GHOST CORPS.
Sony has gone from flogging the dead horse of the Ghostbusters franchise to downright beating it with hammers. We've got the all-women Ghostbusters coming out soon, and it will soon be followed by an all-guy Ghostbusters that will share a "cinematic universe" with the all-women reboot.
And to top it all off, Sony is forming Ghostcorps, a specialized company designed solely to grind out Ghostbusters crap at an almost constant pace.
Oy gevalt!
Remember this is a franchise that consists of 1 hit move that people remember fondly, and 1 terrible flop that most would rather forget.
It's not a comic book company like Marvel and DC who have dozens of characters and decades of stories to fall back on. It's 1 hit, 1 flop, and if you want to toss it in an animated show that some 80s kids remember.
Anyway, I've expressed myself about this topic repeatedly.
What does Walter Peck think about this?
I have to agree with him.
TOP GEAR IN SUSPENSE.
According to reports Jeremy Clarkson, host of the BBC show Top Gear has been suspended after a "fracas" with a BBC producer.
Some are howling for his return, but many in Britain's media elite are howling for his blood, one saying he should do the "decent thing" and resign to keep from "damaging the BBC."
So why all the vitriol?
Well, if you're not familiar with Clarkson and his show there's some explaining to be done. Top Gear is nominally a show about cars, but in reality it's about three middle aged men Clarkson, and cohorts Richard Hammond and James May, doing really stupid and crazy things usually involving cars.
Clarkson is also notorious for being deliberately offensive to many of the shibboleths of his media colleagues. He despises political correctness and enjoys nothing more than poking and provoking people, groups, and even entire countries.
His reputation for provocation is so strong that the Top Gear crew was chased out of Argentina by a stone throwing mob of Argentinian nationalists fired up by a rumour that his car's license plate was commemorating their defeat in the Falklands War.
Now many in the BBC's upper management and general media community would love to be rid of Clarkson. He's not one of their community, never will be, and actually has an active dislike for them and their attitudes.
But the BBC always hesitates from pulling the trigger and canning him.
Why?
MONEY.
Top Gear is syndicated in every country in the world except France and North Korea, and in every country those episodes are rerun until the tape wears out. Every year it pulls in millions upon millions of dollars, pounds, Euros, shekels, and Yen in profits that go straight in the BBC coffers.
Even a public broadcaster, supported by a mandatory tax on owning TVs and radios can't turn away lucre of that magnitude.
Top Gear without Clarkson would be like having a chocolate cupcake without chocolate icing. Albeit hairy, oversized, oafish icing, and that cash flow would probably dry up.
So unless they have video of Clarkson beating someone with a stick while yelling racial slurs and slandering the Queen, I don't see the BBC working up the guts to fire him.
He might quit though, because he's sick of the constant fighting, and he knows that they'll be a lot worse off without him than he is without them.
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