‘The Cape’ Casts Rapper Lil’ Romeo & Michael Irby as Villains

Add two more antagonists to NBC’s midseason superhero show. The Cape will feature Michael Irby and Lil’ Romeo in episodes later this year.

Irby is best known for his role on CBS’s thriller The Unit. He’s also had roles on 24, Chase and last year’s Dwayne Johnson vehicle Faster. Irby will be playing Pokerface, an underling of the series’ main villain Chess whose visage is permanently frozen in an “expression of glum murderousness.” So he’ll be something like The Joker without the comedy theme and sunny disposition.

Romeo Miller, A.K.A. Lil’ Romeo, will play his wise-cracking gangster accomplice Lil’ Z. (I wonder how long it took the NBC writers to come up with that one). Miller has had roles in Honey (2003) and self-referential show Romeo on Teen Nick. Pokerface and Lil’ Z will feature in the series’ ninth episode later this spring.

While it’s good to see that the series’ producers still have faith in The Cape, TV viewers may not be as enthusiastic. After a satisfactory debut two weeks ago, The Cape dropped 30% of its viewers Monday night (down to 6.2 million). While these aren’t terrible numbers, any further slide could spell doom for the fledgeling show.

Cancellation would certainly be a disappointment for NBC, and those interested in seeing original superheroes on TV, since the next few years are likely to see television adaptations of several Marvel and DC properties oversaturate the TV landscape across various networks.

The Cape is NBC’s next superhero effort since cancelling Heroes after four seasons in 2010. Screen Rant‘s Anthony Ocasio found it an enjoyable but campy experience in his review of the series premiere.

In case you’re not up to speed on the series, The Cape follows an ex-cop (David Lyons), accused of murder and left for dead, out to clear his name and clean up the streets of Palm City. He dons the identity of his son’s favorite comic book hero to fight the supervillian Chess (James Frain of True Blood). The Cape is aided by super-hacker Orwell, who mirrors another Batman fixture, Oracle. Orwell is played by Summer Glau of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Kieth David delivers an enjoyable performance as the carnival master/cat-burglar Max Malini.

The Cape airs Monday nights at 9:00 PM on NBC.

Source: TV Line, Zap2It

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Michael Bay Trying To Make Up For Transformers 2 ‘Mess’

From losing writers Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman as well as franchise poster girl Megan Fox, to losing appreciation from fans and critics alike with the sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, director Michael Bay has a lot to overcome to make a positive impression with Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

The first step is acceptance and many of the cast of the previous film admit that their second Transformers outing wasn’t very good. Now, director Michael Bay is also continuing to play up the fact that mistakes were made with the last movie and that it was rushed. His goal however, is to make up for all of that with the third chapter in the live-action adaptations of the successful Hasbro toy franchise.

In speaking with LA Times’ Hero Complex, Bay opened up about the Transformers franchise, admitting the failings of his last film, but promising light at the end of the tunnel.

“It was kind of a mess, wasn’t it?… Look, the movie had some good things in it and it was entertaining and it did very well, but it also failed in some key ways. I learned from it. And now with this third movie we’re going back to basics and I absolutely believe this is going to be a much better film than the second one.”

Outside of Optimus Prime getting plenty of screen time to showcase his increased ability to be a robotic bad-ass, there wasn’t much good for me in Revenge of the Fallen. It took the weak and problematic elements of the first Transformers and extended them all, instead of removing them or improving them.

New behind-the-scenes Transformers 3 set photo

A big part of the reason for the failings of the story and visual effects of Revenge of the Fallen had to do with the writer’s strike and strict deadlines to meet Paramount Pictures’ release date. That’s less of an issue with Dark of the Moon and Michael Bay hopes to capitalize on the opportunity.

“I’m still having fun and especially with this movie. Look, we got burned on the last movie. The big thing was the writers strike, it hurt the film and it made it hard on everybody. We had three weeks to get our story and, really, we were going into the movie without a script. It’s tough to do that. It was too big of a movie. There were too many endings or too many things that felt like endings. There was so much animation [in the visual effects postproduction work], too, and we ran out of time. We used the schedule of the first movie for the second movie but on the second one way more labor was needed for the animation. And then it felt like we were writing the script in the edit room, trying to put together a story.”

