Sci-Fi Storm

While the Oscars were good in general for genre movies at least for nominations, it was Mad Max: Fury Road that stood out with the statues, collecting six of them in a near-sweep of the technical awards (Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Make-up and Hair, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing), and coming out the big winner of the night.

However, the rest of the genre fell flat, with favorite The Martian and Star Wars: The Force Awakens not getting any awards, and Ex Machina winning for Visual Effects and Inside Out winning for Best Animated Film.

All is not lost – at least Fantastic Four made a good showing at the Razzies. 🙂

Nicholas Meyer, who helped rescue the Star Trek franchise from near obliteration after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, is joining the team for CBS All Access’ Star Trek series as a writer and executive producer, working with showrunner Bryan Fuller.

Meyer, along with Harve Bennett, waded through the aftermath of the first Star Trek film, which Paramount disliked but was still a financial success to warrant a sequel. He was brought on as director, but took on an uncredited rewrite of a script for the second film in order to get it done in 12 days so they could begin production. He changed the style of the franchise, and came up with what was arguably the best film of the entire franchise in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. And although he pledged not to get tied to a franchise, he would work on Star Trek again – writing the “present day” portions of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and co-writing and directing Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country – thus being involved in what many consider the three best of the six original cast films.

The Internet Archive has made available every issue of Worlds of IF magazine, which ran from 1952-1974 (when it merged with Galaxy and had a one issue revival in 1986. Many authors had stories published in the magazine, including many award-winning stories and authors, including Robert A. Heinlein’s”The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” and Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”.

Grandmaster Fredrick Pohl edited the magazine from 1961 and 1969, helping it to rise in prominence and championed new writers. Larry Niven’s first published story, “The Coldest Place”, appeared in the December 1964 issue (the copy of which in the archive is autographed by Niven.)

Speaking of Netflix and Marvel, the second trailer for Marvel’s Daredevil was released today, and seeing as how I didn’t post the first one, here are both for your viewing enjoyment…

Deadline reports that Game of Thrones actor Finn Jones (Ser Loras Tyrell) has been tapped for the title role in the Netflix series Marvel’s Iron Fist, the fourth piece of the Netflix The Defenders crossover puzzle.

Based on the Marvel comic, Iron Fist is Daniel “Danny” Rand, who’s father as a young boy discovered the mystical city of K’un-L’un where he saved the city’s ruler, and was adopted as his son. Wendell left, but tried to return many years later with his wife an son, but his parents are killed, and he is rescued by archers from K’un-L’un, and becomes an apprentice where he learns mystical martial arts, and eventually becomes the next Iron Fist, part of the long line.

Iron Fist often teamed with Luke Cage, even having their own title, Heroes for Hire.

A couple of tidbits this weekend…

Syfy’s Channel Zero: Candle Cove finally has a director. Craig William Macneill (The Boy) will take the reigns for all six episodes. Candle Cove is expected to debut in October. A second 6-episode story which has not been named yet will follow in 2017.

And just days after it was announced that Freddie Stroma would play H.G. Wells in ABC’s pilot Time After Time, we now know who will play his nemesis. Revenge‘s Josh Bowman will take on the dark mantle of Dr. John Stevenson, a surgeon and a friend of Wells, who in fact moonlights as Jack the Ripper. Stevenson steals Wells’ time machine and escapes to the modern day.

Deadpool shouldn’t be the successful film it is.

Sure, it’s a superhero movie and that’s all the rage. And it’s a Marvel movie at that. And it exists within the X-Men universe (which one isn’t clear, even to the protagonist) and features a couple of them.

But it’s R-rated, with lots of violence, nudity and sexual references, it parodies the genre and itself, makes fun of the star, breaks the fourth wall, it opened mid-winter, the studio cut the budget, it stars the guy who previously played Green Lantern…the list goes on. At best, it could make a moderately-successful movie off of a “puny” (for superhero movies) budget of $58 million. Some of the most generous estimates saw maybe $80 million.

Then WHY is it approaching $250 million this weekend?!? Because it’s a frakkin’ good movie.

From the get go the film doesn’t take itself too seriously. Instead of naming the actors, director, etc. in the opening credits, it does so descriptively; Ryan Reynolds as “God’s perfect idiot”, Morena Bacarrin as “a hot chick”, the producers as “asshats” and the director as an “overpaid idiot” and the writers as the “true heroes of the movie”. This, while Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” is playing, during a slow motion continue shot of what appears to be massive carnage.

The vulgar references are not only keeping with the character, but help keep the focus of the movie light despite the violence. And even the violence is handled with levity.

Deadpool may have shown the studios the true power of social media as well, as even Reynolds campaigned for and championed this movie heavily, while Fox seemed willing to throw it away. Could it have been done PG-13? Sure. But it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting.

Deadpool is laugh out loud funny – and it takes a lot to make me laugh out loud. Go see it…but please, leave the 10 year olds at home.

The Time After Time TV series we reported on in September has found its H.G. Wells.

Freddie Stroma, who played Cormac MacLaggan in the final three Harry Potter films and more recently Adam Cromwell on UnReal, has signed on to play the author of “The Time Machine” who, in Karl Alexander’s 1979 novel after which the series is named, builds an actual working time machine, only to have it stolen by none other than Jack the Ripper and taken to the present day. Wells then embarks on a chase to stop Jack from killing again. The original novel, which was also the basis of a 1979 film starring Malcolm McDowell in the starring role, will be used as a starting point for the series.

ABC commissioned the pilot from Warner Bros. TV. Kevin Williamson wrote the pilot and will executive produce, with Marcos Siega directing.

Update: Also announced today is that Benicio del Toro, Laura Dern and newcomer Kelly Marie Tran are joining the cast in (surprise!) unspecified roles.

Star Wars: Episode VIII officially entered production today, and it looks like it picks up right where it left off 🙂

Well, obviously that was filmed at Skellig Michael, where the final scene of Episode VII was filmed, and production begins on principal photography at Pinewood Studios today. But who cares – it has begun!

From the release:

Rey took her first steps into a larger world in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and will continue her epic journey with Finn, Poe and Luke Skywalker in the next chapter of the continuing Star Wars saga, Star Wars: Episode VIII, which began principal photography at Pinewood Studios in London on February 15, 2016.
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The Thunderbirds will finally fly into the U.S. (legally that is), and it will do so via Amazon. The streaming video giant has ordered up four 13-episode seasons of the remake of the classic Gerry Anderson supermarionation show.

Two seasons are already in the can, having aired already on ITV in the U.K. Seasons 3 and 4 are expected to air on ITV later this year, but it isn’t certain when Amazon will have them available.