Sci-Fi Storm

We were waiting for the axe to drop, and now it finally has – Syfy has officially canceled Haven after 5 seasons, although 13 episodes remain to air. Syfy had previously said they would wait for the second half of Season 5 to air before making a decision, but when the airing got pushed on the schedule to October, a year after it was filmed, it seemed more and more likely that it would not get renewed.

There were a number of factors working against it. Earlier this year the Nova Scotia government voted to significantly cut the film tax credit given to productions in the province, where Haven was filmed. While this may not have been a direct factor, it would have made the cost of production increase even more.

Also, production typically took place during the summer, where an ice rink in Chester served as the primary studio, with external shots typically taking place around Chester and Lunenburg. When the double-sized season was ordered last year, it meant that production would extend past their typical August end date into December, and Chester needed their ice rink back. So they used a vacated warehouse in Halifax for the second half. If they continued production at this late date, they would still need an alternate studio location.

Plus, contracts for actors, production, storage, etc. only last so long.

I was in Nova Scotia this past week, and people were still hopeful production would begin again. Haven brought $28 million to the province and $1 million just for Chester in local spending.

Fortunately for fans, as mentioned there are still 13 episodes yet to air and they will starting October 8th. And if there is never to be more Haven, they will wrap things up nicely, but the door is still open…TheWrap has a nice interview with showrunner Gabrielle Stanton about the ending. And fans have already started #SaveHaven in the hopes more can be done.

As peace in the Quad hangs in the balance, our Killjoys are finally compelled to choose a side. Tune in for the season finale, “Escape Velocity”, Friday at 9/8c on Syfy!

Check out the article on our sister site for details, but if you have been waiting for a bigger theme park experience than Star Tours, you’re going to be very happy…

Syfy announced today the premiere dates for Childhood’s End and The Expanse.

Childhood’s End will be a six hour television event, premiering on Monday, December 14th from 8-10pm ET, and continuing on the next two consecutive nights.

The Expanse will premiere on the same night at 10pm ET, then will appear weekly on Tuesdays at 10pm ET for the remainder of its 10 episode run.

Syfy also today announced that it will develop Frederik Pohl’s Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel [asin=0345475836]Gateway[/asin] about humanity’s encounter with a mysterious, ancient alien civilization as a one-hour scripted series with Entertainment One Television (eOne) and Universal Cable Productions (UCP). eOne will distribute the series worldwide.

David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) and Josh Pate (Falling Skies) collaborated on the adaptation and will serve as executive producers on the series. Eick will revise a pilot script written by Pate and serve as showrunner. The series will also be executive produced by Martha De Laurentiis through the De Laurentiis Company, former eOne Television executive Michael Rosenberg, and Lorenzo De Maio. eOne Television’s Gerard Bocaccio, SVP US Scripted Development, will oversee the project for the studio.

In Gateway, humanity discovers an asteroid teeming with the long abandoned spaceships of an advanced alien race — the Heechee – setting in motion a gold rush for alien artifacts and technology. The ships are preprogrammed, transporting their voyagers to distant worlds of riches — or certain death. Undaunted by the peril or the odds, prospector Robinette Broadhead gambles everything on a journey to Gateway. After one nightmare mission, he returns to extraordinary wealth and luxury, but is haunted by the loss of his crewmates, including the love of his life.
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EW is reporting that actors Jay Karnes (The Shield) and Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey) will be appearing in the upcoming second season of Syfy’s 12 Monkeys.

Karnes will recur as a savvy FBI agent in the 1940s named Robert Gale, who believes a series of grisly murders may have something to do with a man named James Cole (Aaron Stanford) — an outsider who Gale suspects might not be from this time.

Meanwhile, Coyle will first appear in the season premiere as Dr. Benjamin Kalman, a former Markridge bioengineer racked with guilt over the deadly virus his team gave birth to. Cole and Ramse (Kirk Acevedo) find him in Budapest and recruit him in their efforts to stop the Army of the 12 Monkeys.

The Killjoys finally turn the tables on Khlyen, only to discover the shocking truth behind his presence in the Quad. Tune in for “Enemy Khlyen” Friday night at 9/8c on Syfy!
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Netflix announced today on Twitter that they are renewing Sense8 for a second season:

Birthdays are just the beginning. #sense8 is reborn. https://t.co/tmMV66gKhm

— Netflix US (@netflix) August 8, 2015

(not sure why that doesn’t seem to embed in the right style 🙁 )

I also just found out about a new 25-minute behind the scenes video for Sense8…check it out!

No details on the renewal yet, but I’m sure we’ll get that in the coming weeks.

