elevision producers Dan Angel and Billy Brown love the scary stuff. Former story editors for The X-Files, the partners have brought viewers the popular adaptation of R.L. Stine's children's horror series Goosebumps for Fox, as well as John Carpenter's Bodybags for Showtime.
Now the duo is poised to revive the venerable horror-anthology form with Night Visions, a 13-episode series that begins July 12 on Fox. The one-hour show, shot in Vancouver earlier this year, will highlight two stories each week, hosted by former punk rocker Henry Rollins, directed by some of Hollywood's top talent and featuring movie stars such as Aidan Quinn, Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Thora Birch and Jay Mohr.
As if that weren't enough, Angel and Brown are readying an update of the 1970s SF series Battlestar Galactica for the SCI FI Channel and Fox, in conjunction with X-Men producer Tom DeSanto and director Bryan Singer. Angel and Brown took a moment recently to discuss their new projects with Science Fiction Weekly.
Where did the idea for Night Visions come from?
Brown: Being fans of The Twilight Zone and classic horror films a la Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, Repulsion, we've always loved the kind of metaphysical horror film--psychological horror--and also the kinds of twists and turns that a show like Twilight Zone used to have. And we really felt like there hadn't been anything like that on TV in a long time. ... It's the only way, an anthology show, that you can really do short stories. Because you don't have to service a continuing character. And our idea was to make little films--to get good filmmakers, film actors who might want to do TV just for this sort of thing, and to try to make little gems. And I think we've done pretty well.
Angel: We were very happy, because you get people like Aidan Quinn and Bridget Fonda and Gil Bellows and Cary Elwes and Brian Dennehy and Jack Palance and Malcolm McDowell and Lou Diamond Phillips and on and on and on. They were very excited about doing anthology. They were very excited about the scripts and the stories. And there were even times when they didn't initially say yes until they read the script, then they changed their minds.
Brown: Even though the content ranges from metaphysical to psychological to shows that are horror to ones that are more fantasy, [the shows] were always character-based, even if there was a supernatural element. It was either a metaphor or sprang from the inner needs of the character, and that was really something that we very much like and tried to do and feel that it makes for more compelling viewing. It gives the actor a really good role.
How is the series structured?
Brown: Each episode is an hour, with two half-hour stories.
Angel: So you'll get two stories every week. But [when] they launch on July 12, they're going to launch four stories. They want to do a two-hour block to launch the show.
Can you talk about the kinds of stories you'll be dealing with?
Brown: They're really varied. There's one with Bill Pullman that is ... probably our most sci-fi episode ... about a strange apparition that appears in the desert. I don't want to say more; I don't want to give it away. It's really strange. It's really an unusual story. Then there's one with Bridget Fonda that's very much a diving into the inner life of a woman and her paranoia and terror.
Angel: And Joe Dante [Small Soldiers] directed that. It's very Hitchcock.
Brown: There's one with Jack Palance as an old scary farmer who may or may not have supernatural powers who terrorizes a kid next door. He's a guy who gets both his arms cut off, and this kid feels responsible, and Jack Palance maneuvers events so he can basically terrorize this kid. It's scary. And we have one with Randy Quaid about a guy who wakes up in the middle of his own funeral, and the question is, has he really gone to the other side, or has he not?
Angel: What we tried to do--and I think we were successful--we will have psychological tales dealing with people ... but we have killers on the loose, and monster stories, [and] we have some sci-fi. It's a really nice mix.
Brown: There's no techno science fiction, but there is science fiction in the sense of metaphysical fantasy. Are we in another dimension? ... There are supernatural tales. ... I think fans of sci-fi will be fans of this show.
Some of the episodes seem to have that Twilight Zone twist.
Brown: I think, generally, we try to have an ending that has a little surprise. Hopefully, they're not arbitrary surprises. ... I think the viewer kind of expects that.
Why did you want to do an anthology show?
Angel: The myth out there in the television world and the network world is that anthology doesn't work. And to be honest with you, we've loved anthology. We were very successful with Goosebumps for kids. All the anthologies we grew up on and loved, from Night Gallery to Twilight Zone to the syndicated anthologies, like Tales from the Darkside and The Hitchhiker, for the most part, they've been very successful. Tales from the Crypt, The Outer Limits. So when you're dealing with a genre anthology, I think the good news is we were able to convince Fox that this could work. I think the audience is ready for this. I think the audience will like this show. So we just are hoping that the audience will know this show is coming. They'll find the show. We think they'll be very happy. Trying to convince the network that the audience will come, that's always a chore.
