Sci-Fi Storm

Director Darren Aranofsky (Black Swan), who has been in the midst of pre-production for Wolverine with Hugh Jackman awaiting the green light, has abruptly quit the production. Fox has confirmed with a statement from Aranofsky: “As I talked more about the film with my collaborators at Fox, it became clear that the production of ‘The Wolverine’ would keep me out of the country for almost a year. I was not comfortable being away from my family for that length of time. I am sad that I won’t be able to see the project through, as it is a terrific script and I was very much looking forward to working with my friend, Hugh Jackman, again.”

Aranofsky split from actress Rachel Weisz last year, and they have joint custody of their son.

With 4 episodes still to air, Syfy has already ordered up a second season of their version of Being Human. Pulling in an average 1.8 million viewers each episode and being the most-watched scripted series premiere since Battlestar Galactica, President of Original Content Mark Stern said, “Being Human has proven to be a winner for Syfy on all fronts. Using the original format as inspiration, showrunners/writers Jeremy Carver and Anna Fricke – along with a superlative team of writers, cast, and production – have created an amazing, compelling series in its own right. We can’t wait to watch Aidan, Josh and Sally continue their struggle to be human in the second season!”

Being Human is also Syfy’s first female-skewed series, with women comprising of 53% of the audience (Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington can take pride in that!). No word on number of episodes at this point, but it seems likely that it will be another 13 episodes.

(I’m still waiting for a full press release and will update when it arrives, but I didn’t want to wait any longer.)
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I am just learning that British actor Michael Gough, perhaps best known in the U.S. as Alfred in the Burton/Schumacher Batman movies, and is also known to Doctor Who fans as “The Celestial Toymaker” as well as Councillor Hedin in “Arc Of Infinity”, passed away at the age of 94. He most recently was the voice of the Dodo Bird in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland.