dead Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It was known as the house that Freddy built ... and now it's gone. Vanished. Absorbed whole into the corporate borg that is Warner Bros. It was announced yesterday that New Line Cinema, as we know it, is now dead. According to former chief Bob Shaye, it seems that WB will still use the New Line name for certain productions and / or pick-ups, but it probably won't be long before that idea is swallowed whole by Warner Independent Pictures.One can only assume that New Line subsidiary Picturehouse (formerly Fine Line) will also be absorbed, which is a shame because they've had a really impressive track record so far.

So while I'll always be grateful to New Line for giving me Freddy Krueger, Blade, Critters, Austin Powers and (of course) The Lord of the Rings, I thought it might be interesting to track back over ALL of the New Line, Fine Line, and Picturehouse releases and maybe even see what doomed the studio. Aside from withholding all those LOTR profits and inspiring a half-dozen very expensive lawsuits, of course. (And let's not forget: They distributed The Evil Dead, funded almost all of John Waters' films AND they bankrolled Boogie Nights, Pleasantville, Seven, and Dark City, so let's not talk too ill of the recently-deceased.) New Line celebrated its 40th anniversary last November, which means they set the "founding" year as 1967. At that point New Line was simply distributing old flicks to college campuses, but that all changed in the early '80s.

As a production company that we know and (sometimes) love, New Line was probably born in 1982, with the production and release of Jack Sholder's Alone in the Dark, a strangely amusing horror flick starring Jack Palance, Martin Landau and Donald Pleasance. From that small success, the die was cast; 1984 saw the arrival of A Nightmare on Elm Street and 1985 saw ... A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. This would prove to be New Line's m.o. for many years to come: One novel idea followed by several uninspired sequels.

The powers-that-be over at Marvel Comics have decided to kill off one of their most popular patriotic characters! According to AOL's Entertainment Division, Cap gets capped in the most recent issue of his comic book, and this is definitely the end of the road for Steve Rogers ... for the time being, anyway. (Don't get too bummed out, Marvelites, characters get re-killed and resurrected all the time in that universe; the extra drama helps to sell issues.) The saddest part of the whole story is the reaction from 93-year-old Captain America co-creator Joe Simon: "We really need him now," is what the aged artist had to say.

But even if ol' Captain A doesn't get a new comic book right away, Marvel has earmarked this character for his very own movie adpatation. (Yes, you get geek points for remembering that there already was a Captain America movie, but you lose those points (times two) if you actually liked that movie. Triple bonus points to anyone who's seen both of the 1979 made-for-TV CapAm movies!) So in honor of the red, white and blue-coated superhero, we ask you this: Who the heck would you cast as Captain America in a live-action movie? I would have said Thomas Jane if that guy didn't already have his own Marvel franchise to deal with, but how about somebody like Ryan Reynolds? Oh, he's still a possibility for the lead in that Flash movie? Okay, then you guys decide: Who'd be the perfect choice for this hero? (And to the hardcore fans: Who would you get to play Red Skull?)

Akira Ifukube, the man who composed the main theme to the original Gojira (Godzilla) movie in 1954 passed away on Wednesday of multiple organ failure. Ifukube's composition was used in some of the subsequent Godzilla releases as well. Besides scoring for Godzilla, he also produced over 300 pieces of music throughout his career, which began in the late 1930s and eventually brought him to what is now called the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1946. I pride myself on being able to recognize the Godzilla theme, something that surely earns me at least a few geek points.

British stunt co-ordinator, performer, and second unit director Roy Alon passed away recently of a heart attack at the age of 63. Alon worked as a stuntman and stunt double in numerous movies throughout his thirty-year career, including several James Bond flicks, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and most recently The DaVinci Code. He's also appeared in over one hundred shows on British television, and has also doubled for some Bollywood stars. Alon is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific stuntman with over one thousand credits to his name.

Joe Pichler, a relatively unknown child actor who performed in the third and fourth installments of the Beethoven series and also appeared in the films Varsity Blues and The Fan, is still missing after abandoning his car near his family's home in Bremerton, Washington and leaving an alleged suicide note inside. Pichler, who is now eighteen, quit acting in 2002 to return home and finish high school. Pichler has so far not been found, though over 150 people have showed up to help search for him since he's gone missing.

German singer/performer Ilse Werner, who starred in many films in Germany during the second World War, died of pneumonia on August 8. The daughter of a Dutch father and German mother, Werner has nearly forty films to her credit, including the 1943 version of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and was also recognized for her whistling ability. Werner was barred from movies briefly after World War II for supposedly spreading Nazi propaganda. She was 84.