By Carol Pinchefsky, Source: Blastr.com
Doctor Who is the longest-running sci-fi show of all time—and no wonder. With an ever-changing cast of characters, run by producers who are as big fans as we are, it’s been kept new and exciting every year.
We love Doctor for all sorts of reasons. So for today, its 48-year anniversary (excluding the few years it was off the air post-1989), we’re giving you 48 reasons why we love this show. Continue reading
Entertainment Weekly has a sneak peek into the much anticipated new Ridley Scott flick, Prometheus. Thanks to http://skiffyandfanty.wordpress.com for the scans.
And here they are.
Scott’s film, set for release next June, is the latest addition to the Alien universe/series, which began with Alien in 1979 and continued under James Cameron with the 1986 film Aliens. Prometheus stars Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Idris Elba, Noomi Rapace, and Guy Pearce (among others).
IMDB describes the film as follows:
A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.
Additional photos have been posted by io9, some of which you can see below:
by Sean O’Neal - Newswire
In this wild, lawless pilot-buying season, the networks have thrown a lasso around any show that has a vague Western premise, rounding up a half-dozen series like AMC’s Hell On Wheels, TNT’s Gateway, A&E’s Longmire, CBS’ Ralph Lamb, ABC’s Hangtown, and an untitled pitch from Friday Night Lights’ Peter Berg and Liz Heldens, then setting them loose to see which one stomps and kicks its way to the top of the Western revival that TV executives insist we’re having despite box-office evidence to the contrary. Into that dust cloud steps a shadowy figure with his own tall tale to spin: Will And Grace’s Sean Hayes—a rough-and-tumble man so mean, he once bit a rattlesnake for comparing Adler & Ross to Sondheim—who’s producing yet another NBC-based Western project with yet another Friday Night Lights writer, Kerry Ehrin.
According to Deadline, Hayes’ Hazy Mills production company is developing the 1880s-set dramedy about a “young, eccentric East Coast doctor” who moves to the Colorado Rockies, surviving the Wild West by using his snooty East Coast intellect instead of a six-shooter. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a slightly more comic spin on almost the exact same premise as the Ronald D. Moore-produced Hangtown, which suggests this new Western revival genre has already begun recycling ideas before any of them have actually been developed yet. Of course, it also sort of sounds like a Wild West version of Northern Exposure, with less quirky New Age philosophizing and more dying of dysentery.
By NELLIE ANDREEVA from Deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: The Western genre continues to be hot at the TV networks. In a competitive situation, ABC has bought drama pitch Hangtown, from Battlestar Galactica developer/executive producer Ron Moore and Caprica writer Matt Roberts. Sony Pictures TV, where Moore is under an overall deal, is producing. Described as a Western with a procedural overlay, Hangtown is set in the early 1900s in a frontier town that’s begun rapidly expanding with the coming of the railroad. It centers on three characters: the Marshal, a Matt Dillon/Clint Eastwood type who prefers to solve crimes by his instinct; a young doctor from the East Coast who is interested in using the new field of forensics to solve crimes; and a young woman writer who is trying to sell dime novels to the publishing houses in New York about crime in the Wild West. Every week the instincts of the Marshal, the science of the doctor, and the young woman’s drive to tell a rousing good yarn to her editors combine to solve crimes in a wide-open, lawless town. This is the second drama Western project ABC has bought this development season, along with David Zabel’s Gunslinger, from ABC Studios. Additionally, TNT recently gave a cast-contingent pilot order to Bruce C. McKenna and Danny Cannon’s Gateway, set in the 1880s. Also interested in Hangtown was NBC, which ordered Western Reconstruction to pilot last season. Starting the current TV renaissance of the genre was AMC, which has the 1860s series Hell on Wheels coming up. Last season, CAA-repped Moore had fantasy/cop drama pilot 17th Precinct in contention on NBC.
By NELLIE ANDREEVA, Source: Deadline.com
From zombies to aliens. The Walking Dead executive producer Gale Anne Hurd and her Valhalla Entertainment have optioned Annie Jacobsen’s book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base for a potential TV series. The hourlong project, which will be taken out to the networks shortly, will be written by feature scribe Karl Gajdusek. It will follow two men working on the base who are thrust into danger when they uncover secrets that the government will protect at any cost. Gajdusek, who was brought in by Valhalla executive Beatrice Springborn, will serve as showrunner and executive produce with Hurd. Jacobsen will be a consulting producer.
Jacobsen’s Area 51 sheds light on the highly classified military base, which has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories claiming that it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, nuclear facilities or even the lunar landing, supposedly staged and filmed there. Jacobsen interviewed 19 men who served the base and another 55 who had links to Area 51, including living and working there for extended periods. The book chronicles what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror. Area 51 was published in May and spent 8 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller List. Gajdusek, who started off in TV on Showtime’s Dead Like Me, recently wrote the Tom Cruise film Oblivion for Universal, with Joseph Kosinski directing, and The Last Days Of American Crime for Radical/IM Global. Gajdusek, repped by Verve and Management 360, is currently writing Last Resort, a pilot script for ABC executive produced by Shawn Ryan and Viking for Working Title.
