Articles by Witney Seibold

This Is When The Batman & Robin Cast Realized They Had Filmed A Bomb

Joel Schumacher's 1997 film "Batman & Robin" was an unusual animal by any measure. It was technically in the same franchise as Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman," but by 1997, the series had changed lead actors twice, with the hero now being played by George Clooney. When Schumacher took over from Burton on 1995's "Batman Forever," he leaned more into the campier, more colorful aspects of Batman, reducing the character's angst and playing up his absurdity. By the time Schumacher made "Batman & Robin," he and Warner Bros. had decided that Batman should behave more like he did in the comedic 1966 "Batman" TV series, and that the villains should be campy comedy characters rather than insane, dark weirdos. The result was an overblown, overwrought, over-designed mess that no one likes. "Batman & Robin" cost $160 million to make (hefty at the time), but earned back a less-than-respectable $238 million. Thanks to Hollywood accounting, that counted as a box office bomb. It was not nearly as large an earner as the previous Batman movies, and it temporarily killed the franchise. For a while, Batman lived on only in an animated series and in forgotten live-action shows like 2002's "Birds of Prey." He wouldn't be seen on the big screen again until 2005. During the press tour of "Batman & Robin," the cast knew something was amiss. Chris O'Donnell, who played the titular Robin, recalled that no matter what journalists he talked to, the feedback was negative. In a new interview with EW, O'Donnell even remembered a moment when Schumacher audibly yelled that he was giving up on the movie. That's not a good sign. No actor ever wants to hear their director just giving up. This film, he knew then, was going to bomb.

9 hours ago

Technology

Star Trek Stars Set The Record Straight On Voyager's Most Controversial Scene

The "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Tuvix" remains controversial to this day, perhaps unexpectedly so. The premise of the episode is absurd: the logical Vulcan Tuvok (Tim Russ), and the hobbit-like chef Neelix (Ethan Phillips) beam up from a plant-gathering away mission, only to find their botanical samples somehow interfered with the transporter beam. The two men eerily merge together into a composite being that is just as much Tuvok as he is Neelix. The new being, calling himself Tuvix (Tom Wright), possesses the memories and skills of both Tuvok and Neelix. At first, Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) feels that this new Tuvix being should be placed back on the transporter pad ASAP and re-separated back into Tuvok and Neelix, but an ethical conundrum arises. Tuvix announces that he rather enjoys having been created, and that he no longer wishes to be separated. Although created by accident, Tuvix has just as many rights as anyone. As far as Tuvix is concerned, Tuvok and Neelix died in a transporter accident. The morally right thing to do is to let Tuvix live on as a new member of the crew, and mourn the loss of Tuvok and Neelix. Janeway, however, makes the unethical choice. She finds that, yes, her engineers can indeed construct a transporter effect that will separate Tuvok and Neelix once again, and orders Tuvix to undergo the procedure. Tuvix is forcibly taken to the transporter pad, screaming and protesting the entire time. He yells that Janeway is executing him, which is true. Janeway ignores him, and restores Tuvok and Neelix. This episode comes up a lot in conversations about "Voyager," and arguments are still had about Janeway's dodgy decision. Mulgrew has long maintained that Janeway's choice was correct, as it was her job to advocate for Tuvok and Neelix. Tim Russ agrees, knowing that Tuvok's and Neelix's rights needed to be considered. Both actors spoke at a recent "Star Trek" convention in New Jersey (reported by TrekMovie) to iterate their points.

