“@THR Watch Katniss Meet Cressida in New ‘Hunger Games: Mockingjay’ Clip”
“What is Amos doing in this movie?” - @JamesSACorey
As posted above, our Amos to be is currently (“and your cameraman over there,”) Castor in Mockingjay, in theaters next Friday.
Oh my, I am getting super stoked for this! Prime, thanks for keeping us all up to date on the latest.
Just finished Cibola Burn…awesome. Mmmmm…space…
Durzo
There’s a right thing to do," Holden said.
“You don’t have a right thing, friend,” Miller said. "You’ve got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.
Very excited. One more week. I’m just finishing a re-read of Mockingjay.
Should be good. I’m hoping. 
Alex with the scoop!
“I think this is going to blow the walls off science fiction. This is literally the biggest show Syfy has ever produced… We’re working really hard to preserve the integrity of the book… I think the summer of 2015 is when it’s slated to come out.”
New and improved Director chairs. Now includes people. And… and… someone in costume visible in the background. Photos of hot sets bring out the image enhancement devil in me.
“It’s lookin good at #theExpanse. Can’t show anymore yet, but excited for everyone to soon see!…” - @liberalhamlet
As Walt Longmire would say, “Boy howdy.” (A&E’s cancelled Longmire renewed by Netflix yesterday[i])
"Frederick ‘Fred’ Lucius Johnson is a former Colonel of the United Nations Marine Corps, one of the most decorated officers in the UN military, and the de facto leader of the OPA. He is a dark-skinned man with heavy facial bones of an Earther. … When Anderson Station was taken by insurgents, Colonel Johnson led the successful attack to retake the station, killing 173 armed insurgents and over a thousand civilians. This battle earned him fame in the inner planets and the Medal of Freedom, the UN Marines’ highest honor, but in the Belt he became known as [/i]‘The Butcher of Anderson Station’[i].
Anderson Dawes is the Ceres Station liaison of the OPA. He is tall and lanky, and his face is scarred by acne. Dawes grew up in the Belt. When he was fifteen years old, one of his four sisters died due to his negligence securing her suit seals during a mission on an asteroid outside Eros. He recruited Fred Johnson to be the spokesperson of OPA, and at the time of /i he worked as Ceres liaison for the OPA." - Expanse Wiki
Chad L. Coleman, aka The Walking Dead’s Tyreese, to play FRED! For gamers, he is no less well known as the voice of Coach in Left 4 Dead 2. Tyreese is Fred. Fred is Tyreese. This could work. He can do this! I’m liking this. :groucho:
I could gush about the character Fred all day, so I won’t. Suffice to say, if Jim Holden is the Unwitting Pawn tossed about by the machinations of three vying factions, Fred is one of The Chessmasters. It is how the Expanse novels elevates these characters beyond predictable stereotypes that makes the story unusually rare. Holden is a reluctant, very self aware pawn. And after Cibola Burns, the latest novel, I haven’t the slightest idea what Fred will do next.
British veteran character actor Jared Harris to play Anderson Dawes. As with most character actors, you might not know his name but you know him. Jared is recently of Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows as Professor Moriarity, a regular in Fringe and Mad Men, and Ulysses Grant in Steven Speilberg’s Lincoln. I can think of few other feature film actors also willing to work in television that epitomize Bond level villain gravitas (while not having been a Bond villain yet) like he does. Not that Dawes is a villain necessarily.
Variety: Syfy’s ‘The Expanse’ Adds ‘Walking Dead,’ ‘Mad Men’ Alums
UPDATE: Online news media Syfy’s Blastr, IGN’s Eric Goldman visiting sets today. I consider Eric one of the most knowledgable television critics covering Battlestar during its entire run. Is this Hallie Lambert’s (pictured above) “soon see?”
Boy howdy.
Agreed, Fred is a great character who breaks out of the traditional “manipulating government guy” role. Also love Avasarala just for sheer balls, she is a favorite of mine. I hope they don’t temper down her language too much because it’s such a part of her character. Also love Bobbie who is a kick ass ground pounder but still manages to be a woman at the same time. Really well written. For me there is a real “firefly feel” to the series because there isn’t a character I don’t like. Even Alex, who doesn’t get that much “screen time” is awesome. Can’t wait to see this.
durzo
Technically, this is the first cast photo… off set from inside a trailer. Also, no idea what came of the press visit. Maybe under press embargo for the time being.
