Trailer for Syfy's "Red"

[JamesG]

SyFy Preps Hansel & Gretel, Red Riding With a Twist
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
February 1, 2010


Syfy is reinventing fairy tales as part of its Saturday night TV movie franchise that will give a contemporary twist on a classic stories.

For example, Hansel & Gretel will take place years after escaping the witch in the haunted forest, with Hansel returning to seek revenge.

In Little Red Riding Hood, a descendant of Little Red discovers her family secretly hunts werewolves. Fairly radical, huh?



"It's exciting to take a treasured brand and put our own sideways spin on it," said Thomas Vitale, executive vp programming and original movies at Syfy.

"By turning familiar timeless stories inside out, we're creating an entertaining new genre for our popular Saturday night movie franchise."



According to The Hollywood Reporter, Syfy's Saturday movies continue to be one of the last bastions of regularly produced made-for-TV movies.

Each film is typically an international co-production made with a budget of about $2 million and shot on 35mm film.

Syfy works with about 10 indie studios, which also distribute the titles on DVD. Each tends to average about 1.8 million viewers Saturdays during the network's twice-monthly original airings.



Beauty and the Beast kicks the five movies off on February 27.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news...s.php?id=13927

[JamesG]

EXCL: Thomas Vitale Talks Syfy Horrors
Source: Paul Doro
February 22, 2010


Syfy (formerly the Sci Fi Channel) recently announced that it is getting into the fairy tale business.

Starting with Beauty and the Beast: A Dark Tale on February 27, their popular Saturday night movie offerings will include familiar stories with a Syfy spin. Down the road viewers can expect new renderings of Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel & Gretel, Sinbad and more.



While not everyone in the horror community embraces Syfy movies, Thomas Vitale, the Executive Vice President of Programming and Original Movies, states that they consistently attempt to put out a product that fans of the channel like and want more of. Ratings suggest that they are doing something right.

Vitale was kind enough to talk to Shock Till You Drop about what makes Syfy movies work, how the network views itself in the overall horror universe, misconceptions about what they do and much more.




Shock Till You Drop: What are the most important elements of a Syfy Channel movie? What makes them work?

Thomas Vitale: First of all, we have done a lot of them for many years. I think we have learned from experience as well as from our viewers and what they like and what they haven't liked.

When a movie gets a good rating, we tear it apart on a minute-by-minute basis, looking at what viewers like and don't like.

Conversely, there are movies that don't get good ratings. We tear those apart too and figure out why it didn't work. We have to be really critical of ourselves to make the next movies better.




When we sit down with a producer, we talk about our rules and all the things that have worked and haven't worked. To give an example, for the most part, zombie movies have not gotten ratings for us. We've done some originals and also have acquired some.

They are a mainstay of the horror genre, but on Syfy on Saturday nights, aside from the Resident Evil movies we have not had success with theatrical, independent or original zombie movies. So we listen to our viewers and there will not be any zombie movies on Saturday nights on Syfy.



On the other hand, mythical creatures and larger-than-life characters, ones audiences are familiar with, have worked great. We seek out new ideas from producers and writers that are in the vein of familiar tales. Those work best when we take them and turn them on their head, give them our own unique spin.

One of the things that led us to this idea of re-imagining fairy tales is that they are familiar to the audience, but, here is a new take or the story behind the story. Doing it this way gives the viewer something fresh and something proven.






Shock: How does the channel see itself in the overall horror/sci-fi universe these days?

Vitale: The movies are one part of what Syfy does. The channel has such a variety of programming. There are great scripted dramas and reality shows and theatrical movies in many subgenres. The array of programming makes it exciting to work at Syfy. It makes us sort of unique.

Not many channels have acquired theatrical movies, acquired scripted series, original scripted series, unscripted reality shows and original movies. We have almost everything you can find on television other than news.



The action/sci-fi/horror/creature movies that we show on Saturday nights, those are a classic part of a beloved genre. That goes back to the monster movies of the 1930s and then in the '40s and '50s the post-World War II creature features.

