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John Erwin, the reclusive actor who provided the voices for the heroic title character in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and the vain frenemy Reggie Mantle in a series of Archie cartoons, has died. He was 88.

Erwin died of natural causes “around Dec. 20” in his home in Camarillo, California, his reps at the PR firm Celebworx announced.

For nearly a decade starting in 1969, Erwin was heard in dozens of TV commercials as the snarky Morris the Cat, the finicky orange tabby who would eat nothing but the 9Lives brand of cat food. The hugely successful campaign was created by the Leo Burnett advertising firm.

Earlier, Erwin was seen on camera when he recurred as the cattle driver Teddy on CBS’ Rawhide, starring Clint Eastwood.

For Filmmation, Erwin voiced the blond, muscular He-Man (and his alter ego, Prince Adam) on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe from 1983-...

Writer/director Robert Eggers just dominated at the box office with Nosferatu, earning over $136 million at the worldwide box office thus far. The movie's eerie Gothic wintry setting was perfect for the holiday season, and it showed a trend towards electrifying new life into old, black-and-white Universal monster movies. Eggers is in good company since director Leigh Whannell, who already had a hit with his remake of The Invisible Man in 2020, is set to explore another Universal monster with Wolf Man.

While these movies have been undeniably successful, there are still many Universal monster movies that have gone unexplored. Time has seemed to have forgotten all about these classic Universal monsters. Almost everyone is familiar with Dracula, Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Creature From the Black Lagoon, but few know these underrated horror icons exist. It's time they got the respect and maybe even the reboot that they deserve.

LeBron James has been a great influential figure both on and off the basketball court. The NBA player is once again making headlines, but not for his on-court accomplishments. LeBron recently posted on X, requesting Activision, the creators of Call of Duty, to give his son, Bronny James, his own character skin in the game.

LeBron James | Credits: @kingjames via Instagram

The tweet, while seemingly lighthearted, has been met with mixed reactions from fans. From accusations of nepotism to other allegations, fans are focusing not only on Bronny’s gaming achievements but also on whether LeBron is doing more harm than good to his own legacy.

LeBron James’ Parenting Method Has Certainly Raised Some Eyebrows

LeBron’s tweet directly addressed Activision, saying, “Bronny just said he want his own ‘Skin’. @Activision @CallofDuty talk to me.” The post quickly got millions of views but also got a mixed reaction from fans.

If life just feels too big lately, Svengoolie has the cure — 1957’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, which will air on the Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, installment of his MeTV series, Svengoolie Classic Horror & Sci-Fi Movie. In this film, everyman Scott (Grant Williams) sails his small boat through a mysterious fog … which turns out to be radioactive. That, plus prior exposure to a pesticide, leave Scott shrinking smaller and smaller, until his own home becomes an impossible-to-navigate jungle filled with danger. Scott fights a giant spider, nearly washes away in a small drop of water, and eventually becomes so small he can crawl through the screen grating on a basement window. But while that might sound wacky, this classic of ’50s sci-fi is more than just silly camp. Its script was written by sci-fi legend Richard Matheson, and according to the Criterion Channel, the movie “gazes with wonder and trepidation into the unknowable vastness of the cosmic void.

Sixty-six years ago, Creature from the Black Lagoon director Jack Arnold teamed up with author Richard Matheson to bring Matheson’s sci-fi novel The Shrinking Man to the screen as The Incredible Shrinking Man (watch it Here). Now Deadline reports that Picture Perfect Federation Chairman Patrick Wachsberger, who was formerly the Co-Chairman of Lionsgate, is working with La Vie En Rose producer Alain Goldman on a French remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man that is set to star Jean Dujardin, who won an Oscar for his performance in the lead role of the 2012 silent film The Artist – which also happened to be the Best Picture winner that year.

The Wachsberger-produced Coda just won Best Picture last year and La Vie En Rose earned an Oscar for star Marion Cotillard, so this remake has multiple prestigious names attached to it.

Universal Pictures released The Incredible Shrinking Man in ’57 and still holds the rights to the property,...

The tragic thing about the Miami Heat making the 2023 NBA Finals is that Jimmy Butler will never be able to enjoy it. The Heat were a virus — a collection of veterans and second-rounders, slinking through the Eastern Conference playoff bracket, exploiting the weaknesses of every team they encountered and laying them in the dirt, one after another. Milwaukee, sporting the best record in the league, couldn’t manage with Giannis physically compromised on the court, so the Heat popped them in the mouth and strolled past them, curled up in a heap.

