Five new alien-themed TV projects in development at SyFy

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

SyFy is developing 10 new sci-fi TV projects, five of which will explore contact and conflict with alien life. Io9.com reports that, in addition to Defiance, Syfy is currently working on ambitious small screen projects including: 

Ringworld

“A story about human explorers traveling to the farthest reaches of space to investigate an alien habitat the size of one million Earths. They crash-land and discover ancient civilizations, miraculous technology, and a possible salvation for Earth.”

Apparently, Syfy considered making a Ringworld miniseries nine years ago, with a different crew. It is now being developed as a four-hour miniseries. The story is based on Larry Niven’s books.

Childhood's End

Also being developed as a mini-series, based on Arthur C. Clarke’s classic novel, Childhood’s End will see a peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival brings all human conflict to an end, turning our planet into a near-utopia.

Upstream Color director Shane Carruth told io9.com he loved Clarke’s book for its unique take on an alien invasion: “even the victims don’t know that they’re victims. It’s a closed loop of a story, to have a race show up and provide everything, and that's the way that they conquer, in a way that nobody would ever recognize or resist.”

The miniseries will be executive produced by Michael DeLuca (The Social Network).

Infinity

“This one starts out with an alien ‘armada’ appearing near Pluto. Earth sends the only interstellar ship we have, created by a billionaire industrialist out of secret alien technology we discovered in the 1960s. But after the ship engages the alien fleet, it falls into a wormhole and winds up in deep uncharted space, searching for a way home.”

Orion

 

Coming to us via Alphas writers Ron Milbauer and Terri Hughes, this series will focus on the character of Orion, “a female relic hunter who tracks down valuable items in space, while also trying to piece together her own mysterious past. And meanwhile, the human race is in the middle of an intergalactic war with an alien race. Orion has special abilities, but she can't decide whether to use them to save herself, or to find the hidden artifacts that could save the human race (no guesses which one she'll choose).”

High Moon

 

In which the nations of Earth start establishing colonies on the Moon to exploit its valuable natural resources — only to discover “a new form of life,” causing chaos to break out on the lunar surface.

High Moon is to be Executive Produced by Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies). The pilot has been written by Jim Danger Gray (also Pushing Daisies).

Aliens on the ‘Horizon’ for ‘Walking Dead’ producer

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

 

The Walking Deadproducer Gale Anne Hurd (who also gave us The Terminator and Aliens) is moving ahead with a new alien-themed TV series for USA titled Horizon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series revolves around an alien battle in the South Pacific:

"Set during the height of World War II, Horizon centers on a secretary at the FBI who discovers that her husband might have been killed in a battle with a spaceship in the South Pacific. Obsessed with learning the truth, she becomes the only person standing between Earth and an alien invasion."

The show is to be written and co-produced by Bridget Tyler, who has worked on Burn Notice. Deadlinequotes USA co-president Jeff Wachtel and Chris McCumber as saying:

"Horizonis our first genre piece since The 4400 and the first-ever period drama for the network..." 

A secret war with aliens during WWII? Sounds suspiciously familiar to Dark Skies... No, not the new alien abduction movie Dark Skies, but the ‘90s TV series from which the former borrowed *cough-stole-cough* its name. Still, at least there’s no outright thievery going on here, and the tightly focused premise of the show – covert alien battles in the South Pacific – certainly has potential. Let’s just hope Gale Anne Hurd takes more than a few pages from Battleship’s book... and then rips them to shreds.

'Dark Skies' Vs. 'Dark Skies'

Silver Screen Saucers

 

 

From the Creators of the Original “Dark Skies” (NBC, Sony)

Written by Bryce Zabel & Brent V. Friedman

November 29, 2012

Friends and supporters have been contacting us, many with congratulations on how our “Dark Skies” has been made into a new film, starring Keri Russell, to be released by Dimension Films next February. While it sounds like a dream, we tell them, it’s actually a nightmare.

