Powers

[Mr. Hakujin]

Well, the pilot is under way and being cast. In a bit of inspired casting, Jason Patric is set to play lead character Christian Walker.

 

 

 

 

An actress named Lucy Punch has been recently cast as Deena Pilgrim.

 

 

 

 

I have to admit, I haven't read the comic yet (I started on the Death of Power Girl arc a while back after everyone praised it @ H-Con, but I haven't finished it) and was more excited that Katee Sackhoff was in talks to be cast more than anything. I'll still check out the show--if it gets picked up-- though despite it's glaring lack of Sackhoff Starbuck goodness.

 

And if all goes according to plan the pilot will be picked up and in no time youtube will be flooded with fan mashups of footage from the show played over this Snap classic....

 

[Jables]

Jason Patric is a poor, poor choice for Christian Walker, but then you never know: this might be his chance at a do-over. And I think everyone was a little diappointed when Katie Sackhoff wasn't locked in.

[Mr. Hakujin]

I don't know, Patric is more heroic than Kyle Chandler, which is who Logan was on about in the Powers comic book thread. He's not as bulky as the comic counterpart, but he can do the whole brooding fallen hero type fairly well.

[Jables]

Eh, he's a brooding character but the overall feel of the book is comparably light-hearted. He/they grow as characters as Bendis pans out on the scope of the story, but every arc & volume always begins with two detectives with a good rapport solving caped street crimes. Even now, knowing what Walker is and with his new responsibilities he shoulders it all with a levity that I've never seen Patric try to bring(maybe Speed 2 but that further makes my point).

[Jables]

^ What that guy said

Edited June 24, 2011 by The JZA

[Thelogan]

Apparently Kyle Chandler was demanding a rewrite before he would take the part, something about the character didn't sit right with him, soooo fuck that guy. He does look the part much more than Patric, who is a poor fit imo. I'm willing to ignore all of that if he can play the role properly. And, as JZA said elsewhere, if we demanded someone that was a physical match for the part, we'd end up with some retarded wrestler or something and the show would end up awful.

 

That said, whiny little girls who can't be bothered to read the source material aren't allowed to comment on who looks "more heroic". You...know...NOTHING. Good day, sir!

[Mr. Hakujin]

The non-blond T-Mobil girl has been cast as RETROOOOOO Girl...

 

 

. . .and could also possibly be cast as the Pink Power Ranger when that franchise gets it's inevitable reboot. Either that or cast as Arr-Cee in the live action TRANSFORMERS: Dance on the Moon musical.

 

Edited June 28, 2011 by Mr. Hakujin
Retro. Power.They're both blond. :p

[Jables]

The non-blond T-Mobil girl has been cast as Power Girl...

 

1) It's Retro Girl you fucking philistine. little twat.

 

2) I was about to punch the screen when I realised they meant Retro Girl. The image is misleading, to a fault. In an unrelated note I look forward to seeing Calista the little girl child of the Finch in the first ep.

 

Revised edit: Let's not let a little power corrupt littlish-ly or something, Haku.

Edited June 28, 2011 by The JZA
jesus christ jay

[Mr. Hakujin]

All fixed, Jay.

[Thelogan]

First pic?

 

 

Doesn't really tell me much.

 

I've learned to accept him in the role. The success of this thing is all going to boil down to the writing. Do we know how involved Bendis is in this? I forget if we've already talked about it.

[Jables]

Looks like the pilot flopped

 

http://au.tv.ign.com/articles/121/1216576p1.html

 

Fuck this new linking system, incidentally

[The NZA]

fuck, not looking good.

 

regarding linking: either type out the words, then highlight them & click the link thing, or turn off rich text editor. i've made peace with it.

[Thelogan]

 

That's it. It's done.

Call it.

 

regarding linking: either type out the words, then highlight them & click the link thing

 

How the fuck has everyone else been doing it?

[Jables]

Thanks for the heads-up NZA.

