Lovecraft, Campbell and Bradbury awarded 1945 Retro Hugos

1945 Retro Hugo James Brown

The winners of the 1945 Retro Hugos have been announced via ConZealand, the 78th Worldcon, which is being held entirely via virtual means.

Winners include H.P. Lovecraft for The Cthulhu Mythos, Ray Bradbury for his short story “I,Rocket”, Theodore Sturgeon for his influential novella ‘Killdozer!’ and John W. Campbell, Jr for Best Editor, Short Form.

Campbell’s Retro Hugo Award is especially notable. Another award associated with Worldcon and the World Science Fiction Society is the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. This was formerly known as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. However it was renamed following 2019 winner Jeannette Ng’s acceptance speech for the Campbell Award, in which she referred to Campbell as a fascist. The subsequent response from the community led to the award being renamed to the Astounding Award.

The 1945 Retro Hugos recognise works created or published in 1944. Worldcon began in 1939, but Hugo awards weren’t presented until 1953. In 1996, Worldcon committees were given the option of presenting Retrospective Hugo Awards to honour works published at times when the Hugo Awards weren’t available.

Winners of the 1945 Retrospective Hugo Awards are below

Best Novel
“Shadow Over Mars” (The Nemesis from Terra), by Leigh Brackett (Startling Stories, Fall 1944)

Best Novella
“Killdozer!”, by Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944)

Best Novelette
“City”, by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction, May 1944)

Best Short Story
“I, Rocket”, by Ray Bradbury (Amazing Stories, May 1944)

Best Series
The Cthulhu Mythos, by H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, and others

Best Related Work
“The Science-Fiction Field”, by Leigh Brackett (Writer’s Digest, July 1944)

Best Graphic Story or Comic
Superman: “The Mysterious Mr. Mxyztplk”, by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Detective
Comics, Inc.)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Tie:
The Canterville Ghost, screenplay by Edwin Harvey Blum from a story by Oscar Wilde, directed by Jules Dassin (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM))

The Curse of the Cat People, written by DeWitt Bodeen, directed by Gunther V. Fritsch and Robert Wise (RKO Radio Pictures)

Best Editor, Short Form
John W. Campbell, Jr.

Best Professional Artist
Margaret Brundage

Best Fanzine
Voice of the Imagi-Nation, edited by Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas

Best Fan Writer
Fritz Leiber

Arrow Video FrightFest Announce 2020 Line-up

frightfest 2020

The line-up for this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest has been revealed. Due to the ongoing situation, the festival will take place online this year, but that won’t take away from the great array of features being presented. The digital edition will feature 25 films, which includes 7 world premieres and 16 UK premieres.

The festival kicks off on Thursday, August 29th with a special horror quiz, hosted by Mike Muncer of the Evolution of Horror podcast. This is followed by the UK premiere of Sky Sharks – Nazi zombies on airborne sharks – what’s not to love? The rest of the line-up is as follows:

Friday: Logan Thomas’ There’s No Such Thing as Vampires / Brea Grant’s 12 Hour Shift / Alastair Orr’s Triggered / Patrick Rea’s I Am Lisa.

Saturday: Ivo van Aart’s The Columnist / Ruben Pia’s documentary The Horror Crowd / Marcel Walz’s Blind / Australian anthology Dark Place / G-Hey Kim’s Don’t Click / Phillip G. Carroll Jr’s The Honeymoon Phase. Broadcast sponsor Horror Channel will be presenting a pair of world premieres in the ‘First Blood’ strand: They’re Outside, directed by Sam Casserly and Airell Anthony Hayles, and starring FrightFest favourites Emily Booth and Nicholas Vince / Playhouse, the debut feature from Toby and Fionn Watts. Stewart Bridle, manager of Horror Channel said: “We’re excited to continue our long-running partnership with FrightFest in 2020. This year’s digital edition is a proof that even these challenging times can’t keep a great festival down. We’re also especially proud to directly support ‘First Blood’, their important showcase of first-time feature directors – we can’t wait for you to see this year’s dark debuts. The future of genre film starts here.”

