Rexfeng

Mark and Brenda Voss learned that the 5,300-square-foot vacation house they built at a cost of $680,000 "actually sits on the lot next to the one they own in the gated Ocean Hammock resort community" of Daytona Beach. The result? Lots of lawyers and finger-pointing.

After being resuscitated by reality television Crumbs Bake Shop reopened the first of its cupcake emporiums this morning, bringing back the frosting-laden treats plus some new, fingers-crossed pastry mashups it hopes will reinvent the brand. At 7:30 a.m. today, Crumbs reopened at 1385 Broadway between 37th and 38th Streets to a crowd of cupcake fans and news trucks. Inside, the chain's signature oversize cupcakes awaited, in flavors like Lynn's Water Melon and one covered in lacquered chocolate candies. [ more › ]

Over the last decade many of the biggest tech companies in the world have opened headquarters in Ireland. Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and many more were no doubt drawn by the smart programming talent and availability of awesome pubs. But another big factor was a tax loophole known as the "double Irish" that allowed company with a headquarters in Ireland to make royalty payments to a separate subsidiary registered in Ireland but officially housed anywhere on the globe with a favorable tax rate. So Google, for example, has a Dublin office with around 2,500 employees, but most of the revenue booked in Ireland is then paid as royalties to a separate subsidiary, headquartered for tax purposes in Bermuda.

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Over 11 million people in Brazil, about 6 percent of the country's total population, live in slums of cities called favelas, according to the latest census figures. Among the myriad challenges that arise in these dense, impoverished urban areas, getting mail may seem to be a surprising one. Yet due to the unique, improvised architecture of favelas — the fact that structures are often created and destroyed rapidly, using a variety of available materials, such as concrete, that are impenetrable to mapping satellites — many buildings don't have addresses. Further complicating matters is the fact that many streets are called different names by residents in different areas. As a consequence, postal workers haven't been required to deliver...

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Watch the throne.

Exactly one year ago, 222 bottles of 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle bourbon went missing from the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky — roughly $25,000-worth of whiskey. The case remains unsolved, and conspiracy theorists have at least one thought as to why: Some say the Van Winkle family invented the heist to drum up even more publicity for its already-legendary product. Of course, the Van Winkles are quick to shoot down this accusation, and in doing so, they make a good point: "If people with any awareness of our situation really thought we wanted any more press," Preston Van Winkle says, "they're out of their minds."

Since its first release in 1992, 20-year-old Pappy Van Winkle has become the most covetable whiskey on the planet. Even your grandmother has probably heard of it at this point. Its defining characteristics are an unusual sweetness and an uncannily long, complex finish that's been described as having the flavors of everything from cigar boxes to coconut to dried tangerine. "Not many things on Earth bring me more pleasure than drinking this whiskey," says chef Sean Brock. Even as the bourbon boom exploded over the last decade-plus in America, introducing a flood of new whiskeys to the market, no competitor has emerged to claim Pappy's spot atop the throne.

Try and think of the last time you saw a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle on a store shelf — either the 15-year, the 20-year, or the 23-year (or, for that matter, younger Van Winkle bottlings that don't carry the "Pappy" name). If it happened at all, it was likely years ago. When shops do get a few precious bottles in stock, they almost never hit the shelves, instead going straight to people who have been on years-long waiting lists or, occasionally, in a more democratic one-day raffle. The only places you're likely to see any bottles of Pappy at all are bars or restaurants that have a very good relationship with its wholesale distributor, Southern Wine and Spirits. And if you spot some in the wild, a pour won't be cheap. "We price Pappy out the ass," says Jason Brauner, the owner of Louisville's Bourbon Bistro, where a two-ounce pour of the 23-year-old Pappy costs $100. That works out to about $1,200 per bottle — a figure that isn't based solely on greed. "I have to charge a lot to keep it on the shelf," Brauner explains. Every once in a while you'll see pours of 20-year Pappy priced closer to $50 or $60. On occasions such as this, the smart move is to buy some immediately.

