The International House of Mojo

Way back in 2013, the Lucasfilm classic Willow finally debuted on Blu-ray to sales that dwarfed every Star Wars release combined. About eleven seconds later, it fell out of print, having vanished as surely as a pig beneath an apprentice sorcerer's cloth.

The reasons why remain murky. The release roughly coincided with the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, so perhaps there were prosaic legal complications. At any rate, the title became a favorite of eBay scalpers, commonly selling for over a hundred smackers on the second hand marketplace only a year after it came out. The situation was sad, bleak, hopeless. We measure the lives lost by the cemetery.

Now, for the movie's 30th anniversary, it looks like this grievance is getting addressed. Pre-order listings for a reissue have begun to spring up on various online retailers. The implication is that you will be able to obtain Willow by disc or by stream for a reasonable price on January 29th, 2019.

And that, handsome gentlemen, is the kind of news we at Mojo proudly risk our lives to bring you.

Source: Blu-ray.com forums

Continuing today's accidental theme of Sam's voice actors, Gameranx has an interview with Bill Farmer. Farmer is of course best known as the voice of Goofy for Disney, but Sam & Max gets a mention as well:

Visit Gamerax to listen to the audio recording of the full interview.

Source: Gameranx

Harvey Atkin, who voiced Sam in the Sam & Max animated series, passed away on July 18th. Atkin was the second of three voice actors who have so far taken on the role of Purcell's character, though he is more widely known for his roles on TV shows such as Cagney and Lacey and Law and Order, as well as the Ivan Reitman comedy Meatballs, which he co-starred in opposite Bill Murray.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

If you have a quarter of an hour to spare, why not watch the first episode of a LEGO fanfilm adaptation of the classic LucasArts Star Wars shooter Dark Forces III: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.

If the youtube video doesn't display above, use this link instead.

Source: Youtube

At some point I decided that the Bone movie is Mixnmojo-relevant on the basis of the Telltale games, and while my argument has a few holes in it, I figured you guys wouldn't pick today - which comes a solid two weeks since our last news post - to challenge me on this.

So last we heard, P.J. Hogan (known for the 2003's Peter Pan) was set to direct the animated film. That was Jan. 2012, after which we've heard nothing. Today, The Hollywood Reporter breaks the silence to reveal that there's a new director (the Kung Fu Panda guy) and a new script, which will be designed as the first installment in a trilogy.

Will this finally happen? Will it be good? I sure hope so. Few adaptations are more overdue than Bone. Mostly though I'm curious to find out how different/similar to the Telltale games the music and voicework will end up being. Say, maybe this is a good time for the studio to end that ten-year hiatus on their own Bone adaptation?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Our friends at Campo Santo struck an exciting and unexpected partnership with film production company Good Universe (Oldboy,Neighbors). Hollywood Reporter has the scoop, which has admittedly seen hotter days:

Source: Hollywood Reporter

If LucasArts / Disney ever resurrect Indiana Jones video games, I'd love an adventure game in that style.

Source: patrickschoenmaker.com

Yesterday, actor and voice actor Alan Young died of natural causes at the age of 96. A prolific performer, Young is best known and beloved worldwide as Wilbur Post - the human sidekick of Mister Ed - and of course as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in DuckTales, a role he continued to voice in work as recent as this year.

Here at Mojo, though, he will always be remembered as Haggis McMutton, one of Guybrush's amicably mutinous crewmen in The Curse of Monkey Island. We thank him for his characters and congratulate him on the immortality.

Source: CBS News

It's official, and it ain't gonna be no reboot neither. This will be a proper fifth installment with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg.

I know many will be dubious, but I say bring it on. The oddly lethargic Crystal Skull is all the more reason to do this - the Ford era deserves a better send off. Age isn't an issue; Ford looked great in the new Star Wars and walked away from a freaking plane crash recently.

My suggestion? Keep Indy overseas for the whole movie a la Temple of Doom. And if they take The Godfather Part II approach where they do parallel narratives with a 30s era Indy (to smooth the transition to the inevitable recast), one hopes they favor the "Michael Corleone" plot line by a ratio of like 90/10.

Oh, and somehow I knew this would happen before another Indy video game showed up.

Source: Variety

There have been these silly rumors that Disney wants Chris Pratt to star as Indiana Jones in a reboot of that film series, but according to a guy at Deadline it's totally the case, and what's more, Spielberg himself wants to direct it.

