SFFWorld News – 10/5/08

 
SFFWorld News – 10/5/08

1) The BBC in the U.K. is investing heavily in SF for its radio network. Radio 4 will have 5 SF shows, Radio 3 will air three SF radio plays and digital-only channel BBC 7 will air the original 10-part series Planet B, as well as older SF shows from its archives. New radio adaptations are planned for such SF novels as Iain M. Banks’ The State of the Art and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama.

2) Renowned SF writer Harlan Ellison is suing CBS-Paramount in L.A. courts over his writing for the original Star Trek series, regarding a trilogy of tie-in Star Trek novels that Paramount and publisher Simon & Schuster put out that use storylines from the series’ episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” which Ellison wrote. In the infamous episode, one of the series’ most popular, several of the starship Enterprise’s crew go through a time-travel gate into Earth’s past, altering history and then having to put it right again. David R. George III wrote the tie-in novels and Simon & Schuster released them as part of a 40th anniversary marketing campaign for Star Trek. The lawsuit is part of Ellison’s long battle for royalty rights to the episode, which occurred over a copyright and contract dispute between Ellison, original producer DesiLu Studios and Paramount. Ellison has received several settlements from Paramount over the episode, including part of a Writers’ Guild of America settlement with Paramount over novelizations of Star Trek episodes.

3) And in other Star Trek-related news, Trek actor William Shatner will provide the voice for Santa Claus in the animated dark comedy Gotta Catch Santa, written and produced by Steven de Souza. The story is about a bunch of brainy kids who figure out the quantum mechanics of Santa’s Christmas Eve journey and attempt to delay him in order to get proof of his existence. But stopping Santa on his appointed rounds puts the whole world in danger, and Santa and the kids team up to fix things. The film will air this Christmas, though on which network is not clear.

4) AMC, which not only preserves and airs classic films for future generations but is becoming a powerhouse cable network for original programming, is developing a new series Red Mars, based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s best-selling SF novel about the development of the first human colonies on Mars. The series is produced by Jonathan Hensleigh, along with Created By and Jaffe Braunstein Entertainment. AMC is also doing a miniseries remake of the 1960s t.v. series The Prisoner, starring Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen.

5) George Romero can’t stop loving those zombies. Fresh off his recent zombie film, Diary of the Dead, Romero is shooting another undead film he wrote, as yet untitled. The new plot involves the inhabitants of an isolated island off the North American coast, who find their relatives rising from the dead and wanting to eat them. The leaders of the island community feud over whether to kill these reanimated loved ones or try to preserve them in hopes of finding a cure. The cast includes Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh, Kathleen Munroe, Devon Bostick, Richard Fitzpatrick, Stefano Colacitti and Athena Karkanis.

6) DreamWorks Animation will make a 3-D sequel to its animated hit Kung Fu Panda, for release in June 2011. Jack Black and Angelina Jolie have so far signed on to reprise their voice roles in the movie. Head of story producer Jennifer Yuh Nelson will helm the sequel, which will also be released in IMAX theaters across the U.S. Kung Fu Panda concerned Po, a panda who appeared to be the hero of an ancient prophecy, meant to save his animal brethren by mastering the art of kung fu. It will come out on DVD in November.

7) Freshman sci-fi series Fringe is one of the first new shows to get a full season order from its U.S. network, Fox, for a total of 22 episodes. The show, produced by Warner Brothers, which debuted this fall, has done well in the key 18-49 ratings demographic. Fringe, produced by J.J. Abrams, is about an FBI agent who has to team up with an eccentric scientist and his son to discover the truth about strange events that may indicate a global conspiracy. It stars Anna Torv, John Noble and Joshua Jackson.  

8) Camp Hope, a horror film, stars Bruce Davison as a leader of a religious cult who conjures the Devil into existence at a camp retreat. (Davison can also be seen in NBC’s television remake series Knight Rider.) The film was written and directed by George Van Buskirk and also stars Dana Delaney, Andrew McCarthy, Jesse Eisenberg and Spencer Treat Clark. It will come out in early 2009.

9) The CW network in the U.S. is developing its D.C. Comics franchise with The Graysons, about the family of Dick Grayson before he became the orphaned Robin of Batman and Robin fame. In the original comics mythology, Dick and his family were circus acrobats, until his parents were murdered by sabotage and Bruce Wayne took him in as his ward and superhero partner. The Graysons, which will be produced by the same people who are in charge of the CW Superman show Smallville, is seen as a possible replacement for Smallville, which may end its long run in the next season or so.