Sci-Fi Storm

The last couple days have been busy for me but not for SF news, so Happy Holidays…and don’t forget if you’re getting any last minute gifts, or belated ones, head on over to [aml] via our link and help keep us running another year!

Don’t forget…Doctor Who Christmas night!

As usually, we’ll still be around the net so if anything major transpires, we’ll let you know!

According to Variety (paid subscription may be required), Harrison Ford is returning to space, having been confirmed for the role of Colonel Hyram Graff in Ender’s Game, based on Orson Scott Card’s novel and adapted and directed by Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

Graff is in charge of training at a military academy, which Andrew “Ender” Wiggin attends after showing an aptitude for military decision making, where the students are trained to help battle the insectoid Formics.

Make a lot of money on a movie, and everyone claims they came up with it. Make a bomb, and it’s all yours.

James Cameron is getting sued again over the profits from Avatar, and the most recent claimant according to TMZ is Bryant Moore, a science fiction writer, who alleges that Cameron stole ideas from two of his unproduced scripts, “Aquatica” and “Descendants: The Pollination”. According to TMZ, some of the similarities between his scripts and Avatar are “bioluminescent flora/plant life, unbreathable atmospheres, matriarch support of hero vs. heroine, spiritual connections to environment and reincarnation, appearance of mist in scene, sunlight to moonlight, crackling from gargantuan foliage, blue skin/green skin and battle scene on limbs/branches.”

Umm…wow. Mist in a scene? Really? Green skin was his idea? Hide the Orion slave girls…

All I can say is…YES. I’m going back to Middle-Earth.

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In an interview with MTV (audio available here), director David Fincher talks about Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), along with some of his upcoming projects. Mentioned very briefly is the long-dormant Rendezvous With Rama (which we last mentioned in 2008, and it was pretty dead then), and it wasn’t a good mention. When asked if the interviewer should keep asking about it (around the 14:40 mark), he said, “You should drop that…it’s great, it’s just…a really hard, expensive movie…talk about having the bones have been picked clean by so many other stories.”

No decision has yet been made by Fox on the renewal of Terra Nova after last night’s 2-hour season finale, which fared slightly before last week’s season-low ratings by getting 7.2 million viewers, but to provide a little breathing room the producers are picking up the options on the contracts of series stars Jason O’Mara and Stephen Lang, and they are looking to pick up some heavyweight writers to help out with a second season. With some of the contract pressure off, Fox is expected to decide on its fate in January (and I suspect after some cost negotiations for the expensive show).

In Part 1 of the Sanctuary season finale, Magnus meets with the captain, whom for the most part has left Magnus and team alone from activities throughout the Sanctuary. Though as she’s escorted through the hangar, she suggests to the captain that things might have to change. As the group walks around the corner, they’re carefully approached by a group of abnormals and the officers quickly draw their weapons. Magnus and a representative confirm that they’re friends of the Sanctuary and that they only wish to speak to the Captain face to face. The officers are ordered to stand down and the Captain is asked for their support for the success of the mission. Tune in to Part 1 of the Season Finale this Friday, December 23 at 10/9c as the team races to prevent the unleashing of a doomsday weapon.
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I know in some cases trailers are so eagerly anticipated that people go to movies they otherwise wouldn’t attend just to see them…but this is the first time that I’ve seen a studio or producer trying to build up heat for the trailer itself…the trailer for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, comes out on Thursday on Apple’s iTunes Movie Trailers, but out today is a teaser – for the trailer. Here it is…although not a formal prequel of the Alien franchise, it’s definitely got that Alien vibe…

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Apollo 18, from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Dimension Films and directory Gonzalo López-Gallego, comes out on [asin=B004EPYZXU]Blu-ray[/asin] and [asin=B004EPYZXK]DVD[/asin] on December 27th. Presented as a “found footage” film (similar to The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity), it documents the ultra-secret Apollo 18 mission to the Moon’s South Pole in 1974 – a mission so secret the astronauts don’t know what they are there for. It stars Warren Christie (Alphas), Ryan Robbins (Sanctuary) and Lloyd Owen (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Monarch of the Glen).
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Steven Moffat is still rather ticked about David Yates talking about a Doctor Who film that apparently ignores him and the current TV production. On the Richard Bacon Show on BBC Radio 5, when asked about the film, he said: “David was talking a little out of turn, there; a very, very brilliant director but no the film as described by him, of course we’re not going to do that. A film that contradicts the television series, it would be a heathen thing to do. I would be beheaded to do such a thing! It would be wonderful to do a Doctor Who film, but when and if we did – and hopefully we will be doing it – it will be very much an offshoot of the television series and we’ll be part of it, and it will star the television Doctor, of course – anything else would be heresy!”