Earlier this year Warner Bros’ Alcon entertainment made entertainment news headlines by acquiring the “film, television and ancillary” rights to Blade Runner sequels, firing up the rumor mill with possibilities of new Blade Runner content — though not a remake/re-boot as “Alcon’s franchise rights would be all-inclusive, but exclude rights to remake the original.” Fans much lamented the possibility of a Scott-free ‘Runner future. Weep no more, though: Today Alcon announced that Ridley Scott will helm the next Blade Runner.
Our friends over at Slice of SciFi picked up on Eureka producer Amy Berg’s tweets, explaining the reasons behind the show’s cancellation. From their news piece:
“Everyone is asking why [the show was cancelled]. It’s simple, really. We are the network’s golden child in every way, except for profit margins. Fact is, Eureka is an expensive show to make,” she said on Twitter. “We could not maintain the quality of our show with the cuts it would take to make us profitable for Syfy’s new parent company.” Berg went on to say that Syfy wanted to renew the show and worked to try to make that a reality. But in the end, that didn’t happen. “Trust me, they love us,” she said. “We just couldn’t make the numbers work.”
If that’s the case, does this mean that a Chuck-like push to existing and potential advertisers might indeed have a hope of saving the show?
The Operator tipped us off today to an Entertainment Weekly piece interviewing Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the husband-and-wife team who wrote the seriously awesome RotPotA screenplay. The bombshell drops when the interviewer asks about the possibility of sequels. While Jaffa and Silver clearly state that “there hasn’t been any official discussion yet about a sequel,” they admit that they had sequels in mind when they penned RotPotA — and they mention some specifics.
After ordering episodes so far ahead that when we talked to Colin Ferguson back in May (GWC #273), he was already on the set shooting season five before we’d even begun to see the second half of season four, SyFy announced yesterday the end of Eureka. It was a roller-coaster week for fans of the show as the possibility of cancellation leaked, followed by word that we might receive six “final” episodes. SyFy’s official statement:
“After painstaking consideration, we have had to make the difficult business decision to not order a season six of Eureka. But Eureka is not over yet. There is a new holiday episode this December and 12 stellar episodes set to debut next year, marking its fifth season and six memorable years on Syfy. The 2012 episodes are some of the best we’ve seen, and will bring this great series to a satisfying end. We are very grateful to Bruce Miller and Jaime Paglia, their team of incredible writers, and an amazing cast and crew who have consistently delivered a series we continue to be very proud of. We thank the fans for their support of this show and know they will enjoy its final season in 2012.“
I’ve always considered the “original” Spider-Man movie to be essentially a reboot, though I suppose many would consider it simply the modern superhero movie formula: Draw liberally from the hero’s comic roots to create a cinematic story that works on the big screen–and in product marketing. But Batman Begins changed all that, taking us for an altogether darker ride and launching the trend toward portraying the masked and caped more as they existed in the imaginations of comic readers than on the page.
Now Spider-Man looks to get the same treatment. Recent news outed Andrew Garfield as the the upcoming movie’s Peter Parker, to mostly positive critical reaction. As comic legend Todd McFarlane points out in an interview with SuperHeroHype, casting Spider-Man is an entirely different task than, say, Captain America:
Spider-Man is a juggernaut in and of himself, so you have the luxury of getting 500 tests and picking the best talent that will make the character. That’s what they’re saying they did, and I’m going to take them at their word. They didn’t feel pressured to put in a guy everybody knows, who’s one of the sexiest guys under 25 or anything. Peter Parker has a skinny neck and isn’t the biggest guy on the block. He doesn’t usually get picked first when it’s time to put together a baseball team at recess. As I look at images of Andrew Garfield, he sort of falls into that category.
(Check out the rest of the article for additional responses by once-Spider-Man authors Peter David and Mark Millar.)
I’m usually one to be completely engrossed in watching a movie at home. In fact, to make sure I hear the dialogue correctly, I usually turn on the closed captioning. But with a movie or franchise I’m really interested in, I know I’ll be watching the movie over and over again, like the obsessed geek I am. I’ll watch the movie, the commentaries if they’re available, and the included special features on the DVD or Blu-ray — then I’ll listen to podcasts that discuss the movie. This week I discovered a new way to geek out over a movie with more in-depth material than I’ve seen before: Disney’s Second Screen.
