Fox Walden's marketing department was impressed by the numbers racked up by high-pitched YouTube phenomenon Fred (created by 14-year-old Nebraskan Lucas Cruikshank), whose 18 webisodes have received more than 50 million hits --more than Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers, according to CNN. "Fred's current season has over 1.8 million views already and has been the #1 and #2 Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite videos on YouTube last week," gushed a Fox Walden publicist.

So Fox Walden's marketers, seeking to hijack Fred's audience of kids under 18, contacted Cruikshank about doing some promotion for Gil Kenan's upcoming family film City of Ember. (Nickelodeon also hired the teen, for a text messaging commercial.) They flew Cruikshank out to LA from his Nebraska hometown--his first flight to the coast, to act in a dream sequence in which he becomes the star of The City of Ember. He shot the episode with Ember's Tim Robbins and Saoirse Ronan. The promo will post on YouTube September 18.

Here's the CNN Fred story:

Related Fred links on the jump:

CNN – Frenetic Fred (7/11/08) (video).

The Independent (UK) – Kids with Cameras Lead the Way in Giving Web Users Their Daily Fred (7/28/08) .

Times (UK) Online – Microtrends: The Fred Phenomenon (7/25/08)

Sydney Morning Herald – Fast-Talking Fred is the Toast of YouTube (6/30/08).

NewTeeVee.com – Fred speaks to NTV (6/25/08).

Los Angeles Times – Fred’s YouTube Channel is Programming For Kids By Kids (6/24/08).

Playtone producer Gary Goetzman wishes that Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn hadn't expressed his reservations about Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are to the LAT's Patrick Goldstein:

"We've given him more money and, even more importantly, more time for him to work on the film," Horn said. "We'd like to find a common ground that represents Spike's vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge on our hands. But I wouldn't call it a problem, simply a challenge. No one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a very special piece of material and we're just trying to get it right."

On the City of Ember train, Goetzman responded: "Warner Bros.' vision and Spike and my vision of the picture may be a little different. In the end good taste will prevail. The final cut is Spike's. Warner Bros. is not taking over the picture and has no intention of bringing down the hammer on anyone here."

The kid starring in the pic as Max (Max Records) isn't going anywhere. He was picked by Spike and approved by Warners, said Goetzman.

Goetzman admitted to me and AICN's Mr. Beaks that the live-action animatronic wild things definitely did not work in the context of shooting in the jungles of Australia and that CGI is being added now. "CG can always look right," he says. As for the rumor that kids ran screaming from an early research screening, Goetzman says that's not true: "There was no screaming, no crying, none of that."

Clearly, Jonze, who is still working on the troubled movie, needs more tinkering time. The original October release date is long past. But it does seem to make Goetzman a tad nervous that there is no new release date set. Clearly, limbo is not a comfortable place to be.

Earlier post: Where the Wild Things Aren't.

And the rating? "McG will make the best movie," he says. "He's not constrained. It will be PG-13 or R; we're trying for PG-13."

I'll update this with material from the Terminator panel later Saturday, as well as my one-on-one with McG.

BTW, re: Terminator and Dark Knight star Christian Bale: I spoke to someone from Warners who was in his Hotel Dorchester Room when he had his altercation with this mother. It was not a big deal. He has not gotten along with his family for some time. And he has not been charged with anything by the London police.

Joss Whedon isn't the only writer taking things into his own hands on the Internet these days. On the City of Ember train, screenwriter Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) told me about her new short film distribution website small & creepy films, which she launched two months ago with her partner, producer Steve Nicolaides.

The duo invested some of their own money in it, though it wasn't "arduous," Thompson said. "Having worked in this industry so long, and given so much away psychologically, I wasn't willing to give anything more away. I'd look all day on the Internet where there are so many interesting things to see. We lack gatekeepers for outsider art."

Their first production (in partnership with Chiller TV) is the 28 episode web series The Hills Are Alive, produced and co-written by Nicolaides and Thompson, which they shot on their ranch in Ojai over many years.

Their goal is to collect and show "weird, genuinely out-there stuff," said Thompson, whose friends at film fests are sending them material. Small and Creepy is also sponsoring a young animator, Evan York, who records people's dreams and animates them with a Sharpie. For now the site shows shorts. "People don't have the patience or bandwidth to do otherwise," Thompson said.

Her goal, not yet met: "I will make a cell phone feature," she said.

I saw three summer comedies in a row this week, two from the Judd Apatow factory, Step Brothers and Pineapple Express, plus Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, which screened at Comic-Con last night (Pineapple Express screens here too).

