When a classic film franchise’s prospects of returning to the big screen have forever dried up, its creators look for any remaining possibility of milking every last cent from the property’s dormant viability. So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that the 1985 sci-fi comedy blockbuster Back to the Future might be the latest beloved film of my youth to be resurrected as a Broadway musical [...]

Frequent Broadway events? Would you if it involved Captain Kirk? Well, get your suits and dresses ready people. Shatner is coming to Broadway.

The NY Post is reporting that William Shatner will be bringing his one man show, Shatner’s World: We’re Just Living In It, to New York. The show will run for a three week period in February.

The show is based on “years of Q&As he’s done to hawk his books,” and has been quite popular. [...]

The first trailer for Rock of Ages, the latest movie musical based on a Broadway sensation, has been released. You can watch it here below.

Set in Los Angeles circa 1987, the story centers on a romance between two fame-hungry lovers (Diego Boneta, Julianne Hough) looking to break into the music industry in the decade where hair metal dominated the charts. Among the characters they encounter on their journey through the highs and lows of stardom are Alec Baldwin as a club owner, Mary J. Blige as another club owner, Bryan Cranston as the mayor of L.A., Catherine Zeta-Jones as the mayor’s wife and an anti-rock crusader, Tom Cruise (pictured above) as rock star Stacee Jaxx, and Paul Giamatti as Jaxx’s manager. The cast also features Russell Brand, Malin Akerman, and Will Forte [...]

The Book of Mormon, the comedic Broadway musical created by South Park masterminds (and BASEketball stars) Trey Parker and Matt Stone along with Robert Lopez, has become the toast of the Great White Way since opening on March 24.

Recently the critically-acclaimed show, which has won nine Tony awards and five Drama Desk awards, finally recouped its production costs and is now turning a profit for its investors [...]

The Spider-Man Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, has received a lot of attention lately…though most of it has been on the negative side of things. With delays, production problems, and a slew of cast injuries over the last few months, many see the pricey show heading down a path toward certain doom.

However fate sees fit to treat ol’ Spidey’s Broadway run, what other odd properties could be transformed into potentially successful musicals? Brothers Jon and Al Kaplan have some suggestions, and they’ve even made videos to prove how well they would work.

Their latest venture is dubbed Predator: The Musical, and it adds a catchy musical number to scenes from the movie. Judging by the video, this could definitely work as a big Broadway production — click on over now to see for yourself!

If you enjoy this video, the brothers have made many others as well. Their works include musical versions of Rambo, Conan the Barbarian, Fatal Attraction, Silence of the Lambs, Commando, Terminator 2, Total Recall, RoboCop, and Schindler’s List. You can see them all at their YouTube page. [...]

The cover of the current issue of The New Yorker magazine has an illustration by Barry Blitt poking some fun at the situation with the Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark musical, which hasn’t been too kind physically to the actors portraying the famous webslinger.

Julie Taymor’s Broadway musical has been plagued with problems from the start, namely the numerous injuries to cast members, thanks to the show’s daring stunts and aerial work [...]

Highly recognized and respected British actor Pete Postlethwaite passed away yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer.

Postlethwaite wasn’t necessarily the best-known actor and many likely wouldn’t even recognize him by name, but when anyone who’s seen a few movies lays eyes on him, they know who they’re looking at.

The actor’s career began in the ’70s with performances on both the stage and screen. He continued to perform in movies and in stage productions throughout his career, but it was in the 1990s that he truly made his mark on Hollywood and made his talents known to the entire planet.

Just in that decade alone, Postlethwaite appeared in movies like Alien 3, The Last of the Mohicans, In the Name of the Father (which gave him his first and only Academy Award nomination), The Usual Suspects (as the infamous Kobayashi), James and the Giant Peach, Dragonheart, Romeo + Juliet, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Amistad. These performances solidified him as one of the best character actors in the business and proved that he could be great on many different levels. [...]

It’s been a messy and often dangerous ride for those involved in the $65 million Spider-Man Broadway adaptation, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. With many of the action sequences calling for significant stunt work, multiple actors involved in the show have been injured during production and rehearsals.

Now another injury has been added to the list at a performance that took place just a few hours ago. According to various reports, the accident occurred during a sequence toward the end of the production where Spider-Man is trying to save Mary Jane as she hangs from a bridge. Either the actor playing the web-slinging superhero or his stunt double for the show fell about eight to ten feet from a platform into a pit, and equipment being used in the show fell into the audience as a result.

Many in attendance seemed to think that this was all part of the show, but it was soon realized that something was actually wrong when it was announced that the show was delayed and ultimately ended. [...]

Beloved author Charles Dickens‘ classic holiday tale, A Christmas Carol, is perhaps the greatest Christmas story ever to be crafted. It has been adapted countless times in a myriad of different fashions and styles, and one would find it very difficult to find any single soul who’s not familiar with at least one of them.

