Randy Ronning was back at his post running the Elk River Open this past weekend, almost as though nothing had happened.
Just a month earlier, Ronning spent three days unconscious in an intensive care unit.
The coach of eight Elk state tournament teams and the 2012 state champions, a robust picture of health and fitness at age 60, he was almost lost due to a strange reaction to some toxic substance July 8.
Randy Ronning
?It gave me a new perspective on things. That?s for sure,? reflected Ronning with a grim smile.
That day, Ronning was resealing a driveway that he installed five years ago. He had resealed an older driveway several times without incident. Figuring he might as well do a complete job while he was at it, he tore out the old caulking on the cement apron at the end of driveway.
He suddenly got dizzy, went inside to lay down for 20 minutes and felt better. He completed the driveway job and did some yard work, but after a few hours, felt pain and swelling in his jaw.
The next morning he went to urgent care, where they recommended an antibiotic. He called a replacement for his tennis lessons and went to bed. By 5:30 p.m., his throat and face were so swollen that breathing was difficult.
Back at urgent care, his doctor, alarmed this time, directed him to take an ambulance to the emergency room. Ronning said, ?Well, my wife can drive me,? but the doctor replied, bluntly, ?You might not make it.?
Apparently mold, or a toxic substance in the caulking, or a combination of the two, caused the serious reaction, Ronning said, adding, ?We may never be sure.?
At the ICU at Mercy Hospital, they put Ronning under and didn?t wake him up until three days later.
He had a tube stuffed down his throat for a breathing passage. Having the tube removed was ?the closest thing to death I?ve ever had,? he said. ?What suffocating or drowning must be like.?
Ronning stayed at the ICU for a week. They wanted him to stay longer, but he insisted on leaving. The day he woke up, the ICU was full, but a couple days later, there were several empty beds. He commented to a doctor that a lot of people must have gotten well. But he was told, ?No, those people died,? which showed how harrowing his own experience was.
Aftereffects of the attack linger. As yet, Ronning can?t salivate and has to spray a substance into his mouth. He can?t taste food. He?s lost 20 pounds.
?My weight never fluctuated more than a pound or two in my life,? he noted.
The antibiotics caused his kidneys to shut down; they?re just now getting back to normal. Sleep was sporadic due to the dry mouth, although new medicine is helping with that. He?s been told his taste and saliva functions will return eventually.
But Ronning, who makes his living as a year-round tennis pro, along with coaching the Elks and substitute teaching, returned to the courts right away, probably his best medicine. His doctor advised against that, but the coach protested, ?I?ve got to get back. That?s what I do.?
He directed the Elk River Open for the 21st consecutive year, although for the first time, he didn?t play in it himself.
To tournament participants, Ronning was his familiar upbeat, helpful self. His own assessment: ?I?m weak, especially in the legs. I don?t really care if I gain the weight back, I just want my strength back.?
This wasn?t even the first health setback this year for Ronning, whose luck ran out suddenly after a lifetime of fitness and health. In February, finally paying a price for hundreds of thousands of serves and volleys, he needed surgery on his right rotator cuff.
He got a kick out of what the doctor told him that day: ?The good news is that you?re the most physically fit 60-year-old I?ve seen in a long time. The bad news is, you?re 60 years old.?
Prizmo is OCR??reinvented for the mobile era, and, like many reinventions, it's a mixture of brilliant new ideas and details that aren't fully worked?out yet. Prizmo comes in two versions, one for?OS X, which is the one I tested, and another for the?iPhone?and?iPad, which I didn't test but which has the same?basic capabilities.
OCR Via Cameras What makes Prizmo for OS X different is that it's designed from the start to work with cameras as well as scanners. If you connect an iPhone or iPad to your Mac by a USB cable, you can snap a picture and Prizmo will instantly capture it and try to extract text from it. If you connect any other camera to your Mac, it lets you browse through the photos in the camera's internal storage and select one or more pictures that you want to process with OCR.
Prizmo includes an optional menubar icon that lets you select a block of text anywhere on screen?including images?and perform OCR on it, with the resulting text copied the clipboard for pasting into any application. And, of course, like traditional OCR software, it can take images directly from a scanner, using OS X's built-in scanner interface. Unlike our editor's choice FineReader Express, Prizmo connected to the scanner in my HP all-in-one printer even when my Mac was running wirelessly. FineReader only recognized the scanner when I connected the scanner to my Mac with a USB cable.
Puzzling Prizmo I was slightly puzzled when I launched Prizmo because it required me either to open an existing Prizmo document from iCloud or my Mac, but of course I didn't have any Prizmo documents since I had never run it before. I finally figured out that I needed to click the "New Document" button at the foot of the window, which was also slightly puzzling since I didn't realize I was creating a document?I thought I was perform OCR on an image. But after I clicked that button, Prizmo showed me a spacious window with the message "Drop a Picture of Text Here" and three further options: "Open Image File...", "Import from Scanner or Camera..." and "Browse Image Library..." The first option works as you expect: select a PDF, PNG, JPG, or any other standard image format and open it in? Prizmo's window. The second opens OS X's scanner dialog and lets you work from a scanner. The third takes you to your iPhoto library and the Pictures folder in your user folder.
