Sci-Fi Storm

Sony has halted pre-production on Roland Emmerich’s SF epic Singularity, which revolves around the term popularized by Ray Kurzweil in his 2005 book [asin=0143037889]The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology[/asin] which is the point at which technology creates a greater intelligence than humans, as explored in numerous movies, TV series and books. In the movie, a nanotech scientist transfers the consciousness of his badly injured son to a nanobot swarm that can take physical form.

Rumors swirled that this was due to Emmerich’s disappointment at having Anonymous suddenly reduced from a wide to a platform release, but both Sony and Emmerich’s people deny that. Instead, it appears that Sony just wants it to be made better before production begins. Ray Kurzweil himself has been brought in to consult on the project, with production start likely delayed but still hopeful of a May 2013 release.

Interestingly, it was a year ago and a day when Emmerich’s The Zone shut down production permanently.

William Gibson introduced the world to the term “cyberspace” and cyberpunk to the world in 1984 with his Hugo, Nebula and Dick award-winning novel [asin=0441012035]Neuromancer[/asin], which has been a focus for movie development for many years but just never seems to find traction. Now producer Peter Hoffman may have found a foothold and apparently lined up backers for the film, and the rumor is that Bruce Willis may star – however, Willis is not currently attached to the film, with CAA only confirming that he is reading the script. And it seem Willis’ name gets bandied about for various movies for sale, whether or not he is involved…

What do you think? Can Willis pull off the drug-addicted former computer hacker?

Syfy announced a trio new scripted projects in development with Universal Cable Productions, CBS TV Studios and Fox Television Studios as the channel continues to expand it’s stable of original scripted programming, currently led by the quartet of Warehouse 13, Alphas, Eureka and Haven.

Leading the charge is an untitled project by Robert Hewitt Wolfe for Universal Cable Productions, which is about the Starship Defender on an expedition in search of lost worlds requiring law and order. Sounds a bit like Andromeda, which isn’t surprising: Wolfe was the series showrunner and developer, and has written and produced a number of other shows, notably Syfy’s Alphas.
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In the next episode of Sanctuary, Magnus sends Henry to round up others for a meeting and news that all must hear while Will runs into trouble and is mugged and left unconscious. Catch the all-new episode this Wednesday at 9/8c to find out what they took from him and why it was important enough to beat him over the head for it.
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Apparently it’s been far too long since the Broadway production of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark has been mentioned as having troubles…now former director Julie Tamor is filing suit against the producers for using the stuff she developed without paying her. Apparently she believes she is due royalties from the production, but has yet to receive anything.

When I heard recently about a video set to The Proclaimers “500 Miles”, I thought it was the video I’d seen before with David Tennant singing the song along with The Proclaimers themselves.

No, this was a new video – which looks like it was filmed at various stages in David Tennant’s tenure, and features various companions, enemies and the crew and even some old friends – I shed a tear when the late Lis Sladen appeared… 🙁

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Two months ago it was announced that Harlan Ellison was filing a lawsuit against New Regency and director Andrew Niccol about the movie In time, which Ellison claims was too similar to his well known story, “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said The Ticktockman”, and would damage his ability to sell his own movie rights. He was seeking to stop the release, destroy all copies, and damages, but the film was released in time (pun!) anyways.

But I’m just learning today that Ellison had settled with the defendants last week, settling at least for screen credit (no mention on a monetary settlement) in future prints of the movie. This settlement echoes a similar lawsuit Ellison won against the producers of The Terminator, also receiving on-screen credit.

Updated 11/9: Maybe it hasn’t…I’m hearing through the twittervine that the original story may be false, and none of the other major orgs seem to have picked up on it. More news when known.

Update #2: Per Andrew Niccol’s lawyer, there has not been any settlement.

In the latest video blog from Peter Jackson, they discuss about filming in 3D, including some of the tech involved. I need to see this movie NOW!

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Apparently not only were the fans disappointed with the Enteprise finale (and more than a few with the series as a whole, although I personally liked it) – so was Jonathan Frakes, who reprised his Star Trek: The Next Generation role of Commander William Riker, along side his co-star Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi). If you remember, the finale basically put the whole series as a holodeck recreation of historical records of the first ship named Enterprise, being watched by Riker and Troi.

At Central Canada Comic-Con during a Q&A session, someone asked what it was like to be the “guy who wrapped up the whole episodic Star Trek series”.

“They said it would be a Valentine to the fans, but all of it ended up doing I think was hurting Scott Bakula’s feelings,” he said. “He was such a gentleman about it and I said to Scott this is weird for me to be on your show and your show is being taken off before it should be taken off and he was such a gentleman about it and said ‘No, glad you’re here’ so it was awkward on all accounts, except with working with Marina again which is always lovely. But I wasn’t crazy about it. And it was so thinly connected, I thought too. Thanks for bringing up such an unpleasant memory.”

In case you are missing it, Real Life Comics is doing a Stargate SG-1 themed thread, which you can start reading from here (there are a couple interstitial comics not related to the thread as well). Real Life, done by Greg Dean, is a long running web comic with gaming and sci-fi fan elements while tracking the real life and friends of the artist.