Arthur C. Clarke's 'Venus Prime' to become a TV miniseries, directed by Jonathan Frakes

[Shaka Zulu]

Filmmaker, author, producer and actor Jonathan Frakes is best known for his portrayal of Commander Will Riker in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a role he has also played in four "Star Trek" feature films with the acclaimed "TNG" cast.

Now that filming has been completed in Toronto on the third season of "Strange New Worlds," Frakes has turned his talents to an ambitious new project — an epic TV series adaptation of the classic Paul Preuss novels, "Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime." Screenwriters David Cormican ("Tokyo Trial") and Dwayne Hill ("Northern Rescue") will serve as executive producers and showrunners.

"Venus Prime" is a series of six sci-fi mystery novels by author Paul Preuss, based upon a number of short stories from the legendary Arthur C. Clarke. They center around a young woman with superhuman skills named Sparta and her quest for the reality of her origins while confronting a sinister cult called the Free Spirit. Each book uses one Clarke story as its source material. Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime will be listed as a Navajo Entertainment production in collaboration with Claxson, Washington Square Entertainment, Palatin Media, Julijette, Karma Film, Fun Republic Pictures and virtual production studio and film financier Volume Global.

Arthur C. Clarke's 'Venus Prime' to become a TV miniseries, directed by Jonathan Frakes
As a massive fan of this series (I already mentioned it in a previous post in a past thread) I'm glad that this is (or might) be happening, and with Jonathan Frakes having a hand in it; I hope that it happens, because it'll be great to see actual space tech (not the space tech seen in the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, but the tech seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey-to which Venus Prime's a spiritual successor-be used in a sci-fi TV series.) It's also great and fits into today's world because of its female protagonist, which a lot of women (and girls) love and want to see more of in media; also, she's an original character, so nobody will be losing their shit over her or her boyfriend being 'woke', since the book series this TV show's based on was never really that popular compared with something like the Honor Harrington series.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned in a thread, but I just came across it tonight.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I've never heard of Venus Prime (the premise sounds fascinating!) but I'm excited for Jonathan Frakes! He's finally getting another chance to make something big after the disastrous production of Thunderbirds that derailed his film directing aspirations.

 

[Markonian]

Could be interesting.

 

[Starkers]

I've never heard of Venus Prime (the premise sounds fascinating!) but I'm excited for Jonathan Frakes! He's finally getting another chance to make something big after the disastrous production of Thunderbirds that derailed his film directing aspirations.

The worst thing was, I didn't think Thunderbirds was that bad, and many of the problems it had weren't necessarily down to Frakes' direction, which was pacy and fun if I recall correctly.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Could be interesting.

Get the novels (Breaking Strain in particular) and read them, you'll like them, a lot. They're available here.

The teaser trailer for the new series is up.

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My hope for the new series is that it's faithful to the books as much as possible, and that it also keeps the 22nd century non-faster than light (at least for the human beings and human organizations-the Board Of Space Control and the Council Of Worlds-the aliens that eventually pop up do have it) and factually based space craft technology as is without any Star Trek or Star Wars-type stuff added in (it's the spiritual successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it should be filmed that way, as factually as possible; Clarke never did anything like Star Wars or Star Trek in his novels, although he did say in a Starlog interview that he liked both franchises for making the public space councious.) However, some things (like the swimming naked done by adults) may have to be changed.

 

[The Wormhole]

The worst thing was, I didn't think Thunderbirds was that bad, and many of the problems it had weren't necessarily down to Frakes' direction, which was pacy and fun if I recall correctly.

Going off memories from twenty years ago, but the main problem with the Thunderbirds movie was someone decided to try and cash in on the popularity of the Spy Kids movies, and as a result we got Spy Kids Lite Featuring Thunderbirds.

 

[Starkers]

Going off memories from twenty years ago, but the main problem with the Thunderbirds movie was someone decided to try and cash in on the popularity of the Spy Kids movies, and as a result we got Spy Kids Lite Featuring Thunderbirds.

Wasn't Bill Paxton in it?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've never heard of Venus Prime (the premise sounds fascinating!) but I'm excited for Jonathan Frakes!

I remember seeing the Venus Prime books at Waldenbooks circa 1990, but i was more interested in the Isaac Asimov's Robot City and Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series, so I never picked them up.

Wasn't Bill Paxton in it?

Sophia Myles as well!

 

[JD]

This sounds like it could be interesting, and I'm always willing to at least give anything Johnathan Frakes directs a look.

 

[Australis]

Arthur C. Clarke's 'Venus Prime' to become a TV miniseries, directed by Jonathan Frakes
As a massive fan of this series (I already mentioned it in a previous post in a past thread) I'm glad that this is (or might) be happening, and with Jonathan Frakes having a hand in it; I hope tha it happens, because it'll be great to see actual space tech (not the space tech seen in the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, but the tech seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey-to which Venus Prime's a spiritual successor-be used in a sci-fi TV series.) It's also great and fits into today's world because of its female protagonist, which a lot of women (and girls) love and want to see more of in media; also, she's an original character, so nobody will be losing their shit over her or her boyfriend being 'woke', since the book series this TV show's based on was never really that popular compared with something like the Honor Harrington series.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned in a thread, but I just came across it tonight.

I've never heard of Venus Prime (the premise sounds fascinating!) but I'm excited for Jonathan Frakes! He's finally getting another chance to make something big after the disastrous production of Thunderbirds that derailed his film directing aspirations.

The worst thing was, I didn't think Thunderbirds was that bad, and many of the problems it had weren't necessarily down to Frakes' direction, which was pacy and fun if I recall correctly.

Going off memories from twenty years ago, but the main problem with the Thunderbirds movie was someone decided to try and cash in on the popularity of the Spy Kids movies, and as a result we got Spy Kids Lite Featuring Thunderbirds.

I can tell you exactly what the problem was.

I was at my local shopping centre where there was a poster on display, about 2m high. But it wasn't the kids going up to look at it in awe, it was their dads, in their 30s and 40s. And not enough in the film was pitched to that potential audience. It was a kiddie flick. It could have been so much more.

As for Venus Prime, I'll check it out when it comes out.