elsewhere/media relations: beyond scifi

Sci Fi Channel Has a New Name - Now, It's Syfy - NYTimes.com
By STUART ELLIOTT

FOR years, television viewers, journalists who write about TV and services that compile listings have wondered how to refer to a certain cable network: Sci Fi Channel? Sci-Fi Channel? SciFi Channel? SCI FI Channel? Soon, to paraphrase Rod Serling — whose vintage series, "The Twilight Zone," is a mainstay of the Sci Fi Channel — executives will submit for public approval another name, not only of sight and sound but of mind, meant to signal a channel whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead — your next stop, Syfy....

Media Relations: beyond scifi/ March 16, 2009:

...Actually, I'm pretty sure that this will convey to "the fan-boys and -girls who love the genre" the opportunity to relentlessly mock the corporate overlords at NBC Universal. Because, seriously, Syfy? Seriously? Seriously?

NBC Universal has been searching ceaselessly for a way to rebrand SciFi almost since they bought it. [...] it's clear that SciFi's corporate overlords ardently desired a way to rebrand and trademark the channel for ... well, that's just it. What does having a trademark in a television channel get you, exactly? The right to run around telling the kids to get off your intellectual property lawn? What?

With this name change, NBC Universal manages to inflict upon itself the worst of all possible worlds....

comickal: monster attack network film, or, and now for something surprisingly different

How ... interestingly unexpected.

New gig for 'Mountain' man - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety:
Looking to match its "Race to Witch Mountain" director Andy Fickman with another family adventure film, Walt Disney Studios has attached him to helm "Monster Attack Network." Scott Elder and Josh Harmon have been hired to adapt the AIT/Planet Lar graphic novel, which the studio bought last summer. The 2007 graphic novel focuses on a team of first-responders who guard the citizens of Lapuatu, a Pacific island that would be a paradise except for frequent attacks by giant monsters that rise from the sea. Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman wrote the graphic novel, illustrated by Nima Sorat.

Jason Netter is producing through his Kickstart banner. Disney views the film as a visual effects-heavy tentpole. built around an elite government agency's resolve to protect America's coasts from huge, rampaging monsters....

"Visual effects heavy" certainly makes sense. After all, how else are you going to work all the monsters in? And Monster Attack Network is an elite government agency. But ... "America's coasts"? Where did that come from? Lapuatu is supposed to be a Pacific island nation somewhere. I'm assuming that the story location was changed because faking Los Angeles/New York is simply far easier and has a bit more resonance with the audience than evoking the Unnamed Island theme from so many monster movies. (Plus, most of them end up with Tokyo getting stomped anyway.) I'm also guessing that this means that the royalist angle is right out; after all, unless the history gets considerably more alternative than one might expect, we don't have a lot of royalty thick on the ground here. Not ours, anyway.

I wonder how many of the story elements, aside from the location, will be changed. I'm betting that this being Disney means that Zeke the big black gay guy, while possibly being still big and black, is no longer gay. Which ... well, it's not as though it meant that much to the storyline anyway. But still. I also suspect that the romantic/sexual aspect of the story is going to be gutted or at least dramatically transformed, because "family adventure film" does not precisely equal a scene where characters have sex to get all that uncomfortable sexual tension out of the way in the first ten minutes of the film. None of this means that it'll be a bad film; just that it will be a very different story than the one in the book. (The fact that people have been complaining that there's no actual story in "Race to Witch Mountain", that it's a lot of running around and not much else, that would concern me.)

I have to admit, I'm now very curious as to how the casting and the rest of the story might change, or not, as the case may be.

random: lambda literary awards nominations

The shortlist for each of the Lambda Literary Awards categories: LL Awards :: Current Finalists

I'm kind of surprised at myself; I don't think I've ever before seen one of the Lambda Lit lists where I've read so few of the nominees -- and except for a couple of books, the ones I've read were all in Gay Mystery. Weird.