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Fox Is Letting Dollhouse Go

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:34:35 +0000

The headlines all around the internet are spreading word the word that Fox has canceled Dollhouse. To be more specific, Fox has chosen not to order any more episodes beyond the first 13 episodes of Dollhouse’s second season, sealing the fate of the Joss Whedon-helmed show.

Despite being overwhelmed in fan-voting websites by The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fox went with renewing Dollhouse for a 2nd season, ignoring the cry for more Sarah Connor. Of course the popular theory is that Fox feared yet another long-term public lashing from how they handled the much superior Firefly space western of Joss’ years prior.

Fox letting go of Dollhouse isn’t a surprise. The show confused or creeped out fans in the first season with its core premise. However, when the show runners had a chance to capitalize on the flow of the story in the latter half of the first season, they kicked in the 2nd season with similar, fragmented episodes.

True, they started to dig deep into the inner workings of the characters. At times the developments were mind-blowing, but this premise of programmable humans just hasn’t caught on. And I’m not sure that you can blame Friday’s in this era of DVR viewing and ratings that account for in the first 7 days that an episode has to impress people.

As it is, I’m guessing Joss wasn’t surprised, but he did express his disappointment in the development. He said the show is getting better with each episode, as will be evidenced with the upcoming episodes that will be airing in December. If you remember, Fox booted Dollhouse off the air during the month of November for what they hope are improved sweeps stats.

At least Joss has time and will take advantage of the knowing about this ahead of time and he’s looking to give the show a proper send off. Joss said that by the end of this ill-fated 2nd season of Dollhouse, we’ll know what he’s up to next. But until then, he said “I’m off to pursue internet ventures/binge drinking.”

Is anyone out there actually surprised by this development? I’m not.

Source: THR (link 1, link 2)

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Nathan Fillion Talks Trucker, Castle, Joss Whedon & Superheroes

Paul Young — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:09:33 +0000

Quick, think of the most underrated, under-appreciated Canadian in Hollywood! If you said Céline Dion then I will hunt you down and flog you with a mackerel. The correct answer is Nathan Fillion. This 37 year old, chiseled jaw specimen of a man (my wife made me say that) has an acting career going back to 1993 with several small roles in films and shows you probably never heard of until 1998 in Saving Private Ryan. From there, his career started building, mostly in TV, and he started gaining fanboy support that almost rivals Bruce “The Chin” Campbell.

And just like Campbell, all of his TV shows were canceled. Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place went down after 4 seasons, Firefly (which to this day remains one of the best shows on TV never to finish), the very short lived Drive, and now Castle which almost didn’t have a second season and could be in danger of not seeing a third. Even Fillion was shocked at Castle picking up a second season, to which he “tweeted”:

“I can’t remember the last time I had a second season of ANYTHING. I don’t know if I remember what to do. Step one: go to Canada. Relax.”

It’s that style humor, his nonchalant attitude towards roles and his sly grin that are the main reasons people enjoy watching him on screen. It’s also due to the fact that he works a lot with Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who has a good size cult following in his own right. From Firefly to Serenity, to the WGA strike induced Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Whedon and Fillion go hand-in-hand like chocolate and peanut butter, jam and toast, skittles and mayonnaise.

So what show would Fillion like to be involved in if Castle should ever fall? Well Aaron Hillis at IFC caught up with him and had a great interview which you can read in its entirety here. What would his dream project be and what show would he like to do next?

“If I had a dream project right now, I’d like to grab a hold of a superhero. There are so many superheroes out there, I feel like there’s none left. But there is one I think I could handle, and that’s a redo of “The Greatest American Hero.”

When I heard that Barry Sonnenfeld was considering bringing the bumbling, red tight superhero back to TV screens, I couldn’t help but think that Scott MacIntyre, from this past season of American Idol, would be the best choice visually; but now that Fillion has expressed an interest, I can totally see him playing the character. He doesn’t just want to be the character either; Fillion has some ideas of his own for the series.

With the technology we have available today for effects, I’d say it’s largely the same idea, the same story, but the suit would be able to change and morph into whatever it is you needed him to do. So it could become armor, a scuba suit — you could do that stuff.

Interesting ideas, and if the show gets the correct writers, then I could see it working with Nathan Fillion’s involvement…for at least one season that is.

Click to Continue Reading about Nathan Fillion and his current projects…

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Nathan Fillion’s Castle Stands Strong

Rob Keyes — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:10:54 +0000

Can you believe it?! Nathan Fillion is the lead in a television series that made it to a second season!

Castle, the new hit ABC series is moving full steam ahead into its second season and it looks like it just might have a bright future.