There were obvious incomplete special effects and in a movie as big as this, based almost solely on the visual spectacle, if they can’t do it right, why bother forcing an early release? Unfortunately, even though the film was far too rushed, with an problematic story and rough special effects, the film (arguably undeservedly) banked over $800 million worldwide at the box office and sold an incredible amount of merchandise for Hasbro.

I don’t like seeing precedents like that set, when it involves a low quality product earning high profit, but we do have something to look forward to with Bay’s third attempt working with the Cybertronian cast.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the last Transformers movie that Michael Bay will be working on, and same goes for its star Shia LaBeouf. Because of that, Bay seems determined to turn the series around and end the trilogy with something fans can be happy about and something that won’t detract from moviegoers thinking about seeing Bay’s next movie in a few years time.

Is the third time a charm for Bay and Spielberg?

Steven Spielberg, a producer on the Transformers movies who chose Michael Bay to direct sheds some light on Bay’s motivation and positive attitude in working on Dark of the Moon:

“As the plot thickens in the third installment of ‘Transformers,’ Michael’s work on it feels fresh and energized … with lots of new and inventive ways of turning a page on this franchise.”

I want to believe this but when I think of Spielberg talking Transformers and Michael Bay, I get confusing flashbacks about Bay revealing that Spielberg told him Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was “awesome,” referring to it as his best work yet. I get that critics often don’t side with Bay’s summer popcorn affairs, but Transformers 2 is sitting with a 5.9/10 on IMDB with over 100,000 votes and a nasty 20% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 3.9/10.

We’ve heard it all before. Spielberg and Bay are saying Dark of the Moon will simply be the best thing since sliced bread, and star Shia LaBeouf is promising that this movie will actually be “good.” But we all have learned and should all know better. This all means nothing until we see otherwise with the final product.

The good news is that the first official teaser trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon was actually very cool, but it didn’t show any real footage of the main characters or Autobots/Decepticons. Let’s hope the next theatrical trailer shows us something to excited about.

Ever since the first Transformers, which I actually enjoyed, I’ve been waiting for them to take that formula and knock out the bad parts to bring audiences something special. For everyone’s sake, I hope Bay delivers one of the best films of the summer.

Follow us on Twitter @ rob_keyes and @ screenrant.

Transformers 3 hits theaters July 1st, 2011.

Source: LA Times

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Exclusive ‘Project Arbiter’ Poster, Stills & Interview with Director Michael Chance

In late March of 2010, we were introduced to a teaser trailer for a short concept film entitled Project Arbiter. The teaser got us excited to learn more, so we spoke with writer/director Michael Chance about the project.

The 20-minute concept film is designed to pique interest in a proposed feature trilogy that includes trans-media integration -- meaning video games, toys and novels. As the director of a number of short films and commercial projects, Chance is ready for the next level, talking on a potentially career-defining franchise. If a studio is as impressed as we are by the work he has done on Project Arbiter so far, expect big things in the future.

The short film is still a mystery to many, so we discussed it with Chance in detail over an hour-long phone call. All we really knew back in March was that the story twists the reality of World War II into a genre-bending action sci-fi movie. But Chance doesn’t want audiences to see this as an alternate reality like Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds -- it falls closer to an untold story based firmly in reality, according to the director:

“It is NOT an alternative reality or new history. This IS very much rooted in historical events. I would consider it more like a Saving Private Ryan or a Band of Brothers in that we are following a group of people encountering key battles and individuals within the history of World War II.  I think what [Quentin] Tarantino did with Inglourious Basterds was awesome in that you just didn’t see that twist coming at the end. But at the same time I think our film strays away from that type of fantasy in that ours is very much rooted in reality. More so we’ve gone very deep into what is technologically possible and the amount of electrical hertz that can go through a body for example. Jesse Boots and our visual effects team are working hard with me to create a cloaking technology that is visually different from anything you’ve seen -- this is just one way we are taking the WWII experience in a completely new and virtually unexplored territory on film. That type of open collaboration within our team is what has allowed us to continually expand the story and its presence.”

