Bill, the Galactic Hero Movie is Go!

Alex Cox’s Bill, the Galactic Hero project reached it’s funding target on Kickstarter on Sunday, which means that the movie will actually happen!

I know Alex Cox has wanted to adapt Bill for a looooong time, and was in regular contact with Harry Harrison over the years as he worked on bringing the story to the big screen.

I’m really looking forward to reading the screenplay – Alex has exactly the right sense of humour to handle the adaptation, so I’m sure it will be great.

If you’re not familiar with his work, check out the website alexcox.com which includes free downloads of some of Alex’s screenplays – including Repo Man, Sid and Nancy and his drafts of a Mars Attacks! screenplay – and his Moviedrome guides.*

If you need a further incentive, the site also has a link to Alex’s Bill, the Galactic Hero movie blog.

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*In the late 1980s and early 90s Moviedrome was a late night slot on BBC tv which presented an eclectic collection of films, with introductions by Alex Cox. I remember watching on my little black and white portable tv and being entertained – and occasionally spooked – by those movies. There’s a list of the films shown here: http://www.kurtodrome.net/moviedrome.htm and if you check on You Tube you can see some of Alex’s introductions.

Alex Cox presenting BBC TV’s Moviedrome

Bill the Galactic Hero Movie – Deadline Sunday

Director Alex Cox reports that the Kickstarter project has reached its $100,000 funding target:

“Things look very good as we have passed our goal. But I would be remiss if I didn’t ask for yet another push! Some supporters may drop out at the eleventh hour; some credit cards will be maxed out and won’t deliver; you know the drill.”

The deadline for the project is 8:00pm EDT on Sunday 21st April — 62 hours to go as I write this. You can still pledge money and, as Alex says, be a part of filmmaking history. You’ll also become a part of HH history, as very few of Harry’s stories have (so far) been adapted into films of any kind.

You can read Alex’s latest update and pledge money on the Kickstarter website.

Bill, the Galactic Movie Kickstarter Update

Thirteen days left on the Kickstarter countdown. So far just over $72,000 has been raised towards the budget, so only $28,000 left to go.

It would be great to see a Bill, the Galactic Hero movie, and you can help make it happen by (a) pledging money, and (b) telling everyone you know to pledge money! Please spread the word.

Payments for Kickstarter projects are handled through Amazon Payments – you can use your Amazon .com or .co.uk login to complete your transaction. Your money will only be taken if the project reaches 100% funding by Sunday 21st April 2013.

Great Rewards are on offer to those who help fund the project, check out the details on the Bill, the Galactic Hero  project page.

Artwork: Michael Gross

Bill, the Galactic Movie

Director Alex Cox’s plans for an adaptation of Bill, the Galactic Hero are moving on apace, and now you can help make the movie happen.

The aim is to raise a $100,000 budget via Kickstarter.com – find out more details and watch Alex’s video about the project here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexcoxfilms/alex-cox-directs-bill-the-galactic-hero

Pledge cash if you can – the deadline is 21st April 2013. Pledge $10 and you get to download the screenplay as a .pdf if the project goes ahead. Pledge more than $25 and you’ll get to download the movie as a .mov file once it is completed. Check out the Kickstarter page to see what rewards are on offer if you pledge even greater sums…

Alex Cox Directs Bill, the Galactic Hero

What if… the Dinosaurs Never Died Out?

Here’s a snippet of news spotted by Michael Carroll:

Disney has announced a couple of new Pixar movies, one of which is an untitled movie about dinosaurs to be directed by Finding Nemo screenwriter Bob Peterson. The film is due for 2013 release.

Why do we care about this? Because Reuters and other sources have reported that Disney have Tweeted about the film saying: “What if that life-changing asteroid missed Earth? Director Bob Peterson’s hilarious tale depicts a world where dinosaurs never went extinct.”

Sound familiar? If it wasn’t for the ‘hilarious’ part, we’d swear they were talking about West of Eden…

The Stainless Steel Rat Audio Book Wins 2011 Audie Award

The Stainless Steel Rat Audio Book, Brilliance

The winners of the 2011 Audie Awards — “recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association” — have been announced, and the winner in the Science Fiction / Fantasy section is The Stainless Steel Rat, written by Harry Harrison, and read by Phil Gigante. The five-hour unabridged recording was released by Brilliance Audio in March 2011.

