EVIL PUPPET MASTERS

FINALLY, I can make the announcement that I have been dying to make since…February Thanks to the insane awesomeness that is JJ, Burky and Bad Robot - FRINGE fans now have a place to interact with each other AND with members of the Creative Team AND (hopefully) actors from the show. That place is FRINGE DIVISION — the Offical Site for the Creative Team Behind FRINGE and it is sponsored by J.J. Abrams.

For anyone who is familiar with The Fuselage site that was made for LOST - FRINGE DIVISION should look and feel very familiar to you. It is designed and run by the same duo who made the Fuse: Karri and Artie. In fact - if you are registered on the threaded board of The Fuselage, your registration carries over to FRINGE DIVISION - just login with the same User Name and Password.

The site has been up for a couple of weeks while we have been working the bugs out, but it is a fully operational battlestation so feel free to go give it a spin. My buddy Rick (aka J.R. Orci, one of those writer/producer guys for FRINGE) has already been breaking in his Q&A forum on the threaded board, and a few more VIPs should start appearing over the next couple of weeks. You may notice that I have one of those pretty colored fonts over there - that is because I am a Co-Admin for the site. Feel free to stop by and say howdy

Happy 42nd birthday to the man who exhales awesome without breaking a sweat, Jeffrey Jacob Abrams!!! Thank you for using your superhuman powers for GOOD.

And thank you to Gerald and Carol for being the reason you exist.

JJ pic belongs to me. No takey.

Bob Orci, JJ Abrams and Alex Kurtzman at the Fox Upfronts

Not much new in the realm of FRINGE today, but did find a rather good picspam for FRINGE over on OhNoTheyDidnt. Some pics I’ve seen, some I haven’t, so felt it worthy of sharing. A bunch of pics of Joshua Jackson at the Upfronts, FYI.

Is it August 26th yet?

J.J. Abrams talks about the difficult task of finding the right actress to play FBI Agent Olivia Dunham in this interview held during the Fox upfront last week. I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the casting of Anna Torv - she completely owns this part.

One correction to that piece from SciFiWire — the Casting Agent’s name is April Webster, not Ann

IGN managed to tackle the blur known as J.J. Abrams this week and get some questions answered about his Star Trek movie (i.e., the movie will still be done by Christmas - it was Paramount that made the decision to delay the release until May) and the continued swirling rumors around a sequel to Cloverfield (i.e., JJ would rather do a new and different movie with Matt Reeves and Drew Goddard rather than a sequel).

You can find the interview HERE.

According to Variety, J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot are on board to produce “Hot for Teacher” for Paramount and have a couple of other movies in development for Paramount as well. Blurb is below:

Paramount Pictures has purchased Jay Dyer’s spec “Hot for Teacher,” with J.J. Abrams to produce via his studio-based Bad Robot shingle.

Story revolves around three high school boys who vow to have sex before they graduate; one of the teens plots to seduce a hot teacher.

Bad Robot most recently delivered the monster film “Cloverfield” for the studio. The shingle also has a number of projects in various stages of development and production with Paramount, including “Star Trek,” “Morning Glory” and “Men Making Music.”

Dyer is a supervising producer on Showtime series “Californication.” He previously sold to New Line the spec “Multiple Mary,” which Scot Armstrong is attached to direct.

Source

Below is the actual blurb from Variety regarding FOX’s pickup of FRINGE:

Drama “Fringe,” from Abrams’ Bad Robot and Warner Bros. TV, revolves around a young femme FBI agent who works with an offbeat scientist to tackle cases involving unexplained medical and scientific phenomena. Pilot was penned by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and helmed by Alex Graves. Skein’s cast includes Aussie thesp Anna Torv, Mark Valley and Joshua Jackson.

According to this interview with Joshua Jackson over on SciFiWire, he turned the part of Peter Bishop on FRINGE down THREE times before finally caving in and signing a 6-year deal to do the show. I’m amazed that anyone could turn down the charming and engaging JJ - at least JJ uses his power of persuasion for good Wonder if HEROES knows about him…

Also, you guys have no idea how PERFECT Joshua Jackson is for this role. Seriously, just trust me on this. This show will be your next obsession. Bank on it.

According to this article in Variety, Matt Reeves, JJ Abrams, and Drew Goddard are in talks with Paramount to develop a sequel to CLOVERFIELD.

Sooooo…how long before the viral marketing for “CLOVERFIELD II: Electric Bugaloo” starts up? A week? Two?

I was interviewed last week by The Houston Chronicle about being a fan of JJ and LOST. It seems that the interviewer liked what I had to say because my name comes up often in the piece that went live today.

Go HERE to read it. Yeah, that Johnston chick? That’s me One note: I DO NOT co-run The Fuselage with Artie. That would be the lovely Karri. The interviewer really didn’t have much of an understanding about online bulletin boards, so when I told her I was a moderator there, I think she misunderstood what that was. Otherwise, the rest of the article is good - and it’s a positive one, which I always like to see.

It is a RARE occurrence for me to find an interview with the one, the only - Bryan Burk - that covers stuff I haven’t heard him talk about before. Well, LOOKIE HERE - I actually found one. Burky talks about CLOVERFIELD, but he also talks about his love for Star Wars and how he came to meet and become best friends with JJ and Matt. SOOOO worth the read.

Go. Now. Read it.

ETA: BIG THANKS to my pal Grant for sending me the link. NEVER ASSUME I HAVE SEEN EVERYTHING!!! That goes for all of you. Me busy girl these days. I miss a LOT

I got a bunch of vid links from FEARnet, so I’m just c/p’ing what they emailed me. Enjoy!

J.J. Abrams divulges how he came up with the idea for Cloverfield.

Footage from the secret Cloverfield Myspace party.

Interviews from the LA premiere.

Interviews with Director Matt Reeves and the cast.

News about special features on the DVD.

Sequel?! We got the news straight from Reeves himself.

First, a pic of two of my favorite people (from IESB.net’s photo gallery of the CLOVERFIELD premiere):

Burky had this to say about CLOVERFIELD’s record-breaking opening weekend:

We are still DUMBFOUNDED by the weekend’s turn out. It’s one thing to work on a project you love. It’s another to get such a WONDERFUL reaction to it!

Ego just doesn’t exist in that office.

In case you hadn’t heard, CLOVERFIELD’s opening weekend is the best January opening EVAH!! There will be no living with those BR folks now…

TEASING! HUGE congrats to JJ, Burky, the Ultimate Drew, Matt Reeves and my buddy Dave Baronoff (who neglected to tell me he had an Associate Producer credit for the movie - w00t!). I’ll be posting my thoughts on the movie soon.

I know everyone missed the red carpet at the Golden Globes, so to make up for the lack of glitz and glamour, CLOVERFIELD threw a helluva party last night. Go check out these pics from the premiere. Thanks to my buddy q for finding them over at IESB.net.

For any M.U.D. members checking out the pics, THANK GOD Goddard finally cut his hair

For the Trekkies ~ looks like the entire cast of the new movie was there.