 

And does anyone know how to access shit like Pilots to watch? Do they ever get released or leaked?

[Thelogan]

Sometimes. Eventually.

The internet will tell you when it is so.

[sinestetici]

That's a shame about the pilot. I was really excited when I first heard about the project. To be honest though, after I heard Sackoff (sp?) decided not to sign on, I had a feeling it was gonna bomb :-(

[Mr. Hakujin]

Looks like the pilot flopped

 

http://au.tv.ign.com.../1216576p1.html

Heh, our geek news meters must be in synch, Jay. Eventhough this news is well over a week old I just heard about it an hour ago and was coming in here to post about it.

 

Anyway, the series may have some chance of surviving. So it's only 90% dead and not totally done for. And now that I've actually read the first two arcs of the comic, I'm beginning to see possible flaws in the casting. But Jason Patric is still a pretty great actor. I'm w/ Jay and hoping whatever the outcome of the show that the original pilot gets leaked online eventually. I'd like to see what the original vision was for the show.

[Thelogan]

It looks like "Powers" may be starting from scratch.

 

 

"Powers" – the FX Network adaptation of Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's acclaimed superhero crime drama – has been on a long road from the pilot stage to the small screen. And though there continue to be some bumps in the road, it doesn't look like the journey is over yet.

 

After the initial pilot was filmed, FX President John Landgraf candidly called it “as difficult an adaptation as I’ve ever worked on," and the series was not picked up. However, it wasn't passed on either. Even as actress Lucy Punch moved on to other projects, Bendis was publicly stating how things were moving forward with more scripts being written as FX decided what to do about a potential reshoot.

 

In a video interview conducted in March and running tomorrow, CBR News spoke with actor Khary Payton -- who played Cutter in the pilot -- about the show's prospects at WonderCon and the actor dropped some interesting news about the cast for the show being let out of their contracts.

 

"The thing is that it's so cool. It's SO cool! I love it. I love 'Powers,'" Payton said. "I love Brian Bendis and Michael Oeming. Those guys are – I honestly think they just cast me in it so that I'd go buy all their comic books. I have no time for my three-year-old anymore. I'm reading Brian Bendis and putting Michael's picture on my wall."

 

"But they're amazing, and there really is a commitment. The higher ups want to do this so badly because they know it's going to be the coolest thing on television. But it's hard. It's a hard concept, I think, to get. And they had to step back and start over again. From what I hear, the plan is still moving forward."

 

"Unfortunately, we – all of the actors – got released. They're literally starting over. They want to do it again. And fortunately and unfortunately, I'm doing another show, and I still hope beyond hope that I can be a part of 'Powers.' But I'm happy to be working. But things are happening with 'Powers' absolutely. There are scripts being turned out. They just want more material to hear that they're getting it right."

 

As it was unclear from Payton's statements whether all the cast – including star Jason Patric – had been let out of their contracts, CBR reached out to a representative from FX who said, "I won’t comment on any of the actors contracts, but I’ll tell you this project is not dead, and it is still to be determined if we’ll move forward with reshoots on the pilot. There is currently no timetable on when to move forward."

 

CBR reached out to Patric's representatives for comments, but did not receive a reply by press time.

For now, fans will have to hold out hope that the order of more scripts and FX's repeated calls that the project hasn't died will eventually be enough to carry "Powers" through to the cable powerhouse.

 

[alive she cried]

This actually in a strange way gives me hope. It shows that they're not going to settle for mediocrity and also that they really care about this making them money.

[Mr. Hakujin]

I agree, ASC. I like what I'm hearing in that the FX network is starting over rather than giving up. It means something must've been working w/ the pilot. I'm not sure how the concept is so hard though; FX is almost doing what POWERS could be on JUSTIFIED. Just replace Raylan's hat w/ superpowers.

 

Also, you can compare what POWERS the TV show could be to another FX show, The Shield. Vick and his crew were criminals (Vick was practically a supervillain) playing at being cops and POWERS would be a former superhero playing at being a cop.

