- Entertainment Weekly has a picture of James Marsters on Caprica. He looks like James Marsters on anything else. Do they make him bring his own wardrobe to guest spots these days? Because he doesn’t exactly vanish into roles. And nothing I saw in the pilot of Caprica looked as dirty and destroyed as this picture.
- Latest rumors say that the new Spider-Man reboot, which has a rom-com director at the helm, will get the Disney treatment, if you believe the rumors. David Henrie, who plays the eldest wizard brother on The Wizards of Waverly Place is rumored to be up for the role. It fits – he’s a goody-goody nerdy type on the show who got great pecs between seasons. Maybe he was bitten by a radioactive Mickey Mouse? He’s already fond of red and blue outfits.
- There’s a lot a gripe in the comic book world about a Marvel program that lets store owners trade in 50 DC comics (destroyed) for one special edition comic from the rival publisher. Marvel says it’s being economically kind, giving any credit for the unsold titles. I say they’re being unkind because the special edition they’re giving out is a blinged-out Deadpool straight from 1984.
- Stephen Fry was supposed to write a Doctor Who episode a few years back, but ran out of time in his life. Then it was too late, and Russell T. Davies had moved on. But while he was picking up his National Television Awards last week, he mentioned he’d love to try again. I can totally see Fry writing for David Tennant’s Doctor, but I’m not sure he could have done it for Chris Eccleston’s Doctor. Since I’m far from sold on Matt Smith, I’m ambivalent.
- AMC can’t decide what it wants to be as a network. It used to be true to the name, American Movie Classics. Then they decided “classics” could include Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which worked for me, but might have been stretching the truth, MTV-style. Now they’ve picked up a pilot called Walking Dead, about the zombie apocalypse. Yes, you heard it here: zombies have made it to television, so they’re done. Please rewrite all movie screenplays for angels.
- In random shopping news, Whedonites can pick up a Firefly replica keychain for only $9.95. It’s amazingly detailed, but having seen the damage River Tam can spontaneously dish out, I’m not sure I want that in my pocket, near things I care dearly about. Like my iPhone.
- Fantasy writer N.K. Jemisin has written a blog about some of the disturbing themes that appear in fantasy novels and movies, from inherited power (of the royal kind) to inherited power (of the magical kind). She thinks that it smacks of feudalism and eugenics, which is one way to look at it. Another is that every story about knights guarding the gate of a castle sells one copy, but if a dragon attacks the king and gets blasted by magical fireballs, well, then it’s not classified as a sleep aid.
- Because original ideas are so last century, the current buzz is that Fox’s Planet of the Apes reboot is now back on. It sounds very prequel, showing how the apes took over. Jamie Moss of Street Kings fame, is writing, while Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver are punching up the dialog.
- Sci-Fi Wire has this previously-told-but-still-amazing story about how Martin Luther King, Jr. kept Uhura from leaving Star Trek after the first season. He felt the role was the first post-racial character on television, and convinced Nichelle Nichols of how vital it was to the civil rights struggle.
- I’m vaguely creeped out by Lockheed-Martin’s HULC exoskeleton for soldiers, seeing it as the first step toward the cyber-apocalypse. But I had previously been consoled by the fact that the battery on the thing was measured in minutes. Now thanks to a fuel cell upgrade, the thing can go for three days, increasing strength and endurance, until it gains sentience and enslaves the wearer. Did we learn nothing from Doctor Octopus?
- Casting for Conan the Barbarian has been completed – Jason Momoa, of Stargate Atlantis and Baywatch, will be picking up the sword Arnold once carried.
- By the time you read this, Avatar will have passed Titanic as the top grossing movie of all time. Closing out the weekend, it was $1.841 billion worldwide, $2 million short of Titanic’s 1998 record.
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I’ve got a bad feeling about the Conan movie. I think the reason the original worked so well was that, one, the special effects didn’t overwhelm the story & characters. Good luck not having a movie with overwhelming special effects nowadays. Two, the main trio of actors was played by relative unknowns & by people who weren’t actors. Sandahl Bergman, dancer; Gerry Lopez, surfer; Arnold, bodybuilder. That gave it a rough, barbaric feel. I’ve only seen Momoa briefly in Atlantis, but I do know he can speak in coherent sentences. There’s just no way to recreate the inarticulateness that Arnold brought to the original.
I know they probably don’t have any intention of recapitulating the original but that’s what makes me leery about the remake. The memory of the original will overwhelm the remake for me. But they’re also probably not making the remake just to please me. :)
Matt Smith seemed fine to me in his short scene at the end of “The End of Time” and in the season 5 “trailer”. That typed, after the mess that was “The End of Time” a sock puppet traveling the universe in a blue tissue box would have impressed me.
Stephen Fry for Doctor Who = Pure awesome. I hope it can happen. And soon!
Walking Dead could be GREAT! I secretly hope it will be in black and white, but I doubt that will happen.
Caesar could also be GREAT! Probably less likely than other films, but I’d definitely be interested in seeing a genetically engineered ape enslave humanity.
P.S. I was secretly hoping that Helo from BSG would be cast as Conan. He looks just like the comic book depiction to me. Plus, he’s built like a brick shite house and his acting skills extend beyond flexing his muscles (although he also does that very well).
Well, Jared Padalecki from Supernatural and Kellan Lutz were the ones reported to be competing for the job. I have a hard time seeing Jared do “barbarian” and Kellan I haven’t forgiven for Twilight, though he did say he wanted the excuse to put back on 30 lbs of muscle he had to lose for Twilight, so he might have been able to look that part.