Pages tagged “universal”

After nearly a decade, former Tribe mainman gets his long-awaited day in the sun

Back when he was rockin’ the mic for A Tribe Called Quest, the man formerly known as Jonathan Davis (AKA: living hip-hop legend Q-Tip) was known for coming correct with a distinctively nasal message of positivity wrapped in the choicest rare grooves available, going against the then-prevalent Thug Life grain of bitches/blunts/bling. His songs moved both asses and minds simultaneously, pioneering a whole new school of alternative hip-hop in the process.

Cue collective grumble from cult sectors: Universal has officially nabbed Gore Verbinski to produce a remake of The Host, the much-touted 2006 creature epic from South Korea.

For all the talk of that Laurentian Abyss and all those Sector 7 classified secrets, there's some real noise making the rounds about our favorite Autonomous Robotic Organisms from the planet Cybertron. Transformers are set to make theme park gold as Universal plans to install Transformers: The Ride at both its Hollywood and Singapore parks.

The video game hasn’t even been announced yet, but several Hollywood studios have already burned through a bidding war for rights to make a movie from a new EA project with the working title Dante’s Inferno. Universal Pictures snapped up rights, beating out major bids from Paramount, MGM and others.

In a rare collaborative effort for the major Hollywood studios, word from Reuters is that Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. are close to an agreement worth upward of $1 billion to finance the installation of thousands of digital screens at theaters across North America.

Legendary bluesman’s new set sits alongside Cash’s American Recordings as autumnal landmark

“Times have changed so much, music has changed so much, but those old records still sound pretty good,” said B.B. King recently, referring to the blues standards—including Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More Years,” Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” and John Lee Hooker’s “Blues Before Sunrise”—that he revisits on his captivating new album One Kind Favor. Elegiac by intent, the record is awash in poignancy, radiating from the deeply felt guitar and vocal performances of the 83-year-old King and his supporting band (anchored by drummer Jim Keltner, bassist Nathan East and pianist Dr. John) and from the carefully chosen material. But just as importantly, it boasts a breathtaking immediacy, which isn’t surprising considering the strictly live-off-the-floor methodology of producer T Bone Burnett and his secret weapon, brilliant engineer/mixer Mike Piersante, who brought comparable vitality and presence to recent albums by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, John Mellencamp and Brandi Carlile. Burnett specializes in conjuring—and Piersante in capturing—special moments.

Listen to B.B. King's "Backwater Blues" from One Kind Favor:

Wes Anderson has just signed on for his first project with Imagine, a re-make of the 2006 French comedy Mon Meilleur Ami. Anderson has agreed to write My Best Friend, which will be released through Universal.