In Action When I snapped a picture with an iPhone plugged into my Mac, the picture instantly appeared in Prizmo's window. An optional preference automatically applied distortion correction to the image based on the geometry of the iPhone's camera lens. Toolbar icons let me rotate, crop, or make brightness and other adjustments to the image before clicking the OCR button. When I clicked that button, the color image changed from color to black and white, showing the black text that the program would now recognize when I clicked yet another button, this one marked Recognize.
As you can guess from this report, there are plenty of underdocumented steps that you need to perform to get the best possible results, and we're not through yet. After I clicked the Recognize button, the app overlaid the image with rectangles showing where it detected text, and opened a pane next to the image with the text that the app had extracted. I could use this pane to make manual corrections to the recognized text before exporting it?a feature not available in ABBYY FineReader Express.
Also, in this Recognition window, a new toolbar replaced the original one, with icons for adding, removing, and reordering the regions identified by the app. There's also a button for reading the extracted text aloud, using OS X's built-in speech feature, and for translating the extracted text into any of dozens of languages, though a built-in connection with Microsoft's translation service. Finally, at the far right end of the toolbar?and what felt a bit like the end of a quest?I could click an Export button and save the recognized text to Evernote, Box.com, Dropbox, Google Drive, any other WebDAV drive, an e-mail recipient, or?as in traditional OCR?a file. Prizmo exports to text, RTF, searchable PDF, and image files, but not to spreadsheet or HTML format as FineReader Express does. One unique and nifty option is Prizmo's feature that lets you specify that you've snapped a picture of a business card, and lets you send the output directly to OS X's Contacts app.
I'd wish Prizmo had an "express" option like FineReader that simply took an image and output it to a file without all the manual steps that I had to go through, but I like the way Prizmo lets me work directly with an iPhone, something I've never seen before in an OCR app. When working with a conventional camera, Prizmo was less convenient, because I had to wait while the app imported thumbnails of almost all the photos stored in the camera before I could click on the one I wanted. With a scanner, Prizmo worked efficiently, although, again, with an "express" feature that automated the process. (A $50 option adds a "Pro Pack" that makes it possible to automate Prizmo via Automator or AppleScript, but you still have to do the scripting?job yourself.)
It's the OCR, Stupid Unfortunately, Prizmo's weakest link is the most important one: its OCR engine. It's good enough, and at more or less the same level as the OCR built into Adobe Acrobat Pro, but it can't match the superb, almost error-free results I got from ABBYY FineReader Express. When I tested Prizmo and FineReader with the same PDF and other image files, Prizmo made far more errors; FineReader sometimes made one or two, or none. Prizmo's built-in editor let me hand-correct its errors by comparing the extracted text with the original image file, but I would far prefer not to need to make the corrections at all. If I were spending money on an OCR app because I needed high-quality OCR in my work, I wouldn't hesitate to choose ABBYY FineReader Express, despite its inconveniences and limited feature set, over Prizmo with all its innovations and abilities.
Cool for Cameras Prizmo is the only app to choose if you want?to use OCR on images that you capture with your phone or where you want its extensive distortion-correction features?features similar to that that ABBYY includes in its top-of-the line Windows apps but not FineReader Express for the Mac. PCMag Editors' Choice for Mac OCR. I like Prizmo, but I think you may want to let it mature a while before you buy it as your primary OCR app.
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences isn't as much of an old-boys' club as it used to be.
The group named two women to prominent positions this week, including Friday's announcement that Ellen DeGeneres will host the 2014 Oscar show. Earlier in the week, the academy's board of governors elected Cheryl Boone Isaacs president, the first African-American to hold the post and the first woman in three decades.
In June, the organization invited 276 new members to join ? 100 more than the previous year and arguably its most diverse slate ever.
Could this be in response to the 2012 Los Angeles Times study that stung the academy by pointing out what many suspected: Hollywood's pre-eminent film organization is a mostly white, male group?
"This is all in the shadow of Dawn Hudson's appointment as C.O.O. last year," said awards expert Tom O'Neil. "The academy is making an extraordinary effort to embrace women and minorities, and be (more) inclusive."
Other industry watchers say these visible appointments are part of the academy's continuing effort to shed its old-boy image ? one that may have been reinforced last year by Seth MacFarlane's sexist humor and the departure of short-lived Oscar producer Brett Ratner after publicly making homophobic remarks.
"If you wanted to pick somebody that would tacitly or implicitly be an absolute rejection of the bad behavior of the last couple years, what could be a better way to distance yourself from that than to pick the most famous and popular lesbian entertainer in the world?" said Scott Feinberg, an industry analyst for The Hollywood Reporter.