Aquasplash

Sunday: Jesse O’Brien’s hilarious Two Heads Creek / Aquaslash, directed by Renaud Gauthier / Armando Fonseca’s Skull: The Mask / Hail to the Deadites, Steve Villeneuve’s documentary about the fans of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead / Francesco Giannini’s Hall / Horror in Lockdown – a panel hosted by Rosie Fletcher, who will be chatting to special guests about how the horror genre has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic / Clapboard Jungle: Surviving The Independent Film Business is a documentary about indie filmmaking by Justin McConnell / Adam Stovall’s A Ghost Waits.

Monday: Emre Akay’s AV: The Hunt / Dean Kapsalis’ The Swerve / French anthology Dark Stories / Tyler Savage’s Blinders / Enhanced, directed by James Mark. There will also be a live podcast from headline sponsor Arrow Video with co-hosts Sam Ashurst and Dan Martin.

The short film showcases will be announced at a later date. There will be plenty of guests and director introductions and some Q&As too to give you the true FrightFest feeling.

Festival co-director Alan Jones said of this year’s event: “We will desperately miss seeing all of you in person this August Bank Holiday but are looking forward to our virtual connection where we can say hello to the best family in the world, the FrightFest community. And if you’ve never experienced a FrightFest before, and have always yearned to join in with the fear, fun and fabulousness now is your chance to find out what you’ve been missing for 21 years.”

The films will be streaming from August 27th – 31st. Passes go on sale on August 1st – for more information and to buy tickets, head over to www.frightfest.co.uk.

Paramount Pushes SNAKE EYES to 2021

Snake Eyes

Following in the footsteps of so many other projects, Paramount Pictures’ Snake Eyes movie has now been delayed.

Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins has been moved from this October until a to-be-confirmed 2021 date. This isn’t the first delay for the picture, with Snake Eyes originally set for this March before being pushed to October. Now though, the ongoing pandemic has seen Paramount make the call to move the film to next year.

With Henry Golding in the title role, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins will ignore the event of 2009’s G.I. Joe and sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Instead, we’ll see the relationship between Golding’s Snake Eyes and BFF-turned-nemesis Storm Shadow (Andrew Koji) spotlighted.

R.I.P.D.’s Robert Schwentke is on directing duties for Snake Eyes.

Netflix Announce THE WITCHER Prequel Series

witcher

With a second season of The Witcher already in development at Netflix, now comes word on another new Witcher series for the on-demand streaming service.

Announced directly by Netflix, a prequel offering titled The Witcher: Blood Origin is on the way. That six-episode series will explore the very first Witcher, which means the show will take place way, way before the fall of the Elven civilization.

Declan de Barra – who was on writing duties for the Henry Cavill-headlined The Witcher – will serve as showrunner on The Witcher: Blood Origin, and he’ll be joined on the show by The Witcher’s showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich in an executive producer capacity.

A premiere date has yet to be set for The Witcher: Blood Origin at this early juncture, although Cavill’s The Witcher is due to debut its second season at some point next year.

Halloween Costume Movie SPOOKED Heading to Disney+

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

With a whole host of projects in development for the Disney+ streaming service, now comes word on a spooktacular offering from the House of Mouse.

Via The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+ is at work on a live-action supernatural comedy titled Spooked.

The movie will centre on Halloween night, with events taking a turn the creepy when trick or treaters end up transformed into whatever costume they’re wearing.

The Young Offenders’ Peter Foott is on directing duties, with Foott set to rewrite the screenplay already in place from Child’s Play’s Tyler Burton Smith.

Of course, Spooked sounds just a tad similar to the Goosebumps episode, The Haunted Mask – but this still promises to be a fun scary picture for audiences of all ages.

Amazon Gives Series Order to PAPER GIRLS

Paper Girls

Well, this is some fantastic news to end your week with. Yes, as the headline suggests, Amazon is finally moving forward with a series order for a Paper Girls TV series.

In an official statement, Amazon confirmed that Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s Vertigo title is being turned into a small-screen offering – with the on-demand video service having been making tentative plans for just such an adaptation for a year now.

Toy Story 4 co-writer Stephany Folsom is on writing duties for the project and will serve as showrunner, with Vaughan and Chiang producing alongside Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers.

