Sci-Fi Storm

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Incredibles 2 breaks animation records; Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom looks towards big opening

by on Jun.20, 2018, under Movies

Disney/Pixar’s Incredibles 2, a sequel that took 14 years to make (and even references that in a short teaser) seems to have been worth the wait…it broken the records for a weekend opening for an animated film and a PG-rated film this past weekend, with a $183 million domestic gross, which lands it 8th all-time. And it wasn’t done there – it took in an additional $28.3 million just for Monday, another animated record and the second best Monday in June ever, behind Jurassic World. The movie is an excellent, fun continuation of the story of a family of Supers, who are outlawed due to the damage often surrounding their heroics – but it may be time for Supers to be legal again.

Speaking of Jurassic World, its own sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is tracking for a $135-165 million opening weekend on what is looking like a busy weekend.

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TidBits: Lots of stuff to catch up on…

by on Jun.12, 2018, under Movies, Television

I am so sorry for the lack of updates lately. The last few weeks has been CRAZY. My oldest daughter graduated high school, and my youngest had her middle school play – we are heavily involved in the drama programs with both kids, and I emcee the annual high school drama banquet, which was a few weeks ago as well. And that’s on top of “normal life” – so it’s been tough trying to follow all the news – we’re very behind in all our RV shows as well, and I owe a friend a book review as well…but anyways, here is a rapid recap of the last week or so…

HBO has given a pilot order for one of five the potential Game Of Thrones spinoffs, this one for a prequel series set in the “golden age of Heroes”, which “descends into its darkest hour”, where we will learn about the white walkers, the Starks of legend, and more. Given it was just announced, there is no director, cast, etc. yet but it comes from Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Kingsman) and George R.R. Martin, with Goldman acting as showrunner. Martin said on his blog he currently prefers the title “The Long Night”, but that isn’t definite yet. Martin also said that one of the other four ideas for spinoffs has been shelved, but the other three are still possible.

As for that other fantasy mega-franchise, Amazon appears to be banking on its deal for the Lord of the Rings franchise, having cleared a lots of its shows off the slate. The head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke said in a Deadline interview that they aren’t going to try and compete at the volume level with Netflix, adding, “You can’t go big and go irrelevant.” While there is little to go on, they are currently only working on one series – “one big series,” and that while it isn’t remaking the movies, it will involve “it’ll be characters you love.”

Speaking of Salke and Amazon, she also addressed the idea of Amazon Studios picking up the canceled Lucifer. “I know that international, especially the UK group, was really bullish on that show, I haven’t checked in on that today (Thursday), but I heard conversations were ongoing on that yesterday.” So, keep heart, fans. Amazon recently rescued The Expanse after Syfy canceled the show, just as it was heading into the next phase of the story.

As for Amazon’s cross-net rivals, Netflix has given a 10-episode order for Away, about an international crew on a treacherous year-long mission to Mars, from Andrew Hinderaker (Penny Dreadful), Jason Katims (Parenthood) and Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes). It centers on an American astronaut who leaves behind a husband and daughter to lead the crew in a story of hope and humanity.

The upcoming BBC series His Dark Materials based on the novels of Philip Pullman has some cast…James McAvoy (the X-Men franchise) will play Lord Asriel, the father of the primary character Lyra (Dafne Keen, Logan), who discovers a way to parallel worlds. Clarke Peters (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) plays the master who raises Lyra. Ruth Wilson (The Affair) will play Marisa Coulter, Asrael’s former lover and appears to want Lyra for a mysterious purpose. Earlier this year, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Mary Poppins Returns) was announced to play Lee Scoresby, an “aeronaut” who helps Lyra. Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) will direct.

I haven’t mentioned Marvel at all yet, have I? Well, Avengers: Infinity War became just the fourth movie to cross the $2 billion international box office mark, after Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And it is still holding strong at the box office. On Marvel’s small screen, Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger became Freeform’s biggest new series in two years, with an L+3 of 1.64 million, which also put it as the most watched telecast on the network in nearly a year.

And finally, we don’t talk much about MTV, but while the network might not be returning to its real roots in music, it may return to its past – a live action version of Aeon Flux, the sci-fi series that started as a series of shorts on the network’s Liquid Television block of trippy animated series. THe show was previously turned into a live action feature starring Charlize Theron as the tightly-clad assassin n 2005, but the movie flopped. Jeff Davis (Teen Wolf) and Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead) are set to produce, with Davis writing.

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The Librarians officially dead

by on Jun.06, 2018, under Television

Sadly, the word has come down on the future of The Librarians, and it wasn’t good. From producer Dean Devlin:

The official Facebook page was a bit more hopeful of it continuing in another form at least:

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Shadowhunters to end after third season, but will get a 2-hour finale

by on Jun.06, 2018, under Television

Freeform has decided not to renew Shadowhunters for another season, but has elected to order two more 1-hour episodes to allow for a proper conclusion.

The show, based on [asin=1481444433]The Mortal Instruments series of novels[/asin] from Cassandra Clare, has covered the existing novels so far, with Season 3 covering books 4 and 5. The two extra episodes will cover the final book, and not end the show on a cliffhanger as the remaining Season 3 episodes, part of a 10-episodes back half order and not expected to air until next Spring, were already in the can.

