Feature Category: Features

How Luck and Chance Shape the Horror Movie Experience

Fortune and randomness are important parts that bring more excitement, uncertainty, and fear into the realm of horror films. Whether it is a moment of unexpected luck or an unlucky turn of events, these parts frequently have key roles in forming the story and pushing the characters to their final outcomes. Let us explore the role of luck and chance in horror films, with specific examples to show their effects.

“Final Destination” (2000)

At the start of “Final Destination,” they show us this idea about seeing future events and destiny. The main character, Alex Browning, has a scary image in his mind of an airplane accident just before the plane is going to leave. This feeling of future events starts a series of happenings where Alex and some others avoid death, but then they are chased by something they cannot see. Further in the movie, a simple action like tossing a coin to choose where to sit on the plane that will have an accident changes what happens to them later. This shows that even little choices can lead to big effects in horror stories.

“Saw” (2004)

“Saw” movie brings the idea of fortune and randomness to very scary levels, with characters put into cruel games by a mysterious Jigsaw murderer. Decisions about life or death depend on results from manipulated machines and challenges that make the characters face their worst fears and questions of right or wrong. Choosing to cut off your own foot or risk playing with a gun that is loaded represents the cruel character of these games, where chance turns into how you survive terrible frights.

“The Shining” (1980)

In the movie “The Shining” by Stanley Kubrick, the ideas of luck and randomness get a strange and dream-like feeling in the haunted Overlook Hotel. The actor Jack Nicholson portrays Jack Torrance, who is looking after the hotel, meets a ghost that serves drinks at the bar and starts to play with him in a frightening way that involves chance. While the bartender mixes beverages and provides mysterious advice, Jack gets caught in a network of destiny and insanity. It becomes hard to tell what is real from what is imagined. This moment shows that fortune can be controlled by hidden powers, taking individuals on threatening journeys without any visible way out.

“Ouija” (2014)

In the movie “Ouija,” the main ideas are about luck and randomness. Some friends, without knowing it, release evil powers by playing with a Ouija board. It starts simple like they just want to talk to ghosts but soon turns very scary. The people in the story get stuck in a dangerous situation where they are trying to escape from these bad spirits that they cannot control. When someone starts to use the Ouija board, it begins a series of ghostly happenings. This shows that small things can lead to big problems in scary stories.

“No Country for Old Men” (2008)

In this unusual horror movie, the scene where they flip a coin is very good at creating suspense and showing how fate can be so unpredictable. Anton Chigurh, who is mysterious and has no mercy, decides what will happen to his victims by tossing a coin. The coin toss’s unpredictability is a cold sign that in the film’s harsh universe, luck and chance often decide who lives or dies. Every time the coin spins in the air, it could mean life or death for those involved, displaying how fortune can act with as much uncertainty and cruelty as something from beyond our world.

Our relationship with chance

Chance can be an exciting thing. It is important that while we enjoy the rush, we also do what we can to influence the odds. For example, signing up at top real money slots can do a lot to improve your odds at online casinos. By choosing an expert-recommended online casino, you can be sure they have looked at the different payment methods, verified the proper licensing, and confirmed their trustworthy reputation. By checking out the gambling tips they offer, you can go a long way towards influencing the odds. If you want to sign up somewhere where you will improve your chances of winning, this is a great place to start.

Madeleine Roux • WHAT IF… LOKI WAS WORTHY?

Madeleine Roux is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author whose work includes Star Wars, World of Warcraft, and Dungeons & Dragons. Their new book, What If… Loki Was Worthy? features the Marvel Universe version of Loki in a multiverse adventure. We caught up with Madeleine to find out more…

STARBURST: How would you pitch What If… Loki Was Worthy? to an ancient god of mischief?

Madeleine Roux: What a fabulous question! Wow, no pressure. Okay! What if you had an idea for the funniest prank of all time, and it completely blew up in your face? That would be bad, right? Well, it gets so much worse! What if your family was furious, and they exiled you to Buffalo, New York? I know, I know, what’s a Buffalo, New York, you ask? Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough. But don’t worry, there will be boxed wine, football, and a pet lizard who opens your heart to new experiences. Stick around, do enough work on yourself, and you might get the powers of the God of Thunder, some friends, and a cool new costume.

What If… Loki Was Worthy? also features Valkyrie. Where do they fit in?

Valkyrie is sort of the truth north of this novel. She starts out very confident in where she fits into things, and when Thor dies – not a spoiler! – she has to go through a major upheaval. Ragnarok is a major part of life for Asgardians, and when the validity of that cycle gets called into question, it triggers an obvious identity crisis for most of them, Valkyrie included. So, she’s asking some massive questions about her own destiny and her own future while also being assigned to babysit Loki on Earth. Where he is chaotic and cunning, she is brave, competent, and confident. They play off of each other well, even if Loki is constantly exasperating to her.

What was the toughest part of writing this book?

My older brother passed just before starting work on the book. It was an intense coincidence that Marvel wanted me to do a book about sibling loss right after I had experienced it. I couldn’t look away from the coincidence, so I dove in. It was a way to stay connected to my brother even after he was gone. I spent every workday thinking about him, about the way his absence affects my life, and it allowed me to explore some raw, real things through these characters. That was tough because there was no escaping the similarities, but it also brought me to some meaningful truths and some beautiful moments of transformation for Loki, Valkyrie, Tony, and Jane.

Why do you think Loki is so popular as a character?

I think heroes can be self-serious, and sometimes you want that, but there’s something seductive and exciting about a misfit. Loki is a flamboyant, bisexual trickster with a ton of swagger – he’s not a square, he’s got a well-developed sense of humour, and at the end of the day, he’s most interested in pursuing what amuses him. That lack of restraint scratches something in our lizard brains. I also think there’s a deeply relatable side to him – he’s the outcast of the family, the black sheep, and many of us can see ourselves in the way that dynamic plays out with his family.

Why do you think the Norse myths have endured?

I don’t think we can ignore the strong aesthetic component of their lasting influence. The imagery is iconic, grandiose, and inspiring, and I think it will always appeal to humans. There’s also something fascinating about blending real-world myth with superheroes, who are modern mythology.

What other part of the Marvel Universe would you like to explore?

I would absolutely love to do a She-Hulk novel or comic. As a powerlifter, she’s one of my inspirations!

What other projects would you like to work on?

I quite honestly get to do my dream jobs each day. I’ve published over twenty novels, and most of them are my own original IPs. Just getting to do that is a blessing.

What’s next for you?

The third in my middle-grade series for Dungeons & Dragons (Dungeon Academy) is releasing in May, and my second romance novel, Much Ado about Margaret, will be out this fall. I’ve also got an exciting young adult novel on the way in 2025, and I’m about to pitch my first epic fantasy series.

Loki or Thor?
Loki!

Cyborgs or Dinosaurs?
I’m a huge Horizon Zero Dawn nerd, so…both? But if pressed, dinosaurs.

Kittens or Puppies?
Puppies, I’ve got two of my own!

Truth or Beauty?
I’d argue you can’t have one without the other, but again, if pressed, truth.

WHAT IF… LOKI WAS WORTHY? is out now.

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 2007, part 2

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. They hit the schedules alongside established shows, hoping for a long run, but it’s not always to be, and for every Street Hawk there’s two Manimals. But here at STARBURST we celebrate their existence and mourn their departure, drilling down into the new season’s entertainment with equal opportunities square eyes… these are The Telephemera Years!

