Pop Culture Link Round Up 10.25.14

Craft Brewer Admits He’s The Guy Responsible For Town’s Mysterious Count Chocula Shortage

Just in time for the spooky season, the city of Fort Collins, CO had a crunchy mystery on its hands: Someone had bought up all the boxes of Count Chocula cereal from two local grocery stores, prompting confusion and hunger in at least a few shoppers. Enough of a mystery to make the news, at least.

A puzzled shopper who says she usually eats vegetarian and organic food for most of the year wrote to The Coloradoan saying she splurges around Halloween on her favorite cereal.

“Every year I greatly look forward to the month of October when I can purchase a few boxes of this delicious chococlatey (sic) goodness,” she wrote, an effort that was stymied when both Albertson’s stores she went to were completely out of the stuff.

As it turns out, the general manager of Black Bottle, a craft brewing company, had plundered shelves in order to brew beer for the brewery’s Cerealiously beer series. Previous variations include Golden Grahams, Reese’s Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch moonlighting as milk stouts, and this time it’s the Count’s turn.

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Hoverboard soars close to Kickstarter goal in just two days

As of Wednesday, Arx Pax — the start-up that says it has made the “world’s first real hoverboard” — has raised nearly all of its $250,000 goal on Kickstarter. It’s raised more than $225,000 in barely two days of listing the Hendo Hoverboard on the crowdfunding site, well ahead of the Dec. 15 closing date.

The company has a patent on a technology that creates a magnetic field beneath the board that pushes against itself, creating lift — similar to the system used inMaglev trains. It claims that compared with those other magnetic-levitation systems, its technology is “inexpensive” and “sustainable”. But there’s a hitch: The board will only hover over a surface made of a non-ferromagnetic conductor.

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Warner Brothers seeking female director for live-action Wonder Woman movie

Warner Bros. is seeking a female director for “Wonder Woman,”The Hollywood Reporter contends, meaning not one but two milestones for the film: It stands to be the first solo feature of the current wave of superhero films to star a woman, and only the second ever to be directed by one.

Lexi Alexander (“Green Street Hooligans”) was the first, with the relatively low-budget 2008 reboot “Punisher: War Zone,” an experience she talked about earlier this year withSPINOFF ONLINE. Patty Jenkins (“Monster”) was poised to be the second, when she was hired in 2011 by Marvel Studios to helm “Thor: The Dark World.” However, she left the sequel within two months, citing creative differences, to be replaced by “Game of Thrones” director Alan Taylor

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‘Organic genderless gingerbread figures’ might be the most politically correct cookies ever – Your Community

It might not have much of a ring to it, but the name of a new cookie being sold by Melbourne, Australia’s Organic Food & Wine Deli is pure gold in terms of its ability to go viral — for whatever that’s worth.

The following image of the Aussie bakery’s “Organic genderless gingerbread figures” (which just so also happen to be vegan) has been circulating the web since Tuesday when it was posted to Reddit with the caption “So this is what the world is coming to…

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What do your favorite Hollywood stars (and agents, directors, CEOs, stuntpeople etc) make a year?

We tend to think that Hollywood stars make the mondo $$.  While we’re right in many cases, things apparently aren’t the way they used to be in the industry.

FILM STAR

How bad is the decline in actor salaries over the past decade? Despite the huge sums still being raked in by such superstars as Robert Downey Jr. (his $75 million comes from his 7 percent, first-dollar slice of Iron Man 3, as well as his $12 million HTC endorsement deal) and Sandra Bullock (a 15 percent, first-dollar deal onGravity and about $10 million more for her summer hit The Heat), most actors are feeling a definite squeeze, especially those in the middle.

“If you’re [a big star], you’re getting well paid,” says one top agent, “but the middle level has been cut out.” Sometimes with a hacksaw. Leonardo DiCaprio made $25 million (including bonuses) for The Wolf of Wall Street, while co-star Jonah Hill got paid $60,000. Granted, that’s an extreme example — Hill offered to do the part for scale (and got an Oscar nomination for his trouble).

But studio cost-cutting has meant that mid-level stars are being nickel-and-dimed in ways that would have been unheard of in the gilded ’90s (i.e., Marvel Studios’ reportedly offering Mickey Rourke a mere $250,000 to star opposite Downey inIron Man 2). Before breaking out the violins, though, remember that even mid-level stars are far better off than most other actors. According to the most recent SAG statistics, the average member earns $52,000 a year, while the vast majority take home less than $1,000 a year from acting jobs.

AGENT $200K-$10M
Like everyone in Hollywood, the talent agencies have been tightening their belts. “Your biggest concern used to be, ‘Would I get a $100,000 bonus or a $200,000 bonus?’ ” recalls one veteran agent wistfully. “Ha! Things have changed.” Those bonuses still happen, they just require a hot client (or five). CAA generally pays more than WME, UTA, Gersh, ICM and Paradigm, yet salaries increasingly are tied to what an agent brings in. And an agency will overpay to lure a top agent (and his clients). Generally speaking, though, starting agents can expect to earn $50,000 to $65,000; more senior agents make around $200,000; partners make $400,000 to $700,000; and board members — like CAA’s Bryan Lourd and WME’s Patrick Whitesell and Ari Emanuel — can earn as much as $10 million. In rare circumstances, bonuses based on client earnings can turn mid-level agents into $1 million-a-year employees. In short, top talent breeds top salaries. Tracey Jacobs at UTA is said to be earning upward of $9 million — and she reps Johnny Depp.

Click the link to learn the salaries of tv stars, stuntpeople, and more.  Prepare to be depressed by the massive sums of money these people make.  Even those who don’t make the millions of dollars still do damn well.

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Pop Culture Link Round Up 10.25.14
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