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The Expanse optioned for Television Series


Brandon Stark

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Great source material, Academy Award-nominated screenwriters, new VP at SyFy wanting to get back to quality programing...

As long as they don't screw up the casting, and get actors that can actually act, I can't really see how this can fail. Though, touting it as "Game of Thrones in space" is pretty fucking dumb.

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As long as they don't screw up the casting, and get actors that can actually act, I can't really see how this can fail. Though, touting it as "Game of Thrones in space" is pretty fucking dumb.

Any time a Movie/TV show compares itself w/ another movie/show, is a really bad sign.

I just don't see how they are going to do the people from space elongated bodies. Not that they have to make it as perfect, but they do have to do something.

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They may just drop the physiological differences aspect of Belters vs people who grew up in higher gravity, since trying to put everything in Ceres in low-gravity and film the Belter characters as taller and bigger-headed would be too expensive.

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But as the vast majority of Expanse takes place inside cramped ships and stations i don't see being filmed on a set as being a huge problem. There don't need to be a ton of external space combat shots, and BattleStar Galactica showed they were capable of doing some of those. Only other hurdle I can see is Celes station.


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Pretty excited, although the SyFy thing makes me cautious. I don't trust them to produce quality TV, but I am hoping for the best nevertheless.

They produced the Dune miniseries that had decent production values didn't they?

I have said this many times, SyFy problem is not that they can't do quality it is the commitment to continue doing it.

Over the last 15 years or so, many times put together a small group of good shows. They raise their quality, which raises their ratings, which gets their presidents promoted to a bigger network. Then the new presidents get orders to cut the budgets, which lowers quality, which lowers ratings, and gets more crappy unreality shit shows. John Edwards, The plumbers guide to ghost hunting, and ever one of those stupid fact or fiction type shows, go directly to a change in president. It get worse when the former failed, because the cancel anything worth watching.

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  • 2 months later...

I went to a book signing in Denver tonight with both guys. It was fantastic, if a little sparsely attended. Neither seemed bummed about the attendance, and had the same thought that myself and the guy I was talking to before it started did - this will be their last tour with any intimate events like this. So, if you can definitely hit up the events in your area.

WRT the television show:

  1. They've spent the last six weeks in LA working with the showrunners on developing the show. Does that ever happen in Hollywood?

No.

So why did it happen in this instance? Because of SyFy desire to make this a high quality show, not just for the show's sake, but to also help get them back into the quality sci-fi programming business and to recapture the BSG viewership.

They talked a bit about the new network leadership (which I talked about in the thread in entertainment), and their dedication to turning things around.

Because of this new direction at the network, Dan and Ty chose SyFy. SyFy was not the only network that wanted to adapt it, and they made SyFy work to get it.

If that doesn't give you hope for the series, then fuck you.

No casting info was given, nor did anybody ask.

When asked if it would be one book per season, Dan cryptically replied that "Leviathan Wakes is a long, dense book, and they gave us a ten hour (episode) order."

The show will be called The Expanse.

I got all of my first edition Long Price Quartet books signed, expect to see them up on ebay shortly. j/k that's never going to happen.

They were both psyched at how well the book did yesterday at independent book stores and B&N, and amazon even though they were trying to hamstring them by not allowing pre-orders.

He pronounces Geder with a hard g, but Geder doesn't care how you say his name.

In the Expanse Universe, they try to stick to actual physics as much as possible, but will break things in cases where the general public won't notice - this is their "smell test" or "wikipedia test." Where LW was a noir mystery novel in a sci-fi setting, and CW was a political thriller, and AG was a ghost story, CB is their take on a western. The fifth book is tentatively titled Nemesis ...., shit, I can't believe I forgot the second word. In the book everybody gets what coming to them, and they've been looking forward to writing that one "for the past 3 or 4 books." When they have enough material in the short stories and novellas they will put them out as a collection.

And in case you haven't heard - The Expanse has been signed up for three additional books for a total of nine.

