Finally, A Powers TV Update!

The FX cable network recently had their Winter Press Tour and no word came about the status of the Powers television series for the network.

PremiumHollywood.com's Will Harris caught up with the President and General Manager of FX, John Landgraf, to find the latest about the project.

"We have a new writer who came in and who’s working with Brian Bendis," Landgraf confirmed. "He’s a really, really good writer who got really excited about the project. He came in, and they pitched us a new take. Because part of what you're trying to do with Powers is that you have a great property, a really robust property, but it has to be adapted to become a weekly television series. So you’re asking yourself the question, 'What stays and what goes?' For example, the Retro Girl murder story: should that whole story be told in the pilot, or do we introduce it and tell it later? But the new writer and Brian have got a good take on it. They came in about two months ago and pitched what they were doing, and it was great."

You can read the full article/interview here.

And on that note... at least for the time being, until there is more development for Powers, we're moving new Powers updates to the KSiteTV blog. It'll be in good company, and if there ends up being demand to turn this into a full site again, you'll know where to find this site. In the meantime, adjust your bookmarks accordingly.

New Powers Tidbits At The Baltimore Comic-Con

Powers had a panel at the Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend, and during the panel, creators Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Aevon Oeming spoke a little bit about the Powers TV project.

Bendis again mentioned the appointment of Kevin Falls as showrunner. Bendis himself is writing for the series.

Most interesting is that when asked of their dream casting for the show, Oeming suggested Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly) as Christian Walker and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) as Deena Pilgrim. Bendis revealed that Sackhoff has a working relationship with the pilot's director Michael Dinner but "you can't allow yourself to want for those things."

Bendis also points out they're not greenlit yet and that there is "one more meeting at FX." Here's hoping some news comes shortly!

More Powers TV Updates: Showrunner & Pilot Director Revealed

Powers on TV now has an assigned pilot director and a showrunner, which makes it sound more and more like this is going to happen.

In an interview with G4TV, Bendis revealed that, although the greenlight has not yet been given to shoot, Michael Dinner (Bionic Woman, Sons Of Anarchy) will be directing the pilot. The series' showrunner will be Kevin Falls, whose previous credits include Journeyman, The West Wing, and Sports Night. In addition to being a producer on those projects, Falls also wrote for those series.

Hopefully this means more good news is coming soon!

Powers Comic Relaunches In November

The Powers comic book series will be starting up again with a new monthly series and a new first issue in November from Marvel Comics' Icon imprint.

Here's how Marvel describes the relaunch:

POWERS #1
COVER BY: Michael Avon Oeming
WRITER: Brian Michael Bendis
PENCILS: Michael Avon Oeming
THE STORY:
Because you asked for it, you got it... POWERS IS BACK!! MONTHLY!! From the writer of your favorite blockbuster Marvel comics (DARK AVENGERS, NEW AVENGERS, SECRET INVASION, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN) Brian Michael Bendis and award-winning artist Michael Oeming (Mice Templar) comes a brand new chapter in one of the most successful creator-owned comics of the decade! Homicide Detectives Christian Walker and Enki Sunrise investigate murders specific to super hero cases... powers. Where super hero and crime comics explode into each other! This new number one is the PERFECT jumping on point for new readers and a glorious return to form for long time fans. And yes, this book will be shipping monthly. And yes, our horrible letter column is back!! Mature Content…$3.95
PRICE: 3.95
IN STORES: November 25, 2009

A few weeks earlier, on November 4, Marvel also releases the Powers Encyclopedia, which will tell you all about the characters of the series, past and present. Might be an excellent "primer" for the TV series if it should end up happening.

Powers TV Update From Bendis

Powers creator Brian Michael Bendis spoke with CBR News today about the upcoming relaunch of the Powers comic book, and within he spoke a bit about the current status of the television project.

