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A funny thing happened while I looked for ’90s shows that could use a modern reboot. I got stuck in the 2000s when some of my favorite shows aired, and I realized that every show I wanted to be rebooted was in the genre category.

If you know me, that probably isn’t much of a surprise, but the sheer volume of genre shows that were created and failed to take hold is surprising even to me, who watched them. And the casts? Some of the best.

In my mind, the key to a modern reboot is that the shows need to have received short shrift in some way, whether the timing was all wrong or the show never lived up to its premise. Today’s genre shows that have succeeded could be storytelling models for reboots. Here are the shows that fit that bill.

Defying Gravity (2009) (ABC/Screenshot)

The...

The first thing you need to know about the new Paramount+ drama Mayor of Kingstown is that it is not a spinoff, reboot, or in any other way tied to Mare of Easttown, despite the two shows having sound-alike names. It’s the most confusing bit of series nomenclature since NCIS launched while CSI was still on the air, or perhaps going back to when ABC and CBS debuted dramas called Once and Again and Now And Again in the same season. Then again, maybe the echoing title is helpful.

Ronald L. Schwary, who won the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People,” died on July 2 in West Hollywood, Calif. He was 76.

Schwary, an Oregon native, had broken into the entertainment business through his friendship with John Wayne while working as a manager of the USC football team. Wayne assisted Schwary in getting work as a stand-in for Dustin Hoffman on “The Graduate” and as an extra in “Planet of the Apes.”

Schwary also became a DGA Trainee, which led to the start of his career as an assistant

director in the early 1970s. He began working with Jerry Lewis, Elvis, Peter Fonda, Ann-Margret, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau and eventually became a production

manager with the assistance of director Bob Butler, and producer Ray Stark.

Schwary was hired by Redford as the sole producer on “Ordinary People” after Schwary had worked as an associate...

Ronald L. Schwary, Oscar-winning producer of Robert Redford’s 1980 drama “Ordinary People,” died on July 2 at age 76, his family announced.

He was forced into retirement in 2015 due to a rare neurological autonomic disorder that he had been struggling with. His death was due to complications of his disorder. He passed away peacefully surrounded by his sons.

Schwary’s extensive career as a producer took off in 1978 after serving as an associate producer on the film adaptation of the Neil Simon play “California Suite,” starring Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and many others. That same year, he also served as associate producer and production manager for the Sydney Pollack-directed film “The Electric Horseman,” starring Fonda and Robert Redford.

Also Read: Bettina Gilois, 'McFarland USA' and 'Bessie' Screenwriter, Dies at 58

The following year, Redford hired Schwary as the sole producer for his directorial debut, “Ordinary People.” That film...

Marin Hinkle‘s TV career first began in 1995 when she appeared on the NBC soap opera “Another World.” She has done guest spots on everything from “Law & Order” to “Army Wives.” She had recurring roles as Sela Ward‘s free-spirited bookstore owner sister Judy Brooks on “Now and Again” for three seasons and as Jon Cryer‘s spiteful ex-wife Judith Harper-Melnick for 12 seasons on the sitcom “Two and a Half Men.”

But Hinkle hit the streaming jackpot by being cast on the first season of Amazon’s highly binge-able “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” as 50s-era Upper West Side matron Rose Weissman. She is aghast to learn that her only daughter, Miriam aka Midge aka Mrs. Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan), and her husband of four years, Joel (Michael Zegen), have decided to part ways after he takes up with a secretary at work. Soon Midge and her toddler son and infant...

Twenty-nine years ago, Yes lead singer Jon Anderson abandoned a half-finished solo album called Uzlot that he’d been been recording in Big Bear, California, with his bandmates Chris Squire and Alan White. Yes were gearing up for a massive reunion tour and he simply put the master tapes in his garage and gave them very little thought as the years started racing by. But just a couple of years ago, producer Michael Franklin reached out to Anderson to see if he’d let him take the tapes and finish the album.

“Now and again I like an easy job – and this is an easy job.” That was sports entrepreneur and general all-round business genius Barry Hearn talking in 2010 after being appointed chairman of the World Snooker Association (Wsa). Many thought he’d gone bonkers to take the job on at the time – even his close friend and former protege Steve Davis expressed his doubts live on the BBC – such was the slump in popularity the game had experienced. Fast forward to the present, and how is the “job” – to restore snooker back to something like its former glory – going? With another world championship at the Crucible Theatre looming, let’s take a look.

