SYFY Developing 7 New Shows

With the exception of a teenage vampire romance (and maybe pimply bloodsuckers are already passé) the list of Syfy Channel projects under development covers most of the current trendy subjects including superheroes, zombies, and aliens. The cable channel announced this week that it is developing seven new scripted series including Ball & Chain, the story of 2 ex-lovers who are given superpowers when they narrowly escape a meter impact. The twist is they only have the powers when they are in close proximity with each other.

Another new series Me and Lee stars former Six Million Dollar Man Lee Majors in a show that echoes the adventures of TV’s original bionic man. Three other science fiction-inflected series include Orion, a swashbuckling space opera about a female relic hunter that is described as “National Treasure meets Firefly,” Sherwood, a Robin Hood saga set in the 23rd Century, and Human Relations, which focuses on an office temp in a high tech ad agency who discovers that his boss and co-workers are all aliens scheming to conquer the world.

Legendary is a half-hour mockumentary featuring Kevin Sorbo as an exaggerated version of himself, a former syndicated TV star who uses his knowledge of the myths of Hercules to defeat an assortment of modern day monsters.

If AMC’s adaptation of The Walking Dead is a hit, Syfy will be ready with its half-hour series about the ZEROS (Zombie Extermination and Removal Operations) squad charged with defending Marshall City from a constant stream of zombie invasions.

Will Smith To Return For 'Legend' Prequel

Actor reteams with director Francis Lawrence for new film.

*Will Smith has agreed to reprise his role as scientist Robert Neville in a prequel to his 2007 blockbuster "I Am Legend."
Francis Lawrence will also return as director of the project, which is based on a detailed outline that was written over the past few months by Lawrence, Smith and the film's producers Akiva Goldsman and James Lassiter, according to Variety.
The prequel will chronicle the final days of humanity in New York before a man-made virus caused a plague that left Smith’s character the lone survivor among a mutated mob in the city.
Making a prequel was the only way to stretch a franchise that grossed $584 million worldwide for Warner Bros. and keep Smith in the lead role. His character was killed in the first film, after extracting a potential cure for the virus for the scattered survivors.

Fox and Warner "Watchmen" Feud Escalates

September 2, 2008

The legal battle lines have been drawn in the dispute between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox over the rights to create a screen adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen graphic novel. According to the New York Times, which reviewed papers filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday, lawyers for both sides have “laid plans for a frenzied fight.” Fox continues to request an injunction that would prohibit the planned March 6th debut of the Watchmen film directed by Zack Snyder, while Warner Bros. continues to maintain that there is no legal merit to Fox’s suit.

The dispute is centered on that murky corner of developmental hell known as “turnaround” in which a studio basically gives up on a project, but in order to save itself the potential embarrassment of a rejected film becoming a success for another studio, producers who take the project elsewhere have to give the original studio another look at the project anytime “changed elements” (new casting, new director, new script, new budget, etc.) come into play.

According to Warner Bros., Producer Lawrence Gordon offered the project to Fox once again in 2005 right before he took it to Warner Bros. The Times reports that Warners is asking for an April trial date, while Fox has called for a June trial. It appears likely that, if the dispute does go to trial, Universal, Legendary Pictures, and Paramount, who were all involved in the lengthy gestation of the Watchmen movie project, will “be drawn into the fray.”

While there are no signs of a deal yet, there is plenty of incentive to get one done. The slick Watchmen trailer has driven sales of the Watchmen graphic novel through the roof (see “A Million Copies of Watchmen”) and spurred excitement for the movie among a considerable fan base. The Watchmen movie is a potential 300-size Q1 hit for Warners, and irate fans are already considering a boycott of Fox films in retaliation against the studio's Watchmen lawsuit. If Fox does succeed in getting an injunction barring the March 6th debut of the Watchmen movie, it may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.