Fresh off the heels of killing, renewing, and really killingEureka, SyFy has renewed its most watched series, Warehouse 13 for a fourth season in 2012. Entertainment Weekly discusses Syfy’s image post-Eureka, and announced a fifth season of Leverage on TNT. Also not axed yet: Syfy had to quash rumors that its new superhuman show, Alphas, had been canned.
Can’t wait for the next season of Game of Thrones? Check out these three new character castings on Blastr. Or check out this tribute video: (Warning: NSFW!)
StarWars.com announced today the release date for Red Tails: January 20, 2012. The film, being produced by George Lucas and directed by Anthony Hemingway, focuses on the story of the Tuskegee airmen in World War II, and stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, and Ne-Yo.
January seems a telling time for Fox to release the film – it seems that it is neither going for Oscar contention nor summer blockbuster status, and it comes out less than a month before The Phantom Menace 3-D.
Her Universe hosted its second annual panel at Comic-Con last Thursday, with Ashley Eckstein moderating a panel entitled “What Women Want in their Female Sci-Fi Heroes.” The six announced panelists were Dave Filoni of The Clone Wars, Betsy Mitchell (Editor in Chief of Del Rey), Gail Simone (comics writer, including Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and the upcoming Batgirl), Chris Sanagustin (Senior VP Development & Current Programming for Universal Cable Productions), Bryan Q. Miller (Exec. Story Editor for Smallville, comic writer Batgirl), and Melinda Hsu Taylor (writer/producer- Lost & Medium and Supervising Producer on Touch) . They were joined by unannounced panelist Alison Scagliotti (Claudia on Warehouse 13).
Eckstein started the panel by giving each panelist a question regarding developing female roles in their particular media, especially with the female audience in mind. Watch portions of the panel:
Chris Sanagustin on making characters accessible to the audience, including a bit about Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome
Bryan Q. Miller on character vulnerabilities and breaking down the notion that a butt-kicking heroine has to be either a robot or a sexbot
Betsy Mitchell comparing now to 30 years ago for women sci-fi readers and women writers and editors, and the rise of female-oriented urban paranormal fiction.
Gail Simone on progress in the portrayal of women in comics, moving past the Women in Refrigerators trope, and the industry’s gradual awareness of growing female readership, and developing female characters.
Ashley Eckstein commenting on the progress in recognizing that there is a female fan base in science fiction.
Finishing up with Gail Simone and then Melinda Hsu Taylor on being inspired by sci-fi growing up in Maine, and some of her favorite female characters from science fiction and fantasy.
Dave Filoni on the process of developing a female Jedi character like Ahsoka Tano and also reading Éowyn as a child.
Allison Scagliotti on playing her character Claudia Donovan, the women characters of Warehouse 13 and the issues of being a female actor – and being a role model of the cool smart girl.
In the Q&A, Simone, Filoni, and Scagliotti fielded most of the questions, with Filoni and Simone clarifying how their approaches to writing female characters were similar. Even though the panel went over time, the audience remained and the panelists stayed on stage to answer questions about incorporating female biology into developing and portraying female characters, the differences in creating female villains from male villains, predicting the future of the importance (or nonimportance) of being critical of gender for characters (and for creators), and finally ended with a young fan thanking the panelists for making it cool to be a young female fan.
This hilarious remix highlights the most typically high school movie-esque parts of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince — already the silliest of the adaptions.
Joe Schreiber, author of Death Troopers and Red Harvest, was kind enough to sit with me for an interview about his two Star Wars novels and more at Comic-Con.
Fresh off the heels of killing, renewing, and really killing Eureka, SyFy has renewed its most watched series, Warehouse 13 for a fourth season in 2012. Entertainment Weekly discusses Syfy’s image post-Eureka, and announced a fifth season of Leverage on TNT. Also not axed yet: Syfy had to quash rumors that its new superhuman show, Alphas, had been canned.
