Sci-Fi Storm

Charles N. Brown, the co-founder of Locus, the science fiction and fantasy journal that started as a one sheet fanzine in 1968, passed away yesterday at the age of 82, in his sleep while returning from Readercon. Full details are on the Locus site.

Apparently the running for the lead role is down to three, with one of Bradley Cooper (Yes Man), Ryan Reynolds (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Justin Timberlake set to take up the role of Hal Jordan in Warner Bros. upcoming Green Lantern tentpole film. Update: Variety now reports Ryan Reynolds is the choice.

Warner Bros. has released two new items for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince via the Apple iTunes Store: A podcast featuring the stars giving a brief introduction to an exclusive clip featuring Harry and Professor Dumbledore entering the cave; and a free iTunes/iPod Touch app where you can see official content, but also insert your own pictures into scenes like the Daily Prophet. I don’t see an easy way to link directly, so just search for Harry Potter in the podcast or app sections to find them.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. Dreamworks is looking to create a film based on the 3D View-Master toy – the one that used stereoscopic images on a round disk. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are attached to produce. Now, I’ve had several of these as a kid, and my kids have them too…but really, a movie?

The SCI FI Channel is no more – today is the day when the name changes to SyFy, to “broaden its audience” (and I’m sure has nothing to do with better trademark-ability…). But also tonight is the debut of Warehouse 13, so we’ll see if they can find a niche in the genre they were born from…

Seems that Sky has had some success with adaptations of the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, that they are ready to also adapt Going Postal, for Sky1 HD and Sky1. Now if only we could get them here in the U.S. (aside from the obvious Internet methods…)

The final season of Stargate Atlantis was released on June 30th on DVD, bring to a close (for the time being – a DVD movie is planned) the spinoff saga in the Pegasus galaxy. So here is a review of the DVD set and final season, while we await Stargate Universe…

(continue reading…)

Kerrie Lopez from Atom writes in to let us know that Atom.com and Lucasfilm Ltd. have announced the 22 finalists for the 2009 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge, a contest featuring the best Star Wars-related short digital videos created by fans. Users can view and vote for videos at StarWars.Atom.com from Wednesday, July 1 until Friday, July 10 to determine the Audience Choice Award, which will be presented in a lavish ceremony at Comic-Con San Diego July 24th. Past honorees include such popular hits as “Chad Vader” and “Star Wars Gangsta Rap.”

The bidding war is over, and Universal has won a big screen adaptation of the early video game Asteroids. Given the lack of any story to the game itself, it is pretty much a blank slate for newcomer writer Matthew Lopez (Race To Witch Mountain). Also interesting is that Universal is adapting board games “Battleship” and “Candyland”.

Apparently the soon to be SyFy has big eyes for the reboots of other franchises…next up is the Fox series Alien Nation, about alien slaves being integrated into the general population after their crippled spaceship lands on Earth. The show dealt a lot with the political and social issues in a procedural drama more than the science fiction aspects, although when the scifi did come in, it often was dealt with in a fun way, making the series interesting. Apparently the focus on this will be less oriented on arc-based stories, instead taking a more mainstream self-contained approach, but there will be a developing mythology