Pulled from the MLN Hanover thread:

That's all I've got for right now, if you have any specific questions ask them, and I'll answer if they came up.

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I wonder if we are going to hear Eros say "DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME!" I think one of the words will be omitted from this sentence.

How much is SyFy allowed to get away with? If they could get away with AMC levels of cussing, then a decent script can get around it. Of course they could also go the BSG route by using "new" swear words. I can't recall exactly but I think there were such things in the books already - especially with derogatory terms for different parts of the solar system.

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How much is SyFy allowed to get away with? If they could get away with AMC levels of cussing, then a decent script can get around it. Of course they could also go the BSG route by using "new" swear words. I can't recall exactly but I think there were such things in the books already - especially with derogatory terms for different parts of the solar system.

Surely they can get away with a single "fucking" in an episode? I always forget how strict things are for network shows, but I thought they could have that much at least. I really do want to hear that because it's such a wtf moment in the book I imagine it will only be amplified actually hearing it.

Half joke question AG - try and find out who is responsible for Bull's chapters in AG, I want to make sure I drunkenly tell off the right author at Loncon for

killing off Sam. Ty had teased casting Felicia day as her which would just make me swoon harder and be even more annoyed, I already crushed on Sam big time in the books!

They've avoided answering on twitter when I've asked :P

ETA: I *think* that one's Ty, but as they write more together their voices are blending better as they pick up more and more from each other. They really work well together, it's a great pairing.

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I'm modestly interested in this. I've read the first three books of the Expanse series, didn't know until just now it was scheduled to go 9 books.



I think it could be a decent show, but I have several reservations. I don't really think there's a whole lot of amazing visuals in the series. And I really couldn't buy Holden as some super moral hero guy. And also the way that four or five basically merchant marine folks could run a military ship better than the military. Still, I'll give it a few episodes. Which, come to think of it, is how I felt about BSG initially.


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You seem to have a different take on the characters than I do, Holden I tend to think of as a self righteous jack ass who is trying to do the right thing but often makes it worse.



I'll grant you that the crew of the Roci are treated as exceptional, but I never got the impression that they were supposed to be running it better than the Martian Navy would have, just that Naomi, Alex and Amos are all top of their field for their specialties. Holden I don't think is :p he just gets carried by his crew.


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I'm going this weekend so if anybody has any questions, I can try to pass them along.

I meant to ask Ty if he is planning any solo projects, now that Dan has taught him everything there is to know about writing a novel but the conversation moved on before I got the chance. Dan had cracked a joke that Ty had brought all of the world building and characters to the project, and that he had brought the experience of having written a few novels already.

You seem to have a different take on the characters than I do, Holden I tend to think of as a self righteous jack ass who is trying to do the right thing but often makes it worse.

I'll grant you that the crew of the Roci are treated as exceptional, but I never got the impression that they were supposed to be running it better than the Martian Navy would have, just that Naomi, Alex and Amos are all top of their field for their specialties. Holden I don't think is :P he just gets carried by his crew.

I started unconsciously nodding my head with your first sentence, and kept on nodding through the rest of your post.

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Surely they can get away with a single "fucking" in an episode? I always forget how strict things are for network shows, but I thought they could have that much at least. I really do want to hear that because it's such a wtf moment in the book I imagine it will only be amplified actually hearing it.

Breaking Bad never got away with it on broadcast so I doubt syfy would either. On boxsets maybe (much like their BSG TV movies had more adult content) or broadcast in countries that are less uptight. If we're to assume sfyy has AMC levels of censorship they can get away with "shit" and plenty of gore/violence and nudity but no nipples or man-parts.

I don't think this will be a big issue for this show but i do think the swearing will have to be tamed. If they invent a swear word and use it in a believable way like "frakking" (or "frelling" in Farscape) they can get away with it. The danger is if the curse sounds stupid and then we lose the impact of the sentence it's used in.

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