So who else is counting the days until...

[KoshN]

Of course, there are always a few exceptions.

That's just disturbing, as were the rest of your casting images in that other thread. Feel like I'm in a Skiffy Channel nightmare.

 

[drakh13]

Feel like I'm in a Skiffy Channel nightmare.

Well, you never know. I was kidding, obviously.

 

[Zathras]

Don't forget ... Christopher Lloyd in Search For Spock.

You gotta keep in mind that, at the time, Christopher Lloyd's biggest contribution to the entertainment world was as the perpetually stoned Reverend Jim on "Taxi." At the time ST:III came out, I didn't know that Christopher Lloyd was capable of standing up without leaning on a vending machine to keep his balance.

HEY, WAIT A MINUTE...
A B5 movie could reunite Rev. Jim with his old pal Bobby Wheeler (now living under the assumed name of "Security Chief Zack Allen"), and they could open a space-cab business. They could even hire that short hairy Lumati guy from "Acts of Sacrifice" to be the new Louie. It'll be GREAT I tell ya! GREAT!!!

Making movies is even easier than I thought!

 

[KoshN]

Feel like I'm in a Skiffy Channel nightmare.

Well, you never know. I was kidding, obviously.

I'd hoped so, but Skiffy would take it seriously as a "good idea." You know how they are. <shudder>

...but...OTOH, I liked the 182 minutes of BSG 2003 they financed, and I was warming up to "Tremors-The Series" (guilty pleasure) when they cancelled it. <shrug>

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Feel like I'm in a Skiffy Channel nightmare.

Well, you never know. I was kidding, obviously.

I'd hoped so, but Skiffy would take it seriously as a "good idea." You know how they are. <shudder>

...but...OTOH, I liked the 182 minutes of BSG 2003 they financed, and I was warming up to "Tremors-The Series" (guilty pleasure) when they cancelled it. <shrug>

Now if you could just get Pat (Lyta) Tallman to have a fight with her we may have a fun episode.

 

[Bester]

....and they both have to be naked

 

[phoenixrising]

The question no one has answered yet is why Warner Bros., which is notorious for not wanting to share pofits with anybody (they stalled for years before licensing B5 to Columbia House for VHS release, and they helped kill the Rangers project by refusing to cut Sci-Fi in for a piece of the action), would want or need an outside partner to do such a movie. It isn't like they don't have the cash to do it on their own.

Because they don't want to take a huge hit in the pocketbook all by themselves?

Let's face it, except for certain films and films series, Sci-Fi has been dead on the big screen for a while. The last Star Trek film tanked and while Star Wars: Episode II was better than Episode I, it was sill not all that good. Other than LOTR and some projects from Marvel Comics, big screen sci-fi has been on life-support for a while at best, in a very large vat of formaldehyde at worst.

With that history, Warner doesn't want to take that hit in the wallet all by themselves. Going in on a possible B5 film with another company, lessens the blow if the movie tanks (which is a huge possiblilty, even with the large B5 fan base out there, considering all the cost to make and market a feature filme these days).

Personally, I will wait to see what JMS has to say and hope it something that will please us all.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Let's face it, except for certain films and films series, Sci-Fi has been dead on the big screen for a while.

Let's not over-generalize too much, and let's not give in the the SF fan's classic chicken little mentality. Considering that we're supposed to be fans of a genre that largely deals with the future, SF fans are some of the gloomiest damned people you'd ever care to meet and the sky is always falling.

SF films are doing just fine, thank you very much. Maybe you heard of something called The Matrix? Warner Bros. in particular has been doing well out of genre films lately, through its own Harry Potter franchise and New Line's Lord of the Rings. As far as I know the last Trek film didn't "tank", but rather made a profit. Not a big profit, perhaps, but a profit nonetheless.

Geez, you read some of the posts around here and you start to think about slitting your wrists.

Because they don't want to take a huge hit in the pocketbook all by themselves?

If they had that little faith in a doing a B5 movie at this time, why make one at all? Have you ever run a business? Most of the businesses I'm familiar with do not do projects they expect to fail. They certainly don't bring in partners so that they only lose half as much money in the project they know ahead of time is going to fail.

In 1998 with the Del Rey books about to be released, B5 wrapping up successfully and Crusade in the works, Warner Bros. seriously considered doing a B5 feature film. They paid JMS to write an outline, they checked with Walter Koenig to see if he was interested in playing Bester. By mid-1999 it was clear that Crusade was a dead letter, B5 Magazine had gone belly up and the official fan club went out of business. Warner Bros. shelved their plans for a B5 feature. They didn't ring up Winchester films and ask if they'd like to co-finance a picture that was sure to bomb.

If you think a movie is going to make money, you make it by yourself so you get to keep it all. If you think a movie isn't going to make money, you don't make it.

