Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Cowboys & Aliens

7/2/10 - Abigail Spencer, who played Don Draper's mistress on the '60s-set AMC series Mad Men, has joined the cast of DreamWorks and Universal's big-budget Cowboys and Aliens, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Harrison Ford and Sam Rockwell already are cast in the tale, based on a Platinum Studios graphic novel about cowboys and Indians rising up against invading aliens. Spencer will play a prostitute named Alice, a former lover of Craig's character who makes him change his ways.  Jon Favreau is helming the sci-fi adventure, which is shooting in Sante Fe, N.M. Universal will release the film July 29, 2011.  Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are producing with Platinum's Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

5/4/10 - Sam Rockwell is reteaming with Jon Favreau for another comic-book adaptation, DreamWorks' Cowboys and Aliens, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde and Harrison Ford are already cast in the tale, based on a Platinum Studios graphic novel, of cowboys and Indians rising up against aliens.  Rockwell will play a bar owner named Doc who joins in the pursuit of the aliens. Once Favreau and the writers -- Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof -- learned that Rockwell was interested in the movie, they reconceived and expanded the role, which initially called for a heavy-set man.  Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are producing along with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

4/7/10 - Director Jon Favreau, who's prepping the upcoming sci-fi western Cowboys & Aliens, confirmed via Twitter that Harrison Ford will be in the movie.  Ford joins a cast that includes Olivia Wilde, and Daniel Craig in a movie written by writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, with Damon Lindelof, based on the comic-book series.

2/2/10 - Olivia Wilde is in negotiations to star opposite Daniel Craig in the sci-fi Western Cowboys & Aliens, which Jon Favreau is directing for DreamWorks Studios, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Wilde will play a character named Ella who joins up with mysterious gunslinger in an unlikely uprising against an alien invasion.  Craig is playing the gunslinger.  Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are producing and wrote the script with Damon Lindelof. Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are also producing along with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, who created the graphic novel upon which the movie is based.

1/14/10 - Daniel Craig might be joining the sci-fi Western, Cowboys and Aliens, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  The James Bond star is in early talks to play a gunslinger in the DreamWorks project, which explores what would happen if the traditional Old West enemies -- cowboys and Native Americans -- found the prairie attacked by aliens in mid-1800s Arizona.  The gunslinger named Jake is the one who leads the human revolt.  Jon Favreau is directing. DreamWorks hopes to shoot the film this year with an eye toward a 2011 release.  Robert Downey Jr. dropped out last week due to scheduling issues.

8/10/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman said they turned in their draft of Cowboys & Aliens on Aug. 5 and are now awaiting feedback on their screenplay adaptation of Fred Van Lente's graphic novel.  "We literally handed it in yesterday," Kurtzman said. "So ask us Monday."  Damon Lindelof co-wrote the script with Orci and Kurtzman. Orci added that they've done the best they could, and now it is in producers' and actors' hands.  "We'll find out, literally," Orci said. "We're waiting to hear from the principals. We try not to turn it in until we think it's ready. Obviously, there are always things you can improve."  The graphic novel deals with feuding frontier settlers and Native Americans in the Old West who team up to fight extraterrestrials. Orci and Kurtzman previously told SCI FI Wire that they put their own spin on the story. Now producers Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, as well as potential star Robert Downey Jr., will get their say.

6/23/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci's Cowboys and Aliens was not easy to adapt.  The movie, a mix of sci-fi and wild west, is based on the Platinum Comics graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley. Set in the mid-1800s in Arizona, it deals with the invasion by an extraterrestrial species with plans to enslave humanity, but cowboys and native Apache have other plans. Orci and Kurtzman are acting as producers and writers on the project for DreamWorks; Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg are also producing.  In adapting the comic, "we always have to remove ourselves a little bit from it ... in the same way that a screenwriter adapts a novel," Kurtzman said. "It's very rare that you adapt a novel word for word and structurally as it was written as a novel. You have to find a way to say, 'All right, how am I going to take this blueprint and turn it into a screenplay?' In the case of Cowboys and Aliens, what I think is true to the spirit of the comic book is the idea that it's a genre mash-up—it's a western and a sci-fi movie and everything we love about both genres—and they just kind of collide. But I think there was an enormous amount of invention in Cowboys and Aliens for us."  Kurtzman said that he and Orci were unfamiliar with the comic book prior to working on it; in fact, it was the name alone that hooked the pair. "We were not actually very aware of it," he said. "We didn't know it at all. It was the title. That was literally it. It was just the title, and we went, 'We're in. I don't know what it's about, but we're in.'"