A tale of mystery and science-fiction centred on four young newspaper delivery girls, Paper Girls debuted in October 2015, going on to run for 30 issues before culminating in July 2019.

Only a matter of weeks before the comic book title came to an end, it was announced that Paper Girls would be turned into a TV series, but it’s largely been radio silence on that front ever since. That is, of course, until now.

For those not familiar with Paper Girls, if Amazon gets this right, you’ll be in for an absolute treat.

CREEP Director to Tackle THE WILD

Owen Laukkanen The Wild

Having impressed many a genre fan with his two Creep offerings, now comes word on a new project for Patrick Brice.

Via Deadline, Brice has signed on write and direct a feature film adaptation of Owen Laukkanen’s The Wild for the HBO Max streaming service.

For those not familiar with The Wild, the official synopsis of the book reads:

With an instantly compelling protagonist who finds herself fighting for her life in the wilderness using her wits and resilience, THE WILD is a suspenseful original paperback page-turner with nonstop action and a heroine readers won’t soon forget.

FROM THIS MOMENT ON, YOU’RE A BEAR CUB. YOU’LL LEARN RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPECT. HOW TO SURVIVE. IT’S EASIER IF YOU JUST ACCEPT IT.

Dawn isn’t a bad person–she’s just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn’t expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to OUT OF THE WILD, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important “life lessons.” It’s true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot–but it’s not what any of them expect. Because what happens in the woods isn’t what their parents planned. Sometimes plans go very wrong. And this is one of those times. Suddenly Dawn is more scared than she’s ever been in her life. And you will be too.

Expect more on this movie spin on The Wild as we get it.

Elisabeth Moss to Star in Apple’s THE SHINING GIRLS

Elisabeth Moss

It’s been a busy few weeks for Elisabeth Moss, and now comes word on yet another new project for the genre fave.

Courtesy of Variety, Moss has signed on to star in and executive produce an TV adaptation of Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls for Apple.

In The Shining Girls, Moss will play a Chicago reporter who survives a brutal assault and then embarks on a mission to hunt down her attacker.

Strange Angel’s Silka Luisa is writing the series and will be acting as showrunner, with Leonardo DiCaprio is producing through his Appian Way banner.

As alluded to, earlier this week saw it announced that The Invisible Man star Moss was is headlining and developing a Hulu anthology series titled Black Match, while the start of the month saw Moss sign on to play real-life murderer Candy Montgomery in Universal Content Productions’ Candy TV series.

Expect more on all of these projects as they continue to develop.

R.L. Stine’s THE BABYSITTER Being Adapted

The Babysitter

With a new live-action Goosebumps TV series recently announced, now comes word on another R.L. Stine property being adapted.

From Lookout Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment, Stine’s The Babysitter book series is being adapted for TV, although details are being kept at a minimum at this early juncture.

The Babysitter is a four-book series that began back in 1989. In that original novel, 16-year-old Jenny Jeffers is a babysitter who finds herself being terrorized by a crazed killer. The second book would continue that tale, while the third offering made Jenny the killer, and the fourth conjured up the spirit of dead children.

To many, The Babysitter is seen as one of the books that first put R.L. Stine on the map in a major way – with that original 1989 tale released three years before Stine put out his first Goosebumps tale.

Expect more on The Babysitter as we get it.

Amazon Orders Third Season of THE BOYS

The Boys

With Season Two of The Boys recently confirmed for a September 4 premiere, now comes word that a third season of the fan favourite show has been ordered.

Amazon Prime revealed this news during the ongoing virtual San Diego Comic-Con, with details obviously non-existent right now on what to expect from said Season Three.

Likewise, Amazon also announced that Archer’s Aisha Tyler will be hosting an after-series offering titled Prime Rewind: Inside the Boys to take place after each episode, bringing in cast and the creative team to discuss the antics of The Boys.

As for Season Two, the official word on that reads:

In a more intense, more desperate Season Two of The Boys, Butcher, Hughie and the team reel from their losses in Season One. On the run from the law, they struggle to fight back against the superheroes. As Vought, the company that manages the heroes, cashes in on the panic over the threat of supervillains, and a new hero, Stormfront, shakes up the company and challenges an already unstable Homelander.