12 hours ago

Technology

Tim Curry Knows Why He's So Good At Playing Villains

Like any great actor, Tim Curry feels that empathy is key. No matter how terrible a villain an actor may be playing, they will have to find relatable emptions in them. Curry has played sadists and literal supernatural monsters, but understands that, as an actor, he has to fundamentally understand them. It was a quality, he said, he inherited from his father. In Curry's words: "I've always tried to make [villains] amusing, which gives them a bit more edge. [...] It's like people being drawn to the scene of a car crash. They're drawn to extreme behavior ... I think people secretly long to be a bit more explosive or act out much more." One might hear many actors say that playing villains is fun, as it allows them to shed their inhibitions and take revel in (pretend) acts of evil. Villains, generally speaking, enjoy themselves. That's certainly true of the villains that Curry plays; he allows all his characters to smirk, cackle, and howl out their evil into the world. Some might even see a character like Dr. Frank-N-Furter to be aspirational. Well, not the murder and cannibalism parts, but his freewheeling sexual hedonism. Even in kid-friendly entertainments, Curry could cut loose, snarling his villain lines at Barbie or at Kermit the Frog with equal aplomb. In "Muppet Treasure Island," he embodies Long Jon Silver perfectly. He played Ebenezer Scrooge in a 2001 production of "A Christmas Carol," and captured Scrooge's embittered miserliness with aplomb. And these are just his villain roles. Curry has played plenty of dramatic and comedic roles besides.

12 hours ago

World

Gilligan's Island Creator Sherwood Schwartz Saved Another Iconic TV Series

Sherwood Schwartz was, of course, TV royalty. He created two notable sitcoms in the 1960s, both of which became so enormously popular that they changed the texture of the entire medium. In 1964, he created "Gilligan's Island," a whimsical, silly little sitcom about seven castaways stranded on a deserted tropical island. Then, in 1969, he blew the doors open a second time with "The Brady Bunch," a sitcom about two single parents with three kids each who marry and move into a rather large house together. This was all presaged by a successful run writing "The Red Skelton Show," a gig that won Schwartz an Emmy. So, when it came to knowing the ins and outs of TV success, Schwartz was no slouch. He even had a few of his relatives go into TV production, including his nephew Douglas, who co-created the TV series "Baywatch" (a show that Sherwood's son Lloyd also wrote for). "Baywatch" was one of the most successful TV series of all time, becoming an international sensation during the 1990s and lasting over a decade. It's odd that we don't talk about "Baywatch" more than we do. Douglas Schwartz and his "Baywatch" co-creators, Michael Berk and Gregory J. Bonnan, believed in the show from the start and knew that it would be a hit. Lighthearted beach capers featuring wildly attractive people in swimsuits? What could go wrong? Weirdly, though, "Baywatch" wasn't a huge success during its first season. Indeed, it initially did so poorly that NBC threatened to pull the plug. It wasn't until Sherwood Schwartz went to Douglas and encouraged him to buy the rights to his own show, believing it could still become a hit. It was salient, vital advice, as Douglas Schwartz recalled in a 2017 interview with the Austin American-Statesman.

12 hours ago

Technology

Big Bang Theory Creator Chuck Lorre Created A Major Part Of TMNT's Pop Culture Footprint

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. These days, Chuck Lorre is best known for churning out hit sitcoms. His long resume of hits include the 1990s comedy series "Cybill" (a vehicle for Cybill Shepherd that ran four seasons) and "Dharma & Greg" (a quirky dream girl series that ran for five seasons), as well as the 2000s bachelor comedy show "Two and a Half Men" (which ran an absurdly long 12 seasons). Of course, his biggest success remains "The Big Bang Theory," which lasted 12 seasons and has birthed multiple spin-offs, among them the prequel series "Young Sheldon" (which lasted seven seasons unto itself). Even his relatively lesser-known sitcom "Mom," starring Anna Faris and Allison Janney, steamrolled through eight seasons. Whatever mysterious alchemy TV shows need to become culture-rippling phenomena, Lorre knows it. It may be surprising to learn, then, that TV was Lorre's secondary passion. When he was only a teenager, he dropped out of high school to focus on a songwriting career. In the mid-1980s, he penned a tune called "French Kissin," which was eventually recorded by Debbie Harry for one of her solo albums. All the while, Lorre tried his hand at screenwriting and turned out a few scripts for animated shows like "Heathcliff," "Pole Position," "M.A.S.K.," "Muppet Babies," and "My Little Pony." In 1987, he was even hired to compose the theme song and music for the popular "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon series. He penned the theme with Dennis Challen Brown and provided vocal interjections like "We're really hip," "Gimme a break," etc. The details of Lorre's songwriting are discussed at length in Andrew Farago's biographical tome, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History." The book also features an interview with "TMNT" story guru David Wise, who shared everything about Lorre and his skilled songwriting capabilities.