The demand for Pappy is so extreme that a small mention in a GQ story last fall that said another brand, W.L. Weller, offers a $25 bourbon with the same recipe as Pappy, aged in the same barrels for only a few years less, created a national run on Weller's full line of whiskeys, too. In fact, that story, excerpted from The Kings County Distillery Guide to Urban Moonshining (which — full disclosure — was co-written by an editor at New York Magazine), laid out exactly how convoluted the craft-whiskey industry really is. Instead of, say, the beer industry, where most craft brewers actually brew and bottle their own beers, a large number of American whiskey brands are made by just a few distilleries, the spirits from which are bottled and mixed and sold under different labels. The practice is completely common, but it is only now starting to be fully understood by the public: A class-action suit against Templeton Rye, alleging consumers were led to believe the brand was distilled in small batches when in actuality the company buys its rye in bulk from an Indiana distiller, was just this week allowed to proceed.

The Van Winkle family actually does no distilling of its own, at least not anymore. In fact, Julian Van Winkle III and his son, Preston, operate the business out of a small office in an unmarked two-story building in a leafy Louisville suburb. The whiskey itself comes from an old bourbon recipe that famously starts with corn and wheat (instead of corn and rye, a more common pairing) that Julian Sr. — "Pappy" — first distilled at Kentucky's Stitzel-Weller distillery, where he was a co-owner before prohibition. Pappy died in 1965, and as American tastes migrated toward vodka and rum, Julian Jr. sold the slumping business in 1972. But he bought back some of the whiskey reserves from Stitzel-Weller, which he in turn used to start the Old Rip Van Winkle whiskey brand. When Julian Jr. died in 1981, Julian III took over. But demand for whiskey was still low, so most of his supply wasn't selling — it was maturing in barrels located in warehouses all over Kentucky. Bourbon producers typically don't want to age their product any longer than they have to, since a percentage of the whiskey evaporates each year it's in the barrels. The money literally disappears into thin air. So, taking a cue from the Scotch industry, which had long been releasing bottles of well-aged whiskey, Julian released a 10-year bottling of Rip Van Winkle and then, in the mid-nineties, a line of 20-year-old bourbon he called Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve, charging about $50 per bottle when most bourbons sold for $20 or less. It wasn't exactly an instant success. Dan Gardner, a longtime bourbon salesman, says of the initial release, "I sold Julian's products for 20 years, and in the beginning you couldn't put a gun to people's heads and make them buy it." Now, of course, you're lucky you can find a bottle for less than $500.

So what happened? People caught on, basically. In 1998, the Beverage Tasting Institute, which hosts blind-tasting competitions for wines and spirits, awarded the 20-year Family Reserve a score of 99 out of 100. That was just the beginning. Flattering articles in national publications followed, all while America was rediscovering craft spirits and cocktails, thanks to the rise of pre-Prohibition-style bars and a growing interest in mixology (which at the time was a word that didn't seem nearly as corny as it does now). In other words, the Van Winkles had excellent timing: Their brand was established as being the best bourbon at the exact moment America was rekindling its love of whiskey.

If you were a twentysomething drinker in the early aughts, and you were wondering about the best bourbons, a bartender or a store clerk would have told you Pappy. There were other brands out there, of course, but Pappy was the one most people turned to. Another big selling point at the time: Pappy was never all that expensive, not compared to rare Scotches that sold for thousands of dollars a bottle, anyway. That you could get a tumbler of the best bourbon in America for less than a shot of Johnnie Walker Blue was enough to get anyone to try it — and once you tried it, you were almost certainly hooked. Soon anyone who cared even a little about bourbon or the craft-spirit renaissance knew that Pappy was the bourbon to drink. When people as influential as Anthony Bourdain and David Chang started evangelizing it in public, it officially went mainstream.

But while Pappy's popularity was exploding, production wasn't. In fact, Julian had a major problem: Demand was threatening to deplete his entire supply. Stitzel-Weller, once his main supplier, had actually shut down in 1992. Its parent company, Diageo, continued to warehouse old whiskey there, but Julian had a finite supply that he could sell. He was only putting out about 7,000 12-bottle cases of bourbon per year (compare that to Jack Daniels, which exceeds 10 million cases annually). This was a niche product with mass awareness, and there was no way Van Winkle could scale production. But the scarcity, combined with the praise, only made it more desirable for serious whiskey nerds, compounding Van Winkle's problem. To actually continue delivering the product, the Van Winkles struck a joint venture in 2002 with Buffalo Trace. The distiller would make bourbon for the Van Winkles in exchange for a cut of the sales. So, the 20-year Pappy you drink in 2030 won't be from the same distillery as the 20-year Pappy you drank in 2006. But that won't matter too much: More important than the distilling is the aging process, determining not only how long to store the barrels but also where to store them. "Certain types of warehouses have different flavor profiles, so there are all these tweaks you can do along the way," says Julian of the aging. "We want it on the cooler, lower floors."

