23 years of this site still chugging along...
HotShot Trailer: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – “Trust”
by Doc on Nov.26, 2016, under Movies
This is the latest full trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which opens in just three weeks! Here we get to see some more of K-S2O, voiced by Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly)
STX pushes The Space Between Us out of crowded holiday frame
by Doc on Nov.23, 2016, under Movies
The family-oriented SF film The Space Between Us, originally scheduled to open right against Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on December 16th and among a variety of other movies around the same time that threatened to drown it out, will move to February 3rd as production company STX Entertainment saw fit to push the film back a couple months into a less crowded slot to give the film the exposure it might deserve.
The film follows the first human born on Mars (Asa Butterfield, Ender’s Game), who travels to Earth for the first time to experiencing the wonders of the planet through fresh eyes. He embarks on an adventure with a street smart girl (Britt Robertson, Tomorrowland) to discover how he came to be.
Ron Thornton, pioneer of CGI for television, passed away at 59
by Doc on Nov.22, 2016, under Television
Emmy award winning visual effects artist Ron Thornton, best known for his work on Babylon 5 passed away yesterday at home after a short illness at the age of 59, as confirmed by his colleague Emile Smith on Twitter.
Thornton co-founded Foundation Imaging and pioneered the CGI and visual effects methods started on Babylon 5 using Newtek’s Video Toaster hardware and Lightwave 3D modeling software that allowed such effects to be both realistic and within a television show budget. He won an Emmy in 1993 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Special Visual Effects for the work on the pilot movie, Babylon 5: The Gathering, and had three more nominations. Prior to Babylon 5, he had worked on Spaceballs, Critters, and Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
After a falling out with the Babylon 5 producers in the third season, he worked on Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise and co-created the series Hypernauts.
Netflix Lost In Space remake finds Dr. Smith in Parker Posey
by Doc on Nov.22, 2016, under Television
The Netflix remake of Lost In Space continues to move forward, although having to wait until 2018 is going to be tough. But this twist in casting is going to make us anxious to see it that much more.
Parker Posey (Party Girl, Superman Returns) has signed on to join the series as none other than Dr. Smith! This gender flip will be interesting to see. The original Dr. Smith was played by Jonathan Harris, and was initially a bad guy who tried to sabotage the mission of the Jupiter 2 but gets caught on board at launch. Early through the first season, he stayed as a conniving saboteur, but eventually softened and became a more comedic leading role thanks to Harris’ acting skills, which changed the whole nature of the show. In the 1998 big screen remake, the character was played by Gary Oldman, as a totally evil character but with touches of the mannerism of Harris’s character as a homage.
A previous attempt by ABC to reboot the show opted to omit the middle child of Penny and instead added an older brother, but it never made it past the pilot stage.
Previously announced cast are Toby Stephens (John Robinson), Taylor Russell (Judy Robinson), Max Jenkins (Will Robinson), and Molly Parker (Maureen Robinson). The characters of Major West and Penny Robinson presumably are yet to be cast. Producers have said that this version will take cues from the original, but beyond that we have little information.
Dune winds up at Legendary for another attempt
by Doc on Nov.21, 2016, under Movies
We could still see another Dune adaptation…but I’m not holding my breath.
The last attempt we reported on fell apart in 2010 and the rights lapsed in 2011, when it was set up at Paramount. But now with studios not just satisfied with a standalone blockbuster, but in search of the next great franchise, studios look to the extensive library of fantasy and science fiction, and few seems to show such untapped potential as the universe of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Of course, it’s been tried before, and became reality twice so far.
Most of you will remember the 1984 David Lynch effort for Raffaella and Dino DeLaurentiis, which was visually striking but confusing, departed in some ways from the book, and less than compelling acting despite the extensive experienced cast list, bombed at the box office, and was later disavowed by Lynch. An extended version added more explanation as to the history leading up to the plot, but did little to help in the end. Even so, it did achieve a cult status, but cemented the idea of the novels not being possible to translate to film.
In 2000 then Sci-Fi Channel produced a miniseries based on the first book, which did reasonably well enough to warrant a sequel, adapting Dune Messiah and Children of Dune under the latter’s title for a 2003 miniseries. Both were among the top rated miniseries for the network at the time.
So good luck to Legendary on attempting to bring this to the big screen again. I’ll be over here playing with my sandworm…
Dirk Gently renewed for second season by BBC America
by Doc on Nov.21, 2016, under Television
BBC America has renewed Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency for a second season of 10 episodes, up from 8 episodes for the current season, which will air sometime in 2017.
