Movies
R.I.P. Claymation Animator Will Vinton, Who Worked On ‘Return to Oz’ and Collaborated with Michael Jackson
Will Vinton, an Oscar and Emmy-winning Claymation animator, has died. His passing was announced in a Facebook post by his family on Thursday, says Deadline. He was 70 years old and had suffered from multiple myeloma, a white blood cell cancer.
While I’ll always remember him as the creator of Domino’s Pizza insanely irritating, but lovable Noid, Vinton was also the mind behind the legendary California Raisins. As for us genre fans, he dabbled. In fact, he was nominated for a special effects Oscar for his incredible work on Walter Murch’s cult Return to Oz.
Vinton also was a regular collaborator with Michael Jackson and provided mind-blowing claymation work on three of his most famous projects: Disney’s “Captain EO”, as well as the “Speed Demon” music video for Jackson’s musical anthology feature-length film, Moonwalker (1988).
The artist built an animation studio started in his basement into a multimillion-dollar business, Deadline offers. Along the way, he won an Oscar, Emmy and other awards, but eventually lost control of the company and was dismissed.
He won his Oscar in 1974 for the Best Short Film, Animated for Closed Mondays. He shared the award with Bob Gardiner. His Emmy arrived in 1992 for the Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour Or Less) for Claymation Easter. The award was shared with four others.
His achievements were massive and he’ll forever be remembered for his contributions in entertainment. We send our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.
Movies
‘Desperation’ – Sam Raimi and ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Directors Teaming for Stephen King Movie
Stephen King’s 1996 novel Desperation is headed back to the screen, with Jeff Sneider breaking the news on The InSneider that Sam Raimi, Stephen King, and Final Destination Bloodlines directors Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky are coming together for the film.
Sam Raimi will produce the upcoming Desperation movie, while Stein and Lipovsky are on board to direct. Searchlight Pictures is the studio attached to the feature film project.
Published in 1996, Stephen King’s novel Desperation was previously turned into a made-for-TV movie starring Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Steven Weber back in 2006.
Wikipedia reminds, “Desperation is a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to ‘rescuing’ a family from a nonexistent gunman. It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive.
“They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from which he came.”
Desperation was published at the same time as Stephen King’s own “mirror novel” titled The Regulators, which shares characters but takes place in an alternate universe.
The union of Sam Raimi and Stephen King is an exciting one for fans of both Raimi and King, and there’s a nice bit of full circle history there too. As you may recall, it was Stephen King’s review of The Evil Dead that Raimi credits for saving and legitimizing his indie debut feature.
And the rest is history! Stay tuned for more on this developing story.
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