2007-08

Reality TV was king of the small screen in 2007, with the top five slots in the ratings filled by American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, but drama of the scripted kind was still making an impact as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, House, and Lost were all still pulling in big viewing figures across the four main networks. Both Jericho and The Wire were entering their final seasons, after which one of them at least would enter the annals of TV classics, but it was a bad time for fans of animated genre fare, with The Batman, Ben 10, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast all beginning their final runs.

There were tons of new arrivals, of course, with Breaking Bad making drug dealing fun again, while Chuck, Gossip Girl, Pushing Daisies, and Reaper all debuted. The geeks of The Big Bang Theory made their bow, and it became cool to laugh at people getting hurt again when Wipeout hit our screens, but those were the shows that everyone remembers – what about the ones that didn’t stick around long enough to gain the following they did/didn’t (delete where applicable) deserve? This is the story of more of 2007’s lesser lights…

Bionic Woman (NBC): The original Bionic Woman was a 1976 spin-off of The Six Million Dollar Man (which itself was an adaptation of Martin Caidin’s novel, Cyborg) and ran for three seasons, making a star out of model turned actress Lindsay Wagner. While updates had been discussed for a few years, with the Todd sisters attached as directors and Jennifer Aniston linked to the title role for a prospective USA Network production, NBC Universal announced in 2006 that they’d taken the project back and were looking at a fresh reboot, leaving little but the show name from the original, especially as their rights to Caidin’s novel had elapsed.

They ended up keeping a little more as former Eastender Michelle Ryan starred as Jaime Sommers, a bartender (rather than the tennis pro of the original) who is badly injured in a car accident and receives experimental cybernetic upgrades to her arm, leg, ear, and eye, as well as the very modern injection of nanobytes that enable her to heal faster. Needing to look after her young teenage sister and pay back the shadowy agency that provided her life-saving treatment, Sommers becomes an agent of the Berkut Group.

The Bionic Woman was Ryan’s first big role after leaving Eastenders, where she’d played Zoe Slater for five years. It was meant to be the launchpad to a Hollywood career, and she auditioned for the part of Vespa Lynd in Casino Royale that eventually went to Eva Green. The show was produced by David Eick, who’d worked with Ronald D Moore on the 2003 reboot of Battlestar Galactica, with Laeta Kalogridis, creator of the WB’s Birds of Prey series, coming on board as head writer.

From the off, though, the production hit choppy waters when the November 2007 strike by the Writers Guild of America forced a shutdown. All the finished episodes had been aired before the strike hit and there were rumours that The Bionic Woman was on the bubble for an early cancellation, with the main cast put on half pay during the dispute. The strike ended in February 2008, but production did not resume on the show, with Eick confirming a few weeks later that The Bionic Woman had been cancelled. Just eight episodes had been produced, with ratings tumbling throughout its run, and Ryan was soon back in the UK, where she found regular work on stage and TV even if her Hollywood dream didn’t come off.

I Survived a Japanese Game Show (ABC): Danish producers David Sidebotham and Karsten Bartholin had a pan-Scandinavian hit in 2006 with Gay Army, a reality show that saw nine gay men sign up for military style training. Look, it was a (slightly) different time, okay? Their follow-up was undoubtedly less offensive to gay viewers but retained an air of “look at the funny people who are different to us!” by exploring the wacky world of Japanese game shows, hitherto the reserve of late-night chat show hosts and It’ll Be Alright on the Night/TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes-style shows.

The concept for I Survived a Japanese Game Show, which began airing in June 2008, was simple: take an American, fly them to Japan, and put them through a series of humiliating trials in the name of entertainment, just like those funny Japanese people we saw on that clip show that time. To be fair, the Japanese do love this kind of thing, with the long-running Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai and Za Gaman putting youngsters and families through all sorts of trials in the name of entertainment, and so it made for ripe pickings.

The show was hosted by Rome Kanda, a Japanese comedian who moved to the US in 1999 and who poses as the host of the fictional game show Majide (a Japanese slang term that means “seriously?!?”). I Survived a Japanese Game Show begins with him surprising contestants in their homes and inviting them to come to Japan with him. While there, the show would depict on-camera and behind-the-scenes goings on – the contestants were expected to live traditional Japanese lives in a boarding house overseen by Mama-san – all with the dangling carrot of a cash prize totalling $250,000.

The show was sold to sixteen overseas markets, which helped it earn a second season despite lacklustre domestic ratings opposite both America’s Got Talent and Big Brother, this time with eight episodes rather than seven and an increase in the number of victims, erm, contestants. Ratings further declined and NBC declined to renew the show for a third season but by then Sidebotham and Bartholin has sold the concept to Greece, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Brazil, and even Japan itself.

Moonlight (CBS): Moonlight creator Trevor Munson had just seen his first script – Lone Star State of Mind – made into a movie starring Joshua Jackson and Jaime King when he conjured the character Mick Angel, a private investigator turned into a vampire on his wedding night by his bride, Coraline, and who spends the next fifty years trying to live a good life, despite his curse, never feeding on women, children, or innocents. Initially proposed for a film starring Bruce Willis, the script instead landed at CBS, who optioned it for a TV deal and set Munson to work with Beauty and the Beast creator Ron Koslow.

Munson and Koslow retooled Angel into Mick St John, creating a fifteen-minute presentation pilot named Twilight in January 2007, which CBS greenlit for a full series. Retitled Moonlight and scheduled for a Fall 2007 debut, CBS attached Angel creator David Greenwalt as showrunner and cast Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin (then appearing in The Shield) as St John, backed by Veronica Mars’ Jason Dohring as Josef, St John’s 400-year-old vampire mentor, and with romantic intrigue in the shape of Sophia Myles’s Beth, a reporter who (unbeknownst to her) Mick rescued from kidnappers as a child and who becomes interested in his story.

Complicating matters is Coraline, who returns after being presumed dead for twenty years and claims to have a cure for vampirism, something Mick is very keen to obtain so he can go back to living a normal life. The political machinations of ancient vampires are as much a part of the story as the cases of the week, which almost always have a vampire angle to them. With a slow burn, the emphasis is very much on the performances of the principal cast, with Dohring in particularly charismatic form.

The show premiered on September 28^th 2007, but only twelve of the original thirteen episode run had been finished before the writers’ strike forced production to halt. Once the strike was over, CBS announced that a further four episodes had been added to the production schedule, for a total of sixteen, but announced the show’s cancellation two weeks later. Attempts were made to find another network for the show, which ended on a cliffhanger that saw Mick and Beth admit their feelings for each other as a list of all the vampires in the city was leaked to the assistant District Attorney. It looked for a while like Syfy might take it on, but talks led to nothing, save for a repeat showing on the channel two years later.

Fear Itself (NBC): A late-Spring replacement on Thursday nights for ER, Fear Itself was a horror and suspense anthology show named for the famous Franklin D Roosevelt quote that, “all we have to fear is fear itself.” Well, that and the monsters, serial killers, zombies, and werewolves that proliferate the series, with seasoned horror directors Stuart Gordon, John Landis, and Ronny Yu on board to provide the jump scares.