When Hearn took over, the game was still very much in the doldrums. Attendances were poor, save for the real prestige tournaments on the calendar, prize money had dried up somewhat and general interest levels were a shadow...

Brendon Connelly Apr 7, 2017

The voice of Daddy Pig, Richard Ridings, chats to us about the character, Terry Gilliam, Roger Rabbit and more..

Don't tell anyone under the age of nine, but Richard Ridings is the man who gives voice to Peppa's very own Daddy Pig. That's right, he's not a real pig.

See related Broadchurch series 3 episode 6 review Broadchurch series 3 episode 5 review Broadchurch series 3 episode 4 review

Ridings' is a beautifully well-judged performance; just one of a number on his varied resume. I was delighted to chat with him recently about the new Peppa Pig cinematic experience, while also making time to speak a little about Who Framed Roger Rabbit, his motion capture work with Andy Serkis and Ninja Theory and, best of all, the after-dinner exorcism of Terry Gilliam.

How much of a time commitment has it been for you, so far, for all of the Peppa Pig to date?...

Rose Leslie’s Good Wife spinoff character comes from some quality stock.

Bernadette Peters (Smash) and Paul Guilfoyle (CSI) have joined the upcoming series as Lenore and Henry, the parents of Diane’s goddaughter Maia (Leslie) , our sister site Deadline reports.

VideosGood Wife‘s Josh Charles Makes the Legal Case for Hillary Clinton — Video

Lenore has a working-class background and is a financial genius. Henry is a financial advisor who has done very well for himself — thanks, in large part, to Lenore’s help in expanding their family’s private investment firm — and who is adored by many. The family...

Tania Lambert shoots a Toyota Tvc.

If speaks to cinematographers Anna Howard, Tania Lambert, Katie Milwright, Mandy Walker, Bonnie Elliott, Emma Paine, Velinda Wardell, Sky Davies and Ashley Barron about rising up the ranks, the gender gap and the DPs that inspire them.

No woman has ever won the Oscar for best cinematography. In fact, no woman has ever been nominated. In Australia, Abs statistics to 2011 put the percentage of female directors of photography at around 6 percent. Were you aware of the gender divide at the beginning of your career?

Lambert: I was keenly aware of the gender imbalance in the camera department when I first started as a camera assistant. It didn.t bother me a huge deal, but I felt I had to work extra hard to be respected in that role. There were only a few female camera assistants I knew of and one female Dop, Anna Howard,...

Rhys Darby is keeping busy. When IndieWire got the New Zealander on the phone, he was in Vancouver filming an unspecified role in the upcoming series adaptation of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” It was a project he described as “amazing,” even compared to other large-scale productions he’s been a part of, like the recent revival of “The X-Files.”

Read More: ‘Wrecked’ Trailer: TBS Launches Comedy Series ‘Lost’ Spoof, Toplined By Rhys Darby

“It’s a Netflix show, so no money spared,” he said. “There’s absolute attention to detail on these huge sets — I walk into them and I think, ‘Wow, is this all real?’ And of course, it’s not, but it’s huge. I haven’t really done anything quite like it. It’s like being in a big Hollywood fantasy film.”

Before that, though, Darby was in Puerto Rico to film the TBS comedy “Wrecked,...

Jamie Andrew Oct 18, 2016

Do the films that scared us in our youth, from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Blair Witch Project - still get under the skin?

Spoilers for each of the movies mentioned in the assorted subheads lie within

Are scary movies as scary as they used to be? Did the movies that scared you as a child still scare you when you watched them as an adult?

As a very young child, my fear-reflex was helped along by my older cousins, who used to lock me in a room with films like The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist playing through a too-high-to-reach television. It was like being trapped in a PG version of Saw: “Want to play a game? Find a way to reach the VHS player and stop the Poltergeist tape before the clown pops out from under the bed, or be left with life-long phobias and mental instability.

Universal Pictures

Just because you’re a great actor it doesn’t mean you can’t make a bad movie.

