Meanwhile, FX has aired a brief teaser for the show, which features rats. A pilot was filmed in September, although most of this material will be reshot due to the recasting of Setrakian (played by John Hurt in the pilot). The series proper began shooting a couple of weeks ago and will debut in July 2014. The show has been fast-tracked after an extremely long period in development.
Showing posts with label chuck hogan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chuck hogan. Show all posts
Monday, 9 December 2013
David Bradley takes THE STRAIN
The much-in-demand David Bradley has been cast in the crucial role of Abraham Setrakian in FX's TV adaptation of Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's novel, The Strain. Bradley has recently been seen playing Walder Frey on Game of Thrones, William Hartnell in Doctor Who drama An Adventure in Space and Time and Argus Filch in the Harry Potter movies.
Meanwhile, FX has aired a brief teaser for the show, which features rats. A pilot was filmed in September, although most of this material will be reshot due to the recasting of Setrakian (played by John Hurt in the pilot). The series proper began shooting a couple of weeks ago and will debut in July 2014. The show has been fast-tracked after an extremely long period in development.
Meanwhile, FX has aired a brief teaser for the show, which features rats. A pilot was filmed in September, although most of this material will be reshot due to the recasting of Setrakian (played by John Hurt in the pilot). The series proper began shooting a couple of weeks ago and will debut in July 2014. The show has been fast-tracked after an extremely long period in development.
Wednesday, 20 November 2013
Guillermo Del Toro's TV series greenlit
Guillermo Del Toro is executive producing a new TV series, The Strain (which depicts an infection of New York by creatures that are somewhere between vampires and zombies), based on a trilogy of novels he co-authored with Chuck Hogan. The project originally began as a TV series and became a book series when the original network passed on the project, so it's come full circle.
A non-broadcast pilot was produced last year, directed by Del Toro, with John Hurt starring as Professor Abraham Setrakian. Sadly, Hurt elected not to play the role full-time in the series and will be recast. The other castmembers, most notably Corey Stoll as protagonist Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, will be retained. Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings's Sam Gamgee) will also have a recurring role alongside Kevin Durand (Keamy from Lost).
The series has been picked up for a 13-episode first season by FX. Apparently they envisage the show running for either three or five seasons, depending on ratings. On top the normal series budget, FX are also dedicating $500,000 to the creation of the creatures that will be needed for the series.
Del Toro's day-to-day involvement in the show is likely to be limited, especially if the Pacific Rim sequel is greenlit, so the show will be primarily run by Carlton Cuse, the former co-showrunner on Lost.
The books aren't great, but they are serviceable popcorn entertainment. Hopefully the TV series will be a bit better.
A non-broadcast pilot was produced last year, directed by Del Toro, with John Hurt starring as Professor Abraham Setrakian. Sadly, Hurt elected not to play the role full-time in the series and will be recast. The other castmembers, most notably Corey Stoll as protagonist Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, will be retained. Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings's Sam Gamgee) will also have a recurring role alongside Kevin Durand (Keamy from Lost).
The series has been picked up for a 13-episode first season by FX. Apparently they envisage the show running for either three or five seasons, depending on ratings. On top the normal series budget, FX are also dedicating $500,000 to the creation of the creatures that will be needed for the series.
Del Toro's day-to-day involvement in the show is likely to be limited, especially if the Pacific Rim sequel is greenlit, so the show will be primarily run by Carlton Cuse, the former co-showrunner on Lost.
The books aren't great, but they are serviceable popcorn entertainment. Hopefully the TV series will be a bit better.
Sunday, 26 September 2010
The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The attempts by Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, Abraham Setrakian and their various allies to stop the vampires from spreading across New York City have failed, and the city is now falling into darkness. The plans of the evil 'Master' and his pawn Eldritch Palmer are becoming clearer, spelling doom not just for humanity but for those vampire clans opposed to the Master's will. With little choice, Setrakian forges an alliance of convenience with his ancient enemies to bring down their mutual foe.
The Fall is the sequel to last year's well-received The Strain and the middle volume of a trilogy (the finale, Eternal Night, is due late next year). Conceived and developed for television by Guillermo del Toro (the director of Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy series) before he decided to retask it is a literary project, the book mixes his trademark action sequences and visual imagery with co-writer Chuck Hogan's thriller sensibilities, resulting in another tight and fast-moving novel.
