Sci-Fi Storm

I was just posting the previous article talking about the new STARZ series that were in development and what JMS has been teasing about for Comic-Con, and Deadline broke this news: he is announcing Studio JMS, a new multi-platform media company to handle all of his output under one roof. JMS develops and writes projects for all sorts of different platforms, including comic books, TV, and movies.

Studio JMS will be co-run by Patricia Tallman, who starred in JMS’s series Babylon 5 as telepath Lyta Alexander among many other acting and stunt roles, and also ran her own business, Talent To Go.

Among the things under development: The Flickering Light, to be directed by JMS, about Nazi propaganda director Leni Reifenstahl and the film she made using concentration camp prisoners; The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al, a web series for MTV.com; Living Dead The Musical, another web series; Epidemic for Overbrook Entertainment; Vlad Dracula for Starz; and a revival of his Joe’s Comics imprint with Image Comics.

The movie adaptation of the third and final book of the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, was given release dates today by Lionsgate, showing that the movie will in fact be split into two parts, with part one being released on November 21st, 2014 (a year less a day from the first sequel, Catching Fire), followed by part two a year later on November 20th, 2015.

The original movie, The Hunger Games, comes out on [asin=B0084IG7KC]Blu-ray[/asin] and [asin=B0084IG8TM]DVD[/asin] on August 18th.

In addition, the rumored casting of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was confirmed this week. He will play the role of Head Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee in Catching Fire, replacing the character of Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley).

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed filmmaker Dean Devlin, who also currently is the executive producer and director on TNT’s Leverage – and it seems that with Devlin re-uniting with partner Roland Emmerich, who together created Stargate and Independence Day, sequels to both movies are still possible.

Having resisted the idea of an ID4 sequel for 16 years despite its box office success, he things they’ve got the right concept. “I feel like we got it,” he said. “I think it took a long time, but I feel like we finally got something that really feels like, ‘that’s worth seeing as a sequel to Independence Day.’ ”

And it appears they are already talking to the cast about possibly returning.

As for Stargate, “Stargate has always had this empty hole,” he confessed. “When we made the first one, we always intended on doing part two and three, and we were prevented for years. And our hope is that we can get another chance at Stargate and tell the entire story we wanted to tell.” I presume “prevented” means that while the TV franchise was active, MGM wouldn’t entertain the idea of movies that were outside the the universe established the series. But we’ve heard this from Devlin before – just a few days more than a year ago – so we’ll wait and see.

Disney will pass $1 billion in domestic gross receipts for it’s movies this year faster than any other studio and faster than it’s best previous year – in only 188 days.

The Avengers was a big part of that, grossing over $600 million alone so far, outpacing even The Hunger Games this year. The Avengers come out on [sfs=1249]Blu-ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1250]DVD[/sfs] September 25th. We managed to catch The Avengers while on a cruise – it was an extremely fun movie to watch. Sure, there were plot holes, etc. but it was just fun!

After 266 days of shooting, Peter Jackson announced on his Facebook page on Thursday that they have completed principal photography for The Hobbit, and will be heading in to start editing – although with a side trip to Comic-Con!

Sony/Columbia’s reboot of the Marvel Franchise The Amazing Spider-Man appears to have been a good play, with the superhero movie taking in $21M on Friday and is looking at a $65M weekend, and since it opened strongly on Tuesday before the holiday it likely going to top $140M total through Sunday.

Meanwhile, Disney/Pixar’s Brave, in it’s third weekend of release, is looking at a $24M weekend, taking third behind Universal’s R-rated Ted ($36M). Although from my ears buzz on Brave has been light, it’s a cute fantasy mother/daughter story but with enough elements to interest the boys as well.

We showed you the video of Ricky Brigante from Inside the Magic undergoing the “Carbon-Freeze Me” process that was exhibited at the most recent Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida – now see the results!
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Disney/Pixar’s latest effort, the medieval women’s lib story Brave, will follow in the footsteps of all the previous Pixar films and open with an estimated $70M weekend, after a $25M Friday, according to Deadline, and unseat the #1 movie of that past two weekends, DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.

The odd R-rated mash-up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer from Fox, despite a media blitz, didn’t fare well, looking at a possible $17.5M. But when I still hear, “That’s a real movie? I thought it was a joke!” word-of-mouth buzz just ain’t going to be there for it.

Mark Andrews, who is currently taking about the upcoming Disney/Pixar movie Brave, spoke with The Playlist about Brave and other things, including the epic Disney box-office flop he produced, John Carter. And he’s quite defensive about the movie.

“It was a crazy experience. I had kind of gone through it with ‘Iron Giant.’ You have a great film and nobody saw it,” Andrews said. “And here it happens again on ‘Carter.’ And it’s like ‘Are you kidding me? This happens twice in a lifetime?'”

He felt that Disney was writing off the movie before it had a chance, and didn’t really give it any support. Yet it has had decent [asin=B005LAIH2W]DVD[/asin]/[asin=B005LAIH3G]Blu-ray[/asin] sales and is reportedly one of the most pirated movies. And I personally liked it. And Andrews isn’t ready to write it off yet. “We’re ready to go. As soon as somebody from Disney says, ‘We want ‘John Carter 2,” we’d be right there.”

A long rumored fourth installment in Universal’s Jurassic Park franchise is a step closer to movie reality. Rise of the Planet of the Apes scribes Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver have been set to work on the script, which will be co-produced by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. No director is attached, and Spielberg has said he will not take the reins for this one.

The original movie will be re-released in 3D next year, on July 19, 2013.