Sci-Fi Storm

Syfy has ordered two pilots, one from a genre writer/producer known for his quirky shows, and another from a well known mystery/thriller writer/producer/director marking his first foray into scripted television.

Bryan Fuller, who started off as writer and later co-produced Star Trek: Voyager and then created Dead Like Me,Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies and worked on Heroes, will team up with Robert Halmi Sr., to executive produce High Moon, and adaption of the 1969 John Christopher young adult novel The Lotus Caves, which is about two rebellious boys from a moon colony who crash into an underground cave to discover an alien life form.

In the other project, M. Night Shyamalan will join with Marti Noxon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mad Men) for Proof, about the “son of a billionaire tech genius who offers a large reward for anyone who can find proof of life after death following the tragic accident and sudden passing of his parents.” Shyamalan is best know for his thriller films, such as The Sixth Sense and The Village.

Here are the press releases:

SYFY GREENLIGHTS HIGH MOON PILOT BASED ON BEST-SELLING JOHN CHRISTOPHER
PILOT PRODUCED BY REUNION PICTURES TO BEGIN PRODUCTION THIS FALL WITH THE HALMI COMPANY DISTRIBUTING

NEW YORK – August 3, 2012 – Syfy is greenlighting Reunion Pictures’ new series pilot High Moon, an adaptation of John Christopher’s best-selling novel The Lotus Caves, it was announced today by Mark Stern, President, Original Content, Syfy, and Co-Head, Original Content, Universal Cable Productions. Reunion Pictures is producing the 90-minute pilot which is expected to begin production in Vancouver this fall.

The Halmi Company, headed by legendary producer Robert Halmi Sr., will distribute the project worldwide outside of Canada. His previous projects for Syfy include such high profile television event productions as Tin Man, Alice and Neverland.

Executive Producers for Reunion Pictures are Matthew O’Connor, Lisa Richardson and Tom Rowe. Robert Halmi Sr., Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) and Jim Danger Gray (Pushing Daisies) will also serve as executive producers. The pilot is written by Gray from a story by Fuller and Gray.

High Moon creates a future where the countries of Earth have established colonies to mine the Moon’s resources. When a new life form is discovered, chaos erupts as various factions race to uncover and exploit its powerful secrets.

Said Stern: “Bryan and Jim have brought John Christopher’s book to life in an incredibly vivid and imaginative way. This is a fresh and compelling vision of an exotic new world driven by character, intrigue and greed.”

Reunion Pictures (www.reunionpictures.ca) is a Canadian-based company that develops and finances high quality television and multi-platform properties. Launched in 2004 with the partners’ experience of having collectively produced over a billion dollars worth of award-winning filmed entertainment, Reunion Pictures has received multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations, and has won Genies and Gemini’s as well as the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Television, and produced a #1 US network mini-series (10.5), and three #1 cable mini-series (Alice, Tin Man and Earthsea, all with RHI Entertainment for Syfy). Currently Reunion Pictures is in production on its first season of Continuum, a sci-fi police procedural for Shaw Media.

The Halmi Company is a television production and distribution company based in New York specializing in high quality drama. It is headed up by legendary film producer Robert Halmi Sr. Halmi has produced nearly 200 television films, miniseries and motion pictures, including five-time Emmy® Award-winning The Josephine Baker Story. His other “event” productions include Gypsy (Bette Midler), Arabian Nights (John Leguizamo), Cleopatra (Billy Zane, Timothy Dalton), Dinotopia, Dreamkeeper (August Schellenberg), Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment (Ben Kingsley, Patrick Dempsey), Don Quixote (John Lithgow, Bob Hoskins, Vanessa Williams, Isabella Rossellini), In Cold Blood (Anthony Edwards, Eric Roberts), Merlin (Sam Neill, Isabella Rossellini, Martin Short, Miranda Richardson), Moby Dick (Patrick Stewart, Gregory Peck), Noah’s Ark (Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen), The Odyssey (Armand Assante, Greta Scaachi), and Gulliver’s Travels (Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen), another winner of five Emmy® Awards. Most recent projects include the four-hour miniseries, Neverland, a prequel to Peter Pan starring Rhys Ifans, Anna Friel, Charlie Rowe, Bob Hoskins and the voice of Keira Knightley, for Sky Movies HD and Syfy; and the miniseries, Treasure Island, starring Eddie Izzard, Elijah Wood and Donald Sutherland, for Sky One and Syfy.

---

SYFY, MARTI NOXON, M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN AND UNIVERSAL CABLE PRODUCTIONS TEAM FOR PROOF PILOT
NOXON AND SHYAMALAN TO CO-WRITE AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCE

SHYAMALAN TO DIRECT

NEW YORK – August 3, 2012 — Syfy has finalized a deal with feature filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable) and television Executive Producer/Showrunner Marti Noxon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Mad Men, Fright Night) to produce the scripted pilot project Proof, it was announced today by Mark Stern, President of Original Content, Syfy and Co-Head Original Content, Universal Cable Productions.

Shyamalan and Noxon will co-write the project and serve as Executive Producers. Ashwin Rajan, who heads Shyamalan’s Blinding Edge label, will also serve as Executive Producer. Shyamalan intends to direct the pilot and Universal Cable Productions will produce.

Shyamalan recently wrapped After Earth starring Will and Jaden Smith for Sony Pictures. Proof marks his first foray into scripted television.

Noxon is currently scripting the film adaptation of The Glass Castle for producer Gil Netter and Lionsgate.

In Proof, after the tragic accident and sudden death of his parents, the son of a billionaire tech genius offers a large reward for anyone who can find proof of life after death.

Universal Cable Productions creates innovative and critically acclaimed original scripted and digital content across multiple media platforms and outlets for domestic and international distribution. UCP produces Covert Affairs, Fairly Legal, In Plain Sight, Psych, Royal Pains and Suits for USA; Alphas, Defiance, Eureka and Warehouse 13 for Syfy. Universal Cable Productions is a division of NBCUniversal.

Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)