Step Brothers is a great premise that has been sketchily executed; Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are often hilarious acting like ten-year-old boys, but the concept quickly wears thin. Pineapple Express is the best of the three movies, and the smartest; Seth Rogen, James Franco and Danny McBride are inspired throughout as pot heads on the run from some killer drug dealers. An intelligent director, David Gordon Green, an indie dramatist-turned-studio-comedy guy, makes all the difference. These guys cared about the details. It's not sloppy.

While Tropic Thunder is also funny, it's also really expensive, so it gets top-heavy as a star-studded big- budget action film shot on location in the jungle. The Comic-Con crowd ate it up--especially the opening intro with Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. competing for Comic-Con geek cred--although I had a sense that it was probably too inside for many of them. It's a rather reflexive and sophisticated treatise on filmmaking in Hollywood today as well as the art of acting. Robert Downey Jr. (as an Australian actor staying in character as a black dude) and Stiller (as an action hero who can't discern reality) dissecting their identities as actors is hilarious. Tom Cruise and Matthew McConnaughey also offer support with risible results as producer and agent, respectively. Actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux did so well with this he's writing probably the hottest project in town right now, Marvel's Iron Man 2.

On the City of Ember promo train from L.A. to San Diego on Wednesday, I found myself in close quarters with folks from the likes of Time, LA Times, aint-it-cool-news, sci-fi news, and CHUD. I've always prided myself on being able to hold my own with the fanboys, but was stopped cold when one guy asked me point blank, as a large group listened intently, what was my favorite Adam McKay/Will Ferrell movie? My heart stopped cold. "Um, I've never seen Talladega Nights," I stumbled. "I didn't like Step Brothers that much either. So I guess it would have to be Anchorman."

So lame. BTW, the train ride was a brilliant promo idea on the part of Fox Walden's Jeffrey Godsick, who commandeered two cars and attached them to a train, showed 23 journalists some footage of Monster House director Gil Kenan's City of Ember, adapted by Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) from the 2003 novel. Playtone produced the pic for $35 million.

The footage was promising: Saorise Ronin runs around an amazing set that was built by production designer Martin Laing in Belfast, Northern Ireland in a gigantic ship factory 12 stories high. (The Titanic was built there.) He emptied it out and built what may be one of the last gigantic practical sets.

I got Kenan to admit that having come from the freedom of the CG animation world, he was a tad frustrated by the limitations of live action filming, and may return to animation. The movie looked like one of those fun escape into a future fantasies that still relate to the real world: deep underground, City of Ember is running out of resources, and mayor Bill Murray is hoarding. It's the younger generation that figures out how to save the human race from extinction. Shades of Wall-E.

I was at L.A.’s Union Station, getting ready to ride on a train for the first time since I was a little kid. The man took my bags and walked me through the terminals, and I remarked on what a big place it was. “Yudesverpy,” he agreed.

“Are you talking gibberish?” I asked. “Is this how the people in ‘City of Ember’ speak?”

With a sly smile, he nodded his head. And then we came around a corner to find an old timey brass band, banners and a guy with a bell, all welcoming me onto my train to Comic-Con.

Every year, dozens of movies compete to get the attention of the press in San Diego. But I must say, the folks behind this upcoming <a href=”http://www.mtv.com/movies/movie/348714/moviemain.jhtml”>Tim Robbins/Bill Murray fantasy film</a> came up with one of the cooler ideas in recent memory: Renting a train and decorating it to look like something from the movie.

Wednesday afternoon’s voyage began with a peek inside the train, which is the type of old-school ride that has curtains, sleeping compartments, ashtrays, a bar and even a barber (!) on board. Honestly, I felt like I was in “The Natural” and about to bump into The Whammer.

The “Ember” people decked out the train with props, pictures, and even “e”-shaped cookies to get the 20-or-so journalists in the right mood. Once on board, a “conductor” led us in the Ember pledge that every citizen must take – and then director Gil Kenan led us through clips from the October 10th flick, filling in the plot points in between.

“What propelled me on the journey of making this film was the potential to create a living, breathing creature out of a city,” the “Monster House” filmmaker explained of the film’s underground, crumbling setting, citing such random influences as the videogame “Mist” and Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” “It’s something that I’m after. My first film turned a house into a character. Here, I wanted to make sure that the city itself, which hides this amazing puzzle that is the adventure, is as alive as any of the players.”

The MTV movies team is here in San Diego. Stay tuned to the MTV Movies Blog and our brand-new comics blog, Splash Page for tons more!