Early this year we featured a list of franchises in need of a genre change. The Rambo series was not one of the five selected, but apparently Sylvester Stallone thinks it’s a good idea to take a turn into sci-fi for the fifth installment of the action franchise. This, after the Indiana Jones series took a disappointing leap into alien territory last year. This, despite the fact Moonraker is one of the worst James Bond films.

The funny thing is, it’s difficult to find a straight up action or action/adventure franchise that doesn’t have sci-fi elements anymore. So wouldn’t it be nice to have these few series remain grounded in reality if they started that way? We think so. That’s why we’re going to beat Hollywood to the punch on a few action franchises that have yet to add aliens, monsters or whatever to their world.

The following five premises are completely ridiculous, and that is the point. Hopefully the series’ respective studios will thereby see that it would be a bad idea to do anything of the sort.
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• There’s not much news to report from yesterday’s strike talks (looks like Nikki was right about that pesky press blackout), but we do know that Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards is a expected to join Tim Robbins and Gilbert Gottfried at a star-studded strike rally today in New York’s Washington Square. Meanwhile, this week Carson Daly will become the first late-night host to cross picket lines to tape his show. Yes, Carson Daly has a show.
• My beloved Silent Light took the best picture and best director prizes at the 33st Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival over the weekend
• Dubai International Capital, an investment corp owned by the ruler of Dubai, has acquired a chunk of Sony. The exact size of the investment is unknown, but DIC characterized it in a press release as “substantial.” In other local news, the Dubai Film Festival has announced its lineup, which will include a tribute to Danny Glover as well as “Jordan’s first feature in 50 years.”