In theory, partnering up with a major distillery should also allow the Van Winkles to vastly expand production. But Julian, fully aware of the historical vicissitudes of the bourbon industry, doesn't want to flood a market that might not be as interested in bourbon 20 years from now. So he says production will only go up a small percentage each year. "Right now, we're making between 7,000 and 8,000 cases a year," he says. "We'll have more in ten years than we're selling now, but we are being conservative about it because things could blow up at any moment."

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up at Buffalo Trace's bucolic, 135-acre distillery — an effort to prevent any further theft of the precious Pappy. (Most people suspect the 222 bottles went missing because of a well-coordinated inside job.) That could be harder than it sounds, since some whiskey experts expect this new Pappy to be superior to the original recipe. "I actually expect the Buffalo Trace–distilled Pappy will be better than the older, Stitzel-Weller stuff," says Mike Veach, a noted bourbon historian. "They'll have the luxury to pass on inferior product, whereas with the Stitzel-Weller they were stuck with what they had." And if that's the case, the chances of scoring a bottle of Pappy will only grow dimmer.

Related: Nine Amazing American Whiskeys That Aren't Pappy Van Winkle

Read more posts by Paul Wachter

Filed Under: simply the best, booze news, julian van winkle, kentucky, pappy van winkle, preston van winkle, whiskey

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This video, made by a Magic: The Gathering fansite, was meant to show you some of the cards available in an old 1993 starter pack for the game. It was not meant to show you what happens when a grown man finds a Magic card inside it worth up to $30,000.

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 The U.S. reiterated its stance in favor of a multistakeholder model for Internet governance today. Speaking before the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker said that the United States will “not allow the global Internet to be co-opted by any person, entity, or nation seeking to substitute their parochial worldview for… Read More

 Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, the man Newsweek claimed was the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, has created a web page asking for donations in his fight to sue the magazine after he was allegedly “targeted and victimized by a reckless news organization.” The site, NewsweekLied, is an effort to hold the magazine accountable for “confusing” the 65-year-old unemployed engineer… Read More

Goldeneye 007, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 — all staples of the N64 that many of us have spent countless hours playing. Now let's watch this dude blaze through all three at once like it ain't no thing.

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Filed under: Motorsports, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Earnings/Financials, Ferrari

Formula One is in for a big shakeup next season, as the only two multiple World Champions on the grid are kicking off a game of musical chairs. Just who will end up where has yet to be figured out, but the overwhelmingly prevailing wisdom has Sebastian Vettel, who has already announced his departure from Red Bull, inking a contract with Ferrari worth 150 million pounds sterling for three years - that works out to over $80 million per year.

If the reports are true, that would make Vettel (pictured above with his assumed new teammate Kimi Raikkonen) the highest-salaried sportsman in the world. Compared to Vettel's rumored $80 million/year, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo was paid $52 million last year and NFL quarterback Matt Ryan got $42 million, just ahead of soccer player Lionel Messi at $41.7 million. Boxer Floyd Mayweather was reportedly paid a whopping $100 million last year, but that's based on how many fights he fights and wins, putting him on a different earnings spectrum.

Those figures are also just for salaries, and do not include sponsorship and endorsement deals - and therein may lie part of the reason for Vettel's reportedly stratospheric salary. In addition to his salary from the Red Bull team with which he's won four World Championships, Vettel also pulls in a large retainer from Infiniti, which sponsors both the team and himself personally. In departing Red Bull, he'd undoubtedly have to sever the tie with Infiniti as well.

F1 teams seldom disclose their finances, though, so we may never know for sure. But the mooted figures would positively eclipse all previous reported records. Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were reportedly the highest-paid drivers this season at about $27.5 million apiece, but even the $31 million which Vettel's mentor, hero and countryman Michael Schumacher was paid each year by Ferrari during the height of their partnership a decade ago still comes nowhere near what Vettel looks to be set to rake in from the same team.

