Specter313
Ghost of all things X
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There's still hope.While Bendis is working on new "Powers" comics, work continues on the "Powers" television pilot. "The good news was that the pilot was put together. I've seen it and it's not embarrassing on any level. It's very interesting, dense, and complicated like every FX show is. We were tested and the things that you need to continue forward we tested very well with. People liked our lead Jason Patric and the idea of the show. They said they would watch the show. So all of these things did very well," Bendis said. "If those things didn't do well we would have been dead. There were a couple areas that we needed to clarify for a mass audience, but they were very easy fixes. We also came up with an idea for an opening that we liked better than what we had.
"So here's the thing, FX is different from other networks. Other networks make a bunch of pilots and watch them once. They then test them and decide whether they want to put them on the air or not. If FX greenlights a pilot they're 80 percent sure that they're putting the show on the air. They reshoot pilots before they abandon them. From what I understand the 'Sons of Anarchy' pilot that aired was almost completely reshot from the original. It was done by our director," Bendis continued. "So they look at it as a first draft of a five-year investment in a series, which I think makes their shows better. I think that's why their success rate is so high. If a series doesn't connect with an audience it isn't from a lack of quality.
"So that's where we are now. The important stuff worked. There are rewrites happening as we speak and I talk with the other producers all the time. Just last night me and Chic Eglee, our show runner, had a wonderful conversation about 'Powers' involving things we can do right now and in the future. Also I have to say our network president [John Landgraf] is very intelligent and very invested. He's spending a lot of time with us," Bendis said. "I've been told by almost everybody working on this pilot that we're being very spoiled. The president of FX will call us to talk about 'Powers' in a philosophical manner and it's such a wonderful conversation. Everyone says to me, 'That's not how it is. And I go, 'I know. I've been around.'"
Bendis is enjoying the chance to collaborate with everyone involved with the "Powers" pilot, but the writer knows that ultimately if the show gets on the air it won't be because of his powers of persuasion. "There's nothing I can say or do to get it on the air except help make a quality show. If it doesn't go on the air then I will show it after 'Locke & Key' at conventions and smile and wave. So I'm hopeful and very proud of my collaborators. And in the back of issue #8 I talk about spending time on set with Mike Oeming watching this happen. It was a really special experience," Bendis explained. "Me and Mike were friends when we first started this. Now here we are over a decade later and we're more than friends. We're family. We'll be that way forever and to share this experience together and still be friends was really, really special and wonderful. All of that came about because people supported the book so vocally."
The producers of the "Powers" pilot were aware of the book's dedicated fan base and, to Bendis' surprise and pleasure, took fans' opinions into consideration when they were developing the pilot. "When the pilot was announced people got onto websites and started listing their casting choices. There were lots of posts and threads and I think iFanboy did a podcast about it. When we were in a casting meeting for 'Powers' someone in the network pulled out a print out of those various posts, and said, 'Let's talk about what's on these lists.' It was very cool," Bendis stated. "That's how seriously people's passion for this was taken. It went all the way up to the people who are going to make the pilot. So I hope that people who have been fans of this book take a lot of pride in that."
Bendis knows the passionate "Powers" fan base is one of the main reasons the television pilot happened and he feels like he let them down by not releasing an issue of the comic series for so long. Right now his immediate priority is getting new issues of the comics out to readers, but the writer told CBR he holds out hope that "Powers" will be picked up as a series on FX so fans can experience the story through a different medium.
"The book began with me writing it in my basement and Mike drawing the book in the security booth where he worked in the middle of the night guarding a parking lot. So we went from a lonesome experience like that to speaking with dozens of people who are all now making 'Powers.' They're all smart Peabody and Emmy-winners behind the television that I watch and love. So it brought all of this to me, and after I was all done I realized that I did not do my part and put more issues of 'Powers' out to keep it all going. I stopped things and I'm desperate to get it moving again," Bendis explained. "I can't wait to not only get issues of the book out to people who are waiting patiently, but also to unveil this TV project to everyone. I can't wait for people to see what I've seen which is Jason Patric looking just like a Mike Oeming drawing walking into a room and start questioning a subject. It was very cool."