Congratulations to both Harry and Phil for this well-deserved award.

There’s a nice review on the AudioFile Magazine website, which includes a link to an extract of the recording, if you haven’t had chance to hear any of it yet.

Harry Harrison Podcast (Part 2 – Adaptations)

Part two of the interview I conducted with Harry Harrison at Octocon in 2001.

This part includes a discussion about Harry’s short story collection 50 in 50, and some comments on some of the movie projects which were under discussion in 2001. Some of them will never, sadly, see the light of day — such as the Mel Gibson film version of The Technicolor Time Machine and the Jan deBont movie of The Stainless Steel Rat…

This part runs for about five minutes and is approx. 3.8Mb. It should start playing if you click on the link below…

02 – Adaptations & 50 in 50

Ashkelon, Wesker’s World

I’ve written about Harry’s short story ‘The Streets of Ashkelon’ a couple of times before, but haven’t previously mentioned that there was a comics adaptation of it. It was published in Graphixus magazine in issue #5 dated August – September 1978.

The artist / adapter was Brian Bolland, probably best known in the UK for his Judge Dredd artwork in 2000ad and in the US for his artwork for the Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke.

Bolland’s comic art is absolutely incredible: check out the collection The Art of Brian Bolland. I personally prefer his black and white artwork.

‘Wesker’s World’ comes from a much earlier period in Bolland’s career – the art isn’t quite as accomplished, and the adaptation is a little dialogue-heavy. The final image is very, very good – but I’m not posting it here as it would ruin the end of the story…

Copies of this issue of Graphixus can still be found – I got my copy on the ABE website: www.abebooks.co.uk or www.abebooks.com in the US. There are separate sites for other countries – all linked from both of the above. The content listed is, I believe, the same whichever you look at, except where a seller won’t ship to your country. ABE is a great place for secondhand books and magazines if you haven’t had a look at it before.

The images here were all scanned by Michael Carroll, my co-conspirator on the Official Harry Harrison Website…

Artwork: Brian Bolland

Artwork: Brian Boland

Above:  Title artwork from the first page of the story.

Artwork: Brian Bolland

Here is the central character of the story, ‘Narth’ in this adaptation, renamed I suspect because ‘Garth’ was a popular comic strip character running in one of the UK daily newspapers.

Artwork: Brian Bolland

Here’s the priest who is the only other human character in the story.

Art: Brian Bolland

Here are the alien inhabitants of Wesker’s World — pretty much as I saw them in my head when I originally read the story.

Breathworld

No, not a typo – Breathworld was a fan film made in 1965 which not only made fun of HH’s novel Deathworld, but also featured a peformance by the author himself.

I’ve never seen the film, though Ramsey Campbell did tell me something about how it was made when I interviewed him some years ago for a piece published in the HH fanzine Parallel Worlds.

If you want to see some evidence of the Harry Harrison Oscar-worthy performance, then point your browser at the eFanzine archive and the report of the 1965 Brumcon. 

Harry Harrison in Breathworld

I can’t see any credit for this photograph which I stole borrowed from the site… but if anyone knows who took them, let me know and I’ll add an appropriate credit.

Harry Harrison Book on Display at Tate Modern

I saw a news story on the BBC Six O’Clock News the other day, and promptly forgot to write a post about it, so here it is — late news.

Artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s new installation at the Tate Modern is called TH.2058 (in part because it is housed in the huge turbine hall), and represents the world fifty years from now (explaining the other part of the title). The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins described it as “somewhere between Henry Moore’s drawings of communal air-raid shelters in the blitz and the nightmarish dormitories of Soylent Green.”

The bunk beds which form the installation have a number of books lying on them, which visitors to the exhibition can pick up and read. Among the titles are Farenheit 451, The War of the Worlds, and… Make Room! Make Room! 

The Tate Modern Press Release doesn’t mention the Harrison book. But it is listed in the bibliography on the exhibition website. According to the bibliography, an excerpt from Soylent Green also forms part of the installation.

There’s a version of the BBC report available here, which features a glimpse of one visitor reading the Harrison book. Which is also collected here, if you can’t access the BBC site.

There is a second BBC clip featuring an interview ith the artist here.

Neither of these clips is the one I saw originally, as that one ended with the reporter speaking to camera holding a copy of Make Room! Make Room!.