Visionary Production Team Assembles for Groundbreaking Venture Set to Launch in Spring 2013

NEW YORK, NY – April 25, 2012 – DefianceTM, the revolutionary transmedia event launching in Spring 2013, has commenced production on the series pilot in Toronto, ON. An unprecedented partnership between Syfy and Trion Worlds, Defiance is the first-ever convergence of television and Massive Multiplayer Online gaming, featuring an interconnected world and storylines that will co-exist on both platforms.

According to Deadline.com, we are finding out two more cast members for the Syfy show have been hired. Today we learn that Mia Kirshner and Fionnula Flanagan have joined the show. You may know Mia Kirshner from Vampire Diaries and Fionnula Flanagan is most recognizable as the mysterious Eloise Hawking from Lost.

Check out the first public view of Defiance gameplay.

From the Hollywood Reporter, we learn that Graham Green of Dances With Wolves fame joins the cast of SyFy’s upcoming TV show Defiance.

Greene will play Rafe McCawley, a self-made success who owns and operates the largest mine in the territory. His status as the richest and most powerful human in Defiance comes with a price, however, as he struggles to navigate both familial and political alliances in the new world.

Stay tuned for more information regarding Defiance!

Jaime Murray

Julie Benz

Stephanie Leonidas

Tony Curran

 
Trion announced today in a Press Release that Syfy has announced four new cast members for Defiance! We already heard about Julie Benz, but today we learn that Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran and Jaime Murray join the cast as well. For the press release and a bio on each actor please keep reading.

We get some more information regarding the TV-Show portion of Defiance. We learn today that Julie Benz, former murder-victim on Showtime’s Dexter, joins the cast for Defiance on Syfy.

In 1996, Julie auditioned for the role of “Buffy” in the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997), but lost out to Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, she was offered a small role as a vampire girl in which she did such a good job that her part was expanded to a few more episodes in playing the vampire “Darla”. With that, Julie Benz’s career had finally taken off. She reprised her role as “Darla” in the Buffy spin-off series “Angel” (1999) for two years and has had several small roles in various film productions. She also had a small, but memorable, role playing a receptionist in the movie As Good as It Gets (1997).

Even after her role on “Angel” (1999) wrapped up, Julie continued to find work on television in playing many guest staring roles in numerous popular TV shows from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (2000), to “Supernatural” (2005), to playing the lead and supporting roles in various made-for-TV movies. Most recently, she landed another notable role on the TV-cable series “Dexter” (2006) playing “Rita”, a troubled divorcée and lover of the title character played by Michael C. Hall.

According to TVWise.co.uk we are finding out that Syfy is aiming to have the show “has no firm launch date has been set for the series, but Syfy is looking at either late 2012 or summer 2013.”

Defiance has been given a thirteen episode order and I’m being told that production is due to start within the next few months (probably April) in Toronto, Canada. Writers Tim Walsh and Craig Gore have also signed up to the project along with director Scott Stewart.

Along with this news we get some insight on how the show will start off:

Defiance opens up with a flashback scene, set in the present day, which is narrated by main character Jeb Nolan. Through the on-screen scenes and the narration the audience will learn exactly what happened to Earth. In the present (presumably 2012 or 2013), alien ships enter Earth’s atmosphere, these aliens (who prefer to be called Votans rather than aliens) are fleeing their own solar system which has been destroyed and have come to earth seeking a new home. Shortly after their arrival negotiations begin between the aliens and the government(s) of Earth. After six years of negotiation, no agreement has been reached and a war begins between the two sides. By this time, Jeb Nolan (now sixteen years old) has enlisted in the military to fight for his people against these invading aliens.

We also get some interesting news regarding some of the cast:

Jeb Nolan

Much of this role is already known, given that Grant Bowler has already been cast. A former Marine who lost his family in the war, Nolan is the self appointed lawman of Defiance. He was 10 years old when the Votans first arrived. Upon returning to St Louis after the war to find Defiance, he becomes the local lawman of the town as he feels it is his town and he has a duty to protect it.

Amanda

The Mayor of Defiance, the character has been described as being in her 40′s, Human and very sexy. A source likened her to the character of President Roslin from Battlestar Galactica

Datak

The right hand to Amanda, Datak’s role could be likened to that of White House Chief of Staff. He is married to Stahma

Stahma

Datak’s faithful wife, this role was described as being very Lady Macbeth. Stahma is not satisfied with Datak’s station in Defiance and feels he (and by extension, She) should have more power. She comes from old money and is very cunning and arrogant, with a sense of entitlement.

Check out the rest of the article and find out more on the plot of Defiance.

According to Deadline, Syfy has found it’s lead for the DEFIANCE TV show, Grant Bowler! It’s great to hear that things are moving along nicely with the TV show.

I’ve learned that Ugly Betty and True Blood alum Grant Bowler has been tapped as the lead in Syfy’s new original series Defiance. The project is a live-action drama, written/executive produced by Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon, which was developed concurrently with an online video game by Trion. “Grant’s charismatic charm and his depth as an actor make him the perfect anchor as we build the ensemble for this sweeping adventure series,” said Syfy’s president of original content Mark Stern.

Trion Press Release after the break.

From a story in Variety, we find out that the TV show, DEFIANCE, has finally gotten a director, Scott Stewart. Scott Stewart’s two major directing jobs include Priest and Legion, which are bost steeped in the fantasy/scifi category.

Beyond Directing, Scott Stewart’s roots come from Visual Effects where he worked on films like Jurassic Park and Sin City. He also has Producer and Writer credit for his movie Legion.

Does the picking of a director finally show that we might see more information flowing out of both Trion’s and Syfy’s camp about Defiance?

We were at New York Comic Con this year and we got a chance to listen to Rob Hill talk about Trion’s other game, Defiance. Defiance, if you didn’t know already, is a game Trion is producing along side a new TV Show with the Syfy channel. It’s a 3rd person MMOG shooter that has a fully persistent world that is playable across three platforms: PC, Xbox and PS3. Rob discusses how their technology allows them to push builds across all three platforms seamlessly.

We found out, happily, that the user interface will be developed for each platform. More often than not, most cross platform games do a poor job optimizing the UI when changing platforms, specifically for console to PC.

Rob Hill also discussed what would happen if SyFy tanked the show. As you would expect, he mentions that all they are concerned about is making a good game first and that they are developing the game to stand alone if need be.