It’s springtime in America. The flowers are blooming, the sunsets are stunning, the air is filled with the scent of amour. It is now when a young man’s thoughts turn away from the grindset and toward the finer things in life: professional basketball, specifically.

“The Playoffs,” you say? Now, of course one might watch the NBA Conference Finals, where the Denver Nuggets just swept Lebron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, while the 8th-seeded Miami Heat have subjected the dishwater-dull Boston Celtics to a series of indignities engineered...

WME has acquired BDA Sports Management in a deal that will elevate BDA leader Bill Duffy to head of basketball representation for WME Sports.

WME invested in BDA Sports Management in 2020. The buyout unveiled Thursday brings Duffy and his operations into the WME fold. BDA at present represents such hoops stars as Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Dončić, the Toronto Raptors’ Scottie Barnes, Oklahoma City Thunders’ Chet Holmgren, the New York Knicks’ Rj Barrett, Anfernee Simons of the Portland Trail Blazers and Grant Williams of the Boston Celtics.

“It is hard to name a basketball agent more respected across the league than Bill. We couldn’t be more thrilled to have him and his team fully join WME Sports as we continue this chapter of tremendous growth,” said Karen Brodkin and Josh Pyatt, co-heads of WME Sports. “BDA has been a great addition to WME Sports as a whole and we’re...

Spiders are disgusting. No matter their size, shape, or genre —sometimes they're tiny and realistic. Other times, they're large and anthropomorphic. Regardless of their type, spiders have been a fixture of genre cinema since its beginning. In 1957's "The Incredible Shrinking Man," the titular shrinking man (Grant Williams) battled a giant spider while adjusting to dime-sized life. Early roots of folktales and mythology abound with symbolic spiders. Arachne, a Greek weaver, defeated the Goddess Athena in a weaving contest, subsequently condemning herself to a life of eternal weaving as Athena transformed her into a spider. There are arachnid roots and depictions throughout history, most benevolent, though all deeply meaningful.

In contemporary canon, spiders have become more menacing, threatening, and squirm-in-your-chair disgusting. Likely rooted in the quotidian experience of arachnophobia, filmmakers have wasted no time exploiting the basest of fears to make their projects even more frightening. Most spiders are relatively harmless.

LeBron James is a man of many talents.

The Los Angeles Lakers star showed off his dance moves at Kendrick Lamar’s “Big Steppers” tour stop in Vancouver on Sunday night.

Fans shared numerous clips of him dancing on social media after quickly spotting the basketball superstar in the crowd.

Crowd goes wild as Lebron starts dancing. @DailyHiveVan (Courtesy Allison Irwin) pic.twitter.com/H4MxVplZig

— Amanda Wawryk (@AmandaWawryk) August 29, 2022

LeBron at the Kendrick Lamar concert #LeBronJames #Kendrick #kendricklamar #vancouver #Yvr pic.twitter.com/BNclCrEtjC

— Heidi Griffin (@heid_zz) August 29, 2022

Lebron James spotted at Kendrick Lamar’s Vancouver show. @DailyHiveVan (courtesy Allison Irwin) pic.twitter.com/bHE6pZpknV

— Amanda Wawryk (@AmandaWawryk) August 29, 2022

Read More: Grant Williams ‘Can’t Agree’ With LeBron James That Boston Celtics Fans Are Racist

This isn’t the first time videos from Lamar’s tour have done the rounds on social media this month.

The rapper...

Hello, everyone! August 23rd is a quiet day for horror and sci-fi home media releases, but that doesn’t mean that this week’s offerings aren’t pretty darn great all the same. Scream Factory has put together a killer Collector’s Edition 4K release for Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers and Kino Lorber has put together reissues of their Blu-ray box sets for seasons one and two of The Outer Limits, which genre fans will definitely want to pick up.

Cheers!

Dog Soldiers: 4K Collector’s Edition

A group of soldiers dispatched to the Scottish Highlands on special training maneuvers face their biggest fears after they run into Captain Ryan – the only survivor of a Special Ops team that was literally torn to pieces. Ryan refuses to disclose his mission even though whoever attacked his men might be hungry for seconds. Help arrives in the form of a...

The September release slate from Severin Films has been announced and detailed today, this latest batch of new releases headlined by 1980 classic The Changeling on 4K Ultra HD.

