James Marsters - The Dresden Files

THE DRESDEN FILES NEWS ARCHIVE The Dresden Files narrate the life and adventures of Harry Dresden, a wizard who works as a private detective in Chicago: Storm Front Fool Moon Grave Peril Summer Knight Death Masks Blood Rites Dead Beat As James Marsters is the narrator of the audiobooks, his fans are campaigning for him to get the part also on the show that is coming to television soon, produced by Nicholas Cage and Norm Golightly of Saturn Films. Erik* Dresden is a detective with extraordinary powers, the kind that could belong only to the descendant of a long line of wizards. Where others see the typical crimes of assault, kidnapping and serial killings, Erik sees otherworldly forces at work — which only he knows how to combat. Whether consulting for the police on inexplicable crimes or following his own cases, Erik has a unique outlook on the world, and wields a wry sense of humor as one of his most potent weapons. The name of the main character seems to have been changed for the future television series, to avoid any comparison with the other famous wizard called Harry... HARRY OR ERIK, JAMES IS DRESDEN! November 2005* - It's over: the actor who will play "Harry Dresden" is [Paul Blackthorne]. According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, James "passed on the part in the very first week of casting": Okay, I usually don't comment on casting specifics beyond "We just cast ------- and he's great!" But I do feel people deserve an explanation on the James Marsters thing. So here it is: James Marsters passed on the part in the very first week of casting. James was not alone in this. It's a normal part of the process. We made a list of several dozen guys and checked their availabilities. About half of them dropped out at that point because they weren't interested or weren't available. We contacted James' agent and he told us James was passing because he didn't want to move to Toronto for five years. No harm, no foul. Like I said, this is a normal part of the process. But then, surprisingly, James' manager posted on his official website and asked the fans to write to SciFi to try to get James the job. Which was mystifying to me, considering that at this point, James had already passed. I don't know why this happened. The most innocent explanation is that there was a communications failure between James' manager and his agent. But it did mean that many devoted fans spent a lot of time writing letters and postcards that weren't going to do any good because James wasn't interested in the job. To make things worse, that same person recently posted an update implying that James didn't get the job because we picked someone else. Now I'm not saying James would've gotten the job if he'd thrown his hat in the ring. He might've. He might not've. But the reason James didn't get the job is because James didn't want the job. Let me reiterate. We were interested in James as one of our candidates. James passed. James passed before the pilot was even officially announced, before the story appeared on his website, before we held a single audition. Our final candidates emerged from a long process of auditions and test deals. We narrowed over fifty interested actors down to eight or so very talented finalists. The person who will emerge from this group will do so because he is the most talented guy we could find after a long and arduous process. And we'll tell you who is it as soon as it's officially released to the press. Because that's how things are supposed to be done. K. End of rant. Robert (Hewitt Wolfe) PS: Just so everyone knows, I've got no hard feelings toward James. I enjoyed working with James before and I look forward to doing so again. But I can't put a gun to his head and frogmarch him to Toronto if he doesn't want to go. [Source] December 2004 - Author Jim Butcher tells fans on his official site that he'd love "Angel" blondie-boy James Marsters to star in the recently announced TV version of his book. If the actor gets the nod, he'd play "an irascible wizard named Harry Dresden, who regularly gives the magical establishment indigestion — and the police, the same. Take Sam Spade, your Average Joe Underdog Action Star, and toss in some spellcraft, and you get Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden". Whether that happens or not (not his decision), he sounds confident that the studio behind the new telemovie will do his tale justice. "Sci Fi and Lion's Gate are both very supportive of the series — and they're now planning on doing as much as they can to draw the series directly from the source material — the books! So, the project is still underway, has support, and is being planned as something much like the books rather than being slated for rearranging", says Butcher. The site reports that, "This is moving fast. Really fast, actually. Hollywood deals — even for TV shows, setting aside things like movies (to go back to Spider-Man, note, we're looking at the third movie coming out in 2007), are measured in increments of TV seasons or years. We've seen movement on this possibility inside of the first two years after the novels got optioned. Movement of any kind in that timeframe is huge. Any TV possibility has to pass through a veritable gauntlet of review by men in suits with often scant or zero familiarity with the subject at hand. We're doing well so far, and we'll be doing really well if something shows up on television in 2005 (my personal current bet, which is based on nothing whatsoever, would be more like 2006)". Apparently there will be a telemovie first, and if that goes well it could lead to a series. [Source] [HOME]

The Dresden Files narrate the life and adventures of Harry Dresden, a wizard who works as a private detective in Chicago:

Storm Front
Fool Moon
Grave Peril
Summer Knight
Death Masks
Blood Rites
Dead Beat

As James Marsters is the narrator of the audiobooks, his fans are campaigning for him to get the part also on the show that is coming to television soon, produced by Nicholas Cage and Norm Golightly of Saturn Films.