Now and again, it’s going to happen, but “great” actors are usually defined by their vast and brilliant filmographies – a few duds, sure, but we can let them off. What you don’t tend to do, however, is associate a “great” actor with having more than, say, 30 “Rotten” movies on critical aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

And yet, some of the best and most accomplished actors of their generations have somehow done exactly that: they’ve racked up more than 30 movies across the span of their careers that the critics have deemed to be “totally not worth your time.” You might expect that from Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider or Ashton Kutcher, even – but from Hollywood’s elite? Who’d have thought it was even possible?...

Joss Whedon reassembles The Avengers in Age Of Ultron, and brings Marvel's phase two to a close. Here's our review...

This review is spoiler-free. The closest we get to a spoiler is hinting at something in the last act, but we don't tell you what it is. However, we wanted to give you that information up front, so you can decide whether to read on...

Three years ago, the first Avengers movie smashed everything from audience expectations to box office records as it brought the first phase of the Marvel cinematic universe to an unprecedented, near-faultless conclusion. We gave it an undisputed five stars. More than that, we loved it. We still do. It's the ultimate expression of its genre: a superhero team-up movie that gives you everything you want and then a little bit more. At the time the credits rolled, it seemed unthinkable that a follow-up would ever come close to matching it.

Now and again a country decides that it’s time to spend some money to improve the climate for film and TV production. In the past few years the Colombia government has been flying in Hollywood studio execs and producers in order to change its outdated image as an unsafe destination, promote hefty tax incentives and cash rebates, and show them attractive sites to shoot, especially three primary locales: 1. Bogotá, the nation's sophisticated capital and traffic-congested largest city (pop. 8 million), perched high in the Andes at over 8660 feet. 2. Cartagena, the venerable Caribbean vacation paradise, discovered 482 years ago by Christopher Columbus and other Spanish settlers, site of a March world-class international film festival. 3. Medellín, the once-notoriously violent center of cocaine production and export for such drug traffickers as Pablo Escobar, is the sprawling tech-friendly capital of the departamento Antioquia, boasting over...

LucasArts

Unlike within the medium of film, video games are often threatened with the possibility of cancellation. Whereas film productions rarely find themselves at such a point of awfulness that entire projects are shut down – Hollywood will put out any old crap if needs be, after all; take Jonah Hex – video games often find themselves in such a muddle that calling it quits seems like the only sensible option. Developers work around the clock to ensure that this doesn’t occur, of course, but sometimes you can’t stop what’s coming. And truth be told, lots and lots of video games end up axed.

Most of the time, this shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a bad thing; tons of video games that end up being cancelled probably had no place being released in the first place. After all, cancellation often occurs due to conflicting views or visions, lack of money,...

When Kim Kardashian and Kanye West landed on the cover of Vogue last April, the world went nuts. Everyone had an opinion and whether it was good or bad, Anna Wintour knew exactly what she was doing.

During a chat at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the editor-in-chief of the fashion publication opened up about her decision to put Kimye on the cover and why she hopes more controversial stars out of the wood work.

"I see the role of Vogue to reflect what’s going on in the culture. The first celebrity that I put on the cover of Vogue was Madonna, and that was considered completely controversial at the time, too. It’s such a long time ago probably no one remembers, but she was a very controversial figure. Now she’s part of the establishment,” Anna explained.

“I think if we just remain...

Anna Wintour knows how to throw a backhanded compliment.

The American Vogue Editor-In-Chief defended her decision to put Kim Kardashian and Kanye West on the cover of the high-fashion magazine's April 2014 issue (months before their wedding), but not without taking a dig at the couple in the process.

News: Who Peed During Kimye's Vogue Shoot?!

While speaking at The Museum of Metropolitan Art on Monday, Wintour said of putting celebrities like Kim and Kanye in Vogue, "I think if we just remain deeply tasteful and just put deeply tasteful people on the cover, it would be a rather boring magazine."

She continued, "Nobody would talk about us. It’s very important that people do talk about us."

Video: Anna Wintour … 2004 Called And They Want Their Cell Phone Back!

Adding of Kim's sister, 19-year-old model sister Kendall Jenner, Wintour said, "Going back to Estee Lauder’s decision to make Kendall Jenner the face of Estée Lauder: what a...

From the 1980s to the 21st century, Jamie takes us on a guided tour of the most frustrating videogames he's encountered so far...

I want to take you on a journey through a few decades of game-playing frustration, name-checking the titles that have most made me want to kick a sleeping puppy in the face: games that only a heart surgeon would have the dexterity and patience to complete; games so disgustingly unfair and evil that even Satan beholds their exquisitely cruel construction with envy, kicking himself that he didn’t think of them first.

(Disclaimer: no actual puppies were harmed in the making of this article)

Now for another couple of disclaimers: pointless I know, because nobody actually reads these introductions, right? I believe it’s traditional to skip the rest of this article and head to the comments’ section below filled with boundless and unquenchable rage. (If you...

Prolific character actor James Rebhorn has passed away at the age of 65. Rebhorn died from melanoma, which had been diagnosed with in 1992.

Rebhorn had managed to stave off that skin cancer for the past twenty years - and portrayed many of his most famous on screen roles during that time. He worked right up until last month, and died Friday afternoon at his home in New Jersey. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.

The actor had memorable key supporting roles in a variety of films such as "The Game," "Independence Day," "My Cousin Vinny," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "Basic Instinct," "Scent of a Woman," "Meet the Parents," "Regarding Henry," "Lorenzo's Oil," "Guarding Tess," "Cold Mountain," "Far from Heaven," "White Squall," "Wind," "Shadows and Fog," "White Sands," "Carlito's Way," "My Fellow Americans," "Real Steel," "The International," "Baby Mama," and "The Box".

He also appeared in numerous TV shows like "Seinfeld,...

The line between extra and actor is sometimes a little bit blurry. Now and again, someone hired to stand around in the background will be pushed in the foreground to be featured prominently on screen or even to utter a single line of dialogue. Depending on circumstances, this can entitle the person to more money and perhaps even a share of royalties. Sometimes they.re told. Sometimes they.re not, and apparently, sometimes they sue over it almost two decades later. Back in 1996, Vi Jay accepted a job to head to Mexico and work as an extra on Titanic in exchange for $60 a day. During filming, however, James Cameron reportedly asked Jay to work as a baggage handler in a scene opposite Kathy Bates. He.s shown briefly on screen when she arrives, uttering a little bit of dialogue, and in retrospect, he thinks that should entitle him to way...

ABC’s Trophy Wife is in good hands, now that Dennis Haysbert has been elected to guest-star on the freshman comedy.

Related | Fox’s 24: Live Another Day to Shoot in London

TVLine has earned exclusively that the onetime 24 Potus and insurance pitchman will appear in Episode 9 as Russ Bradley Morrison, a straight-laced man who, with Malin Akerman’s titular Kate, chaperones a school field trip to the museum.

Along the way, Russ will get ensnared in one of Kate’s matchmaking endeavors.

Related | Fall TV Poll: Did ABC’s Trophy Wife Bring Home the Prize?

In addition to his term as President David Palmer,...

In the world of movies, the main heroes are almost always the best and most qualified people at doing whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing for jobs. Even characters who are washed-up or considered suicidal still end up being the best employees in the organisation – take Lethal Weapon, where a man on the brink of self-destruction still manages to take down a sniper and arrest a cocaine dealer before he even gets to work. We accept this, of course, because we don’t want to watch people who are just “okay” at their jobs. We see that in real life all the time.

Occasionally, though, movies will deceive us into thinking that because a character gets the job done, they are instantly great at their professions. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite. Now and again that notion is actually used as a plot point, and...

Remakes and reboots are the bane of the filmic world – is there anything less worthy of your cash than a reprise of something that already exists, and probably in a better form? Arguably not, although occasionally Hollywood does manage to inject a remake or a reboot with some actual flair, and we get things like Batman Begins and the new Red Dawn. Nah, I’m just kidding about Red Dawn. But I mention that one because it’s a great example of a remake both unnecessary and terrible. What’s even weirder about it, too, is that even the original movie sucks. Go figure.

Remakes usually happen when Hollywood remembers that something old has probably been out of the limelight for long enough, and why don’t we bring this back and use it to make some money? Now and again the notion of an older film being rendered for modern audiences actually sounds intriguing,...

Feature Simon Brew Ryan Lambie 16 Jul 2013 - 07:16

World War Z. Jurassic Park III. Seven. The Lion King. How were these and others originally planned to end?

The path from screenplay page to cinema screen is seldom a straight one, and it's frequently the case that a movie can change quite a lot during the process of production. Now and again, though, history throws out examples of movies that could have ended very differently.

For numerous reasons, the films featured here were all rewritten or reworked before they arrived in cinemas. Some endings were changed due to budget constraints. Others were down to the concerns of studio bosses.

In this selection, we've gone for endings that were written or storyboarded, but never shot in their entirety - last year, Nick brought us an exhaustive tour through 50 alternate endings, many of which were actually put before a camera.

With this in mind,...

Movies are big and complicated entities, filled with plot threads and running themes, dialogue cues and character arcs. It’s not surprising, then, that with so much information being hurled at us whenever we sit down to watch a motion picture, we might occasionally overlook something that the movie also failed to resolve. Now and again this is done on purpose, as to leave things ambiguous and have audiences make up their own minds – sometimes, though, certain events just aren’t explained or tied up for us because they’d occur long after the movie is over.

That’s to say, you have to end a movie at a certain point, because people have lives to contend with, you know, but what if there was something both dooming and forgotten left up in the air when the credits started rolling? What if the filmmakers somehow managed to lead us astray,...

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs makes me so happy. It's often quoted in my house. Now and again I will sing: "Four eyes! Four eyes! You need glasses to see!" Because it's my life. A new trailer for the sequel, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 has hit and it's certainly more than just a teaser. We got to see a few of the food monstrosities before and now we get to see more of what Flint and the gang have to deal with going back to Swallow Falls. It's like going back to Isla...

Last week, I wrote an article about actor replacements in movie sequels that actually turned out to be a relatively awesome. It consisted of iconic roles originally played by actors who chose not to return to reprise their parts in further installments, only for other actors to step in and take over where they left off. In the cases I highlighted, the swap paid off immensely – the replacements didn’t just do a good job, they arguably did a better one.

But there’s another side of the coin. Now and again an actor will make the decision not to return to a role they’ve so brilliant embodied, only for movie studios to decide that they’re sitting on a cash cow, and, hey, what if we just cast somebody else in the role instead? Here comes an actor who believes (or is dumb enough to think) that they...

Movie heroes are like sandwiches. No matter how high you pile the ingredients, they’re still going to come out blowing something up. Wait, that didn’t come out right. I meant to say… sandwiches are like bombs. They’re delicious and explosive… and… there’s… hold on a second, I just had it. Um… I’m sure you can figure out a metaphor in there somewhere. Trust me, it’s a good one.

My point is, movie heroes are notoriously careless when it comes to the matter of their day jobs. As they go about the world, saving the day and punching bad guys from the tops of skyscrapers, they’re inclined to inflict a bit of damage upon an unsuspecting society of civilians. Sure, collateral damage is an essential part of being a good guy – it’s one of the “perks,” even. In most cases, we brush that...

One of the great things about movies is how much they can get away with being totally and utterly absurd. If we wanted to see “real life” play out, we’d pay a homeless person $10 for the right to sit at the bus stop for two hours, staring at the miserable faces of humanity as they shuffle by in cheap suits, clinging to Styrofoam cups and occasionally - this is climax – stepping in chewing gum.

Fact is, movies give us the chance to witness things out of the ordinary, because the scene I just described is depressing as hell, and even writing about it has ruined my day. Thing is, in order to entertain us, movies have to go on for, like, hours and hours, because – for some reason – 45 minute flicks don’t exist.

In order to make you feel like you’ve got enough bang for your buck, then,...

Ricky Gervais has admitted that, despite his massive royalty cheques for the Us version of The Office, he has very seldom watched the show himself.

"Honestly? I don't think I've seen much of it," he tells GQ Magazine, "...It wasn't my baby. It was my rights, so I cashed the cheques. I think it was good, but I didn't have the same emotional attachment to it.

"It doesn't feel like it's mine. Now and again I'd watch one on a plane. I looked at the first few (scripts) and said 'great' and then I had things with elastic bands around them, I hadn't even opened them."

Gervais has tasted success with 'The Office', 'Extras' and most recently 'Derek', but it's still David Brent, lacking self-awareness, who is his most loved character, and responded to questions about whether he could turn out to have the same Achilles heel himself.

