sf/f TV development news - 2013

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Alona Tal is great. I remember reading about Cult when it was in development at the WB before it merged with UPN to become the CW. It sounded like an intriguing show and I'm glad it's finally getting a shot.

[Temis the Vorta]

Cult sounds pretty hard-edged for the CW. I wonder if it will have a supernatural angle?

[Temis the Vorta]

Kevin Bacon vs The Serial Killer just got even better - now it's Kevin Bacon vs Marc Antony.

Fox’s Kevin Williamson pilot has assembled a formidable leading duo, with Rome alum James Purefoy signing on for the second starring role opposite Kevin Bacon. The untitled project, from Warner Bros TV and Williamson’s studio-based Outerbanks Entertainment, is described as an edge-of-the-seat thriller about Joe Carroll (Purefoy) a diabolical serial killer who uses technology to create a cult of serial killers, and a retired FBI profiler (Bacon) who finds himself in the middle of it.

[Enterprise is Great]

David Ramsey cast in CW's 'Arrow' pilot

Thesp, who is currently recurring in CBS' "Blue Bloods" as the mayor of New York, will play the character John Diggle, a former military man now working as a bodyguard for hire who soon finds he is trapped in a battle of wits, loyalty and trust.

[Enterprise is Great]

Jon Favreau To Direct J.J. Abrams/Eric Kripke NBC Pilot ‘Revolution’

[Temis the Vorta]

This has repercussions well beyond this season - a comics label has been launched for the purpose of making TV- and movies- friendly comics.

Of course, the concepts are skewing heavily genre. This one made me smile:

* The Numbered: Betrayed and unjustly sentenced to death a notorious crew of seven galactic mercenaries escape to the last free planet of the universe. Tracked by the ruthless Galactic Overlord Earth is given an ultimatum surrender The Numbered or be destroyed.

And how awesome is this? Deathmatch of the Goa'uld!

* War Of The Gods: At the dawn of humanity, a multitude of gods from Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Nordic, Hindu, Chinese, and Aztec lore do battle against each other for control of the world.

I'm pretty sure this one's already been a comic book, called Warlock:

* Foretold: A young man is brought to the future to fight the most powerful being who has taken over the world 30 years later – himself.

[Christopher]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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This has repercussions well beyond this season - a comics label has been launched for the purpose of making TV- and movies- friendly comics.

I'd say that's a sad commentary on the current state of comics as a medium in their own right, but I've heard of similar such ventures in years past. I seem to recall one that was affiliated with the then-SciFi Channel and geared toward generating content for them, though I could be misremembering.

[Temis the Vorta]

Those concepts sound like they could just be a list of sf/f (and spy/action) TV pilot concepts for any year. Why bother to make them comics first? Maybe they're trying to build a following for the show/movie if and when it ever happens.

Not strictly genre, but here's some casting for Frontier (a Western).

Not sure what to make of the gay couple (that is, fake heterosexual couple who are both gay). Did people do that in the 19th C? I guess it's not something anyone would have discussed so no historical record would have been left.

[Enterprise is Great]

http://www.deadline.com/2012/02/max-...ast-in-pilots/


ABC’s untitled Roland Emmerich drama pilot

Hot young actor Max Thieriot has landed the lead in ABC’s untitled Roland Emmerich drama pilot, from ABC Studios and the Mark Gordon Co. Written by Emmerich and Harold Kloser and to be directed by Emmerich, the project centers on Carter (Thieriot), an astrophysics grad student in NYC who learns that he is the chosen one to destroy the forces of evil. Also cast in the pilot is Gabriella Wilde as Carter’s girlfriend

Last Resort

No Ordinary Family alumna Autumn Reeser is back at ABC

Reeser, repped by Gersh and KLWGN, will play Kylie, a charming lobbyist for her family’s weapons manufacturing company.

[RJDiogenes]

Christopher wrote:

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I'd say that's a sad commentary on the current state of comics as a medium in their own right, but I've heard of similar such ventures in years past. I seem to recall one that was affiliated with the then-SciFi Channel and geared toward generating content for them, though I could be misremembering.

