Epic Tragedy, Ironic Incongruity, or Are We Being Played?

By popGeezer | July 21, 2009

 

 

Here’s the listing, right out of the San Diego Comic-Con program catalog, for an event scheduled for this Saturday (7/25/2009):

“1:00-1:45 Futurama: Life or Death ?!-Be a part of sci-fi history! Join executive producers Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and stars Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Maurice LaMarche for high-stakes thrills as a top-ranking FOX executive decides live, on stage, whether Futurama will make yet another triumphant return or whether it is gone forever! The very fate of Futurama hangs in the balance! Paramedics will be standing by in case the intense excitement causes any panelists to collapse. Raucous celebration or abject despair to follow the news. Ballroom 20“

When I downloaded the schedule package, back on July 13th, this entry struck me as odd.  Comedy Central had already announced on June 10th that it was underwriting 26 new episodes of the animated sit-com about life in the 3000’s.  What “final fate” could the panel be about – if the show would play on Fox??  Articles had already indicated that Fox held some kind of network right-of-refusal on airing the new episodes.  What “life or death” was still in question?

But over this past weekend, a startling story broke loose.  Reports, sourced to a July 17th Hollywood Reporter article, say that 20th Century Fox has responded to the salary demands of the cast – John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, Tress MacNeille and Katey Sagal – by announcing the start of re-casting of the voice talent.  Variety has published an article as well, claiming the stars’ desired price was a cool $75,000 per episode.

As of this posting, neither THR or Variety appear to have posted a follow-up story, and neither original article has any quotes from the cast, a specific Fox executive, or showrunners David X. Cohen or Matt Groenig.

See where I’m going with this?

The Hollywood box-office trend site the-numbers.com estimates that Fox took in over $25 million in revenue by selling over 1.3 million units of the four direct-to-DVD “Futurama” movies.  That figure would not include the Comedy Central cash to run them on basic cable, where the ratings were good enough to spark the return of the show.  Was the June 10th return announcement so premature as to include references to the cast but have them actually unsigned to do so?  Tinseltown isn’t normally a brain trust, but… really??

My take is that, despite the “reality” of this re-casting and/or re-negotiation, the press took to and ran with this story.  [Just peek below.]  I don’t expect any “resolution” on this matter… until Saturday afternoon in San Diego, when the “Life or Death ?!” panel takes place.

And I anticipate we’ll find out that Leela and Fry and Bender and Zoidberg will all sound EXACTLY like they’re supposed to sound! 

 

 

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