Sci-Fi Storm

The mystery wait is over. Reboot has come back as a comic book, but it includes fan involvement, with the fans apparently acting as consultants. “The ReBoot saga continues with this first installment of the Code of Honor storyline: Paradigms Lost. Two mortal enemies set aside their differences to battle a viral outbreak that threatens the stability of cyberspace. Will the unlikely allies cooperate… or stab each other in their backups?” There are still plans for three feature-length films though, produced wholly in-house, and previously described as a “reboot” of the franchise.

SCI FI Wire has details about J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Fox series Fringe (warning: some spoilers in the article). The pilot contains elements of Alias and Lost (both Abrams shows) along with X-Files. Anna Torv’s character, FBI special agent Olivia Dunham, is described as a cross between Dana Scully, Sydney Bristow and Kate Austin.

Alexander “Sandy” Courage, who composed the infamous fanfare theme for Star Trek, passed away May 15th at the age of 88, after years of declining health. He shared an Emmy in 1988 for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction on Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas, had two other nominations and two Oscar nominations as well.

It was announced today that Star Trek director Joseph Pevney passed away May 18th at the age of 96. Pevney directed 14 episodes of the original series including some of the classic episodes like “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “The Trouble With Tribbles”. He also directed episodes of many action-oriented shows, like The Incredible Hulk, Adam-12, and Emergency!, and movies such as Tammy and the Bachelor.

Amazon has started taking pre-orders for the upcoming Firefly Blu-Ray Edition – even though a release date hasn’t been set, or details on features. The price point is a bit high as well, but it could come down before release when more information is known, and Amazon will guarantee that you will only pay the lowest price they offer it between now and the release date.

The miniseries just aired on A&E, and the DVD will be released next Tuesday. Remaking a classic (albeit dated) movie is always a risky business, so the obvious question is – did they do a good job? Alas, not really – but they could have…

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The previously announced chat with fans done by Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro about the upcoming The Hobbit and its unnamed sequel is now available. 6000 fans tuned in, and asked a whopping 7000 questions – no, they didn’t answer ALL of them…

A reminder: The first part of the miniseries remake of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain premieres tonight at 9PM ET on A&E, with part 2 tomorrow night at 9PM, with the whole program being rerun at 11PM.

The SCI FI Channel has given out the start dates of a few of its summer shows: Stargate Atlantis starts July 11 at 10pm ET; Eureka starts July 29th at 9pm ET; and Ghost Hunters International starts July 9 at 9pm ET.

Now I’m convinced Hollywood has run out of ideas. First up, on the infinite quest of a decent version, modern version of Flash Gordon, Columbia pictures will have at it, with Breck Eisner as director/exec producer, and Neal Moritz producing – no writer is lined up yet. Between the two of them, they are a remake machine: Goosebumps, 21 Jump Street, The Green Hornet, Creature From The Black Lagoon, and George Romero’s Crazies are all in the pipeline.

In the meantime, since no one understands the original’s penultimate line, “There can be only one!”, Summit Entertainment has obtained the remake rights to Highlander from Panzer/Davis, and will retain Peter Davis as a producer. Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man) will write the screenplay.

Maybe I should channel my programming skills into writing some spec scripts. But then again, you still don’t see any new site software yet…