Severin Films will be haunting disc players across the continent with a new 4K edition of Peter Medak’s beloved ghost story The Changeling, along with landmark Spanish television series Tales to Keep You Awake, My Grandpa Is a Vampire via the Severin Kids imprint, and the entire Plaga Zombie Trilogy through sublabel Intervision Picture Corp.

As if that isn’t enough, Severin will also be putting out a Blu-ray double feature of Al Adamson’s Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Brain of Blood as a standalone release.

Read on for everything you need to know about Severin’s September slate…

The Changeling: It has been called “remarkable” (Paste Magazine), “utterly terrifying” (Mondo Digital) and “a ghost story guaranteed to freeze the...

Boston Celtics power forward Grant Williams doesn’t agree with LeBron James’ opinion that his team’s fans are racist. “I can’t agree,” Williams exclusively told Et Canada at Steph Curry, Unanimous Media and Talent Resources Sports’ joint Espys afterparty. “I love Boston. They challenge you when you’re down, but they also keep you up when you’re...

“I’m filthy — period!” With an ideal cast — Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone — director Douglas Sirk tells a tale with everything the ’50s wouldn’t allow — lust, nymphomania, impotence, the works. It’s perhaps Sirk’s most accomplished, self-contained masterpiece — a glamorous soap with absorbing characters caught in a cycle of unfulfilled desires. An oil dynasty comes tumbling down because the heir is “tortured by a secret that made him lash out at all he loved!” I keep expecting bathos, but this great show makes its world come alive.

Written on the Wind

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 96

1956 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 1, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Robert Keith, Grant Williams, Robert J. Wilke, Edward Platt, Harry Shannon, John Larch, Joseph Granby, Roy Glenn, Maidie Norman, William Schallert, Kevin Corcoran, Cynthia Patrick.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Art Directors: Robert Clatworthy,...

Criterion gives this classic its first exposure on Region A Blu-ray! A new 4K remaster puts the story of a guy too tiny to escape from his own cellar in its very best light — Scott Carey’s combat with the spider is still a scary delight, with a newly-fixed imperfection. Criterion’s extras lean toward fan-oriented fare: Tom Weaver tops the stack with a fine commentary and we get good input from Ben Burtt, Craig Barron, Richard Christian Matheson, Joe Dante and Dana Gould — plus thoughtful liner notes by Geoffrey O’Brien. And don’t forget those excellent movie trailers narrated by a breathless Orson Welles. Robert Scott Carey should have his own statue in Los Angeles, like Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1100

1957 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 81 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 19, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton,...

The mystery of what happened to Richie Fife after his botched abduction as a child was finally revealed on Home Before Dark Season 2 Episode 10.

Although it was satisfying on some level to ultimately get the full story about why Richie was kidnapped and never returned to Erie Harbor, how it all connected to Strata Tech left me cold.

The latest mystery lacked the twists, turns, and emotional connection of Richie Fife's original disappearance and Sam Gillis being accused of his murder.

Overall, this season finale ran short of the drama and anticipation of Home Before Dark Season 1, but that didn't make it unenjoyable. Instead, it simply didn't live up to the high standards of its predecessor.

When Matt and Hilde found Richie alive and well and living in Vancouver, it should have been more of a shock. Perhaps the concept of Richie was more alluring than the actual character because we never really knew him.

The Lisko family have been outcasts since they first moved to Erie Harbor, and for the most part, that hasn't changed.

But as Home Before Dark Season 2 Episode 8 showed us, they've managed to find themselves an entire team of outcasts.

Because it's no longer just Hilde and Donny and Spoon, now Izzy has Ethan and Emma, Matt has Frank, Bridget has Kim, and Trip and Junior are a part of this gang too.

And the Lisko's are going to need all of their help to thwart Strata Tech.

Matt: It turns out your company was using those chemicals for what? Two decades?

Bridget: Was it even longer than that?

Grant: They didn’t know they were dangerous back then. It was just the way things were done. That’s no reason to scare people away from Erie Harbor now, is it? Tank real estate prices. Cut jobs. I don’t...

Hilde Lisko isn't afraid of anyone.

That's definitely one of her strengths, but it also leaves her extremely vulnerable in ways that she doesn't always comprehend.

And Home Before Dark Season 2 Episode 4 had me asking once again why Matt wasn't more concerned when Hilde told him the mysterious man she thought was watching her turned up behind her to get a drink at the gas station? 

