Suicide, Star Trek Trailer, Del Toro's Pinocchio

PAULA Abdul is so freaked out by the suicide of her stalker in front of her Beverly Hills home last week, a friend of the "American Idol" judge says she won’t go back to the "haunted house" even after hiring "healers" to cleanse the house of ghosts. "[Paula Goodspeed] was a deranged stalker who sent her death threats. Paula instructed guards to keep Goodspeed away from her at all costs," said a source. "She refuses to stay at home because she fears that the spirit of Goodspeed is haunting her house. She feels like this is the absolute worst omen, a really bad curse . . . Paula is suffering. It is well known that she is emotionally fragile." A rep for Abdul said, "There’s no validity to this. She’s been home since the incident happened. There’s no issue with spirits. Paula is shocked and saddened by what transpired. Her heart and prayers go out to the Goodspeed family."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11172008/gossip/pagesix/paula_haunted_by_suicide_139048.htm

Online Star Trek Trailer HD quality

It’s been a long time coming, and there have been grainy pretenders online all weekend, but the moment you’ve been waiting for is finally here: the Star Trek trailer is online, and it’s every bit as thrilling as we’d hoped. This is our first official glimpse of Chris Pine’s James Tiberius Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock and their crew in action, and it promises to stay true to the canon as well as being action-packed. Look out for the first lines we’ve heard from Simon Pegg’s Scotty and Karl Urban’s Bones, as well as Eric Bana’s villain getting his sinister on.

Watch the HD version

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=23687

Del Toro Plans to Direct Pinocchio

Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro is in talks with puppeteers at the Jim Henson Co. to take fairytale Pinocchio to the big screen. The Mexican filmmaker plans to add a dark spin to the children’s story, and is working on a screenplay with Gris Grimly, who illustrated a 2002 animated version of Pinocchio. During an interview with Bloodydisgusting.com, Del Toro reveals he expects the project to take three years to complete. If it reaches the big screen, Del Toro will have gone one better than director Francis Ford Coppola, whose attempt to make a Pinocchio movie in the 1990s ended in a messy legal battle with Warner Bros.

Harry Potter Trailer, Heroes Schedule

New Harry Potter Trailer


They may have pushed the release date from now-ish to next year, but Warners have not left us without some compensation: check out the new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince here.

A few things are immediately clear from this: first of all, the timeline's all over the place, with the scenes in nothing like chronological order. Secondly, Jim Broadbent looks to have nailed the slightly creepy Professor Slughorn. Thirdly, given that the book's throwaway reference to a destroyed bridge appears to have been turned into a graphic attack by Death Eaters on the Millenium Bridge, we'll be looking at alternative routes from St Pauls to the Tate Modern for the next few days.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is out on July 17 next year.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=23674

Heroes TV-Schedule

The third season of Heroes has garnered its fair share of criticism, but NBC is doing everything they can to get the show back on track. Ratings have fallen, critics have sharpened their claws, and everyone is looking to Heroes to reclaim its season 1 glory. Now that the series has let go of two longtime producers, it looks like the show will be undergoing some serious changes. Creator Tim Kring has promised that volume 4 of the series, which begins in February of 2009, will be a major departure for the drama.

http://www.buddytv.com/articles/heroes/nbc-releases-heroes-airing-sch-10531.aspx

Simon Pegg Talks Paul and ouglas Buck’s Broken Imago teaser on-line

More details about Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s forthcoming self-written comedy Paul were announced this week – most mouthwatering of all the revelation that the title character, who accompanies Pegg and Frost’s Brit geeks across America, is actually an alien.

But we weren’t satisfied with that, so we got Pegg on the blower and jabbed him repeatedly with pointed and probing questions, like some demented movie Paxman, until he spilled more beans.

“I’m very, very excited about it. I think it’s a bigger film than probably Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz put together,” he said, before emphasising, “but it’s very much not the third one in the cycle. That’s reserved for when Edgar and I write together.”

That film, provisionally titled World’s End, is in the works, but Pegg is currently focused on Paul, which will start shooting next April in New Mexico, with Greg Mottola on board as director.

“I was a huge fan of Daytrippers, not to mention Superbad,” said Pegg, who’s been working on the idea with Frost for almost five years. “That’s why Greg sprang to mind, because he’s got a great indie sensibility. We like the idea of combining a high concept with a more lo-fi indie feeling and offsetting the look of the film against this remarkable central character.”

Pegg and Frost will play Graham and Clive, respectively – two British geeks on a pilgrimage to the San Diego Comic-Con. “They’re not the most confident guys in the world - Nick’s character is perhaps slightly more confident than mine, but they occupy the position of geek, you know?” said Pegg. “And their world is about to get a whole lot bigger.”

Cue the title character, who the two friends pick up while travelling across the Midwest in a hired RV. “He’s not your average alien,” teased Pegg of Paul.

At the moment, though, it’s not clear whether Paul will be an entirely CG character. “We’re figuring it out at the moment and having real fun, working closely with Double Negative who did Shaun and Hot Fuzz and Cloverfield and Hellboy II,” added Pegg.

“We’re looking to really work to find the best way to do it and to create something which is utterly believable and sympathetic and has gravity and presence and is somebody that you totally buy. He’s the eponymous hero, so he has to be amazing.”

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=23658



Scripted by Buck, whose previous credits include the FAMILY PORTRAITS trilogy of short shockers and the SISTERS remake, and currently in development under Metaluna produces Fabrice Lambot and Jean-Pierre Putters, THE BROKEN IMAGO is an ecological horror film in which nature strikes back against mankind by unleashing a virus that disfigures its victims. The story is set on a remote island where the residents of a Catholic boarding school discover that only the adults are dying—and (as seen in the very creepy teaser) the environment has the local children on its side. We’ll keep you posted on any further developments regarding this ambitious project.

Douglas Buck’s BROKEN IMAGO teaser on-line

Ex-HBO Boss Love and New Watchmen Trailer

IT might almost be over between former HBO original programming president Chris Albrecht and his fiancée, Karla Jensen. An insider told Page Six, "They broke up like two weeks ago. She moved out of the house and he is already trying to be set up with other women. He's out of a job and bored - what else is he going to do?" Albrecht left HBO last year after he was arrested in Las Vegas for choking Jensen following a boxing match. While Jensen refused to press charges, Albrecht pleaded no contest to battery charges. He then headed over to IMG as head of media development. He was let go in August, only one year into his three-year deal. A friend of Albrecht said, "They're still dating. Karla is living in a separate house, and they're in couple's counseling together. Albrecht himself told us, "We've had our difficulties and are trying to work things out."



The theatrical trailer for Watchmen is online at last, and it gives us the best taster of how the film will play to date. Opening, as does the novel, with the murder of the Comedian, we see all the action high-points touched upon - and there are even a few hints this time that it's actually quite a talky plot.

Click here to watch the theatrical Watchmen trailer.

The interesting thing about this trailer (OK, the geeky thing) is that our group of retired costumed heroes refer to themselves as "Watchmen" - a change from the book, where the group is barely named but, if it was, would be the Crimebusters. Still, if it helps the title make sense to the uninitiated, that's no bad thing. Look out too for the first real interplay we've seen between Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and Silk Spectre (Malin Ackerman), and the first dialogue from Ozymandias (Matthew Goode).