Sci-Fi Storm

Speaking of the Thunderbirds, Bill Paxton (Aliens, Twister) is in talks to play the billionaire family patriarch in a live-action version of the Gerry Anderson cult favorite supermarionation show. Jonathan Frakes is set to direct from a script by William Osbourne.

Got this from the larryniven-l mailing list: You of course know of Doctor Who and Space: 1999. You may know of UFO, Thunderbirds, and Star Cops. But what about Star Maidens (I actually remember this while visiting England as a kid)? Jupiter Moon? The Lost Planet? Take a trip down memory lane or at least find out about British shows you never heard about at Memorable Television‘s Classic UK Sci-Fi Page.

Sorry there hasn’t been much lately. I’ve been laid up with pneumonia for a couple of weeks (watching MacGyver reruns on my new DirecTV system), so there’s been little energy, and little earth-shattering news. So here are a few tidbits (sorry, no links – too much effort): Libraries will not be buying as many copies of the new Harry Potter book as they did last time due to budget cuts; Chamber of Secrets hops Jurrasic Park as number 3 on the all time international receipts; Odyssey 5 finally got the official heave-ho from Showtime as is shopping for the unlikely white knight network; and the cast of The Two Towers gets a nomination for the SAG Awards.

Piers Anthony, best known for his Xanth series of fantasy books, will finally get big-screen treatment – but for the first book in his Incarnations of Immortality series, On a Pale Horse. Disney has acquired the rights and is putting it in the hands of Jamie Foxx to produce and star.

Pale Horse is about a guy who kills Death, and has to take his place – later discovering a plot to have him kill his only love…

Now, I can’t wait to see the Apprentice Adept series adapted – but they’d have to do something about the thousands of naked serfs milling about…

Well, my switch to Version DSL (from DirecTV DSL) went well – even with the dynamic IP update (I was set up for it and it got pushed through quickly). But to my great surprise (and detriment, and disgust) Verizon STILL blocks port 80 (a.k.a. the default http port) at the routers due to the CodeRed worm last year. Which means I can’t host a web server on the default port – which means I have to do something different. Temporarily at least I’ve moved it to a different server – if you can’t connect now give it a few more hours for DNS changes to happen. However, I’d like people to try and connect to http://stores3.scifistorm.org:8000/ and post the results here – I know some firewalls don’t like alternate ports. If this works, I can use a bounce page to get to the server at home…

The DVD for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is due out sometime in April according to reports – IWon says April 11th, and Dark Horizons says April 18th (but that may be UK release).

BaronMoritani writes “The Landsraad has ACT VI of the Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune Script online.

Go here for details:

http://groups.msn.com/TheLandsraad/_whatsnew.msnw

In this excerpt, we see sparks fly between Hayt and Alia, and Bijaz demonstrates the Tleilaxu control over their ghola.”

It’s short, it’s small, it’s…well…disturbing. ’nuff said. Check out the video. Update: Here’s a new link.

Just wanted to let you know of some Sci-Fi TV store updates: I’ve added a Dark Angel section with the forthcoming May 30th Season 1 release; Red Dwarf now has seasons 1 and 2 coming out on DVD February 25th; a week from Tuesday (Jan. 28th) brings us the second set of UFO and the first volume of series 4 of Lexx; also expect some store downtime this week as I get my DSL line straghtened out.

In an unusual sequel move, producers of UPN’s The Twilight Zone are going to film a sequel to the classic episode, “It’s a Good Life”, in which 6-year old Billy Mumy (Will Robinson in Lost in Space, Lennier in Babylon 5) had special powers (and was remade as a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie in 1983). The sequel, entitled “It’s Still a Good Life”, will also star Mumy in the same character, now middle aged. Cloris Leachman will also reprise her role as his mother, and Mumy’s daughter Liliana (Lucy in The Santa Clause 2) will play his daughter with similar powers.