That seems an odd coincidence, even in a town as small as Erie Harbor. But I will say that the man almost seemed like he didn't even hear Hilde more than he was consciously ignoring her. 

Maybe Matt, like Izzy, could think that Hilde is a little paranoid, but it doesn't come across that way. 

Seriously, Hilde, you're like some old person's Reddit feed but like inside my house. Didn't you just make a bunch of people happy because you cleaned up some pond?...

Like its inspiration, Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man, Jack Arnold’s 1957 shocker expertly juggles sci-fi thrills, metaphysics, and a shrewd metaphor for suburban angst in Cold War America. The film is upheld by fine performances from Grant Williams as the humiliated husband who takes up residence in a doll house, and Randy Stuart as his equally embattled wife who has the patience of Job. The life-affirming finale walks a deft line between spirituality and humanism. Producer Albert Zugsmith was simultaneously working with Orson Welles on Touch of Evil and got him to provide 45 seconds of sonorous promo narration for the ads.

The post The Incredible Shrinking Man appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

There’s a lot of Al Adamson floating around the horrorsphere right now thanks to Severin Films’ gargantuan box set, Al Adamson: The Masterpiece Collection. While I don’t have that set (yet), after watching the fantastic documentary Blood & Flesh about him and his works, I was itching to bed down with Al. This brings us to Brain of Blood (1971), a one part Frankenstein, one part espionage, all parts goofy fun that is so entertaining I am down for whatever next comes down the Adamson pike.

Distributed by Hemisphere Pictures, the Philippines-based company that made the Blood Island films, Brain of Blood was made to seem like a continuation of the series; having not seen any of those either (I Know), I can’t vouch for the similarities. However, I can say that what they did produce is drive-in fodder of the highest order, with enough ridiculousness to spill over to another screen.

Why do we like horror and monster movies that routinely get labeled as ‘bad?’ Because many of them have great story ideas and look at the world from odd, warped viewpoints. Back when ‘warped’ wasn’t a prerequisite for All filmed entertainment (my exaggeration) this murderous rejuvenation tale could be appreciated as something unusual, even quirky. Jeez, the characters are even nastier than the people I know! Lovely Coleen Gray takes a chance on a downmarket Universal programmer and proves how well she can carry a movie, even through several dubious horror make-ups.

The Leech Woman

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1960 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date August 27, 2019 / Available from Scream Factory

Starring: Coleen Gray, Grant Williams, Phillip Terry, Gloria Talbott, John Van Dreelen, Estelle Hemsley, Kim Hamilton, Arthur Batanides, Murray Alper, Paul Thompson.

Cinematography: Ellis W. Carter

Film Editor: Milton Carruth

Original Music: Irving Gertz

Written by David Duncan, story by Ben Pivar,...

Paul Pierce loves everything about the Boston Celtics' top draft selection Grant Williams -- telling TMZ Sports straight-up," That's a great pick!" Boston picked the forward from Tennessee with the 22nd pick in the 2019 NBA Draft -- and they're expecting big things from the 6'8", 236 pounder.  Besides being a stud in college, where he was a 1st team All American and a 2-time SEC Player of the Year ... he's also been praised for being super...

June 18th is shaping up to be a killer day for genre fans, as two of my favorite movies of 2019 are making their way home: Jordan Peele’s Us and Lords of Chaos (on DVD) from Jonas Åkerlund. Kino Lorber is showing Chan-wook Park some love this week with their Blu-ray release of Thirst, and Scream Factory has put together the impressive-looking Universal Horror Collection: Volume 1 set as well.

Other home entertainment releases for this Tuesday include Under the Silver Lake, The Monolith Monsters, Crypto, The Nightmare Gallery, Derangement, and Disappearance.

Lords of Chaos

The story of True Norwegian Black Metal and its most notorious practitioners: a group of young men with a flair for publicity, church-burning and murder: Mayhem. Oslo, 1987. Seventeen-year-old Euronymous is determined to escape his idyllic Scandinavian hometown and create "true Norwegian black metal" with his band, Mayhem. He's joined by equally fanatical youths - Dead and Varg.

Scream Factory is looking to give you plenty of reasons to scream for joy this summer with their latest announcements of upcoming Blu-ray releases, including the Hammer's Frankenstein Created Woman (featuring Peter Cushing), three Universal horror movies from the ’50s, and the chilling supernatural film The Entity (which will include a new interview with Barbara Hershey).