According to a statement from the network, “We are very proud of Shadowhunters, a series that broke new ground in the genre world and became a fan favorite. However, along with our partners at Constantin, we reached the very difficult decision not to renew the show for a fourth season. But as big supporters and fans ourselves, Freeform insisted on and championed the filming of a special two-part finale that would give devoted fans a proper ending. The twelve episodes will air in spring of 2019. We want to thank our talented creators, producers, cast and crew along with our colleagues at Constantin for their hard work and dedication and to Cassie Clare for her incredible book series. We look forward to the final chapter of this breakthrough drama.”

EVP of Programming Development Karey Burke added later that the decision was “purely economic”. The network has been shifting to shorter orders of shows, and that apparently triggered a clause that ended the deal between Netflix and Costantin Films, the production partner for the show, making it harder to justify the costs.

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HotShot Trailer: Bumblebee

by on Jun.06, 2018, under Movies

Both this Transformers spinoff movie…and Bumblebee’s body style…are set in 1987…I wonder how they upgrade their bodies?

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HotShot Trailer: Mortal Engines

by on Jun.06, 2018, under Movies

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Ready Player One available on Digital HD July 3rd, 4K/Blu-ray/DVD July 24th

by on Jun.03, 2018, under Movies

Join an immersive virtual universe when Ready Player One arrives on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack, [sfs=1653]Blu-ray Combo Pack[/sfs], DVD and Digital HD. From Warner Bros. Pictures, Amblin Entertainment and Village Roadshow Pictures, along with filmmaker Steven Spielberg, comes the action adventure Ready Player One, based on Ernest Cline’s [asin=0307887448]bestseller of the same name[/asin], which has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Ready Player One stars Tye Sheridan (“X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Mud”), Olivia Cooke (“Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” TV’s “Bates Motel”) and Ben Mendelsohn (“Rogue One – A Star Wars Story,” TV’s “Bloodline”). The ensemble cast also includes Lena Waithe (TV’s “Master of None”), T.J. Miller (“Deadpool,” TV’s “Silicon Valley”), Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen (“Star Wars: The Force Awakens”), Simon Pegg (the “Star Trek” and “Mission: Impossible” movies) and Oscar® winner Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies,” “Dunkirk”).

Three-time Oscar® winner Spielberg* directed the film from a screenplay by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline. It is based on the novel by Cline, which has now spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers List, recently climbing to the No. 1 spot, as well as reaching No. 1 on Amazon’s Most Read Fiction chart. Ready Player One was produced by Donald De Line, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg and Dan Farah. Adam Somner, Daniel Lupi, Chris deFaria and Bruce Berman served as executive producers.
(continue reading…)

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Solo: A Star Wars Story is a film that is worth watching

by on May.27, 2018, under Movies

Star WarsSpoiler free…

Way back when (well, just over 11 months ago) when we learned that Ron Howard was taking over as director for the upcoming Star Wars anthology film featuring a young Han Solo, with just a couple weeks left in filming and the ouster of the previous co-directors, we were filled with trepidation. We weren’t sure how we felt about doing the “Young Solo” film in the first place. And a late director change is never a good sign. There would be reshoots, rewrites, etc. Additional actors were being brought in late in the game. All things pointed to a mediocre film at best. The one bright spark? Ron Howard. The man is a genius.

As the film neared release, our hopes began to rise. We were only hearing good things about it. Even from sources we would expect to be more pessimistic. We went last night to see it. And this movie is GOOD.

One of the things we heard before the changes was that it was aiming to be more slapstick, or at least have a lot more humor than any previous Star Wars film. I was afraid we were going to get a “buddy smuggler” film. The end result still had humor, but the amount you’d expect from a film with Han, Chewie, and Lando, along with a few new enjoyable characters thrown in. And it adds some background to characters that you only heard about, or even didn’t have any idea of. But everything made sense in the context of what we already knew about the characters.

Alden Ehrenreich was pretty much unknown to me. At first I didn’t think I could buy him as Han. But as the film went on I started to see it…he does look like a young Han…and at one point even gave this very intense look that really reminded me of Harrison Ford.

This film is really worth seeing for all Star Wars fans. You can even play “spot the reference” when they name various other characters from the canon.

Sadly, the movie is tracking lower than expectations on the holiday weekend, looking at about $114.5 million for the 4-day total. However, increasing good buzz might lead to the film performing well over a longer period similar to what The Greatest Showman did at the beginning of the year.

Now we just need them to announce a sequel such that the final twist at the end can be explained… 🙂

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Amazon saves The Expanse

by on May.26, 2018, under Television

Hooray! Amazon boss Jeff Bezos announced last night at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles that Amazon would pick up The Expanse after the show ends its current third season on SYFY, after that network announced it would not pick it up again earlier this month.

The Expanse team was on hand, and Cas Anvar even recorded it…

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Krypton Season 2 teaser

by on May.23, 2018, under Television

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