Science Fiction (and Fantasy) on Television

Friday 28th March 2003

"Movie City Geek: It's A Geek World ..." - an article by John Rogers is so good I want to frame it! An inspiration to all of us. Rogers wrote The Core and is bringing Asimov's Foundation Trilogy to movie life. He invites many of the target audience of the article (not dissimilar to the target audience of this website) to get on and write as well. I'll put the article up on this website when it drops off the archive at Yahoo.

Friday 21st March 2003

I suggested you check out the official Animatrix website back at the beginning of February. Regular moviegoers now get the chance to see the first Animatrix short, before watching Dreamcatcher. But internet users with decent connections can enjoy the series of shorts on-line and see new ones coming out at regular intervals. And don't forget to check out The Matrix site as well - with two movies, shorts, games and all the rest out this year. Matrix fans will certainly have plenty to enjoy. Matrix haters will have plenty to moan about.

Friday 21st March 2003

After last week's news that Captain Scarlet is coming back to town, I should mention the news that another 60's show, AstroBoy (aka Tetsuwan Atom), has been revived. This was the first Japanese anime TV show to be seen around the world. The influential series is 50 years old now (based on an even older comic strip by legendary Osamu Tezuka), but the all new anime is about to hit Japanese TV screens (and no doubt everywhere else shortly after!) I predict that the story of the futuristic robot boy is going to be a big success. The date it starts, 7th April 2003, is special, because that is the fictional AstroBoy's actual "birth day". The American feature film version, (being directed by Eric Leighton), is still being painfully slow, having been announced in 1999, it is probably not now expected before 2005.

Thursday 20th March 2003

Brett Ratner

Last night, Brett Ratner finally gave up on Superman. He has been director-in-waiting forever on this painful non-project. I have avoided reporting on the interminable (official) possibilities for who would play Superman because it has been so tedious. As actor after actor said "No" to this supposed plum role, the project has been creating its own noose to hang itself.

Christopher Reeve

With nonsense like the "Superman curse" being reported, the real truth, that no succesful actor wants to be overshadowed by the comicbook character in a three movie deal over seven years, is a difficult pill for Warner Bros. to swallow. Superman has been done in all the ways it needs to be done in films and various TV series, so just give it up now guys. The project is cased in Kryptonite and will never fly. Producer Jon Peters will no doubt keep plugging away though, in his struggle to get the price under $200 million. What a waste of effort. Just think of the amazing Real SF film that could be made with that sort of money...

Ratner intends to go off to direct Rush Hour 3 though has time to do something else first. Not that Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan have signed up for it RH3 though. Superstar Chan has been saying for some years that he wants to start moving away from the Kung Fu roles (even supermen get older) and I am not at all convinced he has the slightest interest in a third Rush Hour. However, it seems that the valuable movie franchise may well continue without either of them.

Tuesday 18th March 2003

Fans of the Aeon Flux animated series may well know that a live action film has been talked about, negotiated and pondered for about eight years now. Well, it seems (probably with the success of comic book character films recently) that it is actually finally happening. According to Variety, Karyn Kusama is in final negotiations to do final script development and direct the film. With other news around that I've picked up, I can tell you that the horrible script from some years ago is completely abandoned and the people putting this film together want to stay true to the series and what made it good. Let us hope so!

Saturday 15th March 2003

In the hallowed halls where we find classic Science Fiction novels, there is a special place for Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Interesting then to see what it might look like as a feature film. With a John Rogers (The Core) screenplay, we'll have to wait and see if he can do it justice. At the very least, I believe he respects the material.

Friday 14th March 2003

Looks like Warner Bros is now keen on Halle Berry to play Catwoman after Ashley Judd had to leave the project because writers took so long to create a workable script, she had to move on to other commitments. But Halle is currently Storm in X2 and possibly an X3, not to mention the possibility of a spinoff for Bond character Jinx, so do we really need Catwoman to be played by her as well? There are other actresses out there who will look good in a catsuit you know. Berry is shooting Gothika next.

Wednesday 12th March 2003

Yet more "children's entertainment" news today: There is no shortage of great children's books out there and with the gigantic success of Harry Potter, there is plenty of interest in young adult magic fiction. Miramax is wasting no time in buying up the rights to everything good they can.
Laurence Yep's trilogy The Tiger's Apprentice is first in line, bought before the first installment even hits the stores, (although Yep has written many other successful books). San Francisco boy discovers his grandmother is the guardian of a magical phoenix egg. The boy must learn Chinese magic to carry on the guardianship, because the egg has the power to create huge destruction if it gets into the wrong hands. He is helped by a tiger who can take on human form. No word about whether or not he'll be looking to chuck the egg into a volcano or not...
Miramax is already preparing to film Artemis Foul by Eoin Colfer. Foul appears in a series of great books, described by Colfer as "Die Hard with fairies".
Also in early preparation is Summerland by Michael Chabon, a strange mix of American fairies, baseball, heroism, werefolk, a boy who thinks he is an android...
Finally there is Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy - no wasting time with this set of stories about an ancient jinni and a young magician - the publishing and film rights were bought as a package deal.

