Free Enterprise TV Series?

By: Steve Ryfle
Date: Monday, October 16, 2000

Maybe the trick to becoming a successful film and TV mogul isn't the old-school, rise-through-the-ranks shtick anymore. Maybe it's better to become the editor of a cool movie magazine where you can interview all your film and TV idols, then take all the info you've learned, chuck the magazine biz and start your own Hollywood career. Hey, it seems to have worked for Mark Altman, anyway.

You may remember that Altman was the editor of Sci Fi Universe magazine a few years ago (back when it was still owned by Larry Flynt, and they let me five-finger copies of Biker Parties magazine every time I stopped by their offices). He's also written a bunch of making-of Star Trek books. His big claim to fame thus far, however, is Free Enterprise, the Trekker comedy he co-wrote and produced two years ago.

These days, Altman is one of those omnipresent guys. If there's a genre movie-related event in or around Hollywood (a screening, a party, a convention, etc.), he always seems to be therelike last Friday at the Halloween reunion soiree hosted by Anchor Bay. Since this is a news column, I exchanged salutations with Mark and axed him if he had any news. Sure 'nuff, he did.

'We've had interest from a couple people to do Free Enterprise as a television series, so we're going down the road on that,' Altman reveals. 'It'd sort of be a Seinfeld meets Swingers meets The Larry Sanders Show. The film has been a big success on video and on cable; it's sort of been a sleeper.'

Mark couldn't say whom he's talking to about producing the show, nor how it might differ from the film. It certainly sounds like an interesting prospect (and hopefully, Shatner would take a break from those silly commercials to reprise his role, as 'Bill'); we can only hope it doesn't go the way of another independent film phenom that was supposed to be turned into a sitcom and then, a few years later, finally morphed into a not-very-good animated series that was quickly canceled. (Can you say Clerks?)

While a TV deal isn't cemented yet, Altman and his company Mindfire Entertainment have some other interesting stuff going on. Later this month, they're set to announce the titles of some 'A-list video games' that they'll turn into feature films. The company wants to graduate from tiny-budgets to medium-sized budget films, and it'll concentrate on adapting video games and comic books as part of something called Mindfire Millennium. Already, they're working on the film version of the Alley Cats comic, which Altman calls a 'sort of a supernatural horror superhero kind of thing.'


In case you missed it (and you probably did), Mindfire recently released The Specials, a superhero comedy flick that, well, tanked, partly because of its similarities to Mystery Men, but also because, well, it wasn't good. But we'll be looking out for Altman's future endeavors.

'Having been a critic and a journalist, people look at my stuff with even more of a jaundiced eye, so you've really got to deliver the goods, and that's what we're trying to do,' he says. 'I've definitely been taken to task because I was so noted for being an acid-tongued critic. I've had my run-ins with people, but overall I think it gave me a really good perspective on the filmmaking process. We shall make no script before its time!'

LUKE PERRY GETS SCARY

There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned radio play. Really, there's nothing out there like it. They just don't exist any more. Well, somebody is doing something to change all that, fusing cyber-age technology with a bit of Orson Welles-like ingenuity. Or something like that.

Next Monday marks the premiere of Seeing Ear Theatre's new Tales from the Crypt series, an audio drama broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel's website (www.scifi.com). The first installment in the 13-episode series is called Island of Death, and it stars Luke Perry of Beverly Hills 90210 infamy and Gina Gershon of Bound and Face/Off and Showgirls and other flicks where she wasn't afraid to kick ass and show a little f-l-e-s-h. The show airs at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, with new episodes each Monday. It's Seeing Ear Theatre's second 13-episode series, following J. Michael Straczynski's City of Dreams, which debuted in June.

You know the drill about Tales from the Crypt, right? It was an old 1950's EC comic book, and then there was that TV version in the 1980s. Well, the Sci-Fi Channel folks say these new Internet radio plays are 'newly conceived works based on the comic books,' which means they could go either way (the first episode originally appeared in comic book form as The Vault of Horror).

For your elucidation, here's the network's teaser for the premiere episode: 'In Island of Death, Gina Gershon takes on the role of Galatea Hapsburg, the hostess of the reality television show Mantis. Galatea first sleeps with her prey, in this instance a dot-com millionaire Quinn Dillon, played by Luke Perry. She then proceeds to hunt him down through a camera-filled deserted island jungle. Dillon must escape Galatea to avoid becoming the next Mantis victim.' They also note that 'Each journey begins with an introduction from the voice of the original TV Crypt Keeper (John Kassir) in his distinctively ominous and creepy style, then finishes with the trademark Tales from the Crypt ironic twist.'

OH NO, NOT ANOTHER ONE

This news also comes from the online world. Must be the season of the Blair Witch parody againapparently, all the wannabes who think parodies are really original and neat-o, but couldn't crank out their Blair Witch Project spoof fast enough last summer, have been waiting for this moment to arrive. I'm tempted to avoid all these god-forsaken things, but there's at least one of them that I must check out because, well, even if it stinks, I gotta see what those kids from Escape to Witch Mountain look like these days.

Say what? Ike Eissinmann, who was one of the two weirdo orphan kids with psychic powers in the 1975 Disney flick and its 1978 sequel Return from Witch Mountain (and who was in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, among other stuff since then), has produced his own Blair Witch spoof short, and it'll debut this Friday on GalaxyOnline.com. Eiseinmann's 13-minute film, The Blair Witch Mountain Project, is worth checking out if you're in the proper age bracket (translation: over the hill, dude) because it's got cameos from the other Witch Mountain kids, including Kim Richards (who played Ike's mind-reading sister Tia), plus Dermott Downs, Brad Savage, Christian Juttner and other ones we don't remember.

'Being able to project yourself onto these two kids who could make things happen just by thinking about them is probably one of the great fantasy situations that a child could set up,' Eissinmann says in a press release. 'There's a real magical aspect to it. So thinking back on that time and all the things that happened, and now getting back together with these people, has been wonderfully nostalgic and great fun.'

UPCOMING EPISODES

This week, we're giving it to you straight from the horse's mouth, as they say. Rather than try to interpret, explain, rationalize or even understand what the networks are talking about when they summarize upcoming episode, we're just gonna regurgitate what they've got to say.

*In this week's episode of Roswell (WB, Monday @ 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 8 p.m. Central), 'Isabel is overwhelmed when Max throws her a surprise birthday party, but is soon shocked when she receives flashes of a bound and gagged Tess. When Isabel heads off to find her, she comes face to face with a familiar old enemy.'

*On Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB, Tuesday @ 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 7 p.m. Central), titled 'Out of My Mind,' here's what happens: 'After being used as a lab rat for months by The Initiative, Riley's very life is threatened by the aftereffects. When he refuses help and goes into hiding, Buffy turns to Spike for help, but he takes advantage of her situation for his own plot to kill her.'

*This week's Angel (WB, Tuesday @ 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 8 p.m. Central) is titled 'Untouched.' The lowdown: 'Angel crosses paths with Wolfram and Hart when he comes to the aid of a young woman, Bethany, who possesses telekinetic powers far beyond her control. Meanwhile, Angel is unknowingly receiving nocturnal visits from Darla.'

*In the latest Dark Angel (FOX, Tuesday @ 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 8 p.m. Central), 'Logan and Original Cindy try to break Max out of prison before Lydecker finds her.'

*And on FreakyLinks (FOX, Friday @ 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 8 p.m. Central), 'Derek and partners investigate reports of alligators in New York sewers.'