Erik* Dresden is a detective with extraordinary powers, the kind that could belong only to the descendant of a long line of wizards. Where others see the typical crimes of assault, kidnapping and serial killings, Erik sees otherworldly forces at work — which only he knows how to combat. Whether consulting for the police on inexplicable crimes or following his own cases, Erik has a unique outlook on the world, and wields a wry sense of humor as one of his most potent weapons.

*The name of the main character seems to have been changed for the future television series, to avoid any comparison with the other famous wizard called Harry...

HARRY OR ERIK, JAMES IS DRESDEN!

November 2005 - It's over: the actor who will play "Harry Dresden" is [Paul Blackthorne]. According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, James "passed on the part in the very first week of casting":

Okay, I usually don't comment on casting specifics beyond "We just cast ------- and he's great!"

But I do feel people deserve an explanation on the James Marsters thing. So here it is:

James Marsters passed on the part in the very first week of casting.

James was not alone in this. It's a normal part of the process. We made a list of several dozen guys and checked their availabilities. About half of them dropped out at that point because they weren't interested or weren't available. We contacted James' agent and he told us James was passing because he didn't want to move to Toronto for five years.

No harm, no foul. Like I said, this is a normal part of the process.

But then, surprisingly, James' manager posted on his official website and asked the fans to write to SciFi to try to get James the job. Which was mystifying to me, considering that at this point, James had already passed.

I don't know why this happened. The most innocent explanation is that there was a communications failure between James' manager and his agent. But it did mean that many devoted fans spent a lot of time writing letters and postcards that weren't going to do any good because James wasn't interested in the job.

To make things worse, that same person recently posted an update implying that James didn't get the job because we picked someone else. Now I'm not saying James would've gotten the job if he'd thrown his hat in the ring. He might've. He might not've. But the reason James didn't get the job is because James didn't want the job.

Let me reiterate. We were interested in James as one of our candidates. James passed. James passed before the pilot was even officially announced, before the story appeared on his website, before we held a single audition.

Our final candidates emerged from a long process of auditions and test deals. We narrowed over fifty interested actors down to eight or so very talented finalists. The person who will emerge from this group will do so because he is the most talented guy we could find after a long and arduous process.

And we'll tell you who is it as soon as it's officially released to the press. Because that's how things are supposed to be done.

K. End of rant.

Robert (Hewitt Wolfe)

PS: Just so everyone knows, I've got no hard feelings toward James. I enjoyed working with James before and I look forward to doing so again. But I can't put a gun to his head and frogmarch him to Toronto if he doesn't want to go.

[Source]

December 2004 - Author Jim Butcher tells fans on his official site that he'd love "Angel" blondie-boy James Marsters to star in the recently announced TV version of his book.

If the actor gets the nod, he'd play "an irascible wizard named Harry Dresden, who regularly gives the magical establishment indigestion — and the police, the same. Take Sam Spade, your Average Joe Underdog Action Star, and toss in some spellcraft, and you get Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden".

Whether that happens or not (not his decision), he sounds confident that the studio behind the new telemovie will do his tale justice. "Sci Fi and Lion's Gate are both very supportive of the series — and they're now planning on doing as much as they can to draw the series directly from the source material — the books! So, the project is still underway, has support, and is being planned as something much like the books rather than being slated for rearranging", says Butcher.

The site reports that, "This is moving fast. Really fast, actually. Hollywood deals — even for TV shows, setting aside things like movies (to go back to Spider-Man, note, we're looking at the third movie coming out in 2007), are measured in increments of TV seasons or years. We've seen movement on this possibility inside of the first two years after the novels got optioned. Movement of any kind in that timeframe is huge. Any TV possibility has to pass through a veritable gauntlet of review by men in suits with often scant or zero familiarity with the subject at hand. We're doing well so far, and we'll be doing really well if something shows up on television in 2005 (my personal current bet, which is based on nothing whatsoever, would be more like 2006)". Apparently there will be a telemovie first, and if that goes well it could lead to a series.

[Source]