Sci-Fi Storm

So it appears that Superman CAN be stopped…or at least delayed. Warner Bros has pulled The Man Of Steel, the franchise reboot starring Henry Cavill, from its late 2012 release to June 14th, 2013. Some think it is due to the ongoing rights dispute between DC Comics and the estates of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, but there was another rock of kryptonite nearby…the release of part 1 of The Hobbit.

Peter Jackson presents the latest from the set of The Hobbit…he also said yesterday that he would not be making a presentation at SDCC this weekend, simply because “it was too early.” So that’s two of us not in San Diego right now…

Watch the first episode of the animated Torchwood: Web Of Lies web series right here! Featuring John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Eliza Dushku.

A young man is shot in Los Angeles, but he doesn’t die — this is Miracle Day. When it’s revealed that he knew the Miracle was coming, his sister, Holly Mokri, sets to work to figure out what he knew and why he was silenced. And back in 2007, Gwen Cooper saw Jack Harkness abducted in front of her — what happened to him and how is it tied to the events in LA four years later?

With three strong programs lining up on Syfy on Mondays, why sneak peek just one? Here is a triple play of previews for the Powerful Mondays lineup of Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Alphas for next Monday, July 25th.
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Warehouse 13 will get a triple threat – that is, three guest stars well known in the SF community, on the upcoming episode to air July 25th, “Love Sick”.

Lindsay Wagner and Rene Auberjonois will reprise their previous guest roles. Wagner returns as Dr. Vanessa Calder, the in-house Warehouse doctor who is responsible for treating the team – and also has a romantic connection with Artie Nielsen (Saul Rubinek), while Auberjonois returns as Hugo Miller, a computer genius from decades past in the Warehouse, who Artie and Claudia (Allison Scagliotti) call to help them out of a life-threatening situation.

Sasha Roiz, who played Sam Adama on Caprica, the mobster brother to Joseph Adama, plays the mysterious and sinister Marcus Diamond.

And by the way, “Love Sick” was mentioned by stars Eddie McClintock and Saul Rubinek as among their favorites this season in the discussion we had with them.

Universal had some cold feet regarding the massive The Dark Tower project, putting it on hold back in May, but producers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard still had hopes of working out a budget and schedule with the studio. Well, apparently Universal felt the cold creeping in and has now scrapped the project completely. Reportedly after reviewing the script from writer Akiva Goldsman for the first film and series, the studio balked and would only commit to the movie, but the producers really wanted to film the series in tandem with all the sets available.

Envisioned as a trilogy of movies as well as two limited TV series, the project certainly presented a big risk for the studio. Grazer and Howard are presumably free to shop the project around to another studio.

The Kid Who Lived is living on quite well, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the conclusion of the Harry Potter film franchise, brought in $169.2 million in the U.S. box office alone, and another $312.3 million internationally in its opening weekend, beating total projections and breaking the records for best debut domestically and globally. In addition, 43% of the intake in the U.S. was from 3D showings, while a whopping 60% internationally were 3D.

We saw it Saturday in IMAX/3D (we intended to see a midnight showing, but we had to change), and the 3D was great – it wasn’t in your face, but in fact you forget it is in 3D after a short time – and I mean that in the sense that you are generally not conscious of the 3D and the artifacts often seen with it.

The movie was superb and an excellent conclusion to the story. Interestingly, it only comprises about the last third of the book, with the first part taking the other two. That’s due to the amount of action taking place, which rarely stops once it gets going (it starts slowly at the beach cottage where the first part left off).

If you have any emotional investment in the characters, bring tissues.

Interestingly, there were several key scenes where the crowd laughed out loud or cheered – something I haven’t seen in a movie theater in years.

As can be expected, not everything from the book is in the movie – and although I think some of the missing scenes might have better explained a few things (for instance, Teddy Lupin, the son of Remus Lupin and Tonks, gets a quick mention in a key scene but isn’t metioned before when it would have added to the emotion of a later scene), but the movie generally didn’t suffer from their absence.

I’m saddened that this is the end…at least for now. Who knows what J.K. Rowling might have up her sleeve…

The sixth series of Doctor Who marks a departure of sorts in a couple different ways…first, rather than air the complete season continuously as has been traditional (the exception being the special movies between the 4th and 5th series), the BBC and showrunner Steven Moffat decided to split it into two halves. And rather than wait for the second half to air, they likewise decided to split the Blu-ray/DVD release in two…with Doctor Who: Series Six, Part One being released tomorrow (July 19th) on [sfs=1136]DVD[/sfs] and [sfs=1135]Blu-ray[/sfs].
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[Apologies for the lack of news…if you saw on Twitter, I was having hardware problems…]

Syfy has announced that they have picked up the 4th series of the British fantasy show Merlin, to be aired at a future date in 2012. In its third season on Syfy, Merlin averaged 1.93 million total viewers, marking an increase of 12 percent in total viewers compared to season two. Merlin also posted gains in the key younger demo, rising seven percent among Adults 18-34.
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Due to schedule conflicts I won’t be seeing the final Harry Potter movie Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 until tomorrow, but plenty of people already have with midnight showings starting this morning. Early returns say that the finale garnered $43.5 million in the U.S. just from midnight showings, and combined with the Wednesday and Thursday international openings, already brings the cume to over $142 million. The midnight record at IMAX theaters was also broken, with $2 million.

About 3000 muggles at the midnight showing at the AMC Universal Cineplex at Universal Studios Resort in Orlando got a special surprise: After the movie they were all given a free pass to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and had the parks all to themselves from 3am-5am!