It’s not very often I crawl from the cave in search of natural light and human civilisation, but when I do, there’s nothing I enjoy more than a trip to the local Cineplex. Now and again, as I watch, hypnotised, at the revolutionary use of both sound and images, something happens to my cold, dead heart: I feel a twinge of sympathy at a character’s misfortune. I think it’s because the Gods of fate treat some characters so roughly. In fact, so doomed to failure are these unfortunate individuals that I felt compelled to compile a list of twenty of them and publish it on a list-publishing website.

Of course, this list is in no way exhaustive, for the average screenwriter’s cruelty knows no bounds.

Oh, and loads of spoilers all over the place.

20. Kenji Watanabe – Ikiru

We begin our journey of generally bad luck with Ikiru,...

When it comes to movie sequels, keeping up a sense of continuity with the previous entry in the series is considered to be rather important. That’s to say, if you change something or tweak a character’s personality or forget that so and so was in love with you know who in the last movie, audiences are going to pick up on it (and if turns out you messed up, you’re in big trouble, Mister).

Now and again, movie sequels will allow little discrepancies to fall through the cracks - discrepancies that, perhaps, don’t match up completely with the film that came before. We’ll accept those, though, because c’mon, this is a hard business, and everybody makes mistakes from time to time, right?

Sometimes, though, a sequel will forget that the original movie exists at all – you know, something from the first entry is forgotten...

Tone is a seriously important part of any movie, though – as with sound – you never seem to notice it until it goes wrong. A movie considered to be “tone deaf” or “tonally inconsistent” has the potential to drive somebody nuts – if the dynamics keep changing and the rules of the movie world aren’t set right, how are you supposed to absorb yourself in the story?

Most movies nail tone from the off, because the writers have made a conscious effort to ensure that whatever story they happen to be telling doesn’t veer off into insane places that only serve to confuse and bewilder people. That’s to say, you can’t have a happy comedy about talking animals that ends with a violent holocaust scene - that’s just not right, man.

Now and again, though, some filmmakers will throw caution to the wind and forget that tone...

Person of Interest ought to be good. It ought to be tight, compelling television that defies you not to tune in again. It is not.

The roster of talent involved is impressive with Batman alum Jonathan Nolan as writer/creator, Jj Abrams executive producing and Jim Caviezel taking the lead. The plot is a little preposterous but a small sprinkle of silly seems practically compulsory in the primetime TV we enjoy today. Yet Person of Interest fails entirely to captivate – its title is a misnomer – over two dozen episodes I don’t recall seeing anyone who interested me at all.

John Reese (Jim Caviezel) is a former CIA agent who vanished, presumed dead, after he buckled under the burden of professional and person trauma. The loss of ex-girlfriend Jessica is a burden he carries to this day and his reclusive life the self-imposed punishment. Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) is a...

Dennis Haysbert has signed on to CBS’ drama pilot Backstrom, TVLine has learned.

The project, written and exec-produced by Hart Hanson (Bones), is based on the Swedish book series about an overweight, offensive and irascible detective as he tries, and fails, to change his self-destructive behavior. Leif G.W. Persson and Niclas Salomonsson also serve as EPs.

Related | TVLine’s Guide to Pilot Season 2013: Get Scoop on All of This Fall’s Possible Newcomers

Haysbert will play Det. John Almond, a detective working with the off-putting lead character.

Haysbert’s TV credits include The Unit, 24 and Now and Again.

Follow...

Now and again, the pressure of mounting a sequel to match the successes of a popular movie is kind of overwhelming - so much so, in fact, that lots of filmmakers just decide that, um, instead of trying to replicate the same formula for the third of fourth time, they’ll mix things up a bit. As a result, a number of famous movie franchises have completely abandoned the movie genres that made them famous, usually evoking to increase the action and ham up the comedy aspects.

The results, as you’d imagine, have been invariably mixed. Here we take a look at 10 famous movie franchises that decided to take a different route for their first, second or third sequels… the big question, of course: did it pay off?

10. Cars (2006-2011)

Originally…

The original Cars movie – which based itself around arrogant racecar Lighting McQueen – was all about slowing down, learning to appreciate other people,...

