Tom Akel and his crew from MTV were at Bubonicon this year, interviewing me and a whole bunch of the other writers at the con.
The videos have been posted in a series of little mini-interviews here:
http://www.mtv.com/geek/event_coverage/bubonicon_2011/main.jhtml
Check ’em out!
(And yes, I’m home again in Santa Fe, back at the computer).
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Last night I returned to one of my old haunts from my Hollywood years… and shared a wonderful reunion dinner with some old friends from my days on the staff at BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Some of them are folks I have kept in touch with regularly over the intervening years. Others I had not seen or spoken to since the show ended. Ron Perlman (Vincent), Linda Hamilton (Catherine), and Armin Shimmerman (Pascal) were there, along with composer Don Davis, producer David Schwartz, my fellow writers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon (the Lads) and their wives, and of course B&B’s creator and showrunner, Ron Koslow (who does not look to have aged a day since the show ended, and surely must have a portrait in his attic). We shared some wine and some memories, got caught up with each other, laughed a lot, drank a few toasts to the friends and colleagues no longer with us, and vowed to make the reunion an annual event.
A great time, which brought back vivid memories of a good time in my life. Very fitting, actually, since I’d made this visit to LA for the Emmy Awards… and it was as a writer/ producer on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST that I got my first two Emmy nominations. (We lost both years. But it’s an honor just to be nominated, yadda yadda).
Inevitably, one of the items of table conversation was the recent announcement that BEAUTY AND THE BEAST may be returning to the airwaves. Actually, there are TWO new BEAUTY AND THE BEAST shows in the works. One, under development for ABC, is based on the original fairy tale, and presumably will have a medieval European setting. The other, however, is a reboot of our own show.
You can read bout it here:http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/cw-developing-own-beauty-beast-236153
Now that you’ve read that, you know just as much about the reboot as I do. Actually, you know just as much about the reboot as anyone at our reunion dinner did. All of us had seen the story, in the REPORTER or on the internet, but none of us had been contacted by CBS or CW or any of the folks doing this new version. Just sayin’.
To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about this announcement. I am proud of the work I did on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, I learned a lot on the show, and I have a huge amount of affection for Vincent, Catherine, Father, Diana, and all the other characters we created in our fantasy kingdom under the streets of Manhattan (some of which were my own humble contributions). I love the idea of introducing a new generation of television viewers to the tunnel world and its denizens. After the original show was cancelled, all of us nursed the dream that B&B would return one day (how not? we had such a fabulous fanbase). A feature film was the dream, and for a while it seemed as if that would happen… but it never came to pass, years and decades went by, and we all moved on.
And now this. A reboot. Well, okay. I wish them luck, although generally speaking, I am not a fan of reboots. I don’t know the writers they have selected, but they seem to have good credentials. I hope they’ve seen the original series. I hope they love it as much as we do. I hope they keep the fantasy, the whole tunnel world, not just the Beast. I hope they keep Father and Mouse and Jamie and Pascal and all the other characters we peopled the tunnels with. And I hope they keep the poetry: the sonnets, the readings from Shelley and Keats and Kipling, the deep love of books and words and literature that was so much a part of Vincent.
Most of all, I hope they keep it smart.
But I must admit, the announcement makes me nervous. The new version will “modernize and CW-up” the love story, it says here, as well as adding a “procedural twist.” I haven’t watched enough shows on the CW to know what “CW-up” really means in this context, but the phrase rings ominously in my ears. And “modernize?” Uh… well, set it in 2012, sure… but part of the appeal of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is the timelessness of the underlying love story.
But we’ll see. (Or we won’t, this is only a script at this stage, not even a pilot). Maybe this will be another BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, where the reboot is a hundred times better than the original. Or at least a STAR TREK, where the comparative merits of the original show and the new one can be debated.
But I do pity the actors they cast to play Vincent and Catherine and Father. Ron and Linda and Roy are going to be tough, tough acts to follow.
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Still in LA. I fly home tomorrow.
Dropped by the Bookstar in Studio City this afternoon and signed all their stock, for any readers in the San Fernando Valley looking for an autographed book.
Once upon a time, in my TWILIGHT ZONE days, I used to watch movies in that bookstore. It began life as a nice little neighborhood theater. Still has the ticket booth out front.
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Still in LA, doing lunch and taking meetings and dancing the Hollywood shuffle.
But I had some free time this morning, so I did stealth signings at some LA bookstores.
If anyone out there is looking for a signed copy of one of my novels, you’ll find stacks of ’em at the Barnes & Noble branches in Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach, Long Beach (both), and The Grove. I also hit the brand new Mysterious Galaxy branch in Redondo Beach, and defaced their copies. It’s first come first served, so if you’re eager for a copy I have scribbed in, hie ye to one of those stores while the supplies last.
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For those of you who may have been hiding under a rock since Sunday… or maybe watching the Falcons/ Eagles game when you should have been watching the Emmycast… the big news here is that Peter Dinklage won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor for this portrayal of Tyrion Lannister in HBO’s GAME OF THRONES.
Goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that all of us from GOT were thrilled by Peter’s win. Much deserved. And only the first of many, I suspect.
GAME lost out in the other three categories where we had nominations, alas… including BEst Drmaatic Series, where MAD MEN took home the Emmy for the fourth straight year. But as the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers of my youth used to say, “Wait’ll Next Year.”
The Emmy festivities have changed immensely since the last time I ws up for one (for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, back in 1989 or so). The weekend was a blur of pre-parties, post-parties, receptions, gifting lounges, red carpets, and limos. Parris and I got to lift a glass or three with Peter, David & Dan and their lovely wives, Mark Addy, Lena Headey, Michelle Fairley, Kit Harrington, Jason Momoa, and Nicholaj Coster-Waldau, and some of the cast from BOARDWALK EMPIRE as well. I met lots of very cool people, and was astonished and delighted by how many fans the series — both the TV series AND the books — has in Hollywood, even on other networks and series. (Keep a sharp eye out in future weeks for GOT nods on a couple of your favorite comedies).
