Shigeru Miyamoto told The New York Times that he knows the Wii U is not exactly lighting the sales charts on fire right now, but he is confident on the system’s future.
“Certainly in the short term I would want to see it performing with probably a little more momentum. I think in the long term I’m not at a point where I’m concerned yet.”
If anything, Nintendo is known for their ability to keep support for their hardware going even through rough sales and Miyamoto still feels that the Wii U can be the entertainment hub of everyone’s living room.
“I think that the Wii U still has a long future. We really view it as being the ideal device that families are going to want to have connected to that screen in the living room that everyone is going to gather around and watch.”
I have no doubt that the Wii U will be around for a while no matter what the sales numbers look like. Nintendo only sold 57,000 Wii U’s in January and 80,000 in February, but there is still ample time to turn this around. E3 is right around the corner and they have promised that Smash Bros. and the new 3D Mario will be shown. I think Nintendo is a big price drop and a solid holiday list of games away from being back in the equation. Just look at the 3DS for example.
In some of the greatest stories written, a creator must kill his creation before it gets out of control. Thus is the story of the Bioshock movie. At a recent BAFTA event, Bioshock creator Ken Levine was blatantly honest about why audiences never got to take a cinematic trip into Rapture.
He decided to kill his own creation.
“Take Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, ‘if you want to kill it Ken, kill it’. And I killed it.”
This came about after Universal trimmed the budget from $200 million to $80 million and director Gore Verbinski left the project over the budget reduction. And why did the studio suddenly get cold feet and slash the budget by so much? Would you believe [amazon_link id=”B001FB55H6″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Watchmen[/amazon_link]?
“There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it. And what happened was – this is my theory – it’s a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a ‘hard-rated’ horror film – an R rated film with a lot of blood. Then The Watchmen came out – and I really liked The Watchmen – but it didn’t do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R rated $200 million film.”
I don’t blame Levine for wanting to keep the movie from beginning if he didn’t feel wholly comfortable with the direction it was heading. As far as Universal getting cold feet, I don’t blame the failure of Watchmen, I blame the comic fans who clamored for a big screen version of the greatest graphic novel ever written and didn’t go and give it the support it needed.
Does Game of Thrones have too much death, tits and incest for your liking? Is your version of drama a good night of One Tree Hill? Then you will definitely want to take a look at School of Thrones, a new web series that has just started on YouTube.
The family warfare mixes with class cliques with very CW-like results. I got a bit of a kick out of it as all the characters were introduced. They were quite clever with matching up the personas well with high school life. Episode 1 is below and Episode 2 will be out on March 17th.
One of the best things about [amazon_link id=”B001KVZ6HK” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]The Avengers[/amazon_link] becoming a massive hit last year is that more people than just nerd culture want to know what Joss Whedon thinks about other Hollywood features. And true to form, he does not mind giving his blatantly honest opinion about things.
Take Star Wars for instance. In a recent interview with Digital Spy, Whedon was asked about J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII and what he would do with the universe were he in the director’s chair.
“You know, I wouldn’t go back, I’d go forward. I would want to create characters that would resonate the way that they did. I mean not that I don’t want to see the new movies, I would be excited to, but I also feel like I would want to explore a very different part of that universe.”
Whedon also gave his thoughts on the supposed Han Solo standalone film in the works (spoiler: no).
I am of two minds with Episode VII. On one hand it would be a true nerd moment to see Luke, Han and Leia on the big screen again, but the Star Wars universe is a vast place and to have new characters take over and be fleshed out in a new trilogy could bring back some of that old Star Wars magic.
Or they could just cast Olivia Wilde and put her in a slave outfit for 90 minutes and I will be there at midnight throwing my money at the glass.
It’s March Madness time again and we all know what that means!! It’s Madden cover vote bracket time!!
Yeah, I know college basketball fans are wondering why football has to try and take attention away from the greatest playoff system going in sports and I am sure Roger Goodell would simply say, “It’s football, f*** you.”
ESPN.com has the 64 player bracket up and it is a fine list of legends and players from today for you to vote on and see who will grace the 25th anniversary cover of Madden NFL. Although I am not sure why Jake Delhomme is on the list. I was pretty sure I saw him working at a Zaxby’s last week.
When you go and cast your vote, just remember that even though there is a long list of quality players to choose from they left out the one quarterback that should be on the cover every year.
It seems like I do this every seven days so here we go again.
Another week, another sale on the Playstation Network. This week Ubisoft is offering over 30 games, each discounted up to 50% for PS Plus users. Regular member will get a 30% discount. There are some pretty good games on this list as well as some dogs so I will leave it up to your discerning eye to pick out which is which.