Celebrated character actor Charles Durning, whose myriad TV credits included Rescue Me, Evening Shade, Now and Again and Everybody Loves Raymond, died Monday of natural causes in New York City, according to The Associated Press. He was 89.

Durning scored his first of two Oscar nominations for his role as a comically crooked governor in 1982′s The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. His second nod came the following year for his role as a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks’ To Be or Not to Be. His other notable film roles included Tootsie, The Muppet Movie and The Sting.

He is survived by his children,...

Movie franchises decay at an alarming rate. Narratives which had no business continuing in the first place have soaked the realms of cinema with thousands of unnecessary sequels, most of which have proved mediocre and damaging to their source material.

Think Resident Evil, or Saw, two perfect examples of movie franchises which constantly have to drum up banal reasons for bringing their characters back into the fray. Sequels like these only serve to push their characters into territories which compromise their established personalities and motives, or to rehash the same plot elements all over again, essentially destroying the integrity of the original story. There’s good reason why nobody talks about The Matrix anymore.

We know that sequels aren’t an especially great idea (creatively speaking), given that only a small fraction ever turn out to be better than the films they’re based upon. And when we remember that...

Tulisa Contostavlos has given herself four years to find a man to settle down with. The 'X Factor' judge has been single since splitting from 'Skins' actor Jack O'Connell earlier this year but wants to find her soulmate and have children by the time she turns 28. She told The Sun newspaper: ''I spend most of my life being tough, but there is a downside - a lot of people think I'm a bitch. I'm not. Now and again I'll shut myself away and cry. ''I really want to have kids -- though not until I'm around 28 because I want to be...

Tulisa Contostavlos has given herself four years to find a man to settle down with. The 'X Factor' judge has been single since splitting from 'Skins' actor Jack O'Connell earlier this year but wants to find her soulmate and have children by the time she turns 28. She told The Sun newspaper: 'I spend most of my life being tough, but there is a downside - a lot of people think I'm a bitch. I'm not. Now and again I'll shut myself away and cry. 'I really want to have kids -- though not until I'm around 28 because I want to be with a man I'm going to stay with.' Tulisa, 24, recently admitted she would love to have...

When I first heard that Marvel was launching a new title each week for five months, I thought “What do you mean five months? They’ve been doing that for years!”

My second thought was… “define new.”

As I’ve stated before, Marvel doesn’t reboot as much as it evolves: they’ll launch the 74th Captain Marvel while still using the first. Sure, they ignore stuff. Nothing wrong with that. It’s a lot easier than explaining why, in a logical continuity, Aunt May didn’t die long before most of the readers were born. So any comparisons between Marvel Now and DC’s New 52 are strained to say the least. Apples and oranges, as they say in the produce trade.

In looking over the lists of new Marvel Now launches, I see a bunch that seem interesting from a casting standpoint – both in terms of matching creative talent...

The title of this article is a variation on the most memorable film quote ever. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” spoken by Rhett Butler to Scarlet O’Hara in the immortal film, Gone With The Wind is the number one movie quote of all time, according to The American Film Institute.

After over two hours of actual time and years of movie time Rhett had finally had enough of Scarlet being a bitch and let her know how he felt. When Rhett finally let Scarlet know he was sick of her shit she came to a realization that she did indeed love him.

If Rhett and Scarlet were from the hood that conversation would have went a little something like this:

Scarlet: Rhett, don’t go. I love you!

Rhett: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn…bitch.

That classic movie in so many...

Seitz Asks: What one-season series do you most wish had continued?Seitz Answers: My So-Called Life This was a tough one for me. I’m a connoisseur of what Vanity Fair’s James Wolcott once called “sick puppy shows.” I can think of a lot of series that ran a season or less that I wish had continued: My short list includes Karen Sisco, Wonderland, Kingpin, Rubicon, Now and Again, Firefly, Awake, Luck, The Comeback, Unscripted, and Freaks and Geeks (about which I did a video essay).But it’s My So-Called Life that I miss the most — not just because it was sweet, funny, honest, and real, but because the episodes have aged extraordinarily well. I recently rewatched the only season with my daughter, who’s about to turn 15. She found some of the slang and cultural references dated — when Angela’s buddy Rayanne Graff announced that she might...