The cloaking technology he refers to is a major aspect of Project Arbiter. While it may look like a run-and-gun action movie, it actually focuses more on the stealthiness of a soldier who finds temporary invisibility with an unprecedented chemical and the situations that ability gets him into.

“In science fiction, there has been much emphasis on weaponry as in explosives, guns, and different kinds of battle armor. I thought what would be more interesting is if a soldier has the ability to go invisible and moreover put the emphasis on the difficulties that come with that responsibility. There are personal moral decisions with such a power and there are severe consequences when using raw chemical materials that have the capability to change you forever. You are basically an invisible person that could go into virtually any room undetected and do whatever you want. The possibilities are limitless and when put in the hands of a trained soldier, it’s a lethal combination.”

Project Arbiter is as much a character study as it is an action film, if not more. Chance is proud of the emphasis on character, stating that the main character of Joseph Colburn has a “darker turmoil inside that is personified by the way the suit looks.”  The engaging short film should have no problem finding a core audience, but the story always takes precedent to cool weaponry.

“The story follows Joseph Colburn [played by Lex Cassar] who is part of the O.S.S. and he is paired with his S.O.E. handler Tom Hardy [played by Jake Lyall]. At the beginning of the film they are on a mission to secure more information on a specific individual who created the German version of the suit. On this journey, they switch up the plan to potentially capture this target, which increases the risks and rewards. The Arbiter parachutes out of a prototype aircraft while they are hit by anti-aircraft flak fire from the location they are trying to infiltrate. Along the way, there is a series of battles and confrontations that the Arbiter encounters with specific individuals on the Nazi side of the story. We focused on creating a conflict that unfolds Joe through action, mystery, and personal growth.”

The future of Project Arbiter relies heavily on the reactions to the 20-minute concept short. While it has been designed as its own short film, it exists for the greater purpose of jump-starting a franchise. But as any independent filmmaker will tell you, getting the right attention is the hard part. Chance has made the rounds by attending 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, speaking with the press and simply getting the word out through social media. We noticed the work before filming even finished, so he must be doing something right.

But the big question is how Chance, producer Vicki de Mey, and the rest of the Project Arbiter team will push the film to the next level. Independent filmmaking is a tough market, but short films have been picked up in greater numbers lately and Chance sees his opportunity to pounce.

“What’s been interesting is having the comparison to District 9 or The Raven, which was recently picked up by Mark Wahlberg. It is a really exciting time for independent filmmakers to get their films seen. The biggest thing that Hollywood and the industry looks for is an immediate reaction to a concept. If you can solidify your concept within two minutes, and then gather enough steam to create a concept short that’s 20-minutes, you can show beyond the concept that the group of filmmakers that created it have the ability to follow through on a feature film.”

TRON: Legacy was pitched to Disney with a concept short in the same vein as Project Arbiter and that resulted in a mega-million investment. While Project Arbiter may not have a predetermined fan base like TRON, there is enough to get excited about in just the teaser trailer from last year.

Chance says they are at the halfway point in post-production, with nearly 50% of the 220 visual effects shots finished and an original score in the works by composer Ryan Leach. If you have any doubts about the visuals in the original teaser, rest assured only a half-year has passed since production wrapped and they are already enhancing it further. Below are the first stills to be released. Chance expressed how thrilled he is with the imagery and detail that cinematographer Jason Beckwith and colorist Tashi Trieu have created.

It will be interesting to see the finished product and follow the attempt to turn this into a bankable franchise.

Original concepts are difficult to come across these days in the movie business. While it is an appealing aspect of Project Arbiter, it will also be its biggest enemy. With a few strokes of genius marketing, like the unexpected Arbiter custom LEGO mini-figure created by Amazing Armory in Hong Kong, Arbiter has a chance to mimic Neill Blomkamp’s journey from Alive in Joburg to District 9. But Michael Chance will be the first to urge you to stray away from comparison and experience Project Arbiter as its own entity.

