Sci-Fi Storm

Sir Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, Thor) is climbing on board his first potential TV role in the pilot for Westworld, based on the classic 1973 movie by Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park).

Hopkins will play Dr. Robert Ford, the head of the fantasy park who has “unorthodox methods” for building his vision.

Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood, The Wrestler) will play Dolores Abernathy, “a sweet, Midwestern farm girl who has a very rude awakening during the series.”

Jonathan Nolan (Person of Interest, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and the upcoming Interstellar) will direct from a script by himself and Lisa Joy (Burn Notice), with both producing alongside J.J. Abrams (Lost, Star Wars Episode VII), Jerry Weintraub (Ocean’s Eleven) and Bryan Burk (Revolution).

Michael Arndt is out as sole screenwriter for Star Wars Episode VII, and J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan will be taking over.

In a statement from LucasFilm, LucasFilm president Kathleen Kennedy said, “I am very excited about the story we have in place and thrilled to have Larry and J.J. working on the script. “There are very few people who fundamentally understand the way a Star Wars story works like Larry, and it is nothing short of incredible to have him even more deeply involved in its return to the big screen. J.J. of course is an incredible storyteller in his own right. Michael Arndt has done a terrific job bringing us to this point and we have an amazing filmmaking and design team in place already prepping for production.”

Kasdan had already been involved in helping develop some of the future Star Wars films, which was expected to include screenwriting duties for a “non-saga” film to come after Episode VII. Kasdan is also no stranger to LucasFilm properties, having written the original Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and co-written the next two sequels.

Pre-production work is already well underway for Episode VII, which is expected to begin filming next Spring for a 2015 release.

Apparently J.J. Abrams still isn’t satisfied with his workload…he was at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas today where he appeared on stage with Gabe Newell – the head of computer game maker Valve – the studio that produced the immensely popular Half-Life and Portal franchises.

And of course, they announced a partnership, under the guise of a conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of storytelling in movies and games.

J.J. Abrams said, “There’s an idea we have for a game that we’d like to work with Valve on.”

And perhaps the bigger news, “We’re going to figure out if we can make a Portal movie or Half-Life movie together,” according to Newell.

The Television Critics Association’s winter press tour is going on, and NBCUniversal made a bunch of presentations today. Some news from the relevant presentations from yesterday and today…

Syfy’s Defiance will premiere on Monday, April 15th, at 9/8c with a two-hour premiere, and run for a total of 12 episodes (the premiere being two hours long presumably can be split to account for 13 hours/episodes.)

NBC may not be done with The Munsters – despite the network having officially stuck a stake in their Mockingbird Lane reboot, Bob Greenblatt, the head of NBC, said, “I won’t say we won’t do another version of The Munsters again.” Apparently despite the pilot (retooled as a Halloween special) doing OK ratings-wise, the network just wasn’t impressed with the prospect of the show as a series, and Greenblatt admits that the mistake was likely trying to make it more of a dramedy than sitcom. “It’s hard to calibrate how much weirdness vs. supernatural vs. family story. I just think we didn’t get the mix right.”

And as for NBC’s Revolution, which did well before heading in to a four-month-long hiatus, which have critics thinking the show could lose its audience. But producers J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke aren’t afraid, and actually welcomed the break – which isn’t as unusual for shows on its cable sibling, Syfy, but it quite unusual for broadcast network fare.

The two cited Lost as precedence for having such a break, but Lost didn’t endure a “mega-break” until between Seasons 3 and 4 – and then it was between “seasons” (Lost switched to a shorter Winter-through-Spring run from Season 4 on.)

Anyways, they are using the break to “really analyze it, and make adjustments,” according to Kripke.

J.J. Abrams is teaming up with Oscar-nominated director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) to develop a fantasy drama series for NBC about “a girl in possession of a great gift/powers — which will come into their own in seven years — and the man who is sprung from prison to protect her from those trying to hunt her down.” Cuarón will direct and co-write the script with Mark Friedman (Home of the Brave, The Forgotten), with it being produced by WBTV and Abrams’ Bad Robot.

NBC has given a pilot production commitment.

Not a lot of details yet, but reports are out this evening that Fox has picked up an unnamed pilot from J.J. Abrams, described as a “near-future action-packed buddy cop show”, in which the LAPD police are teamed up with “highly evolved human-like androids”. J.H. Wyman (Fringe) will write and executive produce with Abrams and Bryan Burk.

For some reason, my mind instantly turned to the Tekwar movies/series, which had human-like androids (derogatorily called “mechs”) working for the police. And does anyone remember Holmes and Yo-Yo?

Meant to mention this yesterday…Variety reports that J.J. Abrams is now eying Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez (Carlos) to replace Benicio Del Toro for the lead villain role in Star Trek 2 that Abrams still won’t tell us is Khan. Abrams is believed to be looking to make a decision quick in order to get production moving forward, after negotiations with Del Toro fell apart.

Columbiana star Jordi Mollà is also reportedly up for the role.

Apparently the hot rumors that Benicio Del Toro (The Wolfman) would play the bad guy in Star Trek 2 – rumored to be Khan himself – aren’t true. Vulture reports that negotiations fell apart last week for him to take the role. But is the role to be Khan, played both in the original series and again in the second original timeline movie by the late Ricardo Montalban? Vulture reports that their insiders say it is true – but in reading last Friday’s report from Hitfix saying Del Toro was out, I’m also reading another possibility. Hitfix says when asked about the report that Del Toro was signed to play Khan, J.J. Abrams only response was, “Not true.” Which isn’t true? That Del Toro was signed, or that the role isn’t Khan? It does seem likely that Khan is the villain, but who knows.

I’m sure there will be a few more rumors to go before we get the real lowdown.

Paramount has slated the long-awaited Star Trek sequel for a May 17th, 2013 release date, according to Deadline. The sequel, currently being co-written by directory J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will also be made in 3D.

Earlier today, J.J. confirmed that he was looking for Benicio del Toro to have a role as a villain. Nothing has been revealed about what the role is, but speculation among the fanbase is that it could be Khan Noonian Singh.

This sounds vaguely SF-ish…J.J. Abrams is developing a new pilot for Fox and Warner Bros. TV called Alcatraz, which is about cop Rebecca Madsen (played by Sarah Jones, Sons Of Anarchy) and a team of FBI agents who are tracking down a bunch of Alcatraz inmates and guards who had mysteriously disappeared, and have reappeared in the present day. Now Sam Neill (Merlin) has signed on for the role of Emerson Hauser, the head of a government agency “who radiates authority and piercing intelligence.”