According to BBC America President Sarah Barnett, “Outlandishly different, Dirk Gently has hit a sweet spot with BBCA fans/ With Elijah Wood and Samuel Barnett’s chemistry as oddball detective/sidekick duo, and our creators promising ever greater genius-weird cosmic mystery in the next case, we’re happy to announce more of this truly original and entertaining show.”
The show is based on the Dirk Gently novels from the late Douglas Adams, best known for the crazy Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series of novels, and follows the eccentric Holistic Detective Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) and his reluctant bellboy-turned-assistant Todd (Elijah Wood) as they try and unravel a strange mystery.
Fantastic Beasts roars with $75 million opening, but lags behind other Harry Potter films
by Doc on Nov.21, 2016, under Movies
The Harry Potter spinoff film Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, expected to lead another run in the franchise with up to 5 films, handily won the weekend box office with a $75 million opening take domestically and over $218 million globally. But this may have been a tad below expectations given that it was a Harry Potter film, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 having done more than twice that at $169.2m, and the lowest opening of any of the films was $77.1m for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
We don’t know if this is a disappointment yet for Warner Bros, who might have been happier with a bigger haul, but this still seems respectable take and should insure the franchise moving forward. As fans get comfortable with the new characters and setting, I expect more heat to generate for the openings of future installments.
Tidbits: Deadpool 2, Frequency, No Tomorrow, Stranger In A Strange Land
by Doc on Nov.19, 2016, under Movies, Television
Quick editorial note – apologies for the broken links on social media…I had to switch methods due to API changes, and unbeknownst to be a combinations of plugins produced bad social media links. That’s all fixed now. I’m also getting my head above water again after being involved in a local theater production and attending Rhode Island Comic Con last weekend…
Deadpool 2 now has a new director in David Leitch, the former stuntman who directed 2014’s John Wick. He’s currently working on The Coldest City, starring Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman and Sofia Boutella. Original directory Tim Miller left the project after creative differences with star Ryan Reynolds.
The CW has elected not to pick up back-end orders for its two freshman shows Frequency and No Tomorrow. This is unusual as the CW has generally given back end orders to nearly all of its new series. While they aren’t necessarily dead yet, hopes are very minimal as the ratings were extremely low. However, under the deal with Netflix, the shows will be on the streaming provider 8 days after the finale ends, so if it does well there, there could be enough impetus to pick them up.
Syfy, with Paramount Television and Universal Cable Productions, is developing a series based on Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land, about a man born and raised on Mars who comes to Earth.
Doctor Who sneak peek: “The Return Of Doctor Mysterio”
by Doc on Nov.19, 2016, under Television
Here is the complete sneak peek from BBC’s Children In Need special for the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas Special, “The Return Of Doctor Mysterio”…can’t wait!
And give if you can…
Rhode Island Comic Con continues to grow, but is it running out of space?
by Doc on Nov.16, 2016, under Conventions, Fun Stuff
This was our third year in a row attending Rhode Island Comic Con, which is easily the largest comic and media convention in New England, and likely second in the northeast U.S. behind New York Comic Con. Two years ago they outgrew their venue at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence after scoring most of the surviving cast of the original Star Trek to headline the event. So they immediately planned to expand to to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center arena located next door and last year, but a new venue presented new challenges in how to organize all the dozens of celebrities, the hundreds of vendors and the thousands of fans, resulting in other issues with finding where some celebrities were and not enough space for the lines.
Now this year’s guest list – Stan Lee?!? You could probably fill a convention on just that. But add other hot guests like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who had just proven himself as one of the meanest, craziest bat-wielding psychos on The Walking Dead, Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things, Gal Gadot who plays Wonder Woman…that’s filling up fast. And that’s just a few. How about Billy Dee Williams, Alice Cooper, Christian Slater, Summer Glau, Arthur Darvill, John Ratzenberger, Ric Flair…and I’m still only a fraction of the way through the list.
The convention opened on Friday, but due to other commitments we weren’t able to arrive until early Saturday. From all accounts, Friday went quite well. I was able to enter early and see the new setup, and the changes I saw made a lot of sense…more line space and corrals for guests in line for celebrity meets, better layout for vendors on the main floor, etc. The one gotcha – there is only one indoor path between the arena and convention center, via a narrow sky bridge, and due to crowd control and regulations they needed to make that a one-way corridor from the arena to the center. To get back to the arena for some of the headline guests and photo ops, you actually had to exit (and scan out your badge, so they had a better idea on the number of people inside) and walk back to the arena and enter via a special “re-entry” entrance.
I would never see the place that empty again. 🙂
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