Babylon5 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There has been no shortage of news coming out of the NYCC this past weekend (including from our very own Ryan Stewart). Now, IGN reports that Paramount and Brad Pitt's Plan B Productions are partnering to produce a film version of the novel World War Z: An Oral History of The Zombie War by Max Brooks (son of Mel). Brooks seems to have a flair for the subject of the "living challenged" as he also wrote the Zombie Survival Guide. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski is adapting the book but there is no confirmation yet that Pitt will star, Straczynski kept it pretty non-committal saying the script was, "For Brad Pitt potentially -- we'll see what happens. He might be the star in it."

Adapting the book won't be easy, since the novel is an anthology of man's survival during the "great" war with the undead. The structure of the book has no main characters and jumps time and place with recollections of the survivors of the decade long fight. During a panel discussion, Straczynski described the story as "very political, very smart, very cagey". Straczynski seems confident that if all goes to plan with the script, production wouldn't be far behind. The project sounds promising, but considering Pitt's plate looks pretty full, I'm not counting on him getting in front of the cameras for this one.

C-3P0 had R2-D2, and fan film god Shane Felux, the mastermind behind the much-ballyhooed, fan-produced Star Wars micro-epic, Revelations, now has an overseas counterpart: Finnish sci-fi nut Samuli Torssonen. Torssonen created and produced the space parody, Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning, the FX-heavy, feature-length Star Trek and Babylon 5 spoof which is on a strategic mini-tour of Finland and due for a DVD release later this year. In the spirit of fan films, it will also be available later this year as a free download on the movie's website, which presently hosts the film's trailer. Maybe it's the geek in me (who got beat up daily by the cool kids who sat in the back of the school bus), but fan films are cool. They are cool not only because they expand the universes that the studios can't or won't, but because it is pure and truly "for the love of the thing", as the unspoken agreement between fan filmmakers and the copyright holders is that no profit will be made from the new product.