‘Scanners’ TV Series A Possibility?

The once-proposed theatrical remake of David Cronenberg‘s Scanners is evidently turning into a TV show. The 1981 film most famous for its exploding head opening (and less famous for Stephen Lack’s toneless but oddly appropriate performance) has already spawned a couple of shoddy sequels. So this isn’t quite the unwelcome spin-off that, for instance, a sequel to Videodrome might be.

In fact, Scanners is the sort of story that could very easily support an extended TV narrative. It posits a society in which one company has developed a drug which, given to pregnant women, will bring out the psychic power inherent in their children. The powerful adult ‘scanners’ are broken into factions working with and against the company, which is enough of a beginning for a show. Get more details about the plan after the break. 

Deadline has the news, saying that Dimension Films is developing the series now, with Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes) as exec producer and a possible pilot director. We don’t have much more info than that at this point. Since Mr. Aja is better with gore than character, I’m not sure what his involvement might mean for the series, but he isn’t the name that I’d think of first; leave it at that.

If this goes forward, it would be the second TV series spun off from one of David Cronenberg’s films. The Dead Zone, which aired from ’02 to ’07, spun off from his 1983 film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel.

And while we’re on the topic of Scanners, Netflix users might take a moment to check out Brian De Palma’s The Fury, which is now streaming. It is a definite precursor to Scanners, and actually features an explosive scene that is far more extreme than Cronenberg’s, if less powerful in the context of the story.

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Zombies Invade World Capitals For ‘Walking Dead’ Premiere

Zombies will appear in 26 cities around the world on Tuesday in a global publicity stunt organized by AMC and Fox International Channels promoting the premiere of The Walking Dead TV series on October 31st . The zombie invasions will occur during peak morning commute hours in each city beginning in Taipei and Hong Kong and moving around the world, culminating at the show’s Los Angeles premiere.

U.S. cities involved in the stunt include New York, Washington, DC, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Zombies will appear at major landmarks in the targeted cities, including the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Big Ben in London, the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, the Acropolis in Athens, and so on.

The global publicity campaign makes sense because The Walking Dead is premiering worldwide the same week in 120 countries, 33 languages, and an expected 250 million households.

The first season is only six episodes; a second season has already been greenlit.

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Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’ Coming Soon To TV

Universal announced today that it has acquired the rights to produce three films and an NBC series based on the seven novels, short stories and comic books from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. Ron Howard will direct the first film and the first season of the TV show, which will be written by Akiva Goldsman (The Da Vinci Code).

“I’ve been waiting for the right team to bring the characters and stories in these books to film and TV viewers around the world,” said King, in a statement. “Ron, Akiva, Brian along with Universal and NBC have a deep interest and passion for the The Dark Tower series and I know that will translate into an intriguing series of films and TV shows that respect the origins and the characters in The Dark Tower that fans have come to love.”

More than 30 million copies of The Dark Tower have been sold in 40 countries. After the series of seven books was completed, a prequel of comic books based on one of the characters was also published.

“The worlds of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series are richly detailed, inter-locking and deeply connected,” said Goldsman in a statement.  “By telling this story across media platforms and over multiple hours—and with a view to telling it completely—we have our best chance of translating Roland’s quest to reach The Dark Tower onto screen.  We are proceeding with tremendous excitement, fidelity to the source material and, quite frankly, no small amount of awe at this opportunity.”

King is also a columnist for Entertainment Weekly.

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Marvel Comics Launches Television Division

Everything eventually loses steam, and I can’t help but wonder when Marvel will start to see greatly diminishing returns. There have been nearly a dozen feature films in the past ten years, Disney invested $4 billion to ensure we’d get more, and now comes news that the comic book titan will invade your TV.

The Hollywood Reporter says Marvel Television is the company’s latest venture, one no doubt sparked by the recent Disney agreement, so in tune with vertically integrating everything is the House of Mouse. In fact, a few weeks ago, it was announced that Marvel characters would have a permanent home in the Disney theme parks, which shouldn’t come as any great shock.

My initial thought was all the old Marvel cartoons and even the made-for-DVD animation we’ve seen recently, but apparently, live-action series are being discussed. And here’s where Marvel might find it has too much of a good thing.

Jeph Loeb, who used to executive produce Heroes, is running Marvel Television, and that kind of makes sense. He know TV, and even though he’s never written for Marvel and the company likes to elevate writers it’s familiar with, Heroes certainly paid an homage to superheroes, particularly X-Men. However, some early fans of Heroes don’t have many kind words to say about Loeb, so this announcement may not please them very much.

The interesting decision Disney has to make here is what characters go where. Obviously, Fox, Sony, and Paramount are bleeding dry the Spider-Man, X-Men, and Avengers universes. Do we develop shows based on characters that are really under the radar or does Disney kind of pull back on Marvel’s full-scale theatrical assault and save some of the good characters for the small screen?

