ABC Goes South To NASHVILLE For A New Musical Show

This week, advertisers in New York get a sneak peek at all the networks' upcoming fall schedules.  It's called the "upfronts" and used to be strictly industry. But lately, the upfronts have become a venue for the broadcast networks to also titillate and tease their audience in general, as they put promo trailers for their new shows up on their websites and even on YouTube.

I watched a bunch of them today over at Videogum and one that stood out was ABC's NASHVILLE. It looks to be a musical show ala SMASH but set in the world of country music. The main thing that got my attention was that it stars Connie Britton from FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and my favorite show last year AMERICAN HORROR STORY. It'll be interesting to see just how much music is actually in the show.

Michael Bay's Movies Get Buck For Bang

I found a nifty graphics chart today via Videogum which shows the direct correlation between the number of explosions in Michael Bay's films (he did the TRANSFORMERS blockbusters, amongst of summer movies) and the amount of money his films take in.  It was done by a graphic designer named Jeffrey Frankenhauser and you can see the chart on his own site (nicknamed Bayhem!).  There are also some additional graphics and figures on the body counts of Bay's films too, which reached an incredible 206 in the last TRANSFORMERS film.

Honestly, I don't know how you could actually count the on-screen deaths as there was so much general mayhem going on during that film. But someone did.  That someone is named Kyle, a freelance writer in Sioux Falls who provided the cold, hard data for Frankenhauser's chart.  It's a remarkable feat in that I have trouble sitting through a Michael Bay movie once whereas as he had to go back and forth to count all these things.  Anyway, not surprisingly, the higher the body count/explosions the bigger the box office.  Not really news but nice to see someone has taken the time to prove an old Hollywood adage.