Stormtrooper Helmet Goes up for Auction
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Some lucky "Star Wars" fan will get an early Christmas present.
A rare helmet worn by stormtroopers, the film's armored soldiers loyal to the evil Emperor, will go under the hammer at Christie's auction house in London on Tuesday, Dec. 14, report British news sources.
The helmet is one of six that were custom made for "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas as a prop for his pitch of the original 1977 film to movie execs.
The armor piece was purchased 12 years ago for $13 (7 pounds UK) at a car boot sale -- the equivalent of the American flea market where second-hand items are sold out of the back of a car.
The helmet is expected to fetch a winning bid of approximately $13,300.
Other entertainment-themed items up for sale that day include: the original moon buggy from the 007 film "Diamonds Are Forever," Charlie Chaplin's false moustache from "The Great Dictator," his cane from "Modern Times" and "Ali G's" rhinestone-studded tracksuit and knuckle-duster ring.
VIDEO SUPREMACY
The Bourne Supremacy, starring Matt Damon, selling 2.5 million copies on DVD and VHS during its first day in stores Tuesday, according to industry analysts. Meanwhile, the Ben Stiller-Vince Vaughn comedy, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, sold 2.1 million on its first day.
"Shrek 3" Swamped Until 2007
Bad news for Shrek fans--a certain green ogre will not be emerging from his swamp anytime in the near future.
On the heels of Pixar and Disney's decision to push back the release of Cars from November 2005 to June 2006, DreamWorks announced Wednesday that Shrek 3 would be postponed from a November 2006 opening to May 2007.
Both animation companies indicated that the changes in the release dates of the family-friendly flicks meshed better with the schedules of their target audiences--namely kiddies, who are out of school in the summer and therefore have more free time to take in a movie.
Rolling back the release date also means that the Shrek 3 DVD (complete with the inevitable added features) will come out right in time for holiday gift shopping.
It's a formula that's worked monstrously well in the past for DreamWorks--both previous Shrek films were released in May and went on to gross combined box office receipts of more than $708 million.
"The sheer magnitude of the Shrek franchise has led us to conclude that a May release date, with a DVD release around the holiday season, will enable us to best maximize performance and increase profitability, thereby generating enhanced asset value and better returns for our shareholders," DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said in a statement.
But before parents everywhere fret about what they're going to do come fall when there's nothing kid-oriented in theaters, DreamWorks already has plans for Shrek 3's vacated slot.
Flushed Away, the story of a rat who gets flushed down a toilet and has to learn a new way of life, will now bow in November 2006. Prior to that opening, DreamWorks will release Madagascar in May 2005, Wallace & Gromit: Tale of the Were Rabbit in October 2005 and Over the Hedge in May 2006.
Pixar, on the other hand, will not have a film in theaters for 18 months, as a result of parking Cars until 2006.
The studio's next project, currently untitled, is slated for a 2007 release date that will likely fall in the summer, which could put it into competition with Shrek 3; however, no release date has been finalized.
Shrek (Mike Myers), Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) may also find themselves waging box office battle against Spidey (Tobey Maguire)--Columbia Pictures' Spider-Man 3 is set for a May 4, 2007 release.
"We Are the World" Reloaded
With the 20th anniversary of "We Are the World," the all-American, all-star charity anthem of the charity-anthem era, looming, plans are underway to "recreate" the phenomenon that brought to together everyone from Bob Dylan to Ray Charles in song. Except this time, the lineup could be more like everyone from Usher to Kanye West.
"It's called 'We Are the Future,'" rap star/producer Jermaine Dupri said of the project to MTV this week. "We're gonna try to recreate, follow in the footsteps of those who made a big record before, like Michael [Jackson], Quincy [Jones] and Lionel Richie."
"We Are the Future," the working title, is a new song--not a remake or reworked version of "We Are the World." No word yet on who or whom penned it.
In the tradition of "We Are the World," a Jones-produced, Jackson/Richie composition, "We Are the Future" will help raise money for children in "embattled countries" all over the world, said Jones publicist Arnold Robinson. (The "We Are the World" effort concentrated on famine relief in Africa.)
Jones, who famously instructed the famous faces of the "We Are the World" chorus to "check your ego at the door," is spearheading the new campaign--it was his invite that brought Dupri aboard.
