SFX

NEWBIE S

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D avid Lynch b ack o n board Showtime’s Twin Peaks. Reports say the season could now run to 18 episodes, and that Lynch will direct every ep. Damn fine news!

George A Romero’s Empire Of The Dead comic heading to TV with Romero and Peter Grunwald on script duty.

K ieron G illen a nd J amie McKelvie’s heavenly comic series The Wicked + The Divine being developed for the small screen by Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s production company Milkfed Criminal Mastermind­s. Universal TV have already snapped up the rights.

Ben 10 studio bringing cannon- armed videogame character Mega Man t o T V i n 2 017 as a 26- episode animated series – just in time for his 30th anniversar­y.

Disney musical Tangled h eading t o T V as a 2D animation. Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore return to voice Flynn Rider and Rapunzel.

Quantum Of Solace director Marc Forster’s untitled outbreak drama receives 10- episode series order from NBC.

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“Could I do it? Absof** king- lutely. Would I do it? Abso- f** king- lutely… But it’d be very, very different if I did it.”

James Bond could go full hard man if

Jason Statham has his way.

Favourite SF/ fantasy film

I love John Carpenter’s The Thing. I think it’s the last great gasp of hands- on model making in the genre before CGI. And because I’m so anti- CGI I’m prepared to forgive any little lapses in it, just because of the sheer imaginatio­n that went in to creating the effects. I’ve read the book too, but the book is terrible and meandering, and Campbell wasn’t a very good writer. But a lot of the stuff that I love about the film, the blood test, is there already in Campbell, and in that way it’s very prescient.

Favourite SF/ fantasy TV

Doctor Who, without a shadow of a doubt. If I could get one TV writing gig it would be to write for Doctor Who. As for which Doctor, it’s Tom Baker for me. He was the Doctor even when he wasn’t the Doctor. Even on the street he was the Doctor; he was eccentric, he was bohemian – he didn’t even have to try terribly hard to be the Doctor.

Favourite SF/ fantasy book

My favourite writer is John Wyndham and my favourite book of his is probably The Chrysalids. When I first got an adult library ticket the first books I took out were HG Wells’ War Of The Worlds and John Wyndham – I went looking for Wyndham. I just think that in a way he was so un- English, and he was so imaginativ­e.

Favourite SF/ fantasy guilty pleasure

I shelled out on the boxset of Space: 1999, and I remember being terrified by this episode when they found this ship containing a creature that would pull people in, a tentacled thing. But when I watched it again it was really crap!

 ??  ?? John clearly has good taste in magazines.
John clearly has good taste in magazines.

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