Amazon has acquired Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (formerly titled Electric Dreams: The World of Philip K. Dick), a science fiction anthology series based on Dick’s many renowned works.

The show comes from Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston and Battlestar Galactica and Outlander creator Ronald D. Moore, who will both executive produce.

The holiday season is upon us. It’s time for giving and receiving, and what better way to get into the spirit than with gifting some good books. And this year, there’s plenty of selections to choose from for fans of properties like Star Wars, Star Trek, Labyrinth, and the movies of Guillermo del Toro, as well as titles by authors like Stephen King, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, Roger Zelazny, and Greg Cox.

Check out here below our Holiday Geek Gift Guide 2016 for Books, eBooks, and Audiobooks for our favorite holiday gift picks for this year for the reader in your life.

Fresh off having his role as the Joker in the current late summer superhero smash Suicide Squad reduced to a brief cameo, Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto has signed on to co-star in the untitled sequel to the 1982 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner.

Cameras are set to roll next month on the film that has been in development for years, with a release scheduled for later next year. Denis Villeneuve, the acclaimed filmmaker responsible for Prisoners, Sicario, and the upcoming Arrival, is directing the sequel from a screenplay penned by original Blade Runner scribe Hampton Fancher and former Heroes/Smallville producer Michael Green. Fancher based the original on the late Philip K. Dick‘s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

Steven Spielberg is probably the greatest cinematic director of the last 40 years, a two-time Oscar winner for Best Director, and creator of some of most memorable films in history including JAWS, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, and E.T. So it’s understandable and almost excusable when one of his best films lived in relative anonymity for years… until now.

The film is 2002’s Minority Report. Tom Cruise starred as Detective John Anderton of the futuristic pre-crime division. Using three “pre-cogs” (children born with the ability to see murders before they take place) they have virtually wiped out violent crime. Of course that’s until a conspiracy unfolds to frame Anderton and leads to the end of pre-crime. The film, based on a story by sci-fi genius Philip K. Dick (did he write EVERY sci-fi story!?!?) is action packed and features amazing special effects but also is poignant and asks serious questions. The acting is also great — it’s Cruise at his best — and featured an Oscar-worthy supporting performance from Samantha Morton. Now, executive producer/writer Max Borenstein and director Mark Mylod are bringing Minority Report as a series to Fox and hopefully re-igniting interest in the under-appreciated classic film.

Check out the first trailer and inside look video here below.

In 2002, Steven Spielberg delivered Minority Report starring Tom Cruise. The film was a critical success and offered up one of Spielberg’s more challenging and thought-provoking science fiction stories set in a dystopia/utopia future where psychics predict crimes so cops can stop them before they happen. Flash forward 13 years later and it would appear that we are finally getting a follow-up to one of the better sci-fi thriller stories ever put to film.

Fox has put in a pilot order for a female-led Minority Report sequel for television, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The TV story will be set 10 years after the events of the film and center around a Precog who is having trouble adapting to his new life in exile. He is apparently haunted by his visions of the future. Meanwhile, he comes across a detective who is struggling with her past and the two will help each other.

“This movie gets worse every screening.”

It has been over thirty years since Ridley Scott‘s noirish sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner was released and began its long journey to enduring cult classic status following an unexceptional theatrical run. Three days ago someone posted to Reddit a scan of notes made by executives of financier Tandem Productions following an early screening of the film on January 21, 1981 – about a year-and-a-half before it premiered on movie screens across America. These notes reveal the suits’ confusion and derision over several creative aspects of the movie, from the editing to music placement to even the dialogue, that would mostly remain unchanged when a compromised cut featuring clarifying narration and a happier ending opened the next year.

You can check the original notes out here below.

It is not a secret to anyone familiar with the checkered production history of Blade Runner that the movie, while aesthetically groundbreaking, was a major creative headache and a source of much consternation to its financial overseers. Despite the presence of Scott on directing duties and Harrison Ford in the star role that would come to be known as one of the best of his career, the film’s plot and character complexities and lack of thrilling action set pieces gave it only modest commercial potential at the box office. The massive amounts of gorgeously-shot footage would undergo a near-endless series of edits and test screenings in order to hone it into a cut that everyone would be confident could become a profitable hit while maintaining its integrity.

The Kindle ebook deal of the day over at Amazon today is 14 Novels by Philip K. Dick for $1.99 each, including A Scanner Darkly, Man in the High Castle, Ubik, and more.

– A Scanner Darkly
– The Man in the High Castle
– Ubik
– The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
– The Simulacra
– VALIS
– Now Wait for Last Year
– The Penultimate Truth
– The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
– The Divine Invasion (Valis)
– Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
– Counter-Clock World
– Eye in the Sky
– The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick

Note – This deal is valid only for today, Sunday, October 7, 2012, til 11:59PM PST.

A Thesis on the implications of Total Recall and the contrast between the original film [1990] and the remake and/or reimagining [2012] by Sam C Smith.

“They stole his mind, now he wants it back.”

REMINISCENCE:

It is my Star Wars. Yes, I said it. So I did what any fanboy would do: Collect.

Why bother? It’s not as if Total Recall [Original will be referred to as TR, the new film hereby referred to as Total Recall] was the greatest film ever. It doesn’t even feature that highly on the greatest sci-fi film list of all time. But something just stuck with me throughout the 1990s to today that I never got with Star Wars – a film series pretty much filmed and over and done with before I could afford a video player.

But consider how much more difficult it is to get original TR-based collectibles. Especially in the UK. Especially in 2012. Any fan of any age can find something Star Wars based, and that includes error-in-production Kenner figures from the 70s.

The Deal of the Day over at Things From Another World today is Boom!’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep: Dust To Dust: Vol. 02 trade paperback for only $5.19 (that’s 60% off of the regular price of $12.99). The series is a comic book adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, which was the source material for the movie Blade Runner.

Note – The sale at TFAW is valid only for today, Tuesday, May 29, 2012, til 11:59PM PST while supplies last (and there’s a limited supply, so it will sell out, so hurry!).

When the deal runs out, you can also get a copy of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep: Dust To Dust: Vol. 02 for $12.48 at Amazon. Also, if you need Vol. 1, you can get it for $9.99 at Amazon, where it’s part of their 4-for-3 promotion where you purchase four items and get one of them free.).

The trailer for the new adaptation of Total Recall (I hesitate to use the term “remake” since this movie, much like Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 movie, is based on Philip K. Dick‘s 1966 short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”) was unveiled a week ago to little fanfare and the expected gnashing teeth of devoted fans of the Verhoeven movie and haters of remakes and reboots in general looking to justify the kind of boiled-over rage directed at this movie that you wouldn’t often find outside of Tea Party gatherings and Bill O’Reilly’s dressing room. To help alleviate rising concerns about the film’s fidelity – or lack thereof – to its source and the fact that it looks like just about every futuristic actioner out there (OOH! FLYING CARS!) the trailer for Total Recall is being presented complete with a few audio comments from the movie’s director Len Wiseman.

You can watch the trailer with Wiseman’s commentary here below.