I’m not a particular fan of the Black Panther, but I’ve read some stuff with him that is pretty cool. The writer in question, Mark Bailey, is mostly known for documentary work, though he has done at least one other adaptation that might see the screen. There’s no word yet on how Marvel or Mr. Bailey intends to adapt the story of the Black Panther, but the last time there was any serious interest in the character, he was going to be involved in some kind of Indiana Jones/Alan Quatermain-style adventure.

Oh, please, no. That just sounds so stupid.

Granted, that was in the 1990s. Hopefully Hollywood has gotten smarter.

And then I remembered Catwoman, and that shot that idea to shit.

Read the article at Collider.

Fuck.

You.

So, we have a synopsis for the new Three Musketeers movie. Up until now, I heard that it was going to be in 3D, which did not fill me with joy, but also did not fill me with dread. Then I heard how it was going to be modernized, but in the style of Sherlock Holmes. This started to worry me. I mean, I liked Sherlock Holmes, but that was a great pair of actors with a director who had proved he could be entertaining on a good day. Paul “Soldier” Anderson? Paul “AVP” Anderson? Oh shit, this doesn’t look good.

And now it is looking much, much worse.

There’s a synopsis available. It basically tells us that this is not a Three Musketeers movie. This is a movie with characters that have the same names and some of the same attributes as the Three Musketeers, but are not the Three Musketeers.

Bringing it back to the Sherlock Holmes example, while the movie did change much about the characters, Holmes was still a private detective and Watson was still his partner, who was a medical doctor and had served in the military. Their essential characters were there, just as they were in the Basil Rathbone movies. Anderson’s film has the Three Musketeers as some kind of A-Team, a bunch of special operators that got screwed over and kicked out of the military. See, these Three Musketeers? They aren’t actually Musketeers. This is the Three ex-Musketeers.

And, buying into the same bullshit as Disney’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Musketeers from the 90s, Cardinal Richelieu has moved from the power behind the throne to an attempted usurper. WTF? Seriously, where the fuck does this come from?

Well, I actually know where this comes from: it comes from a mind too stupid to see that the power of Richelieu is greater when he can make the king do things for him, and take the blame for those things, while the Cardinal remains the unsullied power behind the throne. That was the great part about the Cardinal.

And when you are bringing this movie to the screen, you have to do it better than Richard Lester’s the Three Musketeers. Seriously, it’d be like re-making the Seven Samurai as a cheap FX Star Wars rip-off. Yes, someone did do that. Yes, it was campy fun. No, I don’t think this one will be fun. I think this will be Peter Hyam’s the Musketeer. Forgot that one, did you? Wish I could.

So, to be succinct: fuck you, Paul Anderson. Fuck you in your stupid ass.

You can find the bad news here.

I can’t say I’m excited by this. The last to ventures into the Alien universe (those would be Alien Vs. Predator and AVP2) really sucked ass. I mean, they sucked so much they cleaned colons, stomachs, entire gastrointestinal tracts.

Now, this one has Ridley Scott, who did such great work with Alien. And I am one of the people who actually enjoyed Alien Resurrection (that would be IV), so I figure if it is a straight ahead Alien movie made by the original Alien director, it can’t be all that bad.

Then again, it certainly can. I love Ridley Scott . . . most of the time. He’s honestly hit and miss. And if the script doesn’t have depth, he’s not a director to add it. Visuals? Stunning. But he needs to work with a good script and good actors.

Let’s hope he gets both for the prequel.

You can read the synopsis here.

The full article is here.

It’s a possibility, but it’s very, very unlikely.

The fact is that Ms. Portman is ready and willing to do a sequel to the Professional—also known as Leon in international markets. She has one stipulation though. She will only do it if Luc Besson will direct it.

And he has said he won’t direct it. He’s written it. It’s there, it’s ready, but he doesn’t want to direct it. And because he doesn’t want to direct it, Portman hasn’t even bothered to look at the script.

So that ain’t going to happen any time soon.

Personally, I would love to Portman do an action movie, something like the Professional. I rather enjoy watching attractive women get involved in action set-pieces. The thing is, though, that the Professional really doesn’t need a sequel. That is a movie that is self-contained. The story reached its conclusion, and it was a good one.

It would be like making a sequel to Highlander—totally unnecessary and it could be so retarded as to actually damage the lustre of the original.

