This one is impressive. Just as an example, a short list of the guests of the London Film and Comic Con includes Scott Bakula, Eve Myles, Tom Baker, Jewel Staite, Michael Ironside, Michael Shanks, Hattie Hayridge, Nick Courtney, and so many more I don’t know how to tell you about them and make it fit on this page. And that’s just the top of the list for the actors; do not miss this one if you have any choice at all!
Red Dwarf ran its new special 3-episode series, Back to Earth, and it became available on DVD at the start of this week… in the UK. It was supposed to be a world-wide release according to a posting before the original air date (since modified), but Amazon doesn’t know that quite yet. But that’s OK, because there is more good news! At the Better Than Life Con last weekend in Bedford, Cat, Kochanski, and Kryten all confirmed that the ratings for Dave TV (renamed Lister TV for the event) blew the doors off of the BBC ratings for the same time slot. As a result, an entirely new 6 episode season of Red Dwarf is in negotiations. Anything that gets us new Red Dwarf is a good thing!
The British Fantasy Society has announced the 2009 nominees for the British Fantasy Awards 2009. A few of the folks up for the competition include Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book, Interzone and SFX, both for Best Magazine, Doctor Who for best TV Program, and both Iron Man and The Dark Night are up for best movie. The awards will be presented at Fantasycon 2009 in September.
Paul did not join the cast of anything, since the movie itself is Paul. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are the main characters, uber-geeks who stop off at area 51 after a visit to Comic-con. When they get to Area 51, they meet Paul, the alien voiced by Seth Rogen, who asks for their help escaping from the government. There are several other great actors on this project, including the just announced Sigourney Weaver. Chicago has seven cons still to go this year, 3 this month alone. This weekend is Torchsong, the Who/Torchwood convention headlined by John Barrowman. Next week is Duckon 18, and finishing the month is ZombieCon. You can see the full list at the Chicago Tribune gallery site, one con per picture. Finally, Borders has started its own SciFi blog, called Bable Clash; it will be interesting to see how it evolves.
Season 3 of Primeval kicks off on BBC America tomorrow night, bringing our crew of time-traveling dinosaur secret agents back for another round of fun. For those who haven’t watched the show, the dinosaurs do most of the time traveling, the members of the secret government agency combat them. Word has just surfaced that Warner Brothers will be bring it to the big screen, or at least a variation of it. I am hoping they at least have the sense to use the original cast, but they have already announced they will move the action to the U.S. Back in the UK, for the second Bank Holiday in May, London Expo is going on this weekend, with all kinds of movie goodies.
Getting ready to step out the door and hit X-Men Origins: Wolverine in an hour or two, which I have been looking forward to for a while. If I was anywhere near Michigan, though, I would be joining Elizabeth Bear, Wil Wheaton, John Scalzi, and over a thousand others at Penguicon 7.0. A three day Con celebrating Linux, free and open source software, and Science Fiction? Had I heard about this a few weeks ago I would have been there; thanks to GeekDad for the heads up!