$80M Ferrari deal would make Vettel world's highest-paid sportsman originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 13 Oct 2014 16:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Etc., Ownership

If you haven't noticed, it has been a little cheaper to fill up at the gas station for the last few weeks. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the current national average cost for a gallon of gasoline is $3.299. That's down about a nickel from the previous week and around seven cents lower than this time last year. It doesn't look like this is just a temporary blip either because there's a strong possibility that Saudi Arabia may compel OPEC for lower oil prices for the near future.

The boom in US shale oil and deep-water wells is causing the crude supply to increase and the price of a barrel to nose dive. According to Reuters speaking to unnamed OPEC insiders, the Saudi Arabia and Kuwait say thay don't want to reduce their own production, and a possible solution is to lower oil to $90 or as low as $80 per barrel for as long as a year or two. That would make further expensive investments in drilling less attractive in the US and Russia and maintain the Gulf's market share.

"Until about three days ago the absolute and total consensus in the market was the Saudis would cut," said Robert McNally, president of the Rapidan Group energy consultants to Reuters. "That is no longer a foregone conclusion."

However, don't run out to buy that new gas-guzzler quite yet because there's a chance this might just be a tactic by Saudi Arabia to take advantage of the rest of OPEC. The country may be willing to cut oil production but just doesn't want to be the only one doing it. According to Reuters, Venezuela is one example of a place that is refusing to turn down the taps and wants to keep things at over $100 a barrel. By letting prices slip briefly, Saudi Arabia could sustain the lower revenues until other members decide to reduce pumping with them, which would then cause the cost per barrel to rise again.

A meeting on November 27 could decide the future course of action, according to Reuters. At least until then, visiting the gas station might be a little less painful on the wallet.

OPEC quietly telling oil market to get comfy with lower prices originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 13 Oct 2014 16:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Too much!

Pizza Hut Korea's brass has done it: Created a novelty pizza that includes everything. The Star Edge pizza is available in all of its stores and it just awkwardly crams a whole bunch of stuff together — we assume because the recipe engineers are tired of gimmick toppings and crust-stuffings and just want to be done with this once and for all. And so, the Star Edge has "surf" covered in the form of calamari and shrimp. There is "turf," specifically bacon, sausage, and steak. And then you've got veggies covered with broccoli and peppers. Oh, but that is not enough, because the actual crust pries off into little turnovers, which are stuffed with cream cheese and either cinnamon apple nut or cranberry.

A large costs a hefty $32, but then again, it is worth remembering that this pizza includes all possible foods you could want to eat. Should you be in the market for such a monstrosity, but also need additional convincing in the form of a television ad, you are in luck:

To all the chains that market novelty pizzas, please know that things have gone as far as they need to go, and it is time to give it a rest.

[Brand Eating via Foodbeast]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: the chain gang, pizza, pizza hut korea, star edge pizza

Filed under: Safety, Celebrities

It seemed like a freak accident when Michael Schumacher suffered a traumatic head injury while skiing in France last winter. After all, while he may have embarked off the marked trails, he knew that ski hill well, and was wearing a helmet when he fell over and smacked his head on a rock. So why did the helmet not protect him better? The latest reports may have the answer.

According to photography blog PetaPixel, the integrity of the seven-time world champion's ski helmet may have been compromised by the GoPro camera that was attached atop it. While Schumi almost certainly would have died if not for the helmet, it may have been the camera that prevented him from skiing away from the incident unscathed instead of putting him in a coma.

Apparently the ENSA alpine sports academy in Chamonix, France, is investigating the influence of the camera's attachment to the helmet's integrity. Preliminary findings suggest that the presence of a solid object in between the helmet and the rock would cause the helmet to split open, severely reducing the level of protection it would provide the head inside.

Schumacher is still recuperating at his home in Switzerland. At present, he reportedly has yet to regain the ability to either walk or speak. Of course we wish Michael a speedy and full recovery and will be watching for updates to bring you as his recovery continues.

