Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Terra Nova (TV)

1/11/11 – According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alex Graves, one of the executive producers for Terra Nova said recently, “This has nothing to do with Lost, for one major reason.  It's made for a massively broad audience. Terra Nova is for everybody ... from my kids to the gamer to my dad."  The show's producers worked hard to dispel any inclination to pigeonhole Terra Nova as a sci-fi series. The show follows a family as they journey back in time to prehistoric Earth in a daring experiment to save the human race. But when they get to the Cretaceous period, they find the world isn't so hospitable.  The series, which will get a May preview before joining the Fox schedule in the fall, will use CGI dinosaurs and green-screen technology to recreate the prehistoric world.

9/17/10 – Blastr.com reported that Stephen Lang is officially on board as the main villain in Steven Spielberg's upcoming time-travel dinosaur series Terra Nova.  Lang will portray Frank Taylor, the charismatic and ruthless leader of the Terra Nova settlement.  The epic adventure story will center on the Shannons, an ordinary family from 2149, who travel 85 million years into the past, to a prehistoric Earth where they join the human colony of Terra Nova. Earth is dying, and the human race is being given a second chance at building a civilization in the past.  Jason O'Mara, who will play Jim Shannon in the series, was the first actor to be cast in the Spielberg series. Actress Allison Miller will play Skye, a veteran Terra Nova colonist who will take Jim Shannon's son under her wing.

8/2/10 – Blastr.com reported that Terra Nova was supposed to be on TV in January, but now it's pushed until fall 2011. Fox Broadcasting Company Entertainment President Kevin Reilly told the Television Critics Association that we'll get to see the first episode in the spring as a sneak preview to build big buzz.  "We're going to be able to do the pilot right, have an enormous jump on that, on the marketing side hopefully re-create the same thing we did with Glee, let people understand the show, give them materials over the summer that we've already shot, invest them in it," Reilly said. "Every show is fragile, but sci-fi, I think, can be particularly fragile. I'm hoping one of the things we can take out is the unknown of the production factor. Bottom line is we want to do it right, so I think that time is going to bode very well for the show."  So Reilly extended Spielberg and crew's deadline. Now they can take until about May to deliver the best introduction to Terra Nova.  "It was mainly due to the scope of what the show is going to take," Reilly said. "We got into it knowing it was going to be ambitious, knowing we had some groundbreaking digital effects we were bringing to it, knowing we had to create an entire world and mythology. Frankly, even locking in a location has had a unique set of challenges. A lot of the world will be created digitally, but we're trying to find a prehistoric world. We've explored everywhere from Louisiana to Hawaii to Australia to Orlando. Each has had pluses and minuses. We're getting close to locking in a location. It's actually been very, very exciting. We've got a great team, we've seen a lot of design work, but it really became apparent to do this show right, we'd need the time. So we decided to make a virtue of it, slow it down this season."  Reilly's following Spielberg's advice, too. The Hollywood director has been personally involved in guiding Terra Nova. He's not just slapping his name on as a producer. "He's been around," Reilly said. "He has not started his next movie. He has been in town. He has been very engaged on every element of it, from the conceiving of the world to the initial script and characterizations. He loves it, and when you get in the room with Steven Spielberg, you see it's Steven Spielberg."

6/8/10 - Jason O'Mara is in talks to star in Steven Spielberg and Fox's midseason TV series, Terra Nova, Deadline reported.  O'Mara would be the first actor cast in Terra Nova.  Terra Nova would also send O'Mara traveling through time, as the series focuses on an ordinary family from 2149, when the planet is dying, who are transported back 85 million years to prehistoric Earth, where they join a colony of humans with a second chance to build a civilization. O'Mara would play Jim Shannon, a devoted father with a checkered past who guides his family through this mysterious new land.

5/17/10 - Fox announced Steven Spielberg's new family dino adventure Terra Nova got picked up for midseason.  From executive producers Steven Spielberg, Peter Chernin, Brannon Braga and David Fury comes an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making. TERRA NOVA follows an ordinary family embarking on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth as a small part of a massive experiment to save the human race.  In the year 2149 the world is dying. The planet is overdeveloped, overcrowded and overpolluted. With the majority of plant and animal life extinct, devotion to science has brought mankind to the brink of destruction, but has also provided its only hope for salvation. Knowing there is no way to reverse the damage to the planet, a coalition of scientists has managed to open up a fracture in the space-time continuum, creating a portal to prehistoric Earth. This doorway leads to an amazing world, one that allows for a last-ditch effort to save the human race ... possibly changing the future by correcting the mistakes of the past.  The series centers on the Shannon family as they join the tenth pilgrimage of settlers to TERRA NOVA, the first colony of humans in this second chance for civilization. JIM SHANNON, a devoted father with a checkered past, guides his family through this new land of limitless beauty, mystery and terror. Jim's wife, ELISABETH SHANNON, is a trauma surgeon chosen through a global lottery as a new addition to Terra Nova's medical team. JOSH SHANNON is their son, mourning the girl he left behind, as he's torn between two role models - his father and the charismatic COMMANDER FRANK TAYLOR, the leader of the settlement, and the heroic first pioneer through the time portal. MADDY SHANNON, Jim and Elizabeth's teen daughter, is as independent and adventurous as her parents, but her distrust of authority soon leads her on a dangerous path.  In addition to blue skies, rolling rivers and lush vegetation, TERRA NOVA offers new opportunities and fresh beginnings to its recent arrivals, but the Shannons have brought with them a familial secret that may threaten their citizenship in this utopia. Additionally these adventurers soon discover that this healthy, vibrant world is not as idyllic as it initially appears. The areas surrounding Terra Nova are filled with dangerous dinosaurs, and other prehistoric threats, as well as external forces that may be intent on destroying this new world before it begins.  But perhaps even more threatening than what lies outside the protective walls is the Shannons' realization that something sinister may be happening inside TERRA NOVA as not everyone on this mission has the same intentions of how best to save mankind.

2/17/10 - According to Variety, director Steven Spielberg may take charge of the TV series Terra Nova, which would follow a family from 100 years in the future as they travel back through time to the prehistoric Earth of 150 million years ago.  The 20th Century Fox TV project would reportedly involve such elaborate sets and special effects that there's been talk of skipping a pilot and launching it directly to series production, since it would be too expensive to shut down and start up again during the downtime between the pilot and the series itself.  The script for Terra Nova was co-written by Craig Silverstein and British writer Kelly Marcel, who came up with the idea.  If Terra Nova gets the green light, Spielberg and Peter Chernin would executive-produce.

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