Of course Roger Corman is one of the fathers of the type of movie we do, and we love those movies. We are fans of those movies. It's a real joy for us to be part of this and to work with Roger Corman. It is exciting to sit in a room with him and brainstorm ideas.



We have been doing these movies for nearly a decade so viewers are voting with their remote. We get millions of viewers a week for the premiere movies and they also repeat well.

So by watching the movies and then buying them later on DVD, the viewers are telling us that they like what we are doing.






Shock: In the beginning were the original movies sort of an experiment for the channel?

Vitale: At the start we were airing more traditional science fiction movies as well as movies we would buy from the independent marketplace. Then we decided to work with some of these independent companies and see if they could do something more tailored to the viewers we felt were coming to the Syfy Channel.

The first couple were experiments. We did research, we did focus groups, we talked to the audience. We altered and we changed and we made a couple more. We figured out what as working and what wasn't.

That was one of the exciting things about working for a relatively new cable channel. We tried a lot of different things and found what works for our audience.




Now we have gone from a channel distributed in less than 10 million households to over 96 million households. We are a top 5 cable channel in the key demographics.

Some people think that Syfy is a niche network but that is not true. We are a major player, so when we say these movies are getting big audiences, they are big audiences for a big network.

We will try to keep staying ahead of things. You can't keep delivering the same meal week in and week out. We will continue to meet with writers and producers and try new things.






Shock: I think there are misconceptions about the channel and the original movies. The horror community tends to look down at them.

What do you think some of the misconceptions are about the channel and the movies you air?

Vitale: Obviously a lot of people on the Web say different things about these movies. I saw someone write, and I can't remember where, that if it wasn't for the movies that Syfy delivers, these movies might not exist right now.

I grew up on movies like this, and if we weren't making them, I don't know if this style of horror and creature feature would be out in the marketplace right now.


Going back to the days of Corman and before him, these movies were seen in theaters. That doesn't exist anymore. The big horror movies exist, like The Wolfman remake.

The small independent genre movie in theaters does not exist anymore. Where does it go? To cable. That's where they are being made. We like that we have been able to step up and fill that need with these movies.





Earlier last summer I was sitting on the subway reading a script to one of these movies, making notes or whatever, and a college student asked me if I was reading what he thought I was reading.

When I answered yes he asked me why I had it and I told him I work at Syfy. I asked him if he watched them and he excitedly said that he and his friends have watched them since they were kids.

They started asking me questions about them. I mean, they grew up with these movies and they were so excited to talk about them.




Part of the fun of the Web is chatting about the movies. We do take what people are saying about the movies seriously, and you do see some negative comments online about them.

We do care and we try to make adjustments. Viewer feedback is important though and we respect it all. But I think there are just as many people who love the movies and that's proven by the millions of people who watch them each time they premiere.




I think most of our viewers understand that these Saturday movies are about escapist entertainment. That is one of the reasons they air on Saturday nights.

Different nights of the week are ripe for different types of programming. Saturday nights are clearly the nights for escapist television and escapist entertainment.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news...s.php?id=14224

[JamesG]

EXCL: Beauty & the Beast's Gavin Scott
Source: Paul Doro
February 23, 2010


On Saturday, February 27, Syfy kicks off its run of original movies based on popular fairy tales with Beauty and the Beast. Estella Warren and Rhett Gilles star in this retelling that features Belle and the titular beast taking on a witch and its murderous troll.


The movie was written by Gavin Scott, who co-wrote Small Soldiers and The Borrowers in addition to penning Earthsea and The Mists of Avalon.

Mr. Scott spoke with Shock Till You Drop about the project's origins, how he approached writing such a familiar story, the necessary elements of a successful genre piece and more.



Shock Till You Drop: How did you initially come to be involved with this project?

Gavin Scott: Partly it is because I have a strong New Zealand connection. I grew up there and the producers of this particular project, a company called Limelight International, are based in New Zealand and Australia.

