Sci-Fi Storm

Yes, apparently the long, long developing Logan’s Run is still moving, albeit glacially…but the latest news is that relative newcomer Andrew Baldwin (he has written the screenplays for The West is Dead and Red Asphalt, although neither has been produced yet) has been tasked with working on the script. This follows Alex Garland, who wrote the original script and Will Beall who recently did a re-write after Nicolas Winding Refn came on board as director last February. Ryan Gosling is reportedly still signed to star, but no word on a production start yet, which is likely to be next Spring at the earliest.

Peter Jackson made a couple of announcements today: first, Wellington, New Zealand will host the world premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in late November 2012, and also that the Hobbiton set will remain standing and become a permanent tourist attraction once filming has been completed.

Trying to find the funds for the trip now…

Syfy Films, created last December as an offshoot of Syfy Ventures in partnership with Universal Pictures, made it’s first rights acquisition for George R.R. Martin’s anthology series Wild Cards, announced today by Syfy Films Senior Vice President of Production Gregory Noveck. Melinda Snodgrass (The Outer Limits, Star Trek: The Next Generation) will write the script, with herself and Martin exec producing.
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The off-and-on The Dark Tower project, based on the Stephen King book series, may have found a home for the TV portion of the multi-media production, according to an interview that Brian Grazer gave to MTV News. Reportedly going through a budget-slimming process after Universal balked at the price tag for a “3 movie and 2 TV series” plan (Grazer says they’ve already cut $45 million), at least the TV portion may land at HBO. “We’re going to do [‘The Dark Tower’] with HBO,” according to Grazer. “We’ll do the TV with HBO, and we’ll do the movie with… to be determined. We’ll do it right.”

No confirmation has come from HBO yet, but given that HBO greenlighted the ambitious Game of Thrones to excellent results, perhaps they can see the benefits beyond the risks. Meanwhile, Deadline reports that there is no deal actually in place.

Brother/sister dynamic duo Lana and Andy Wachowski will return to SF with Jupiter Ascending, their first major foray into science fiction since the megahit The Matrix trilogy. Jupiter Ascending is an original idea from the team, and Warner Bros is starting casting for a Spring production start. No details on the plot, but hopefully it turns out better than their last film, the 2008 bomb Speed Racer (although being a fan of the original cartoon, I kinda liked it).

Depending if it could come out more Matrix than Speed Racer, it is expected to be a star vehicle for someone – and potentially a money maker for them as well. Psssst…WB…over here…I’m available…

Deadline just reported that John Orloff (Anonymous, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole) has signed on to write the screenplay for Bryan Singer’s big screen Battlestar Galactica reboot – and Orloff is excited. “I have wanted to write this movie since I was 12 years old, and built a Galactica model from scratch out of balsa wood, cardboard, old model parts and LEDs,” Orloff told Deadline. “I love BSG, and I would pass on the job rather than frak it up.” So it looks like Singer was serious about moving this up in the absence of his King Arthur flick.

It was a couple of years ago that Universal confirmed that Bryan Singer planned to reboot Battlestar Galactica as a movie – independently of the more recent re-imagining done by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, and by reports more directly related to the original created by Glen Larson. Well, it was put in the back burner as there were other things to do – like his remake of Excalibur.

Well, now Blastr is reporting that Excalibur is dead (Warner Bros went with a competing King Arthur story), and that Singer is now moving forward with developing Battlestar Galactica.

I’m not sure if I’m ready for another Galactica so soon. But the way the remake hit parade seems to be going, could we eventually see multiple competing remakes of the same property in development at the same time? Like, let’s say, Paramount brings Star Trek back to TV, while also the J.J. Abrams “alternate timeline” movies keep moving forward? Or say Devlin and Emmerich finally realize their original vision for sequels to Stargate while MGM fires up a new Stargate SG-1 spinoff? What would that do to fans?

Can a simple comment on a web site be the genesis of a movie plot? Apparently yes, it can.

Apparently a user on Reddit posited the question, “”Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?” This question caught the attention of author James Erwin, who replied with a comment. And then, with some encouragement, started to flesh it out.
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Hoping that Karl Urban’s take on Judge Dredd would help alleviate the pain of all Dredd fans that suffered through the Sylvester Stallone flop (truthfully, I enjoy it as a humorous schlock film)?? You may have to wait a while – possibly forever. Because even though filming is done, everything has been thrown into turmoil after director Peter Travis has reportedly been ejected after disagreements with the producers over the quality of footage. Writer/producer Andrew Garland has taken over as editor, and could possibly ask permission for the unusual co-director credit on the film.

Although it is unlikely the entire film might be scrapped, there could at least be some reshoots. And such editing-room fighting does not often bode well for the reception of the movie…

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories seem to have long been a pipe dream of SF-aware producers to get to the big screen…even the latest developments have been long dormant, when Sony won the bidding war almost 3 years ago for the rights after Warner Bros. let them lapse, and it was previously in development with Fox. Well at last there is movement again, with Sony Pictures announcing that Dante Harper has been hired to adapt it.

Harper appears to be relatively new on the writing scene, working on Black Hole for David Fincher/Paramount (based on the graphic novel by Charles Burns), and rewrote the upcoming Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters for Paramount/MGM/Spyglass. Roland Emmerich is still set to direct.

The Foundation series of novels center around mathematician Hari Seldon, who develops a new system of mathematics called “psychohistory”, which can model at a grand scale what will happen in the future – and Seldon discovers that the Galactic Empire, which consists of humans populating millions of other worlds, is in danger of immanent collapse and could lead to a Dark Age that could last thousands of years.