It appears that Fantastic Four director Josh Trank yesterday tweeted about the movie he wanted to make, which he later deleted. “A year ago I had a fantastic version of this,” he said. “And it would have received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”

Fantastic Four has not been receiving good reviews, and we here didn’t have high hopes for the movie – many saw it as a “sequel for rights”, produced so that Fox could retain the movie rights to the Fantastic Four rather than let them lapse and revert to Marvel Studios. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t try to produce a good movie. Without naming names, it appears that Trank at least blames someone else for the resulting film, and that would usually be the producers/studio. Rumors of troubles on the set came about, and Trank had previously been attached to a Star Wars anthology film, both being produced by Simon Kinberg, but Trank left that production. It seems the friction with that kept the embers burning on Fantastic Four as well, where Kinberg was reportedly less than thrilled with the results.

The troubles may dog the film at the box office as well. While the film appeared to be tracking highly, it managed only $2.2M in early release so far.

Four abandons ship to reclaim his past, unknowingly walking into an ambush on a remote, abandoned mining planet as his crewmates race against time to time save him. Watch Dark Matter Friday night at 10/9c!
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Syfy and Universal Cable Productions’ (UCP) latest scripted drama series, The Magicians, will commence season one production on August 4 in Vancouver, Canada. The 13 episode season will air in early 2016 on Syfy.

Starring Jason Ralph (Quentin Coldwater), Stella Maeve (Julia), Hale Appleman (Eliot), Arjun Gupta (Penny) and Summer Bishil (Margo), The Magicians is based on Lev Grossman’s best-selling novels. The series centers on Quentin, a brilliant grad student chosen to attend Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, a secret upstate New York university specializing in magic. He and his 20-something friends soon discover that the magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real – and poses grave danger to humanity.

Olivia Taylor Dudley will also join the cast as a series regular, it was announced today. Dudley plays Alice, an intensely shy and delicately lovely young woman. Born of a magical but neglectful family, Alice is an outcast among her fellow students at Brakebills, but nonetheless emerges as the most brilliant magical practitioner in her class.

Dudley appears in the upcoming Lakeshore/Lionsgate film Vatican Tapes opposite Michael Pena, just wrapped production on Paranormal Activity 5 for Paramount, and can be seen in the feature Dude Bro Party Massacre III. She was a lead in Oren Peli’s ensemble horror film The Chernobyl Diaries, from Alcon/Warner Bros. and has also appeared in The Dictator, Moneyball and Just Go With It. Her TV credits include The Comedians, CSI: Miami, NCIS, Don’t Trust the B in Apt. 23 and The Mindy Project. Olivia is a founding member of the prolific online sketch comedy group, “5secondfilms.com” which has gained notoriety through their tireless efforts to post a new, original, sketch every single day.

Additionally, The Magicians announces the following recurring guest stars for season one:

· Rick Worthy as Dean Fogg, the formidable Dean of Brakebills — an exacting leader and a keeper of secrets, balancing a great sense of authority with dry wit. Worthy is best known for his roles in Battlestar Galactica as Simon and Supernatural as the Alpha Vampire. His other recurring roles include Aquarius, The Vampire Diaries, CSI, Heroes, Felicity and Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Voyager. His upcoming projects include a recurring role on The Man in the High Castle.

· Anne Dudek as Professor Sunderland, a smart, charmingly scatterbrained woman dedicated to teaching Brakebills students how to hone their magical skills. Dudek is best known for her series regular role on Covert Affairs, as well as recurring roles on House, Mad Men, Bones, Less Than Perfect, Those Who Kill and Big Love. Dudek’s film roles include Brad Silberling’s 10 Items or Less, Kurt Voelker’s Park and The Wayans Brothers’ White Chicks. She can be seen next in Jenji Kohan’s pilot, The Devil You Know.

· Jade Tailor as Kady, a tough, rebellious and sexy Brakebills student who attracts Penny’s attention in and out of the classroom. Jade previously worked with The Magicians’s John McNamara and Sera Gamble on their NBC series Aquarius. Jade also recurs on TNT’s Murder in the First. Other television credits include True Blood and Vegas. She has appeared in countless independent films including Wedding Day, Karma, Losing Control, Don’t Pass Me By, Cam2Cam as well as the upcoming Higher Power, Juke Box Hero, and Wild for the Night. She has also done numerous musical productions both in New York and LA.

· Esmé Bianco as Eliza, a paramedic who has a hand in initiating Quentin’s journey into real magic. Bianco is best known for her three season-long role of Ros in Game of Thrones. Her film credits include Burlesque Fairytales, Big I Am and Crowley. She will soon be seen in the movies Scorpion King 4, Living Among Us and Mind Puppets.

Groundswell Productions’ Michael London and Janice Williams (Milk) will executive produce The Magicians. John McNamara (Aquarius) and Sera Gamble (Supernatural), writers of the pilot, will serve as executive producers. Mike Cahill (I Origins) directed the pilot. Universal Cable Productions will serve as the studio.

Lev Grossman’s The Magicians trilogy is an international sensation, published and widely praised in more than twenty countries. The epic conclusion to the series, The Magician’s Land, opened at #1 last summer on the New York Times Hardcover Best Seller’s list, and was widely acclaimed as one of the best books of the year.