sf/f TV development news - 2013

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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I wonder if AMC would like to take a look at SyFy's Revolution pilot (the one about the space colony, not JJ Abrams' pilot).

It was pretty bad - certainly nowhere near the quality AMC looks for.

[Sindatur]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Sounds sort of like Cube.

Heh, I was thinking the very same thing.

[Temis the Vorta]

Out Of My Vulcan Mind wrote:

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It was pretty bad - certainly nowhere near the quality AMC looks for.

Too bad, it was a good concept and some good cast members. AMC could take the concept and re-do it (couldn't reassemble the same cast now anyway).

[Enterprise is Great]

Last Resort - David Rees Snell joins cast

Joey Dakota (the CW) http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/jami...s-female-lead/

Greek alumna Amber Stevens has landed the female lead in the CW drama pilot Joey Dakota. Based on the Israeli format Danny Hollywood, the romantic-time-travel-musical centers on Maya (Stevens), a documentary filmmaker who travels back in time to the 1990s where she meets and falls in love with the rock star subject of her film. When she unexpectedly returns to present day, she must find her way back to the past to reunite with her love and prevent his untimely death. Also cast in the pilot, written by Bert Royal, is Leah Renee as Kelsey, a beutiful young movie star and one of Maya’s best friends.

[Enterprise is Great]

http://www.deadline.com/2012/03/abcs...st-casts-lead/

ABC's Beauty and the Beast

In her first U.S. gig, young Irish actress Ruth Bradley (In Her Skin) has landed the female lead in ABC’s drama pilot Beauty And The Beast. That makes for an Irish-Scottish pairing in the title roles of the project, a fantasy re-imagining of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale wherein an embattled princess, Grace (Bradley), discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast, Shiro (Scottish singer-actor Darius Campbell), a mercenary bodyguard

ABC's untitled Roland Emmerich drama

Monique Gabriela Curnen (Lie To Me) rounds out the cast of another ABC drama pilot, the untitled Roland Emmerich drama,... project centers on Carter (Max Thieriot), an astrophysics grad student in NYC who learns that he is the chosen one to destroy the forces of evil. Curnen, will play tough, no-nonsense FBI Agent Tracy Meyers.

‘The River’s Paul Blackthorne Joins ‘Arrow’

Blackthorne will play Det. Quentin Lance, the father of Oliver’s love interest Laurel (Katie Cassidy), a gruff, determined city detective who believes true justice can only come from law and order. He’s charged with bringing the vigilante known as The Arrow to justice. Because of his casting being in second position to ABC’s The River, Blackthorne is formally billed as a guest star in the Arrow pilot.

And: tapped as a guest star (and probably recurring) in Arrow is Law & Order: Criminal Intent alum Jamey Sheridan, who will play Robert Queen, Oliver’s father.

[Enterprise is Great]

The CW finds it's Beast

In his U.S. debut, Australian actor Jay Ryan has landed the male lead opposite Kristin Kreuk in the CW drama pilot Beauty And The Beast. Loosely based on the 1980s CBS series

Actually he appeared in Terra Nova so not quite a US debut.

[Temis the Vorta]

Julia Stiles cast as Midnight Sun lead.

Andrea's sister from TWD is also on the show.

[Temis the Vorta]

More casting for Revolution and Midnight Sun.

[Temis the Vorta]

...and the lead has been cast for Gotham.

Too bad it's on ABC. She should team up with Nick Burkhardt of Grimm.

[Enterprise is Great]

Last Resort casting

Jessy Schram has been added to the cast on ABC’s drama pilot Last Resort, about the crew of a U.S. nuclear submarine who, after ignoring a questionable order to fire nuclear missiles, escape to a NATO outpost where they declare themselves to be the world’s smallest nuclear nation. Schram will play Sam’s (Scott Speedman) dutiful wife whose patience for his return is growing thin.

