TVSquad

Our friends at ComicsAlliance attended the Comic-Con panel for Futurama. Laura Hudson reports a curious absence there:

The original panel for Futurama was billed as event where we would "join executive producers Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and stars Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, and Maurice LaMarche for high-stakes thrills as a top-ranking FOX executive decides live, on stage, whether Futurama will make yet another triumphant return or whether it is gone forever!"

It was an obvious setup for a Fox exec to reunite the cast and creator and cue wild applause from fans for the revival of the cult favorite cartoon. Unfortunately, as a result of the recent contract disputes and salary cuts for the voice cast -- and the subsequent threats from Fox that they would recast the characters -- none of the voice actors were in attendance, although series creator Matt Groening voiced his support for them, saying that "we love our Futurama actors. We hope that FOX and the actors can come to an agreement as soon as possible."

As the first Futurama straight-to-DVD movie, Bender's Big Score, begins airing on Comedy Central (they'll air the movie as a four-episode blok on Sunday night), Fox has announced the name and release date of the second straight-to-DVD epic.

AnimationMagazine.net reports that Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs will be released on June 24, and they note that Fox calls it "the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic." Since it's a continuation of Bender's Big Score, I'll talk about the plot of the new movie after the jump, for the benefit of those who haven't seen the first movie yet.

On November 27, Futurama comes back in a big way with Bender's Big Score, an "epic" film involving all the characters from the show that ran on Fox from 1999-2003. The DVD is the first in a series of four direct-to-DVD releases, which will be edited into 16 episodes that will air on Comedy Central in 2008. Fellow Squadder Brad Trechak gave the disc a positive review last week, which is high praise coming from a big fan of the show as he is.

David X. Cohen, executive producer and show-runner of Futurama, spoke to me via phone last week. We didn't have much time, only about ten minutes or so, so we got down to the nuts and bolts: how the movies will play on Comedy Central, some information on the show's comeback, a quick preview of the next DVD, and how the Fox executives felt about being ground into all-purpose powder.