Fear Itself was the creation of Mick Garris, whose directorial debut had been Critters 2: The Main Course but more importantly had worked on Amazing Stories and Tales from the Crypt and was the man behind Showtime’s Masters of Horror anthology series that ran from 2005 to 2007. In many ways, Fear Itself could be considered a third season of that show, featuring scripts by Victor “Jeepers Creepers” Salva and Carnivalé creator Dan Knauf.

The first episode – “The Sacrifice” – told the story of four criminals who are given harbour by three strange sisters in a snowbound fort and aired on June 5^th 2008, attracting over five million viewers, just under what ER was doing in that timeslot. Subsequent episodes starred the likes of Eric Roberts, Colin Ferguson, Brandon Routh, and Doug Jones, but NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympic Games put the show on hiatus after its eighth episode, with a promise to return once the Olympics were done.

Come Thursday August 28^th, though, and there was no sign of Fear Itself episode nine, its slot filled by re-runs until ER returned four weeks later. Five episodes remained unaired, and while NBC made no comment about the future of the series, it was clear from its absence from the Fall 2008 schedules that it could be considered cancelled. The full run did air in the UK and Australia in 2012, though, by which time Garris had moved on an adaptation of Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, before becoming a director-for-hire for teen supernatural dramas.

Eli Stone (ABC): It’s probably fair to say that there weren’t many shows like Eli Stone on the air in 2007, or indeed any other year. A musical, legal drama about man who suffers hallucinations that might predict the future, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Bryan Fuller’s name on the credits, but Eli Stone was created by Greg Berlanti and Mark Guggenheim, who years later would oversee the Arrowverse series of shows for The CW.

Johnny Lee Miller, whose last show Smith had lasted for just three episodes before being cancelled, was cast as the title character, who we discover has an inoperable brain aneurysm that causes his visions. Natasha Henstridge plays his ex-fiancée Taylor, also an attorney, who is determined to help Stone through his trials, and the cast is rounded out by Loretta Devine, Matt Letscher, James Saito, and Victor Garber, although the ensemble is much wider, deepening Eli Stone’s world.

ABC ordered thirteen episodes as a mid-season replacement for Big Shots on Thursday nights, with a returning from hiatus Lost as its lead-in. Ratings were decent, if not spectacular, and the network announced the show’s renewal for a second season of thirteen episodes, beginning in October 2008. This was despite controversy surrounding its first episode, which presented the theory that autism was caused by vaccines as being not only credible, but legally compelling, forcing ABC to add a voiceover reiterating the fictional status of the show and a direction to the US government’s autism information service.

Moved to Tuesdays, with Dancing with the Stars as a lead-in, ratings fell for season two, fans of sequinned ballroom dancers seemingly not sticking around for an offbeat legal drama. After three episodes of the second season had aired, ABC announced its cancellation, opting to finish with episode nine on December 30^th 2008 to clear the slate for a new arrival, burning off the final four episodes in late June and July 2009. Despite its lower ratings, fans rate season two as the better of the two, feeling that the show was just hitting its stride before it was yanked from the schedules.

Next time on The Telephemera Years: A crop of unsold pilots from 2007, with aliens, demons, and more!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telphemera Years: 1976 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1978 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1981 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1983 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2 , 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1989 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1998 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1999 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2002 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2006 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2007 (part 1)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3 , 4)

The Telephemera Years: O Canada! (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: DIC (part 1, 2)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Sid & Marty Krofft

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)

Titans of Telephemera: Ruby-Spears

Ivan Caric • THE KEY OF DREAMS

Ivan Caric is the Founder and Creative Director of Lemon Difficult, a critically acclaimed immersive experience company that blends immersive theatre, overnight historic stay vacations, narrative puzzles and fine dining into something rather unique. We caught up with him to find out more about the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired event, The Key of Dreams…

STARBURST: How would you pitch The Key of Dreams to someone who really likes scary movies?

Ivan Caric: We don’t have jump-scares, but if you relish creeping dread, that growing realisation that things aren’t quite right and that they might spiral and get out of control, then you’ll be right at home. The concept of apophenia, the idea that everything is connected, from a thrown-away phrase to a carved gargoyle on the wall, and the growing realisation of how it fits together, is part of what I love in scary movies. Discovering the stories that happened at the house, why and where. Also, how the characters currently in the house relate to them, and what their goals are, and more importantly what will you do to affect these stories, that’s the magic of what we’re hoping people will experience. One of the touchstones for our experience is a M.R. James quote that I particularly like:

“If any of [my stories] succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.”

Where did the idea for Lemon Difficult and The Key of Dreams come from?

After the lockdown horror of the past few years, a key part of what I wanted to do was to create joy and connections. To capture that spark of joy you get when you make an intuitive leap or a link. This could be the solution to a puzzle, or more likely when you link motives, people, places and objects together and finding that “Oh, I understand what that means now!” moment. Through simple systems, actors, diegetic props, soundscapes, an incredible location and great writing, I wanted to create an experience that feels hospitable and genuinely delights people and has no right way to experience it.

The experiences we produce are truly unique. We cheerfully embrace multiple genres, including immersive theatre, roleplaying, escape rooms, puzzles, and gourmet dining. As it is an overnight experience, there is time to soak up the atmosphere of the incredible 17th-century manor house and grounds. Guests have time to build relationships with the characters and the other guests in a way that you simply can’t do in other immersive shows. They can explore interlinked narratives, solve puzzles, learn about the characters in the house, and discover the growing horror of the things that have happened, all the while being gently drawn further and further in until, by the end, they’re as bought into the setting and the events as the characters themselves.

It’s a lovely venue; what is the site selection process?

We spent a long time looking at venues, most of which would have worked fine, each with its own advantages, but Treowen felt special straight away. It has a curious liminal quality, it is old and grand, but still feel curiously homely. It hasn’t been modernised, so you feel like you could be in the past. The oak panelled walls and Morris papered walls would have been identical fifty or a hundred years ago. At night, it is even more unworldly; the lights are dim, the floors and doors creak, and with the darkness encroaching around you, there is a feeling that you could be in a strange dream, that the walls between the waking world and the sleeping ones are thin and who knows what you might experience.

How different is The Key of Dreams from The Locksmith’s Dream?

We’ve learned a lot from The Locksmith’s Dream – in fact, it’s still running. However, one of the things we wanted to explore that the audience loved was their agency and their relationships with the characters. We have a couple of unique advantages in that we have a really high actor-to-guest ratio – 1 to 4 – which means that you really get to know the characters and develop strong opinions one way or the other. Secondly, we have time; the audience spends 24 hours in this amazing house (which is a character all of its own) with these strange characters, you will break bread with them, debate and argue with them, cajole them, scold them even. All of this means that when you make a decision to help them, trick them, or even betray them, it actually means something because you know them, and you have an idea of how your actions will affect them.

Why did you decide to start running events like this?

I worked in large telecom corporations for nearly twenty years; it is as dull as it sounds! Sadly, my dad died at the end of 2020 during lockdown, and like lots of people did, I reevaluated what I was doing, decided to pack in my job and try to create something that brings a bit of joy into the world. Gaming – board gaming, TTRPGs, and, of course, computer games – literature, weird fiction and theatre have been a source of comfort, joy and connection for me throughout my life. I began wondering if combining these in unusual and unexpected ways would help me create something a little magical.

Are immersive experiences the future of theatre?