Such prominent academy appointments for Hudson, DeGeneres and Boone Isaacs send a message to women interested in making movies.
"This is the kind of leadership and these are the kinds of examples that stand out for those women who will follow," said Cathy Schulman, president of Women in Film. "This is what gives people hope and encouragement."
DeGeneres is also a proven commodity. She successfully hosted the Oscars in 2007, drawing almost as many viewers as MacFarlane did last year.
"The academy doesn't want to take any chances with the performance skills of the host," O'Neil said. "This is a good, smart choice that will put the focus back on the content of the show, rather than will the host crash and burn."
Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, who produced the 2013 telecast, are returning for next year's show. O'Neil notes that the veteran producers are also openly gay and vocal supporters of gay rights.
DeGeneres, 55, has developed a devoted following with her 10-year-old daytime talk show, which can serve as a built-in platform to promote the Academy Awards.
Boone Isaacs, the academy's new president, is a veteran marketing executive and longtime academy member and governor.
"She's a very worthy candidate regardless of what she looks like," Feinberg said. "But the fact that she is a relatively younger African-American woman and that's the face of the academy, that's a significant symbolic thing."
For real change, these appointments can't just be exceptions, Schulman said, but "exceptions converted into the norm."
"Change happens when the numbers increase," she said. "Change doesn't happen overnight, but it was long overdue that the academy made some appointments like this."
Among the diverse new members invited to join the academy are Prince, Jennifer Lopez, writer-director Ava DuVernay, Sandra Oh, Paula Patton and songwriter Siedah Garrett.
DeGeneres, Boone Isaacs and the Oscar producers were not available to comment on this story.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy
AirPatrol Corp. chooses to remain in Howard County
Howard County officials announced that AirPatrol Corp., a manufacturer of location-based security systems, will remain based in the county, but is moving and expanding its headquarters from Columbia to St. John Properties? Maple Lawn Corporate Center. The company chose to keep its operations in Howard County after considering other locations in both Maryland and Virginia. AirPatrol provides location-based mobile and wireless products to both private busineses and government agencies. AirPatrol will move into 5,168 square feet of space at 8171 Maple Lawn Blvd., a three-story, 86,000-square-foot office building. Maple Lawn Corporate Center is a 600-acre, mixed-use business community that St. John Properties is developing in a joint venture partnership with Greenebaum Enterprises Inc. St. John Properties? Rick Williamson represented the landlord and David R. Sciamarelli of MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services represented the tenant in the lease transaction.
Long-vacant police station transformed into apartments
Baltimore city and state officials were on hand on Tuesday, July 30, to witness a topping-off ceremony that signified the completion of the transformation of an abandoned 19th century police station in Fells Point into a 47-unit apartment complex. Built around the time of the Civil War to house one of the city?s oldest district headquarters, the long-vacant brick building is listed on the National Historic Register. Developers, including former Baltimore Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III, used historical photos to ensure the exterior matched the original building. Financing for the $13.6 million Fells Point Station Apartment project was made possible in part through low income housing tax credits and more than $1.1 million from the state?s rental housing production program.
NAI KLNB brokers sale of Millersville industrial building
NAI KLNB, a Columbia-based commercial real estate brokerage, said it handled the sale of 403 Serendipity Drive, a 10,900-square-foot industrial building in the Millersville section of Anne Arundel County for $1.1 million. The building, which sits on a 1.34-acre parcel overlooking Interstate 97, near Najoles Road and Benfield Boulevard, features 18-foot clear ceiling heights, three grade-level drive-in doors and column-free construction. Vironex, a company that provides specialized field services to the environmental consulting community, including remediation, membrane interface probe and subsurface sample collection services, plans to move into the building from its current location in Bowie. The buyer of the building, Spanos LLC, is the holding company for Vironex. George Santos and Luke Allen, formerly associated with Manekin LLC, represented Spanos, and Bill Martien of NAI KLNB represented the seller, The Michael M. Bogdon Living Trust.
Jones Lang LaSalle doubles office space
Jones Lang LaSalle, a professional services and investment management firm offering specialized services to clients seeking increased value by owning, occupying and investing in real estate, announced it is relocating its Baltimore office from 6,000 square feet of space at 7 St. Paul St. to twice that amount ? 12,000 square feet of space ? at 500 E. Pratt St., in Baltimore?s central business district. Built in 2005, 500 E. Pratt St. is a 275,000-square-foot office tower that is part of the Lockwood Place mixed-use development at Baltimore?s Inner Harbor. It features on-site parking and numerous amenities. ?The new location will facilitate the firm?s rapid growth and allow Jones Lang LaSalle to better serve its clients, interface with business partners and create a high-quality work environment for our associates,? said Mark Levy, Jones Lang LaSalle?s market director, Baltimore.
