Jackie Chan launches TV show to find new action stars

Beijing – Jackie Chan on Saturday launched a Chinese TV competition aimed at scouting out new action-movie talent, saying more than 100,000 people have already signed up for a shot at kung fu stardom.

“A lot of actors are good at fighting but (their style) is not beautiful,” the Chinese star and stunt man, who turned 53 Saturday, said in Beijing.

“If you can incorporate dance with an ability to perform kung fu, that would be better,” Chan told an audience that included a selected 20 of the show’s contestants and some Chinese celebrities.

The TV show, shown above, whose English title is “The Disciple,” is jointly produced by Chan and Beijing TV Station.

The show will run through October, with 10 winners appearing in a movie to be produced by Chan, organizers said. The movie will be released before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Chan said.

Will Ferrell’s new comedy begins shooting this month

Flint, Mich. – Shooting for a new Will Ferrell sports comedy begins later this month in Michigan.

Crews plan location shots this spring for “Semi-Pro,” a comedy that stars Ferrell as player, coach and owner of a Flint-based team in the 1970s American Basketball Association who is trying to get into the NBA. The crew has been shooting in Los Angeles since mid-February and plans to move to Michigan for the last week of April and first week of May.

The filmmakers are looking to hire 500 extras for the shoot, said Wendy Washbrook, extras casting director for the Michigan locations. “Just normal people who want to come and work with us and dress in 1970s costumes, or wear a wig and sideburns.”

Ferrell’s “Blades of Glory” opened at No. 1 last weekend at the box office.

Conroy says new novel will mark return to dysfunction

Fripp Island, S.C. – “The Prince of Tides” author Pat Conroy says he’s finishing his first novel in more than a decade, and it will mark a return to the same dysfunctional characters he’s known for.

Conroy’s last book was a cookbook published in 2004.

“I loved writing that book. … Now, of course, everybody in this new book is dying and driving themselves off cliffs,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “So I’m back to normal.”

The new novel is set in Charleston and is already nearly 700 pages, Conroy said. “It drives me nuts. But long-windedness … there’s nothing you can do about it. I wanted to write a 250-page novel, but I realize I can’t even write a prologue that’s 250 pages.”

Conroy, 62, has not published a novel since 1995’s “Beach Music.” He spoke to the newspaper to promote a fundraising appearance he’s making for a library foundation.

Audience expecting to see family film shown horror flick

Holtsville, N.Y. – An audience expecting to watch a family film was stunned to get an glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents shaken and the theater chain apologizing for the movie mix-up.

The moviegoers were expecting to see “The Last Mimzy,” the PG-rated tale of a brother and sister who discover a mysterious box of toys and become endowed with superhuman powers to help preserve humanity’s future.

Instead, the crowd saw the opening scene of “The Hills Have Eyes 2,” an R-rated film that centers on National Guard troops who stumble on a clan of mutant cannibals and starts with a chained woman giving birth to a mutant.

“There were kids that were crying, there were people trying to cover the kids’ eyes, they were caught off guard,” said Anthony Rasco, who was in the audience when the scene was unexpectedly shown Thursday.

Theater staffers soon stopped the movie, gave the patrons free ticket vouchers and started “The Last Mimzy” about a half-hour late, according to parents.

National Amusements Inc., which operates the Island 16 and about 1,500 other movie screens in the United States and elsewhere, expressed “deepest apologies” in a statement Friday.

Former ‘Days of Our Lives’ actor Edward Mallory dies

Cumberland, Md. – Edward Mallory, who portrayed angst-ridden Dr. Bill Horton on the NBC daytime drama “Days of Our Lives” for 14 years, died Wednesday. He was 76.

Mallory had been ill for several years with a combination of ailments that his widow, Suzanne, declined to identify.

Mallory, of Salisbury, Pa., appeared on the soap opera from 1966 to 1980. He played an underdog surgeon who pined for and eventually married his brother’s wife after years of keeping secret that he had fathered her son.

In 2002, Mallory told the Frostburg State University alumni magazine that he loved Shakespeare but jumped at the chance to work in television and movies, including the 1962 feature films “Diamond Head” and “The Bird Man of Alcatraz.”

He also directed several daytime serials and wrote, directed and produced documentaries for The History Channel and A&E.

Mallory, who was born in Cumberland, joined the Frostburg State faculty as artist-in-residence in 2004. There, he taught writing, acting and directing, and oversaw student-made documentary films.