I don’t get it. Everyone who watches Fillion on screen immediately falls in love with the guy and the characters he plays, yet he’s had two shows in a row canceled on him early. Join us as we look back at some key moments in Fillion’s career and talk about his recent successes…

Although, he made a name for himself with Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place alongside Ryan Reynolds, Nathan Fillion’s cult following began with Joss Whedon’s Firefly, which was incredible, but was unfairly treated by Fox and thereby canceled only a fraction into its first season. Fan support managed to bring a great feature film (Serenity) to theaters but it didn’t bank well at the box office.

Next, Fillion played a part in the final 5 episodes of Whedon’s Buffy series which also soon ended. Then, he starred in a show called Drive which lasted approximately one night before it got the axe. I don’t feel too bad about that one though.

After a stint on Desperate Housewives and his role as Captain Hammer in the internet phenomenon that is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, the Canadian actor finally has a steady gig in a lead TV role.

His latest show is called Castle and if you’ve not watched it, you should. He plays the title character, Richard Castle, a cocky, humorous and lovable New York writer who specializes in writing murder mysteries. The show is about him using is connections with everyone who matters in New York (including the Mayor) to force the department (whose entire staff also loves him) into a partnership with Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic), an officer who happens to be an obsessed fan of his work.

While entirely reluctant to work with Castle, she has no choice and must allow him to tag along to write stories based on their adventures (he loves it when they get called to horrible crime scenes). The show follows Fillion’s character and Beckett as they solve the crimes of the city and while Fillion writes novels about a character based on her. They have their ups and downs as their relationship continues to develop and the viewers get to watch their great interaction on screen.

The show is funny, well-written and full of heart. The best example of the latter is when we get to see Castle at home with his daughter and mother. They represent three extremes that make the perfect family and their relationship and interaction is a treat to watch. The comedy bits of the show only work because its Fillion and I can’t picture the series working with anyone else in the role – he’s made for this part.

Click to continue reading about Castle’s ratings and Nathan Fillion’s other current work…

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‘Chuck’ Producer Venturing Into Sci-Fi Western

Bruce Simmons — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:43:50 +0000

So it worked once and it developed a devoted following, despite how Fox treated it, so it looks like Fox is trying it again.

Scott Rosenbaum (Producer: Chuck, The Shield) is stepping outside the boundaries he’s made for himself with NBC’s Chuck and is taking a stab at a yet-to-be-named western with a science fiction twist.

Rosenbaum will be producing the show with Warner Bros. TV and Wonderland Sound and Vision studios (McG’s company), the latter of which has a fairly decent list of shows to their credits. That’s if you count Chuck, Human Target and Supernatural as decent shows. They also produce The OC, but I couldn’t put that in the same sentence with the phrase “decent shows.” Just ain’t our cup of tea here at Screen Rant.

I said sadly, because as much as I am loyal to the memory of Joss Whedon’s Firefly (a great sci-fi/western TV show), I am going to be giving Rosenbaum’s show a look-see once it gets going.

At the moment, we have no other details on the show. I hope they best tread very carefully on ground already trodden, because you know for a fact that the fan base of Joss Whedon and other editorial entertainment writers will be comparing it to Firefly. Not that Firefly has the sole market on sci-fi westerns, but it’s the most popular template for comparison.

Source: Geeks of Doom

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Has ‘The System’ Driven Joss Whedon To Quit TV?

Bruce Simmons — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:19:39 +0000

In one of the articles I was reading, a line in the opening paragraph said:

“…Dollhouse, has convinced him to abandon TV for good. His alternative medium: Web serials.”

Wow. Is that for real?

Wharton University of Pennsylvania was talking about how Joss Whedon wants to change the way Hollywood does business. As I’ve said before, he’s working within the system when he doesn’t balk at things like getting his new show shoved to Friday nights. Then again, maybe collectively FOX and Whedon knew something was up.

But it’s hard to ignore the success of Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog on the internet. From the initial free release, to iTunes, to Hulu and then to DVD, the skit did well and Wharton Univ. called it “something of a case study for marketing independently produced content.” Basically, Whedon spent $200k on the production and despite all the free avenues of release, he doubled his money… so far. But he also did it right. Unlike The Dark Knight, Whedon added a ton of extras to the DVD release, as it should be.

This success must be a real thorn in the side of the likes of Sony, Disney and Warner Brothers just to name a few. A few what? A few companies trying to make a go at it on the internet too.

In my mind, and I am seriously reading between the lines, Joss is tired of getting the runaround by the networks and he knows his content can be successful. I’m trying to ignore the Dollhouse premiere when I say that. Yet I can’t help but note how he had to rewrite the premiere episode and he was quick to say it was his doing… but was he just playing within the system? Are the miserable ratings really the fault of FOX yet one more time? I feel your pain Joss.

With the Dr Horrible project he laid down a gross participation scheme for the key actors and writers. All the while the writers guild was negotiating for what he called “one-tenth of a yen.”

