August 28, 2008
I must know who out there actually rents straight-to-DVD sequels and prequels to hit movies. Someone must be watching all those American Pie sequels starring Stifler's third cousin, otherwise they'd stop pumping them out. Thanks to the people who rent and purchase movies like American Pie 9: Chicks Flashing Their Breasts for Cash, Paramount has decided to beef up their straight-to-DVD production division, which is called Paramount Famous. The studio is currently developing sequels and spin-offs to Road Trip, The Bad News Bears, The Naked Gun, Mean Girls and Grease.
Those needless sequels are all in the distant future, but luckily for fans of great cinema a follow-up to 2004's Without a Paddle has already wrapped principal photography. Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling will hit DVD later this year, and of course will feature none of the original cast members. The apocalypse is coming, my friends.
I'll admit that I've rented a few straight-to-DVD horror sequels in my day, and some of them, such as Wrong Turn 2, are surprisingly enjoyable. Of course, that's a sequel to a movie nobody cared about in the first place. It's different to make cash-in sequels to movies people actually love, such as The Naked Gun, Mean Girls and Grease. Is anyone really clamoring for a Mean Girls 2 without the involvement of Tina Fey, or a Grease follow-up for the High School Musical generation? Paramount Famous needs to be stopped.
- Don Williams, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Source: Deadline Hollywood Daily
(Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
June 24, 2008
Every generation needs its Clueless, some movie that sends up the ideas of high school popularity with tongue firmly planted in cheek, but with something still to say.
For the current generation, that movie is Mean Girls. Looking back on it now, it almost sounds like a CW TV series pilot: an outcast played by a hot young starlet (in this case, Lindsay Lohan) breaks into the popular girl clique and works to bring them down from the inside, becoming a popular mean girl herself. But what saves this from being a throw away movie is one awesome lady: Tina Fey.