Sci-Fi Storm

Hot on the heals of this weekend’s news, word comes out that WB has released the first season of Babylon 5 via iTunes, at $1.99/episode, or $39.99 for the season. Find it in the iTunes Movie Store. Also, JMS posted yesterday about his strange trip beyond the veil – into the A-List of Hollywood.

Reports are coming in from the sessions at San Diego Comic Con, and per some newsgroup posts, JMS has announced a few things. WB has asked him to do something with the Babylon 5 franchise, so its been agreed to do something of an anthology series of mini-movies, likely direct-to-DVD but with a network also interested. They will be based on stories that never made it in to the series, but notes have been since been found. In addition: The Rising Stars comic is in development as a series with Sam Raimi; Midnight Nation is being bid on for a movie; Dream Police was pitched to a big studio, and negotiations for JMS to write it are in progress; and a Touchstone series pilot called Borrowed Lives is in the script stage.

Dean Devlin has been speaking with SCI FI Wire about sequels to the 1994 original Stargate movie. Devlin and partner Roland Emmerich, the producers of the original, conceived a trilogy but lost control over the franchise and MGM elected to produce a series instead. They’ve disavowed and refused credit of the series. Now it appears MGM might be willing to move forward with the originally intended trilogy – possibly with Kurt Russell and James Spader, the original stars – but while trying to somehow not step on the mythology established by the series. A tall order, considering the second movie was set to take place 12 years later…

Forbidden Planet, one of the seminal SF feature films and featuring one of the most recognizable pieces of hardware, hasn’t had a decent DVD release yet. Warner Brothers plans to rectify the situation. A new Special Edition release for the film’s 50th anniversary is scheduled to be released on November 14th, with two versions – the standard 2-disc version with film, three documentaries and other shows that feature Robby the Robot, and a Collector’s Edition which comes with a Robby action figure. Links to Amazon for pre-orders hopefully soon.

I’m back from our family vacation. I wasn’t online as much as I expected (really only for a few minutes to check e-mails) and I’m still catching up on things, and trying to find our luggage – the airline (rhymes with US Scareways) screwed up and didn’t load half the luggage on the flight – that’s 8 days of Disney memories somewhere between there and here. It may take a day or two to get back up to speed…

Anonymous Coward writes “Hi,

Just to let you know that the below Sci-fi/fantasy games are available to vote for in this years Golden Joystick Awards ?Ultimate Game Of The Year? category.

Star Wars Battlefront II
Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan
Star Wars: Empire at War
LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game
X-Men: The Official Game
Fantastic Four: Flame On
Spider-Man 2
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Golden Joystick Awards are officially the world’s favourite video games ceremony and are the only awards voted for by those who matter -gamers.

For more information and to vote, go to – www.goldenjoystick.co.uk“

OK, this week is the beginning of SCI FI Channel’s Summer half-season, with the return of SCI FI Friday shows Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis (Battlestar Galactica won’t return until October), but also some old and new programs: James Cameron’s Dark Angel will get a rerun-run Mondays starting tonight, and new original series Eureka starts Tuesday, July 18th. Read More for a synopsis of the show.

(continue reading…)

Disney must be ecstatic. The sequel Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest, broke both the single-day opening record with $55 million (Star Wars Episode III had opened at $50M), but whalloped previous weekend weekend record holder Spider-Man ($114.8M) with an estimated take of $132M. Even producer Jerry Bruckheimer didn’t figure on that much, expecting something closer to The Da Vinci Code ($77M).

Updates will be sporadic for the next week or so. If there is earth-shattering news, and I have the ability, I will update, but I am in need of some serious R&R, so I’ll see you all next week sometime.

James Cameron plans to keep busy. He’s got two planned trilogies in the pipeline. First up is the long-rumored “Project 880”, which is currently title Avatar, but that may change. All that is mentioned about it is a “planet-hopping future”. Then there is the Battle Angel franchise, based on the popular manga series. He plans to make the first movie of each first, and if one or both makes money, continue with them.