Film

An archive of blog entries about films and film production.

News

Sky beaten to the punch for The Prisoner?

11 August 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The PrisonerThere have been rumours for quite a long time (for which, read ‘decades’) of a movie version of classic 60s show The Prisoner. For some time, Mel Gibson was going to do a version. Guess what. He’s not any more.

Then there was all the excitement back in May about the possibility of Christopher Eccleston appearing in a TV remake for Sky. Nothing more’s been heard about that. With ITV, who were going to make the show for Sky, busy imploding, that’s no surprise.

Today, news comes from Variety that Christopher Nolan, director of Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, as well as the forthcoming The Prestige and The Dark Knight, is being lined up by Universal to direct a film version. Janet and David Peoples are set to write the script, a “contemporized transformation”. Scott Stuber, Mary Parent, Barry Mendel and Emma Thomas will produce. Nolan will direct after he completes The Dark Knight, which begins production early next year.

Not sure how this all works out rights-wise: did ITV/Sky skimp on the rights and only buy the TV rights? Did Universal still own the film rights but not the TV rights from the movie’s various years in development? And will Sky be more or less inclined to do a remake, if there’s a film version coming our way soon?

So many questions, so few answers. How appropriate.

If you want to know more about The Prisoner, here’s the title sequence (one of the candidates for ‘Best sci-fi title sequence ever’ from yesterday), which pretty much explains the plot.

UK TV

Sophia Myles: sci-fi groupie

10 August 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Sophia Myles in UnderworldSophia (pronounced to rhyme with “hairdryer” apparently) Myles seems to be a big fan of sci-fan. Obviously, she’s dating the Doctor, himself, after meeting him while filming an episode of Doctor Who. But she’s all set to appear in a new adaptation of Dracula for BBC1, that will also feature Marc Warren (State of Play, Hustle, and, you guessed it, Doctor Who).

Dracula won’t be her first vampire effort though, since she appeared, to slinky effect, as a vampire in Underworld. She was also Lady Penelope in the movie Thunderbirds. So I have a quick question.

What is it with posh blonde women and sci-fi?

There’s that Susannah Harker of Pride and Prejudice, confessing that her deep love of sci-fi made her take on vampire drama Ultraviolet as well as the role of Sapphire in the audio Sapphire and Steel stories. They’re all over the place, I tell you.

I know it’s by no means a conclusive trend, and I know posh blonde women who hate SF, but apparently there’s a lot of them who secretly loves it. Including my wife (who’ll claim she isn’t posh, but we all know she is really). What’s up with the world?

Philip K Dick biopic planned by Paul Giamatti

8 August 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The new darling of sci-fi circles, Paul Giamatti, has just launched his own production company. Its first project, according to Variety, is likely to be a biopic of author Philip K Dick. Apparently, “The nontraditional biopic will interweave the prolific author’s life with his fictionand incorporate elements of his last unfinished novel, ‘The Owl in Daylight.'”

To find out more about Dick and to view 24 minutes of A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Dick’s Through A Scanner Darkly, visit this old entry.

Film

More on Dr Uwe Boll’s boxing challenge

7 August 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Dr Uwe BollIt’s not going well for Dr Uwe Boll and his boxing challenge. Dr Boll, fed up with all those Internet critics slamming his not fantastic films, challenged everyone to put up (their dukes) or shut up. Anyone rising to his challenge would get to be flown out to Vancouver for a professional bout with the man himself.

Turns out, he’s only had one taker. Or that’s what he says, anyway, since we know of at least one other. So it’s all been downgraded to an amateur bout.

He’s not happy though:

“Where are my harshest critics from the IMDb and other websites hiding?” the film-maker said in a menacing statement released this week. “Are they chickening out? Many have said they will fight me but they never register to fight.

“Where are all the other outspoken critics, critics who claim that they have registered for the boxing match, but in fact have not. Where is Headhunter004? Where are the rest of you?”

I just love ‘Where is Headhunter004?’ I think that should be the name of his next movie.