Dupri has floated names such as Usher, West and Jay-Z as possibles for the new recording. Dupri, who notched four Grammy nominations this week for production work on the Usher tracks "Burn" and "My Boo" (the hit duet with Alicia Keys), also has a presumed in with Janet Jackson--he's her boyfriend and sometimes-rumored fiancé.
"We Are the World" featured more than 40 performers--some forever icons (like Dylan, Charles and Bruce Springsteen), some only-in-the-'80s acts (like Kim Carnes, Sheila E. and Huey Lewis). Their band name for the night: USA for Africa.
The song was recorded on Jan. 28, 1985, following the American Music Awards. Now, as then, "We Are the Future" will try to corral its talent amid the afterglow of an awards ceremony. This time, the plan is to meet up on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles, right after the 47th annual Grammy Awards, Dupri told MTV.
Ken Kragen said he wishes the new project well. The personal manager knows how hard its kind is to pull off. He organized "We Are the World" at entertainer Harry Belafonte's behest.
"The key [to it being a success] really has not much to do with Quincy or the new song or anything--it has to do with finding something that will galvanize the public toward action," Kragen said Thursday. "And that's harder now than it was in 1985."
Twenty years ago, Kragen said images of starving children in Africa were shocking to Americans. Today, the problem of poverty, in Africa and elsewhere, doesn't seem as new--"We were inundated with it," Kragen said.
Still, Kragen said of his old friend as he gives it a go at engaging the 21st century audience, "if anybody can do it, Quincy can."
Matching the commercial success of "We Are the World" may be even harder. The song logged four weeks atop the singles chart, sold more than 7.3 million copies, spawned an album that sold more than 4.4 copies, and won four Grammys, including Song and Record of the Year. Combined, the song and album raised $64 million.
On Jan. 28--the 20th anniversary of its recording--Kragen is angling to get the cut and its indelible chorus ("We are the world/We are the children...") played simultaneously on radio stations across the world. A similar stunt launched the single the first time around, on April 5, 1985.
A 20th anniversary DVD is due out Feb. 1. Sales will benefit the still-around USA for Africa, headed up by Kragen. (This time out, the organization will focus on funding programs fighting AIDS in Africa, as well as hunger and homelessness in the United States.)
"We Are the Future" comes as a new generation is discovering Live Aid, the 1985 benefit mega-concert recently released on DVD, and a new generation of British artists--Coldplay's Chris Martin among them--are on the charts with a redo of the U.K.'s trailblazing contribution to the pantheon of 1980s anthems, "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
The original "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and "We Are the World" recently were dismissed in a Time magazine essay as "the sing-along single" and the "even schmaltzier American effort," respectively.
Kragen said "We Are the World" can't be judged by today's popular standards, and shouldn't be judged as anything but a well-meaning undertaking.
"The merits of it were that it moved people," Kragen said.
Jones and Dupri may be about to find out if the people can be moved again.
Jagger, Richards Sizzling in Paris Studio
NEW YORK (Billboard) - The Rolling Stones recently concluded recording sessions for a new album in Paris with producer Don Was, who worked with them on their two previous studio releases.
The band will reconvene in the New Year for additional sessions for an album tentatively due in summer 2005, Was told Billboard.com.
Was described the Stones' new music as considerably different from their recent releases, such as 1997's "Bridges to Babylon" and 1994's "Voodoo Lounge."
"Mick (Jagger) and Keith (Richards) are writing songs together in a collaborative fashion that probably hasn't been seen since the late '60s," he said. "I would say that longtime fans of the Rolling Stones will be thrilled with these results, and new fans will understand why they're the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world."
Was recalled sessions in which Jagger and Richards composed spontaneously, sometimes with Richards playing bass and Jagger on drums.
"He's a great drummer," Was confided. "He's also playing a lot of guitar, and he's a really good guitar player. He's been playing bass on some things, (and) Keith is playing bass on some things. They're just great -- there's a reason that they've been the Rolling Stones for so long.
"And they can do it four times a day, every day," Was said of the pair's writing sessions, "and they're really good songs. I've never seen anything like it."
Drummer Charlie Watts, who was recently treated for throat cancer, also attended the Paris sessions and is in excellent health, Was said. "And he's playing like a lion," he adds.
