Sci-Fi Storm

New York Comic Con is dropping lots of trailers, teasers and sneak peeks – here are a bunch for your perusal!

Justice League

Replicas

Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Marvel’s The Runaways

A couple of catch-up tidbits tonight…

Star Trek: Discovery, finally in production, added three cast members this week. Terry Serpico (Army Wives, The Purge: Election Year) will play Admiral Anderson, a high-ranking official of Starfleet; Maulik Pancholy (30 Rock, Weeds) will be Dr. Nambue, the Chief Medical Officer of the U.S.S. Shenzhou (another ship to be featured in the show); and Sam Vartholomeos as Ensign Connor, a junior officer from Starfleet Academy on board the U.S.S. Shenzhou.

Amazon has reportedly picked up anthology series Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, which has also tweaked it’s title. The show was first announced last May is executive produced by Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica), Michael Dinner (Justified, The Wonder Years), and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad). The former two are also writing, while the latter will appear in an episode. Based on the many short stories by science fiction author Dick, it joins another Dick adaptation at Amazon, The Man In The High Castle.

Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston will join as executive producer and appear in an episode of Electric Dreams: The World of Philip K. Dick, a 10 episode anthology series based on the works of Science Fiction Hall of Fame writer Dick, commissioned by Channel 4 (UK) and Sony Pictures Television.

Dick’s vast body of work has already led to many productions that enjoy a cult following, including Blade Runner (based on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”), Total Recall (based on “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”), A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau and The Man in the High Castle.

“This is an electric dream come true,” said Cranston. “We are so thrilled to be able to explore and expand upon the evergreen themes found in the incredible work of this literary master.”

Writing and also executive producing are Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander) and Michael Dinner (Justified, The Wonder Years), with a whole host of executive producers. The plan is for each stanadlone episode to be written by a team comprised of U.S. and British writers.

Sony Pictures Television will distribute the show outside the UK. No word on a U.S. outlet at this time.

Not a ton of details, but Deadline reports that another Philip K. Dick story, Martian Time-Slip is being developed by Electric Shepherd Productions and Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of the author, with Dee Rees (Pariah) writing and planning to direct.

Electric Shepherd Productions is the shingle run by Dick’s children and produced The Adjustment Bureau and has several other films in development including King of the Elves for Disney.

Martian Time-Slip is about an autistic boy named Manfred who appears to be able to see the future. During a land boom on Mars, many try to take advantage of Manfred to see the future and know the value of the land they are buying – but are they seeing the real future, or Manfred’s dark vision of it?

Another movie released last Tuesday as part of Warner Bros. big Blu-ray release was [asin=B003M8NGQM]A Scanner Darkly[/asin], based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Philip K. Dick. A relatively low-budget film, it is animated in an unusual computerized rotoscope method done over live action filming, so the characters resemble their real-life actors.
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