Lake Hope Features have just announced that they are collaborating with Kevin Smith (HTG:TV's Snobs!) and novice producer Blueothello to bring us Assassin: A College Tale. The comedy has tapped an interesting cast, including Kristen Stewart, Vincent Martella, Drake Bell, Ben Affleck, Zach Galifianakis, Seth Green, Selena Gomez, Khelo Thomas, and fresh off his run on The Tonight Show, Conan O'Brien. The film's premise is as follows: "College freshmen enter a contest to see who can stay awake the longest with the winner getting a huge sum of money."

This film announcement comes right off the heals of Lake Hope Features pushing multiple films back a couple months, including the antipicated action sequel Detention: Ballistophobia, which co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr (Gunz: Lost Salvation) and Christan Slater (Boomsday, Collins' Comet: Descent).

There are currently three other films scheduled for release in February, including a romance from the Flip Brothers, A Story About Life, MacGuffin, which we just posted about, and Horror City, a mysterious horror film from the Brothers Flip. Horror City is said to be an epic horror film, and might have to be pushed to summer to finish it. Only time will tell.

Justin Hartley from HTG:TV's Badge of Justice: Las Vegas and On Set has nabbed the lead role in 21st Century Cat Picture's new short comedy, Boytoy Beta. The film is from writer/producer/studio head Kris Greet, who released a short arthouse drama, Walking on Asphalt, earlier in the month. Co-starring in the comedy is Ashlee Simpson in her HTG debut. A studio source tell us that the two lesser known talents are thrilled to be part of the new production. Hartley has had guest spots on numerous TV shows, including Downtown, It's Always Me, and The Day After. Directing the piece is Todd Philips, who last helmed the 2008 geek kidnapping comedy Star Con for the Flip Brothers Studio. Boytoy Beta hits theaters this Friday, January 29th.

Coming in three weeks from Checkmate Pictures is MacGuffin. The drama is being written and produced by Quantum of Raptor Inc and directed by Spike Jonze. This is Jonze's forth film, having last directed Running With Scissors, an anthology of short films based on the music of Weird Al Yankovic. Starring in the film is Goldie Hawn, Dan Byrd, Quantum, David Caruso, and Willow Smith. MacGuffin will mark the HTG debuts of Hawn, Caruso, and Smith. Byrd is coming off feature roles in Fear Itself 2 last year and 2008's Battle Royale. He has also appeared on HTG: TV in Ritchie Steven's Horror Hour and Kaven Production's TV Movie Carnage. Quantum has an impressive 17 film role credits to his name along with 3 TV appearances. MacGuffin hits theaters on February 12th, 2010.

DRTV and Laughing Dead (Now With Zinc) Productions are proud to announce that production on the new TV series The Suicide Hand Guide, from rookie producer blueothello, has begun.

The series follows Dylan, a college student with a lot on his plate. Contemplating suicide, he places a razor over his wrist and is about to coward out when his roommate bursts into his room, this startles him, and he cuts his wrist. Now, he's trapped in a world run by The Gamekeeper, a world where the people play a game. A game that changes with each round. A game where the rules are never the same. Now, Dylan must navigate his way through this world as he tries to prevent his death a second time, a death which will send him to an eternity of his own personal hell.

The Suicide Hand Guide will star Liam Aiken as Dylan; Vanessa Hudgens as Erika, a girl in a rock band who kills herself over the pressure of fame; and Derek Luke as Dean, a trucker who killed himself because of the Mafia's threats towards him and his family.

More cast members will be announced in the coming weeks. The Suicide Hand Guide will premiere during Session 8 only on DRTV.

As promised, we have some more TV news. It is official, I Don't Care will be returning for its third and final season. It has been green lite for 6 one-hour installments, the first of which is already in the can. This piece of advertising has been released for the highly rated series:

The full cast for the second season of Mac's South Hampton has been revealed (via the HTG TV Guide Casting Central). It is as follows:

Lizzie Caplan
Chris Pine
Dan Byrd
Amanda Crew
Cam Gigandet
Sarah Drew
Ryan Malgarini
Gregory Smith
Michael Raymond James
Ray Winstone
India Arie
Jack Coleman
Vanessa Lengies
Taylor Kitsch
Taylor Schilling
Emily VanCamp

With the new session of TV getting closer, we'll be getting a lot more TV news in the next upcoming weeks. HTG:TV Session 8 will be around the end of February.