To set the record straight, we’re Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman, the two writer/producers who created the NBC series called “Dark Skies.” It was produced by Columbia TV (now Sony) and aired in 1996 and 1997. We wrote the pilot, multiple episodes and produced all twenty hours that were aired in primetime on Saturday nights. 

Our original “Dark Skies” introduced viewers to an alien invasion that featured a continuing focus on the mysterious and terrifying abduction phenomenon. So our well-intentioned friends can be forgiven if they hear about the Dimension Films version that focuses on an alien abduction and assume we had something to do with it. While that is decidedly not the case, our definitive version may have inspired it. 

Our “Dark Skies” had been in the news even before Dimension decided to use our title for their film. Our series was given a world-wide release on DVD in 2011 from both Shout Factory (US) and Medium Rare Entertainment (UK). In dozens of reviews, the work received critical praise as a classic that has stood the test of time in the sci-fi and UFO media. It also spawned new interest in the reboot of our series, something that we were talking to Sony TV about when the news from Dimension Films broke.

Our "Dark Skies" has established itself in the minds of a significant number of science fiction fans as a gripping piece of conspiracy drama set in the world of UFOs and abductions. It anchored NBC's Saturday night "Thrillogy" concept in the 1996 season premiere and starred Eric Close ("Nashville") and the late film character actor J.T. Walsh (“Sling Blade”). Its main title design won the Emmy award and its pilot screenplay received a Writers Guild nomination. The Syfy Channel aired the entire series multiple times. Since 2010 there's been a Facebook page where thousands of fans from many different countries push Sony for a TV revival.

And yet here we are. A film in the same genre as our work is being promoted right now using the same exact title as our work. Most Hollywood businesses legitimately consider creative and artistic interests and rights in these cases. This one seems to have slipped through the cracks of acceptability.

Supporters of the creative rights of writers should ask Dimension Films to let their film stand on its own merits and call it by a different title. "Dark Skies" is taken.

Join the Dark Skies Resistance @ Facebook

See the Dark Skies Playlist @ YouTube

Read more about Dark Skies @ AfterDisclosure.com

‪Get the original, classic and definitive Dark Skies Series @ Amazon

Dark Skies @ IMDB

WGA (Writers Guild of America) Credit, 1996
“Dark Skies” | Created by Bryce Zabel & Brent V. Friedman

UFOs, Mass Media and Updated Disclosure Actions

Silver Screen Saucers

'Skies' to fall a third time

Silver Screen Saucers

TNT announced yesterday it has ordered a third season of Steven Spielberg’s alien invasion drama, Falling Skies.

TNT says its second series of Falling Skiesis currently averaging 5.9 million viewers and that “the series ranks as basic cable’s #1 summer drama with adults 18-49.” TNT has ordered 10 episodes for Falling Skies’ third season, which is slated to air in 2013.

This from the TNT press release:

“Falling Skies, which currently airs on TNT Sundays at 9 p.m. (ET/PT), chronicles the devastating aftermath of an alien attack that has left most of the world completely incapacitated. In the months since the initial invasion, the few remaining survivors have banded together outside major cities to begin the difficult task of fighting back. Each day is a test of survival as citizen soldiers work to protect the people in their care while also engaging in an insurgency campaign against the occupying alien force, whose nature and purpose remains a mystery.

In its debut season last summer, TNT’s Falling Skies topped the charts as basic cable’s #1 new series of 2011. This year, the show is off to a strong start, averaging 5.9 million viewers in Live + 7. It has also scored 2.7 million adults 18-49 (L+7) and ranks as basic cable’s #1 drama for the summer-to-date in that key demo. The show has brought in 3.1 million adults 25-54, ranking it behind TNT’s Dallas as basic cable’s #2 summer drama. On the international front, Falling Skies premiered in more than 115 global markets last year, achieving hit status in the United Kingdom, Australia and Latin America, among others. Last year’s launch of Falling Skies also ranked as the biggest series premiere ever for TNT networks in Spain, Germany and Austria.”

