New Zealanders are taking over your fantasy televisions

bychance

Damn Kiwis. :P

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv/2076575/New-gladiator-Spartacus-Manu

Gladiator: Manu Bennett.

Expat Kiwi actor Manu Bennett, (Xena, Street Legal, Shortland Street, Mataku), whose last film was 30 Days of Night with Josh Hartnett, has scored the supporting lead role in the new 13-episode series Spartacus being made in New Zealand for US television.

He plays an offsider of rebel slave leader, Spartacus, which is a big role, and the series will have all the drama of a classic swords-and-sandals piece including battles in the Colosseum.

Manu arrived back in the country this week to go into military-style training to learn how to spar like a gladiator. Filming starts at the end of the month.

All being well there will be seven series and Manu is thrilled. (It might make him rich and it might make him a household name.) Other gladiators and various Romans will all be played by local actors and Lucy Lawless's husband Rob Tapert is one of the producers. Each episode is expected to cost about $3.5 million.

Another interesting production in the works is the filming of the New Zealand novel The Insatiable Moon, the story of an eccentric hobo called Arthur, who thought himself to be the second son of God.

When Whale Rider star Rawiri Paratene read the book he called the writer, Michael Riddell, to say he wanted to play the main character. He believes it will be the best thing he will ever do. Shooting is planned to start in November in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby.

And to think that he already played Mark Antony.

Food

At least they're not Australian.

elevature

I'm disappointed this is not about the best New Zealanders on tv.

Malkor

Revival of the Action Pack?

I hope so!

moleface

It starts with your movies, then your comedy tv, then your reality tv. Next you all will start watching rugby and cricket and eating steak and cheese pies covered in tomato sauce. Give in now and embrace the New Zealand way. It's the only way

Malkor

moleface wrote: »

It starts with your movies, then your comedy tv, then your reality tv. Next you all will start watching rugby and cricket and eating steak and cheese pies covered in tomato sauce. Give in now and embrace the New Zealand way. It's the only way

Actually it'll more likely end up being that rugby and cricket are slightly tweaked to accommodate a half-time show and TV-timeouts, and your steak and cheese pies being sold in McDonald's but with imitation everything.

America is an insidious creature. It's probably too late for them.

bychance

So let us presume, Karl Urban, Craig Parker and Marton Csokas will be in this too?

*crosses fingers for Lawless*

Malkor wrote: »

Revival of the Action Pack?

I hope so!

That would be fun!

Anthony Quinn as Zeus was great.

moleface

Looks like we are invading your Star Treks as well

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10560524

Kalkino

NZ clearly has a comparative advantage when it comes to TV series relating to fantasy or classical history

Emanon

Hey, how about the original NZ actor? Sam Niell!!

Elki

That's not an acceptable OP.

Tycho wrote:

You might already have read about those tragic events on Naboo, but there is no man alive who can pretend to be surprised by the predations of SOE's nefarious customer service at this point. Their behavior has been legendary since 1999, when they killed every tenth Everquest subscriber. They are the most diabolical force currently active on the world stage - teleporting player characters into orbit? Man, that's not even the main course.

There is so much to be fascinated by in the gaming context at the moment. I never quite know if I'm telling you things you've already heard, and I know that I would be annoyed with a person who continually regaled me with ancient trivia. Well, whatever. Rest assured that I'm about to mention something that was fascinating at some point.

In what observers called a "shocking reversal," I deferred to our defeated foe TribalWar regarding the showing Tribes: Vengeance had at E3. I did so because what I saw there should not have been shown to anybody, anywhere, let alone people whose job it is to trasmit information about the videogame industry. I checked out the new equipment, loadout interfaces, no real issues with it on that score, but the network performance was so poor that I really had no idea what they were thinking. And, since I never saw this plain, direct observation appear anywhere else, I wasn't sure exactly what was going on. Here is the mind-bending theory I generated: The game wasn't finished yet. Presumably, we're supposed to go to an event like E3 and come to genuine conclusions about things. The trouble is that sometimes we're only given a few handfulls of chicken guts, and we're supposed to somehow derive the value of x. More than any other expo, this year's event was thick with proto-games - green around the edge and nowhere near ready for consumption.

Well, we'll soon have a good deal more than fresh organs and dark magic with which to divine the quality of this particular title - it's apparently very near complete. Previews can be usually be counted on to laud the "return" to Tribes One era game speeds, which is at best simply good copy. Everything I have played and read leads me to believe the game as we receive it will be faster still than Tribes. Air control has been elaborated on. Skiing, intially an exploit, now has royal imprimatur as opposed to the wink and nod of Tribes 2. Beyond player control, the maps are wide open and the flag sits on an open pedestal like an hors d'oeuvre, vulnerable and toothsome. That all says speed to me. Speed, and lots of it.

(CW)TB out.

the fishes of the desperate sea