A film crew from Microsoft’s Xbox Originals production studio was knee-deep in refuse this past weekend as part of their search for the fabled burial site of “millions” of unsold E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges. The excavation of the New Mexican landfill will serve as the centerpiece to Atari: Game Over, one of the first films in development for Microsoft’s streaming video service. With the excavation a success, Microsoft has decided to unveil all 12 projects that are currently in production within the Xbox Originals office.
The first two Xbox Originals productions will be available for your viewing pleasure this June. They are Bonnaroo, a “live concert destination” for those who cannot attend the annual festival, and Every Street United, a documentary series on street soccer that will culminate in a championship match held during the World Cup this July.
Atari: Game Over will air sometime this year as part of the Signal To Noise documentary series, which will focus on “little known stories of how modern technology has radically altered the way we interact with our world.” And don’t forget, Microsoft still has Steven Spielberg’s Halo Television Series and Ridley Scott’s Halo Digital Feature in production as well.
Looking further out, the studio plans to produce Humans, a series set in a world where life-like robots co-exist with humanity; Deadlands, which is based on the popular pen-and-paper campaign; Extraordinary Believers, a new show from the Robot Chicken team; Fearless, a reality series that follows “individuals who risk their lives to make the world a better place;” Gun Machine, a series based on Warren Ellis’ hardboiled detective novel; Winterworld, a post-apocalyptic series set in an icy future; and an untitled show from the JASH comedy collective.
Every Xbox Original will be viewable through the Xbox Video app, which is available for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8. Complete details on all 12 projects can be found after the break.
Committed Projects
Bonnaroo
Xbox owners around the globe can experience the magic of the 13th annual Bonnaroo music and arts festival with a live concert destination on Xbox Live Friday, June 13 through Sunday, June 15, 2014, brought to viewers in partnership with Superfly Presents. With the Bonnaroo app, fans can enjoy live music like never before, with a virtual experience featuring the best performances, multiple stages, biggest artists and amazing SuperJams, and explore this year’s lineup to see the best of Bonnaroo’s past with exclusive performances. Fans can also join the conversation with fellow virtual-Bonnaroovians and get connected to their friends and the festival. Xbox is the exclusive broadcasting partner for Bonnaroo and the only location to get all of the interactive features.
Every Street United
Every Street United is an unscripted series of eight, thirty-minute episodes and a one-hour finale, featuring legendary soccer players Thierry Henry and Edgar Davids, focused on the global search for soccer’s most gifted and undiscovered street stars scouted across eight countries (United States, England, Argentina, Spain, Brazil, the Netherlands, Ghana and South Korea). The series culminates this July in a 4v4 street game finale in the shadow of the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.
Each episode will feature unique and incisive narratives about the grassroots street stars and the communities that shaped them. Industry veteran and eight-time Emmy-Award winning producer, director, writer and editor Jonathan Hock (Streetball, 30 for 30: The Best That Never Was) is directing the series. Emmy-Award winning producer Mike Tollin and Mandalay Sports Media are executive producing. Professional soccer luminaries, Henry and Davids, will serve as coaches for the 4v4 street game in Rio. Every Street United will premiere in June 2014.
Signal To Noise
First Episode: Atari: Game Over
Xbox is creating a new six film documentary series, Signal To Noise, (working title) with two-time Academy Award winning producer Simon Chinn (Searching for Sugar Man and Man on Wire) and Emmy winning producer Jonathan Chinn (FX’s 30 Days and PBS’s American High), through their multi-platform media company, Lightbox. The series will expose little known stories of how modern technology has radically altered the way we interact with our world.
The first installment, Atari: Game Over (working title), explores the fabled Atari mystery, dubbed “The Great Video Game Burial of 1983.” As the legend goes, the Atari Corporation, faced with overwhelmingly negative response to the E.T. video game, disposed of millions of unsold game cartridges by burying them in the small town of Alamogordo, New Mexico. Fuel Entertainment took an interest in the legend, and in December 2013, with help from local garbage contractor Joe Lewandowski, acquired the exclusive rights to excavate the Alamogordo landfill. Fuel Entertainment then brought the opportunity to Xbox Entertainment Studios. The team will head to the landfill in question to determine if the story is true, interviewing a cast of characters related to the game and its mystery along the way. Atari: Game Over is directed by writer/director Zak Penn (X2: X-Men United, The Avengers, and Incident at Loch Ness). It will air exclusively on Xbox One and Xbox 360 in 2014.
