Exclusive: Gerry Anderson on the UFO movie
Gerry Anderson, the grand master of British TV sci-fi, talks to us about the new movie based on his 1970 cult TV series…
I was lucky enough to have a second chat with Gerry Anderson yesterday about the forthcoming DVD release of Fireball XL5, and - being a huge fan of the original 1970s series UFO - I naturally wanted to know more about the new UFO movie announced at Cannes a few weeks back.
"I got a call from somebody in America," Anderson told us. "it was very kind actually - they phoned to say, 'Gerry, listen, there's an announcement going out now [about the new movie] and we didn't want it to come as a shock to you', which was a kind move. As a result of that I had a long chat with them. It wouldn't help me to blow this up bigger than it is, but I have a feeling that I might end up being a consultant on the movie. It would be marvellous, I think...over here there's a rather unfortunate history about remakes; Thunderbirds the film was a disaster, and The Avengers, and so on. But I hope, and I think I probably believe, that this could be the exception."
The rights to UFO reside, as with many other Gerry Anderson properties, with Granada, and the legendary TV producer told us in a previous interview (see link below) of his distaste for Jonathan Frakes' 2004 adaptation of the highly successful sci-fi puppet show Thunderbirds.
The UFO film announced at Cannes is to be produced by Robert Evans in association with ITV Global, with a script being written by Ryan Gaudet and Joseph Kanarek. Paramount have first refusal on the project, with the general intention being to create a new franchise.
You can find out about the set-up of the original series here. And stayed tuned for the complete interview, which covers quite a lot of ground.