‘Immersive’ is a much-overused word at the moment, which means that the word is a bit of a vague and shifting term. Does it mean that the audience has agency, that they are in a world that they can wander around, or one in which the inhabitants acknowledge their presence? There’s value in all of these, and they can be delightful in their own way. I don’t think that immersive experiences are the future as such, although we certainly will see many, many more and more of these sorts of experiences, I personally love art with a strong authorial voice; whether I agree or disagree with it, I want to feel that what I’m watching, reading or experiencing has something to say, an opinion or a position that I can care about one way or the other. This can be harder with an immersive experience where there is strong audience agency, where often it is a collaborative experience. In this case, your experience is mediated by what the other audience members do, which can be amazing, or less so. This is one of the things that we are experimenting with to make sure that audience members can act to enhance the experience for themselves and others through their actions without having to be reliant on it.

What’s the most important thing you should consider before signing up for The Key of Dreams?

Just come; you’ll have a great time! One of the unique aspects is that it’s designed to cater to a range of different audiences, from immersive theatre buffs to people who love stories, puzzles, and roleplaying. There is genuinely no right way to experience it. But it is quite an active experience. You’ll get more out of it by travelling around the house and grounds, so decent footwear is a must!

What is your favourite part of the production?

The show structure follows a similar path to many weird fiction stories. Everything is mostly normal when the guests arrive; ‘investigation’ leads to hints of weirdness; this is confirmed in the ‘descent’, which is followed by a section we call ‘the door opens’. This is when the full strangeness of the experience will be realised This is followed by the ‘aftermath’ the next day, a sort of a moral hangover and realisation of the consequence of their actions. I think my favourite part is ‘the door opens’; by this time, the guests will hopefully be fully bought into the world and be acting on instinct rather than pure calculation.

What other works would you like to adapt?

Daniel Knauf’s tragically cut-short Carnivale TV series would be a fabulous setting for an audience to experience: a creepy 1920s carnival with stories to interact with, games to play, and difficult moral decisions to make. So, if Daniel is reading this, I’d love to talk!

The second thing we’d love to do (and bear with me on this one) is a Lovecraftian Wind in the Willows, designed for families. The kids get to do creepy folk horror stuff outside, and the adults do proper occult investigations inside – while perhaps sipping a cocktail or two – and the two converge at the culmination of the experience. Cults led by Ratty, Mole, and Badger!

What’s next for you?
After the first three shows, I intend to sleep for a month. After I wake up, there are more Key of Dreams shows to plan, a shorter experience based on it to design – the idea being to be run it in a large city – an epistolary weird fiction subscription in the KoD world, and a collaboration on a boxed narrative puzzle experience with a fabulously talented and well-known game designer based in the states.

Doctor Who or Doctor No?
Doctor Who without a moment’s hesitation!

Dragons or Deathstars?
Deathstars, it’s the future, you know!

Truth or Beauty?
Truth is Beauty even if it sends you mad

Booking for THE KEY OF DREAMS and THE LOCKSMITH’S KEY can be found here.

James Lovegrove • DOCTOR STRANGE: DIMENSION WAR

New York Times Bestselling Author James Lovegrove has written over fifty novels, including the highly regarded Pantheon series, the Dev Harmer novels and various tie-in works, including Firefly and Sherlock Holmes. His latest book Doctor Strange: Dimension War, sees Marvel’s infamous mage takes on challenges in a way the fans will have never encountered before. We caught up with James to find out more.

STARBURST: How would you pitch Doctor Strange: Dimension War to a reality-bending space wizard?

James Lovegrove: I’d suggest they buy copies for all their friends and family so that they can then say, “See? I told you I’d travelled to far-flung other-realms where there are dragon mouths floating in the sky and these pathways that bend in all directions and weird spiky spheres, and there’s this big flamey-head man who wants to rule the Multiverse and has a really cool niece who’s taken a shine to me. And oh, there’s also a lord of a dream dimension who keeps trying to destroy my astral form, and… Look, I know it sounds strange, no pun intended, but I’m sober, honestly, I swear.”

What was the toughest part of writing this book?

The original comics that I’ve adapted for Dimension War are wonderful stuff, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in their prime. But they’re also scrappy and episodic, and while there is an overall narrative arc across the twenty or so issues I’ve focused on, it’s not always readily evident. I had to bend their plots in places and add and remove bits in order to produce a story with a consistent throughline. That was challenging but also fun. I then had to figure out how to convey Ditko’s artwork in prose form, that extraordinary surreality of his that’s somehow both trippy and earthy. I had a go at this by playing with typographic formatting in places, using text the way Ditko did pictures, but mainly by rendering his imagery into words as carefully as I could.

Why is Doctor Strange so popular as a character?

On the surface, he’s not very relatable, not in the way that, say, Spider-Man is with his youthful neuroticism. Strange is a former surgeon who had wealth and renown, but was also arrogant and self-serving. How are you supposed to root for a guy like that? As Lee and Ditko showed, the answer was to humble him, strip away all his worldly success, and force him to start over from the bottom up. By learning to become a powerful Master of the Mystic Arts and eventually Sorcerer Supreme, Strange travels the road to redemption. Who doesn’t love a character who learns from his mistakes and becomes a better person for it? And also has white sideburns and a cool goatee?

Why have stories about wizards endured for so long?

Reality is fixed, prosaic and not always your friend. But what if you had the power to alter it, bend it to your will and make it work for you? And what if you could step outside the mundane and perceive the cosmic patterns that underpin the universe? And what if you could zap your enemies with spells and maybe have a cloak that can make you fly? Perhaps it’s a childish thing, this idea that with a wave of your hand or a wrinkle of your nose, you can make objects appear or disappear or turn a dog into a cat or a cat into a human or a human into a dog, or give yourself an endless supply of Lindt Mini Eggs, or whatever. There’s still something very appealing about that, even to an adult. Reality is stifling. Magic, and the wizardly ability to use it, is a wish-fulfilling kind of transcendence.

What other projects would you like to work on?

I’m very much hoping that there’s another Marvel novel in my near future, an adaptation of perhaps the greatest Silver Age storyline of them all. I’d gladly do even more Marvel work because I’ve been a confirmed Marvelite pretty much since I learned to read. The Marvel Universe is my happy place.

What’s next for you?

I’ve just written a novel that’s a childhood dream come true, working on an IP I’ve been a massive fan of from the age of 11 onwards, namely Conan of Cimmeria. Thanks to Titan and also the licence holders Heroic Signatures, I’ve been allowed to romp around in the Hyborian Age, and I’ve been having a ball. I’m hoping this book will be the first of several.

Loki or Thor?

I’m an attention-seeking nuisance, so Loki, obviously. Also, I don’t have the physique for Thor. Or the long hair.

Cyborgs or Dinosaurs?

Cyborgs definitely. I’ve always loved The Six Million Dollar Man and also the Marvel character Deathlok the Demolisher. In fact, I’d do anything to write a Deathlok story, even have a cherished body part replaced by the mechanical equivalent. Not that dinosaurs aren’t cool, but they’re not half-robot cool.

Kittens or Puppies?

I used to be a confirmed cat person, but then we got a Yorkshire terrier, and she drew me to the canine side of the Force. Mind you, I’m not into kittens or puppies as such because they’re all just mess, disinfectant, rolls of kitchen paper, and getting your hand gnawed.

