Sci-Fi Storm

It appears there was some unrest over at Warner Bros. production of Wonder Woman, with director Michelle MacLaren’s sudden departure over what is described as “creative differences” on Monday (rumors from sexism to MacLaren wanting to include a tiger sidekick), but it appears that the production won’t remain rudderless long – Monster director Patty Jenkins is taking over.

Wonder Woman has had a long history of troubles…NBC shot down a 2011 TV series after the pilot starring Adrianne Palicki was received poorly. The David E. Kelley script had even been rejected earlier that year by the network but was picked back up when Bob Greenblatt took over. And back in 2007, Joss Whedon tried to take the superhero to the big screen, but couldn’t agree with Warner Bros. or Joel Silver’s Silver Pictures over the setting of the script.

Gal Gadot is still attached to star as the Amazonian hero, and it is still scheduled for a 2017 release.

It has been a few years since we had news on the reported new Blade Runner in development, aside from some denials that Harrison Ford would return as Decker. But today it was announced that Ryan Gosling would star in what is now definitely a sequel to the Ridley Scott classic – and we hear that Harrison Ford will indeed return.

Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the original, and Michael Green (Green Lantern) have written the screenplay, which will be helmed by Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve. Plot details are being kept under wraps, other than it will take place several decades after the original. Shooting is expected to begin in Summer 2016.

OH MY!!! Just released! New Stormtroopers! New scenes! New…Skywalker?

“Chewie…we’re home.”

The more I see the trailers for this, the more I see the Disney-esque vision of the future that he tried to embody in the Tomorrowland section of the theme parks…

Tomorrowland opens May 22nd, and stars George Clooney and Britt Robinson.
(continue reading…)

Starring Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, and Evangeline Lilly – opens July 17th!

It seems odd, but it was also a latecomer to the Blu-ray market…but finally Star Wars will enter the Digital universe, with its first ever Digital HD release this Friday, April 10th! All six episodes will be released.

Each episode lists at $20, with all six available for $100 ($89.99 right now on [asin=B00VJ04TH0]Amazon[/asin].)

It may have happened a long time ago, but it’s finally reached the 21st Century… 🙂

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Tron Legacy stars Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde, along with director Joseph Kasinski, will return for Tron 3.

It is unclear if the movie has been given a green light yet by Disney, but it does appear that they are aiming to start filming this Fall in Vancouver.

Tron Legacy showed an updated, higher resolution world of that introduced in Tron, the 1982 film that wasn’t a success financially but was cutting edge and became a iconic cult hit, often cited as an influence by other filmmakers. The second film picks up decades later, where Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has been missing for some time, and his son (Hedlund) heads into the system to find him…

Tron Legacy was more of a success, garnering $400 million worldwide, but development on a followup has been slow thus far.

First, there was the Marvel Cinematic Universe…then, Disney re-invigorated and extended Star Wars…and Warner Bros has been rallying around their Justice League plans. Now paramount wants in on the mega-franchise phenomenon. Could it be Star Trek? Not quite (but more on that in another story…), but it certainly could be more than meets they eye…

Word is that Paramount Pictures has tapped Akiva Goldsman to start planning with director Michael Bay and lay out the groundwork to transform their Transformers franchise, with an epic core and spin-off movies, similar to what Disney is doing for Star Wars.

Despite the almost universal criticism for the most recent installment, it was still one of the top grossing films of 2014, so its no wonder that Paramount is trying this…but hopefully they come up with better stories before the allspark loses power…

This has me excited…Sony gave a press release today announcing that they have obtained the rights to the popular Robotech anime series with an eye on turning it into a film franchise!

Robotech was released in the U.S. in 1985, produced by Harmony Gold USA in partnership with Tatsunoko Production Company, and was actually three separate anime series (“Super Dimension Fortress Macross”, “Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross”, and “Genesis Climber MOSPEADA”), dubbed and edited to have a common plot line, showing three “generations” of characters. The common theme in the series is what is called “robotechnology” (a.k.a. “mecha”) – vehicles and spaceships which could transform into robots, which allowed the humans to take on aliens of immense size. It also spawned a number of direct-to-video movies.

According to Michael de Luca, Sony/Columbia Pictures head of production, “Robotech is unique in that it has always been a marriage of spectacle with human characters that seem drawn from life. With a history that offers an epic love triangle, a renegade hero, and a world on the brink of extinction, Robotech offers a wide scope and a rich and impressive universe where the story possibilities are endless.”

I always thought the premise of the first series was perfect for a film or TV franchise – an enormous spaceship crashes on Earth, the crew dead and containing advanced and unknown technologies which get adapted by humans who take the ship back into space – and into battle…

Hey Sony, I’m still waiting for an English-language live version of StarBlazers…

Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, the writing team behind Iron Man, are working on a re-imagining of the 1988 film (that also spawned a one-season TV series and several TV movies) Alien Nation for Fox.

The original film dealt with the integration of the alien “Newcomers” (if you were being nice – “slags” if you weren’t) into American society, several years after their enormous spaceship became stranded on Earth with its cargo of slaves, and the abusive “Overlords” – Newcomers who kept the slaves in line for an unknown authority. Detective Sykes (James Caan), a bigoted veteran of the force who just lost his partner in a shootout with Newcomers, is forced to take on the newly promoted Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin) – who he immediately re-dubs “George” (Newcomers were often assigned human names by bored government workers…) The two then investigate a similar crime, and find a much bigger conspiracy to exploit the aliens. Aside from the twist of the aliens, it was basically a reluctant buddy cop story.

I personally found the TV series to be a bit better than the film. As much as I like Patinkin, and Caan is perfect as a cantankerous cop, the interaction in the series, where Sykes was played by Gary Graham and Francisco by Eric Pierpoint, seemed more natural and playful. Graham’s Sykes is younger and has to address his growing affection for Newcomer neighbor Cathy (Terri Treas). It also deals a lot more with the problems of integration, Newcomer family life, and the origins of the Newcomers.

While plot details for the new version are not yet being released, it is expected that this movie will deal with the aliens’ arrival on Earth, which wasn’t really addressed in the film.

Marcum and Holloway are no strangers to re-imagining films…they were behind last year’s Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, and a remake of Highlander for Summit that is still in development.