"We have a director and a show runner and Sony is very positive," Bendis confirmed to CBR News, adding that things are still in the early stages of development.. "All kinds of good things are going on behind the scenes right now. They've just asked for more material and we're putting together budgets as well as some other stuff. So we'll see, but it is an expensive endeavor. This is one of those situations where our imagination and how inexpensive it is to put on the page flies in the face of how expensive it is to put on TV. When you're only doing tiny bits of superheroics they’ve got to be great. They've got to be something really special and I think we’ve all seen the shitty CGI stuff. I don't want to see it. I'd rather see nothing," he says.

"I'm spoiled in my day job at Marvel. There’s always some really great artist that will make anything I think of come to life and it will look awesome and unique, whereas the people working on Powers with me remind me that you can't do that in TV. You have to imagine what the worst version is because that might be what you get. Mike and I have been working on Powers, the comic, with the idea that we can do whatever we want, but the TV show is a different language. Having watched Watchmen, I don’t want to see a direct verbatim adaptation of Powers. I want to see something else. I want to see what the language of Powers would be on television," he says.

You can read the entire interview at CBR News.

UPDATE 6/21/09: Bendis updates Powers TV progress at Heroes Con '09

NEW UPDATE: Bendis talks about Powers TV project with Wizard magazine - Check out details here on PowersTV!

A television series based on Brian Michael Bendis' Powers series may be coming soon. Because there seems to be interest on the KryptonSite Forums, we figure we'll make a news page of information about this one too! If it goes to series, perhaps this will become a full site. FX does have something really great on their hands, and since Bendis is writing the script himself, that means it will hopefully stay very true to the source material.

Here's the first information, fresh from MTV's Splash Page:

“‘Powers’ is in active development as a pilot at FX,” Bendis told MTV. “I just handed in a draft to the network and we’re getting our notes from the network as soon as this thing is over. So next week I’ll get the notes, and as long as they don’t involve sock puppets and some sort of orgy scene that I’m not interested in, then hopefully it will go in the right direction.”

“But they’re a very smart network,” added Bendis. “It seems like the right place for it to be.”

Bendis went on to describe some of the trials and tribulations of bringing the series, which began as an independently published project and was eventually brought under Marvel’s publishing imprint Icon, to the small screen. “Powers” was optioned as a feature film in 2001, but the project never came to fruition.

“When we first sold it as a feature, we were lucky to get it optioned right away by Sony,” said Bendis. “We had to sit through waves of screenplays that were just inappropriate for the product, and for fans of the book. There were whole drafts of the screenplay without Deena Pilgrim [one of the series' two main characters] in them. They’d hand me the screenplay and go, “What’s wrong with this?” and I’d go “He has no one to talk to!”

“After years of that it’s nice to have come out the other side and finally been given my chance to find out what the live-action language of ‘Powers’ is, versus the comic book language of ‘Powers.’”

For a VERY extensive look at the world of the Powers comic book, visit what seems to be the official Powers page at http://hiddenrobot.com/POWERS/index.html (yes, it looks like E! Online on purpose)

Unlike a lot of the other series we cover in the KryptonSite Network, Powers is not the product of a major corporation, and if Bendis and/or Oeming ever happen to find this site and have issue with its existence, there might be a problem. No copyright infringement is intended beyond spreading the word and news of the Powers TV project should anything surface. However, if there is a problem please contact us immediately, and if you like what you see, be sure to say something too and we'll keep this up. But, hopefully the pot can be sweetened here with mention that there are 12 Powers trade paperbacks available as well as two deluxe hardcovers if you want to see what this great series is capable of - just look for the images to your right for some great deals on purchasing them. Clearly, "Who Killed Retro Girl," the series' first collection, is a great place to start and it will firmly entrench you in the world of Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim.

Powers also continues as a comic-book series from Marvel's Icon imprint, and the series' author, Brian Bendis, writes series such as New Avengers, Dark Avengers, and Ultimate Spider-Man monthly in addition to having helmed the main series in Marvel's recent Secret Invasion crossover.

A TV series for Powers could very much be like Homicide: Life On The Street meets Heroes. A Watchmen with more civilians. Either way, it could make for some great TV. Stay tuned.

Talk about Powers on the KryptonSite Forum!