Favorite adaptations include the 1951 film of the same name starring Alastair Sim, Scrooged starring Bill Murray, and my own personal favorite, Mickey’s Christmas Carol! Just recently, director Robert Zemeckis kept things going with a performance capture animated take on the tale starring Jim Carrey in the lead role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

But adaptations of Dickens’ work aren’t restricted to just movies and specials. No, no — it goes far beyond that. Plenty of TV shows and theater productions have formed their own takes as well, and one that is catching much attention and many curious eyes (especially of festive fanboys everywhere) is called A Klingon Christmas Carol.

Click on over to the other side to learn more about this Klingon holiday production and to see a video showcase of the event complete with clips from the show. [...]

Doctor Who fans in the UK have an exciting treat heading their way, in the form of The Doctor Who Experience, a huge exhibition set at London’s Olympia 2. The event is said to be an interactive journey through the history of Doctor Who, both as a look at the evolution of the television show since 1963, and also an in-universe look at the history of the Doctor and his TARDIS.

But it’s the interactive part of the experience that sounds intriguing. Basically, for about 90 minutes of the exhibition, you are one of the Doctor’s companions following a scripted adventure that also features the visual effects and the creatures, and you even get to go inside the TARDIS. Matt Smith, the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor, has filmed special scenes for this part of the Doctor Who Experience.

On the exhibition side of things, all of the original Doctor costumes will be on display, Tom Baker‘s TARDIS police box will be there, and there will be two additional TARDIS interior sets from the eras of Peter Davison (the fifth Doctor) and David Tennant (the tenth doctor) [...]

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the Broadway musical set to officially open on January 11, 2011, has been in the news a lot lately, and not because the buzz for the show has been spectacular. No, it’s been quite the opposite. In fact, news about this musical has been nothing short of disastrous from the beginning.

The Spider-Man musical, based on the famous webslinging Marvel Comics character, was written by Julie Taymor (who also directs) and Glen Berger, with music and lyrics by U2′s Bono and The Edge, and is currently in previews at the Foxwoods Theatre on Broadway in New York City. While the musical has been long in the works, the production has been fraught with delays and budgets problems, first running out of money last year, and now soaring up to $65 million, making it the most expensive Broadway musical ever.

Then there’s the much-talked about technical difficulties, as the daring aerial stunts to be performed have proven to be not practical or even safe for live theater. Back in October, two actors from the musical came forward, revealing that they sustained injuries during rehearsals [...]

Later this month, the theater group Commedia Beauregard will once again be performing A Klingon Christmas Carol, a full-length play based on the classic Charles Dickens taleA Christmas Carol, but with an interesting twist.

This is the fourth year in a row that the group will be staging the play in tlhIngan Hol, the Klingon language heard in the Star Trek television series and films.

Tickets are on sale now through cbtheatre.org for two locations: Saint Paul, MN and Chicago, IL.

* Twin Cities: Landmark Center [12 shows]
November 26, 2010 – December 12, 2010

* Chicago: Greenhouse Theater Center [16 shows]
November 26, 2010 – December 19, 2010

Scrooge has no honor, nor any courage. Can three ghosts help him to become the true warrior he ought to be in time to save Tiny Tim from a horrible fate? Performed in the Original Klingon with English Supertitles, and narrative analysis from The Vulcan Institute of Cultural Anthropology. [...]

Thanks to our friends at /Film, the glorious news is out about a live-action, big budget stadium tour with Batman as the focal point called Batman Live. I don’t know about you guys, but that makes my life worth living until the tickets are available. What’s that you say? Tickets for the events in Europe are going on sale this week? Why, that’s phenomenal!

The tour dates, starting next year, were announced early Monday, but the project has been a secret project overall, so it was a little bit of a shock when they came out naming tour dates and locations in Europe leading up to their arrival in Summer 2012 in North America. In addition to the news, a “secret” Twitter page was discovered, and again, /Film did a great job of pulling together this info and were able to get the background from their account’s page, which gives a couple of clues as to who and what we will see in the project. There are couple of great things on their Facebook page as well, like a video featuring an orchestral rehearsal for the live event and the tour dates from the July shows in Manchester to the October shows in Belfast [...]

CBS Consumer Products and Mad Science have officially announced that a brand new interactive stage show based on the world of Star Trek will make its debut at the Kennedy Space Center this June.

The show will present the best young recruits of the Starfleet Academy on their first day as they try and learn about space travel, living and working in space, and the science and technologies they’ll be using. The show will run 30 minutes and deliver a bunch of special effects, some interaction with the audience, and a lot of very cool space technologies we really use.

The show is meant to be a lot of fun, of course, but it will also teach audiences all about the science and technologies of space using the massively popular and familiar Star Trek as the perfect tool for a fun and interesting show.

Chief Operating Officer of the Space Center Visitor Complex, Bill Moore had this to say. [...]

Last night I had the pleasure of experiencing a night of geek culture at the Distant Worlds: The Music of Final Fantasy concert at the Rosemont Theater in Rosemont, IL. Of course, as a Final Fantasy fan, I had a blast, and the music was superbly performed by the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra.

One of the most exciting moments of the night came when the crowd was given a world premiere performance of two songs from the upcoming MMORPG i. Along with the music, fans were shown footage that had premiered at the Tokyo Game Show earlier this year. Fans of the series will be happy to know that longtime series composer Nobuo Uematsu (who was also at the show and performed during the concert’s finale) will compose all the music for the new game.

