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Phalanx's Honorverse Multimedia Pitch

Discussion concerning the TV, film, and comic adaptations.
Phalanx's Honorverse Multimedia Pitch
Post by Phalanx   » Fri Mar 03, 2017 12:21 am

Phalanx
Commander

Posts: 216
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 6:26 pm

So with the recent questions "what is the status of the movie and comics?" and "where Evergreen went wrong", there has been even more discussions on how to move forward.

And so, for your consideration:

Phase 0: Pre-Production
Stage 1: Strategy Meeting
I do not know if this has already been worked out, but there needs to be a determination over the marketing strategy and who should be in charge of it. The decision to let Evergreen be in the driver's seat because they are from the industry was not a totally sound one. Evergreen should have been responsible for the movie alone, not a massive multiple media project.

The goal of the meeting should be using other media to get people excited for the miniseries, while generating more revenue for the existing media. The miniseries should be the rising tide that lifts all the Honorverse boats(or the wormhole that carries all the Ships :lol: ).


Stage 2: Comics
Take the existing relationship with Top Cow to resurrect the TALES OF HONOR line.

Start with a graphic novel of ON BASILISK STATION, then you can do issues with new stories. As with Evergreen's original plan, the comics can be a way to release concept art. You can also include advertisements for SITS and the other Final Sword Honoverse products.

Phase 1: Production
Stage 1: Miniseries/Pilot
So the first production should be a live action 2-3 episode miniseries.

Stage 2: Season One
Format: Live Action, 13 one hour episodes
Release the episodes in a periodic format, rather than a "binge" format so that viewers can absorb new concepts and appreciate characters. It generates more buzz if you do not give the everything at once, and then pay off things later. Also gives more time to work and not a tightened schedule.
Story: Tells the story of the period after HOTQ, as the Manticoran Alliance is being forged. Chance to do some world building with characters , factions and other elements(Andermani,Manpower,Solarians,etc).Season ends with SVW(probably Parnell's arrest).

Stage 2:Season Two + Graphic Novel
Story: Main storyline is Field of Dishonor,Flag-in-Exile, Honor Among Enemies, and In Enemy Hands(season finale). As a wink to the fans, you can save the reveal that Honor is alive until the last scene. So at a key point, switch to Ransom's ship going BOOM, and everyone on the bridge of Tourville's ship reacting. Have the shot done in such a way that we cannot see Tourville or Foraker erase the record of the shuttles. End with Manticorans and Graysons watching the "The execution of Honor Harrington". Continue the voiceover from the Havenite broadcast and switch to a scene in the jungle and go inside a damaged shuttle to an unconscious Honor Harrington. A steady beep of the monitor lets the viewer know that she is alive.
Graphic Novel: Original story

Stage 3: Season Three + Graphic Novel
Story: Begin by filling in the blanks of Honor's escape and Tourville covering up the shuttles departing the wreckage of Ransom's ship.Also an opportunity to opportunity to introduce Aivars Terekov and have him fight the Battle of Hyacinth.Key stories here would be Echoes of Honor,From the Highlands, Nightfall, and Ashes of Victory.
Graphic Novel: Crown of Slaves


Stage 4:Season Four
Story: War of Honor, Shadow of Saganami, At All Costs, and Mission of Honor. Ending scene is Operation Oyster Bay.
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Re: Phalanx's Honorverse Multimedia Pitch
Post by Dauntless   » Fri Mar 03, 2017 10:55 am

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well you have clearly given this a lot of thought.

From what tiny amount i know of the industry it seems like a reasonable plan. lets hope someone somewhere has something simmilar and is already working on it.
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Re: Phalanx's Honorverse Multimedia Pitch
Post by Phalanx   » Wed May 10, 2017 8:57 pm

Phalanx
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Posts: 216
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 6:26 pm

The challenge for whatever format this takes is that the key performers will need to sign long contracts.

You can get one or two big names a draw, but I think the best way to save money is to use lesser known actors.

Another thing I have been advocating is that the actress who plays Honor be a relative unknown. Not only will this help out a starving actress, but this will allow the strength of her performance as Honor to shine through(a higher tier celeb would just phone it in, but a newer face would give it everything).

In terms of Format, a miniseries works best when trying to tell stories of this broad in scope. Regardless of which version of Dune you prefer(David Lynch or the Sci-Fi Channel), we can agree that standard feature-length(1.5 hours) would have been a TERRIBLE way of telling that story.

Given that Comic properties are popular, the biggest problem is that their licensing is a nightmare, so not every platform does them. All Honorvese Book,Film, Video Game, etc. rights are held by The Manticore Company, the holding company controlled by HIMSELF. A single licensee makes the optioning for media much easier.
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Re: Phalanx's Honorverse Multimedia Pitch
Post by George J. Smith   » Thu Mar 08, 2018 6:55 am

George J. Smith
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Posts: 873
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:48 am
Location: Ross-on-Wye UK

This thread needs to be bumped to the top of the list.

Hopefully some employees of a studio will see it and propose action be taken.
.
T&R
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Re: Phalanx's Honorverse Multimedia Pitch
Post by Phalanx   » Sun Oct 14, 2018 4:27 pm

Phalanx
Commander

Posts: 216
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 6:26 pm

Phalanx wrote:So with the recent questions "what is the status of the movie and comics?" and "where Evergreen went wrong", there has been even more discussions on how to move forward.