Baltimore County officials unveil plans for $3 million PAL Center in Cockeysville
Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz and Baltimore County Schools Superintendent S. Dallas Dance on Tuesday, July 30, announced plans to build a $3 million, 14,260-square-foot Padonia Community/Police Athletic League (PAL) Center adjacent to Padonia International Elementary School at 9834 Greenside Drive in Cockeysville. The Padonia Community/PAL Center will replace a PAL center located across the street from the school. Construction is expected to begin in January 2014 and be completed in one year. Padonia International Elementary School is a community-based school that follows the traditional BCPS curriculum. The word ?International? was added to the school?s name to reflect its significant diversity. Padonia International families come from more than 30 countries, and almost 25 percent of the students participate in English for Speakers of Other Languages services. The Police Athletic League offers educational and athletic programs for youths ages 8-17 at nine centers throughout Baltimore County.
U.S. Army selects EA Engineering for environmental remediation work
EA Engineering, Science, and Technology Inc., a Hunt Valley-based provider of interdisciplinary environmental services, announced that it has been awarded an Environmental Remediation Multiple Award contract in support of the U.S. Army Environmental Command. The five-year contract has a maximum joint total acquisition value of $240 million to be executed among eight contract holders in the Small Business Portfolio. The contract term consists of a base award of one year plus four one-year options. Work is expected to be conducted throughout the United States, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tasks to be performed include site characterization and remedial investigations, feasibility studies, remedial design, remedial action construction, remediation of contaminated sites, operations and maintenance, and long-term management. EA was awarded the first task order under the Small Business Portfolio, calling for completion of a remedial investigation/feasibility study for vapor intrusion at the Aberdeen and Edgewood Areas of Aberdeen Proving Ground.
County acts to correct flooding in commercial areas of Cockeysville
This coming Sunday, Aug. 4, workers will demolish a partially collapsed distillery in Cockeysville, as part of a county initiative to correct severe flooding that has repeatedly damaged businesses along a commercial stretch of York Road and Beaver Run Lane, it was announced by Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. The county purchased the property, located at 10919 York Road, for $453,663. In addition to razing the building, the county will regrade the property to mitigate the degradation of the Beaver Dam Run, a tributary that flows into the Loch Raven Reservoir, which provides drinking water for Baltimore city and county. The full project, funded by a $4 million federal grant, will also include acquisition and demolition of additional commercial buildings, including relocation of businesses to sites outside of the Cockeysville floodplain. The acquired properties will be preserved in perpetuity as passive open space, recreational or wetland areas.
D.C. firm buys Columbia office complex
Cushman & Wakefield of Maryland Inc. announced it brokered the sale of the Rivers Business Commons, a four-building office complex in Columbia, to Fernau LeBlanc Investment Partners. The buyer is a Washington, D.C.-based real estate owner and operator that invests in industrial and flex/single-story office buildings, and the seller is an affiliate of Greenfield Partners, a private investment firm based in Norwalk, Conn. Details of the transaction, including financials, were not disclosed. The four-building property consists of single and two-story structures containing 101,596 square feet of space, which are currently 87 percent leased. Tenants include Saint Agnes Hospital, Black & Veatch and Beazer Homes. C&W?s capital markets team of Cristopher Abramson, Brian Kruger, Nicholas Signor and Jonathon Chalkley coordinated the disposition of Rivers Business Commons on behalf of the seller.
Choice Hotels? sees less profit in 2Q
Choice Hotels International Inc., of Rockville, a hotel franchise chain whose brands include Comfort Inn, Econo Lodge and Quality Inn, reported second-quarter net income of $28.2 million, or 48 cents per diluted share, an 11.6 percent drop from the $31.9 million, or 55 cents per share, in the year-before period. Revenue rose 6 percent to $183.6 million, compared to last year?s $173.6 million. Wall Street analysts forecast, on average, earnings of 46 cents per share and revenue of $181 million. Revenue per available room, or RevPAR, a key performance measure for hotel companies, rose 3.5 percent on increases in occupancy and daily room rates.
COPT?s results weaken in second quarter
Corporate Office Properties Trust, of Columbia, an office-focused real estate investment trust, reported Funds From Operations of $31.7 million for the second quarter, or 25 cents per diluted share, versus FFO of $46.1 million, or 54 cents per diluted share, for the same period last year. Revenue rose to $140.5 million, from $127.7 million in last year?s second quarter. Analysts had projected earnings of 22 cents per share on revenue of $97.75 million. Company officials projected confidence. Roger A. Waesche Jr., COPT?s president and CEO, called it ?a strong second quarter? and said the company is ?on-track to exceed our leasing objectives for the year.?
BGE says utility-pole inspections cost millions
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. said it will spend more than $15 million in 2013 in the inspection, treatment and replacement of wooden utility poles. It expects to inspect more than 36,000 poles this year and to replace nearly 1,800 of them. In 2012, BGE replaced more than 1,200 poles in areas of Baltimore city, and Baltimore, Carroll and Harford counties. This year BGE crews will also be examining utility poles in parts of Anne Arundel County. Inspection, treatment and/or replacement are part of BGE?s Pole Inspection and Treatment Program, to ensure that proper maintenance is conducted for each pole, according to the company.