June 10: Singer Shirley Alston Reeves of The Shirelles is 71. Actor Andrew Stevens is 57. Bassist Kim Deal of The Pixies and The Breeders is 51. Singer Maxi Priest is 51. Actress Gina Gershon is 50. Actress Jeanne Tripplehorn is 49. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin (Smashing Pumpkins, Zwan) is 48. Actress Kate Flannery ("The Office") is 48. Model-actress Elizabeth Hurley is 47. Guitarist Joey Santiago of The Pixies is 47. Guitarist Emma Anderson (Lush) is 45. Country guitarist Brian Hofeldt of The Derailers is 45. Singer Mike Doughty (Soul Coughing) is 42. Singer JoJo of K-Ci and JoJo is 41. Singer Faith Evans is 39. Singer Lemisha Grinstead of 702 is 34. Actor DJ Qualls ("Hustle & Flow") is 34. Actor Shane West ("ER," "Now and Again") is 34. Singer Hoku is 31. Actress Leelee Sobieski is 30.

June 11: Actor Gene Wilder is 79. Actor Chad Everett is 75. Comedian Johnny Brown ("Laugh-In") is 75. Singer Joey Dee is 72. Actress Adrienne Barbeau ("Maude") is 67. Drummer Frank Beard of Zz Top is 63. Singer Donnie Van...

Lady GaGa may be loved and cherished by millions around the world, but the pop music superstar reveals a dark past which she says still follows her into her adulthood.

Related: Lady Gaga Talks Bullying Prevention at White House

In an incredibly candid interview with Amanda de Cadenet for the Demi Moore produced series The Conversation, the 26-year-old singer sits down for a frank discussion about her "lonely" teen years and how they've sculpted her into the person she is today.

"I was very depressed when I was 19," GaGa reveals of the year she dropped out of New York University to pursue music full time. "I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging...

Lady GaGa may be loved and cherished by millions around the world, but the pop music superstar reveals a dark past which she says still follows her into her adulthood.

In an incredibly candid interview with Amanda de Cadenet for the web series The Conversation, the 26-year-old singer discusses her "lonely" teen years and how they've sculpted her into the person she is today.

Video: Lady Gaga Talks Fame, Family & The Future

"I was very depressed when I was 19," GaGa reveals of the year she dropped out of New York University to pursue music full time. "I would go back to my apartment every day and I would just sit there. It was quiet and it was lonely. It was still. It was just my piano and myself. I had a television and I would leave it on all the time just to feel like somebody was hanging out with me."

It was around...

Exclusive: The Good Wife co-executive producer Ted Humphrey has signed an overall deal with the studio behind the praised CBS legal drama, CBS TV Studios. Under the two-year pact, Humphrey will be promoted to executive producer when The Good Wife returns for a fourth season next fall. He also will develop new projects for the studio. This past development season, Humphrey’s crime drama project for CBS Studios Two Badges sold to CBS with Carol Mendelsohn executive producing. Humphrey has been at The Good Wife since the start, joining the series after the pilot as a co-executive producer. He has written/co-written a total of 11 episodes, including the two most recent ones. “I’m incredibly proud of the show and of our writing staff, and I’m very happy to continue to be a part of such a smart, nuanced network drama,” Humphrey said. As a legal drama, The Good Wife...

Tulisa Contostavlos has revealed that she enjoys eating baby food. The N-Dubz singer and X Factor judge appeared on Radio 1's Chris Moyles Show on Wednesday morning. She said of her craving: "Is it weird I like baby food, the fruit salad stuff? "I really used to like the stuff Milupa made but I don't think they sell it anymore. "Now and again I get a craving for it. Mix milk in and it's like flavoured Ready Brek." Moyles (more)...

Have you ever stayed up late to watch a movie you know nothing about, only to watch it worsen before your eyes? We highlight a weird TV phenomenon...

As our article about great post-pub movies demonstrates, we’re not averse to watching movies after the witching hour, especially if we may have already enjoyed a beer or two. And with the wealth of cable and digital channels available, there’s always a wealth of movies to choose from at around midnight, whichever night of the week it is - for some reason, the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone appear to be on constant rotation on certain channels.

Now and again, though, we’ll forgo our addiction to such classics as Red Heat or Rambo: First Blood Part II (films that, thanks to the rotation mentioned above, mean we’ve seen bits of them well over a dozen times...