Hollywood

Though Halo 3 held the all-time entertainment industry record for single-day sales for eight months, it could be a long time before anyone bests the record-shattering sales achieved by GTA IV.

On Wednesday, Take-Two Interactive, which owns GTA IV developer Rockstar Games, announced that the new game had raked in all-time records of $310 million on its launch day of April 29 and $500 million during its first week. The single-day figure shattered the previous record, set last September by Halo 3, of $170 million.

And given how quickly Bungie Studios' Halo 3 was reduced to second place, it stands … Read more

Electronic Arts on Tuesday officially launched Boom Blox, the long-awaited first game under its partnership with Steven Spielberg. It is now available in North America, and EA plans to have it on shelves in Europe on May 8, in Asia on May 13, and in Japan on May 22.

The first details about the game, which is from EA's casual games unit, were released in February. Now, the game, which will be available only on Nintendo's Wii and on major carriers' mobile phones, is out and the world can finally see what happens when you put someone like Spielberg together with top-level game designers at a company like EA.

Boom Blox will task players with navigating nearly 400 levels of "strategic destruction."

In addition, players will be able to use the game's editor to craft their own levels. The best part of this sounds like it will be the way the editor lets players take existing levels and elements from the game--props, characters, blocks, etc.--and incorporate them into all-new levels. … Read more

When the visual effects and animation wizards at Industrial Light & Magic started working on Paramount Pictures film Iron Man, their biggest challenge was creating a suit for the title character that was part CGI (computer-generated imagery) and part real costumery.

If you're not familiar with Iron Man, it's the story of Tony Stark, a genius billionaire industrialist who's also a bit of a jerk and who designs and sells weapons. In the film's opening sequences, Stark is demonstrating one of his weapons in some unspecified country near Afghanistan when he is captured by terrorists who … Read more

On Tuesday, I received an invitation to a special Wednesday screening in San Francisco of the forthcoming Paramount film, Iron Man, which opens officially on Friday.

This actually was the second invitation I had received to a screening--the first was for a Tuesday night showing that I was, sadly, unable to attend in the end. And it was looking a whole lot like the Wednesday one wouldn't work either.

But now I'm thinking I may have to work extra hard to make it.

That's because I read this evening that after TechCrunch announced Tuesday that it was … Read more

Executives at Electronic Arts have to be kicking themselves right about now.

It appears that Take-Two Interactive, the video game publisher EA has been trying to buy for the last couple of months, has a potentially record-breaking hit on its hands with Grand Theft Auto IV. And EA isn't pocketing the cash.

While it's too early to know exactly how many copies of GTA IV sold Tuesday, the game's launch day, anecdotal evidence suggests it will likely be one of the most successful launches in the entertainment industry's history--if not the most.

"We are saying … Read more

Watch out, Hollywood. Here comes Microsoft.

At an event it called Digital Showcase, held Thursday in New York, the software giant told a group of ad execs that it is getting into the business of producing original Web shows for its wide range of Web platforms.

According to MediaWeek, Microsoft told the ad execs that the shows it is funding will be naturals for supporting online advertising.

The shows are slated to run on portals like MSN, Xbox Live, and MSNBC.com. Among the initial series are: 50 Greatest, which MediaWeek said is "a spoof of the multiple pop … Read more

This is a fish story--complete with attacking sharks, high-velocity steak, and ninjas with poison darts, no less.

This is the story of my Wednesday spent hanging out with the MythBusters-- Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci--at their workshops in San Francisco.

MythBusters, for those who aren't aware, is a hit Discovery Channel show in which the five stars tackle famous myths--such as that frozen chickens pose a greater danger to airplanes than thawed poultry, or that a single postage stamp on a helicopter's rotors can cause it to crash and burn--and attempt to … Read more

If you're a big MythBusters fan, or even if you're not, I hope you will stop on by on Friday morning, as I'll have a story and extensive photo gallery from the day I spent Wednesday hanging out with the famous team.

Without giving too much away, I got to spend most of the day yesterday at the MythBusters headquarters in San Francisco, talking with the hit TV show's stars as they prepared for upcoming episodes.

Think magnets and sharks, flapping fish, dynamite and steak, and ninjas and poison darts.

And if you want to know … Read more

It was a big night for Hollywood Sunday night, what with the biggest stars and best films being celebrated at the 80th Academy Awards.

But, unexpectedly, it also turned into a big night for Nintendo and its popular Wii video game console.

At one point in the show, as the broadcast came back from commercial, host Jon Stewart appeared on-stage playing tennis on the Wii, with the game displayed on the Oscars' giant screen.

It was a funny moment, and in keeping with Stewart's contemporary wit.

And while Nintendo must have known about it in advance--otherwise, how could the … Read more