Sci-Fi Storm

Some updates from the weekend…

It appears that the Avatar sequels – all four of them – may finally have release dates that are attainable, if not still far off. With James Cameron increasing the number of sequels from two to four, and choosing to film all simultaneously, it’s been a long and winding road from the release of the original film in 2009. Now all four have set release dates, with the next film being release on December 18th, 2020 – exactly 11 years from the original’s wide release date in the U.S. Avatar 3 will follow the next year on December 17th, 2011, and then a three year break before the last two release on December 20th, 2024 and December 19th, 2025 respectively. Of course, who knows if that schedule will keep…but it at least seems realistic.

Freeform’s fantasy series Shadowhunters, based on Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series of novels, has been renewed for a third season. The show is currently in a mid-season break with the second half of season two scheduled to return on June 5th. Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer, who took over as showrunners for the second season, will remain.

Lastly, Bryan Singer, currently serving as executive producer on FX’s Legion, is partnering with digital media company Blackpills on the new series August One, created by John Cabrera (Gilmore Girls, H+). The series is described as a futuristic thriller in which the Roman Empire never collapsed, but instead grew into a technologically advanced civilization but where the old concepts of slavery, corruption and sin are “normalized” – but now that civilization is on the brink of collapse.

Anyone remember the Star Trek episode “Bread and Circuses”?

Syfy is teaming up with Bryan Singer (X-Men: Days of Future Past) and his Bad Hat Harry Productions to develop a 90-minute pilot script titled Creature at Bay. Singer and Bad Hat’s Jason Taylor will Executive Produce and Creator/Writer John Cabrera will be Co-Executive Producer. The project is from Universal Cable Productions.

In the wake of the US military taking down a giant, rampant creature – a modern-day “Kaiju” monster – just off the Northern California coast, a middle-management Undersecretary from the California Emergency Management Agency is charged with leading the clean-up efforts as the small town becomes the focus of the entire world.

John Cabrera gained notoriety by co-creating and co-writing the award winning sci-fi digital series H+ for Warner Brothers, also produced by Bryan Singer, which premiered on YouTube in 2012. The popular series is currently in pre-production on its second season.

Bad Hat Harry Productions is the production company of acclaimed director and producer Bryan Singer, established in 1994. Up next for the company is X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, which is currently in post-production with Singer at the helm, set for a May 23, 2014 release by Fox. Previous films include: JACK THE GIANT SLAYER, UWANTME2KILLHIM?, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, VALKYRIE, SUPERMAN RETURNS, X-2, X-MEN, APT PUPIL and THE USUAL SUSPECTS. In television, Bad Hat Harry produced the Emmy® and Golden Globe® winning House MD, which ran for 8 seasons on Fox, and the acclaimed series Dirty Sexy Money on ABC. Additionally, the company produced the documentary Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman, the Syfy miniseries The Triangle, the genre film festival favourite Trick ‘r Treat, and the digital series H+ for Warner Brothers. Upcoming for Bad Hat Harry in television is The Black Box, a straight to series order at ABC, which will premiere in 2014, and they are also developing a reboot/revival of the beloved show The Twilight Zone with CBS TV studios.

Confirming an earlier rumor, Bryan Singer will return to the director’s chair for the upcoming sequel to X-Men: First Class, titled X-Men: Days Of Future Past, with Singer signing the deal with Fox to take over from Matthew Vaughn.

Singer directed the first two X-Men movies to launch the franchise, and helped with First Class by producing and writing the treatment.

It appears that Matthew Vaughn, who directed X-Men: First Class, will not return to direct the sequel, titled X-Men: Days of Future Past. No reason is known, but he also bowed out of Kick-Ass 2 not long ago.

So Fox needs to scramble if it still wants the Summer 2014 release for the film, and the buzz is that Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men movies and wrote and produced First Class, might move from the producer role here to direct, while Vaughn, who wrote the sequel, would step back as producer.

File this FIRMLY under rumors for now, but according to a report from Latino Review (warning – some potentially offensive language), Bryan Singer, who is developing a Battlestar Galactica movie, is looking to revive yet another 70s TV franchise as a feature film, this time it’s The Six Million Dollar Man, and Leonardo DiCaprio is being lined up to star.

Supposedly The Weinstein Company (who they claim are nearly bankrupt) is partnering with Universal for the production, which will be based on the same original story as the original TV series ([asin=0345316207]Cyborg by Martin Caidin[/asin]), and will be retitled The Six Billion Dollar Man (inflation, after all…)

A feature version of Steve Austin has been in development for a long time – we first reported on it in 2002 – and it’s morphed a number of times over the years, mostly into a comedy starring Jim Carrey, and in the late 90s Kevin Smith wrote a script which at one time had Chris Rock associated with it.

Is this just random rumors, or is there substance? Not sure yet. But given that I’ve learned about a remake of The Munsters, I’m firmly convinced “new ideas” are generated by looking randomly through old TV Guides.

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?