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Hulu Coming To PlayStation Network ‘Soon’ – Maybe

Once again, Hulu is drawing some attention from a possible partnership with a video game console. According to a report by Bloomberg, Sony may be close to securing a deal to bring a Hulu subscription to the PlayStation Network. In fact, “the partnership could be announced as soon as next week.”

Weeks ago, Reuters ran a similar report, claiming Xbox 360 and iPad would also offer a premium Hulu service. However, these claims have not yet been fruitful. Considering the clamor for Hulu on multiple devices, these reports can be the result of wishful thinking — or Hulu is planning an aggressive multi-platform approach, not unlike Netflix.

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Image From ‘The Walking Dead’ TV Series

AMC, which is producing the TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, has released the first production still featuring the show’s zombies. Earlier this month AMC did issue a number of photos of make-up tests featuring the outstanding work of make-up master Greg Nicotero, but this is the first chance to see one of “the Walkers” in action (though she appears to be crawling in this scene).

Although movie adaptations are perceived as being sexier, it’s hard to argue that a property like The Walking Dead, which is firmly established in the comic market and breaking out in the bookstores, isn’t better served by a TV series, especially if it’s being overseen by Frank Darabont and produced by AMC (Mad Men). For one thing TV series, like comics are basically extended serial narratives. For another, a successful TV series can run for years exposing the property to millions of viewers, something that could really help an extensive series like The Walking Dead (the 12th volume is due out in July).

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Video – Frank Darabont Talks About THE WALKING DEAD TV Series

AMC’s Walking Dead series has officially begun production and information is slowly leaking onto the net. Right out of the gate we’ve got a video interview with producer Gale Anne Hurd and the writer/director bringing it to the screen, Frank Darabont. We’ve also got a few images of “the walkers” featuring some great zombie make-up (via: AITH).

Synopsis:
Police officer Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in a world overrun by zombies.

Check out the images and watch the video interview after the break. Head to Quiet Earth to see the stills.

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AMC Orders Six Episodes Of ‘The Walking Dead’ Comic Book

AMC have today officially announced their order of a six-episode first season of The Walking Dead, adapted from Robert Kirkman’s comic book series. Frank Darabont is writing and directing, at the very least for the pilot episode, and that’s recommendation enough for me.

The series is set to premiere during AMC’s annual marathon of horror and thriller programming, which they’re now calling Fearfest. Seems like a solid launching pad… in fact, I imagine the unveiling of such a hotly anticipated series as this in the season will actually give the marathon a boost.

The press release also announced that Jon Bernthal has been cast as Officer Shane, a key player and best-friend of the protagonist, Office Rick Grimes. Not yet official, but already reported, is that Jonny Lee Miller is the current front runner for the role of Rick.

 

This casting is according to Bloody Disgusting. They describe the character as “a police officer who leads a group of zombie survivors in search of a safe place to live during the apocalypse”, which will do for now, and posted this excellent comparison between the Grimes of the comic and the real Miller. Read more

Netflix Streaming Through Your Wii – Coming Soon – Really

Here is a piece of news from the Netflix Blog…

Jessie Becker here from Marketing and we’ve got some great news to share. We are in the final phase of getting ready for the launch of streaming to Wii. Today, we shipped out instant streaming discs for the Wii to some of our Netflix members. Their feedback will ensure that we deliver a great experience to everyone when we launch. Instantly watching movies and TV episodes from Netflix via Wii will be available soon at no additional cost – all you need is a Netflix unlimited plan starting at $8.99 a month, a Wii console and a broadband Internet connection.

If you have reserved your disc already, you don’t need to do anything – we will send you an email as soon as we ship the disc. If you haven’t, reserve your disc today at www.netflix.com/Wii and stay tuned for a launch announcement!

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Bryan Singer To Reboot Battlestar Galactica?

Update by Editor Peter Sciretta: Entertainment Weekly has confirmed this report with Universal Pictures — Bryan Singer is signed on to direct a feature film version of Battlestar Galactica, which isn’t expected to be a continuation of the most recent Ron Moore Sci-Fi channel television show, but instead a complete re-imagining of the original 1970’s series. Original report follows below.

According to HitFix, Universal appear to be on the verge of engaging Bryan Singer to produce and also maybe direct a new Battlestar Galactica feature film. Quite a surprise, huh?

You may recall that before the Ron Moore TV series of recent years, Singer was working on a pilot for a reboot of the show himself (some Cylon concept art from their efforts is at the head of this post). That one was halted by in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001 after the Sci-Fi network became sensitive to similarities between the planned plot and real-life tragedy. Would Singer be looking to return to a similar storyline here? I think we can be pretty certain his film won’t be in any way tied into the recent series.

McWeeny is rather skeptical that Singer would sign up to direct a film based upon a premise still so fresh in the public consciousness, but I’m not so doubtful, personally. Would Universal really be the driving force here? I’d expect a conservative cautious studio to take some convincing that there was money here. Or maybe they just want some of that Star Trek dollar?

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