If you haven’t seen the teaser from last year, watch it one more time and share your thoughts with us on the short film.

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Finally, check out the exclusive new Project Arbiter “CODE: Red” poster below, by concept artist Robert Simons (Click for a larger version):

You can visit the Project Arbiter website for more details and follow production updates on Twitter and Facebook.

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Newly Independent Miramax Names Michael Lang as CEO

Last week, Disney dropped a huge weight off its shoulders with the $663 million sale of Miramax Films to LA construction magnate Ron Tutor and a group of investors – including private equity firm Colony Capital. The sale, which ended more than a year of negotiations between Disney and a variety of potential partners, included Miramax’s prized library of more than 700 films.

With the deal finalized, Miramax has moved quickly to fill out its executive team and put into place a new business plan.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Miramax has taken its first step as a newly independent company by officially appointing former News Corp. executive Michael Lang as CEO. Lang’s appointment is no surprise, as it was widely reported during the negotiations.

Lang makes an interesting choice for CEO for a number of reasons. While at News Corp., he worked in business development with an emphasis on digital media, including the video website Hulu.com. That experience will greatly shape his new goals at Miramax, namely to turn the company’s extensive back catalog of films into a cash cow.

According to the LA Times article, Miramax is negotiating with Google to show some of its movies on YouTube (an idea that we’ve discussed here at Screen Rant before) and also has plans to build out its website as a destination to watch movies. A Miramax cable channel may also be in the works.

Over its 31 year history, Miramax has produced some pretty significant films, so there’s definitely value in the company’s back catalog, but in a world where viewers have dozens of choices of entertainment, will Lang be able to make audiences turn to Miramax?

In celebration of Miramax’s new life, here are some fun facts about the company’s famous film library.

The company’s most successful film was Chicago. Not only did it gross over $300 million, but it also won the Best Picture Academy Award for 2002.Miramax helped give several important filmmakers their start. The company produced and co-distributed Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (along with several other QT films). It also released Kevin Smith’s decade-defining indie film, Clerks, and Jon Favreau’s debut as a screenwriter, Swingers.In addition to Chicago, Miramax released several other Best Picture winners including The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, and No Country for Old Men.

Source: LA Times

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Will the real Michael Arrington please stand up when it comes to Google vs. Facebook?

I’m confused.

Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington seems to be saying that Facebook is wrong to suck up data from Google’s contact systems, especially after Google has tried to block Facebook from doing that.

Because Mike and I have had only one really violent argument. I’ve always thought that Facebook should have opened up and should allow users to take contact info to other systems. Where did that argument break down? In May of 2008. Yes, more than two years ago! On a Gillmor Gang (you can read the transcript, I think the original recording has disappeared, unfortunately, but I’ll try to find that in the morning).

Why did that argument happen? Because I let Plaxo test a system that would suck just my friends email addresses out of Facebook and put them into Google’s contacts. Doing that broke Facebook’s terms of service, and got me kicked off of Facebook for a day.

Only I thought that we should ALWAYS be able to move email addresses and names back and forth between these systems without any restrictions.

Only I have been consistent. Glad to have Mike on my side finally.

But, now, let’s discuss this. It’s too late. Google has already lost its database to Facebook. It’s now posturing and doing that poorly. A friend said Google should be cheered for finally standing up. Oh, yeah, that’s like cheering the zookeeper for finally closing the gate after all the animals get out. It’s over. Google allowed the biggest identity theft migration we’ll ever see in our lifetimes. Those animals aren’t going back in the zoo. How do I sign on Techcrunch today? With my Facebook identity, not my Google one.

What’s funny is that Facebook IS making moves to open up. Back when we had that argument Facebook wasn’t open at all. Today when you use a new music service it already knows about all the previous music you’ve liked. Why? Because of Facebook’s new open systems that didn’t exist two years ago. And I can list a ton of such examples of other such systems that have been built on top of Facebook’s open graphs.

Yes, Facebook still forbids email addresses to go elsewhere. They SHOULD open up, and I’ve heard from some company employees that say they are considering such a move.