Frankenstein Created Woman Collector's Edition Blu-ray: "It’s the year of Hammer Films for us as you can already tell and we have yet another one planned for the Summer. Frankenstein Created Woman (starring legendary star Peter Cushing) is being prepped in Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release!

Here are the early details we have at present time:

• National street date for U.S. only (Region A) is June 11th.

• Release will come with a slipcover (guaranteed for three months after its original release date).

• The newly-commissioned artwork pictured comes to us from Mark Maddox...

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Blu ray – Region Code: B

Arrow Video

1957 / 1.85:1 / Street Date November 13, 2017

Starring Grant Williams, Randy Stuart

Cinematography by Ellis W. Carter

Directed by Jack Arnold

Richard Matheson’s The Shrinking Man debuted in 1956, published by Gold Medal Books in an economical paperback edition with electrifying cover art by Mitchell Hooks.

Disguised as a modest science-fiction potboiler, Matheson’s brainy thriller appeared the same year Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit arrived at New York’s Roxy and Howl was unleashed via City Lights in San Francisco. Existential angst was all the rage and The Shrinking Man was its poster boy.

The first hand account of Scott Carey, a well-heeled suburbanite who suddenly finds himself growing smaller and smaller, Matheson’s briskly paced novella charts Carey’s literal and figurative descent as the tokens of his success – home,...

Arrow Video’s new UK Blu-ray edition of Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man comes packing with some super badass cover art. If you don’t have arachnophobia, you can scroll down to see it below. The classic 1957 sci-fi/horror film about a man named Scott Carey (Grant Williams) who finds himself becoming smaller and smaller after […]

The post The Incredible Shrinking Man Gets Tarantulatastic Blu-ray Cover Art appeared first on Dread Central.

To celebrate the Blu-ray release of The Incredible Shrinking Man, available on Blu-ray from 13th November, we have a copy of the film on Blu-ray up for grabs, courtesy of Arrow Video!

Based on the novel by the massively influential sci-fi and horror writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Martian Chronicles), with a script adapted by Matheson himself, and directed by Fifties sci-fi king Jack Arnold (Creature From The Black Lagoon), this is rightly regarded as being one of the finest science-fiction films of all time, a critically-acclaimed smash hit that currently has a 90 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Genuinely thrilling, and, as Scott’s plight becomes more desperate, tense and gruelling, the film features superbly realised special effects that bely the era, and the setting Scott finds himself in – filled with oversized household objects that suddenly become threatening and dangerous – takes on a wonderfully surreal atmosphere.

This...

Women suffrage movie 'Mothers of Men': Dorothy Davenport becomes a judge and later State Governor in socially conscious thriller about U.S. women's voting rights. Women suffrage movie 'Mothers of Men': Will women's right to vote lead to the destruction of The American Family? Directed by and featuring the now all but forgotten Willis Robards, Mothers of Men – about women suffrage and political power – was a fast-paced, 64-minute buried treasure screened at the 2016 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, held June 2–5. I thoroughly enjoyed being taken back in time by this 1917 socially conscious drama that dares to ask the question: “What will happen to the nation if all women have the right to vote?” One newspaper editor insists that women suffrage would mean the destruction of The Family. Women, after all, just did not have the capacity for making objective decisions due to their emotional composition. It...

Delmer Daves and Mitchell Leisen, not to mention D. W. Griffith, would know exactly what to do with the new musical “Bright Star,” which opened Thursday at Broadway’s Cort Theatre. Those three Hollywood legends don’t have much in common except that they all directed films about unwed mothers. Daves tops the illegitimate-babies list with his great knocked-up trilogy of “Susan Slade,” “Parrish,” and “A Summer Place,” his masterpiece from 1959. In those films, Sandra Dee and Connie Stevens took turns being impregnated by either Grant Williams or Troy Donahue. Adding fuel to the fire of those young passions, Daves’ parents.

Coleen Gray in 'The Sleeping City' with Richard Conte. Coleen Gray after Fox: B Westerns and films noirs (See previous post: “Coleen Gray Actress: From Red River to Film Noir 'Good Girls'.”) Regarding the demise of her Fox career (the year after her divorce from Rod Amateau), Coleen Gray would recall for Confessions of a Scream Queen author Matt Beckoff: I thought that was the end of the world and that I was a total failure. I was a mass of insecurity and depended on agents. … Whether it was an 'A' picture or a 'B' picture didn't bother me. It could be a Western movie, a sci-fi film. A job was a job. You did the best with the script that you had. Fox had dropped Gray at a time of dramatic upheavals in the American film industry: fast-dwindling box office receipts as a result of competition from television,...