Apparently, the Flash movie is going to be darker, and the comparisons made are to Se7en and the Silence of the Lambs.

Seriously? This is a guy who can break the speed of sound wearing a red body glove as tight as a Speedo. No one sees the disconnect there?

I am not a particular fan of the Flash, so maybe there is some aspect of the comics that have led the script down this dark—and might I add odd—path, but for me this just sounds goofy.

In any case, on the way to work this morning and I’m on the bus, listening to tunes. As has happened so often in the past, that leads to the plotting out of a movie and even a couple of scenes.

The elevator pitch? The cast of the Guild as a team of extra-terrestrial technology recovery specialists called Echo Transit 1.

You need more details before you decide to invest in this movie/mini-series/TV series? Why certainly.

Echo Transit 1—or ET1 . . . yeah, stupid I know, but it amuses me—is part of MAGENTA, set up when MAJESTIC went rogue back in the 1980s. MAJESTIC had all the cool alien artefacts, and MAGENTA was tasked with recovering them. Protocols are now in place to have a MAGENTA recovery team as first responders to any alien incursion anywhere in the world. Most of MAJESTIC has been . . . removed, but some are still around, and they may be aligned with sinister outside influences—possibly alien, possibly not.

That’s all background.

The movie would start with an explosion near a small village in Russia’s back-and-beyond. The villagers who to investigate are vaporized. Cue Echo Transit 1.

During the credits, the team is shown being assembled. Felicia Day plays “Alfa,” the team leader, and an ex-spook for an unnamed agency. She is having a coffee on a patio somewhere in the Mediterranean when she gets the call on her Blackberry. She drops some money and goes. When she puts her wallet back in her purse/bag/whatever, we see the weapon with which she travels. It looks like a pistol, but not. Oh yeah, that’s some alien tech happening.

Then we are in a Buddhist or Buddhist-like temple. We are watching “Kilo” meditate. Kilo is played by Jeff Lewis. He is one the team medic and operations man—kind of an executive officer for Alfa. He likes to make sure nobody gets up after going down, so he carries a Desert Eagle .50 autoloader. He gets his activation message and we pan back to see he is somewhere very, very mountainous and a chopper is en route to pick him up.

Next we have Sandeep Parikh playing “Tango.” We see him teaching a young woman some advanced martial arts in a gym. The young woman happens to be “Charlie,” played by Amy Okuda. Tango is the team’s—you guessed it—martial arts expert while Charlie is the weapons specialist. She’s into suppressive fire, so she tends to use two H&K MP7s. They both get the message at the same time, both excuse themselves, then, after reading their respective messages, kind of look at each other like “Hey, wait a minute . . .” There’s a pull back to show that the gym they are using is somewhere inside an underground bunker in a mountain—maybe the Cheyenne Mountain facility?

Finally we are in a university classroom talking very high-level, incomprehensible quantum biology stuff about possible exo-systems existing beyond our planet. The lecturer is quite young. He is also a fucking genius. This is “Victor,” played by Vincent Caso. He’s the team’s xeno-biology expert and general tech-head. He gets the call, ends the class, gathers up his stuff, and is met by two suited, sunglass-wearing goons, who escort him out to the chopper.

But wait, doesn’t that leave one member? Yes it does.

The credits are done, and we are now at a Russian command and control facility. A junior officer indicates that the Russian platoon sent to put things in order at the “incident site” has disappeared. The flag officer to whom he is reporting tells him that the Russian Space Forces now has command of the location. He accepts this without question. As he leaves, the flag officer tells her aide to ready a contact team, and to have satellites survey the area. There is some discussion about the time this will take, but the flag officer is adamant. She goes to her office, picks up her Blackberry, and indicates that the Russian contact team has been delayed, and that she will need exfil at the agreed upon location.

This is Ruby, a deep cover operative for Magenta, and she is played by Robin Thorsen.

Where does it go from here? Picture the first act: ET1 getting into position, figuring out that this is an extra-dimensional incursion (apparently this kind of thing happens). What’s more, something survived the transposition, and it’s dangerous.

Act two would be the team hunting down the baddie. They are up against the clock because the Russian contact team is due. Since the team isn’t exactly supposed to be there, this is a problem. Perhaps as big a problem as the extra-dimensional, weaponized sentient the team is tracking.