The problem? It’s too late for Google. Facebook knows this, which is why it’s being more open. Why? Well, my Google social graph has rotted. The 8,000 names on my Google Contacts are attached to email addresses that are old, not good, and phone numbers that are old, not good. Tonight I tried to call someone from my phone’s contact list. The number was dead. I went to Facebook, grabbed his new number there and I even made the call right from the Facebook iPhone app.

It’s too late for Google to get all of our contact and other data back. They should have closed the zoo gate two years ago. They didn’t. They lose.

Nice for Arrington to get on Google’s side now that the game is already over. When will the real Michael Arrington stand up for true data portability?

What Google needs now isn’t just the email address. It needs our social graph too. Chances that Zuckerberg will hand that over? Between zero and zero.

For some more fun, lets look back at some of Arrington’s quotes from that Gillmor Gang, shall we?

“Arrington: Well OK, let me talk about that because what Scoble did… See, Scoble screwed up earlier this year, because he used a Plaxo tool that went into Facebook and grabbed all of his friends contact information. And that’s not trivial to do because all that contact information is presented in a JPEG. It’s an image because Facebook doesn’t want people to easily scrape it.

So Plaxo went in, pulled up the friends list, pulled up each page. Used optical character recognition software to turn that into free text and then export it into Plaxo. And because of that, Facebook just banned Robert Scoble. Shut down his account temporarily. He was wrong then. And the reason I think he was wrong to try to do that is he thought, “This is my data, I want to export it.”

But my argument was, that isn’t his data, that’s my data. If I’m his friend and he’s pulling my contact information out of it, he’s changed the rules on me. The rules that I know are set by Facebook, which is that the data is presented only in an image, etcetera and he’s exporting where God knows what could happen to it.

And I don’t know if, a couple years ago I wrote about a company called Jigsaw. Which actually people get paid to upload contact information for possible sales leads. And I think it’s one of the worst things on the Internet. And so this sort of this my basic contact information, I need to have some control over who gets that and how. So I think he was wrong. And I think he knew he was wrong.

So yesterday, he sees this situation happen where Facebook bans Google from letting people export their own contact information. And in his eyes, I think he saw it as an analogy to what happened earlier in the year. So he changed his position and said, “No, no. I think Facebook is right. I think, hey, it showed I was wrong earlier in the year, and Facebook’s right to sort of stop this and protect and my data.”

And so the post I wrote was: “Look, Robert, you’re wrong both times. You were wrong the first time because you were talking about my data, my contact information that you were exporting. Then, yesterday, you’re talking about your own data and how Facebook should have the right to stop that from being exported if you choose to export it.”

Scoble: Let me have something to say here. Let’s back up. There’s two issues here. One, if you really are going to let me act like it’s my data to do with whatever I want, when you give me access to your email address…

Arrington: Oh, God. You’re still stuck on that.

Scoble: I am stuck on it…

Arrington: No, Robert! No! If I hand you my business card, does that give you a right to publish that information on the net and sell it to other people? Which is Jigsaw’s business model.

Scoble: Who said I’m selling it to anybody? It’s not why I’m using it. It’s just an email address.

Arrington: But that’s Jigsaw’s business model.

Scoble: And I’m sick and tired of you guys mischaracterizing what I said! I never said I was going to give it out to the public…

Arrington: It doesn’t matter, Robert. You changed the rules. It doesn’t matter what you were going to do. You changed the rules.

Scoble: I did not change the rules.

Arrington: You took the data. I gave you the data under this explicit set of rules, and those explicit set of rules are: you can look at it as an image on Facebook when you’re logged in. And you took that data, you exported it to a third-party service that I don’t have a relationship with…

Scoble: OK. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait! Let me have a say. You ripped me an asshole without giving me a chance to say anything. Wait a second.

First of all, you friended me. That’s an implicit act giving me some rights. Second of all, you give me your email address, which has no utility at all in Facebook. Why would you give that to me? Are you saying that I can’t enter that email address into Gmail and send you an email? I can’t enter it into Outlook and send you an email? Or I can’t go over to Yahoo email and send you an email? Is that what you’re saying?

Arrington: No.

Scoble: Then how did I..?