Douglas Sirk movies: ‘Imitation of Life,’ ‘Written on the Wind’ (photo: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Karin Dicker in ‘Imitation of Life’) Douglas Sirk is Turner Classic Movies’ Director of the Evening. The German-born (April 26, 1897, in Hamburg) filmmaker has developed a cult following in recent decades after his "women’s pictures" were reappraised by some critics as works of profound social criticism filled with auteuristic touches. Why it would take years (or decades) for people to realize the obvious is a little mind-boggling, until you remember that movies about women and their issues have been, for the most part, relegated to the sidelines. A stupid prejudice that continues to this very day. My statement, by the way, has nothing to do with yikesy political correctness; if you don’t believe me, just check out the Best Picture Academy Award winners or Palme d’Or winners or Golden Lion winners or Golden...

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By Harvey Chartrand

Mr. Lucky: The Complete Series is now available for the first time ever as a 4-dvd box set from Timeless Media Group… all 34 episodes, with a running time of about 840 minutes. Mr. Lucky– created by writer/director Blake Edwards (Peter Gunn) – ran for only one season (from 1959 to 1960), even though it was a hit with viewers.

This adventure/crime drama is a sort of Peter Gunn Lite, featuring a lush, organ-powered theme song by Henry Mancini (a bonus CD of Mr. Lucky’s soundtrack is included in the set), an assortment of shady characters aboard a floating casino, and competent acting by series regulars John Vivyan (as suave professional gambler Mr. Lucky), Ross Martin (as his sidekick and business partner Andamo), Pippa Scott (as Mr. Lucky’s girlfriend Maggie Shank-Rutherford) and Tom Brown (as Lieutenant Rovacs, Mr. Lucky’s...

Originally adapted for the screen back in 1957 as “The Incredible Shrinking Man”, Richard Matheson’s 1956 book “The Shrinking Man” is getting back in the movie biz, with the famed author set to write the screenplay with his son, Richard Matheson Jr. for studio MGM. The original film starred Grant Williams and Randy Stuart and followed Williams as a man who begins to shrink when he is accidentally exposed to a combination of radiation and insecticide. That’s probably not going to work in 2013, so the story will be updated in a way that will, we’re told, “reflect advancements such as nanotechnology.” In fact, Matheson calls the film “an existential action movie”, which is quite the mouthful. Matheson’s works have been adapted for the screen before, including his most popular novel, “I am Legend”, which has been adapted a number of times, most recently in the Will Smith flick.

In 1956, Richard Matheson's novel, The Shrinking Man, was published. A year later the book was adapted to film as The Incredible Shrinking Man, and again in 1981 for The Incredible Shrinking Woman. The 1957 film was directed by Jack Arnold, and starred Grant Williams. Fast forward to now, and MGM has acquired the rights to Richard Matheson's The Shrinking Man. What's most interesting is that Matheson (87 years-old) and his son, Richard Matheson Jr., will be writing the screenplay. While the film will receive a modern take, the tone will stay the same as the original - bleak. Richard Matheson is a legend in the science-fiction community as he contributed to Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone," wrote the novel I Am Legend, and one of Steven Spielberg's most intense films, Duel. Describing the new iteration as “an existential action movie,” the elder Matheson says, “My original story was a...

MGM Studios is moving forward on an updated version of the sci-fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, tapping author Richard Matheson and his son Richard Christian Matheson to write the screenplay adaptation.

Richard Matheson's original 1956 novel centers on a man who is exposed to radiation and insecticide, which causes him to shrink. The new story will be modernized to reflect the advancements in nanotechnology, described by the author as an "existential action movie." Here's what Richard Matheson had to say about the remake.

"My original story was a metaphor for how man's place in the world was diminishing. That still holds today, where all these advancements that are going to save us will be our undoing. It's one of those fantasy concepts that does not age."

MGM president Jonathan Glickman also released a brief statement regarding the project.

"The themes of The Incredible Shrinking Man continue to be relevant.

