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SYFY WIRE Hanna

Development: Acclaimed director helming Stardream; History of Black Horror coming to Shudder; first Hanna trailer

By Don Kaye
Stardream Director Bjorn Runge

A director whose movie just landed a Golden Globe award is turning his eye toward science fiction as we look at this afternoon's development news.

Variety reports that Swedish director Björn Runge is set to direct an original sci-fi film called Stardream. The story follows the journey of a spaceship carrying hundreds of thousands of humans toward a distant planet as they flee a post-apocalyptic Earth. When the ship begins to malfunction, the travelers create an AI to sort things out — but the AI develops an attachment to its creator that threatens what's left of the human race (sounds like a a mash-up of Battlestar Galactica, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the classic Star Trek episode "The Ultimate Computer").

If you're not familiar with Runge, that's because his previous film, The Wife, was a literary drama — but its star, Glenn Close (Guardians of the Galaxy) just won a Golden Globe as Best Actress on Sunday night (Jan. 6) for her performance in that film. Said the director about his new project, "It is an absolute privilege to be a part of Stardream. Dealing with big questions about humanity, this is a powerful drama with hypnotic possibilities that will take everyone involved to a new level of filmmaking. The audience will be invited into a mind-blowing experience about loss and love.”

Stardream is scheduled to start shooting this summer.


The Shudder horror streaming service is getting ready to premiere its first original documentary, called Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (trailer above). According to EW, the movie chronicles a century's worth of genre films and how they in turn exploited, caricatured, bypassed, and embraced both black filmmakers and black audiences.

Based on the book of the same name by Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman, the film features in-depth interviews with directors, writers, and actors such as Coleman, Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us), Ernest Dickerson (Bones), Rusty Cundieff (Tales from the Hood), Tina Mabry (Mississippi Damned), Tony Todd (Candyman), Paula Jai Parker (Tales From the Hood), Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep), and more.

Among the topics on hand will be the history of black Americans in Hollywood; how black leading men came of age in movies like Night of the Living Dead and Blacula; the urban horror of the '90s; and the new voices coming up through movies like Get Out.

Directed by Xavier Burgin, Horror Noire will premiere exclusively on Shudder on Thursday, Feb. 7, after special screening events in Los Angeles on Feb. 1 and New York on Feb. 4.


Hanna Season 1 - Teaser: Fugitive Fakeout | Prime Video

Lastly, the first trailer (see above) has emerged for Hanna, a new Amazon Prime Video series based on the 2011 action-adventure-slightly-sci-fi movie directed by Joe Wright.

In the original film, Saoirse Ronan played the title character, a teenage girl hidden away and trained by her rogue ex-CIA father (Eric Bana) to become an assassin. As the story unfolds, Hanna discovers that she has not been told the entire truth about her existence — including that she was part of a program to create super-soldiers.

While the movie was marketed as a sort of teen Jason Bourne, it was decidedly surreal and more fantasy-like in its tone. Whether that aspect of the material or the sci-fi elements have been retained for the series remains to be seen.

The show stars relative newcomer Esme Creed-Miles as the title character, while genre regular Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop, Suicide Squad) co-stars. Amazon has yet to announce a premiere date.

(via The Playlist)