It is that time of the year again...

The 10th HTG Awards are here, celebrating the films released in the 2nd half of 2009. We're not going to look at every category, but we will be taking a look at some of the more important ones. A small disclaimer; The lists I write are just my humble opinion. I have not ready every film in theaters, and I am the studio head of Flip Brothers Studio. Everyone is welcome to write and submit their lists to the Hollywood Times. The more the merrier!

The past half a year, we've had 34 releases, with 22 of those being short films. When I usually nominate films for Best Picture, I look among the features first, then the shorts. I do this mostly because of the Best Short Film category. Every now and than there is a real stand out short that gets added right on to my Best Picture list.

For now (in no particular order), here is who I'm looking at for Best Picture. This is not my final nomination list, it is just the films that are jumping out at me.

Batman: Season of the Witch
Out of the Dark
Scream Bloody Murder
A Short Protest
The Dreamer

Who is on your short list? Submit an article or comment on this one!

J*A*G seems to be the show that keeps on giving. In real life, the show has produced two highly rated series in NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles and here, the show is set to return after a four session hiatus on HTG televisions courtesy of DRTV and Daniel Thomas.

"We're ecstatic about bringing JAG back," said DRTV co-head, Quantum "it has a very strong history and we hope to capitalize on that."

The series sees David James Elliott, Catherine Bell, Patrick Labyorteaux, John M. Jackson, and Steven Culp returning to the franchise that made them famous.

Look out for more news about JAG and other DRTV shows as session 8 comes around.

For the past few months we have held a poll to see who is HTG's favorite "Top Talent". We polled people with the option of choosing one of the top three (TS wise) directors, actors, or actresses. Included in the list were Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, and Tom Cruise from the actors side, Julia Roberts, Kate Heckinsale, and Kate Hudson from the actresses, and James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and Tim Burton from the directors.

How did everyone score? Well, in last place was a three way tie between Julia Roberts, James Cameron and Kate Hudson. Tied for second to last were the Toms, Hanks and Cruise. Narrowly ahead of them in the polling was Harrison Ford, which rounds out the actors. Tied for second place are our last two directors, Spielberg and Burton, with 21% of the vote each. And in first place, with 28% of the vote, the Star Wars and Los Angeles beauty, Kate Beckinsale.

Don't forget to vote in our two current polls (located on the left hand side of the page)!

Yesterday, the winners were announced for the 2nd Annual Sully TV Awards. Here is the full list...

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY, REALITY or NEWS SHOW
Patrick Warburton, The Tick

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY, REALITY or NEWS SHOW
Charisma Carpenter, Sketchy!

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION, CRIME, DRAMA, or SCI-FI SHOW
David Boreanaz, Downtown

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION, CRIME, DRAMA, or SCI-FI SHOW
Allison Scagliotti, The Day After

BEST GUEST ACTOR
Michael Imperioli, The Policeman

BEST GUEST ACTRESS
Eliza Dushku, I Don’t Care

BEST CAST
Super

BEST DIRECTOR (SERIES OR GUEST)
Kevin Smith, Snobs

BEST ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN
Snobs

BEST POSTER
(TIE)
The Day After, Poster by PJ Flip
The Tick, Poster by Ritchie Steven

BEST ACTION, CRIME, DRAMA, or SCI-FI SHOW
The Day After

BEST COMEDY, REALITY or NEWS SHOW
The Tick

BEST CLASSIC SHOW
Pit TV

BEST PRODUCER
Lucian

Today makes the release of Kaven's eighth film, The Decent Into Madness, and the first release of 2010. The Ship of Fooles drama is directed and co-starring Paul Schneider in his HTG debut.

"The film is about how people deal with death in different ways. How it can take you to a dark place," Schneider spoke to us at the film's premiere. The director/actor takes on the role of Caster Fade, a loving father who loses his son and is put into an asylum, where he befriends a serial killer, portrayed by the award winning Johnny Depp.

The film also stars Charisma Carpenter, who is fresh off a Sully Award Winning role in Sketchy!, Kate Bosworth who hasn't been in a film role since 2005's Batman, Stacy Keach in his film HTG debut, and Hell Day's Peter Stormare.

The drama was shot on the Ship of Fooles Studio lot in 2009, and was originally scheduled for a November release, before it was pushed to January. Click here to check out the film.