Halo Television Series
The Halo Television Series is a groundbreaking original series based on the award-winning Halo franchise. Award-winning filmmaker, director and producer Steven Spielberg will executive produce the live-action TV series, created in partnership with 343 Industries and Amblin Television.
Halo Digital Feature
343 Industries and Scott Free Productions are creating a Halo Digital Feature to be released later this year. The project will be executive produced by Ridley Scott and Scott Free TV President, David Zucker. Sergio Mimica-Gezzan (Battlestar Galactica, Pillars of the Earth, Heroes) will direct.
Humans
Humans is a bold new drama co-produced with UK broadcaster Channel 4. Award-winning UK production company Kudos (The Hour, Utopia, Broadchurch) will produce the hour-long, eight-episode series, which will share a premiere broadcast window on the Xbox platform and Channel 4 in the UK in 2015.
Executive produced by Jane Featherstone (Life on Mars, Broadchurch) and Derek Wax (The Hour, Sex Traffic), and written by British writing team Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley (Spooks, Spooks: The Greater Good), Humans is an English-language adaptation of Sveriges Television and Matador Film’s acclaimed Swedish series, Real Humans. Humans is set in a parallel present where the latest must-have gadget for any busy family is a “Synth” – a highly-developed robotic servant eerily similar to its live counterpart. In the hope of transforming the way they live, one strained suburban family purchases a refurbished synth only to discover that sharing life with a machine has far-reaching and chilling consequences. Casting for Humans will begin in May 2014, and production will commence later this summer.
Projects In Development
Deadlands
Xbox Entertainment Studios has committed to a script based on the successful pen-and-paper role playing game created by Shane Lacy Hensley. Deadlands is a genre-bending alternative history of the Weird West, filled with undead gunfighters, card-slinging sorcerers, mad scientists, secret societies, and fearsome abominations.
Extraordinary Believers
Xbox Entertainment Studios is developing an innovative, hybrid stop-motion show dubbed Extraordinary Believers (working title) with Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, creators of the Emmy-Award winning Robot Chicken, the longest running stop-motion show on television. The executive producers on the project are Seth Green, Matt Senreich, and creators/writers/executive producers are Eric Towner and John Harvatine IV.
Fearless
Fearless, (working title) is an unscripted series currently in pilot production starring Paul de Gelder, an Australian Navy bomb clearance diver and shark attack survivor who takes on an adrenaline-fueled quest to aid individuals who risk their lives to make the world a better place. Fearless will be produced by Australia’s International Emmy-Award winning production company, Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder (CJZ).
Gun Machine
Xbox Entertainment Studios acquired the rights to Gun Machine, a hardboiled detective thriller based on the New York Times bestselling novel by Warren Ellis. Ellis will executive produce with Brett Conrad (The Killing, Sons of Anarchy, Netflix’s upcoming Marco Polo) who has signed on to write the pilot script about a detective tracking a serial killer who is tied to a mysterious collection of guns used in infamous New York murders.
Untitled JASH Comedy/Variety Half Hour
In this unique comedy format developed by Xbox Entertainment Studios with JASH (a comedy collective founded by Sarah Silverman, Michael Cera, Tim and Eric and Reggie Watts), the biggest names in comedy will showcase the people that make them laugh. Each week, a different comedian will host/curate a show featuring new and unsung talent, in various video formats. Sarah Silverman will host the pilot episode and Daniel Kellison (Late Night/Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Crank Yankers) will executive produce. The series has a pilot commitment and will begin shooting in June.
Winterworld
Xbox Entertainment Studios and IDW Entertainment are co-developing a limited event live-action series based on Chuck Dixon and artist Jorge Zaffino’s seminal graphic novel series Winterworld, in which our world has been encased in ice from pole-to-pole. The surviving humans have formed tribes that war, enslave and trade with one another in an effort to survive the infinite winter. Ted Adams and David Ozer from IDW Entertainment, and Rick Jacobs and Dave Alpert from Circle of Confusion (The Walking Dead) will executive produce.