Kamenetz names Herbst to county Planning Board
Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz announced the appointment of Jonathan Herbst, an attorney specializing in business and real estate, as a new member of the Baltimore County Planning Board. Herbst is filling the unexpired term of Ed Gilliss, who resigned as Planning Board chair to take a seat on the Baltimore County Board of Education. Herbst is a senior associate with the Towson firm of Royston, Mueller, McLean & Reid. He graduated from what was then the University of Maryland School of Law in 2003. The 15-member Planning Board plays a major role in formulating the county?s capital program and budget, the county master plan and other land use functions.
Phillips named to chair Planning Board
Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz also announced he will nominate current Planning Board member Scott Phillips as chair of the all-volunteer board, succeeding Ed Gillis. The appointment to the chairperson?s post needs County Council confirmation. Phillips is an attorney specializing in business development for minority firms. He has served on the Planning Board since October 2012. He is a 1989 graduate of the UM School of Law. He holds a B.S. degree in accounting from Virginia Union University. Phillips founded Black Professional Men Inc., and has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Family League of Baltimore and the Maryland Family Network.
Planned Cecil County power plant advances
Virginia-based Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, which is seeking to build a natural gas-fired power plant near Rising Sun in Cecil County, said it has selected Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas Inc. to supply two natural gas-powered turbines and associated electric generators for installation at the so-called Wildcat Point project. The plant, which ODEC says will be one of the cleanest natural gas facilities of its size in Maryland, will generate approximately 1,000 megawatts, enough to power 390,000 homes in the region annually. Plans call for the new plant to be built adjacent to ODEC?s existing Rock Springs facility, and to go online in 2017.
U.S. home prices gain most in six years U.S. home prices jumped 12.2 percent in May compared with a year ago, the biggest annual gain since March 2006. The increase shows the housing recovery is strengthening. The Standard & Poor?s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday also surged 2.4 percent in May from April. The month-over-month gain nearly matched the 2.6 percent increase in April from March ? the highest on record. The price increases were widespread. All 20 cities showed gains in May from April and compared with a year ago. Steady price increases, along with stable job gains and historically low mortgage rates, have in turn encouraged more Americans to buy homes.
Marriott posts higher earnings in 2Q
(AP) Marriott International Inc., of Bethesda, the largest publicly traded U.S. hotel company, reported higher second-quarter earnings on continued business and leisure travel and increased room rates. Marriott earned $179 million, or 57 cents a share, in the three-month period ended June 30, versus $143 million, or 42 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue rose 18 percent to $3.26 billion. Analysts expected earnings of 57 cents per share and revenue of $3.20 billion, according to FactSet. A change in the company?s fiscal year meant seven extra days in the quarter this year compared to last year. Revenue per available room, a key hotel industry performance indicator, rose 4.4 percent to $129.59.
MARBIDCO announces grants opportunity
The Maryland Agricultural and Resource-Based Industry Development Corp. announced the availability of matching-fund grants aimed at encouraging Maryland?s agricultural producers to expand or diversify their business operations. Eligible applicants must be a crop or livestock producer or processor, agricultural cooperative, seafood processor, or primary or secondary timber products processor, and must have been in business for a minimum of two years. Grants can be up to $15,000 to install capital assets that make a value-added product, such as production buildings, livestock, seafood, fruit or vegetable processing facilities, and creamery production equipment. For information on applying for a grant, go to www.marbidco.org/applications.html.
This week's Ketchup covers seven days of movie development news including the latest on James Cameron's continued plans for the world of Avatar and reboots and/or remakes of Akira, Quasimodo and Scarface.
This Week's Top Story
JAMES CAMERON ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR FULL TRILOGY OF AVATAR SEQUELS
We've known almost since its release in late 2009 that James Cameron had plans for two sequels to the eye candy sci-fi movie Avatar. At one point, they were even expected to start coming out fairly soon (December in 2014 and 2015, respectively). This week, the big news was a mini-avalanche of Avatar sequel news, but the biggest is that Cameron's plans are now for a full trilogy of Avatar sequels, the first of which, which we'll simply call Avatar 2 for now, is being scheduled by 20th Century Fox for December, 2016. Avatar 2, 3, and 4 will all be filmed at the same time, with Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 expected to come in the following Decembers of 2017 and 2018. The idea of releasing the three parts of a trilogy in consecutive Decembers was first introduced by Peter Jackson with the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. James Cameron will be assisted in crafting these sequels by screenwriters Josh Friedman (The Black Dahlia; cowriter of War of the Worlds), Shane Salerno (Aliens vs Predator: Requiem; cowriter of Savages), and the writing team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, best known for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and next summer's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Not much is specifically known about the sequels, except that Avatar 2 is expected to have large portions set in Pandora's oceans (news flash: James Cameron likes water).