This is not high literature, but The Fall remains a well-paced and action-packed read. This is much more of an undemanding airport novel than say Justin Cronin's more weighty The Passage, but there are some nice horror flourishes in the book, most notably the twisted relationship between the newly-turned vampires and their 'Dear Ones', their loved ones in life whom they are driven to turn above all others. There are other, deeper moments of characterisation (particularly revelations about Setrakian's history) but this is a book more about the action than deep and meaningful characters and themes. It succeeds in its aims, but as such risks being a fun but forgettable book, particularly when the corn starts kicking in (the feuding criminal gangs of NYC joining forces to become elite vampire-killers is ridiculous but also fun to read). There is a strong cliffhanger ending, however, where the stakes and scale of the story are ramped up to new and more impressive levels.
The Fall (***½) lacks the growing sense of horror of the first volume in the trilogy, with much more emphasis on action. It's a fast-moving story, but I can't help feeling that del Toro would have made much more of this story if he was in Pan's Labyrinth mode rather than Hellboy. As such it's fun, but lacks depth. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.
The Fall is the sequel to last year's well-received The Strain and the middle volume of a trilogy (the finale, Eternal Night, is due late next year). Conceived and developed for television by Guillermo del Toro (the director of Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy series) before he decided to retask it is a literary project, the book mixes his trademark action sequences and visual imagery with co-writer Chuck Hogan's thriller sensibilities, resulting in another tight and fast-moving novel.
This is not high literature, but The Fall remains a well-paced and action-packed read. This is much more of an undemanding airport novel than say Justin Cronin's more weighty The Passage, but there are some nice horror flourishes in the book, most notably the twisted relationship between the newly-turned vampires and their 'Dear Ones', their loved ones in life whom they are driven to turn above all others. There are other, deeper moments of characterisation (particularly revelations about Setrakian's history) but this is a book more about the action than deep and meaningful characters and themes. It succeeds in its aims, but as such risks being a fun but forgettable book, particularly when the corn starts kicking in (the feuding criminal gangs of NYC joining forces to become elite vampire-killers is ridiculous but also fun to read). There is a strong cliffhanger ending, however, where the stakes and scale of the story are ramped up to new and more impressive levels.
The Fall (***½) lacks the growing sense of horror of the first volume in the trilogy, with much more emphasis on action. It's a fast-moving story, but I can't help feeling that del Toro would have made much more of this story if he was in Pan's Labyrinth mode rather than Hellboy. As such it's fun, but lacks depth. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
This book has an interesting history behind it. Back in 2006 movie director Guillermo del Toro started developing a TV series with Fox. For unknown reasons the series never happened, but del Toro retained ownership of the scripts, story outline and character arcs he'd spent some time and effort creating. With his movie calendar fully booked up for the next decade, he clearly wouldn't be able to bring the project to the screen by himself either, so he decided to team up with thriller writer Chuck Hogan to turn the story into a trilogy of novels. With the story and character arcs already conceived, the writing proceeded pretty quickly. The first book, The Strain, is released next month and will be followed by The Devouring next year and the as-yet-untitled third book in 2011.
The book opens in 2010 when a Boeing 777 flying from Germany lands at John F. Kennedy airport, New York City. Moments after landing and turning off the runway, the plane suddenly goes dark. All communications are lost and rescue teams can't get inside. When they eventually do enter the plane, they find that all but four of the 300-odd passengers and crew are dead, killed by unknown means. The four survivors are taken to hospital, but then disappear.
At the same time, an elderly and frail billionaire, Eldritch Palmer, flies into New York on a mysterious mission. Another old man, Treblinka concentration camp survivor and pawn shop owner Abraham Setrakian, realises that the moment he has been awaiting for almost seventy years has arrived. An ancient compact has been broken and an ancient curse has been unleashed upon New York. The exponential curve of this curse will see the city destroyed in one week and the entire United States in three months, unless it is stopped.
