Three miniseries projects all based in fantasy have been greenlighted by Sci Fi and include “Riverworld” from a series of fantasy books by Philip Jose Farmer, a retelling of “Alice in Wonderland”, and “The Phantom” a take on a comic book hero. It seems that “Riverworld” and “The Phantom” will be akin to “Battlestar Galactica” in their programming model. That is they will be miniseries at first, but if they draw a large audience will be turned into a series.
The “Alice” project is being done by Nick Willing who also gave us the Sci Fi channel “Tin Man” a take on “The Wizard of Oz”.
I think this is a great way to see how a show will do and hopefully Sci Fi (Syfy) continues to push the envelope with science fiction and fantasy series even after the name change.
The “Alice” project is slated for the winter and the other two will be coming next year. I was not a huge fan of “Tin Man”, but I still watched it to the end so that must count for something. I am a fan of Philip Jose Farmer though and look forward to that series.
A publisher, publicist, author, studio, or artist and have news or announcements you think should be noted at BSC? Email us at admin@bookspotcentral.com and let us decide!
It’s such a crapshoot with them (which really is no different from another network I guess. There have been little SCiFI shows that I really enjoyed (The Lost room – don’t laugh, it was entertaining!) and obviously they have their monster successes, but man they will put otu a stinker adaptation of a classic, won’t they?
I LOVE Farmer’s Riverworld, so I’ll be sure to check that out on DVD.
Even as a comic book fan, I never really gave a damn about Phantom, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work (though why does that appalling recent Flash Gordon come to mind!).
Tin Man was not good, but that fact oddly enough didn’t keep me from planning to watch it as it was scheduled for release here. I’m not sure if Alice gets as much leeway with me as Oz does, but we will see.