Oh FFS. Elon Musk posted “use Signal” on 1/7/21, the day after the goddamn insurrection. If there was any doubt as to his intended audience, Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys national chairman, cleared it right up. @January6thCmte @RepRaskin

Kurtzman, who is a writer, director and executive producer on Showtime’s new sci-fi series The Man Who Fell to Earth, opened up to the Bingeworthy podcast on Friday about his “brutal” experience as helmer of the Tom Cruise-starring film that was an intended reboot of the Mummy franchise. The project, which was released in June 2017 and had been envisioned as launching Universal’s cinematic Dark Universe focusing on the studio’s movie monsters, was unsuccessful critically and commercially, and Kurtzman hasn’t directed a feature since.

“I tend to subscribe to the point of view that you learn nothing from your successes, and you learn everything from your failures,” Kurtzman said. “And that was probably the biggest failure of my life, both personally and professionally. There’s about a million things I regret about it, but it also gave me so many gifts that are inexpressibly beautiful. I didn’t become a director until I made that movie, and it wasn’t because it was well-directed — it was because it wasn’t.”

Kurtzman, who previously worked as a writer on such movies as Transformers (2007), Star Trek (2009) and Cowboys & Aliens (2011), said he now understands more about filmmaking after having gone through that process.

“And as brutal as it was, in many ways, and as many cooks in the kitchen as there were, I am very grateful for the opportunity to make those mistakes because it rebuilt me into a tougher person, and it also rebuilt me into a clearer filmmaker,” he shared. “And that has been a real gift, and I feel those gifts all the time because I’m very clear now when I have a feeling that doesn’t feel right — I am not quiet about it anymore. I will literally not proceed when I feel that feeling. It’s not worth it to me. And you can’t get to that place of gratitude until you’ve had that kind of experience.”

Jenny Lumet, who is also a writer and executive producer on The Man Who Fell to Earth, was a guest with Kurtzman on the podcast. Lumet, who has a story credit on The Mummy, said she is “very grateful” to have worked on the film and added, “I don’t think that I could be here now without that experience.”

The Hollywood Reporter’s 2017 review of The Mummy, which also starred Russell Crowe, Annabelle Wallis and Sofia Boutella, called the film an “inauspicious beginning to a would-be franchise.” It currently holds a 16 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Scott Bakula believes not being in syndication killed Star Trek: Enterprise

UPN was the home of Star Trek for a decade. From 1995 to 2005. During that time, two network shows aired. The first was the successful Star Trek: Voyager, which lasted seven seasons and was a statement show for the franchise. The second was Star Trek: Enterprise; a prequel series that told the story of how the Federation of Planets came to be. It was also the first Star Trek series to invest big money in the lead, bringing in sci-fi legend Scott Bakula as the main character, Captain Johnathan Archer.

Bakula was easily the biggest name Star Trek had ever brought in to build a show around, and they thought with that, a Rod Stewart written (but not sung) theme song, and the backing of a pretty big network in UPN, that Enterprise was set up to be a hit.

It was supposed to be a hit, and while it lasted just shy of 100 episodes and for four seasons, the show was ultimately canceled due to ratings in 2005. An ending no one wanted, even now 17 years later, and one Bakula believes would’ve gone differently had it not been on UPN.

Bakula spoke with the late Bob Saget on his Here for You podcast (quote via Slashfilm.com), and revealed that had the show been in syndication at the time, the series would’ve gotten a seven-season order from the jump.


All the other [Star Trek shows] … set up their deals with all the little stations all around America for seven years, and they went and made a TV show for seven years. Which we would have done also if we had been syndicated.

Scott Bakula is sort of right about how Star Trek used to do things
Bakula is right, that with the original series, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, each show was in syndication and the production company sold the rights to the show to every market. Yet, by the 90s, most local channels had started to merge and were owned by larger companies. NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox all had their own syndicated networks around the country. Cable was starting to take a lot of viewers away from standard syndicated hours with an ever-expanding catalog of premium networks that allowed shows to do more and get away with more with regards to explicit content...

https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/2022/03/09/scott-bakula-believes-not-being-in-syndication-killed-star-trek-enterprise/