Considering there's no script and Spielberg gets attached to every single movie project in development (he was once slated to direct American Sniper and Interstellar), his involvement is far from a certainty, but it would make me excited, especially if they take a Godfather Part II approach as I've seen proposed, and the movie alternates between Old Indy (Ford) and Young Indy's (Pratt) timeline, telling a story that relates the two adventures. In this way you get a potentially better send-off for Ford (since Crystal Skull snatched away his sunset ending), and they will have smoothly transitioned the series over to the reboot era.

So, who is your preferred director to take over Indy if Spielberg inevitably loses interest, and why is it Hal Barwood?

Source: Deadline

After hitting the big-time with a co-director credit on 2012's Brave, Sam & Max creator and longtime Pixar employee Steve Purcell will be helming a new Toy Story television special to air on ABC in December, the second of such shorts. Den of Geek reports:

According to the transitive property of pulling stuff out of my ass, we're one step closer to that $350 million Pixar animated Sam & Max feature with all the trimmings. Hey, you can argue with Math or you can win an argument.

Source: Den of Geek

Move over Broken Sword news! Variety is reporting that Disney has acquired Indiana Jones. You may have thought they already owned it with the LucasFilm buyout, but apparently not entirely.

Can the mouse whip the franchise back into shape, and is anyone willing to have a crack at a new videogame (Telltale!)?

Source: Variety

I'm that one asshole who grew out of Star Wars before even the prequels. I've no doubt that this new sequel trilogy will be good, I just personally do not care.

I've always been more of an Indiana Jones guy, so despite my better judgment I've been keeping my fingers crossed for a fifth and final Ford-Spielberg-Lucas outing, one that lets that "era" close out on a more solid note before the inevitable reboot with new folks before and behind the scenes. I don't care if Ford is in his 70s - Indy's mortality is what makes him more interesting than Bond and you can make it work, somehow.

Of course, there's the little matter of logistically getting the movie made, and on that score it seems that Ford is using what stroke he has to up the odds of Indiana Jones 5, which fans had basically accepted as a lost cause once Disney made it clear that its only priority is Star Wars (an Indiana Jones project would involve splitting profits with Paramount) and Lucas admitted to making no progress on a story. Here's the rumor, courtesy some guy via Jedi News:

We'll see what comes of that. Start chowing down on those grainfuls of salt in the meantime.

Source: Jedi News

It seems that the Star Wars 1313 project won't be going completely to waste. If you'll remember, the project was a joint effort between LucasArts, Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound, and Lucas Animation. This joint effort between the subsidiaries apparently harkened back to the early days of Lucasfilm Games, when the charter of the studio was to make experimental, innovative, and technologically advanced video games. We'll likely never get to see the full result of this collaboration, but some of their innovation is going to be used in Hollywood films in the future.

The advanced real-time motion-capture capabilities pioneered for Star Wars 1313 enables the "production company to film an actor and then immediately capture and funnel those actions into a computer-generated character. The result is an instantaneous, photo-realistic computer-generated film that cuts down on production time".

See the technology in action in the video below:

Source: Venturebeat

Here's three Mojo tidbits for the new year:

Firstly, Did you miss the first public Double Fine Amnesia fortnight? If so, you still have a chance to redeem yourself for your misdeeds. Head to Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight page where you can still buy the games in digital form for $10 USD. If that's not enough for you, for an extra $20 USD, you can now pre-order a collector's package that comes with a DVD with all five Amnesia Fortnight prototypes (plus the bonus prototypes Brazen, Happy Song, and Costume Quest), the 15-track Amnesia Fortnight 2012 Soundtrack, and a Blu-Ray disc of 2-Player Productions' Amnesia Fortnight documentary footage. If that's still not enough for you, for an extra $15 on top of that, you can have the package include a collector's edition cover featuring art of one of the five 2012 protoypes signed by the project leader for that prototype. If you're still not satisfied with these awesome options, feel free to pay $70 USD for a collector's package featuring covers with art from all six prototypes, all signed by each project leader.

Secondly, Telltale's finally openly talking about their upcoming announced projects, but it's not Fables or King's Quest. Instead, they're talking about The Walking Dead Season Two (which should surprise no one). In an interview with Polygon, Telltale CEO Dan Connors talks about the next season's pre-production story meetings. It seems the next season will feature at least some of the same characters as season one, since according to Mr. Connors:

"We're talking through different scenarios, though I don't think we've talked through one where we just start with a new set of characters."