The corporate struggle at this little-known company, which is key to the pay TV business, just became a little more interesting. New Frontier announced last night that Michael Weiner “has been terminated” as CEO. It gave no explanation for the decision to oust Weiner, who co-founded New Frontier in 1995. While the board looks for a full-time replacement, the top job will be shared by CFO Grant Williams, Chief Legal Officer Marc Callipari, and Chief Technology Officer Scott Piper. A longtime director, Alan Isaacman, replaced Weiner as chairman. His firing comes as New Frontier’s board tries to chart a path for the company’s future, including a possible sale. The company has received bids from investment firm Longkloof as well as from Luxembourg-based Manwin, which bought Playboy TV late last year. New Frontier produces VOD features, it also offers the Penthouse TV premium channel and pay-per-view services packaged as The...

Nine’s A Current Affair has hit back at claims by embattled Labor MP Craig Thomson that the show has engaged in “grubby journalism” be seeking to talk to a prostitute who alleges he was a client.

But the current affairs show claims that it has been investigating the scandal-burdened MP in a responsible manner.

This afternoon the show’s executive producer Grant Williams issued a statement saying:

“A Current Affair has been conducting an investigation into allegations against Federal MP Craig Thomson in relation to his former position at the Health Services Union. Our investigation has uncovered additional claims, not previously reported or to our knowledge investigated elsewhere.

“On that basis, we attended Parliament House in Canberra and met with Mr. Thomson. In the interests of absolute fairness and transparency, we presented our information to him, in an “off the record” conversation conducted in his office. This conversation lasted for almost 90 minutes.

Whether they’re male or female, old or young, they’ve illuminated some classic movies. Here’s our top 50 list of sci-fi heroes and heroines…

On the face of it, compiling a list of truly great sci-fi protagonists should be easy. Pick a load of familiar names from a hat, write some breathlessly adoring drivel beneath them, and head off to the pub to reward a job well done.

Except it was never going to be as simple as that – and compiling lists seldom is. For every character making an appearance in the list below, there were at least two other possible candidates who didn't quite make the cut. Some sci-fi heroes were removed, then quickly reinstated. The order was jiggled around, then reordered again.

At one point, your humble writer realised there were more than 50 entries, and then had the unenviable task of hunting back through to decide which poor soul to eliminate.

Whether they’re bigger than a bus or smaller than your fist, spiders are commonly feared. Here’s Matt’s celebration of arachnids in the movies…

It is one of life's great mysteries, at least for me, that there aren't more films made about spiders. Preferably great big giant ones. They constantly top the lists of ‘most scary things ever’, and so, in an era of horror movie-making where directors turn to such unlikely quarters as pool cleaning robots and Teddy Ruxpin for our frights (Paranormal Activity 2 and 3 respectively), why are spiders not exploited more in the movies?

There are, of course, plenty of reasons why nobody (other than SyFy and The Asylum, who both seem to have an almost fetishistic fondness for all things spider and shark-related) is particularly interested in making these movies. The main reason being that generally, they're just not very good. There's not a great...

Ryan Lambie Aug 11, 2016

Richard Matheson’s novel was adapted into The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957. Ryan compares the book to Jack Arnold’s classic movie.

For some writers, the most outlandish story ideas often come from unexpectedly mundane sources. Stephen King was inspired to write his claustrophobic short tale The Mist during a trip to his local supermarket. John Wyndham came up with the killer plant concept at the heart of The Day Of The Triffids when he spotted some vegetation shaking menacingly in the breeze.

Author Richard Matheson, meanwhile, was inspired to write his 1956 novel, The Shrinking Man, while watching an apparently incidental scene in the 1953 musical, Let’s Do It Again. A moment where actor Ray Milland puts on a hat belonging to someone else, which then flops down over his ears, made Matheson ask the question: what would happen if a man began to shrink in stature,...

Richard Matheson’s sci-fi novel was adapted into The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957. Here, Ryan compares the book to Jack Arnold’s classic movie…

For some writers, the most outlandish story ideas often come from unexpectedly mundane sources. Stephen King was inspired to write his claustrophobic short tale, The Mist, during a trip to his local supermarket. John Wyndham came up with the killer plant concept at the heart of The Day Of The Triffids when he spotted some vegetation shaking menacingly in the breeze.

Author Richard Matheson, meanwhile, was inspired to write his 1956 novel, The Shrinking Man, while watching an apparently incidental scene in the 1953 musical, Let’s Do It Again. A moment where actor Ray Milland puts on a hat belonging to someone else, which then flops down over his ears, made Matheson ask the question: what would happen if a man began to shrink in stature, so...

