What Are Universal Doing?

Universal has two theme parks in Orlando, USA. These are very successful because they target families by using the themes from their films with the park rides e.g. there is a ride called Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey, The Incredible Hulk Coaster etc.

Universal are also linked to UMG (Universal Music Group). Some of the artists which are signed to UMG include:

·         U2

·         Rihanna

·         Cheryl Cole

·         All American Rejects

·         Stevie Wonder

·         3 Doors Down

·         Snow Patrol

·         Take That

·         Rolling Stones

·         Bon Jovi

·         Shania Twain

Some Universal pictures which are predicted to be released soon (late 2011-2012 at the earliest) are:

·         Peter Berg’s “Battleship”.

·         John Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg’s “American Reunion”.

·         Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda’s “ Dr.Suess’ The Lorax”

A film due to be released 2^nd December 2011 is Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s “The Thing” pictured below.

A small side fact about “The Thing” is that it stars Joel Edgerton who plays Barry ‘Baz’ Brown in Animal Kingdom.

While the film was originally set for release in April, Universal Pictures changed the date to October 14, 2011, to allow time for reshoots. The aim of the reshoots was to "enhance existing sequences or to make crystal clear a few story beats or to add punctuation marks to the film's feeling of dread." There was a video game made called “The Thing” and it was a third person survival horror game. The game was presented as a sequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film “The Thing”. It was released in North America for the PS2 on August 19, 2002, on the PC on August 20, 2002 and on the Xbox on September 9, 2002.

Peter Berg’s “Battleship” has been accused of being like “transformers but on water”. However this has given review websites the opportunity to rip it to shreds. Such websites include screenrant.com, latinoreview.com, hollywoodreporter.com and finally facebook.com. Battleship was produed in USA. Battleship is what is known as a four quadrant film meaning that there is an aspect of the film which everyone will enjoy. These are things like romance, action, sci-fim, comedy etc. Battleship is due to be released on the 20th April 2012 in the UK and due to this fact the figures are not certain yet the budget is being estimated to come to a whopping $200,000,000 (£127,180,000). It's not suprising with the large budget that they can afford to have a sar studded cast with such actors as Liam Neeson and the famous popstar Rihanna.