Following its wildly successful Taken miniseries last December, Sci Fi Channel is readying four more event miniseries, including another
project with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks Television.
Sci Fi president and CEO Bonnie Hammer said the network is working with
Spielberg and DreamWorks to create a "trilogy miniseries." The project -- not a
Taken spinoff -- would consist of six hours to air each quarter for three
consecutive quarters.
It would be "our own Lord of the Rings, our own Harry
Potter," Hammer said, "when one lives and breaths on the heels of another."
Other miniseries plans include a futuristic murder-mystery, 6 Days 'til
Sunday, a six-hour miniseries that will play over six straight nights;
The Thing, a four-hour project about explorers trapped in Antarctica;
and Red Mars, a six-hour series about adventurers who go to colonize
Mars.
Sci Fi is also pushing forward developing seven new original series,
including Dead Lawyers, about deadbeat lawyers who come back from the
dead to defend clients they failed.
The Divide features a trio of a DJ, the ghost of his dead twin sister
and the local coroner teaming to fight crime.
The first Stargate spinoff could be Stargate Atlantis,
linking Stargate with the lost city of Atlantis.
The new slate is part of Sci Fi's continued desire "to broaden and brings
things back to earth," Hammer said.
Most of the new projects will air in 2004 and 2005.