If you’re a fan of the game series and you also want to see the music preformed live, you will want to keep an eye on the Distant Worlds site for upcoming tour dates. The group will spend the first half of the year in Europe recording a new CD with the Stockholm Symphony, and will then return to North America to play dates across the country including a return date to Chicago, two nights in San Francisco, and a concert with the San Diego Symphony in time for Comic-Con 2010 in July [...]

New Line Cinema recently heard a pitch from Darren Lemke that presented a concept for a live-action re-imagining of beloved fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The pitch hit its mark solid and New Line acquired the idea and is moving forward with it. This new vision is expected to be of the action/adventure/fantasy variety and be presented in the same style as movies like The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The original Nutcracker tale was written in 1816 by E.T.A. Hoffmann and centers around a 12-year-old girl named Marie and her 8-year-old brother, Fritz, as they eagerly await the year’s Christmas gift from their clockmaker/inventor father. He presents them with a specially crafted castle with mechanical people moving around it as if always tending to the day’s chores. Marie notices a Nutcracker and asks her father about it, who offers her the responsibility of caring for the doll. Later that night, Marie discovers that there is much more to the Nutcracker as he and many other dolls come to life to do battle with the mice, who are lead by the seven-headed Mouse King. [...]

The Monty Python comedy troupe are currently celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of their 1969 BBC TV series Monty Python’s Flying Circus and tonight the surviving members — John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin — reunited at the Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC. A video of the event is now online, which you can watch here below — and I suggest you do so! It’s great stuff, seeing the gang together again, talking about their experiences and creating the sketches for the show, basically just answering questions from the audience. Seriously, watch now!

Also, there’s two new clips online from the documentary Monty Python: Almost The Truth: The Lawyers Cut, a 3-disc DVD — due out on DVD and Blu-ray on October 27, 2009 — with new interviews with the fabulous British comedians as well as other celebrities, along with tons of clips from pre-Python material, the original Flying Circus TV series and the films. Watch the two clips here below: one of John Cleese talking about writing the “Cheese Shop,” the other of comedian Steve Coogan (Tropic Thunder) doing “The Undertaker” skit. From October 18-23, IFC will be airing the documentary in six parts, so you can catch it ahead of time (though the DVD will have more material in it) [...]

If you got the reference in the title, you’re awesome and we’re putting you right up on the fridge.

Many of us cool kids are children of the ’80s, and as such, one of the greatest forms of entertainment ever to be created, is the Muppets. The Muppets are a creation of the late genius Jim Henson, who built an army of funny and lovable puppet characters who appeared in a countless amount of TV shows, specials, movies, music videos, cartoons, and everything in between. As life moved on and new generations of kids showed up, the Muppets faded off slowly, but never completely disappeared, making delightful cameo appearances on shows and events from time to time. But now, thanks to the massive Disney D23 Expo, we’ve learned that the Muppets are coming back in a big way, and their ready to take over the world again!

Back in March of 2008, we learned that we would finally be getting a brand new Muppet movie, with Forgetting Sarah Marshall team Jason Segel and Nick Stoller joining the Jim Henson Company to write and direct a new movie. [...]

The boys of legendary comedy troupe Monty Python rarely get together anymore. Reunions have been rumored many times, but in the past ten-plus years, the group has only gathered together two times: once for a group interview in 1998, and a second time in 2002 for the George Harrison memorial.

Now The Independent is reporting that of the six-man group, four will reunite for a live stage show based on their very own Life of Brian called Not The Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy). Python members Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam will appear in the show, while John Cleese can’t make it due to a scheduling conflict and of course Graham Chapman passed away in 1989.

The show, which will reference many classic sketches, stars Eric Idle, who also wrote it with John Du Prez. The rest of the Monty Python guys — including another Flying Circus regular Carol Cleveland with Neil Innes — will make appearances within the production. [...]

The Creature From the Black Lagoon is a 1954 film by Jack Arnold about an archeological expedition in the Amazon that finds a mysterious skeletal hand which appeared to have been webbed. This leads the expedition to find a creature that is half man, half fish, which they call the Gill-man. They try and capture the Gill-man, but he escapes and attacks many of the team members.

Creature is one of the classic horror movies from the days of old, and remains loved to this day, and because of this, Universal Studios Hollywood has decided to bring the Gill-man back to the spotlight. The revival will be in the form of a 25-minute musical stage show called Creature From The Black Lagoon – A Raging Rockin’ Show, in which audiences will be whisked away to the Amazon jungle for a tale of horror, romance, and even comedy.

Expect extravagant stagecraft with special effects, advanced puppetry, and acrobatic choreography, combined with a contemporary, original musical score — oh, yeah, and a massive 25-foot Creature on the stage — when this attraction arrives at the California theme park on July 1, 2009.

Click over to the other side to check out all the juicy details of this new attraction — the characters, songs, props, special effects, and much more! Be warned though, there’s lots of info, so don’t read too far down if you don’t want to be “spoiled” by knowing all about the stage show beforehand [...]