Just when we thought Marvel was going to hog all the television news: Syfy has ordered a pilot script based on the DC Comics second-stringer Booster Gold.
Let me explain what makes Booster Gold a unique hero: he’s kind of terrible at being a hero. You know how you have those idle daydreams about what you would do if you could go back in time, with all the knowledge of the 21st century with you? You’d use advanced technology to wow the locals, predict future events, and generally exist spectacularly comfortably, at least if your well thought out plans when as… planned.
Booster Gold is that man. He came back to our century. Things did not go as planned.
In the 25th century Booster was a washed up high school athlete working as a night watchman in a museum of 2oth century superhero history. He steals a docent robot named Skeets and several bits of superheroic technology, and uses the exhibit’s time machine to transport himself back to our time, in order to develop a superhero identity, corporatize it, and live comfortably off of the proceeds. His plan is to use Skeet’s encyclopedic knowledge of publicized superhero events to know when crimes are going to occur, and then become the one-man Kardashian family of the DC Universe.
In other words, television, and our larger culture is absolutely ready for a show based on his character. Booster slowly realizes that being a superhero takes more than being telegenic, and his stories are a struggle between his natural inclinations towards attention whoring and the more noble inclinations that rub off on him as he brushes shoulders with the greatest historical heroes of his culture.
Syfy is looking to make an hour long drama of the show. According to The Hollywood Reporter,
The project, which hails from Greg Berlanti’s Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Horizon Television, will count Berlanti (Brothers & Sisters, No Ordinary Family, Green Lantern) as an executive producer. Fringe‘s Andrew Kreisberg, who collaborated with Berlanti on ABC’s Eli Stone, is on board to pen the script and executive produce. DC Comics will also receive an EP credit.
Syfy. Please, please, please take a tip from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and get Billy West to be the voice of Skeets.
(via The Hollywood Reporter.)