3/30/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman said their upcoming Cowboys and Aliens movie will mash up sci-fi and the Old West in a way that hasn't been done before.  "We're in the middle of writing that with Damon Lindelof," Kurtzman said. "We're hoping to deliver that soon, but it's feeling really good, and it's really exciting because it's just fun to write a genre mashup."  Cowboys and Aliens is based on the Platinum Comics graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley.  Set in the mid-1800s in Arizona, it deals with the invasion by an extraterrestrial species with plans to enslave humanity, but cowboys and native Apache have other plans. Orci and Kurtzman are acting as producers and writers on the project for DreamWorks; Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg are also producing.  The movie is slated for a 2010 release.

1/14/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that writing/producing partners Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman provided updates on Cowboys and Aliens.  Based on the graphic novel, the story mixes the genres of the Old West with the science fiction of an alien invasion.  Orci said, “That audiences are getting very sophisticated, and the idea of taking two known genres, a western and an alien-invasion movie, and literally crashing them together is something you haven't seen a whole lot of, and it's something you can't predict what that's going to turn up. What is crashing this chocolate and this peanut butter going to turn up?”  He went on to say, “We have an amazing first draft from Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, the gentlemen who co-wrote Iron Man. We're in the middle of doing a second draft with Damon Lindelof, and hopefully we'll have something in a couple months.”

11/14/08 - DreamWorks is putting a handful of projects on its high-priority list, including several SF&F movies, Variety reported.  While there are many deals still to be negotiated and many green lights yet to be handed out, the studio is expected to move quickly as it builds its Reliance-funded and Universal-distributed slate. Some movies could even go into production well ahead of DreamWorks' original fall '09 target.

Among the projects:
--Cowboys and Aliens: The large-scale comic-book adaptation is now being penned by writer-executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, TV's Fringe), who took on the gig from Iron Man co-writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. Imagine is producing, and director-producer Ron Howard, who remains a long shot to shoot the film, is developing the project for attached star Robert Downey Jr.

--Real Steel: A futuristic boxing movie being penned by Dante's Peak writer Les Bohem, who created and wrote the Steven Spielberg-executive-produced SCI FI Channel miniseries Taken.

--The 39 Clues: The project is a potential Spielberg directing vehicle, though it's still in script phase, with Jeff Nathanson only recently hired to adapt the first novel, The Maze of Bones, in the 10-book Clues series.

06/16/08 - Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. is in negotiations to star in DreamWorks/Universal's Cowboys & Aliens, a mix of the SF and western genres, which could serve as a potential 2010 tentpole.  Imagine Entertainment partners Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are producing. Platinum Studios chairman and chief executive Scott Mitchell Rosenberg also will produce, along with DreamWorks mainstays Steven Spielberg, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Ervin Rustemagic and Rich Marincic will co-produce.  Cowboys & Aliens derives from a graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley from an original idea by Rosenberg. The story centers on an Old West battle between the Apache and western settlers, including a former Union Army gunslinger named Zeke Jackson (Downey), which is interrupted by a spaceship crashing into the prairie near Silver City, AZ.  The story draws a parallel between the American imperialist drive to conquer the "savage" Indians with its advanced technology and the aliens' assault on Earthlings, who must join together to survive the invaders' attack.

06/27/07 - DreamWorks and Universal Pictures will join to turn the graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens into a live-action feature film.  The graphic novel mixes western and science fiction genres. Set in 1800s Arizona, the movie begins with a skirmish between cowboys and Apaches, which is interrupted by the crash-landing of a spaceship. The alien commander plans to tame the Old West and enslave everyone, but the cowboys and Native Americans turn their six-guns against the alien invaders.

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