In 2002, the Stones recorded at Studios Guillaume Tell, also in Paris, with Was and engineer Ed Cherney. Four of the songs recorded there are featured on the 2-disc "40 Licks" compilation released in 2002. Additional material recorded at those sessions may appear on the Stones' next album, said Was, "but this all seems to be of a piece so far, and is substantially different than anything I've worked on with them. It's really collaborative.
"It's not done," Was added. "We can still f--- it up a thousand different ways, you know? But what I'm hearing now is very much in the great Stones tradition."
Was has been active throughout 2004, producing the Stones' two-disc "Live Licks" set released last month, as well as upcoming albums by Solomon Burke, Jessie Coulter and Kris Kristofferson, the latter recorded specifically for release in a surround-sound format.
Meanwhile Don has regrouped with David Was to lead their R&B project Was (Not Was) through a 12-city tour launching Dec. 27 at House of Blues in Anaheim, Calif. The tour will mark the first performance of the group in 13 years.
Seminal Guitarist, 4 Others Die in Ohio Shooting
COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - A man charged on stage and opened fire at a heavy metal band and fans at a crowded bar, killing four people and wounding two others before being killed by police, officials said on Thursday.
Among the dead was "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, guitarist for the band Damageplan, who witnesses said appeared to have been singled out by the gunman and shot several times at close range.
Some witnesses told police the 25-year-old gunman, Nathan Gale of nearby Marysville, Ohio, shouted, "You broke up Pantera" before gunning down Abbott and firing at other band members and the crowd in the Wednesday night shooting.
Pantera was a hot Grammy-nominated 'thrash' metal band in the mid-1990s that Abbott, 38, and his brother, drummer Vinnie (Paul) Abbott, formed in the 1980s. The group, from Texas, had a bitter breakup after their last album in 2000, and the Abbotts formed Damageplan, which was on tour when the shooting happened.
"There was no connection between (Gale) and the band, at least formally. We do not know the motive and maybe never will. He is dead," Columbus Police spokesman Sgt. Brent Mall told reporters outside the club, the Alrosa Villa.
Gale fired more than a dozen shots both at the band and the crowd of roughly 200 patrons, at one point stopping to reload his handgun with an ammunition clip, police said.
A police officer confronted Gale as he held a hostage in a headlock and was apparently attempting to flee, Mall said. The officer, James Niggemeyer, killed Gale as the hostage, who was not harmed, struggled to get out of the way.
POLICEMAN SAVED LIVES
"We believe he saved other lives" by shooting the gunman, he said.
Two people who were wounded were taken to a hospital.
The band was playing the first song of its set when the gunman, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, charged the stage and began shouting and shooting, witnesses said. Some members of the audience initially thought the intruder might have been part of the band's act.
Pantera topped the U.S. album charts with its 1994 release, "Far Beyond Driven," which also yielded a Grammy nomination.
"Dimebag" Abbott's guitar work made him a "seminal figure in modern speed metal," one who was influenced by the likes of Kiss' Ace Frehley and the late Randy Rhoads of Ozzy Osbourne's band, said Michael Molenda, editor-in-chief at Guitar Player magazine.
In the early 1980s, speed metal became the most popular form of heavy metal in the American underground. Crossing the New Wave of British heavy metal with hardcore U.S. punk, speed metal was extremely fast, abrasive and technically demanding.
Led by Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, this new wave of metal bands stood in direct contrast with the pop-oriented "glam" metal that dominated the charts during the 1980s, and they cultivated dedicated followings, according to the Web site Allmusic.com.
Pantera's songs were played regularly at the arena of the National Hockey League Dallas Stars during the team's 1999 championship season, and the Abbott brothers were friends with several team members.
Former hockey player Guy Carbonneau, the Stars assistant general manager, issued a statement saying: "I was horrified to hear the news of last night's events and it never ceases to amaze me how hurtful and violent people can be. My condolences go out to the family and I wish all of those involved a speedy recovery."
After Pantera's break-up, the brothers formed Damageplan with singer Pat Lachman and bassist Bob Zilla. The band's debut album, "New Found Power" -- hailed for its "violent dissonance" by Blender magazine -- hit No. 38 on the U.S. charts earlier this year.