Fresh Developments This Week
#1 HARRY POTTER DIRECTOR JUMPS STUDIO SHIP FOR SCARFACE REBOOT
For years now, it seemed like Warner Bros very much wanted to stay in the "David Yates business," displaying loyalty for the director of the last four Harry Potter movies for the studio. Then, however, in April, it was revealed that Warner Bros had halted plans for the new live-action Tarzan project that Yates had been developing. And that, apparently (or at least in part), is how David Yates came to be in final negotiations with Universal Pictures for one of their highest priority projects. It's also worth noting that this move by David Yates comes only a few weeks after Legendary Pictures announced a similar move from Warner Bros to Universal Pictures (starting in 2014). David Yates is in final talks with Universal Pictures to direct their second reboot of Scarface. The original 1932 film was a Chicago bootlegging mobster drama loosely based upon the life of Al Capone, and the 1983 remake told the infamous story of Cuban/Miami cocaine gangster Tony Montana. Each previous movie is particularly known for its famous director-star duos (Howard Hawks and Paul Muni, Brian De Palma and Al Pacino). Details are being kept hidden about this third Scarface, but it's lead character is expected to represent for the 2010s what the Italian-American and Cuban-American characters in the first two movies did for the 1930s and the 1980s. What this means exactly is anyone's guess (so many ethnic stereotypes to choose from!). The first draft of the Scarface re-reboot was written by David Ayer (Training Day, End of Watch), which was then rewritten by Paul Attanasio (Donnie Brasco).
#2 HERO DIRECTOR ZHANG YIMOU MAY MAKE HOLLYWOOD DEBUT WITH QUASIMODO
If there is a running theme lately of Universal Pictures borrowing talent from Warner Bros, one could perceive this story as being (part of) WB's rebuttal. First, some history: one of Universal's proudest traditions is the collection of "Universal Monsters" films (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Mummy, etc.). What is less known, even by many horror/monster fans, is that the movie that actually started that whole concept was the 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney Sr. as Quasimodo. Okay, now that you're up to date, here's this week's news, which is also surprising for a completely different reason: Famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero, Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern) is in talks with Warner Bros to make his English language Hollywood studio debut with Quasimodo, an adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The project has been in development for years at Warner Bros, with Josh Brolin (!) attached to star as Quasimodo, the disfigured bellringer of Notre Dame, who sets out to save his beloved Esmeralda from being framed for murder. Quasimodo was adapted by the husband-wife team of Kieran and Michelle Mulroney (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; 2009's Paper Man).
#3 FROM YOUR DESKTOP (CIRCA 2001) TO THE BIG SCREEN: THE MCAFEE BIOPIC
When famed anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee went on the run last year, it all seemed larger than life and destined to be a big screen movie. People in Hollywood agreed, because screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have signed on with Warner Bros to start work on exactly that script. The John McAfee biopic (which at one time was called Running in the Background) joins a series of celebrity biopics by Alexander and Karaszewski which also includes Ed Wood, The People vs Larry Flynt, Man on the Moon, and the upcoming Big Eyes. The script will be adapted from the e-book "John McAfee's Last Stand," which was also excerpted in Wired. The directing team of Glenn Ficara and John Requa (I Love You, Phillip Morris and Crazy, Stupid Love) are producing the McAfee biopic, and also hope to direct. Hopefully, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have been at this game long enough to know to frequently backup their Final Draft files. No one wants irony to zap it.
#4 THE FAILED CBS TV SERIES MAY JUST HAVE SAVED BEVERLY HILLS COP IV
There was a time when one of the surest bets for the 2013-2014 Network TV season was the CBS reboot of Beverly Hills Cop with Brandon T. Jackson playing the son of Axel Foley. A similar reboot worked wonders for CBS after all a few seasons ago with Hawaii Five-O. Although a pilot episode was filmed, CBS ultimately decided not to order Beverly Hills Cop as a series, but the performance of Eddie Murphy reprising his role as Axel Foley appears to have had its own impact. Next year marks the twentieth anniversary of the most recent movie in the franchise, Beverly Hills Cop III, which was released on May 25, 1994. And for much of those two decades since, there has been talk of a Beverly Hills Cop IV (with Eddie Murphy's "I just do kids movies now" period forming the biggest gap in between). Kids movies, however, haven't been working the same wonders for Eddie Murphy lately, and that may be why he is once again attached to star in a revived Beverly Hills Cop IV movie project. Paramount Pictures has enlisted the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol screenwriting team of Josh Appelbaum and Andre Numec, who are also working on the reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which is also now back to its full title, as it should be).
#5 ETHAN HAWKE TO ADAPT ONE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S FORGOTTEN PLAYS, CYMBELINE
Maybe it's just part of the same "fan of the underdog" streak that makes this writer love Squirrel Girl and Frog-Man more than Batman and Spider-Man, but when it comes to Shakespeare, I've always been fond of the obscurities. Who needs King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and Henry V, when Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and Timon of Athens are just sitting there mostly unperformed (and unread)? Ethan Hawke may agree, as he is now signed to reteam with director Michael Almereyda on a modern adaptation of the Shakespeare play Cymbeline. Hawke and Almereyda previously adapted Shakespeare with the 2000 movie Hamlet, which was also a modernization. Their Cymbeline will adapt the story of an ancient British king as an "epic battle between dirty cops and a drug-dealing biker gang set in a corrupt 21st century America." This update is already drawing comparisons to Sons of Anarchy and Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.