And so, for your consideration:

Phase 0: Pre-Production
Stage 1: Strategy Meeting
I do not know if this has already been worked out, but there needs to be a determination over the marketing strategy and who should be in charge of it. The decision to let Evergreen be in the driver's seat because they are from the industry was not a totally sound one. Evergreen should have been responsible for the movie alone, not a massive multiple media project.

The goal of the meeting should be using other media to get people excited for the miniseries, while generating more revenue for the existing media. The miniseries should be the rising tide that lifts all the Honorverse boats(or the wormhole that carries all the Ships :lol: ).


Stage 2: Comics
Take the existing relationship with Top Cow to resurrect the TALES OF HONOR line.

Start with a graphic novel of ON BASILISK STATION, then you can do issues with new stories. As with Evergreen's original plan, the comics can be a way to release concept art. You can also include advertisements for SITS and the other Final Sword Honoverse products.

Phase 1: Production
Stage 1: Miniseries/Pilot
So the first production should be a live action 2-3 episode miniseries based on HOTQ.

Stage 2: Season One
Format: Live Action, 13 one hour episodes
Release the episodes in a periodic format, rather than a "binge" format so that viewers can absorb new concepts and appreciate characters. It generates more buzz if you do not give the everything at once, and then pay off things later. Also gives more time to work and not a tightened schedule.
Story: Tells the story of the period after HOTQ, as the Manticoran Alliance is being forged. Chance to do some world building with characters , factions and other elements(Andermani,Manpower,Solarians,etc).Season ends with SVW(probably Parnell's arrest).

Stage 2:Season Two + Graphic Novel
Story: Main storyline is Field of Dishonor,Flag-in-Exile, Honor Among Enemies, and In Enemy Hands(season finale). As a wink to the fans, you can save the reveal that Honor is alive until the last scene. So at a key point, switch to Ransom's ship going BOOM, and everyone on the bridge of Tourville's ship reacting. Have the shot done in such a way that we cannot see Tourville or Foraker erase the record of the shuttles. End with Manticorans and Graysons watching the "The execution of Honor Harrington". Continue the voiceover from the Havenite broadcast and switch to a scene in the jungle and go inside a damaged shuttle to an unconscious Honor Harrington. A steady beep of the monitor lets the viewer know that she is alive.
Graphic Novel: Original story

Stage 3: Season Three + Graphic Novel
Story: Begin by filling in the blanks of Honor's escape and Tourville covering up the shuttles departing the wreckage of Ransom's ship.Also an opportunity to opportunity to introduce Aivars Terekov and have him fight the Battle of Hyacinth.Key stories here would be Echoes of Honor,From the Highlands, Nightfall, and Ashes of Victory.
Graphic Novel: Original Story


Stage 4:Season Four
Story: Crown of Slaves, War of Honor, Shadow of Saganami, At All Costs, and Mission of Honor. Ending scene is Operation Oyster Bay.
Graphic Novel: Original Story


Made a few corrections and clarifications to the original post.So here are a further explanation of what I think went wrong and how we can move forward:

Comics:
Regarding the Tales of Honor comic line, the concept was good but the execution was not. If you are going to have a series run you need a few things:
1) A consistent art style
Tales of Honor did not always have this). This is not to say it all has to be done by the same artist, but in most Star Wars Comics, every X-Wing looks like an X-Wing, there is no ambiguity or going "Wait is that an X-Wing?".
2) An Overall Theme.
Tales of Honor was hit or miss with this one. The Overall theme of a new Tales of Honor should be new anthology stories that flesh out events that may or may not have been referenced before that impacted other events(For example: Mark Sarnow bringing Alizon into the Manticoran Alliance).
3) Interaction with BuNINE
A big stumbling block was that for some reason it seemed that the Tales of Honor Comic(as well as the Evergreen projects) seemed to be going directly to HIMSELF. As we know our favorite Mad Wizard has a busy schedule with health, family, and that whole writing thing :D
Any of the BuNINE folks can correct me, but I did not get the impression that the writers always consulted with BuNINE, preferring to bypass them altogether.In my opinion, the role of HIMSELF( who clearly states that he has no experience writing comics) should be limited to approving the core concept("I want to tell a story about...") with BuNINE doing fact checking. I am fully convinced that BuNINE was not involved with fact-checking(or at least as much as they could have been) because of things that the comic writers BLATANTLY got wrong, that anyone on this forum would have known.We all have clear evidence that the BuNINE folks made themselves availabe, but the impression I always got was that BuNINE was being bypassed to get HIMSELF to sign off on things.
4) Original Stories
ALL the stories should be original stories. Not only does this give the authors more creative freedom, we get more opportunities for cross promotion. For exmaple, take a scenario that is referenced in SITS and make a story out of it, then stick an ad for SITS at the end("Hey you wanna play with these ships, well now you can!").
SITS
It seems to me that most of the Honorverse fan base are currently not SITS players, even if they know if it exists.

If the Honorverse IP is to thrive after the main Honor line ends, then we have to support the other existing media avenues. I have a few ideas that I will share in the coming weeks..... ;)
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