Sci-Fi Storm

Stranger Things third season is officially delayed until Summer 2019, according to Cindy Holland, Vice President of original content at Netflix. But it is for good reasons.

“It’s a handcrafted show,” she said. “The Duffer brothers and Shawn Levy have worked really hard, and they understand the stakes are high. They want to deliver something bigger and better than what they did last year. And so they really want to take the time to get it right.”

In the meantime over at Amazon Studios, writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay have been tapped to develop and write Amazon’s ambitious The Lord Of The Rings series. The series is set prior to the events of The Fellowship of the Rings, but according to them, will feature familiar characters.

Payne and McKay most recently worked together on the Star Trek 4 script.

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.

This is interesting…we hear that the Tolkien estate, which manages all the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, is shopping around the rights to a TV series based on Lord Of The Rings to various outlets. Even more interesting is the huge price tag they are placing on it, which is said to be $200-250 million – just for the rights.

Such a project would be hugely ambitious and likely expensive to produce properly, which limits the outlets that could potentially take it on. HBO seems like a natural choice, having already done Game Of Thrones, and with it concluding in its upcoming eighth season that may be looking to fill the void it will leave behind (spinoffs notwithstanding.) Another possibility is Amazon, which is looking for its own GoT franchise and has some ambitious projects already in the works. I’d expect any such production to have to run for quite a few years just in order to break even for the rights purchase, which could make it very hard to pull the trigger.

In addition, they would probably have to lengthen to story significantly in order to stretch it long enough, perhaps by integrating a number of other stories of Middle-earth (as flashback storytelling or something like that), but I understand the rights are very limited as well.

At any rate, I think it would be tough to score big with a production that has to live up to and even surpass three great films in order to be deemed a success.

Actor Sir Christopher Lee, who has played many many roles but around these circles is perhaps best known for his portrayals of Saruman in Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films and Count Dooku in the the Star Wars prequels, passed away on his birthday this past Sunday morning. He had just turned 93. He was in the hospital for several weeks being treated for respiratory and heart issues.

His wife Gitte, to whom he had been married for over 50 years, delayed the announcement while they informed closed family members.

Lee first became a star with the Hammer Horror films, including playing the title role in The Mummy and several memorable performances of Dracula. He was no stranger to other iconic roles, such as the title character in 5 Fu Manchu films in the 1960s, and a number of appearances as Sherlock Holmes.

In the 70s, he would take on James Bond as Scaramanga, The Man With the Golden Gun and played Rochefort in The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers and reprise the role in 1989’s The Return of the Musketeers. He also had a guest role in a memorable episode of Space: 1999 called “Earthbound”.

In later years he also appeared in or lent his booming voice to several Tim Burton movies, including Sleep Hollow, Alice In Wonderland, Corpse Bridge and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He helped define generations of characters that forever will be remembered as the defining portrayals.

May Saruman find peace and travel into the West to the Undying Lands…

This was just an amazing performance by the OSU band at halftime, performing a movie-themed set from this past weekend, featuring Superman, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Pirates Of The Caribbean.

I even said at one point, “If they make it eat somebody, it would be AWESOME!” I wasn’t disappointed. 🙂
(continue reading…)

When it rains…it seems the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien is upset over an online slot machine game using the Lord Of The Rings property – so much so that they’ve sued Warner Bros, New Line, and Saul Zentz Co. (the long-time movie rights holder Lord Of The Rings) for $80 million.

Apparently the estate’s lawyers received a spam email about the game, and looked into the rights. In the lawsuit they claim, “The original contracting parties thus contemplated a limited grant of the right to sell consumer products of the type regularly merchandised at the time such as figurines, tableware, stationery items, clothing and the like. They did not include any grant of exploitations such as electronic or digital rights, rights in media yet to be devised or other intangibles such as rights in services.” The estate also learned that a physical slot machine game was also planned.

There are video games, etc. based on the movies, so it seems odd that this particular claim is made, as it seems to imply that those rights were not granted to the defendants.

For those of you who have been waiting for the Extended Editions of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy to be released individually on Blu-ray, your wait is over this Tuesday, August 28th. Now you can get [sfs=1254]The Fellowship of the Rings[/sfs], [sfs=1255]The Two Towers[/sfs] and [sfs=1256]The Return of the King[/sfs] each individually.

Each movie comes with 5 discs – 2 Blu-ray discs for the movie and related special features like audio commentaries, etc. and 3 DVDs full of all the extra content.

Pre-order now (or purchase later) via the links above and help us out!

Syfy has just announced that it will air the mini-series Treasure Island, which aired in the UK earlier this year, as a one-night-only special event.

Presenting a fresh, new spin on the classic tale, Treasure Island, featuring an all-star cast led by Eddie Izzard (Oceans 12, and just yesterday announced to star in The Munsters), Elijah Wood (The Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit) and Donald Sutherland (Pride and Prejudice among many, many other roles_. Robert Louis Stevenson’s swashbuckling adventure story about fantastical treasure, youthful courage and murderous greed will premiere Saturday, May 5 from 7-11PM (ET/PT) on Syfy.
(continue reading…)

Yesterday marked the release of the [sfs=1121]Lord of the Rings Extended Edition on Blu-ray[/sfs], and to celebrate Warner Bros. held a “Midnight Madness” event. If you weren’t able to be there in person in Los Angeles Tuesday night, check out the recap video and images below!

The grand-prize winner of the costume contest, judged remotely by WETA’s Daniel Falconer and Richard Taylor and given a special VIP tour of “Middle-earth”, was an interesting interpretation of a Balrog.
(continue reading…)

In anticipation of the the release of the Blu-ray [sfs=1121]Lord Of The Rings Trilogy Extended Edition[/sfs] on June 28th, Warner Home Video is having a “Middle-earth Midnight Madness” event starting at noon on June 27th at Best Buy’s West Los Angeles location, 11301 W. Pico Boulevard, which will include a costume contest, cast members, and more…and the winner of the costume contest can win an awesome prize, a VIP “Tour of Middle-earth” – an all-expense-paid trip to New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington, Queenstown), courtesy of Air New Zealand and Weta Workshop. Read below for the full press release.

(continue reading…)