Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

The Crazies

10/2/09 - The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero film of the same name, directed by Breck Eisner and opening February 26, 2010.

4/20/09 - Danielle Panabaker, who will appear in the remake of George A. Romero's The Crazies, says she doesn't mind her budding scream-queen status. "I would love to be a scream queen!" Panabaker said. "I think it's fun. I think you get to go so many places with something like this. You get to hit so many different notes as an actor, because my character, you see her before everything starts going wrong in the town, so she's innocent and young and fun, and then there's a really dark journey this character has to take that you don't necessarily see in a romantic comedy. That's fun for me. Maybe I have a very warped reality."  In The Crazies, the idyllic town of Ogden Marsh undergoes a startling transformation when a chemical weapon infects the town's water supply, causing the inhabitants to go stark raving mad. The town is soon invaded by a massive military presence hoping to contain and cover up the outbreak.  Panabaker's character joins her boss and surrogate mother figure, Dr. Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), to go on the run from the crazies along with Judy's husband, Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant), and his deputy, Russell Clank (Joe Anderson). "My character, Becca, works for Radha Mitchell's character at her doctor's office," says Panabaker. "Judy teases Becca about all her extracurricular activities. She's involved in her life, which is cool."

4/17/09 - Director Breck Eisner, who is helming the upcoming remake of George A. Romero's sci-fi horror movie The Crazies, said he believes remakes can work when they focus on areas the original simply couldn't.  "Any time you do a remake or a re-imagining, you want to have target aspects of the movie that they didn't have when they first made it," Eisner said. "My theory is they should have something they couldn't do the first time around that you could do differently. It's not like you're just redoing Psycho or redoing a perfect film. Romero obviously had limitations in terms of the budget. He had 275 grand to make the entire movie."  Like the original, Eisner's Crazies centers on a small town whose inhabitants have been infected with a disease that causes permanent insanity and, ultimately, death. The military attempts to contain the outbreak and also cover up the incident.  The director hopes to inject a bit of the original's social commentary into the bloody carnage, which he promises will earn its R rating. "This project definitely began under the regime of George Bush," Eisner said. "There is definitely a social commentary to the feeling of the use of military as a machine and the ends justifying the means."  Eisner added: "It's horrific and graphic, but I wanted a real quality to it. The idea is that the characters are natural and real, but underneath there are these competing agendas and human qualities. A lot of times small-town people say, 'Oh, it's perfect, everything ideal and like the '50s and everything back then was so easy.' But that's not the reality." The Crazies is eyeing a Sept. 25 release.

3/4/09 - Danielle Panabaker and Joe Anderson have joined Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell in Overture Films' The Crazies, a film "reinvention" loosely based on George Romero's classic horror movie, the studio announced.  Breck Eisner is set to direct the screenplay, about the inhabitants of a small Kansas town beset by insanity and death after a mysterious toxin contaminates their water supply. The film is written by Ray Wright, from an earlier draft by Scott Kosar.

1/14/09 – Hollywood Reporter announced that Radha Mitchell will star opposite Timothy Olyphant in "The Crazies," the reinvention of the 1973 George Romero film. Mitchell will play Olyphant's wife as they battle a toxin that has infected their town's water supply.  Breck Eisner will direct from a screenplay by Ray Wright, working from an earlier draft by Scott Kosar.  Michael Aguilar, Rob Cowan and Dean Georgaris will produce, with Romero executive producing. Overture's Sean Furst will oversee production for the studio.

11/24/08 - Timothy Olyphant has signed on to star in The Crazies, a remake of the George Romero horror movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter; the Overture Films project revolves around the inhabitants of a small Kansas town who are beset by death and insanity after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply.

10/8/08 - Overture Films will produce and distribute The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero movie, Variety reported.  Breck Eisner will direct from a script by Ray Wright and Scott Kosar. Michael Aguilar and Dean Georgaris will produce; Romero will serve as executive producer.  Production is set to begin early next year.  The Crazies revolves around people in a small Kansas town who are beset by a virus that causes insanity and death after a mysterious toxin contaminates the local water supply.

05/07/08 - Director Breck Eisner recently said that the military will have a more subtle presence in his version of George Romero's The Crazies, which he plans to shoot this summer (2008), but that it will reflect the times in a similar fashion.  In Eisner's version of the movie--about the military trying to contain a virus that causes insanity as it spreads through a small Pennsylvania town--the military will exist more in the background, he said. "They're responsible," he said. "The military is a little less heavy-handed, but more dangerous. ... In a way, the military exists on two levels: as ... a column of tanks or a mass of soldiers and then as the individual soldiers. I think the individual soldier is different than the mass, and I want to explore."  Eisner said his film will be told through the eyes of a local sheriff and that the "crazies" of the title won't be zombies.  The movie will still be scary and unnerving, Eisner said. "[The virus] unlocks our deepest psychosis," he said. "Some of it is violent. Some of it is sexual. Some of its self-inflicted violence. For me, the scariest movie for me as a kid was John Carpenter's The Thing, and the idea was not knowing who to trust . ... Can you trust your wife? Can you trust your mother? Your brother? That is the fear."

05/05/08 - Ray Wright will write and Breck Eisner will direct the remake of George A. Romero's The Crazies. Production is set to begin as soon as a SAG deal is made. "The Crazies" will update the storyline of the original, in which inhabitants of a small Pennsylvania town are beset by death and insanity after a plane crash lets loose a secret biological weapon into the water supply. Original was released in 1972.

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