Thursday 22 May 2008

Avan Jogia cast as Ben Stark

IMDb has updated the Caprica cast page to include 16-year-old Canadian actor Avan Jogia, who will presumably play Ben Stark, Zoe Graystone's boyfriend who becomes a radical monotheist and commits the terrorist act that sets the events that eventually lead to the creation of the first Cylon in motion.

Jogia's most prominent television role so far was Sam on Aliens in America, show recently axed by CW. His complete resume is available on his IMDb page.

The news of the Vancouver-born actor being cast on Caprica has not been officially confirmed yet.

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Caprica pilot not a self-contained story, says source

SyFyPortal's Michael Hinman has an interesting post about the Caprica pilot and whether or not it stands a chance as a series in light of the fact that it was in development hell for quite a while and would probably not have been greenlit if it had not been for the WGA strike, the popularity of parent series Battlestar Galactica and Ron Moore looking to leave Sci Fi for NBC.

A source told SyFy that the two-hour pilot is not really a self-contained story as much as it is the first episode in a "highly serialized drama which requires a lot of setup:"

"When they did Battlestar, they were given a miniseries that set it all up, and if they had never done a series, you could be happy with that one product. But Caprica is not the same. We're not getting anywhere near the time we need to tell this story in a single production, and I'm worried that fans will watch it and say, 'And?'"

"It's a great story, but we [leave] off right in the middle of the story. There's really nothing wrong with that, if there was a continuation the next week, but it could be months if not longer before any episodes continue the story. It's just not self-contained."

"What they need to do is give us a 10- or 12-hour order. We have to give this show a chance, and we're not doing it any justice by presenting just a small piece and hoping there's enough audience who will stick around to see more next year. It's like starting to watch The Sixth Sense, but turning it off after the first act. There needs to be a stronger commitment to the show."

Other inside sources on Galactica have recently said that Caprica will probably get greenlit even before the pilot airs. If true, the rumour might just put the concerns about the pilot telling an unfinished story to rest.

New Ron Moore interview

Wired has a nice, lengthy interview with Battlestar Galactica and Caprica creator Ronald D. Moore.

He briefly mentions Caprica in it, saying: "It's busy. Caprica is going. We're in pre-production. We have a director. They're starting to cast right now."

When asked if he will be running the show, he says: "Well, it's just a pilot for now. There's no order for a series, so there's nothing to show-run. There's just a pilot to produce, and I'm one of the producers. The script has been written for two years, so there's not a lot of heavy lifting on the page."

Finally, he remembers the days when it didn't look like Caprica would ever make it to production stage.

"Oh, I'd given up on it. I'd frankly just given up on it. It was on the back burner. They never said definitively no. They just said, well, not now. And they kept saying, well, not now. You just give up at a certain point. And I was sure it was never going to happen. And then during the writers strike I literally read it in TV Guide that they were doing it. Somebody said, did you see the mention in TV Guide? They're talking about Caprica."

Check out the full interview on Wired.com.

Monday 19 May 2008

Polly Walker joins Caprica cast

Polly Walker has signed on to play Clarice Willow, the headmistress of the Athena Academy, High Priestess and closeted monotheist who secretly converts her students to the cult, writes Hollywood Reporter.

The English actress was last seen alongside Jimmy Smits and Hector Elizondo on Cane and is best known for playing Atia on HBO's Rome, a role that landed her a well deserved Golden Globe nomination.

Sister Clarice Willow is one of the characters who will be regulars if Caprica goes to series.

Sunday 18 May 2008

Caprica - filming starts in June

Caprica will be filmed in June in British Columbia after production on the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica wraps, reports film writer Glen Schaefer at Canada.com. The prequel will be set on a "low-tech, earth-like planet."

There are three episodes of Battlestar Galactica left to be broadcast before the mid-season break.

May 30 - Sine Qua Non

June 6 - The Hub

June 13 - Revelations

(A quick spoilers recap can be found here.)

The show will then return with the final ten episodes early in 2009.

Saturday 17 May 2008

Caprica - regular characters

The casting info for the Caprica pilot and series is already out there and the major characters in the pilot who will become regulars if the prequel goes to series have been revealed. Here they are:

DANIEL GRAYSTONE (Eric Stoltz) - A wealthy computer engineer and businessman preoccupied with the idea of designing an intelligent robot. Married to Amanda and father of Zoe, his work doesn't leave him enough time for his family and he is completely oblivious to the life his daughter leads and to her own knack for computer technology.

JOSEPH ADAMS (Esai Morales) - Tauron emigrant, husband of Evelyn and father of Tamara and William, son of a farmer and freedom fighter, and an influential defense attorney on Caprica with connections in the Tauron crime underworld. Changed his name from "Adama" to "Adams" when he first arrived on Caprica to escape prejudice. An authority in his field, he has written at least two books: Law and Mind: The Psychology of Legal Practice and Trial Tactics and Strategies.

