Monthly Archives: August 2016
“Evil Has a Plan” in The Exorcist TV Series
FOX's remake/remodel of The Exorcist -- starring Geena Davis and Alfonso Herrera -- follows two very different priests tackling one family's case of demonic possession. It premieres Friday, September 23rd, and recently the cast and executive producers sat for a Q&A session at the Television Critics Association summer press tour to explain how the story of a family's battle with possession could be turned into a series.
"Even in the scripting phase, we were very conscious of the fact that you can't tell an ongoing series where every season, every year, it's just another American family undergoing a possession," said creator/executive producer Jeremy Slater (The Lazarus Effect). "You would burn out the audience really fast. I don't know how to write that show. I wouldn't want to watch that show. So it was important to start laying in bread crumbs right from the beginning, start introducing kind our Dharma Initiative, our bad guys who are out there."
Rampage Writer to Bring Character and Humanity to Film
Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condal finished their rewrite of New Line's adaptation Rampage and are waiting to find out whether their script will see the light of day.
It was announced in February that the duo behind USA's Colony would rewrite Ryan Engle's take on the video game franchise. Rampage reteams Cuse with San Andreas director Brad Peyton, producer Beau Flynn and star Dwayne Johnson.
"We did a draft and they seem super enthusiastic about it at New Line," Cuse told IGN while promoting his FX series The Strain at the 2016 summer TCA press tour. "Last I heard they were trying to work out schedule and budget. Dwayne's obviously a really busy guy."
The Strain Showrunner Has His Eyes on the End Game
The Strain is close to premiering its third season on FX, and showrunner Carlton Cuse already has his eyes on wrapping up the series.
Initially The Strain had been pitched as a three-season story to FX, but once Cuse, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan started developing the series they realized it had room for more story. Now that they've finished the third season, the creative team is figuring out how they want to end it.
"Story-based shows like this where there's a clear antagonist and protagonist, you want to bring it to a conclusion," said Cuse at The Strain's 2016 summer TCA press tour panel. "Now that we've finished three seasons, we still have a chunk of narrative left. We're just actually starting those conversations now. We're sitting down in the room and we're trying to figure what's the optimal number of episodes it will take to get us from where we are now to the ending. FX, as always, is incredibly supportive."
John Krasinski Will Play a Funnier Jack Ryan
Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland are moving full steam ahead on their new take on Jack Ryan while awaiting an official series pickup from Amazon.
"We're moving forward, and I hope we'll get an official greenlight soon," Carlton Cuse said after a panel at the 2016 summer TCA press tour for his FX drama The Strain. "We're working on the scripts. I'm just super excited about it. I think it's going to be a really, really cool show. I hope Amazon will be formally announcing that it gets picked up in the near future, but in the meantime we're moving forward on all fronts trying to get the scripts in place and come up with a production plan."
No Man’s Sky Servers Currently Down
The servers for No Man's Sky are currently down.
Hello Games founder and No Man's Sky creator Sean Murray humorously addressed the server status in a post on Twitter, saying, "There are way too many people playing right now. Maybe some of you can just log out? Decide amongst yourselves plz." In a separate post, Murray said:
via Sean Murray on Twitter
Sony Confirms September PlayStation Event
Sony has confirmed, in an invitation provided to IGN, that the company will hold a PlayStation-focused event in New York this September.
The invitation does not elaborate on what will be specifically discussed at the event, which will be held in New York at the PlayStation Theater on September 7 at 3 p.m. ET. The invitation reads:
"We hope to see you there, and we can’t wait to share details with you about the PlayStation business."
Game of Thrones End Will Lead to ‘Existential Crisis’ for Cast
While talking to Bran Stark actor Isaac Hempstead Wright at the announcement event for the Game of Thrones concert tour, he spoke about how he felt finally hearing that the show will reach its end with Season 8.
“It’s kind of like, you don't really want it to end,” Wright said. “We really are like a family. For many of us, it's been seven years of our lives that we've been doing this. Every year it's become like clockwork and a regular part of our existences, so to think that it's all going to end I think there will be many an existential crisis for most of us.”
While Season 8 will be the end of Game of Thrones, that won’t come until after next year’s Season 7, which is starting shooting later than usual in order to film in grimer, grayer weather befitting the arrival of winter. Wright said that he has yet to receive a script for the new season and did admit it was strange doing things differently this time around.
Donald Glover’s New Show Atlanta Is a Far Cry From Community
Don't expect Donald Glover's new FX comedy Atlanta to be similar in tone to his NBC fan favorite Community. The semi-autobiographical series follows two cousins in the Atlanta rap scene, and explores their experiences. While the first episode is fairly grounded, later episodes spin out into more abstract manners of storytelling, a decision that Glover explains was an attempt to get at the thesis of the show.
"The thesis with the show is to show people how it felt to be black, and you can't really write that down. You kind of have to feel it. The tonal aspect was really important to me," said Glover, who stars in, created and executive produces Atlanta. "There isn't a limit to how abstract you can get as long as you believe it. There has to be some sort of grounded nature to something so they don't start being like, 'I don't believe this and then they turn the channel.' If you have something that is grounded on some level, you can go anywhere."
The Defenders: The Many Challenges Facing the Showrunners
The biggest challenge for the showrunners of Marvel's The Defenders is going to be bringing together four separately established heroes into one cohesive story. Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez are currently writing scripts for the eight-episode first season of The Defenders, slated to premiere in 2017, and are having fun figuring out how Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist work together as a team.
"The idea that we get to mix these ingredients is kind of, as a comic book fan and also just as a fan of storytelling, one of the coolest elements of this job -- or of any job I've ever had," Ramirez told IGN at a Marvel press event. "Being able to think about what it means when some of these people are in rooms together for the first time, and how we want to play, and how we want to make it both what fans are expected but also not how they're expected it to happen -- because some of these characters have obviously met each other in the comics -- we just want to make sure that's it as iconic and awesome as it can be."
Chronicles of Narnia Will Continue at Sony
The next installment in The Chronicles of Narnia is moving forward with The Silver Chair, as Sony has secured the distribution rights to the film franchise based on C.S. Lewis' beloved series of novels.
TriStar Pictures is financing the film in partnership with The Mark Gordon Company, The C.S. Lewis Company and Entertainment One. Life of Pi screenwriter David Magee is penning the adaptation, which is being produced by Mark Gordon, Vincent Sieber, Melvin Adams and Lewis' stepson Douglas Gresham.
The Silver Chair is the fourth installment in The Chronicles of Narnia series