Sci-Fi Storm

That earthquake you felt wasn’t real…it was just a rumored-but-still-surprising deal being made in Hollywood.

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, owned by Sony’s rival Disney, struck a deal on Monday for Spider-Man which will allow the character to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – basically all the Marvel movies not done by Sony or Fox thus far, which all exist within the same “universe”, allowing for the crossover of the characters. Kevin Feige, who has led the MCU juggernaut, will come on board as a producer for a new Spider-Man film alongside Amy Pascal, who helped shepherd the Spider-Man franchise for Sony.

Sony will likely want to re-launch the franchise for a third time with a new face. With the second round starring Andrew Garfield, the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 made a decent amount of money but was considered a disappointment given its very large budget.

In the meantime Marvel has wanted to include Spider-Man alongside the Avengers – Spidey is a member of the group in the comics after all. Word is that they’d like to include him at least in a cameo for Captain America: Civil War, and I can forsee a bigger role for the webslinger in the third Avengers team film.

In the meantime, Sony had already penciled in a July 28th, 2017 release date – which had already been planned by Marvel/Disney for Thor: Ragnarok. So Marvel/Disney has agreed to shift all of the Marvel films back, with Thor moving to November, taking Black Panther‘s slot, who moves back to Captain Marvel‘s slot, etc. All the relevant dates have been updated in our calendar.

Did you know FXX aired a pilot for a series based on the late Robert Jordan’s hugely-popular Wheel of Time book series? And that it aired in the wee hours Monday morning? Nope, no one else did either.

How could such a momentous occasion pass by so unnoticed by so many? Well, first let’s just say that “momentous” is most certainly not the correct word to use. Second, it was less about producing a true pilot as much as it was to meet a contractual requirement to retain the rights.

As we’ve learned from the Dungeons & Dragons rights suit, as well as Fox reportedly rebooting Fantastic Four just to retain the rights, most rights contracts for adaptations have clauses that say some minimum level of production is required to retain the rights, or they revert back to the owner of the original work. It doesn’t necessarily have to meet quality goals, unfortunately.

In this case, Jordan sold the rights back in 2004 to Red Eagle Entertainment to produce some films (although there were likely other options – reportedly some games were tried as well), with those rights apparently set to expire on February 11th, 2015 – today – if some goal wasn’t met. And getting a pilot on TV is ( or is at least believed to be) a goal.
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On an all new Helix, Kyle is attacked as he tries to quarantine the orchard. Check out the preview below, and check out the music…reminds me of 70s action flicks or something…and tune in for “Oubliette” Friday at 10/9c on Syfy!

In Friday’s new 12 Monkeys, Cole and Cassandra have finally located the Night Room, but do they have a plan of attack? Catch the “The Night Room”, Friday at 9/8c on Syfy! And check out the recap for last week as well!

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