Hint: Michael Jackson: The Experience is not among the good.
Go and check out the full list of games and the other deals available to PS Plus member on the Official Playstation Blog.
Check out the Enterprise pulling a reverse Titanic in this new poster for Star Trek Into Darkness.
This looks to be from the beginning of the film where the Enterprise is hiding underwater so they remain unknown to a primitive culture keeping the Prime Directive intact and all that Star Trek jargon that you may not care about, but I do dammit.
Star Trek Into Darkness releases on May 17th.
In case you missed it over the weekend, here is the new trailer that shows a lot of action and new footage.
First things first. I know that crochet and knitting are not the exact same thing, but dammit I liked the title.
Will people’s creativity know no end? This Etsy seller from the UK has designed this crocheted Bane mask from The Dark Knight Rises and is selling them to the terrorist that likes to keep his breathing right and face warm.
I wish I could tell you how much they were, but I really don’t feel like doing a conversion of pounds to dollars. Feel free to break out your phone or, if you are holding onto the past, your Texas Instruments calculator and figure it out for yourself.
There are few directors that could be given $200 million by Disney to recreate the feel of a classic movie. Actually they gave Joseph Kosinski that to make Tron: Legacy, so maybe that money amount doesn’t mean what it used to. Sam Raimi is one of those directors that should be entrusted with that and it shows through in Oz: The Great and Powerful. Every penny is apparent on screen and even if the script or performances don’t break any new ground, it is a visual treat that should be enjoyed by anyone who remebers The Wizard of Oz fondly from their childhood.
If you are reading this review then I am assuming you have seen the classic film at least once and know the breakdown of what went on. Oz: The Great and Powerful begins much like Dorothy’s tale, in black and white. Oscar Riggs (James Franco) is a two bit magician in a traveling circus who has aspirations of great fame and wealth. He makes a quick escape from a strongman with a broken hearted sister in a hot aired balloon just as a tornado hits and he is whisked away to the colorful world of Oz. He soon meets Theodora (Mila Kunis), who tells him that he is the great wizard that the land of Oz has been waiting for to free them from the evils of the wicked witch.
Theodora’s sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) is in the Emerald City and does not believe so quickly that this stranger is who he says he is. Little known to everyone in Oz, Evanora is, in actuality, the wicked witch and has framed her sister Glinda (Michelle Williams) for killing their father. She convinces Oscar to hunt down and destroy Glinda so she can have Oz all to herself. Evanora uses her sister’s feelings for Oscar to transform her into the true wicked with that we all remember from the classic tale. And yet with all the green makeup and weird facial features Mila Kunis is still hot. I would just have to act like I was Capt. Kirk and have some fun times with a green chick, but maybe that is just me.
Oscar ends up learning the truth and teams with Glinda and the citizens of Oz to battle the two evil witches. Which of course means a battle at then end of the movie. Like Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman and Jack the Giant Slayer, it must end in a big fight at then end with sneaking and misdirection winning the day. It does feel a bit familiar. But not so much that it detracts from the overall feel of the movie.
Photo courtesy hollywoodreporter.com
Oz does hit a stretch at the beginning of the third act that makes you think they were simply trying to extend runtime and show as much pretty on the screen as they could. It really could have used about twenty minutes trimmed off of the length and things would have moved along at a much smoother pace.
Make no mistake, this movie is pretty. Sam Raimi is a very visual director and it shines through when you watch Oz. There were some scenes that I can only imagine how headache inducing the 3D would have been. All the childhood remembrances are there. The yellow brick road, the emerald castle, the poppy fields and yes, flying monkeys that should easily scare the sh** out of your child.
There is no way not to watch this and not compare it to 2010’s Alice in Wonderland with one exception, I believe Oz holds up a bit better. That is to say that the performances in Alice (anchored by Johnny Depp) were superior to this, but the inner child hiding underneath all this bearded fury is more connected to the land of Oz from all the multiple viewings of The Wizard of Oz than Alice’s adventure. The look and familiarity of the world is much easier for me to connect with. Some people are cheshire cat people and some are munchkin all the way and I do love some midgets.
Look, if you are expecting Oz to be a movie that you remember ten years from now then you may be in for disappointment. Go into this with no expectations and you may be pleasantly surprised by it. It looks stunning on the big screen and while the main characters won’t exactly win any awards, all of the look, feel and imagination of the land of Oz is still there.
Like I said, it’s all familiar and sometimes that is not a bad thing.
A nice weekend surprise happened today when a new teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness went online. It shows a lot of footage from the nine minutes shown in theaters this past fall in front of The Hobbit mixed in with more new footage. They manage to fit a whole lot into a minute an seventeen seconds.