But now to work. I’m still in LA, and will be here for the rest of the week, but from this point on it’s mostly meetings. But more good stuff may come out of those as well… one hopes…
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Flying off to Hollywood in a few hours for the Emmy Awards.
Last week GAME OF THRONES won an Emmy for Best Main Title.
And Sunday, at the televised portion of the awards, we’re up for four more. David Benioff and Dan Weiss for writing (‘Baelor’), Tim Van Patten for directing (‘Winter Is Coming’), Peter Dinklage for Best Supporting Actor, and… the big one… Best Dramatic Series. Where we will be contending against three-time winner MAD MEN, HBO’s other big new series BOARDWALK EMPIRE, the old line on-line network contender THE GOOD WIFE, Showtime’s DEXTER, and the fine high school football drama FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. Tough competition.
I’d ask you all to wish us luck, but in show biz the preferred wish is “break a leg.” So let’s hope we shatter four legs to splinters come Sunday night.
See you on the red carpet.
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… in Portugal.
The first translation of A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is just out. And the gold medal for fastest translation goes to Portugal.
Mind you, my Portugese publisher splits each book into two volumes, so this is only the first half of DANCE… but even so, the first volume is in the bookshops, and I’m told it has vaulted to the top of the Portugese bestseller lists.
(cover art by Andreas Rocha)
So… which country will get the silver medal? Spain? Italy? Germany? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, back in the States, DANCE fell to #3 on the NYTimes list last week, and this week is down to #4. But still in the top ten, nine weeks after publication.
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HOLLYWOOD REPORTER has broken the story, so I’m now free to comment on a juicy little nugget of GAME OF THRONES news that I’ve been sitting on for a week or so:
Neil Marshall has been signed to direct an episode for our second season.
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past ten years or so, Marshall is the director of CENTURION, of DOG SOLDIERS, and — especially — of THE DESCENT, which I think may well be the best horror film of the past twenty years or so. (Do NOT confuse it with the sequel, a much weaker film). GAME OF THRONES will be his first foray into television.
And my comment?
That sound you hear is a high-pitched squeal of delight.
I love Marshall’s work, in case you couldn’t tell.
And what makes this especially exciting is that the episode he’ll be directing is… mine. Yes. He’s going to directing episode nine, “Blackwater.” The Battle of the Blackwater.
I still don’t how the hell we can possibly afford to do half of what I put into that script, but if anyone can pull off my budget-busting battle, it’s Marshall.
For more about our second season directors, check out the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER story at:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/game-thrones-neil-marshall-season-234126
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Football is back!!!
And life is… full of joys and pain, ups and downs.
My beloved Jets played the despised Cowboys in the season’s first Sunday night game, and played… ah… not nearly as well as I would have hoped. Though there were high points. Revis, of course. Plaxico Burress looked pretty good for a guy who has been in prison the past two years. Dustin Keller was great, as always, and LaDamian Tomlinson had a few good moments. Even so, the Cowboys came to play, their Rob Ryan D was much tougher than I had expected, and Dallas looked to have the game wrapped up early in the fourth quarter.
Fortunately, their QB is still Tony Romo. Who played really well for most of the game, as he often does, only to commit some truly horrendous mistakes at the worst possible times, as he often does. Thereby losing the game. Which is what happened tonight, giving the Jets a great if improbable victory. I really do need to buy a cardiac defibrillator in Jets green; I swear, this team is going to kill me one of these nights.
Revis deserves a lot of credit for the Jets win. So does Mike Westoff, Joe McKnight, and the Trufant kid who ran in the blocked punt for a TD. Oh, and Jim Leonhard, who ran down what would have been the Cowboys’ game-clinching TD and knocked the runner out of bounds inside the five, setting up the crucial Romo fumble that started the tide to turning.
But mostly of the credit goes to Romo.
As for the Giants… sigh… the less said, the better. They got embarrassed by the Redskins and Rex Grossman, f’r chrissakes. How humiliatin’. It could be a long season for Big Blue.
But hey… football is back!!
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Two of the game designers from Cyanide’s studio in Montreal flew down to New Mexico on Friday to give me a look at their GAME OF THRONES RTS game (that’s Real Time Strategy, for those of you who don’t speak Gaming), which is now done and will be rolling out Real Soon Now.
Now, I have to admit, I am far from being an expert on videogames. In fact, I’ve never played any of the current RTS games. My experience with videogaming was almost entirely with older, turn-based DOS strategy games like ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS, PIRATES, MASTER OF ORION, RAILROAD TYCOON, and the like. And as you can probably tell from those titles, I stopped videogaming some years ago (not because I did not like it — truth to tell, I liked it too much, and found that I was spending way too much time playing games on my computer when I should have been writing).
That being said… I thought what I saw looked really cool. And Ty, who DOES play a lot of videogames, seemed impressed as well. The gang at Cyanide (Montreal) have come up with some innovative features for this one, that should help make A GAME OF THRONES: GENESIS unlike any other RTS on the market at present. And fun to play as well, we hope… but that’s a verdict that will need to come from the gamers out there.
Focus, our publisher, has opened an official website for GENESIS. Check it out:
http://www.agot-genesis.com/
(Just to be clear. This is the RTS game, designed and developed by Cyanide’s studio in Montreal. A second videogame, an RPG, is also under development at Cyanide’s studio in France, but that one won’t be along for a while yet. The two games are very different, so please don’t get them confused).
Anyway, I enjoyed having the crew from Cyanide down here, and liked what they had to show me. I hope you will as well.
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