sf/f TV development news - 2013

[RJDiogenes]

[Enterprise is Great]

John Logan And Sam Mendes Pair Up In TV For Vampire Hunter Drama

With the latest James Bond movie Skyfall already smashing box office records, the film’s co-writer John Logan and director Sam Mendes are re-teaming on the TV side. In what would be both Logan and Mendes’ series debut, the two have partnered for a drama project. We’ve learned that the script, written by Logan with Mendes attached to direct, has been sent to premium cable networks.

It is described as an origin story set in the 1800s London in the vein of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which also was set in 19th century Europe, including London, and featured an assortment of fictional literary characters. The Logan/Mendes project features such characters as Van Helsing and Doctor Frankenstein as they hunt for vampires.

[Temis the Vorta]

Okay I'll watch that if it includes Abe Lincoln, who faked his assassination in order to continue his important work of vampire hunting, and Edgar Allan Poe, who of course is a vampire.

[Christopher]

The Logan/Mendes project features such characters as Van Helsing and Doctor Frankenstein as they hunt for vampires.

Okay, I'm pretty sick of vampire stories as a rule, but this might be interesting. At least, it could if it evokes the old Universal horror movies, or better yet the original novels, and has as little resemblance as possible to Stephen Sommers's Van Helsing.

[JD]

Enterprise is Great wrote:

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John Logan And Sam Mendes Pair Up In TV For Vampire Hunter Drama

Sounds pretty cool to me. But since I don't get HBO, Showtime, Starz, ect. I guess I'm out of luck with this one.

[Temis the Vorta]

Here's another one that you'll need Starz to see: they picked up Ron Moore's Outlander series.

PS, just get Netflix, they get pretty much everything eventually, even if you might have to settle for DVD...

[Kegg]

On the one hand I can't even pretend to be interested in Outlander's premise.

On the other hand, Ron Moore. That gets me to the pilot episode.

[JD]

It's pretty much the same case for me. Based on the premise alone I wouldn't be that interested, but at this point I'll at least try anything Moore does. I still wish we'd gotten the magic cops series, that sounded a lot more interesting than this. As much as we've gotten magic/monster shows, and cop shows I don't think many shows other than Grimm have tied the genre.

[stj]

Ron Moore's name isn't going to chase me away from checking out a story that has millions of readers. The trailers might do that, as the Twilight trailers did. But the Gabaldon series is pretty big, Game of Thrones before HBO big, I think.

[Enterprise is Great]

I'll need to see at the trailer at least for that Ron Moore show. He alone is not enough for me to watch the pilot.

[Temis the Vorta]

I know zip about that book series but the fan responses in the comments section are very worrysome, sounds like the Twi-hard crowd. brrrrr..

Anyway, this is only tangentally genre, but Benjamin Walker is starring in an HBO Cold War series.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter star Benjamin Walker has been cast as the lead of HBO’s Cold War spy drama pilot The Missionary, from film/TV writer Charles Randolph, producers Stephen Levinson and Mark Wahlberg and author Malcolm Gladwell. Set in Berlin in the late 1960s, The Missionary centers on Roy (Walker), a young American missionary who gets caught up in Cold War intrigue while helping a young woman escape East Berlin.

Sounds good, I'll check it out.

[Kegg]

^
In a role that was at one point Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul. Still, it's Cold War related, maybe it will be interesting.

[JD]

Temis the Friendly Ghost wrote:

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I know zip about that book series but the fan responses in the comments section are very worrysome, sounds like the Twi-hard crowd. brrrrr..

Yeah, I read about the books when they came up in a discussion somewhere, and they sounded a little more romacey than what I usually go far. But I'll probably still give at least the first couple episodes a try after it comes out on DVD (I only have basic cable).

[Temis the Vorta]

Rumors of that dratted live-action Star Wars TV series, again. They keep getting our hopes up!

You can expect to hear more news on the live action TV show in the near future, as the scripts already written will be absorbed in some way into a TV format. The nature of the show and the technical requirements needed to meet a TV budget and schedule are pretty ambitious. Basically they are 45 minute long feature films. With concepts that are very ambitious and the fact that it focuses on characters that are not known and are completely different to what people may have in mind about a STARWARS TV show. This was the problem at the time, and I am pretty sure this is still a problem. At least on the live action front. I am told that soon there will be some kind of material released relating to shot footage and tests on that concept. So look out for that.

[JD]

They've released a new, more detailed trailer for Defiance. It definitely gives us a much better idea of exactly what to expect than the last one. Looks pretty cool to me.