Truth or Beauty?

According to Keats, there’s no difference.

DOCTOR STRANGE: DIMENSION WAR is available via Titan Book. It is out now.

William Eubank • LAND OF BAD

Thrown into a high-level military rescue operation at the very last minute, Land of Bad sees Sgt JJ Kinney (Liam Hemsworth) navigate a deadly and brutal mission, with the help of drone pilot Reaper (Russell Crowe). As events escalate and the stakes become higher, we witness a fantastic acting performance and dynamic from the two main leads. STARBURST talks with writer/director William Eubank (The Signal) to uncover the origins behind this original drone warfare-based idea, what the cast was like to work with, and how he went about capturing epic special effects for an action movie of this level…

STARBURST: We read that you came up with the story of Land of Bad some time ago; can you talk about how it first came to be?

William Eubank: Yeah, it was a long, long time ago. We were doing The Signal with one of my co-writers [David Frigerio]. Drone warfare, MQ-9s, and all of these different unmanned planes were really falling more into the public eye at the time. The Signal was such a crazy, quirky, sort of Lynchian, weird film. So we thought, “Man, we need more of a straight actioner to follow The Signal”. You’re always worried, especially on your first film, “Am I ever going to work again?” I felt because The Signal was so quirky, we kind of not over-corrected, but we thought “Let’s follow this with a more, straightforward action film.” And then, because other things happened, the movie was taking so long, and I got involved in another movie. At some point, we had been contacted by an actual JTAC [Joint Terminal Attack Controller], who had heard that we were writing a JTAC movie. He was a JTAC instructor at Point Irwin, and he wanted us to come out and see what they really do, and how they do it. That experience changed how I thought the movie would go. I learned how the guys worked, heard their stories, and saw how they worked together. We were like “Oh, gosh, we’ve got to start this script over.” So we really re-tooled it, and changed it to be really based around these guys and how they really work. Even the main character, Kinney, was actually named after the guy who had contacted us. The film isn’t a true story or anything, but Kinney was our advisor, really, as a JTAC, throughout the entire film. When it finally came time to shoot, all these years later, I wish I had the pictures. Kinney, on his Instagram or something, I look like a little kid at Fort Irwin. It was so many years ago. And then now, we’re both like overweight dads, working out in Australia. It’s crazy how times change, but it just goes to show how long a project can kind of sit on the back burner, and then finally, hopefully, it finds the light of day.

We love how before there’s even any action at all in this movie, as a viewer, you really feel on edge. There’s a tense atmosphere there. How did you capture that feeling of unease?

A big part of that is the jungle. You get all of those sounds out there; there are so many trees to hide behind, and there are animals. We were really in the jungle, and we would always wait a lot for the sun to go behind a cloud. There’s always a lot of patchy clouds in Queensland, Australia, where we shot. Not only does it look better, but it also feels denser not to have this bright, poppy sunlight. So that helps with the dread a lot. Another tactic is that we would lay tubes of death; it’s just a giant tube on a smoke fog maker, and you just roll it way out. I’d go in with the effects guy, and be like “Alright, I’m going in these directions, only shoot these directions” so they would go. There would always be a guy in the background running one of these tubes of death, creating a really heavy fog. It created a hazy smoke, which would hang in the jungle and really add to that feeling of dread. And it also provides a little bit of movement out there. So that was another big technique that we would use a lot.

Before the mission starts, JJ Kinney is really at the centre of the story. What did you want viewers to take from him at a surface level from the moment we see him?

The movie opens with him making a silly choice if you will. You want to know he’s green and a little over his head. Being pulled onto a mission at the last second like this is a bit overwhelming, and you’re just going to be trying to catch up the whole time. Obviously, it’s really about looking to the guys you hope will look out for you. Hopefully, they don’t wind you up too much, but at the end of the day, if you’re going to have to step up, you will have to step up.

From the start, there’s an interesting dynamic between Kinney and Bishop [Ricky Whittle], where Bishop almost sees Kinney as beneath the rest of them for using drones in combat. Can you elaborate on that writing idea and maybe what it brings to the movie?

You just felt like you had to say something about it in the movie. This was written so long ago that it was just a thought we had back then, but obviously now, it’s like, “No, duh!” I saw that Boston Dynamics has a brand new humanoid robot that they unveiled, and they’re retiring the old one that would jump around and do flips. The new one is like a contortionist, you’ve got to watch the video, it’s so crazy. It stands up in a way that no human could ever stand up; your legs would never move that way. It’s just terrifying and really scary. So, the tech vs the human element of warfare is such a, I mean, you can’t really watch the news these days without thinking about it to a certain degree. So, Bishop is really just saying, “No matter what you do, it’s not making it any better; it’s still killing.” We were stating the obvious, but I felt it was important to say in the movie, just with where we are and everything like that. Try not to be too political or anything, and just feel like, with drones and people on the ground, it’s worth mentioning or at least showing the different sides of this viewpoint and whatnot within the film.

Can you tell us a bit about what it was like working with Russell Crowe and what he brought to the character of Reaper?

I love Russell. He is the best. First off, he brought so much characterisation, so much humour, and so much light to the movie. What I really want to say about Russell is that he loves to work. He won’t be satisfied with anything, which is so cool. I kind of feel that way, so to work with such a pro, and to see him feeling the same way, at the highest level, for a role where we don’t need him for the whole movie, and for him to work that hard for it, is amazing. When you get someone great and big, you never know, and you don’t want anyone to phone it in or do anything like that, and that’s always the fear you have as a filmmaker. Russell did the opposite; I would go, “Oh my god, Russell, that’s amazing! Alright, we got it!” and he’d be like “, William, please, two more takes! Please. I promise it’ll be 15% better” I’m like “Oh my god, it’s so good already! What does 15% better look like?” So, he was awesome, and he worked so incredibly hard. He brought so much life and humour, and I want to say, kind of like hope to a movie that can obviously be pretty dark at times. I’ll say this: at the very end of the movie, without giving away any spoilers, that was his idea at the very very end of the movie. I remember him talking about it, and I was like, “No, that’s not going to be the end of the movie!” then we shot it, and people were emotional. And I was like, “That’s probably going to be the end of the movie!” I totally thought it would end in a helicopter, and when I saw that, I was like, “No way, that’s so cathartic.” He is just a genius. He really is. I was so lucky to work with him; hopefully, I’ll get to do more stuff with Russell in the future.

Sounds like what one might expect from an Academy Award-winning actor!

Yeah, there were many times when I was at the monitor, thinking like, “This is why he is an Academy Award-winning actor!” You know, you’re really thinking that. Just seeing how solid he is, how he works, how he just pieces together each take, you’re just like, “Damn, this guy is an Academy Award-winning actor! This is what you get!” It was pretty amazing.

What did you want to see from the dynamic between Reaper and Kinney, and how did you want it to progress through the movie?

We would always joke, “The next movie is going to be called Land of Dad.” Reaper has so many kids or whatnot. But, we were sort of saying it’s a little bit like a father and son relationship, to a certain degree. This person is looking out for this other person, and they’re trying to keep a watchful eye on them. That’s a little bit of the dynamic. It’s not really the whole dynamic, but that’s a hint of it. They become friends. In a situation where you’re really in over your head and where things are all going bad, you are hopeful that whoever the eye in the sky is is looking out for you in an emotional way. To really have your back. It was cool that Liam had just made another film with Russell, so they knew each other well, which helped. You didn’t have that early period where the guys are getting to know each other, they really, already knew each other and had a great relationship. And they were able, it’s much easier to pretend like you don’t have a relationship, just like Liam and Luke Hemsworth [Abell] do in the movie, and then, bring it in, and sort of connect through the film.