Was it Joe Quesada, or one of the contemporary Marvel dudes, who said that they just consider comics a testing ground for movie and TV concepts?

[Christopher]

Well, to be fair, TV and movies are where most of the audience and money are found these days, so it's an understandable attitude. Still, I think that the content of a story should be driven by its own internal needs, that it's artificial if it's driven entirely by external concerns like whether it can be adapted to another medium effectively.

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians, has a post on his site about Fox deciding not to greenlight the pilot for the adaptation:

So January is the beginning of what — in the accursed, eternally burning nation of TV-land — is known as pilot season. That’s when the networks pick some of the series they have in development and greenlight them, meaning they’re actually going to cast and film a pilot episode.

It’s an exciting time. Except if your series doesn’t get greenlit.

The Magicians show was not greenlit.

This is a hard post to write. I’m really, really disappointed. I also feel bad that I got everybody excited about the project, only to have it immediately fail. I promise you — and I can’t stress this enough — I wouldn’t have done that unless I had some very good reasons to think that the show would in fact be greenlit. In fact I’m pretty stunned that it wasn’t.

I guess those reasons weren’t ironclad. Or maybe they were ironclad but not, I don’t know, adamantium-clad.

At any rate, clearly there was an issue with the cladding.

I don’t have a lot of good information as to why it didn’t happen. I don’t deal with network directly, and even beyond that the networks are pretty black-box about stuff like this: they don’t give out a lot of detail about their decision-making process. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it has something to do with Terra Nova not doing as well as Fox hoped, so they weren’t anxious to go for another high-profile, high-concept, expensive genre show.

But that’s just speculation. I can’t imagine The Magicians would have been as expensive as Terra Nova. For one thing there aren’t half as many acceraptors in it.

Anyway.

From here the way forward for the show gets rockier, obviously. We’re going to take the script to cable networks. We’re also going to renew talks on the feature-film side. I can’t say I’m bitter about it. I wouldn’t have played my cards differently — we got exactly the right people and exactly the right script. It would have been incredible. It still will be, if we can get it to go somewhere else.

But no question, it’s a big disappointment. We had a really good shot this time, and it didn’t work out.

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Deadline Hollywood reports that Syfy is developing a series version of the feature film Legion:

Syfy is developing a series version of the 2010 supernatural thriller Legion, which starred Paul Bettany. The feature’s director/co-writer Scott Stewart is set to direct and executive produce the TV adaptation, which will be written by Vaun Wilmott (Sons Of Anarchy). Sony Pictures TV, the TV sibling of Sony’s Screen Gems division that distributed the film, is producing the series project. The movie, produced by Bold Films, chronicled human race’s battle for survival against God’s legion of angels sent by him to bring on the Apocalypse. The people get an unlikely ally in Archangel Michael (Bettany) who disobeys God’s order and decides to help them. Bold Films’ David Lancaster and Michael Litvak, who were producers on the movie, will serve as executive producers on the potential series alongside WME-repped Stewart. ICM-repped Wilmott co-executive produces. Budgeted at $26 million, the movie grossed $68 million worldwide.

[Temis the Vorta]

I've never seen Max Thieriot in anything but he sure looks the part for that role.

Too bad about The Magicians, that sounded like one of the better pilot concepts this year. For FOX to balk at a genre show is silly; Alcatraz and Touch both have gotten reasonable ratings (tho the former is slipping) and NBC, ABC and the CW are all loading up on genre pilots. In fact, ABC's Gotham uses the same backdrop as The Magicians - a secret world of magic.

Speaking of FOX, what the frak are they greenlighting? I haven't run across much on them, while the other broadcast networks seem to be done with their pilot announcements.

Mockingbird Lane, aka The Munsters, is having difficulty with casting. What, can't they get Brad Garrett and Danny DeVito's agents on the phone?

Bryan Fuller, dump that dog and do a Star Trek series with Bryan Singer instead like you guys want to.

[Caliburn24]

Ugh, SyFy channel keeps finding new ways to impress me with their ineptness. Legion was a horrible movie, but more importantly the story makes no sense and padding some version of that story to fill out a series is just going to make those plot holes turn into canyons.