The Bring Back Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter has hit their $2 million goal, which means it’s funded and they’ll do at least three new episodes.
Everybody Smile!
And they still have 25 days to go! Now let’s hope they make it all they way to their 12 episode $5.5 million stretch goal…
Shout! Factory has acquired cult comedy series “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” Variety has learned.
The news of the acquisition comes the same day Joel Hodgson, the creator and writer of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a new season of the show.
With the new deal, negotiated by Shout’s David McIntosh, Shout! Factory now has the proprietary rights the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” from Best Brains, Inc., including all brand assets and global intellectual property. The media company is partnering with Hodgson and his company Alternaversal, LLC on future endeavors surrounding the “MST3K” brand, including plans for new content development, digital media initiatives, live events, merchandise licensing programs and content syndication to international territories.
The one caveat I have is evidently there will be a “new cast” for the show. I think the consensus is that the MST3K faithful would love to have Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff back in their old roles (and possibly J. Elvis Weinstein back as the original Tom Servo; given his attachment to RiffTracks, Kevin Murphy seems unlikely to reprise the Tom Servo voice role). But I’m certainly willing to give the new cast a chance.
Even though it’s been on Fark, I feel I would be remiss in not mentioning that a man has found the workprint for Manos: the Hands of Fate. He intends to restore the film to all it’s, um, glory, and sell Blu-Rays of the newly remastered version.
They’re going to be filming in El Paso, just like the original.
Wait, it gets better: The film stars Jackey Raye Jones, who played the little girl in the original Manos: The Hands of Fate. Plus a character played by Joe Warren, the son of original Manos director Harold Warren.
The kicker? Tom Neyman is back as The Master.
And yes, there’s a poster:
You could say that making a sequel to one of the worst films ever made is a bad idea, but frankly, the entire enterprise is beyond your puny mortal concepts of “good” and “bad”…
But honestly, I’m only linking to this story for two reasons: For the MST3K reference in the blog post title, and to include the pure awesomeness that is Forklift Driver Klaus. (Note: Don’t watch if you’re easily offended by completely over-the-top gore and violence. Skip the first minute if you don’t understand German; the rest is pretty much self-explanatory.)
But Monster-a-Go-Go came out in 1965. The Creeping Terror (featuring killer carpet samples from outer space) came out in 1964. Prince of Space (which possibly shouldn’t count, since it was cobbled together from Japanese kiddie serials) came out in 1959. Laserblast (which sort of counts as an alien invasion movie) came out in 1978. All of those are, I assure you, much much worse than Skyline. Granted, most of those are available in a form in which Crow and Tom Servo are there to help ease the pain, but still.