The Strain is rollicking good entertainment. Those looking for literature which addresses the musings of the human soul best look elsewhere. This book is a combined thriller, horror story and action yarn with some sweet explosions, a frankly unnecessary number of decapitations and gloriously over-the-top action sequences (reading about a ninety-year-old man hurling himself into battle with a silver sword and massive UV-generating explosive device is unusual, to say the least). Del Toro's influence is clear, from the unpleasant descriptions of various creatures' anatomies to his gleeful depiction of violence (clearly gleaned from his Hellboy experiences), whilst experienced thriller writer Hogan gives a steadier sense of pace to proceedings. The first half of the book builds a palpable sense of dread and horror, with a creepy eclipse thrown in as well, the writers cheerfully not caring that New York City won't see another eclipse for eighty years: maybe they've been watching Heroes? The tension of the first half is then released in the second half, when the gloves come off and wholesale destruction kicks in.
The book has some interesting protagonists, with CDC Dr. Ephraim Goodweather as our main POV on events. Setrakian is a font of exposition who unusually shrugs off the 'elderly mentor' role to mix it up with the bad guys and also provides the most genuinely disturbing scenes in the novel, as he flashes back to WWII and his initial encounter with the horror in the concentration camp. Unfortunately, the fact that Goodweather's superiors don't believe him about how serious the outbreak is and its true extent means that he has to rebel against the system and act as a rogue agent for the good of the people, which is a bit corny, but the writers pull it off so fair enough.
The Strain (****) is tremendous, page-turning fun and is fuelled by one of the more innovative imaginations working in cinema today backed up by a solid thriller writer. It will be published in the UK by HarperCollins and by William Morrow in the USA, both on 2 June 2009. Del Toro is interviewed about the book here.
The book opens in 2010 when a Boeing 777 flying from Germany lands at John F. Kennedy airport, New York City. Moments after landing and turning off the runway, the plane suddenly goes dark. All communications are lost and rescue teams can't get inside. When they eventually do enter the plane, they find that all but four of the 300-odd passengers and crew are dead, killed by unknown means. The four survivors are taken to hospital, but then disappear.
At the same time, an elderly and frail billionaire, Eldritch Palmer, flies into New York on a mysterious mission. Another old man, Treblinka concentration camp survivor and pawn shop owner Abraham Setrakian, realises that the moment he has been awaiting for almost seventy years has arrived. An ancient compact has been broken and an ancient curse has been unleashed upon New York. The exponential curve of this curse will see the city destroyed in one week and the entire United States in three months, unless it is stopped.
The Strain is rollicking good entertainment. Those looking for literature which addresses the musings of the human soul best look elsewhere. This book is a combined thriller, horror story and action yarn with some sweet explosions, a frankly unnecessary number of decapitations and gloriously over-the-top action sequences (reading about a ninety-year-old man hurling himself into battle with a silver sword and massive UV-generating explosive device is unusual, to say the least). Del Toro's influence is clear, from the unpleasant descriptions of various creatures' anatomies to his gleeful depiction of violence (clearly gleaned from his Hellboy experiences), whilst experienced thriller writer Hogan gives a steadier sense of pace to proceedings. The first half of the book builds a palpable sense of dread and horror, with a creepy eclipse thrown in as well, the writers cheerfully not caring that New York City won't see another eclipse for eighty years: maybe they've been watching Heroes? The tension of the first half is then released in the second half, when the gloves come off and wholesale destruction kicks in.
The book has some interesting protagonists, with CDC Dr. Ephraim Goodweather as our main POV on events. Setrakian is a font of exposition who unusually shrugs off the 'elderly mentor' role to mix it up with the bad guys and also provides the most genuinely disturbing scenes in the novel, as he flashes back to WWII and his initial encounter with the horror in the concentration camp. Unfortunately, the fact that Goodweather's superiors don't believe him about how serious the outbreak is and its true extent means that he has to rebel against the system and act as a rogue agent for the good of the people, which is a bit corny, but the writers pull it off so fair enough.
The Strain (****) is tremendous, page-turning fun and is fuelled by one of the more innovative imaginations working in cinema today backed up by a solid thriller writer. It will be published in the UK by HarperCollins and by William Morrow in the USA, both on 2 June 2009. Del Toro is interviewed about the book here.
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