by Marc Hustvedt on March 8th, 2010
The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers lit up the Oscars stage last night (above) on ABC with a medley of all of the Best Original Music nominees. Talk about a killer (and free) promo for their upcoming web series The LXD from director Jon M Chu. Check out Madd Chadd’s legendary robot skills in the UP section of the routine. [YouTube]
The Guild’s creator-star Felicia Day is going to star in a SyFy Channel Saturday Original Movie where she will portray “a werewolf-hunting descendant of Little Red Riding Hood.” “In the action-packed Red, Red (Day) brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business – hunting werewolves.” The movie, set to debut in 2011 on SyFy also stars Kavan Smith (Stargate Atlantis) and Stephen McHattie (Watchmen). [Bloody Disgusting]
DigiVenture is hosting a Women in Digital event tonight in Los Angeles hosted by Joanne Griffith that will feature a panel representing audio, visual and print media professionals, including: Carmen Dixon, former ABC producer and creator of the blog Allaboutrace.com, Zadi Diaz, founder of the web TV series, Epic Fu, and Shani Byard-Ngunjiri, founder of Media Message Ed. The free event will be held at Otis College of Art and Design on Monday March 8th from 7-9pm and parking is free. [DigiVenture.org]
Funny or Die tapped director Ron Howard to rope together the best SNL prexys from the past few decades in a Presidential Reunion video (below) that already broke 2.5 million views on in under a week on site. Darrell Hammond stars as Bill Clinton, Jim Carrey as Reagan, Dan Aykroyd as Dick Cheney, Fred Armisen as Barack Obama, Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford, Dana Carvey as Poppy Bush, Will Ferrell as George W. and Maya Rudolph as Michelle Obama. The video is part 1 of three in the series. [Funny or Die, MainStreetBrigade]
by Joshua Cohen on December 14th, 2009
In October, Vuguru announced it inked a multi-million dollar deal with Canadian media behemoth, Rogers Media. The partnership gives Vuguru – a three-year-old web television company founded by Michael Eisner – two things. One, a distribution partner with 51 radio stations, two television networks, one Major League Baseball team, and a multitude of other print publications and broadcast outlets, ranging from a Canadian edition of Hello magazine to Canada’s only nationally televised shopping service. And two, an influx of cash with which to triple production and create a reported 10 to 15 new web series in 2010.
Today, Vuguru named Larry Tanz president. The entertainment industry executive and digital media entrepreneur will have the responsibility of soundly spending Rogers’ “significant capital investment” on “high-quality, scripted, story-driven productions” with known talent and advertiser, distributor, and audience appeal. If his resume is any indication, he’ll perform very well in the new position. Before Vuguru, Tanz was CEO and President of LivePlanet (the entertainment company founded by Ben Afleck and Matt Damon that created, most memorably, Project Greenlight) and also Co-Founder and President of digital studio, Agility.
In one of his frist orders of business, Tanz will be rolling out the Vuguru library (which includes web series like Prom Queen, The All-For-Nots, and Foreign Body) on Rogers On Demand networks. In the coming months, he’ll oversee the productions and distribution of Prom Queen: The Homecoming; Pretty Tough “an adaptation of a successful young adult novel from accomplished television writer and producer Liz Tigelaar;” and The Booth at the End, a “physcological thriller” starring Xander Berkely and directed by Jessica Landaw.
by Marc Hustvedt on December 2nd, 2009
Wowzas. We’ve been hot on Jon M. Chu’s upcoming dance-laden web series The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers for a while now, but this is getting to a new level. The group appeared tonight on FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance, and blew away the competition. These guys are AMAZING. Seriously, watch the clip above from the show. (right now)
We’re starting to think this could be the first truly international blockbuster web series. And now that Paramount Digital has jumped on board with Agility Studios for a major online distribution push, it just might get there.
No Special effects. No Wires. Real People, Real powers.
We call this project THE LXD.
“The LXD allows us to evolve how we tell stories using dance while creating a platform for the best dancers in the world to do what they do best,” said Jon M. Chu. “For the past year, my team and I have been locked in a room secretly building a project that combines music, dance, story telling, sport and interactive media.”