I don’t want to paraphrase his take, so let me put a quote out there:

“When the studios talk about the difficulty of monetizing the Internet, they’re not lying. There are a lot of paradigms wherein you aren’t making that much money. But it’s all pure money for them because they have these libraries they can just put on. They’re really not interested in putting on original stuff because they can just throw the libraries on and make free money off of that. None of us is in that position.”

“For [the studios] not to offer the creative community a percentage of what they make — they say, “oh, it’s too difficult” and “we’re not going to make any money” — is disingenuous to the point of criminality. What they’re making is pure profit. For them to shut out the people who actually created the content is something that should be looked into by a federal investigatory committee.”

And right now, with Dr Horrible, he realizes it’s a model he can build on. I had pointed out back in July of ‘08, that Joss said he’s not trying to bring down the studios but things are changing and they need to look at that evolution and not ignore it. As he puts it, if you’ve seen it on a movie screen, you’ll see it on your phone. But he wants to see a system were independent production can thrive in this kind of environment which breeds creativity.

What does he really like about the internet? The idea that you can make things cheap with people you trust where you can do what you think is right and not have to worry. (Is it me, or am is there something to seriously read between the lines there?)

In a sidebar of a note, he reflected on his trying to write the script for a proposed Wonder Woman movie, Warner Brothers never told him exactly what they wanted in detail. By the time he rewrote a script, they told him not to.

In his unique and funny way of putting things, he said, “They didn’t tell me to leave, but they showed me the door and how pretty it was. Would I like to touch the knob and maybe make it swing?”

I added this because I think it contributes to my suspicions.

But right now, he’s got a deal going with a nameless Silicon Valley company to create more content for the internet… and I can’t wait. Joss, being able to create his own vision without interference can be a wonderful thing.

When he did Dr. Horrible, he had a few other ideas. But he won’t fess on those because he says he still might do them too.

You, the reader, may have found it apropos that I used the shot of the Firefly to head this article. That’s about when things started to go south in network land for Joss and all of his fans. So to answer my opening question, is this for real? Is he looking at Web serials rather than TV series?

I didn’t find anything saying otherwise. He may very well have given up on the standard restrictive nature of advertiser-run network situations.

When asked what he thinks the media landscape will look like in 5 years, he said “he’s so brilliant, he doesn’t dare say… or that he has no idea.”

For you wanna be hopeful executive producers out there, here’s a parting bit of wisdom or guidance from Joss Whedon himself:

“I can’t stress enough that I believe the best thing in the world is for everybody who feels like they have a story to tell, to tell it.”

Sources: Wharton.edu, LA Times, Rolling Stone, Digital Spy, Image: IMDB

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Shepherd Book Gets A Book, Serenity Fans Rejoice

Bruce Simmons — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:59:14 +0000

Shepherd Book always had a calm bit of wisdom to bestow. An insightful man of experience seeming to know a lot more than maybe he should. Book could distill wisdom beyond his years, even if certain captains didn’t heed his words.

As Book put it early on in his stay on Serenity, “I think I’m on the wrong ship!”

What do we really know about Book, the apparent “man of the cloth?” He’s rather well versed in the criminal element, he knows how to shoot, he knows his way around a firefly, and at one point, the bounty hunter Jubal Early said “that ain’t no shepherd.”

We can guess at various ideas about him: A retired Alliance officer, an ex-con, a double agent for the independents? Have you ever been wondering exactly what his back story is? Yeah, me too. Joss-Verse fans really want to know!

Strangely, so does Ron Glass, the man who played Shepherd Derrial Book in the TV series Firefly and movie, Serenity! One day he told Joss Whedon that he’s tired of facing fans at conventions knowing what they are going to ask and not having answers.

Well, now he’s going to get some info to answer those questions with.

Whedon said that if there were ever by some fortuitous miracle, a Serenity sequel, there would never be enough room to explain Book’s back history. So Whedon derived the only way possible to expound on his own universe. The place where he has the control he needs to pour forth his inner imaginations.

Comics.

A Shepherd book, about Shepherd Book. A book, er… well, you get it.

Ron Glass as Shepherd Book

Whedon already has the outline in his head and the book is going to be called The Shepherd’s Tale. The comic will outline Book’s entire history, covering some of the most asked questions about the character. It will be vignettes as you will of who he is and how he came to be on Serenity.

The Shepherd’s Tale will come out as a three-issue online comic that will be scripted by Jim Krueger and we ain’t gettin’ no insights from Whedon. He says we’ll have to read it to find out the little things like the man Book once killed and things like that. Wah!??

Right now Krueger is writing the MySpace Dark Horse Presents online comic: Serenity: The Other Half.

But for the moment, all the good details about Book will have to wait until next year when the issues come out. As Joss put it, It’s taking longer than they thought. Patience my readers, patience.

Sources: MTV, Firefly Wiki

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