Most "co-productions" are insanely expensive films that no one studio has enough ready cash to pay for. Two or more studios go in on the production and they divvy up the world rights to it for theatrical and home video release so each party earns its own profit. 9 times out of 10 these films start out as single studio projects a second studio is only brought in when the budget gets out of control. (Titanic was a classic example - started by one studio, rescued by a second when the first ran out of cash with about 70% of the picture in the can. Paramount and Fox did the movie, but I can't remember who had it originally.)

The last couple of Star Wars and Star Trek films haven't underperformed at the box office because science fiction is out of favor with movie-goers, they've underperformed because they sucked. (At least I'm assuming Nemesis and Attack of the Clones sucked, because the fact is the films that preceded them in each series sucked so badly that to this day I haven't seen more recent ones.)

Frankly I'm sure that the more recent Trek and SW films have also underpeformed on DVD - whereas B5 is doing well enough on DVD that somebody is actually interested in doing a new project after all these years. So I don't think Warner Bros. is going to assume that Trek and SW predict the success of anything besides Trek and SW.

Since several on-line retailers are now listing B5 S4 as back-ordererd, I suspect that S4 is selling even better than the preceeding seasons did. (As I've predicted it would, since there are more casual fans who consider S4 the "meat" of the series who would likely buy it even if they didn't buy any other season.) I think this would have far more impact on WB's thinking than what some other studio's SF franchise is doing.

Regards,

Joe

 

[KoshN]

Most "co-productions" are insanely expensive films that no one studio has enough ready cash to pay for. Two or more studios go in on the production and they divvy up the world rights to it for theatrical and home video release so each party earns its own profit. 9 times out of 10 these films start out as single studio projects a second studio is only brought in when the budget gets out of control. (Titanic was a classic example - started by one studio, rescued by a second when the first ran out of cash with about 70% of the picture in the can. Paramount and Fox did the movie, but I can't remember who had it originally.)

New Line's Lord of the Rings trilogy certainly looks insanely expensive (It looks soooo damn good! ). Isn't that a one studio production?

The last couple of Star Wars and Star Trek films haven't underperformed at the box office because science fiction is out of favor with movie-goers, they've underperformed because they sucked.

TRUE!!!

(At least I'm assuming Nemesis and Attack of the Clones sucked, because the fact is the films that preceded them in each series sucked so badly that to this day I haven't seen more recent ones.)

I'm to that point, now, having seen the last two Star Wars and Star Trek movies. I will not go to see the next Star Trek or Star Wars movie. However, if Peter Jackson did another genre movie, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Also, when the Extended Edition of "Return of the King" comes out, I'm getting it, come Hell or high water.

Frankly I'm sure that the more recent Trek and SW films have also underpeformed on DVD - whereas B5 is doing well enough on DVD that somebody is actually interested in doing a new project after all these years.

I just wish they were interested enough to clean up the video, and pay more attention to detail in the extras.

So I don't think Warner Bros. is going to assume that Trek and SW predict the success of anything besides Trek and SW.

Since several on-line retailers are now listing B5 S4 as back-ordererd, I suspect that S4 is selling even better than the preceeding seasons did. (As I've predicted it would, since there are more casual fans who consider S4 the "meat" of the series who would likely buy it even if they didn't buy any other season.) I think this would have far more impact on WB's thinking than what some other studio's SF franchise is doing.

Great Maker, I hope that's the case!

 

[phoenixrising]

However, if Peter Jackson did another genre movie, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Also, when the Extended Edition of "Return of the King" comes out, I'm getting it, come Hell or high water.

Peter Jackson's next project is a period remake of King Kong and there is rumor floating that The Hobbit will be on his plate after that, though whether he will just write and produce or also direct is up in the air as yet.

And Joe, I don't have the Chicken Little complex that many of the people here have. I just look at what is happening to sci-fi on the big and small screens and shake my head. I consider Harry Potter and LOTR to be fantasy films, not sci-fi (yes, there is a distinction, if only in my mind ) and the word of mouth on The Matrix sequel was horrid. And we shall not even get into the mess that the Sci-Fi Channel has become.

When it comes to true, hard sci-fi the picture is pretty bleak.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

New Line's Lord of the Rings trilogy certainly looks insanely expensive (It looks soooo damn good! ). Isn't that a one studio production?

Yes, but it is also three films so in terms of budget and cash-flow it isn't the same thing as something like Titanic. When budgets get out of control studios are sometimes faced with a choice: Take on a partner or cancel/postpone other project in development. Since New Line knew it was making three films that would be released across three budget years, and since tiny New Line could also draw on the financial resources of parent company Time-Warner if need be, LotR wasn't as risky as it might appear at first blush.

One of the biggest expense categories in films like these is post-production. Adding the CGI, and model photography, digital editing and compositing, Foley, scoring, etc. eat up much of the total budget. By doing all of the principle photography for all three films "up front" and concentrating on the CGI, etc. for Fellowship first, New Line was able to release Movie #1 and use the income from that to finance reshoots and post production on Movie # 2, and so on.

