I applaud Seth MacFarlane for deciding to not make a Family Guy movie his first feature even though I’m sure 20th Century Fox would have leaped at recreating the success they had with The Simpsons Movie.  However, a Family Guy movie is on the mind of the host of next year’s Oscars.  Speaking to a group of UCLA students to kick off “The Oscar Experience College Search” (which looks for college kids interested in pursuing film careers, and will also let them be the ones to hand off the Oscars at the ceremony), McFarlane was asked about his plans for a Family Guy movie.

Hit the jump to check out what he had to say as well as his thoughts on previous Oscar hosts.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Family Guy and Ted creator Seth MacFarlane will host the 85th Annual Academy Awards.  If this news hadn’t been sent out in a press release, I would have trouble believing it.  In recent years, it looked like the Academy had moved away from hosts that would do anything more than playfully poke fun at the ceremony or the stars.  They wanted a celebration of themselves, and by hiring screen actors like Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, James Franco, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, and Billy Crystal, they got their entertainment (for viewers at home, it’s been a mixed bag).  MacFarlane is more of a return to the Jon Stewart and Chris Rock mold except MacFarlane can be so much harsher.  If the producers let MacFarlane deliver the kind of jokes he does on Family Guy, you’re going to hear a pin drop at the theater.  But for the rest of us, we should be in for an entertaining broadcast.

Hit the jump for the press release.  The 85th Annual Academy Awards will be held February 24, 2013.

It looks like Universal Pictures is planning to firm up its film slate by focusing on franchises and animation over the next few years.  One of the most successful franchises to date started with The Fast and the Furious, which continues to hold strong (Fast Six is due May 24th, 2013).  Universal also plans on going ahead with sequels to this summer’s The Bourne Legacy, which starred Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, as well as a follow-up to Seth MacFarlane’s Ted, with Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis. They’re also getting ambitious on the animated front by expecting to crank out two films a year, versus their current rate of two every three years.  Hit the jump for more.

The fall TV season is fast approaching, and NBC has now announced the first few hosts and musical guests for the upcoming 38th season of Saturday Night Live.  On September 15th, Family Guy creator/aspiring lounge singer Seth MacFarlane will kick things off for the season premiere with musical guest Frank Ocean.  September 22nd will see the multi-talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt (seriously, is there anything he can’t do?) take on hosting duties alongside musical guest Mumford & Sons in anticipation of the release of Looper, and James Bond himself Daniel Craig is set to host on October 6th with the accompanied musical stylings of Muse.

Both Gordon-Levitt and Craig have hosted SNL before, but this will be the first time for MacFarlane.  The incredibly busy mind behind Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show made his feature directorial debut with this summer’s comedy hit Ted. The guy’s a natural showman so we should be in for a good time when SNL returns on September 15th.

Going into this weekend, there were some people who believed Sony’s remake of Total Recall would give The Dark Knight Rises a run for its money. Those people were wrong. With an estimate of $36.4 million, TDKR claimed its third straight weekend at number one while Total Recall barely topped the debut of the Arnold Schwarzenegger original… back in 1990.

As part of the TCA Press Tour presentation for Fox, President of Entertainment Kevin Reilly took some time to talk about where things stand with some of the new comedies and dramas, as well as old favorites, Glee and Fringe.  During the interview, he spoke about their new comedy block which includes New Girl, Raising Hope, Ben and Kate and The Mindy Project, what Glee 2.0 will look like, the importance of giving Fringe a final season, how they’ll approach genre programming in the future, their hope for Primetime Emmy nominations next year, and the likelihood of Seth MacFarlane returning to live-action on the network.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

The cast and creative team of Fox’s Family Guy were on hand at Comic-Con today to raunch up the jokes and completely ignore the sign that panelists should respect that there are folks under the age of 18 in the audience.  As creator and star Seth MacFarlane quipped, “If you’re under 18 and you’re in this room, it’s already too late for you.”  Joining him were Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mike Henry, Mila Kunis and executive producer Steve Callahan. The most entertaining portion of the panel came when the cast ripped into insane audience members, but a few sneak peeks were also present.  Hit the jump for the full panel recap and be sure to keep up with our continuing Comic-Con coverage here.

The animated series American Dad is entering its ninth season and appeared at a Comic-Con panel to give the audience a sneak peek.  The panel opened with a psychedelic clip show that was half preview and half fan appreciation.  Patrick Stewart himself introduced the sequence and some of the flashed clips included the various faces and costumes of Roger (Seth MacFarlane), a suicidal lemur, various attempts by Stan to jump a chasm and a tearful farewell from Roger.  The panel featured MacFarlane, Wendy Schaal, Scott Grimes, Rachael MacFarlane, Dee Bradley Baker, Mike Barker, Jordan Blume and Matt Weitzman. Hit the jump to check out my panel recap and click here for all of our continuing Comic-Con coverage.

