery, the behatted "pick-up artist" who had his own show for a while there. Ugh, this is all just... Just no. Please don't make this. We don't want to read or hear anything else about this, thank you. OK. [THR]
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Here's a trailer for an upcoming horror movie called Silent House starring newbie Elizabeth Olsen. It's about what happens when a full house becomes a silent house and all that's left is Uncle Joey wandering around in his bathroom, quietly weeping, as he makes final preparations to do himself in. Oh wait, wrong house, wrong Olsen. This one is about some sort of murderer or ghost or murderer ghost terrorizing a father and daughter over 88 agonizing minutes. Sounds like fun! Another fun thing is playing spot the trailer cliche with this one. We'll start you off with two: the photo-taking sound from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre trailer and the discordantly lovely and thus eerie music played over scenes of bad things, a la the Battle: Los Angeles trailer.
And here's a trailer for the Oscars, starring all of your favorites like Josh Duhamel and Megan Fox, two actors who absolutely scream Oscars. We get that that's kind of the joke, that they're in Transformers and all that ridiculous stuff so haha, but also c'mon. It's the Oscars. Let's have a little respect, huh? OK, that's it. Friday grumpiness over. Enjoy!