13 hours ago

Technology

Jeri Ryan Thinks Star Trek: Voyager Made Just Three Big Mistakes With Seven Of Nine

"Star Trek: Voyager" infamously struggled with ratings for its first three seasons. It was doing okay, but it was nowhere nearly as popular as its immediate antecedents "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." The show's producers tried out several desperate measures to boost ratings, but they rarely worked. For instance, the regular use of a sun-drenched bikini beach holodeck program didn't set Trekkies' hearts aflame. Eventually, the showrunners figured the series needed a character shake-up to attract attention. They wrote off the gentle, kind, moral character of Kes (Jennifer Lien), and replaced her with a comely Borg names Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan). Ryan was possessed of magazine model looks, and the costumers outfitted her with an elaborate corset and skin-tight catsuit, clearly a desperate ploy to add sex appeal to the series. Strangely, though, the ploy worked. Seven of Nine proved to be very popular, and ratings went up. What's more, the show's many writers loved the idea of having a super-genius, semi-mechanical former Borg on the series, and they couldn't stop writing stories for her. Seven quickly became the central star of "Voyager," supplanting most of her co-workers in screentime. Yes, some of the other cast members resented the popularity of Ryan and of her character. Ryan loved playing the role, even if she hated that damned corset. Seven of Nine stayed through the end of "Voyager's" seven seasons, expanding and growing all the while. She slowly became more human, and even fell in love. Seven returned to "Star Trek" in 2022 as part of "Star Trek: Picard." By the end of that series, she had become the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise-G. Jeri Ryan recently attended MegaCon in Orlando, Florida to talk about her career, and revealed some issues she had with the "Star Trek" writers' treatment of Seven. Indeed, she took note of three palpable mistakes with the character, two of them large, one of them small. The small one: how do you pronounce "futile?"

5 days ago

Technology

5 Marvel Movie Characters We Hope Get More Screentime In Phase Six

The original "Howard the Duck" comics from the 1970s were meant to be a spoof of Marvel's own space adventures. Howard, an anthropomorphic waterfowl from another dimension, was an alcoholic, foul-mouthed a-hole who unwittingly became embroiled in cosmic weirdness, usually reacting with a "can you believe this?" attitude. Howard had cameos in "Guardians of the Galaxy" volumes 1 and 2, and appeared briefly in the massive battle in "Avengers: Endgame." He's an especially weird character in a film franchise stuffed with weird characters. He, like Deadpool, could serve as the means for the MCU to take the p*** out of itself a little. Give Howard his own movie, and he could finally address how bugnuts crazy this series is, and how we've come to naturally accept the wizards, gods, spies, talking trees, and other oddities in the MCU. Many may point out that Howard the Duck already starred in his own movie, "Howard the Duck," way back in 1986. That film, however, was so unsuccessful, it was long held up as one of the worst examples of Hollywood run amok. "Howard the Duck" was the bomb to end all bombs, mentioned in the same sentence as other notorious turkeys as "Ishtar" and "Heaven's Gate." That, however, was almost 40 years ago, and it's high time the character was reclaimed. Also, given the winking self-awareness of something like "Deadpool & Wolverine," one can see a new Howard the Duck appearance as ironic. Yes, there's a talking, alcoholic duck in this universe. Yes, he hates everything about superhero stories. Yes, we can use him to acknowledge that the multiverse is silly, and superheroes have outstayed their welcome in the public consciousness. Howard the Duck may just save us. Deadpool is too far gone. He wants to be an Avenger, and cares about the Avengers characters. Howard may just have the temerity to give Captain America the finger (or feather, as the case may be).

Oct 15, 2025