AMANDA GRAYSTONE (Paula Malcomson) - a successful Caprican surgeon, married to Daniel and mother of Zoe. After tragically losing her daughter, she turns to her old lover, Tauron computer engineer and her husband's competitor Tomas Vergis, for consolation and to do some good old fashioned industrial espionage.

SISTER CLARICE WILLOW (Polly Walker) - Athenian High Priestess and headmistress of the Athena Academy, a private religious school that Zoe Graystone and her boyfriend Ben attend. A sophisticated woman from a humble background, Sister Clarice is a closet monotheist who uses her position to convert her best students to the cult.

ZOE GRAYSTONE/ZOE-A/ZOE-R (Alessandra Torresani) - Daniel and Amanda Graystone's 16-year-old daughter, converted to the belief in a single god by her school headmistress, proficient at computer science, manages to upload her DNA and memories to a computer and create a hologram of herself - Zoe-A. After her death, her father discovers the avatar to create a robotic version of her - Zoe-R.

WILLIAM ADAMS - Joseph and Evelyn Adama's nine-year-old son who will later fight in the First Cylon War as a viper pilot and eventually lead the survivors of the Twelve Colonies to Earth as the commander of the Battlestar Galactica and admiral of the Colonial Fleet. Described as a reserved child.

BEN STARK/BEN-A - student at the Athena Academy and Zoe Graystone's boyfriend. Introduced to monotheism and the cult Soldiers of One by Clarice Willow, he becomes a radical and blows up the train that was to take him and Zoe out of Caprica, killing them both. But not before his personality is uploaded to a computer, like Zoe's.

Friday 16 May 2008

Caprica series likely to be greenlit

Caprica will very likely get the green light to go to series even before the two-hour pilot airs according to anonymous production sources cited by The Doctor and Mrs Who radio on yesterday's show. Fantastic news if it turns out to be true.

The same sources say that we'll be getting an extra dose of the Galactica universe after the show ends in the shape of a trilogy of straight-to-DVD TV movies. This reportedly may have something to do with the news about Galactica creator Ron Moore signing a three movie deal with United Artists.

In the meantime, an interesting interview with Aaron Douglas (Tyrol) has surfaced on the Dreamwatch SciFi site, in which he provides a glimpse into the origin of the Final Five Cylons among other things. What he says sort of contradicts the assumption that the Caprica pilot will deal with the creation of the very first Cylons.

You can check out the interview here.

Monday 12 May 2008

Eric Stoltz, Alessandra Torresani cast as Daniel and Zoe Graystone

Hollywood Reporter writes that the roles of the remaining two members of the Graystone family – computer genius Daniel and his daughter Zoe – have gone to Eric Stoltz and Alessandra Torresani.

Stoltz hardly needs much introduction. A theatre, big screen and television veteran, he has been a familiar face for well over two decades. His most recent television appearances include those on Close to Home and Medium.

Torresani, who turns 21 later this month, has film and television credits going way back to 1997, and has recently made notable appearances on Bones and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

Esai Morales cast as Joseph Adama

Esai Morales, most recently seen playing Major Beck on the CBS' on-again-off-again post-nuclear drama Jericho, has been cast as Joseph Adama, the attorney at the centre of the Caprica story and father of Admiral William Adama.

The character was most prominently introduced during the Gaius Baltar trial toward the end of Battlestar Galactica season three as a famous defense attorney and man drawn to the hidden side of human nature, driven equally by a sense of justice and by the need to understand the things that make people do the things they do.

In the Caprica pilot, Joseph Adama is in his forties, a Tauron immigrant who has changed his real name "Adama" to "Adams," who has connections to the crime underworld and has used them in the past to protect other Taurons from different forms of prejudice, and generally the kind of man you wouldn't want for an enemy.

After his wife and daughter are killed in an explosion, Adama is left with his nine-year-old son William and befriends Daniel Graystone, a brilliant computer engineer whose daughter is killed in the same attack. Prompted by grief, he reluctantly agrees to help Graystone recreate their daughters in robotic form.

Production on Caprica is scheduled to begin this summer.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

Paula Malcomson cast as Amanda Graystone

Paula Malcomson will play the female lead on Caprica, writes Hollywood Reporter.

The Belfast born actress is best known for her portrayal of Trixie on the HBO series Deadwood. She also had recurring roles on John from Cincinnati, Lost and ER and made appearances on Criminal Minds, Cold Case and Six Feet Under.

Malcomson has been cast as Amanda Graystone, a surgeon who works as a double agent. Initial reports described the character as the unfaithful wife of another Caprica protagonist, computer genius Daniel Graystone, and mother of Zoe, the girl whose personality becomes part of the first Cylon model ever created.

More casting news for the Caprica pilot is hopefully on the way.

Saturday 3 May 2008

The idea behind the series

Since the big announcement, several script reviews have surfaced online and the writers themselves have revealed some of the major plot points of the pilot for Caprica. More on those later. First, here's a quick overview of the events that led to the pilot being greenlit by the Sci Fi Channel in March as well as some of the basic ideas behind the prequel.

