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What JMS is up to now

Note: This page is out of date. The best place for the current scoop on JMS's projects is the Straczynski Project Watch page at the Worlds of JMS site.

The following are JMS's notes about his current projects. The projects include:

September 30, 2000
Boy, has this been a week....

As most folks know by now, the news about Marvel entrusting me with their flagship title The Amazing Spiderman broke on the nets Monday/Tuesday. As a longtime Spidey fan, this is something I'm looking forward to enormously. You can expect to see the first jms-written issue of TMS probably around March or April of next year.

On Wednesday Rising Stars 10 came out (and Midnight Nation 2 is due out in 2 weeks).

Also this week...after writing my first pass on the outline for the Rising Stars feature film (tentatively entitled "Born in Fire"), MGM read the outline, loved it, had a couple of very smart suggestions...and as of Wednesday, I've been put to script.

On Thursday, some friendly folks at Warner Bros. asked if they could take up the banner of my project The World On Fire (formally with Chris Carter) and take it out in the Spring to sell it as a series.

I also turned in the outline for the pilot TV movie this week, and today, Friday, was put to script on THAT project as well. With that hurdle passed, I can now talk a little about it. The network is indeed Showtime, as some have speculated, with Paramount Television the studio attached, and it's for an hour-series (debuting with a two-hour pilot movie) slated for their Sci-Fi Fridays slot. The project is based on an outside source, though I can't yet comment on that. I'm on as executive producer/show runner. In addition, feature film director Joe Dante is aboard also as executive producer, and he will be invaluable in setting the visual and directorial tone of the series. It's been an absolute pleasure working with Joe, and if we get past the next few hurdles -- every series has to go through the stages of pilot outline, pilot script, decision to produce the script and then the go-order on a series, same as with B5 and every other program -- I'm *really* looking forward to working with him on the series.

The Rising Stars movie screenplay will probably be turned in sometime middle or late November; the Showtime TV movie screenplay will probably be turned in around November 1 for production reasons.

It has been just an *astonishing* week....

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2000 by synthetic worlds, ltd., permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine)

October 1, 2000
You've mentioned a project with [Joe Dante] before, but gave the indication that you'd passed on it... Something make you change your mind?

Yeah, three words: Total Creative Freedom.

October 1, 2000
Yeah, the projected per-episode budget is quite a bit higher than on Crusade or B5, and the salary is just a bit over double. I'd been in syndie/basic cable so long -- ever since Murder, She Wrote -- that I'd kinda forgotten what *real* networks pay.

It's also going to be nice, in the pilot, to really take things to the wall in terms of content, something I could never do in syndie or basic cable.

October 2, 2000
How will the new show make it to foreign markets?

Those decisions are all way down the road; first gotta get the pilot written.

October 3, 2000
Reports indicate that the new series is based on the European SF comic "Jeremiah."

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Last update: October 3, 2000