Sci-Fi Storm

I’ve been hearing many polarized opinions about Tron: Legacy, from a special effects-laden visual spectacular with zero plot to a thousand-fold better story than the original – alas, my own opinion won’t be formed until after the holiday weekend due to scheduling. But regardless of opinions, the facts show that people are watching it – to the tune of $43.6 million domestic over opening weekend, including a record 25% of that coming from IMAX showings. This was far over the #2 debut of the hybrid live action/CGI Yogi Bear, which took in $16.7 million on what is being considered a soft weekend at the box office.

Way back in 1985, a comedy skit series called Comedy Break was syndicated. It starred the comedy duo of Mack and Jamie,and supporting players were impressionist Kevin Pollak and Jan Hooks and Marla Frumkin.

Fans of this show, or of Kevin Pollak’s William Shatner as Captain Kirk impesonation, or of 1950s sci fi spoofs, will want to check out the clips on YouTube, or at my blog, Daily Space.

There’s 3 1950s Science Fiction Theatre episodes, with Kevin Pollak as Capt Bill Carter, then three Horror Theatre eps (which are really also SF spoofs) and then an ep of Plan 6 From Outer Space.

1950s Science Fiction Theatre
1950s Horror Movie Theatre

Probably not safe for work – not because of any bad language or anything, but the horrible, horrible singing – but here are Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill giving their rendition (or butchering) of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Thanks, BBC…I think.

Having actually met and spoken with at an informal level the management at Syfy, I have a new found respect for the tough decisions they have to make.

That doesn’t mean I like the decisions. I can just understand them. I can’t understand why the cast weren’t informed properly, but that’s a different issue.

I keep seeing the same questions – why don’t you take into account digital downloads, DVD sales, etc. The fact is they just don’t count. A network does not make any money on those things – those go to the production company, which is NOT the same as the network. It’s like this:
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The winner in our BBC America DVD pack giveaway is Republibot! Congrats and thanks to everyone who participated! I only started using Twitter recently, and it’s becoming such an important news distribution system where followers and retweets are very important. Hopefully we can continue to build it and grow that way…its given me renewed interest in continuing and I’ve got some interesting ideas for the future…is there another 10 years here?

Stay tuned for future giveaways!

Shock is raging across the galaxies as Syfy has canceled Stargate Universe, which just broke out on Twitter via Deadline.com and was confirmed by Syfy. The Twitterverse is going to burn down, methinks…I was liking SGU more and more this season. The final 10 episodes will still be aired next Spring. Given no announcement of another Stargate series, this will end an 8 year unbroken run of Stargate on Syfy, and THIRTEEN years since the debut of Stargate SG-1 on Showtime.

Multi-platform network Ovation will air the entire series of Firefly on its cable network starting January 3rd for a limited run, with three episodes shown a night starting at 8pm ET/5pm PT, and then a marathon on Saturday, January 8th. Read below for the full press release – note that it says 15 episodes, but there are 14 full episodes, one of which is two hours. Ovation is available on DirecTV and Dish networks, and at least most if not all Verizon FiOS systems – check the Ovation web site to see if it is on your cable system.

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Michael Ausiello at Deadline is reporting that Bill Pullman (Independence Day, Revelations) is joining the cast of Torchwood (on the heels of Mekhi Phifer), but in this case he’s the bad guy – Oswald Jones, “a dangerously clever convicted murderer who escapes his lifelong prison sentence on a technicality and quickly becomes a media sensation.” I haven’t seen Pullman draw a bad guy yet, but I can see him as the muted super-intelligent psycho type…

Syfy Ventures and Universal will be partnering up to launch Syfy Films, a film company that will leverage Syfy’s knowledge of the science fiction, fantasy, horror and supernatural genres and aims to produce 1-2 films a year starting in 2012. The joint venture will be headed by Mark Stern, Syfy’s head of original programming and and co-head of content at Universal Cable, and Donna Langley, co-chair of Universal Pictures.

The obvious question is – will we get space opera ala Battlestar Galactica, or monster movies ala Sharktopus?

Jon Favreau, who brought Iron Man to the screen twice to large box offices and bringing comic-based movies back to the forefront, has told Marvel Studios he will not return for Iron Man 3. I’m sure we’ll get an official reason from one or both sides soon (and will likely step around the issue), but the street-word is that it was either the studio wanting to throw in a bunch of other Marvel heroes into the movie in the hopes of seeding more spinoffs (I thought that was what The Avengers was for?), and/or Favreau’s price tag this time around. And with Marvel now owned by Disney (they paid $4 billion for Marvel, and another $115 million to Paramount to fully own the rights to Iron Man 3 and The Avengers), Disney dislikes the idea of too many gross-based contracts skimming off their money.

Let me throw out another idea – rather than throwing in more heroes to seed more movies, Disney may want to take advantage of their ownership to seed their theme parks, which thus far have not benefited from the acquisition and thanks to Universal Orlando’s open-ended contact for a number of the major characters (Spider-Man, The Hulk, etc.), Disney would need to raise visibility of some to be able to capitalize.

Favreau will still work with Disney in the near-term, however – he’s working on the tentatively-titled Magic Kingdom project, which deals with a family trapped in the Disney park at night – where the the characters come to life.

Update: Jon Favreau confirmed the news on Twitter.