[Temis the Vorta]

The big news about Terra Nova's cancellation (likely followed by Alcatraz and Fringe, and maybe Touch depending on how it fares when it returns - I got a bad feeling that the ratings won't hold up for that one either) has implications for pilot season.

So far, FOX has greenlit very few pilots compared with what it's going to need next fall, and none in the sf/f category. What are they going to put in the Friday night deathslots, aka the new home for sf/f? My hunch is that a few more orders will come in now, with some sf/f in the mix.

FOX pilots so far.

We've got the standard genres in the list: spy, lawyer, doctor, spy, cop. Here's what it has in the sf/f category that have not been picked up:

Pandemic - drama about an epidemiologist who is facing difficult adversaries as he fights to stop a catastrophic pandemic.

Punisher – based on the comic book, this series will transform the comic book antihero Frank Castle into a rising-star detective in the New York Police Department who moonlights as a vigilante, seeking justice for those the courts have failed.

Stranger Planet – drama about a hard-boiled L.A. cop who stumbles upon the existence of aliens living among us and must team up with two aliens in order to solve intergalactic mysteries on Earth.

The Magicians - an adaptation of the fantasy novel series by Lev Grossman about a group of 20-somethings in New York who study magic and have access to a magical world.

The Spectre - drama based on the DC Comics hero, a former cop serving time in afterlife limbo who hunts down earthly criminals on behalf of the dead - and mortals soon to be dead if ultimate justice is not served.

Ewgh, I don't blame them for snubbing that group...only The Magicians sounds somewhat interesting, and I've heard that it's definitely dead... Maybe they can revive it?

[JD]

If the Spectre series was anything like the DC Showcase short then it could have had potential.

[Temis the Vorta]

Anthony Edwards cast as lead of Zero Hour.

I never watched ER, so I have no idea what kind of actor he is. But this topic seems to call for a quirky, colorful David Duchovney type...anyone think Edwards fits?

And now Amazon wants to produce shows.

Netflix, Hulu and YouTube have already announced plans to do that. So has Yahoo, but considering the sad shape they're in, they might be rethinking any ambitious plans.

Anyway, what are the odds that any of these people realize there's a huge opportunity to serve a very underserved market for space opera, and the nerds who like that genre are 100% reachable via the same internet that the companies already live on? How much more obvious and easy can you get, talk about low-hanging fruit!

[RJDiogenes]

That could be fantastic, as long as they stick to a micro-budget and are satisfied with making hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars instead of multi-billions.

[Temis the Vorta]

They'd have to go shoot in the desert and have the story happen mainly on just that planet or maybe a few nearby planets that all look pretty much like each other...

The bonus to being the first to stick out your neck with made-for-streaming TV is that you'd also be the first to figure out how to make the money work.

Right now they're stuck. Advertisers blanch at associating their products with online content (that's why YouTube is making "professional content" now) and consumers won't cought up bucks for subscriptions because they're used to getting everything free. TrekBBS could tell you all about the difficulty of "monetizing" online content.

The micro-budget approach is self-defeating for space opera or any scripted content (talk shows, gossip shows and comedy are a different thing). There are dozens (hundreds?) of fan films and low budget attempts out there doing that, but who's making money? They need to at least come up to the level of professional TV series in order to compete.

But if someone figures out the holy grail of either creating an abundant stream of inexpensive yet advertiser-friendly content or creating content that consumers will actually pay for - or both - will have the advantage.

Until their competitors copy them, of course. So to lock in your lead, it needs to be something uncopyable. And from what I can tell, all content on the internet is copyable, particularly by the well-heeled megacorporations who will quickly horn in on any promising new business opportunity. But you can't copy a community.

They should start with the audience - that's the product and their unique advantage. Create the community first, then build the content around the community. Your competitors can try to copy your content and steal your advertisers but as long as you keep your community happy, and out there recruiting new community members, you'll be safe, well as safe as anyone ever is.