Wednesday 12th March 2003

Has Majel being digging through the old boxes again? Two stories by Gene Roddenberry have been bought by Digital Production Solutions with the idea of creating 3D animated features. Apparently the only two children's stories Gene did, they are:
Starpoint Academy - The brightest teenagers are selected from around the galaxt to train as elite Astro Rangers - to solve problems around the universe.
Char - An "intergalactic" princess, robbed of her birthright and unaware of it, is raised as a normal girl on 24th-century Earth.

Wednesday 12th March 2003

"The Mysterons: Sworn enemies of Earth. Possessing the ability to recreate an exact likeness of an object or a person. But first they must destroy... Leading the fight, one man fate has made indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet." First on our screens in Gerry Anderson supermarionation way back in 1967, Captain Scarlet is coming back. According to the BBC, this is finally going into production. This time the show will be in CG animation, (the CGI pilot actually came out in 1999). And although the report mentions that the show will be more PC by having more female characters in the front-line fight, let us not forget the original did have female fighter pilots and the wonderful characters of Trinidadian Lieutenant Green and Japanese Harmony Angel. Not introduced earlier in Anderson's shows, because such racial diversity could not be sold to the Southern USA before then. (Note: Even forward thinking ST:TOS 1966 pilot had Sulu, but not Uhura.) But never mind that, who is making the new Captain Scarlet? None other than the very original and very excited Gerry Anderson! Check the site.

Tuesday 11th March 2003

New Matrix comments on BBC Film 2003: Keanu Reeves says, "Neo owns the Matrix now." Laurence Fishburne comments that the student has surpassed the teacher, so the teacher becomes the general (of the new war). Producer Joel Silver says, "The bar is raised so high there's no more bar."

Monday 10th March 2003

Gladiatress is looking good. Starring the very funny Smack the Pony comedy sketch show regulars, Sally Phillips, Doon Mackichan and Fiona Allen, this film will take the piss out of the Scott/Crowe Gladiator as well as anything else that they can think of. With some of the filming taking place at the same location as Gladiator, in Farnham (just down the road from me as it happens), there is already some similarity in look! But don't expect Rome. This is a 55 B.C. tale of protecting a certain island against the might of the Roman invasion. Empire has a first glimpse.

Monday 10th March 2003

CHUD interviews Joel Silver where he talks about Animatrix, Matrix sequels, Cradle 2 The Grave and Gloria Foster (who sadly died during filming of The Matrix Reloaded). The guy really does bring us a lot of interesting films - such as the future Gothika, Lobo and Adrenalynn - more about those later.

Friday 7th March 2003

Clive Owen has definitely signed to play King Arthur in yet another version of the classic tale. It is likely that Stephen Dillane will play Merlin. Antoine Fuqua is to direct this Disney/Bruckheimer movie. How to add something different to the long list of Arthur films? They are going to set the myth in its real historical setting, complete with the fall of the Roman Empire, with battles and issues that Arthur has to face in the years before being named King (of the Britons).

Wednesday 5th March 2003

Ian McKellen would like even more Gandalf! His joy at playing the role and his continuing popularity after LotR:tTT has prompted him to ask Peter Jackson to make The Hobbit. According to the BBC, McKellen told Time Europe he would love to see the prequel to LotR made as a TV series, so to explore all the different threads of the story better. The Hobbit was the original story written by J.R.R. Tolkien of The Ring and how Bilbo Baggins came to get it from Gollum while on a quest with Gandalf. Surely there would be enough guaranteed demand to justify funding for this project, so we'll join with Ian and plead with Peter to do it - it sounds like a great idea!

Saturday 3rd March 2003

It seems we will be seeing Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama in the Battlestar Galactica remake - lending the required acting weight to the role. Famous on TV for Lieutenant Martin Castillo in Miami Vice (my principal memory of that series being the episode where he did his mysterious ninja routine to save those other two...) Oh, and of course he is Gaff in the best film ever made, Blade Runner. Not to diminish his other great film roles and his real life work of course, for which he is now well recognised.

Saturday 3rd March 2003

Philip José Farmer's Riverworld is now a TV movie to appear on the Sci-Fi Channel this month. Riverworld is a mythical place where people from throughout history are 'reborn'. In this series of books, you therefore get some interesting interactions between historical figures from very different times. If this film is successful, there will undoubtedly be more. Alex Proyas takes an Executive Producer role, but the choice of others involved in the production shows he has clearly been very involved, so we're expecting good things.

Archive Index

Archive Index

Odyssey 5, Firefly, Star Trek, X-Files, Babylon 5, Crusade, Dr Who, Andromeda, Lexx, Dark Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, The Invisible Man, Stargate SG-1, Blake's 7, Farscape, The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, The Lone Gunmen, The Avengers, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Red Dwarf, Roswell, Total Recall 2070, Hercules, Xena: Warrior Princess, Earth: Final Conflict, Charmed, Alien Nation, Futurama, Outer Limits and so many more. Essential information, background, links, etc. on all Science Fiction and Fantasy shows are here!