#6 SAMUEL L. JACKSON'S COMIC BOOK VILLAIN PATH: FROM THE SPIRIT TO... THE SECRET SERVICE
After playing the ridiculous villain "The Octopus" in the disastrous comic book adaptation flop The Spirit, one might think that Samuel L. Jackson would never sign on again to play another comic book villain. Well, how do we put this? Samuel L. Jackson has signed with 20th Century Fox and director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) to play the villain in the comic book adaptation The Secret Service. Adapted from a 2012-2013 comic book mini-series written by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass) with art by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), The Secret Service tells the story of a British super spy (Colin Firth) who must train his "hooligan" nephew (newcomer Taron Egerton) as his replacement. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise were also approached for the role before Samuel L. Jackson signed on. Casting is still underway for the female lead, with Emma Watson and Bella Heathcote (Dark Shadows) reportedly among those in the running. Filming of The Secret Service starts this fall, and 20th Century Fox has already scheduled the film for November 14, 2014.
Rotten Ideas of the Week
#3 PARAMOUNT TO TAKE ON CARS AND PLANES WITH MONSTER TRUCKS
It's hardly a new thing for an animation studio to take on a competitor's film with their own very similar project. The trend goes almost all the way back to the beginning of the CGI animation craze, with Antz and A Bug's Life being released near each other (I'll let the commenters think of some of the other examples of this over the years). Anyway, even as Disney's Cars spinoff Planes is just a week away from release (and Turbo came out recently, too), the new Paramount Animation division has announced a May 29, 2015 release date for a new CGI/live action project called Monster Trucks. We don't know specifically what the movie is about, but the title probably tells us everything we need to know right now (unless it's a play on words and the trucks are actually monsters). What's most surprising, perhaps, is that Paramount has lured one of Fox's animation bigwigs, director Chris Wedge (Ice Age, Robots, Epic) to their new division to direct Monster Trucks. Chris Wedge certainly has a consistently "Fresh" RT Tomatometer, but we're calling Monster Trucks "borderline Fresh/Rotten" just because... can we be done with all the vehicle-themed animated movies sometime soon?
#2 VIN DIESEL WANTED FOR... WORLD'S MOST WANTED
We're still over a month away from the September 6, 2013 release date for Riddick, but Universal Pictures appears ready to stay in the Vin Diesel business. Of course, the continued success of the Fast and Furious franchise probably doesn't hurt that opinion either. Vin Diesel has signed with Universal Pictures to star in an action adventure movie called World's Most Wanted, the details of which remain fairly mysterious. What we do know is that the original script was written by some of the writers of the Call of Duty videogame series. The latest script rewrite was by Dan Mazeau, cowriter of Wrath of the Titans, who is also working on the 2016 Warner Bros superhero movie The Flash. World's Most Wanted is being produced by Neal Moritz, one of the producers of xXx and the Fast and Furious franchise.
#1 THE LIVE-ACTION AKIRA JUST. WON'T. DIE.
By this point in this writer's career, it feels like memory and the passing of time can be measured by what stage Warner Bros' live action adaptation of the Japanese manga Akira was at any particular point. Warner Bros acquired the rights in 2008, but the project actually goes back much farther than that. Regardless, even if we use the 2008 gauge, that's now five years ago, much of which time the project spent in heavy duty rumor control among various online fan communities (both pro and con, including allegations of whitewashing). Anyway, in early 2012, it appeared that the project was dead, with the reason given at the time being mostly budget (which had been halved from $180 million to $90 million). Well, now the same director, Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, Unknown) is back on the Akira job at Warner Bros, and now the budget has been cut again, down to the $60 million range. Pretty soon, the new Akira is going to be filmed on someone's smart phone in a borrowed weekend home. Anyway, if you don't know what Akira is, here's the Wikipedia page for the classic 1988 anime adaptation. And speculate away about who should be in it.
For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS via Facebook.
This is almost too funny to be true. The Daily Mail reports:
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has launched an extraordinary defence against allegations he sexually harassed a former employee ? by claiming he never received sexual harassment training.
The 70-year-old has been accused by?his former communications director?Irene McCormack Jackson of sexually harassing her multiple times.?
She is one of eight women who have come forward recently with allegations of unwanted sexual advances.
Jackson sued the mayor and the city on July 22, alleging the mayor asked her to work without panties, demanded kisses, told her he wanted to see her naked and dragged her in a headlock while whispering in her ear.?
But it has now emerged that lawyers representing Filner have claimed that if San Diego had provided mandatory sexual harassment training, then Jackson may never have filed the case.