The theory that audiences would wait for the tentpole movies of July before opening their wallets went down in flames this weekend as two all-original movies (R-rated ones at that) delivered stellar openings. Ted and Magic Mike bested Brave by taking first and second place: nearly doubling their pre-weekend projections and giving box office watchers a lot more to consider than the imminent arrival of The Amazing Spider-Man.

So, it appears the answer to the question “did I underestimate the blockbuster potential of Ted” is a giant “Oh Hell Yes.”  From its first day in 3,239 locations the R-rated comedy from first-time film director Seth MacFarlane (the Family Guy guy) made an estimated $20.2 million. And this from a movie that was projected to earn only $25 million for its first weekend! With Friday’s huge win, Ted is now poised to take in double that by Sunday – a figure that would top The Hangover as the all-time highest debut from an R-rated (non-sequel) comedy. But Friday’s surprises were not limited to talking teddy bears. Magic Mike, the R-rated male-stripper movie starring Channing Tatum, was also a giant over-performer with an estimated $19.4 million from 2,930 venues. Again, that is just under what Magic Mike was projected to earn in its first three days. Meanwhile, Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection, in 2,161 locations, also had a bigger-than-expected first Friday, taking in an estimated $10.25 million for what should prove a $27 million opening weekend. In fact, of yesterday’s four major new releases, only the Disney-distributed People Like Us played as expected – opening outside the top five with a modest $1.4 million.  We’ll have full details and analysis of this weekend’s box office tomorrow.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has found great success in making adorable things like babies and dogs act like adults who crack offensive jokes.  MacFarlane sticks to his character formula in his directorial feature, Ted, but moves away from his tangential “This is ___ than the time ___” approach of his successful TV series.  Ted is better for the change as the story provides some nice (albeit plain) warmth to a barrage of delightfully juvenile humor.  MacFarlane’s sharp writing and direction, paired with a good comic turn from Mark Wahlberg, help make the film bigger than its simple premise of a talking, foul-mouthed teddy bear.

Last week, a really funny red-band featurette for Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s feature directorial debut Ted was released.  Now a new featurette has gone online, giving us a look at how MacFarlane played the titular teddy bear using motion-capture technology.  It’s a pretty interesting clip that shows MacFarlane pulling double duty on set, sitting behind the monitors and directing while also wearing a motion-capture suit so he can play opposite the human actors at the same time.

Hit the jump to watch the featurette.  If you missed our interview with MacFarlane, Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis in which they talk offensive humor, creepy CGI and more, click here.  The film also stars Joel McHale, Patrick Warburton, and Giovanni Ribisi.  Ted opens on June 29th.

Ted is a raunchy, outrageous and hilariously funny live-action/CG-animated comedy from the zany mind of Seth MacFarlane, the man behind the animated TV show Family Guy.  Bringing his boundary-pushing brand of humor to the big screen for the first time as writer, director, producer and voice star of the bear itself, the story is centered around John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg), a grown man whose childhood wish brought his cherished teddy bear to life.  Almost 30 years later, Ted is still by John’s side, to the increasing annoyance of his girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis), who issues an ultimatum for John to leave his boyhood friend behind and enter adulthood.  For more on the film, here’s four clips.

At the film’s press day, co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, along with Seth MacFarlane, talked about how this film came about, starring opposite a teddy bear, how smooth the special effects turned out to be, figuring out where to draw the line with offensive humor, how Sam Jones (Flash Gordon) ended up in the film, and deciding on the specific look for Ted.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

A featurette filled with new footage from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s feature directorial debut Ted has been released.  The film stars Mark Wahlberg as a grown man whose childhood wish that his teddy bear would come to life actually came true, and now as an adult he’s having trouble letting go of his foul-mouthed buddy.  In the featurette, MacFarlane describes the film as a warm, fuzzy, heartfelt fucked-up fairy tale.  We get a look at a fair amount of new footage, including Ralph Garman and Alex Borstein as the young version of Wahlberg’s character’s parents.  As with the previous trailers, if you’re not a fan of Family Guy you probably won’t love the footage.  I particularly enjoyed Ted waxing poetic on the sexual stylings of Bostonian women, while there’s also a really funny gag at the end of the clip involving a pair of bare breasts.

Hit the jump to watch the decidedly NSFW clip.  The film also stars Mila Kunis, Joel McHale, Patrick Warburton, and Giovanni Ribisi.  Ted opens on June 29th.

We’ve got some new images of the upcoming Seth MacFarlane comedy, Ted, to go with the clips we posted earlier.  The story of Ted follows John (Mark Wahlberg) and his teddy bear come to life (voiced by MacFarlane). As kids, I’m sure many of us wished that one or more of our treasured stuffed animals would come to life. We probably never expected our fuzzy friends to start smoking a lot of weed, crushing their fair share of Bud Lights and turning into furry little womanizers.  Of course, this causes a big problem for John, whose girlfriend (Mila Kunis) puts up the ultimatum that either Ted goes or she goes (easy decision in my mind).  Ted, also starring Patrick Warburton, Giovanni Ribisi, Laura Vandervoort and Joel McHale, opens June 29th.  Hit the jump to check out the new images.