Granted, this was a risk for New Line. If Jackson made a bad film and the first one bombed at the box office, they were in big trouble. OTOH if they'd gone the "one film at a time" route they would also be running risks. They could lose actors to death, illness, or scheduling conflicts, they'd have to store and/or rebuild sets every few years, there would probably be a hold-out or two looking for more money if the first one were a hit, etc.

The over-all cost of shooting three movies one-at-a-time instead of all at once would have been several times higher because of all of these factors, and they might never finish the project - which would leave them with one third of a film, a curiosity with little long-term value. Nobody would be running it on television once it became clear that there would be no other films, and home video sales wouldn't be great. (Bakshi's version sold mostly to animation fans, not LotR fans. Jackson's film would have no alternate audience.)

Doing LotR the way they did it was somewhat risky for New Line, but it wouldn't have approached bankrupting the studio the way Heaven's Gate nearly destroyed United Artists or Cleopatra all-but sunk 20th Century Fox. The way the deal was structured they didn't need another studio, and the risk/reward analysis heavily favored doing things the way they did.

Regards,

Joe

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Let's not over-generalize too much, and let's not give in the the SF fan's classic chicken little mentality. Considering that we're supposed to be fans of a genre that largely deals with the future, SF fans are some of the gloomiest damned people you'd ever care to meet and the sky is always falling.

SF Fans are slightly more complex than that.

1. As a group they enjoy solving problems.
2. They frequently get jobs in which they are paid to solve problems.
3. Most managers do not pay to have invisible problems fixed.

So to SF Fans: problems = work = more pay and fun

Consequently if you put anything in front of SF Fans that is less than perfect they will enjoy telling you about the problems.

SF Fans are a good group to experiment on - they will forgive your mistakes, unlike say lawyers who will try and sue you for a million dollars.

What SF Fans do not forgive is the same mistake 3 times. That is why there was such a fuss about the scratches on Babylon 5 Season 3 box sets - it should have been cured after Season 1.

 

[KoshFan]

As I recall, 20th Century Fox was in deep trouble round about '75, when along came this crazy kid called George Lucas and an idiotic project known as The Star Wars...

In the climate of LotR, Harry Potter, and the Matrix films, it's clear that fantasy/sci-fi is a viable field. Also, Star Trek and Star Wars, the former giants of the field, are apparently weakening (although do be careful, comments in this thread are about to trigger my "Episode II defense rant"). So it's an excellent time for B5 to make a strong reappearance, especially with the moderately impressive DVD sales.

 

[Vonbloodbath]

I wouldn't say that Big-Screen SF is in a bleak position at all: for starters this year you have Chronicls of Riddick, a hard sci fi film with a big-name studio favourite (Diesel) headlining...

In the field of "Speculative Fiction" - i.e. SF and Fantasy - this year you have, off the top of my head:

Troy, Harry Potter, King Arthur, spider-Man 2, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Paycheck, Hellboy, Van Helsing, the Day After tomorrow, I, Robot, Thunderbirds, Alien Vs Predator, A Sound of Thunder, sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Constantine, Alexander (the Oliver Stone one)...

That being said, I still think a miniseries like the Dune / Children of Dune ones is most likely, and my money's on the Teep war.

VB

PS - Z Minus 3 Days

 

[dawnchild]

I believe Sci fi/fantasy is doing pretty darn well these days, both at the cinema and on dvd. The Matrix-sequels (great films, I think!), Star Wars ep 2 (which btw is a very good and hugely entertaining movie! , despite the bashing it undeservedly receives by some, and which has done pretty well on dvd-sales from what I gather from various netsite-dvd-charts of 2003), the magnificent Lord of the Rings-films, Harry Potter-success, Farscape (good dvd-sales from what I gather, a deserved success!) and last but not least the B5-dvds which have gotten better sales than most in the know presumed they would get .

Can't wait for B5 season 5 on dvd in April (region 1), Return of the King on dvd i May, AND last but not least the 3rd Star Wars-movie at the cinema in 2005!

 

[KoshN]

What SF Fans do not forgive is the same mistake 3 times. That is why there was such a fuss about the scratches on Babylon 5 Season 3 box sets - it should have been cured after Season 1.

Make that 4 times. In April, you can probably make it a 5.

Ditto for the DVD packaging/hub problems.

 

[phoenixrising]

Constantine,

Yeah, I saw this was being made and was quite happy.

Unitl I saw who they cast as John.

Keanu Reeves????????? WTF??????

I mean, this man has shown that he can't hold an accent through a film ( Brom Stoker's Dracula anyone?) and I can not see him playing the conniving slimeball that John Constantine is.

My choice for this role would have been James Marsters, who played Spike on Buffy. He could nail the accent, has the hair and looks and has shown he can play bad guys with a heart of gold. Not big name enough I guess.

 

[Vonbloodbath]

to be fair, I think they've abandoned the whole cockney malarky anyway...

Not so true to the comic, but at least we know Keanu can hold an american accent. Or at least, I hope he can. the initial art work / set photos look promising...

VB.