What will distinguish Night Visions from the series that have come before?
Brown: I think Twilight Zone [episodes] were very much more morality tales and fable-like. I don't think this is that. They're definitely relatives. ... I think they're cousins. But I think we've tried to be a little more psychological, a little more along the idea of a short story. And to give a kind of palette of terror, different types of terror. We're certainly not trying to say there's never been anything like this on TV. We're saying it's a wonderful genre, and we want to continue the tradition.
How did you get top directors like Tobe Hooper (Poltergeist), Dante and others?
Angel: They liked the material.
Brown: They liked ... the freedom of it. It's not a huge commitment. They can come in for a couple of weeks, and five days of prep and five days of shooting, and it's a chance to do the kind of thing [where] they may have a little more freedom.
Angel: Keith Gordon [Mother Night] ... was great to work with, and he's a great film director. And he loved the script. These people responded to the material. And we had a nice mix of directors. We specifically set out to have really good film directors, like Tobe and Joe and Keith. We had a group of people who were really strong television directors, like Eve and Tom Wright. By the way, Ernest Dickerson [Demon Knight] was fantastic on the film side. And then we had actors like Bill Pullman and Jobeth Williams. ... So it was a nice mix of actor-directors, TV directors and feature directors.
Who wrote the scripts?
Brown: We wrote four. And we have a staff, and we also free-lanced from outsiders.
Are they based on short stories, like many of the original Twilight Zone episodes were?
Brown: One was. The Bill Pullman is based on a short story. I don't know that it's a classic short story. I mean, I don't think it's that widely known.
Angel: We brought Earl Hamner [Jr. of The Waltons] in for a story.
Brown: Earl Hamner is an old veteran Twilight Zone writer.
Angel: Wendy MacLeod, who's a playwright, we brought in.
Brown: She wrote the play The House of Yes [and] is fairly well known.
Brown: Hopefully, the audience will never quite know what to expect. The stories, some of them are even touching. Some of them are just terrifying, and, hopefully, they'll never get too comfortable. ... Hopefully there's no formula, other than the common thread that they're all scary and eerie and well told and well acted.
Angel: Very rarely do you get a chance in prime-time television to sit down and grab a tub of popcorn and a drink and get ready to have fun watching a little anthology show. It hasn't happened in a long time, and this is a chance to have it happen again. ... This is not a summer throwaway. ... This show was scheduled to launch in midseason, and the reason it didn't is, they held it as their jewel in the crown of the fall, because there's a strike, and the strike didn't happen.
Tell us about Battlestar Galactica.
Brown: We're executive producer/writers.
Angel: We're working with Tom DeSanto and Bryan Singer.
Are you running the show?
Brown: Yes. ... There's going to be a two-hour pilot. ... There is one being written.
Angel: It'll be a two-hour that will spin off into the series. That's the plan.
What can you tell us about the story?
Brown: We don't want to go too into it right now, because we've got to sit and think. We know how many fans there are, and we don't want to lead people down the wrong path. And of course, we haven't finalized it. But I think we can safely say, it doesn't violate anything. ... Any of the premises of the old show are honored. And it does take place in a not-so-distant future from the end of the old show. ... It's going to be a sprawling, family saga that is set amongst the travails and adventures of the human colony.
Will it be set on the Battlestar Galactica ship?
Brown: The ship will be part of it.
Will there be Cylons?
Brown: There will be Cylons. And more.
Will you be reviving any of the characters from the old series?
Brown: There will be some of the characters [who] will be revived.
Will you be using any of the actors from the original series?
Angel: All that is in discussion stage right now, but absolutely, the intention is to keep in the spirit of what was there before and to preserve, as Billy said, what was there.
Brown: Hopefully, what we're trying to aim for is, there will be new characters, there will be some of the old characters. But since it's not totally written and totally signed off on, and also because there's such a huge fan base, we don't want to get out false rumors and have people, like, go crazy. But I think one thing we can say is that we're very much aware of the old fans. ... We want to honor the old show. We don't want to violate anything. It's like, if you watch the show, you're not going to go, "Oh, well, they totally contradicted what was in the old show." There won't be any contradictions, but there will be a taking it further and taking it further in time.
Are you planning on talking with Richard Hatch [the actor who played Apollo and who has been trying to get his own Galactica series off the ground, without success]?
Angel: We can't say at this time.
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