The claims suggest that if Filner is found liable in the claim, he could blame his own city council.
As reported by NBC 7, in a letter, Filner?s lawyer Harvey Berger, said: ?The City has a legal obligation to provide sexual harassment training to all management level employees. The City failed to provide such training to Mayor Filner.
?This is not an excuse for any inappropriate behavior which may have occurred, but I have learned that many ? if not most ? people do not know what is and what is not illegal sexual harassment under California law.?
I really don?t think you need training to know it is not a good idea to ask an employee to come to work without panties on!
Filner is 70, and was a Democratic Congressman for 20 years, and has been Mayor since November 2012.
And a 9th woman has just come forward:
A ninth woman has emerged to accuse San Diego Mayor Bob Filner (D) of sexual harassment.
Emily Gilbert, who was hired to sing at a fundraiser days after Filner took office in December, told Fox5 that Filner grabbed her inappropriately at the event.
?He grabbed me a little too tight, then proceeded to slide his hand down my arm and then did a little grab on my derriere,? Gilbert said. ?I didn?t want to make a scene, there were kids around.?
He is refusing to resign, so a recall attempt is underway.
Tags: sexual harrassment
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New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D) said he is "100 percent not" in any online relationships right now, a departure from his recent history of sexting and sending inappropriate messages to women.
"I don't have any of the records [of past affairs]," Weiner said in an interview with NBC New York on Friday. "I deleted everything."
Weiner still acknowledges that there are still unknown details about his past affairs. NBC New York reports:
As he has before, Weiner acknowledged that not all the details about his past affairs are known. When asked whether more women will come forward between now and the Sept. 10 primary, he said:
"I don't know, I hope not. I certainly don't like talking about this stuff," he said.
He went on to say he did not even like engaging in the relationships when he was in the midst of it.
"I didn't like when I was doing it, it was wrong to do, it was wrong to my wife, wrong period," he said.
Weiner was recently confronted by controversy over sexting when 23-year-old Sydney Leathers revealed she had taken part in online sex chats with the mayoral candidate after he had apologized and resigned from Congress in 2011 for lying about a previous sexting scandal.
But the new sexting allegations weren't the only blow to Weiner's mayoral campaign. A former intern of Weiner's, Olivia Nuzzi, published a column in the New York Daily News revealing how the former Congressman called his female interns "Monica." Barbara Morgan, Weiner's communications director, then unleashed a profanity-laced rant against Nuzzi, calling her a "slutbag" and a "bitch."
Weiner has insisted he will not drop out of the mayor's race despite continuing scandals.
Howard County officials announced that AirPatrol Corp., a manufacturer of location-based security systems, will remain based in the county, but is moving and expanding its headquarters from Columbia to St. John Properties? Maple Lawn Corporate Center. The company chose to keep its operations in Howard County after considering other locations in both Maryland and Virginia. AirPatrol provides location-based mobile and wireless products to both private busineses and government agencies. AirPatrol will move into 5,168 square feet of space at 8171 Maple Lawn Blvd., a three-story, 86,000-square-foot office building. Maple Lawn Corporate Center is a 600-acre, mixed-use business community that St. John Properties is developing in a joint venture partnership with Greenebaum Enterprises Inc. St. John Properties? Rick Williamson represented the landlord and David R. Sciamarelli of MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services represented the tenant in the lease transaction.
NAI KLNB, a Columbia-based commercial real estate brokerage, said it handled the sale of 403 Serendipity Drive, a 10,900-square-foot industrial building in the Millersville section of Anne Arundel County for $1.1 million. The building, which sits on a 1.34-acre parcel overlooking Interstate 97, near Najoles Road and Benfield Boulevard, features 18-foot clear ceiling heights, three grade-level drive-in doors and column-free construction. Vironex, a company that provides specialized field services to the environmental consulting community, including remediation, membrane interface probe and subsurface sample collection services, plans to move into the building from its current location in Bowie. The buyer of the building, Spanos LLC, is the holding company for Vironex. George Santos and Luke Allen, formerly associated with Manekin LLC, represented Spanos, and Bill Martien of NAI KLNB represented the seller, The Michael M. Bogdon Living Trust.
Cushman & Wakefield of Maryland Inc. announced it brokered the sale of the Rivers Business Commons, a four-building office complex in Columbia, to Fernau LeBlanc Investment Partners. The buyer is a Washington, D.C.-based real estate owner and operator that invests in industrial and flex/single-story office buildings, and the seller is an affiliate of Greenfield Partners, a private investment firm based in Norwalk, Conn. Details of the transaction, including financials, were not disclosed. The four-building property consists of single and two-story structures containing 101,596 square feet of space, which are currently 87 percent leased. Tenants include Saint Agnes Hospital, Black & Veatch and Beazer Homes. C&W?s capital markets team of Cristopher Abramson, Brian Kruger, Nicholas Signor and Jonathon Chalkley coordinated the disposition of Rivers Business Commons on behalf of the seller.