The dance segment above was choreographed by Harry Shum, Christopher Scott, and Galen Hooks, all of whom are members of The LXD.
by Joshua Cohen on November 30th, 2009
The problem with dance movies isn’t the dancing. Everyone enjoys watching unrealistically attractive teen and twentysomethings manipulate and contort their bodies in unbelievable ways to hip-hop driven beats. And I mean everyone. I’m no anthropologist, but I’d say humans have a universal, positive association with cutting a rug. Dance, after all, is the world’s oldest art form, and after thousands of years of being an integral part of our culture, it’s fun to watch people do it well. YouTube proves my point.
The problem with dance movies is the storyline. The exposition generally sucks. It’s difficult to pay attention to or care about plot developments so hackneyed they’re fodder for a Wayans flick. Watching outsiders or underdogs endure life-changing experiences – the death of a close family member, the attainment of a love interest, a montage – is unbearable when all we want to do is see them step up, bring it on, or stomp the yard.
The solution to dance movies is Jon M. Chu’s The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (aka The LXD). The web series from Agility Studios and the director of Step Up 2: The Streets borrows a few moves from sci-fi television and applies it to the dance genre. The storyline follows “heroes and villains with amazing powers of dance, that band together in rival factions, with an epic back-story and mythology woven around how the various dance styles in the hip-hop world came to be.”
Sounds awesome, right? Paramount Digital Entertainment thinks so, too. The development and distribution subsidiary of Paramount Pictures just closed a deal with Chu and Agility to distribute The LXD.
by Joshua Cohen on November 30th, 2009
Milo Ventimiglia wants to further intellectual debate for the Comic-Con crowd. Back in May, the Heroes’ hotshot told us about teaming up with Agility Studios for the web series Ultradome. The program pits comic and sci-fi fanboys against one another in a virtual octagon, where two individuals debate timeless topics like, “Would Harry Potter or Neo win in a fight?” and “Who’s the cooler vampire? Count Chocula or Lestat?”
It’s basically the same premise as a classic Van Damme flick, re-engineered for the online set. You can imagine Don LaFontaine’s voice explaining: “Two geeks enter. They Debate. One geek leaves.”
Last time we spoke with Ventimiglia, Ultradome was without a release date or distribution partner. Now that’s changed. MSN tell us they recently struck a deal to distribute the series and are shooting for a late-January premiere.
Joe Michaels, Senior Director at MSN Business Development, explained to me why picking up Ultradome made sense:
by Marc Hustvedt on May 4th, 2009
Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes) is teaming up with Agility Studios to create a hosted sci-fi web series, Ultradome, which will attempt to humorously settle long-standing debates in the comic and sci-fi worlds. First up is a faceoff of fanboy favorites Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings, presumably to determine who would win a Darth Vader vs. Gandolf battle or if The Force trumps the Ring and so on.
It’s looking like a hosted series, with two subjects facing off in each episode tasked with questions such as “Should I have a Lord of the Rings- or a Star Wars-themed wedding?,” or “Could Harry Potter beat Neo in a fight?”
Ventimiglia is producing the series through his diVide Pictures outfit and stars in the pilot episode, “Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings.” He will also direct select future episodes of Ultradome, which was co-created with partner Russ Cundiff and Agility execs Keith Quinn and Zev Suissa.
by Marc Hustvedt on April 6th, 2009
Remember YouTube Live? A little 7 year-old breakdancing prodigy known as Lil’ Demon shuffles out on stage kicking off an elaborate ensemble dance routine and thrusting Jon M. Chu’s Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD) onto the web scene.
Director Jon M. Chu sits atop Hollywood’s street dance scene. The 27 year-old is himself a bit of prodigy, fresh off an impressive $150 million box office draw from his studio feature debut Step Up 2: The Streets. It’s his mastery of web video, using his YouTube channel as a hub, where he has built a devoted following of amateur dancers of all sorts. Chu in fact discovered Lil’ Demon (Angelo Baligad) after video of the young Hawaiian dancer shot by his mother were posted to YouTube and linked on Chu’s page.
Now the popular dance troupe is becoming a full-fledged interactive franchise, announcing today a partnership with Agility Studios to create an original narrative web series dubbed The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD). PUMA has signed on as lead sponsor for the series, which will feature the dancers sporting the company’s new 917 line.