[Thelogan]

See, my fear is that they were handed a really solid adaptation, and they said "Ehhhhh, we really wanted something more like The Shield...".

[Mr. Hakujin]

The Shield w/ superpowers?

 

 

 

I'd watch that.

 

[The NZA]

yeah, me too.

 

anyone else following bendis' tweets? i havent checked in a bit, wonder what his reaction is to this news.

[alive she cried]

Encouraging words coming from FX president

 

FX President Offers Update On Brian Bendis' POWERS Adaptation

 

A while back, we heard that the possible television adaptation to Brian Michael Bendis' Powers graphic novel may be dead, but now FX President John Landgraf has revealed that may not actually be the case...check out the details after the jump.

 

Alex Lynch - 1/10/2013

 

A few months ago, we heard that Brian Michael Bendis' Powers may never reach the air with FX, however while speaking to IGNTV, FX President John Landgraf has revealed that the show may actually happen if the vision is correct, and the show turns out absolutely great saying "I’m not going to put anything less than an absolutely great version of Powers on the air." Check out the full responses below.

 

On whether or not Powers is really dead

No, still alive. We’ve been through so many incarnations. After we made the pilot, we actually developed three more [episode] scripts. So then we had a pilot plus three scripts, and we decided between the pilot and the scripts that it wasn’t quite the series that we needed it to be. When I say we, by the way, Brian Bendis is involved in every phase of this conversation and discussion. But one of the scripts was written by this guy named Charlie Huston, and he was a novelist. Both I and Brian and others thought, “Wow, there is actually something in the tone of this.” So Charlie was approached, I think by Brian, and said, “Look, would you be interested in taking on Powers?” And Charlie said, “Well, I’ve never actually adapted anything before in my life. I have only written novels and stuff of my own, but Powers is my favorite graphic novel, and yes!”

 

So what ended up happening was we reconstituted the whole thing around Charlie as the creator, with Brian. Charlie went up to Seattle, and they sat down and they talked, and read through all the books, and they came back with a new vision, basically. Essentially, a new pilot to begin with, which is a new, different story than the pilot that we shot. So that pilot is officially gone and dead, and the actors are all gone, but we’re developing a whole new pilot from scratch.[/indent]

 

Will FX think about shooting another pilot?

Yeah. What it’s always come down to for me is I know the underlying material is absolutely great. I know Brian has a vision, and Michael [Avon Oeming], but I feel like there have been so many great adaptations of graphic novels done that we have to add something. I would argue that what [Robert] Kirkman and his collaborators have done at Walking Dead has brought something to the table that didn’t exist before and that movies weren’t doing. I feel like we have to bring something to the table that doesn’t exist. Television adaptations of graphic novels, for the most part, have been the pretty good food you’ll take when really good food isn’t available, you know what I mean? For me, I’m not going to take second fiddle to Marvel or anybody. I’m not going to be able to make a $200 million negative, and I think that Marvel has done a great job at what they do, and they’ve created a template that really works, so I’m not going to imitate that. I want to make something else with Brian and Charlie and others that’s just as good but different, and trades on the particular strengths that television has in terms of what it can do. And if we can get Powers to that level, I’ll make another pilot, and I’ll put it on the air. But I’m not going to put anything less than an absolutely great version of Powers on the air. That’s like remaking a great film into a good film, and I don’t want to do that.

 

Read more at http://www.comicbook...3UYGLMuSoPvc.99

Edited January 11, 2013 by alive she cried

[Mr. Hakujin]

Huh, just now seeing this, and it does sound promising. I'm not sure who this novelist is, but comparing the vision of the new show's template to Walking Dead is a good sign. He contradicted himself a bit w/ the Marvel example though.

 

Anyway, I'm not too torn up about an entirely new cast in a new pilot either. I wonder if the Internet will ever get that failed pilot? We got the failed Wonder Woman one almost immediately.