Last October, Caprica was described as "the first science fiction family saga" that will "weave together corporate intrigue, techno action and sexual politics." Built around two families, the Graystones and the Adamas, the series has been conceived as the prequel to the events in Battlestar Galactica, the series that returned for its fourth and final season in April.

David Eick, Galactica executive producer and one of the creative brains behind Caprica, said: "If Battlestar Galactica is Black Hawk Down, I would say that Caprica is American Beauty.“ He continued by saying that the show is “all about the inner lives of the people on a planet and how their personal relationships as well as their professional relationships inform what will become the creation of the Cylons. It's a political story, a family story. It’s about the creation of the Cylons, and it’s about a company. It’s planet-based. It’s very character-oriented, very serialized and very much about the characters. It’s a whole different genre, and that’s what makes it exciting.”

It was Remi Aubuchon who originally pitched the idea for the series, an allegory about slavery with robots, to NBC/Universal independently of the Galactica series. NBC people put Aubuchon in touch with Galactica creators Ron Moore and David Eick, who were already considering a spin-off, and the idea for the new show was born.

In spring 2006, Aubuchon described Caprica to Dreamwatch Magazine: "This is a very human story about how our own hubris can lead us to disaster," adding that, while the new series would not be dependent on Battlestar Galactica, "certain elements have been embedded into the first few episodes of season three" of BSG that would be explored in Caprica.

In November 2006, Ron Moore shed some more light on the new series:

It's actually a prequel, and this would be a one hour pilot not a mini – series. It takes place 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica and it's essentially about the creation of the Cylons.

It's a very different show; it's not action – adventure and it's not even in space. It takes place on the Planet Caprica and it’s more of a family drama, with political and corporate intrigue. We're well into the writing of it actually; we're doing re-writes on the script right now and Sci Fi has been very happy so far. At the moment, we're just waiting to see if they greenlight it or not.

Generally, there’s always a two step process: there's ordering the pilot and then there's ordering the series, but because we're not designing it as a mini – series, I don't know that anybody would even see the pilot if they chose not to go to series with it.

Tonally, it will be very different. This is Caprica before the fall. It's a decadent world, but also a world that's going at a very fast pace. It's a prosperous society that hasn’t experienced the devastation of the first Cylon war yet, so this culture has really not been taken down a peg, and their hubris is getting the better of them. It's a go – go society that's teetering on the brink, so it’s not that apocalyptic survival scenario of Galactica. The whole thing is tonally very different.
In March 2007, Moore told Salon.com's Laura Miller:

"It was a different kind of show. Instead of an action-adventure sci-fi piece, it was more of a prime-time soap, a sci-fi Dallas."

Caprica was stuck in development hell and went through a number of rewrites before it was seriously considered again in late 2007. The decision to give the show a chance came as a result of several factors: the writers' strike left Sci Fi in shortage of finished scripts to produce, Ron Moore was looking to leave for NBC and the channel was also looking at the sales of Razor, the direct-to-DVD movie that explored the circumstances behind the events on battlestar Pegasus, introduced in mid-season two.

The Caprica series is currently in pre-production at the Sci Fi Channel. The two-hour pilot, greenlit in March, will be directed by Jeff Reiner.

Friday 2 May 2008

Caprica pilot - the original announcement

SCI FI Channel issued the press release announcing the production of the Caprica pilot on March 18, 2008. Here is the original announcement:



SCI FI GIVES 'CAPRICA' THE GREENLIGHT

Two-Hour Backdoor Pilot for 'Battlestar Galactica' Prequel Series To Begin Production this Spring

New York, NY – March 18, 2008 -- As the Peabody and Emmy-winning original series Battlestar Galactica heads into its fourth and final season, SCI FI Channel has greenlit production on Caprica, a two-hour Battlestar backdoor pilot prequel from executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. Production on Caprica is slated to begin in Vancouver this spring.

"We couldn't be more excited to see this long-anticipated project get off the ground. It's an amazing script, and, though clearly inspired by the Battlestar mythology, it is not just a pale spin-off. This is a smart, thought-provoking, emotional, and compelling character drama in its own right," said Mark Stern, Executive Vice President of Original Programming.

Set 50 years before Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families – the Greystones and the Adamas – as they grow, compete, and thrive in the vibrant world of the 12 Colonies. Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe. Caprica will deliver all of the passion, intrigue, political backbiting, family conflict and hardcore action that always leaves Galactica fans begging for more.

"I'm thrilled with the chance to expand on the Galactica world and get deeper into the origins of the story we've been telling," said Moore. "It's also great to have a chance at doing a completely different kind of science fiction series, one that's even more character-oriented and doesn't rely on pyrotechnics to carry the story."

"While Caprica will have its own personality, it will carry on Battlestar's commitment to pushing the boundaries of the genre, and we're thrilled that SCI FI has seen fit to giving us another opportunity to tell character-driven stories in challenging ways," added Eick.

Executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (Battlestar Galactica), Caprica is co-written by Moore and Remi Aubuchon (24), and will be directed by Jeff Reiner (Friday Night Lights). Universal Media Studios will produce.

Thursday 1 May 2008

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