We continue our look at the over saturated entertainment industry with some new examples such as superhero movies, musicians, makeover shows and brand marketing and blockbuster films.

-Superheroes are everywhere. We have always had comics, cartoons and the sporadic movie or TV show, but we are experiencing a huge boom lately. There’s’ Man of Steel’, ‘Iron Man 3’, ‘Thor 2’, ‘The Wolverin’e and ‘Kick Ass 2′, then’ Captain America 2′, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, ‘Ant Man’, ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, ‘Justice League’ and, of course, The ‘Avengers 2’ set for 2014 and 2015 respectively. Marvel has been leading the charge on this front. The company realized that the Marvel Universe is much large than simple superhero movies with linear plots. Instead, each Marvel film franchise is connected to the other in one way or another that forces audiences to want to watch each film so that they don’t get left out in the cold and miss unresolved issues from the previous flicks. Soon, Marvel will be taking that formula to TV with a new Netflix deal that will bring us TV shows based on their heroes. D.C. Comics is beginning to catch on as they’re branching out with the ‘Justice League’ and expanding their own universe rather than relying only on Batman and Superman films.

You have to wonder if people will grow tired of seeing so many superhero movies being shown at their local theater. Will one film simply be made as a marketing tool where people watching the film are told to stay tuned for another film coming out soon? And, will comic book nerds finally get fed up of seeing film directors ruin their beloved characters? One thing that we do know for sure is that comic book fans go nuts if you try to change main story line plots in a film that aren’t a faithful adaptation of what goes on in the comics. Another problem is that not all superhero characters are created equally. Some are darker characters who might not necessarily fit well if they were grouped together with a superhero who is funny and outrageous. As it is now, the superhero film could easily be called its own genre. As long as they keep making money, the answer is yes. And making money is something superhero films will most likely continue to do, at least for the foreseeable future.

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We’re back to discuss some more Canadian television with you all. We’re going to discuss the recent phenomenon of Canadian-American co-productions and also take a look at some recent Canadian television hits that might be familiar with Canadians but probably not so-much for our international audiences.

International co-productions are production companies from different countries (typically two to three) that are working together to produce a television program. There are many benefits to these arrangements. Companies are able to pool financial resources, gain access to a partner’s government incentives and subsidies, learn new techniques from your partner and be able to take advantage of your partner’s shooting locations in another country. Also, there can be some drawbacks. Your partner might be opportunistic and only looking to benefit their own company, you can have government bureaucracy and added costs and a loss of control over the production when it comes to casting,shooting or editing the production. It seems that the benefits outweigh the costs as we’ve noticed several of the big four broadcast networks airing Canadian programming lately.

‘Rookie Blue’ is a Canadian cop drama that airs on both ABC in America and Global Television in Canada. The show has a Canadian cast and the setting takes place in Toronto, Ontario. The show is produced by Shaw Media, Canwest and Thump Inc. and distributed by Entertainment One. Another example is ‘Flashpoint’ which is another Canadian cop drama about a fictional elite tactical unit who are tasked to resolve extreme situations that regular officers are not trained to handle, including hostage-taking, bomb threats, and heavily armed criminals. The show aired on CTV in Canada and Ion network in the USA. Some shows have been less successful. Both ‘The Listener’ and ‘Saving Hope’ have been successful and continue to air on CTV in Canada but weren’t as successful in America and stopped airing on the NBC network due to low ratings.

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The article that we did on YouTube comments received a lot of attention and praise from our fans. We liked the fact that we were able to offer our readers some new and original funny YouTube comments without them having to take the time to look up on search engines the same comments that constantly appear on every funny message board. You asked us to look for some new comments and that’s exactly what we did. Here’s a new collection of original funny YouTube comments.

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