Video game movie tie-in’s have a difficult reputation to shake. Often produced cheaply and quickly to simply increase the profit and awareness of an upcoming movie, they are normally best avoided. Recent blockbusters like Iron Man 2 have followed this trend with lousy efforts, whilst consoles in the 80′s and 90′s were completely over-saturated with bad movie games. The awful Atari game based on Et was responsible for 1983′s video games crash, with the silly alien almost putting an abrupt end to the future of gaming.

In recent years, games based on movies are generally increasing in quality, with many developers putting care and attention into making something faithful to the film itself. In 2005 Rockstar brought us a brilliant beat-em-up based on The Warriors , while last years Toy Story 3 was a respectable and surprisingly deep game which even adults could enjoy.

Following our recent article on games which deserve...

A Current Affair has been sued by Today Tonight for ripping off a news segment. The Nine Network news show replayed a clip from rival Channel Seven show Today Tonight earlier this year only minutes after it was aired and has now been charged $$140,000 (£91,000) for breach of copyright. According to The Daily Telegraph, A Current Affair's executive producer Grant Williams initially said that he was "completely" comfortable with his decision to replay the segment about a school incident which saw bullying victim Casey Heynes turn on his perpetrator and slam him to the floor. Sources have claimed that Nine's CEO Jeff Browne settled the case out of court earlier this week, because he "didn't want to keep paying lawyers before it even got to court". They added: "He agreed to pay $$100,000 (£65,000) in (more)...

The classic 1957 science-fiction thriller The Incredible Shrinking Man will be released for the first time as a stand-alone DVD on Aug. 30 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment for the list price of $19.98.

Grant Williams gets small--really small--in The Incredible Shrinking Man.

The movie stars Grant Williams as Scott Carey, a regular joe who sails through a strange radioactive mist during a boating trip one day, resulting in him slowly shrinking. As time passes and he gets smaller and smaller, ordinary household objects begin to loom over Scott with lethal intensity, while even greater dangers lurk around the corner in the form of a house cat and a spider. Carey must rely on his wits to survive in his new oversized world … and the world that awaits him as continues to shrink.

Directed by genre journeyman Jack Arnold (who has helmed everything from the 1958 teen exploitation film High School Confidential to a...

The 50s was a golden era of big screen sci-fi. Here’s our pick of the decade’s ten very best genre films…

Off screen and on, the 1950s was a spectacular era for science fiction. In literature, Ray Bradbury kicked off the decade with his masterpiece, The Martian Chronicles, while digest magazines like Galaxy were publishing the works of such sci-fi luminaries as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein.

In the cinema, every year brought forth a fresh wave of genre pictures, some brilliant in their awfulness (Plan 9 From Outer Space, Robot Monster), others simply brilliant. This article is devoted to the movies in the latter category.

Here, then, is my rundown of my ten favourite science fiction movies of the 50s:

Destination Moon (1950)

The 50s era equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Destination Moon was the brave attempt of producer George Pal to bring a...

Greetings! Lots going on.  Please subscribe to this and the Vintage Vinyl page.  It's free to have both emailed directly into your life.  Comments are always welcome.  Thank you!Heights Theater, 40th & Central Av. Ne, Columbia Heights, Oct. 8-14.  www.heightstheater.comMAIN Feature: "The Kids Are All Right".  Fri., 7:10 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 4:40 & 7:10 p.m., Wed., 7:10 p.m.Special Feature 1: "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957) from Universal.  Dir.: Jack Arnold.  Stars: Grant Williams.  Mon., 7:30 p.m., $8.Scott...

William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch in Sidney Lumet’s Network Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson, William Holden, Ava Gardner, John Wayne, Boris Karloff, Bette Davis, Burt Reynolds, Faye Dunaway, Robert Ryan, Grant Williams, Miss Piggy, and the recently deceased Kathryn Grayson. Murder, madness, mayhem, mutants, muppets, satanists, and singers. All that and more will be offered movie fans in the March film series at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Va., starting March 4. [Film Schedule] My chief recommendations are: Sidney Lumet’s totally out-of-control drama Network, the best Hollywood movie of 1976 and featuring two of the greatest male performances of the ’70s: Peter Finch, the Oscars’ first posthumous acting winner, as [...]...