Author - Jerry Paxton

Variety is reporting that Gerard Butler has pulled out of his deal to do the Escape From New York remake flick being created by New Line Cinema. He has cited ‘creative differences’ which is a fairly generic reason cited by people when they leave a film. Perhaps he didn’t like the script or figured out what a mockery of a film it was in its current state.

After his departue, the studio is bringing in Johnathan Mostow (T3) to rewrite the script with the option to direct the picture. Butler just began production on Lakeshore’s ‘Game,’ which Lionsgate will distribute. He’ll next be seen starring in the Richard LaGravanese-directed ‘P.S., I Love You,’ the Guy Ritchie-directed ‘Rock N Rolla,’ and Fox-Walden’s ‘Nim’s Island.

Mike Ausiello in his TV Guide Blog has reported that NBC plans a spin-off from the Office featuring characters we have not met yet. There is to be an episode of the Office coming up, however, that will introduce these new characters to us. NBC is reportedly seeking one ‘name’ for the show similar to Carrell in the current Office series.

From Wikipedia:
The Office is the title of multiple television situation comedy shows. The first was the UK version, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Initially broadcast on BBC Two on 9 July 2001, it ran for two seasons plus a two-part Christmas special. The show’s success prompted NBC to create an American version, which premiered on 24 March 2005, two years after the original ended. Despite an outcry from fans of the original, the US version recovered from a shaky start to become very successful in its own right. The US version is based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is a real city. References are made throughout the show based on the real city of Scranton regarding restaurants and other landmarks such as Lake Wallenpaupack. An office convention has started in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Gervais and Merchant are credited as executive producers of the show along with Ben Silverman, Howard Klein and Greg Daniels. Other than the Pilot episode, the scripts for the US version are original, and not adaptations from the UK, although some scenes and some general story ideas are based on the original.

Joystiq is reporting that at one point, Epic President Mike Capps had considered pulling two of the most succesful things surrounding Gears of War, it’s multiplayer and it’s highly successful ‘Mad World’ ad (video below). Talk about a bone head decision, he is thanking his lucky stars all the way to the bank that he left that stuff in there now.

From the article:
‘First and most troubling is that he had considered pulling multiplayer from the game because it wasn’t moving quickly enough. (Boy, that would have made that eight-hour single player campaign a much more bitter pill, wouldn’t it?) Also, he said he wanted to scrap the famous ad set to the brilliant Gary Jules’ equally brilliant ‘Mad World’ because, he says, ‘I thought it was stupid; I was like ‘What are you thinking? Nobody knows Donnie Darko any more.” Wow.’