*do it*Powers TV Series Update: FX Says Full Pilot Reshoot May Happen
Its been a long road for Powers at FX. Based on Brian Michael Bendis acclaimed comic book about homicide detectives covering superhero-related crimes a pilot was shot last year, which FX did not pick up to series.
However, that hasnt been the end for Powers. FX, initially saying they expected to do substantial reshoots on the pilot were it to move forward, has continued to develop the project and today at the TCA (television Critics Association) press tour, FX president John Landgraf acknowledged the rather notable work being done for a series still not officially picked up.
I noted to Landgraf that earlier this week, Bendis himself had tweeted that hed read up through the script for episode three of the potential series, and Landgraf replied, Yeah. Brian has the benefit of reading scripts that I havent read! But what we ended up doing is hiring Chic Eglee, who had done the work on the pilot we shot. Not only to rewrite the pilot that we had shot, but to do three more episodes and put together a writing staff. So I think Brian has now read those scripts. I havent seen them yet. So we are going to end up having four scripts for Powers. And if we elect to move forward, yeah, I think we will just go back and reshoot the pilot from scratch, with a new cast in all probability.
The Powers pilot shot last year starred Jason Patric and Lucy Punch as Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim. Punch has since moved on to become a series regular on FOXs new comedy, Ben and Kate, but Landgraf did reveal, I think theres a possibility that some of the original cast members might return. Jason Patric certainly wants to look at the material and wants to render an opinion about whether he still wants to be involved in the project. But its just as likely, I think, that wed just start from scratch and reshoot it.
The fact that FX has commissioned the four scripts is certainly an encouraging sign - and seems to hint that if Powers does get the greenlight, the cable channel want to be ready to go quickly on subsequent episodes.
New writer on board, fresh start... lets hope this gains traction this time.IGN TV: I feel like this is the twentieth press tour I’ve asked you about this, but Powers... Is it gone?
John Landgraf: 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.
IGN: So basically at some point in the next few months you’ll evaluate whether you want to produce another pilot?
Landgraf: 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.
Ehhhhh.... Playstation? Really? If you're going to do this ****, do it on something I'd actually ****ing be able to get access to.Sony Pictures TV To Produce Comic Book Drama Series ‘Powers’ For PlayStation
By NELLIE ANDREEVA
Sony’s PlayStation video game console is the latest digital platform to enter the original programming space. Its first show will be hourlong drama Powers, based on the graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming. The series will be produced by PlayStation sibling Sony Pictures TV, where the project had been gestating for awhile and went through several incarnation at FX, including a pilot. Powers for PlayStation represents a brand new take on the source material, penned by Charlie Huston. Returning auspices include Circle of Confusion as well as Bendis, Oeming and Michael Dinner who will executive produce with Huston and Remi Aubuchon (Falling Skies), along with Circle of Confusion’s David Engel, David Alpert and Lawrence Mattis. Bendis and Huston will serve as showrunners. Combining the genres of superhero fantasy, crime noir and police procedural, Powers, whose order is said to be around 10 episodes, is set in a world full of people with superhuman abilities and where all of those powers are just another catalyst for mayhem and murder. The series follows Detective Christian Walker, who is in charge of protecting humans like us and investigating cases involving the God-like men and women, referred to as “powers,” who glide through the sky on lightning bolts and fire and who clash above cities in epic battle, oblivious to the mortals below. No start date is set yet for the series, which is expected to be of premium cable quality. SPT will sell internationally.
PlayStation joins rival, Microsoft’s XBox, which announced Halo as its first original scripted series a year ago though the project doesn’t have a green light yet.
Powers, an exclusive digital video series based on Marvel’s comic book/graphic novels, has been greenlit to series and is in production. It will arrive at the end of the year from Sony TV and PlayStation in concert with Marvel. The first episode will be free to everyone on a PS4, and subscribers to Sony’s PlayStation Network Plus will get the entire series for free. “It’s also going to show us what a world with people with powers would look like,” said executive producer Brian Michael Bendis, who is also the comic’s co-creator. “I know that as gamers and comic book lovers, we love our genres hard-core. One of my jobs as exec producer of the show is to make sure that the TV show gives us what the comic book gave us, with all the authenticity we can muster.”