As reported at the time, long time prop rental business 20th Century Props shut down and liquidated its inventory back in 2009 and 2010. Well, here we are in 2015 and the Los Angeles Times and others have reported that Harvey Schwartz has rebounded along with the film industry this year, and has relaunched his business. [Read more…]
Prop Store’s second annual Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction will be held at the Odeon BFI IMAX in Waterloo, London on September 23rd. The live event will feature more than 450 lots of props, costumes and other film and television memorabilia. The catalog is due out on September 26th, and there will be a two week long exhibition leading up to the auction. [Read more…]
Yesterday, Heritage Auctions announced their October sale event, “Stallone – The Collection”, which garnered a lot of mainstream media coverage and interest. Strangely, the main marketing piece published was a bizarre, low budget (no budget?) video, which entailed not much more than following Sylvester Stallone around with a video camera (or maybe mobile phone shooting video?) as he seemingly pulls items out of wooden crates at random. Accompanied by bad elevator music, there is no interview or narration or questions or presentation by anyone from Heritage, as they stand around watching him indiscriminately look for pieces to hold up for the camera and come up with anecdotes to fill the silence amid the unidentified, bored-looking spectators surrounding him. I guess some might categorize it as “better than nothing”, but it certainly doesn’t do justice to one of the biggest box office icons of all-time. [Read more…]
Official Pix is offering their first signing opportunity to get autographs and personalized sketches from Colin Cantwell. At 82 years old today, Colin Cantwell famously made the first prototype models for the first Star Wars films for George Lucas back in 1974/1975; the first realizations for the X-Wing Fighter, the Y-Wing Fighter, the Tie Fighter, the Star Destroyer, the Death Star, the Landspeeder, the Sandcrawler, and the Millennium Falcon, as well as the T-16 Skyhopper that Mark Hamill is seen using in the final cut of the film. Prior to building these prototype models, Colin created original full color artwork as well as sketches based on his discussions with George Lucas in 1974, and was one of the very first artists to work on Star Wars. I worked with Mr. Cantwell in 2014, helping him to bring some rare memorabilia to auction with Julien’s Auctions as well as recording a number of video interview with him about his work in and out of the film and television industries (see all Original Prop Blog articles about Colin Cantwell here: LINK). [Read more…]
This is part of my ongoing coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2015. Prop Store has an excellent exhibition this year, featuring a preview of material from their second annual live auction coming to London later this year. Heavy on action and sci-fi, it drew a constant crowd of Comic Con attendees, many of which are fans of these genre films. As with Star Wars Celebration earlier this year, Prop Store continue to find new and exciting Star Wars material, such as the stormtrooper helmet – the first time being offered to the public. [Read more…]
“Cocksucker”… “Motherfucker”… “Asshole”… Just a few of the expletives shouted at me by Joe Maddalena, President of Profiles in History, on the floor of the main exhibit hall at Comic Con yesterday. I was in the midst of a friendly conversation with Brian Chanes and his 9 year old son, with my own 14 year old nephew standing behind me when Mr. Maddalena approached me and interrupted us, attacking me with “R-Rated” language in front of a crowd of onlookers. As registered press with Comic Con International, I had additionally been personally invited via e-mail by Profiles in History’s own public relations agent to do my annual report on their exhibit this year – “[w]e would appreciate your coverage” – so I have no idea what prompted the very public barrage of insults and being told “get out!” and “leave!”. He even shouted “you can quote me on that!” following some of the expletives. Regardless, their overall exhibit is probably the best it has ever looked, with fewer items, some nicely showcased in well-lit closed displays and larger ones in open air, with room to walk about and explore the collection of material associated with McCune Masterworks, who are co-branded with this year’s exhibition. The key piece on display was the fantastic screen-used Blockade Runner from the original Star Wars film, Episode IV: A New Hope. [Read more…]
This is part of my ongoing coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2015. Mattel has what appears to be an original movie prop of the newly redesigned proton pack for Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters, coming July 22nd. [Read more…]
This is part of my ongoing coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2015. This is an off year for Marvel Entertainment, meaning that they elected to not have much of a presence or major announcements at Comic Con this time around. They do have a giant space on the exhibitor floor, so rather than vacate it completely, they brought their stage and one costume for display – one of the Ant-Man costumes from the film of the same name, due to hit theaters on July 17th. DC Entertainment, in contrast, have a lot going on at their own space within Comic Con, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman costumes (duplicated at their two booths) from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as well as a variety of costumes from their television series The Flash and Arrow (see prior article). With Disney owning both Marvel Entertainment and Star Wars, it might be more about competing with Comic Con than anything else (there is not much Star Wars activity this time around, and with the conclusion of Celebration in April, they announced the 2016 Celebration will be held in London just a week after next year’s Comic Con. [Read more…]