The Andromeda Galaxy as seen by Terry Hancock from Michigan (with permission)
Andromeda. Few words immediately bring forth imagery of science fiction, fantasy and real-life astronomy to me like Andromeda does. Andromeda is our heavens, Andromeda is in our history, Andromeda is in our music and literature, Andromeda is in our oceans and Andromeda is in our science fiction and fantasy. I’ll admit I am less knowledgeable about Andromedas than I am about Enterprises (see my 20 Favorite Ships Called Enterprises post), but several Andromedas are also at the root of my geekdom. Recently I decided to take some time and run through the Andromedas that I’m aware of. I’m confident that there are additional Andromedas of relevance out there. If you know of one, please let me know in the comments section below because I would greatly appreciate and enjoy learning about it. In the meantime, please sit back and allow me to take you through my tour of the Andromedas.
Image from SyFy Mobile Website
In the past two minutes I turned off the final episode of Caprica, hit save on the DVR and turned on my laptop. Almost three weeks after SyFy aired the final five Caprica episodes I was able to complete the January 4th, 2011 marathon. Somehow I had managed to stay Caprica spoiler-free until today and it payed off in spades. My feelings are somewhat like watching the last episode of Firefly: pleased with the show and totally enraged at its network cancellation. The final five Caprica episodes were phenomenal and the final five minutes were even more amazing to me. I will be looking to pick up the DVD of season 1.5 shortly. It was that good. And to those that have not seen the series or the final five episodes you are missing out, especially those of you that were Battlestar Galactica fans. Well Done, Caprica. Well Done!
ABC's V (Image from ABC's Mobile Website)
In the fall of 2009, there seemed to be an endless number of continued and new television shows Shooter Jr and I were looking forward to watching. Eighteen months later, it is a very different landscape on our DVR and TV Guide. Granted, there are still some great shows left but there a quite a few empty holes that will be difficult to replace. In the wake of the SyFy cancellations of Caprica and Stargate Universe in late 2010, I find myself wondering if ABC’s V will be able to survive for another season in the 2011-2012 timeframe.
In 1977, George Lucas modeled his space opera after the matinee adventures he watched as a child. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Zorro were all garnished with damsels in distress. Beautiful women placed in peril allowing the male hero to rescue them and save the day. The hero fought off armies of foes while the damsel sat by idle, an inanimate object with no power over her own destiny.
A Depiction of Star Trek's Original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (Special thanks to Jeff Quan at http://www.jcquan.com for the use of the cool art!)
A few months ago GWCers The Operator, ThotFullGuy, and DawnAZ flooded my Twitter stream with references to the Starship Enterprise. While it was clearly evident The Operator and ThotFullGuy were discussing the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 from the 2009 Star Trek reboot movie, DawnAZ wasn’t nearly as specific. In fact, I listed off 10 different Enterprises off the top of my head in a reply requesting her to specify. It turned out that the exact ship wasn’t relevant to her Enterprise reference, but the conversation reminded me how fondly I regard the many ships called Enterprise. For those that have served on board an Enterprise or watched the various Enterprise versions on the movie or television screens over the years the name Enterprise has a special reverence in our hearts. If you search the internet you will find many web pages devoted to these fine ships. By no means am I attempting to duplicate the many long hours of work it took to assemble those fine resources. Rather, what follows is simply a list of my favorite Enterprises and where I’ve run into them over the years. I think even the most die-hard Enterprise enthusiast might find a surprise or two. So enjoy the tour and as always, drop a comment below. I’d love to hear what you have to say on the subject.
As I write this blog entry, 2010 is coming to a close and New Year’s is right around the corner. After enjoying Tron: Legacy last week with family and friends, I started to wonder what will be the holiday movie blockbuster next year. From there it was a short trip to wonder what the entire year’s worth of movies would be that interest me. So the list that follows is exactly that: dates and names of movies that I’m looking forward to in 2011 and beyond. Of course the dates get a little more fuzzy the farther out it is, so take them with a grain of salt. If I’ve missed any, please be sure to let us know in comments. If you’re interested in some in particular, let us know that, too! Here’s hoping that 2011 will be a great movie year!
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