Act three is the big bash up, as the team realizes this is the first step in a possible invasion. Yes, MAJESTIC is involved, those bastards. Worse yet, there’s more than one of those dimensional thingees running around, and they can subvert regular people, turning them into scaries—are zombies still cool? Should we use werewovles?

Okay, so I can write this script for you, and my prices are very reasonable.

Oh, and the pilot of the Ghost—an uber-futuristic stealth VTOL aircraft? They call him Hawkes, and he’s played by Wil Wheaton.

Oh yeah.

Seriously, wouldn’t you totally love to see this movie? Even as a SyFy original?

Who is the Crystal Method?

What is the Guild?

Where have I done this before?

So I put on music.

My brain was in that place.

I was listening to Metric’s recent album Fantasies. While the thoughts started coming on Satellite Mind, it overflowed into the album “Grow Up and Blow Away” (Two awesome tracks from that are “On the Sly” and “Soft Rock Star”).

Now, this is probably based a lot on the Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner comicRed (which is in the planning stages of becoming a motion picture). It’s basically the story of an assassin happily living in retirement (though haunted by the actions he undertook on behalf of his country). A political appointee to the CIA decides he needs to be removed because if anyone found out, it would be scandal.

I don’t think Mr. Ellis likes politicians.

Anyway, since the character in the comic is the best at what he does (and what he does isn’t very nice), he is able to survive the assassination attempt. He then calls in to his handlers that he is going “Red”–active. And then the shit really gets crazy.

I really like the concept of the person who has paid his/her due not being allowed to rest, and the extremes to which they may be pushed. There is also an aspect of divine retribution in the comic that is very satisfying.

So, in my head, I started to imagine a movie. The story is of an agent named John (not sure of a last name–I was thinking possibly Callow or Caiaphas). He’s now retired (though still relatively young), and the opening is of him making breakfast, enjoying it with his wife and daughter. Then, a cell phone starts ringing. Everyone stops. The daughter is confused. The wife is obviously worried. John is somewhere between annoyed and fearful. He goes to a drawer that has lots of odds and ends, old papers and such, and pulls out the cell phone. He answers.

“This is Six.”

On the other end we hear: “Status active. In motion.” The line goes dead.

John stares at the phone for a moment, then shoves it in his pocket. He looks at his wife, and she knows what this means. His daughter doesn’t.

“I have to go to work,” he tells her.

“But you work from home,” she says.

“Not any more.”

He gives his kid and his wife a kiss, the one with his wife lingering–a good -bye, and the opening montage starts.

With the credits rolling, he’s in some kind of vault. He puts on body armour under his shirt and suit. He straps on a few guns and knives, loads an SMG into a book bag or leather briefcase. We see him emerge from his garage, suit on, briefcase on his shoulder. He smiles and waves to his family, but the smile is forced.

He works for an unnamed branch of the foreign service. In my thoughts, this was Foreign Affairs in Canada. I envisioned the montage following him to work. Taking a bus into Ottawa, along Sussex, t o the Lester B Pearson building. He enters, has the proper ID to swipe himself through security, descends some stairs to a single, secure elevator. When it stops, he goes to a guarded door. He puts his hand in some kind of scanner, his eye up to another, and breathes into a third. The door opens and he is through.

The operations centre is kind of run down. This is high tech with lots of monitors and communications equipment, but this isn’t NORAD. This is small. John’s boss approaches him.

John is pissed. “I’m out.”

The boss is good-natured but firm. “You are never out. You were requested.”

“Fuck them. I did my time. I’m out. Let them do the fucking job for once.”

Turns out, there’s a powerful minister that called him in on this. The minister’s got a grudge. He’s using his influence to fuck with John.

There is a second story intertwined with this one. A Muslim male, Ismail, who had helped facilitate some terrorism in the 1990s, is being released from prison after serving his time. He’s changed. He’s denounced violence as a political means. He’s a convert to nonviolent resistance. He’s a convert to the rule of law.

The problem is that no one believes him–not the police, not the intelligence services, and not the people he used to run with. He wants to be left alone, to start a life, to start making amends, but that doesn’t look like it is going to happen.

