Sci-Fi Storm

Actor Richard Anderson, best known as the head of a secret government organization who oversaw The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, passed away yesterday at the age of 91 at his home in Beverly Hills.

Anderson rose to prominence when he was cast in the 1957 film Paths To Glory by Stanley Kubrick, a year after a smaller role but in the genre classic Forbidden Planet as Chief Engineer Quinn. A character actor who often presented as an authority figure, he played a number of military roles. But it was in 1973 in a series of TV movies and later a series on ABC about an astronaut rebuild with bionic parts after a crash where he became ingrained in our memories. That series then had a spinoff in The Bionic Woman, in which Anderson reprised his role on both series simultaneously. When The Bionic Woman shifted networks to NBC, he was the first actor to play the same role simultaneously on two different networks.

When both series ended in 1978, he was reappear in the role in a series of TV movies through 1994, after which he was largely retired.

Sadly, fans of Star Trek remain in mourning…TV and movie producer Harve Bennett, who produced four of the original Star Trek movies and many TV shows including The Six Million Dollar Man, Salvage 1, The Invisible Man and Time Trax, passed away yesterday at the age of 84.

Bennett was brought in help rescue the Star Trek franchise after the first movie downplayed the characters and action for special effects, going as far as binge-watching the entire original series and settling on a particular episode named “Space Seed” to come up with a new story that resulted in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which he produced along with the next three movies. Bennett also worked with Leonard Nimoy to develop the story for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Interesting fact: Bennett could be heard in the title narration on each episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, saying “Steve Austin, a man barely alive…” The rest of the dialog was recorded by actor Richard Anderson, who played Oscar, but when they wanted to add a line he wasn’t available, so Bennett said it himself.

The Lone Survivor team of Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg will team up again for the big screen (and inflated) remake of the 70s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.

Now called The Six Billion Dollar Man, it will star Wahlberg as astronaut Steve Austin, who becomes critically injured when a test flight of an experimental aircraft crashes. When he awakes, he discovers that both legs, one arm, and one eye have been replaced by “bionics”, artificial replacements with superhuman capabilities that allow him to run faster, have super strength, and see minute details. In exchange for receiving these replacements, he becomes an agent for the Office of Scientific Intelligence.

A movie adaptation has been batted around for years, including at one point comedic versions with Jim Carrey and Chris Rock rumored.

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.