'Falling Skies' season 2 promo art

Silver Screen Saucers

New promotional poster art for Falling Skies season 2 (via Entertainment Weekly)...

The two-hour first episode of Falling Skies season 2 premieres June 17th. Here's a three-minute taster clip...

'Doctor Who' set for big screen franchise

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Image credit: BBC

The BBC’s long-running sci-fi TV series Doctor Who is to be transformed into a big screen franchise according to Variety, with Harry Potter director David Yates set to helm the first instalment.

For those unfamiliar with the hugely popular British TV series, Variety describes Doctor Who as being about “the adventures across space and time of a super-intelligent alien in human form, who battles a variety of cosmic bad guys aided by plucky human companions,” noting that “the series ran from 1963 to 1989, and then was successfully rebooted in 2005 by writer Russell T. Davies and subsequently by Steven Moffat (The Adventures of Tintin)." The series has also consistently and - often overtly - tapped into UFOlogical literature and debate.

Yates is developing the Doctor Who movie with Jane Tranter - head of BBC Worldwide Prods. - but fans of ‘The Doctor’ will have to be patient as the movie is currently without a writer and so is unlikely to grace cinema screens any time soon. “We're going to spend two to three years to get it right," Yates told Variety, "It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena."

Doctor Who fans may also be peeved at the fact that the movie will have little in common with its small screen counterpart. According to Variety, “Yates made clear that his movie adaptation would not follow on from the current TV series, but would take a completely fresh approach to the material.” Yates said that he would be moving away from Doctor Who as imagined by Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat: “We have to put that aside and start from scratch."

It should be noted that two Doctor Who films were produced in the 1960s, both of which starred Peter Cushing: Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965) and Doctor Who: Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966). However, as Variety points out, this new project is “the most high-powered effort to date to launch Doctor Who onto the big screen.”

AMC ‘Thunderstruck’ by new UFO drama

Silver Screen Saucers

Deadline reports that AMC – the TV network behind the critically acclaimed horror series The Walking Dead – is to branch out into the sci-fi genre with Thunderstruck, “an hour-long UFO project” from executive producers Paul Boardman, Scott Derrickson and David Eick.

Boardman and Derrickson will write the drama, which, according to Deadline, is “about powerful and enigmatic entities that begin appearing all over the world.” Of special note is the story’s geographical setting, which no doubt will ring a bell with students of UFO history... Deadline continues:

“After one shows up in the town of Great Falls, Montana, the local citizens must grapple with the dramatic effects and growing mystery of repeated visitations.”

Thunderstruck will be directed by Derrickson, whose 2005 horror The Exorcism of Emily Rose was considerably better than his dead-on-arrival remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). Production will likely commence sometime in 2012.

UFOs to visit 'Coronation Street'

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Picture credit: Mail Online

In a clear sign of just how deeply embedded the UFO phenomenon has become in our popular culture, the world's longest-running soap opera - Britain's Coronation Street - is soon to be buzzed by Unidentified Flying Objects.

The Daily Mail reports that, in an episode of the soap yet to be aired, while out stargazing, the characters of Julie Carp and Brian Packham will spot "what they think are UFOs in the sky."


According the Mail:

"Brian thinks he has spotted some UFOs and the pair become so convinced of an alien invasion that they keep their eyes on the skies above.

As he looks through the telescope, Brian says: 'I'm a respected expert in the field of UFO landings and I'm telling you what we've seen with our own eyes are the genuine article.

However, the excitement proves to be all too much for Julie who declares: 'This UFO spotting business is really turning me on.' She then grabs her beau and says: 'Make love to me Brian, I'll protect you from little green men.'

The couple are then seen rolling around on their blanket, all thoughts of ET and his friends forgotten in a flash.

But they soon turn back to their 'discovery' and begin to dub themselves 'The Mulder and Scully of Weatherfield' in tribute to the detectives in cult 90s sci-fi TV show 'The X-Files'."