Consider, if you will, your favorite fictional character or property. Superman. Tarzan. The crew of Serenity.
Have somebody in mind? Good.
Now let’s say that you’re invited to a poker game with whatever ruthless corporate drone currently controls that character. Both of you have mad Texax Hold-Em skills, and soon the other players opt out. During the last hand, the corporate type tells you that he’s tapped out but wants to continue, so he offers you editorial & plot control over your fave for the next year. If it’s Superman, you get to hire the artists & writers, and script the book if you wish. If it’s the Buffyverse, you can bring either of the shows back and oversee production; and so on.
You win that hand.
What property do you pick, and what do you do with it?
I’d love to get my hands on Star Trek for a year and make it, y’know, good. First up, my new series: Captain Sulu of the Excelsior. The Klingons have been clobbered by Praxis and the Federation rises as the primary superpower and having to face all these previously picayune conflicts that were once minor side-battles. Sulu has a powerful ship, but he under the control of an indifferent political structure that likes headlines more than results.
The problem for me is that generally anything I like, I like because the writers and artists are good. I’m not really old enough to have favourites who are now being written poorly.
So that said, i’d probably just try and get something that was canceled or no longer running back. Firefly, maybe. Star Trek, like **Bryan’s ** idea, would be good since it’d probably last longer than the year. Maybe force J.K. to write more HP books.
Do I have a decent budget and control of timeslot? If so, then I’m gonna spend a ton of money and hire Joss to get Firefly off the ground again. I’d also insist that somewhere during the 24 episodes I’m in control of, he does at least three episodes with heavy flashbacks that flesh out Book’s background and career pre-Serenity. Then I would find it a killer timeslot, run the episodes in the order they are supposed to run, insist on a no-no-broadcast at right time clause (if there is something special going on, let everybody go to the net to get info. The Show Must Go On!), and refuse to let FOX have anything to do with it. HBO will get the nod, methinks. Because there has to be at least 7 moderately long scenes during the season where Kaylee and Inara take a shower together. And we have to see nekkid River Tai Chi. And Jayne’s butt for my wife.
Star Wars. I’d pull everything Lucas has done since about the middle of Return of the Jedi and remake it all with the help of the fans (because I don’t imagine I’m any better at writing dialog and stuff than Lucas is).
Freakin’ Lucas.
Or, if that’s too big a project, Battlestar Galactica. You know, turn it into a Science Fiction show instead of a frakin’ drama.
If I wanted a soap opera I’d watch Days of Our Lives.
I’ll take the Warlord and turn it into an action/adventure series for Adult Swim. I’d start the series in the 1960s rather then modernize it. I’d have worked out the rudiments of the various sagas and know how the series will end before I begin. No dragging things out, I will always be working towards an ending. I probably keep most of the stories from the comic book up until about 112. The series really lost it about then.
And we will have animated nudity. There are certain people I’d like to see in all their glory but I certainly wont be afraid to show some male nudity. It would be blacked out on TV but the DVDs will be unedited.
I will also make an RPG on the series. Either played like FFXII or Kingdom Hearts. Why not both, and I could make a nice mature game for the Wii.
Close runner ups are Star Wars and Garrett, P.I. by Glen Cook. I’d love to redo the whole Star Wars series and make Garrett movies.
I’d bring back Sons and Daughters (what?) that ABC cancelled last year.
I’d like to think that it was a three-way showdown with the CEO of ABC and whomever is in charge of producing the next Metallica album. I’d also like to think that if I was in charge of the latter that it would surely not suck.
Since Bryan Ekers got dibs on *Star Trek * (and more power to him!), I would seize control of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium. I’d beg, borrow and plead to get Peter Jackson onboard to direct a well-funded, well-scripted movie of The Hobbit. I’d also greenlight movies of The Children of Hurin, the downfall of Numenor, the tale of Beren and Luthien, and Aragorn’s childhood and early adulthood. Then I’d hire some outstanding fantasy novelists and artists to explore some of the more obscure corners of Tolkien’s world: Umbar and its Corsairs, the Sea of Rhun, the vineyards of Dorwinion, and Gondor during King Elessar’s rule.
On the merchandising front, I’d authorize a line of cufflinks with the insignia of various characters and realms. I like cufflinks.
I’d want to get my hands on The Flash first. I would get Wally West back immediately and let emo little Bart Allen go live his little life as an LA Police Cadet.
Barry Allen was ok. He was a good Flash. He was a bit dull at times, but he was a good, solid hero. I have never liked Bart. Ever. I have always found him to be boring, and whiney, and completely on my nerves*. Wally West is a man worth reading.
I would let Lex Luthor finally take down Superman. For good this time. Maybe not kill him, but definitely incapacitate him or depower him in some way. I have never liked Superman. And, strange as it sounds, Lex is the hero of the story for me. There is only so much invincible goody goody I can take. Lex is clever and inventive and fun to read.
Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Arrow, and the JLA are fine for now.
I am considering making Alex Ross do all the covers from now on, but that’s not certain, yet.
I think it says something that although Smallville’s Flash is Bart, they gave him Wally’s personality.
I dearly, dearly want to see a big-screen adaptation of Final Fantasy VI. Two 3.5-hour movies, Final Fantasy VI: World of Balance and Final Fantasy VI: World of Ruin. Written and directed by Peter Jackson and his team. Starring Summer Glau as Terra, Nathan Fillion as Locke, Daniel Craig as Edgar, Katee Sackhoff as Celes, and Clive Owen as Shadow.
In that poker game with Hooplehead Box Office, I would force the cocksuckers to give me control over the budget and continue Deadwood from where they left off…
Carnivale comes back, and Knauff gets to finish the entire storyline. Y’know, the one he wrote to be played out in a season, HBO told him to extend for five seasons, then they pulled the plug after season two?
Remember WENN comes back for one more season. Just one. To resolve the six (IIRC) cliffhangers that hit at the end of the ‘final’ season. I wouldn’t make it go further than that, though; timeline-wise, things, I think, would’ve taken a bit of a dark turn on that show, and that’s really not how I’d want to remember it.
I’d take over the Alien saga, having an adult Newt wake up from a feverish dream which renders the 3rd and 4th movies null. Then…
There’s a pounding on the door of her apartment…it bursts in, as an older Hicks enters, holding an auto-rifle. Screams and gunfire echo in the hallway.
“Get up!, they’re out, they’ve released ALL of them!”
The camera pulls back through her apartment window, and pans over the 23rd century New York skyline…