Michael Schumacher's brain injury may be blamed on his GoPro originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 13 Oct 2014 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Defense Department report says the military will begin planning for the risks of climate change across all of the armed forces’ operations.

Get ready to pay a little more for this.

Safety measures being used to contain Ebola in West Africa are also putting the world's chocolate supplies and thousands of cocoa-farming jobs at risk. Back in August, Ivory Coast, home to a third of the world's cocoa, closed its borders with Liberia and Guinea, a precaution that's greatly benefited the country — which hasn't suffered even one outbreak of Ebola so far — but Politico reports one big side effect is that a lot of the cocoa industry's workforce is now shut out just as harvest season begins. Cocoa prices, which were inching up anyhow, have subsequently crept beyond their already elevated level, hitting $3,400 a ton a few weeks ago, and could go higher still.

The picture is bleak: Roadblocks are necessary to limit the spread of the disease, but they also limit traffic, impairing farming operations. "The land has not been tilled to plant," one U.N. official explains. "The next crop will not be ready. We won't have one, and we see a food crisis already." And the epidemic goes beyond simply making chocolate. Giant Swiss manufacturer Barry Callebaut relays the news that it can't buy cocoa beans from some middlemen in West Africa anymore because it's simply "lost contact." (The company now educates farmers in remote villages on safety precautions.)

In response, the World Cocoa Foundation hopes to collect donations from companies such as Nestlé and Marks for its "Coca Industry Response to Ebola Initiative," which the group will reportedly unveil Wednesday at its annual meeting. Money will fund work being done by Red Cross and Caritas Internationalis.

[Politico]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: uh-oh, chocolate, ebola, health scares, ivory coast, west africa

The European chain will bring its signature flower-shaped, all-natural gelato to the 90210.

Amorino Gelato, the Parisian gelato chain with around 100 locations in Paris, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Berlin, and New York, will open its west coast flagship in the heart of Beverly Hills. Founded in 2002 by two Italian childhood friends, the artisanal gelato shop prides itself on using top notch ingredients sourced from around the world like Bronte pistachios from Sicily, Alphonso mangoes from India, and Sorrento lemons from Naples.

Although it's best known for its signature flower-shaped gelato cones, Amorino will also offer waffles, crepes, sweet Italian focaccine bread, Lavazza coffee, gelato cake, and gelato-filled macarons.

With an anticipated opening of December of this year, Amornio joins the ranks of other ice cream shops dying to break ground in the winter months.

Amorino Gelato
9605 S. Santa Monica Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Wired reviews the RX100 III, the latest version of Sony's high-end pocket camera. Improvements are praised all-around, particularly the "stunning" 50Mbps video. Read the rest

The popular northwestern Chinese food restaurant is opening in a 1,900 square foot space to feed the Midtown masses.

Jason Wang continues to proliferate his hit Xi'an Famous Foods empire, this time with a restaurant in a bi-level, 1,900 square foot space on 34th Street near the Empire State Building. This will be Wang's biggest Xi'an outpost to date, all the better, he tells Grub Street, to handle the Midtown lunch throngs. The restaurant is expected to open in February, closely following the chain's new outpost in the Upper East Side, and forthcoming restaurant in Greenpoint. 14 East 34th Street, Midtown

Pikachu is so cute that you might just want to snuggle up with the Pocket Monster and go to sleep. Well, now you can.

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In moments of peak stress, boredom, or desperation for change, we’ve probably all shared the same dream: why not just drop everything and travel. Many are lucky do it for a few months, or even a couple of years, but perhaps no modern travelers have been more ambitious than Gunther and Christine Holtorf, who set out in 1990 on a tour of Africa in a Mercedes Benz G Wagon named ‘Otto,’ and never looked back. Over the next 20 years the trio would rack up almost 550,000 miles (885,139km) across some 177 countries. They never once slept in a hotel, preferring to string up hammocks or sleep inside Otto, a car that required a stockpile of 400 spare parts lashed to the roof for emergency repairs.

Their adventures lead them to encounters with numerous vanishing cultures, extraordinary wildlife, and special permission to drive through both Cuba and even North Korea. There were also tricky political situations, a few minor car wrecks, and no less than five cases of malaria. Christine passed away in 2010, but Gunther, now 76, continued traveling for several more years before recently returning to Berlin.