“A special abstract sci-fi trailer selfie for you all #theexpanse #naominagata #bigswitch #tension #suspense” - [@Mi55Tipper
A new fan site is up: theexpansetvseries.com that also registered theexpansetvseries on every social media possible all in a flurry on December 1st. That was efficient. Owned and operated anonymously via an anonymizer company. That was not necessarily creepy. Okay, maybe a little.
P.S. @TheExpanseWR has been officially disavowed as not being official. Writers in the Writer’s Room had been tweeting to it assuming it was. In fairness, it never claimed it was. This short lived stunt of irreverent panache was old school internet anonymity.
Statements about the record setting development deal and the costly bidding war with other unnamed networks, made last spring, now confirmed by Syfy.
THR: Syfy’s Dave Howe on New Strategy, “Frustrating” ‘Defiance’ Experiment and More ‘Sharknado’ 12/11
"The Expanse, which we greenlighted straight to series for 10 episodes, is by far our most expensive series. We had to compete to get it. HBO was in the mix; Netflix was in the mix." - Syfy President Dave Howe
The Expanse’s Director of Photography, jeremybenning.com: SyFy’s “The Expanse” 12/26
"…This is perhaps the largest television series ever shot in Toronto.
With three sound stages totalling 70,000 square feet of floor space, we are working in some pretty amazing sets, courtesy production designer Seth Reed. I can’t say much more other that what we are doing is quite cutting edge and we are using the latest in lighting and camera technology, some of which is somewhat proprietary to us."
[i]"‘It looks like a big chisel with an upside-down coffee cup on the back.’
The Rocinante (“Roci”) is a Corvette Class fast-attack light frigate with multiple roles, such as torpedo bomber and boarding party insertion. It was the smallest naval ship equipped with an Epstein drive. When it was originally called the [/i]Tachi and was stationed as a fleet escort vessel and torpedo bomber on the Martian navy vessel Donnager." - Expanse Wiki
“…that’s its PDC opening up at 1:09.” - JamesS.A.Corey
Evidently the Martian “NAVY” livery is reddish-orange, black, and white. So the other ship near the end of the trailer (confusingly in the same colors) would be the Donnager, deploying its own battleship sized laser.
Finished reading Leviathan’s Wake last week.
Just started Caliban’s War.
“It was a real book— onionskin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before; the idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent.”
― James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes
Love this series, is that the Canterbury in the opening shot? Looks like they nailed Miller, not sure yet about Holden. Always imagined him as more of a young George Clooney…
Durzo
Agree with you about Miller.
I’m really enjoying this so far.
It’s so nice to have some fresh material to get into.
WooHoo !
Woohoo!
Should be. Painted in CG from a single paragraph describing the scene; she was at Saturn’s rings busily hauling glaciers… “and would until the ships aged into salvage wrecks. Jim Holden saw some poetry in that.”
Entertainment Weekly and IO9 both zeroed in on ZERO-GRAVITY SEX for their headlines spurring commenters to bemoan the scientific inaccuracy of that scene. If you read the book, the Canterbury was underway at one third g during Holden and Ade’s (not Naomi) tryst. So they chose to abide by the book’s description and depict sort-of-weightless. Something that is not going to come across well until seen in context. (Someone) thumbed their nose at those mistaken headlines when launching the official @ExpanseSyfy afterward by posting the trailer upside down, entitling it, “˙uoıʇɐnʇıs sıɥʇ ɟo ʎʇıʌɐɹb ǝɥʇ puɐʇsɹǝpun ǝʍ”
That was sort of funny but mostly it is refreshing to see knowledgable nerds are in control of the monkey house. They will not be missing much. Syfy: 1 IO9: 0. Since when does that ever happen?
ADD: “I got to see a general idea of how the plotting of the show is vs. the books, and all I can say is that fans will be in for a real treat.” - Emily Mah (her Amazon’s author page): The Expanse: My Visit to the Set
Director of Photography Jeremy Benning (mentioned above) posted the color corrected trailer to his own Vimeo account encoded in crispy H264 1080P with sparkly 48KHZ AAC audio. JSAC says the trailer was culled from only the first three episodes.
[video=vimeo;117011652]https://vimeo.com/117011652[/video]
Ok, I’ve only just started Caliban’s War, and the casting of Shohreh Aghdashloo as Chrisjen Avasarala seems absolutely brilliant.
So enjoying this !!
Agreed. Can’t wait to hear Chrisjen go into her first high level government official rant onscreen. Still haven’t seen an actress for Bobbie Draper yet? My favorite character in the series.
Durzo
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