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Message

Subject: Re: JMS: The time has come...
Date: 12 Dec 2006 22:35:28 -0800
From: jmsatb5@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

Jan wrote:
> ..the Vorlon said, to speak of many things.
>
> Of feature films,
>
> and TV shows,
>
> of comic books and things.
>
> Of why your keyboard's boiling hot and whether Narns have wings. (with apologies
> to Lewis Carroll)
>
> Or in other words, how about the traditional year-end update on all things
> Straczynski?  What can you tell us (and what can you hint) about the above and
> any other short stories, radio dramas, plays, video games, songs, dances,
> pilots, anthologies, DVDs, novels, scripts, animation, columns, interviews,
> conventions etc., etc. that you might be involved in?

The screenplay for the film I'm writing for Universal will be turned in
mid-January.  Akiva Goldsman is among the producers on this project, a
big budget historical movie based on the life of King David.

This week the outline for the film I'm writing for Paramount will be
turned in to the studio.  I'm still waiting for the PR department to
announce the project so I can't yet identify it.  I can say though that
it's for Brad Pitt's Plan B productions.

Coming down on the other side of finishing these scripts, I now have to
decide which of four projects currently in front of me I'll take to
write starting in January.  They range the gamut from another
historical movie, to an adaptation, a remake of a *very* famous SF
film, and a movie based on a British series for a major actor.  (And
no, it's not a British series that most genre people would know about,
a la Blake's 7 or the like.)

I had lunch with the President of Imagine Entertainment today, who let
me know that it is their intention to get Changeling in front of the
cameras by no later than late summer '07.  A major star has committed,
but I can't release that name yet.

I checked back to see when The Adventures of Apocalypse Al would be
airing on CBC, and it turns out they were waiting for any last minute
notes from me on the finished product before locking and scheduling.
My oops.

>
> Oh, and how's post-production going on TLT?
>

I turned in the director's/producer's cut last Friday, the studio
viewed it yesterday, loved what they saw, and now we've locked the cut.
 Friday I have a music spotting session with Chris Franke, and up
north, Atmosphere is churning out CGI as fast as they can.  (We're not
going for the shakey-cam look that BSG has made something of its house
style in order to not poach, out of courtesy.  Our production offices
at the Vancouver Film Studios were right next door to the BSG offices,
incidentally.  And just two stages down they were shooting the Fanastic
Four sequel.)

Fairly soon, probably starting late January, the director's blogs will
start showing up on the net.  I can't tell you how much I hate being in
front of the camera.

The script for my pilot, Borrowed Lives, went to the network last week,
and we should hear a yes or no fairly soon on whether we go into
production.

Because it's hard to get another show going when you'd be in second
position contractually, we're waiting to see if Borrowed Lives gets
picked up before going out to the networks with Rising Stars, which I'm
developing with Sam Raimi's company.

I'm three issues into Thor, four issues into the secret project I'm
writing for Marvel, Spider-Ham comes out shortly (couldn't love it
more), Bullet Points 2 comes out this week, and in general I'm keeping
busy.

jms