The video from 2012 above includes some great highlights from the Hortorf’s trek, but what you really need to do is scroll through this new interactive travelogue from the BBC that includes some newly published photos and a full written account of their decades-long adventures. Also, here’s Gunther telling a great story about his close encounter with a hyena. (via PetaPixel)

Update: Here’s a 2013 interview with Gunther from Outside.

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Ross Floate:

As we move toward a model of the world where nearly every business is just a website with some people out the back, we’ve got to keep these jerks in mind and anticipate where they might fool around with your product to have what (to them) are a few childish laughs.

When we at Floate build things for people, I always ask “how could someone screw this up for shits and giggles?” People tend to think I’m joking but I’m deadly serious because if your site, network, or product becomes a playground for a bunch of jerks, it turns off the people whose time and attention you’re really trying to obtain. Almost nobody ever got a promotion doing that.

London is getting ready to welcome new Tube trains for the next 40 years. Last week, London unveiled the new cars to the public for the first time, and when the trains finally hit the tracks starting in the mid-2020s, they'll bring an appreciable list of improvements to riders.

With the new design, you'll be able to walk the entire length of the train, which frees up lots of space that was wasted just from closing off individual cars in the past. The entrances are now all evenly spaced and...

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This one-eyed spaghetti monster is not the official map of the Tokyo, but one designed by Korean design studio Zeroperzero. It not only shows the system itself, but also the landmarks, acting as a tourism guide too. They have other maps for cities like New York, London, and Paris.

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Kelly Hodgkins, reporting for MacRumors:

Apple is preparing to remove all Bose audio products, both demo and sellable, from its retail environment, according to a reliable source who spoke to MacRumors. The inventory change will begin early next week, with instructions for removal being sent to employees in the coming days.

The reasons behind this removal were not disclosed, but it is very likely tied to to Apple’s recent acquisition of Beats Electronics.

Roy Choi builds hype for Kogi LAX on his Instagram today with a Fly Tacos shirt.

The taco truck revolutionary Roy Choi posted on his Instagram today showing Kogi LAX will be opening soon. This adds to another long list of projects keeping the new CNN host busy these days. Stay tuned for updates on when travelers can expect to have a final taste of LA via Choi's famous burritos and tacos before taking off to their final destinations (that probably don't have Kogi-quality tacos).

Filed under: Concept Cars, Motorsports, Performance, Hatchback, Audi, Luxury

An automaker like Audi will always have a number of different research and development projects going at the same time, and some of them might take on very different approaches. At one end, you'll have its racing programs, and at what you'd assume would be the other, self-driving prototypes. But Ingolstadt is preparing to bridge that gap by running an autonomous prototype at racing speed around the famed Hockenheimring.

Set to take place on Sunday, October 19, during the DTM season finale at Hockenheim, the driverless RS7 will motor at speeds up to 150 miles per hour, right up "to its physical limits with millimeter precision."

Audi anticipates that "the world's sportiest piloted driving car" will run a lap time of just over two minutes, at which the RS7 would stand not only to be the fastest driverless car ever to lap the circuit, but also potentially the fastest four-door - if it can beat the 2:02.71 lap time set by a BMW M3 sedan in 2007.

The lap record for street-legal production cars around the Hockenheim GP circuit stands at 1:48.5, set by the Porsche 918 Spyder last year. Kimi Raikkonen has held the outright record since 2009 when he clocked a 1:13.78 lap time in his McLaren MP4-19.

Continue reading Audi to lap Hockenheim in driverless RS7

Audi to lap Hockenheim in driverless RS7 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 10 Oct 2014 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Lego Movie was such a success earlier this year that a sequel was immediately put into development, but now The Hollywood Reporter says that sequel is getting pushed back for something arguably far better: a Lego Batman spinoff. The Will Arnett-voiced Batman was one of the highlights of what was widely regarded as an all-around good movie, so the decision to focus a movie on him seems like a pretty great idea. Plus, everyone already loves Batman. The movie is reportedly targeting a 2017 release date, potentially even landing on May 26th, when the film's sequel was originally set for.

Lego Batman will be directed by Chris McKay, who had originally planned to direct The Lego Movie sequel, according to the Reporter. McKay is a...

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