As a director, what was it like to capture a back and forth, where these two characters aren’t even in the same scenes or rooms together? What were the key points to making that feel realistic and grounded?

A lot of reading early on. In fact, I think Russell was doing The Pope’s Exorcist at the time. He was calling in at weird times from Ireland all the way to Australia to do readings in the hotel where we were staying with Liam. We knew we were obviously not going to be able to shoot them at the same time, so we wanted to identify any big changes that needed to be made. Because once you shoot the one side of the conversation, it’s very hard to change the other side. We did a lot of reading and got it all sorted, and then we would shoot the action stuff first with a drone; then when we were shooting all of the drone stuff later, Liam was able to be in another room on a headset, just sitting on a couch, relaxing. Unless he had to pretend stuff was going on, and then he’d be jumping around! Giving his dialogue. Russell was able to watch the drone footage, and he had a joystick, like, it was crazy, because in his bay, the art department built it so he could really control the footage from his joystick. Zoom in on it and move around like he was flying the drone. It’s really cool. It was a really cool workflow that was unique, enabling us to make the movie for a price. So, I’m sure on a giant movie, you would go back and forth and do it all at the same time. We did ours, action first, drone second.

Throughout your whole career, you’ve worked pretty heavily with practical effects, so with Land of Bad, what did you want to see from the practical effects within the movie?

I’m not making gigantic movies, I’m sure if I was doing one hundred million dollar movies you get like the same person doing all of your pyrotechnic every time. On this, you’re meeting your new pyrotechnic, special effects guy for the first time, you do a test with them, and you’re like, “Alright, show me what you got!” it was so funny. His name was Julian Summers, and he was from Australia. I swear to god, I want to use this guy in everything; he was so great. He was like Cody [Danny McBride] in Tropic Thunder. Julian was insane. He’d be like “OK, here’s a grenade” I’d be like “Woah, dude! That was not a grenade that was like a building size explosion” he was like, “Oh, you think that’s too big?” “It was gigantic!” He’d be like, “Hmm, I don’t know if you want to see the RPG then!” I’m like, “Alright, let’s see it!” and I’d say, “This is crazy!” We’d be like half a mile away from a scene, and he’d be like, “Alright, you might want to get behind a car, just in case anything goes flying”, and you’d literally feel a heat wave blast by you, and these were just his tests. Throughout the film, his explosions kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. By the end, it was just so massive. It was just crazy, he was setting trees on fire, we’d have to have fire trucks. But I really loved this guy; he worked his butt off. With some of those night scenes, and with the crazy explosions, when cars are flying off the cliff, he would emerge from the end of that night covered in black soot. He’d have big explosive chords wrapped around his arms. He’d be like “Alright man? Was it cool?” and I’d be like “It was unbelievable!” but yeah, Julian did such an amazing job. I really want to use him again on anything else that has explosions on it. I’m flying him out of Australia. He’s great, a really good dude.

LAND OF BAD is available on Prime Video.

THE TELEPHEMERA YEARS: 2007, part 1

2007-08

Kid Nation (CBS): What if you could televise Lord of the Flies? That’s the elevator pitch behind Kid Nation, a 2007 reality show from the people who brought you Big Brother. Filmed over a month at the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, built on the ruins of old west town Bonanza City in New Mexico, the show brought forty children, aged eight to fifteen, to establish their own society, free from the limitations (wise or otherwise) of adult imagination.

Adults were present throughout filming but limited their interactions with the children as little as possible, and children were free to leave at any time. Three eventually did. The population was split into four districts, labelled by colour, with each district electing a representative to the town council, which would have final oversight.

Arguments arose over whether to kill the town’s chickens for food, the imposition of a curfew to ensure sweet-fuelled exuberance didn’t affect the next day’s activities, attendance at a mandatory faith service, and the aftermath of losing an election, no doubt engineered and portrayed dramatically by the producers but fascinating nonetheless for viewers at home. Kid Nation wasn’t without its share of controversy, mostly born out of pearl clutching, which did cost it some advertisers, although the one genuine incident on set – a burn from a cooking oil splash – was found to be not the fault of the producers.

The final episode of the show gave viewers a taste of what they probably wanted all along when the kids – freed from the responsibility of their “jobs” – ransacked the town, but ultimately came back together to repair the damage they’d done. In this, they were probably better than their elders. In 2020, The Av club spoke to several of the participants, who noted that while they didn’t consider the show to be in any way exploitative at the time, watching it as adults made them feel uncomfortable. In the end, the negative publicity attracted by Kid Nation outweighed its value to the network and the experiment has never been repeated, although Channel 4 in the UK did air a similar show, Boys and Girl Alone, in 2009.

Journeyman (NBC): Created by Kevin Falls, a writer-producer whose first big break came on sports agency drama Arli$$ before going on to work on Sports Night and The West Wing, Journeyman told the story of Dan Vasser, a newspaper who is pulled through time to help his target solve a problem. Obviously taking its inspiration from Quantum Leap, where the shows differed was in Vasser’s anchorage to his “home” time, to where he’d always return at the end of his adventure and where he had a wife and child.

Scottish actor Kevin McKidd had appeared in Trainspotting and The Acid House before John Milius cast him as veteran centurion Lucius Vorenus in Rome, opening the door to this starring role as Vasser. McKidd is backed up by Gretchen Eglof as wife Katie, Reed Diamond as Dan’s brother Jack, a police detective who becomes suspicious of Dan’s activities, and Moon Bloodgod as Livia, Dan’s ex-girlfriend who was presumed killed in a plane crash ten years before.

Livia, though, is also a time traveller, one who jumped back to her home time of 1948 when the plane crash, her extended stay in Dan’s time possibly a mission to ensure he and Katie – who he met in the aftermath of the tragedy – get together. Livia often jumps to the same time as Dan, imparting advice and giving aid, and is pivotal in bringing Jack on side. Added to all this is another time traveller, Evan, whose linear timeline death occurs before Dan is thrust into his position but whom the two occasionally encounter.

Heady stuff, then, and probably a little too much for the average 2007 NBC viewer, even if Lost on ABC had softened the TV audience up for non-linear plotlines. Thirteen episodes of Journeyman were ordered, airing from September to December 2007, and while the writers’ strike initially put paid to a second half of the season, hopes were high that at least another nine episodes would be commissioned to finish the season. However, despite a fan campaign that saw fans inundate the network with boxes of Rice-a-Roni, the show was cancelled for good in April 2008.

Anchorwoman (Fox): No doubt named for – and with an aesthetic definitely borrowed from – the 2004 Will Ferrell film Anchorman, Anchorwoman was another offbeat, scripted reality show, the likes of which were proliferating the schedules in the mid-2000s. Starring Lauren Jones, a former model who had enjoyed stints as a “Barker Beauty” on The Price is Right and as a “Diva” for WWE, the show asked the question, “would you trust a bikini model to deliver the news?”