Another interesting bit from that interview is that Telltale is open to the possibility of having the game characters meet the television show characters. It will be interesting to see if they can work that out, since it seems the television show and comic book are handled by two separate corporate entities (judging by the Terminal Reality developed shooter based on the television show that's coming out next month, and the fact that Telltale's game got no publicity from AMC, the network that produces the show).

Lastly, do you remember the Wallace & Gromit's Musical Marvels show at the BBC Proms last year? The one that Mojo covered because it was Ben Whitehead's (of Telltale's Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures) first official credited appearance as Wallace in plasticine form? Well, the good news is that if you missed it last year, you still have a chance to see it live since it's proved popular enough to now become a full touring show. It just premiered yesterday at The Plenary in Melbourne, Australia, and will be touring elsewhere later this year (with the short A Matter of Loaf and Death screened at each performance as a bonus). You can view a list of the full touring locations at the Wallace & Gromit's Musical Marvels website.

Graham Annable -- you know him from Grickle, Puzzle Agent, and much more -- is set to co-direct an animated/stop-motion movie. Yes, another LEC artist is hitting the big-time, after Purcell co-directed Pixar's Brave last year.

The movie, The Boxtrolls, is based on Alan Snow's Here Be Monsters and will feature a host of famous voice actors, including Ben Kingsley and Toni Collette. And the co-director? You might recognize his name from the cancelled Curse of Monkey Island movie: Tony Stacchi; he worked on the concept art for the film. What the hell is up with that coincidence, right?

For more, check out Hollywood Reporter. Then get appropriately excited.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Over the last four or five years, a number of Indiana Jones fans have been diligently gathering the material necessary to compile a deleted scenes page for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull over at TheRaider.net. The commendable efforts of this noble, tireless, obscenely attractive (full disclosure: I contributed) band of scalawags are finally brought to bear today recently.

While it's not like these scenes would have made for a dramatically better movie (that would have required going with the Darabont screenplay that Spielberg and Lucas disagreed on, in my opinion), they are still fascinating to read about. For example, were you aware that in early cuts of the film, Ray Winstone actually had lines of dialog, Indy had occasion to use his whip, and Mutt got bitten by a piranha? Read all about these and more cut sequences, complete with a lot of rare production stills, right here.

Source: TheRaider.net

Not like you exactly needed a crystal ball to predict that it was going to eventually happen, but Disney has officially scheduled a release date for a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean picture.

Despite drafts being completed by series regular Terry Rossio (who in the case of the first four films wrote with his regular collaborator Ted Elliot), the movie recently got a new screenwriter: Jeff Nathanson, who wrote and co-wrote such scripts as Speed 2, the second and third Rush Hour films, Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can and The Terminal, the recent Tower Heist, and one of the ten billion unused incarnations of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (residue of which scored him a story credit). Other than that, the only thing known is Johnny Depp's participation.

What specious homages to the Monkey Island series will this next installment evince that promise to inspire a thread with at least five (5) posts in it? We'll just have to wait until July 10th, 2015.

Source: Deadline

One of the great things about being a natural contrarian is that I get all the Willow coverage to myself.

On March 12th, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox join forces to bring you "Willow: 25th Anniversary Edition" on Blu-ray. You probably recall Ron Howard's 1988 fantasy film as the thoroughly okay attempt by George Lucas to hatch a new franchise, this one more Tolkien than Flash Gordon. The grander plans fell through when the box office returns weren't good for much more than covering costs, but the movie remains a cult favorite, and is arguably a property Lucasfilm should have continued with a sequel anyway (a possibility which the great Warwick Davis to this day heartbreakingly refuses to rule out).

Here's the thing about Willow: it's got a whole bunch of intriguing deleted scenes that fans have only been able to experience via script pages and novelizations, and it looks like this release will finally bring some of them to light. Based on the trailer above, we'll get to see the fabled scene where Willow gets attacked by an animatronic shark-boy in a storm (its omission leaving Willow inexplicably wet at one point in the final cut) and more material depicting the frozen citizens of the kingdom of Tir Asleen. You probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about because I'm talking about Willow, so let's re-frame this news in a way that everyone can appreciate: skull-masked Pat Roach in high definition.

Source: High-Def Digest

Source: Nerd Approved