Now, I’m hazy on the macguffin and the villain of the piece. I know that John and Ismail end up working together and end up validating each other. I hope John returns to his family in the end, though I can see him possibly dying. Maybe both of them do. Nah, they both survive. There is poetic justice for the dicks of the story and final justice for the real baddies. John disappears with his family, the final shot is them somewhere green and lush rolling hills–maybe Scotland or Ireland.

Does Ismail find his small dream? Does he get to have a family and some peace? I think that’s only fair. Since these stories need some kind of love interest, maybe he finds his. Maybe she is the macguffin–a witness or someone who knows something who must be protected, but who is unwilling to reveal that secret until Ismail convinces her.

Hmmm, that might work.

And, as usual, this has been cast.

John is played by Paul Gross, whom I consider something of a national treasure in Canada. I mean, forget Due South (though that was fun), look at Slings and Arrows, look at Men With Brooms (it wasn’t that bad), and look atPasschendaele.

As for Ismail, I’m torn between two actors I’ve cast in something else. Faran Tahir made a huge impact with a very small role in Star Trek. He’s got the gravitas, for certain. Saïd Taghmaoui, though, has been consistently good through those roles in which I’ve seen him. I don’t know, I guess see who is available and interested.

That’s after, of course, someone bankrolls the film. How about $30 mil? I can write the script for low six figures!

As sometimes happens when I’m walking to work (which I am, once again, after 37 glorious weeks of parental leave–thank you to the socialist paradise), I was listening to a tune, thinking about gaming scenarios. As has happened before, it segued into thinking about a story/screenplay.

Now some of you may have heard my riff on the Qalashar Device from Gen Con, which I entitled “Qalashar Dogs.” I took the facility from the Qalashar Deviceand dropped in a CIA operative suffering from lycanthropy. In any case, I was thinking about how that could work as a story and/or novel. It morphed in my thoughts, and when it got to the movie screen in my head, a dramatic shift took place.

If you want a team working in the Hindu Kush region stretching from Afghanistan into Pakistan, and you want that team to move around unnoticed, you probably don’t want a bunch of Caucasians. You probably want some people with a bit of colour. People who could really blend in.

Now, in my “movie,” the team isn’t Pashtun or Tajik or anything like that. They would all speak the local languages and dialects, but they would be assembled from around the world and chosen because they stand out less than white guys. One reason for the conceit is so that I can cast specific actors.

Well, at least I can once the script is done and the financing is secured. Translation: only in my daydreams.

Another conceit is that in the script, they would only be given code-names. That is because once the parts are cast, the character would then be given the same ethnic background as the actor. That way, while the idea is that these operators could infiltrate the area, they are–just as the actors are–“playing” an ethnicity.

I have no idea if any of these guys could fool an actual local, but I think it would work for a movie.

So, the cast.

Faran Tahir, who was such an awesome presence in theStar Trek movie, would be the Captain. He’s the leader of a special operations team known only as “Troop 7.” He would be a Delta operative of Pakistani descent but born and raised in the US.

Saïd Taghmaoui, whom I first noted in Three Kings would be Ghost, the recon expert. His character would be French, but of Moroccan descent, and a special forces operative from the 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment.

Cliff Curtis is the best of the bunch for me. Not because he’s the best actor–though he is phenomenal–but because he is a New Zealander who actually does play a lot of ethnic roles. I noticed him first in Three Kings (it was a very good movie), and then caught him in a great role in a mediocre movie,Deep Rising. Deep Rising really is mediocre, but the cast makes it a great watch. In any case, Mr. Curtis would be Smoke, a Maori NZ SAS sniper.

While many may know Sendhil Ramamurthy fromHeroes, I know him from Ultimate Force, the SAS drama from the UK. Again, serendipity, as he could easily play an SAS operator of Tamil descent. He would be Doc, the medic and tech expert.

I would actually like a bigger team, but I don’t know if it would work cinematically. I think the excess characters would get lost in the shuffle. As I envision the story, after a prologue scene where the team rescues a CIA operative and the crew of the aircraft he was in, they are called in to rescue another CIA operative, this time from a downed helicopter. And this time, they must take along a couple of CIA spooks as the “package” is infected with a virulent pathogen. I’m thinking the spooks are a doctor/scientist type, totally sincere, and the usual Special Activities Division tough guy, who intends to erase any evidence of the “package” once she/he/it has been secured–and that includes Troop 7.