The setting for the show was Tyler, Texas, a small city one-hundred miles east of Dallas, where KYTX – the local CBS affiliate – were willing to give a chance to an aspiring newsreader. KYTX was a CBS affiliate and, as Anchorwoman was a Fox production, all CBS logos had to be edited out of the final footage, the local Fox affiliate presumably unwilling to risk the credibility of Fox News by hiring a newcomer.

Jones was in the job for a thirty-day period, which was filmed for six half-hour episodes, the first and second of which were aired back-to-back as an hour-long premiere. What could have been an interesting concept was undercut by the scripted direction of the show, leaning heavily into comedy to try and create a real-life version of The Office.

Unfortunately, Anchorwoman had neither scriptwriters nor performers on the level of Greg Daniels and Steve Carrell, and the premiere aired to very low ratings. So low, in fact, that Fox declined to air the remaining four episodes, any chance of lessons being learned from what happens to men when a beautiful woman walks into the room lost forever. I mean, the answer is obvious, but it’s nice to be remined how dumb a species we are from time to time…

Cavemen (ABC): In 2004, car insurance company GEICO began airing a series of commercials that featured a group of Neanderthals using the company’s website with the tag line, “so easy, a caveman could do it!” The skits were the brainchild of Joe Lawson and Noel Ritter of The Martin Agency, one of the US’s top advertising firms, inspired by “Pastoralia,” a short story by George Saunders.

Just as had happened with Martin the GEICO gecko, a Cockney lizard introduced in 1999, the American public loved the GEICO cavemen, who were developed into broader characters who enjoyed modern life. Seeking to cash in on the popularity of the throwbacks, ABC commissioned a script form Lawson in March 2007 and pleased with the results, put the show into production two months later.

None of the original actors from the commercials reprised their roles for TV, although Jeff Daniel Phillips did make several guest appearances as a friend of the cavemen. The parts instead went to, Bill English, Sam Huntingdon, and Nick Kroll, their trio of extant Cro-Magnons (although their features more resembled those of Neanderthal man) trying to make a life for themselves in modern day Atlanta, negotiating the pitfalls of race politics between the “Sapes” and the “Maggers.”

Lawson – and co-creators Josh Gordon and Will Speck (who were also working on Will Ferrell flick Blades of Glory at the time) – intended Cavemen to be a “unique buddy comedy that offers a clever twist on stereotypes and turns race relations on its head,” but a very negative reaction to the an airing of the pilot in test markets resulted in some considerable retooling, including moving the setting to San Diego (although the “locals” weirdly retained southern accents throughout the series). The first episode aired on October 2^nd 2007 as part of a double-bill with Carpoolers, the only sitcoms in their timeslot, and earned over nine million viewers.

By week five, however, they had slipped to number eighty-three in the weekly ratings and the writing was on the wall. Just two more episodes were aired before ABC cancelled the show, replacing it with hidden camera comedy show Just for Laughs. As a postscript, GEICO aired a commercial during the 2008 Superbowl which featured the ad cavemen discussing the show’s failure.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Fox): In 1998, Carolco founders Andrew Vajna and Mario Miller formed C2 Pictures with the express aim of resurrecting the Terminator franchise, which had lain dormant since 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Five years later, they delivered on their aim and produced Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, fondly regarded by fans and creators alike, but missing a vital ingredient from the first two movies.

The original concept for the threequel involved Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton’s battleworn warrior mother, but Hamilton bowed out of Terminator 3 in 2000, claiming the script did not do anything new or interesting with her character. When T3 arrived, Connor had died offscreen from leukaemia, which was an obvious problem when it was announced in 2005 that C2 were making a TV spin-off based on the character. Rather than using time travel or alternate timelines (as was eventually done in Terminator Genisys in 2015), Vajna and Miller opted to ignore the events of T3 and instead present terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as a direct sequel to T2, even if they were unable to persuade Hamilton to reprise her role for TV.

Stepping into her boots was English actress Lena Headey, whose first attempt to break the US TV market in Ultra in 2005 got no further than the pilot stage. Her Connor was every bit as badass as the original, even if the lower budget necessitated fewer and less spectacular action scenes, and she was joined by Thomas Dekker and son John, a moody teenager confused over his feelings for Summer Glau’s Cameron, a very lifelike Terminator (model unknown).

The 2007 writers’ strike reduced the original series order from thirteen episodes to nine, still ample time to establish the concept of the Connors and their allies trying to prevent the creation of Skynet, both aided and opposed by various Terminators seeded throughout human society. Debuting in January 2008, it did well enough in the ratings on Tuesday nights that a second, full season was commissioned for September 2008, but viewership tumbled to almost half of the figures they had gotten for season one.

This led to Fox cancelling the show, despite plans for a third season that involved alternate timelines and Glau playing another character who would vie for John’s interest with Cameron. Fan campaigns tried to keep the flame burning, with hopes of alternate funding through crowdsourcing or another network picking up the show, but by 2013 creator Josh Friedman admitted defeat, especially as C2 no longer had the rights to the Terminator franchise. Friedman later returned to the world of the Terminators by scripting 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, which again ignored the events of subsequent movies and instead presented itself as a sequel to T2.

Next time on The Telephemera Years: More of 2007’s misses, including bionic women, lovely vampires, and Japanese game shows!

Check out our other Telephemera articles:

The Telephemera Years: pre-1965 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1966 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1967 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1968 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1969 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1970 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1971 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1973 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1974 (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The Telephemera Years: 1975 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telphemera Years: 1976 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1977 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1978 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1980 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1981 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1982 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1983 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1984 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1986 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1987 (part 1, 2 , 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1989 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1990 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1992 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1995 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1997 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1998 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 1999 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2000 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2002 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2003 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2005 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2006 (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

The Telephemera Years: 2008 (part 1, 2, 3 , 4)

The Telephemera Years: O Canada! (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Irwin Allen

Titans of Telephemera: Stephen J Cannell (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: DIC (part 1, 2)

Titans of Telephemera: Hanna-Barbera (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Titans of Telephemera: Kenneth Johnson

Titans of Telephemera: Sid & Marty Krofft

Titans of Telephemera: Glen A Larson (part 1, 2, 3, 4)

Titans of Telephemera: Quinn Martin (part 1, 2)

Titans of Telephemera: Ruby-Spears

Top 5 Must-See Movies This Autumn

Each year, film fans wait patiently for the latest hits to be released. Over the last decade, there have been two major trends that are only now beginning to loosen their grip. The first was remakes of classics from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Even though some reboots were a hit (from Spider-Man to Planet of the Apes), it seems audiences have become fatigued by all the replays.

The same is true for gaming-to-screen content. Over the last few years, there’s been a growing emphasis on turning hit games into blockbuster movies or streaming series. You’ve probably heard of The Last of Us (a series from Netflix), Pokémon Detective Pikachu (the first-ever live-action Pokémon project), and Uncharted (a global hit)—even if you never realized these were games originally.

The same can be said for converting popular big screen titles and franchises into gaming spectacles. They do so to extend the popularity and demand in these franchises for years and sometimes decades to come.

Some of the most successful conversions from the box office to the gaming scene can be felt in the world of iGaming. Online casino operators increasingly receive officially licensed slots inspired by popular culture, including the big screen. Hollywood hits like Jumanji, Ted, Jurassic World, and The Goonies are some of the most popular slot titles at the most established online casinos stateside. In fact, FanDuel Casino, one of the new online casinos in 2024, is listed here on the top-five US-licensed iGaming brands and has four Ted-themed slots, including one powered by the Megaways game engine.