Arrington: I’m thinking you can’t turn it into pretext and export it to a third-party service — who has huge privacy issues, by the way. That’s what I’m saying you do.

Scoble: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Back up, back up, back up. If you give me the ability to enter it into email, into Outlook, that explicitly gives it access to some other things.

Arrington: No. I’m explicitly…

Scoble: It does.

Arrington: Robert, let me explain very carefully…

Scoble: When you hand me your business card…

Arrington: Wait, Robert. Let me explain it really carefully. When I give you my email address, I’m not giving you the right to hand that email address over to third-party services to do with what they want.

Scoble: Yes you are. Absolutely you are. Because, guess what: you already are. You’re giving me the permission to put it into Gmail. That’s a third-party service. You’re giving me the permission to put into Outlook. That’s a third-party service.

Arrington: Hold on. Robert, hold on. You’re right in that I am implicitly giving you permission to put it into Gmail, probably add it to your contact list there, and send me an email. What I don’t want you doing is going to third-party services like Plaxo, which have a horrible reputation when it comes to privacy, and giving them control of that data.

Scoble: You have no right to tell me what to do with that data. You have absolutely no control and no right to control how I use that email address.

Gillmor: OK. All right. Now, here’s where you both have to listen to me for a second.

Scoble: OK.

Gillmor: The fundamental right is the user’s right. The user’s right is an understanding — what some people call a social contract — of what is going to be done with that data. When somebody violates that understanding, forget about the legal conditions, the terms of service, the assumptions on the part of the person who is going to do something with that data. Forget about all that. If the user’s rights are violated, according to the user, from that moment on, the social contract between that user and other people is broken…

Scoble: It’s not the user’s right…

Gillmor: Hang on. Hang on. I’m almost done. And that user, writ large, is going to have a big, big role in what happens to data, generally, moving forward. So, when you went and, as an agent of Plaxo, went after that data, it’s not that we don’t trust you, Robert — of course we trust you. We don’t trust the person that comes along and rummages around in the garbage can and picks up all this data and says, “Oh, hey, cool,” and all of a sudden, we’re getting spammed within an inch of our life for the rest of our lives about the stuff.

Scoble: First of all, Mike’s email was already in Outlook before I scraped it off of Facebook. Second of all, it’s already in Plaxo. But you don’t have access to that account in Plaxo. That’s my account, and it’s my data, and if Plaxo starts fucking with my user rights, then I’m going to go ape shit.

Gillmor: The point is that you are a representative of what could go wrong. It is not that you are wrong. It is that if you establish a precedent to be able to access data in the way you did, other bad actors can come along, and they can broadcast it on Mars and open up a lemonade stand around it.

Scoble: Here’s the whole problem with this whole argument. If he friends me, he’s giving me some trust. If I misplace that trust by putting his email address on my blog, for instance, without his permission…

Arrington: Plaxo.

Scoble: No, Plaxo keeps it private. It’s for my own uses. You don’t have access to my…

Gillmor: You don’t know that Plaxo keeps it private. That’s a contract between you and Plaxo, and I don’t necessarily agree to that contract.

Scoble: Well, OK. But you don’t have control. You are not in control here.

Gillmor: We only have control of our relationships with the people that we know.

Scoble: Exactly.

Gillmor: If you violate that trust, no matter how innocently you do so, it comes back on you, not on Plaxo.

Scoble: Exactly. I’d better choose my vendors very carefully, and make sure that if they screw me, I go ape shit.

Gillmor: Well, I’ve never heard you go ape shit about Plaxo, because I think they screwed you big-time.

Arrington: And here’s the other thing, Robert. This is a bit of a red herring, because we’re talking about whether, when I give you an email address, it’s mine or yours.

The biggest problem here is that that it screwed up your head, and it got you thinking, “Wow. I just got trashed on the Internet. Maybe I was wrong.” And then the new issue comes along, and you’re so screwed up from the last issue that you’re like, “Oh, OK. This time on the side of right, so Facebook was right in protecting this data.” And again, what happened was you were just dead wrong again.

Scoble: [laughs]

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