One of the movie's producers is also a longtime friend of mine. In addition I have worked with the Syfy Channel before, so that's kind of how I became involved.





Shock: How did you approach writing a story that so many people are familiar with? How did you go about putting your own spin on it?

Scott: My first way of looking at the story was to look at it through this particular strand of Syfy entertainment. That is to say, it falls into kind of a monster movie area, a sort of guilty pleasure on a Saturday evening.

Knowing the category into which Syfy wants to try to give it a gentle twist, I looked at it as how can I take this fairy tale and turn it into a scary monster movie. That was the immediate creative challenge.





Shock: What elements did you feel were important to include in this genre?

Scott: Genuine suspense, which is so important to the horror genre, more than what you actually see. That was a guiding light to me, so that people would wonder what is going to happen next. That sense of anticipation is definitely something you have to achieve.

The next thing was to make sure that there were scenes where what you are seeing is gratifyingly horrible. You want the reaction to be, "Ugh, that's terrible!" I came up with ideas that were inspired by movies like Alien. The troll, which is actually responsible for the killings, needed to be as appalling as possible in its creation as well as physical appearance.

I came up with the idea that it is actually genetically engineered in a cauldron. So in essence there's the suspense and then making sure that what people see is suitably terrible. That is what the viewers have come for.





Shock: Looking at what you have written in the past, there is a lot of science fiction and fantasy.

Are you a fan of those genres and what specifically do you enjoy about writing for them?

Scott: Yes, I love sci-fi and I love fantasy. Things I've written in the past have combined my love of science fiction and history as well as fantasy and history.

What I love is the way that both sci fi and fantasy can free up the imagination in a way that few other genres can. Not quite anything can happen but a much wider range of things can happen.

I enjoy the possibilities those genres give you as a writer, the way you can let rip with your imagination.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news...s.php?id=14245

[JamesG]

Dr. Horrible Babe Hunts Werewolves on SyFy
Source: Shock Till You Drop
March 8, 2010


Felicia Day, of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog and the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, will portray a werewolf-hunting descendant of Little Red Riding Hood in the SyFy's latest Saturday Original Movie production.


Scheduled to premiere in 2011, Red is Syfy's latest re-imagining of classic fairy tales, legends and pop culture characters. The new line of films launched with Beauty and the Beasts: A Dark Tale, which starred Estella Warren, on February 27.



In Red, Red (Day) brings her fiance home, where he meets the family and learns about their business - hunting werewolves. He's skeptical until bitten by a werewolf.

When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him. Red also stars Kavan Smith (Stargate Atlantis) and Stephen McHattie (Pontypool).




Red is produced by Angela Mancuso and Vesuvius Productions in association with Chesler Perlmutter Productions.

Syfy is also developing films around the stories of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Hansel & Gretel, among other projects.

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news...s.php?id=14391

[JamesG]

TV: First Look at Felicia Day in SyFy's Red
Friday, March 12, 2010
By: MrDisgusting


Set to premiere in 2011, SyFy has already unveiled your first look at Felicia Day ("Dollhouse", "Lie to Me", "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog") in Red.


In the made-for-TV movie, Day will play a young woman who is a descendant of the real Little Red Riding Hood who brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business - hunting werewolves.

He's skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/19442

[JamesG]

TV: Hi-Res Look at SyFy's Little Red Riding Hood Tale
Thursday, April 8, 2010
By: MrDisgusting


Set to premiere in 2011, SyFy has already unveiled two hi-res looks (the first was released last month) at Felicia Day ("Dollhouse", "Lie to Me", "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog") in Red.


In the made-for-TV movie, Day will play a young woman who is a descendant of the real Little Red Riding Hood who brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business - hunting werewolves.

He's skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.



Also in development are: The 8th Voyage of Sinbad, Hansel, Aladdin and Black Forest.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/19763

[JamesG]

TV: Trailer for SyFy's Werewolf Flick Red!
Monday, August 2, 2010
By: MrDisgusting


SyFy has released the trailer for Red, their first of many horror-themed fairy tales.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/21139