With slot development studios always on the look-out for fresh inspiration, it’s possible the next wave of movie releases in 2024 could be catalysts for more gaming releases in the years ahead. Below, we’ll explore five of the most eagerly anticipated films slated to launch in the fall this year at your local cinemas.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, September 6

It’s been 35 years since Tim Burton released one of the world’s most well-known horror-comedy mashups. At the time, audiences weren’t quite sure what to make of the project—but now it’s become one of the most bona fide cult hits in the horror space. What could go wrong with a secondary release?

Though fans remain a bit on edge about a follow-up to the original hit, it seems to have all the pieces in place. Tim Burton is leading the helm, which is a great sign. There’s also Michael Keaton stepping into the shoes of the titular hero and Winona Ryder as Lydia—and Ryder has a young sidekick this time in up-and-coming goth girl, Jenna Ortega. Ortega recently starred in Wednesday, a show about the youngest child in the Addams family. Oh, and Monica Bellucci is playing Beetlejuice’s wife.

Joker: Folie à Deux, October 4

The last Joker was a smash hit that surprised many. Director Todd Phillipps somehow managed to create a Joker project that was both highly psychological and entertaining. Not only did the film make hundreds of millions at the box office, but it even saw multiple Oscar nods from the world’s toughest film critics.

That being said, Philipps is taking the second release in a new direction. As many already know, Lady Gaga is stepping into the role of Harley Quinn—which should make it less of a surprise that this film is slated to be a musical. Or, as Philipps has gone on to clarify, ‘not exactly a musical per se’. Either way, it’s likely this follow-up will be either sink or swim due to the fact.

Gladiator 2, November 22

Similar to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Gladiator 2 is working on an extended timeline that requires quite a bit of care from filmmakers. Thankfully, as with Tim Burton, original director Ridley Scott has led the project. Still, not everyone believes that Scott has it in him to produce another Oscar Best Picture winner.

Still, the ingredients for a solid film are there. There’s a new addition in Denzel Washington and a promising and highly political plot that focuses on beloved Lucius, son of the slain Emperor Commodus. But just how these characters end up back in the coliseum arena remains to be seen—and whether Paul Mescal, playing Lucius, has a Russell Crowe-caliber performance in him.

Moana 2, November 27

One of the US’s most beloved new Disney princesses is set to take to high seas once again. The original Moana charmed viewers around the world as the hit reframed the classic hero’s journey through the lens of Polynesian culture and, specifically, Hawaii. Plus, having a demigod played by The Rock never hurts.

For now, though many are excited by the project and have faith in Disney’s outlook, the details of this second release remain murky. The Rock is set to return as Maui, while Auli’I Cravalho will once again voice the movie’s heroine. But what Moana will set off to do (described as a journey into Oceania) remains to be seen.

Honorable Mention: Wicked

Thespians are rejoicing for this upcoming Broadway-musical-turned-movie—and even more so because the film will be released in two parts. If you haven’t seen or heard of this musical, it follows a retelling of The Wizard of Oz. Gracing the screen is Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda, and Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba.

Both have the vocal power to delight audiences and bring this story to life. Even if you’ve never drifted toward live plays or musicals, you may want to keep this release on your radar. The visuals released so far are eye-catching, while the supporting cast also promises something special, including names like Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum.

Which Irish Movies Are Worth Watching in 2024?

The Irish film-making industry has gone through a period of success in recent years, leading to many new movies being released on different subjects. From the Oscar-winner The Banshees of Inisherin to many lower-profile efforts, the number of different Irish movies available means that you can choose the theme that best suits you.

Irish Wish

This fantasy romantic movie quickly became the most-watched film on Netflix on the day of its release. Although it is an American production starring Lindsay Lohan, it was filmed across Ireland and the plot involves a traditional Irish fairy who offers Maddie (Lohan) the chance to make her wish come true. A Tourism Ireland spokesperson confirmed that they started to see an increase in online searches for the featured locations upon its release.

As a light-hearted tale with a touch of Irish mythology, Irish Wish is a good example of how Ireland has traditionally been viewed in the entertainment industry. This page with casino tips for beginners lists some of the most popular slots in different themes, with one article covering Irish slots. Among them, Wish Upon a Leprechaun and Leprechauns Luck: Collect both feature popular fairy-type characters, with pots of gold and rainbows among the other symbols. Free spin rounds are commonly offered in Irish slots, with jackpot prizes up for grabs in some of them.

Bring Them Down

This thriller was originally to be set in Northern England but a change of plan saw it relocate to Ireland and Barry Keoghan brought in to replace Paul Mescal. It’s a feature-length directorial debut for award-winning short film director Chris Andrews and also stars Christopher Abbot and Colm Meaney.

Abbott plays Michael, who is a member of a family of shepherds that lives in a remote house with his sick father Ray (played by Meaney). He gets into a dispute with another family and the events soon spiral out of control. It’s got a darker tone than Irish Wish, using the Irish culture and setting to explore universal issues such as generational trauma and heritage.
“Irish countryside, Liscannor, Ireland” (CC BY 2.0) by Giuseppe Milo (www.milo.photography)

Fréwaka

This Irish horror movie is directed by Aislinn Clarke and stars Clare Monnelly as well as Bríd Ní Neachtain. Monnelly plays a care nurse who has her own drama from the past to come to terms with. She’s sent to a remote Irish village to look after a woman suffering from agoraphobia.

One of the interesting aspects of this film is that it’s told in a mixture of England and Irish, leading to some people calling it the first Irish-language horror movie. The word Fréwaka comes from the Irish fréamhacha, meaning underground entwined roots. The director is from Northern Ireland and she called it “an original take on Irish folklore and contemporary Ireland”.

All of these new Irish movies help to reveal why the country’s film-making reputation is growing so quickly. With creative ideas and subtle links between the past and present, the success of these and other films should help to ensure that we see a lot more of Ireland on the screen in the next few years.

Exclusive | THE BIG SCORE: THE FIRST OMEN

“The Big Score” is a Hollywood Records original series, where you’re invited on an exclusive, behind the scenes journey inside the minds of some of culture’s most innovative composers in show business. The latest episode features composer Mark Korven (The Lighthouse, The Witch) discussing his work on “the most terrifying score of the year,” for The First Omen, and we’re premiering it here.

The original motion picture soundtrack for The First Omen is out now on digital platforms and the vinyl release on two 140-gram color vinyl discs, housed in printed inner sleeves, contained within a die-cut jacket, is available for pre-order now from Mutant here, releasing on June 28.

Says Korven of the score, “I was thrilled to add my sonic contribution to the terrifying world of The First Omen. I like the music to go in unexpected directions at all times; I write to surprise myself. When I’m composing and I find myself following a musical progression that I’ve heard before, I stop myself and do something that is completely unfamiliar to me. With this score, I wanted to create a haunting and aleatoric soundscape that engages audiences with the story.”

With The First Omen, composer Korven aimed to enhance the horror elements of the film by creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability with his score. The orchestration mainly consists of strings and choir, with additional sound design elements created from unconventional sources like samples of opening an old ironing board, creating shrieks perfect for a horror atmosphere.