Geek News Alerts: Oliver Queen to Date [Spoiler], Outlander Split In Half, Robert Orci Not Officially Greenlit as Star Trek 3 Director

Here’s the latest geek-tastic film/TV news:

1. ARROW

Arrow Season 3 Premiere Synopsis: New Romance, New Danger (ScreenRant)

You really should avoid any and all episode synopses the CW releases for its shows.  That way spoilers lie.   However, you tend to at least kind of notice when the CW releases a spoiler-filled episode synopsis for the season 3 premiere of Arrow roughly 4 months before it will even air and several weeks before they could have saved some big reveals for Comic-Con.  Potential spoilers await you below (this comes from ZapIt, who claim it comes from the CW’s press site.):

In the aftermath of this victory, Season 3 opens with Arrow now a hero to the citizens of Starling. Crime is down, people feel safer, and Captain Lance even calls off the Anti-Vigilante Task Force. Basking in his success, Oliver believes he can finally have a private life and asks Felicity out on a date. But the second Oliver takes his eye off the ball, a deadly villain reappears in Starling, forcing Oliver to realize that he can never be Oliver Queen — not as long as the city needs The Arrow.

There you have it, folks.  Captain Lance lives (huzzah!), Oliver does the Dark Knight thing by thinking he’s ready for love like poor Bruce Wayne with Rachel Dawes before the world rudely announces how much it still needs him, and prior rumors that Peter Stormare’s new version of Count Vertigo will first appear in the season premiere seem confirmed (depending on how you interpret the “deadly villain reappears” part).

The show left Oliver and Felicity on uncertain ground last season, Felicity assuming his declaration of love for her was an act, him merely smilingly, neither confirming nor denying her assumption.  On a related note, Oliver defeated his two biggest foes, Malcolm Merlyn (as far as he knows) and Slade Wilson.  His father’s enemies lists hasn’t been seen in quite some time.  So, it would be a natural starting point to begin with Oliver attempting to have some kind of social life until a villain arrives to re-focus his obsessive efforts on vigilantism.

Of course, to some they’d agree with all of that except they’d want Oliver to ask Laurel out and not Felicity, yet to others even though this clearly sounds like just another Oliver/Felicity tease this news, if true, is probably cause for literal jumps for joy.  Heck, some might simply wonder when Sara Lance is coming back.  That Oliver Queen, he just might have a lot of potential love interests.

My reaction to all of this is that you go there with Felicity this early simply to advance those two along before immediately pushing them back two steps, be it a mutual decision not to pursue anything or Oliver unilaterally deciding for them (that’s kind of his thing).  You can then tease their potential pairing throughout the season, Felicity likely moving on to her own love interest much to Oliver’s chagrin.

Arrow is set to begin its third season later this year on Wednesday, Oct. 8.

2. BATMAN 75

DC Comics Celebrates 75 Years of Batman with Comic-Con Festivities (SuperheroHype)

DC put out a super long press release announcing everything they have in store for Comic-Con to celebrate Batman’s 75th anniversary:

Batman 75: Legends of The Dark Knight – Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Jim Lee (BATMAN:HUSH), Geoff Johns (BATMAN:EARTH ONE), Denny O’Neill, Neal Adams, and current BATMAN creative team, writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo discuss the legendary character’s explosive adventures in comics both past and present.

Batman 75th Anniversary – Delve into how Batman has been brought to life in comics, TV, movies and video games with Lee, Johns, BATMAN ’66 MEETS THE GREEN HORNET co-writer and KROQ radio personality Ralph Garman, the legendary voice of Batman Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Arkham Knight), producer and writer Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series).

Batman: The Complete Series panel featuring Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar looking back on their camp-tastic old TV show and celebrating its forthcoming home video release.

Plus, the Gotham pilot will be screened in its entirety, Kevin Conroy and company will have a panel discussing the upcoming animated film Batman: Assault on Arkham, and all sorts of other cool things that make you wonder why you chose to pay rent instead of going to Comic-Con this year. 

3. OUTLANDER

Starz Splitting ‘Outlander’ Season (THR)

Starz produced 16 episodes of Ronald D. Moore’s (Battlestar Galactica) adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s novel series about “a married combat nurse from 1945 who is mysteriously swept back in time to 1743 and thrown into an unknown world where her life is threatened. Claire is pulled between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.”  Because AMC are the cool kids and they did it with Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Starz is now splitting Outlander into two 8-episode chunks, the first of which will end its run 9/27 with the next batch coming early next year.  Starz’ CEO refers to Outlander as “possibly the most highly anticipated series” in the cable network’s history meaning they realized they have a hit on their hands and want to milk that.

Outlander premieres on STARZ on Aug. 9.

4. STAR TREK 3

Roberto Orci Talks STAR TREK 3; Says Paramount Hasn’t Seen the Script Yet, Unconfirmed as Director Until Given the Greenlight (Collider)

The internet completely broke a month ago when Robert Orci was apparently hired to writer/direct Star Trek 3.  Him?  But he’s been foolish enough to get into arguments with Star Trek fans online in the past!  He’s never directed anything anymore, not even a TV commercial!  And why didn’t you at least consider a female director with actual experience?

Well, call of the Klingon-equivalent of war dogs, Orci-haters, as he is not actually guaranteed to direct Star Trek 3, at least based off of what he told Collider:

The studio has yet to even read the script.  I’m in the middle of writing it, with the talented team of [John D.] Payne and [Patrick] McKay.  They are true Star Trek fans, as well.  So, I can’t even think anything about the future until I give them a script and they greenlight it.  Until that happens, everything else is just a rumor.

What say you know, Star Trek fanatics?  If Orci’s script sucks then, yeah, he may not be directing Star Trek 3, but wouldn’t that mean Paramount would have to add extra time to the development process and probably not make that 2016 release window in time for Star Trek’s 50th anniversary.

5. SyFy

Thomas Jane to Star in Syfy’s ‘The Expanse’(THR)

SyFy is trying super duper hard to find the next Battlestar Galactica, and The Expanse is one possibility, adapted from James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes book series set “200 years in the future and follows the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship’s captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.”

Well, they found their “hardened detective,” casting Thomas Jane, former Punisher and well-Hung gigolo.  His character is “a native of the ‘Asteroid Belt’ between Mars and Jupiter, serving as a detective for a corporate security force operating as the law in the Belt.”  Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, Iron Man) are attached as writers and show-runners.  SyFy picked up Expanse with a 10-episode straight-to-series order last April.

6. VIDEO OF THE DAY

The History of Movies In Under 9 Minutes (SlashFilm)