>Wow, the list has been quiet.
Holidays.
>David Brin informed me that Paramount
>had very recently chosen not to renew the Startide Rising option.
>My commentary on this: in all likelyhood, this means Paramount has abandoned
>the project.
I can clear this up with a fair amount of certainty. Paramount abandoned the
project when Mace Neufeld, the Producer attached to the project, moved his
deal to Sony. Paramount was never really behind it from the start, as the
executive in charge of the project was always wary of the high cost. It was
Kel Symons, head of development at Mace Neufeld Productions, who had passion
for the fins. It is he who brought the project into Paramount (which
passed), then persuaded Mace to buy the rights out of his discretionary fund.
>Rumor has it that the director from paramount
>interested in Startide switched studios and now works for Sony Pictures,
>so now that Paramount abandoned the Startide option, Sony may pick it up.
Yes, Sony may pick it up. The director who has expressed some interest in
the script is Roland Emmerich, of Stargate/ID4/Godzilla/Patriot fame. His
company, Centropilis, happens to have their home at Sony, which makes it very
easy for Mace Neufeld to stay on as Producer. I was told by Kel (and this
was confirmed by my agents) that Emmerich has definitely read the script and
liked it but has yet to commit to anything solid. People at Centropilis
(namely Peter Winther) are behind it, and there was some talk of preliminary
CG tests for the dolphins at their in house efx lab. I don't know if they
ever followed through with that.
So, the status of the project is not great, but far better than most of the
epic sci-fi properties floating around out there. Just the fact that an
A-List director has actually read it and is "considering it" puts _Startide
Rising_ in the top five percent of scripts out there. If anything new comes
up, I'm usually first to hear, as I'm the guy who's dealing with these guys
weeks after week (I'm actually very good friends with Kel, and speak to him
often). So I'll keep the updates coming at pertinent information comes my
way!
Happy New Year!
T.Sands
