Bryans Singer and Fuller To Bring Back Star Trek To TV?
I’ve mentioned in this column before a few times in recent weeks how writer/producers Bryan Fuller and Bryan Singer are working on a Munsters reboot for NBC, now re-titled Mockingbird Lane. But these two might have more than just the Munsters in mind for television, and in fact are hoping to possibly collaborate on a new television incarnation of Star Trek in the near future.
Both Singer and Fuller are huge Trekkers; Singer even has a cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis as a random helmsman, and before producing cult series Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me, Fuller got his start as a young staff writer on Voyager and Deep Space Nine. In late 2005, after Star Trek:Enterprise was cancelled, ending an eighteen year run of non stop Trek on television, Singer had his longtime friend and fellow writer/director Robert Meyer Burnett come up with a detailed pitch for Paramount for a new Trek show called Star Trek: Federation. Federation was set in the year 3000 to a vastly changed and declining United Federation of Planets. Singer and Burnett’s proposal took into account how television storytelling had changed since the glory days of The Next Generation, something that Enterprise ultimately failed at. When Paramount decided to let the franchise rest on television for a while and reboot the series on the big screen instead with JJ Abrams’ film, Singer dropped pursuing his pitch. However, it’s been seven years since all that…could Singer and new colleague Fuller be reviving this idea?
My personal opinion is that while Singer and Burnett’s pitch for Federation is exactly what the franchise needs for television…now is probably not the time to do it. The movie franchise was only recently re-launched, and the first sequel does not arrive till next year. I say Let JJ Abrams and crew wrap their new Trek trilogy, and then maybe in say, 2016 (the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek) they could bring back the series to television and people would welcome it back with open arms after such a long absence. The world of television is in major flux right now anyway, with the cost of shows growing and the viewership shrinking, and Netflix and the like becoming a new venue for showcasing new television series. Waiting a bit longer allows for the dust to settle in the television world AND whets the appetite for more television Star Trek among the general public.
Jessica Lange Returns To American Horror Story
Something else I mentioned in this column a few weeks back was the news that FX’s new hit series American Horror Story would effectively reboot every season, with a new haunted location and a new cast of characters and actors each time. But series producers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have made at least one concession about returning former cast members, as Jessica Lange is confirmed as returning for the second season.
Jessica Lange was easily the show’s most valuable player, as her acting elevated the show’s sometimes cheestastic and over the top craziness to something resembling really good Grand Guignol theater. American Horror Story also got Lange a much deserved Golden Globe recently, and it would be foolish of the producers not to capitalize on Lange’s talent and buzz for as long as possible. Not much else is known yet about season two of the show, which isn’t set to debut until October. But FX released one promo image for the second season this week, which seemingly suggests not a haunted house, but a haunted hospital instead. I guess we’ll all find out just what location is haunted, as well as what other cast members will be returning, when the show comes back in the Fall.
Anne Rice’s Lestat Might Return To The Big Screen
For the last few years, as the vampire trend has spread through Hollywood like wildfire (or herpes) there has been one very noticeable omission: The Vampire Lestat, and all the other undead denizens of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series of novels. But it looks like that might change very soon, as Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment has bought the rights to Anne Rice’s fourth Vampire novel The Tale of the Body Thief. Author Anne Rice announced the news on her Facebook page this week that Imagine has acquired the rights to Body Thief, and hired writer Lee Patterson, who wrote a well-regarded screenplay titled Snatched, to write the script. Producing with Imagine are Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the writer-producers behind Fringe, Star Trek and Transformers. Say what you will about this particular writing duo, but just about everything they work on eventually gets greenlit.
While it might seems strange to effectively reboot a film series using book number four in the cycle, Tale of the Body Thief is more or less a stand alone story that only really references characters and events from the first novel Interview with the Vampire, which was already successfully made into a movie. In the novel, Lestat is killing serial killers in Miami (kind of like a vampiric version of the television series Dexter) and grows bored of existence and tries to end his life, only to find that he can’t actually die. When approached by a mortal psychic who claims he can switch bodies for a brief time and Lestat can gain his mortality back, Lestat jumps at the chance, even when the titular body thief makes off with his powerful body and he has to track him down and get it back.
Unlike the two previous installments in the Vampire Chronicles, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned, which both have a huge cast of characters and move around in time a lot, Body Thief is a pretty linearly straight forward story that would be far easier to make into a two hour movie than the previous two books in the series. I still maintain that the first three books of the series would make for a great cable series though. Please, someone in Hollywood get on that soon.
Buffy Makes A Controversial Choice, Gets Headlines In The Process
And while we are on the subject of vampires, arguably the most famous vampire slayer of all time, Buffy Summers, made media headlines this week for probably the most unlikeliest of reasons. SPOILERS for Buffy from here on out folks- In Joss Whedon’s current comic book continuation of the series for Dark Horse Comics (Season 9 to be precise) Buffy has found out she is pregnant. In this past week’s issue, Buffy mulls over her options about what to do with her pregnancy, and ultimately decides to get an abortion. It isn’t a decision Buffy comes to lightly, and it is handled extremely well by writer Andrew Chambliss and series creator Whedon.
Of course, just because Buffy is planning on getting an abortion doesn’t mean she’ll be successful at it though. The character of Buffy seems convinced the father is any number of men she could have had sex with (but conveniently doesn’t remember) back in a raging house warming party in issue #1 of Season 9. However (again-SPOILERS) I would be genuinely shocked if the father of the baby is anyone other than long time vampire love Angel, whom Buffy had sex with at the end of Season 8 while both characters were in this mystical God-like state (don’t ask) Yes, those events were supposed to take place a good six months prior to the where the comic storylines take place now, but who is to say how long mystical pregnancies are supposed to last? And do you really think Joss Whedon would have the father of Buffy’s baby be some new character the readers have little emotional investment in, or have the father be none other than Buffy’s greatest lover/enemy?
Of course, if this really does end up being just “A very special episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer” where she gets an abortion and just has to deal with the consequences in a real life kinda way, then the father just might be a nobody. BUT…if indeed the baby can’t be aborted somehow and she is forced to have it, then I stick to my theory that the father is none other than Angel. If I’m right, then you heard it here first fellow geeks.
DC To Launch Smallville Season 11 In Comic Book Form
Taking a cue from Dark Horse Comics’ previously mentioned continuation of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer tv series, DC Comics is looking to continue the long running (ten frickin’ seasons) television series Smallville with a comic book version of Season 11. The Smallville television series ended with the Tom Welling version of Clark Kent finally wearing the cape and tights of Superman, making some longtime rabid fans of the series really happy. Seriously, just watch this one fan watch the Smallville series finale around the five minute mark-I’ve never had an orgasm this intense.
Although previously rumored to be a series of prose novels, DC Comics have officially announced a “Smallville Season 11” comic book series this past week, which will be published digitally beginning April 13 with a new issue every week. The series will also be collected in print beginning in May. Series scribe will be Bryan Q. Miller, a former writer and story editor from the TV series, as well as former writer of the Stephanie Brown version of Batgirl which ended last year before the big DC reboot. The current plan is to pick up some six months from where the show left off, with Clark finally embracing his role as a public super hero. As part of the press release, Miller said “I couldn’t be more excited to help give seasoned viewers and new readers an all-access pass to Clark’s first year in the cape.”
Smallville is certainly the most popular version of Superman in the media since the Christopher Reeve version, so continuing that version of the character seems like a no-brainer to me. My question is-which of the new DC 52 Earths is “Earth-Smallville?” And will Supes ever wear the red shorts or not? Because ya know, I find that I kinda miss those.
