When Chris Preksta first shot a short film back in 2008, little could he know that a Twitter handle would grab the attention of a Syfy executive and land him a distribution deal.
The Mercury Men–the web series on Syfy.com about a mild-mannered office worker stuck in a building being invaded by strange, glowing aliens–started out as a simple desire by Preksta to shoot a short film that involved ray guns.
By 2008, Preksta had an 11-minute piece called “The Mercury Men” that he was taking around to sci-fi festivals, most notably San Diego Comic-Con where he says it played really well. It was at that point that he started thinking about doing something more with it. He considered making it into a feature but then another, more timely idea hit him. Continue Reading
Remember “Battlestar Galactica : Blood and Chrome”? That’s the “BSG” prequel series that SyFy planned to get on the air next year sometime. There’s a chance the network may have decided to put “Blood and Chrome” on the internet – as a web series – rather than the box.
Speaking of ‘Blood and Chrome,’ by the way, I talked to Syfy exec Mark Stern when I was at San Diego Comic Con in July. Stern, Syfy’s executive vice president of original programming, said that executives at the network have seen a rough cut of the two-hour ‘Blood and Chrome’ TV movie, which follows the journey of a young William Adama in the first Cylon War. However not many of the effects in that cut have been completed (most of ‘Blood and Chrome’ was shot in front of green screens, and many backgrounds and visual effects are being added).
Given the amount of work still being done on ‘Blood and Chrome’ (which was written by ‘BSG’ scribe Michael Taylor and will act as a possible pilot for a TV series), it sounds as though ‘Blood and Chrome’ is still something of a work in progress and an announcement about a release date is not particularly imminent. Stern said Syfy is still weighing whether to release this combat-oriented ‘BSG’ prequel as an online series (which was the original plan back when the project was first commissioned) or to bring it to air as a backdoor pilot, which is still a possibility.
Warehouse 13 returns for its third season Monday, July 11 at 9:00 PM on Syfy, but you can get a new adventure featuring Pete (Eddie McClintock), Artie (Saul Rubinek), Leena (Genelle Williams) and Claudia (Allison Scagliotti) right now at Syfy.com. “Of Monsters and Men” is a brand-new episode in ten parts, each one airing daily on the website. The first part is live right now so head on over andcheck it out!
US cable network Syfy is continuing to expand its move into original online content with the launch of ten part series The Mercury Men.
This follows the success of Riese: Kingdom Falling, the web series that moved to the main network, and was subsequently sold internationally to broadcasters including Canada’s Space.
The NBC Universal-owned sci fi broadcaster will launch The Mercury Men, which was created by Captain Blasto director Christopher Preksta, on its Syfy.com website in July.
The series is set in Pittsburgh in 1975 and follows a lowly government drone as he is trapped in the building after it is seized by the Men of Mercury gang.
The home of Eureka and Warehouse 13, Syfy has ordered a new, 10-part science-fiction web series called The Mercury Men, according to mediabistro.com.
“It is a modern web series that hearkens back to Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers,” Craig Engler, senior VP of Syfy Digital, said. “It is black and white, there is a ray-gun, there is a brain in a jar, and you don’t see brains in jars anymore!”
Just what is The Mercury Men?
It’s a web series is from Christopher Preksta, who also created the Streamy-winning web series Captain Blasto. Each episode lasts around seven minutes.
Syfy has had successful experiences in the past moving web programming into their network. For instance, Riese: Kingdom Falling has racked up over 1.3 million views since it launched at the end of October.
“The first thing we learned from Riese is that this online stuff works,” Engler said. “[Web series] are getting much better. The production quality is fantastic. If you look at Riese, it is amazing, if you look at Mercury Men, it is amazing in an entirely different way.”
Although no premiere date has yet been chosen, the network is currently looking at which of its current television programs would work well with Mercury Men. “By tying the launch of a web series to a TV event like a season premiere or finale, Syfy can market the program to millions of already-engaged viewers,” the site reports.
“The obvious pairing for it would probably Eureka,” Engler said. “It has a very big retro feel to it. It has a lot of retro-futurism, which is what Mercury Men is really about.”
