Netforce
Status: MiniSeries -- Available on Home Video
$17 plus shipping for videotape--NTSC only
Check amazon.com
Thanks to Ralph.
Thurs., June 25, 1998
Scott Bakula stars in 'Netforce' By Adam Sandler Jun. 25, 1998, 8:06 a.m./ET
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Scott Bakula, star of the NBC series ''Quantum Leap,'' has been tapped for the lead role in ABC-TV's four-hour mini-series, "Tom Clancy's Netforce.''
Bakula will play Alex Michaels, a deputy commander of a new division of the FBI, Netforce, that polices the online universe.
Michaels is promoted to commander in the wake of his best friend's murder and is charged with finding the killer. He gets distracted when it becomes apparent that somebody is trying to infiltrate the computer system at Netforce, an act that could have devastating and perhaps global repercussions.
"Net Force'' is based on a story and characters by Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, penned for the small screen by Lionel Chetwynd and directed by Rob Lieberman.
Production began last week in Los Angeles and will then move to locations in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Bakula will divide his time between "Netforce' and a starring role in "Luminarias,'' an independent film, adapted from the play of the same name.
Bakula will play an attorney who falls in love with his counterpart in a divorce case in "Luminarias,'' a romantic comedy.
Reuters/Variety Copyright (c) 1998 Reuters Limited.
Netforce
(Mon., Feb. 1, and Thurs., Feb. 4, 9 p.m. ET)
from People Online, now available only on AOL
I may be out of step with the times, but "Internet thriller"
is my idea of an oxymoron. Where's the kick in watching some technowhiz tap his
or her keyboard (my, how those fingers fly) and stare at the computer screen?
This four-hour miniseries -- formally titled Tom Clancy's Netforce
(because it's based on a story by the bestseller machine who wrote The Hunt for Red October)
-- concerns a special FBI unit charged with protecting the Internet from criminal manipulation in 2005.
After the murder of the Netforce leader (Kris Kristofferson), his successor
(former Quantum Leap-er Scott Bakula) suspects that an evil entity is wreaking havoc on world
communications by conducting a "selective probing of Net vulnerabilities through fiber-optic links."
So Bakula issues his team dull orders like, "Run all our emergency utility programs -- I want a full
diagnostic." The White House chief of staff (Brian Dennehy) tries to compensate for Bakula's colorlessness
by giving the Netforce rustic warnings to find the bad guys or else ("The hog is in your sty. . . .
You damn well better deliver the bacon").
Although the miniseries climaxes with a shootout in and around the Oval Office
(hey, it beats browsing the Web), the long-awaited unveiling of the true villain comes as a
complete nonsurprise. The one thing that kept me logged on was Judge Reinhold's performance
as a jauntily rapacious computer tycoon who "apprenticed under the great Bill Gates" but makes his
mentor look like a softy. Internet satire? Now, that's perfectly logical.
Bottom Line: notsohot.com
Netforce details from Kristy, via the message board
A Georgetown theater marquee reads: "Lecture Series, Friday Night: Supreme
Court Justice Kenneth Starr." Don't fret: It's fiction, all for NBC's mini
"Tom Clancy's Net Force," set in the year 2005. The marquee was director Rob
Lieberman's idea of a joke, even though he, too, hopes history doesn't make
him correct!
Lieberman's back from location in D.C., where they were filming
outside the Hay Adams Hotel with cameras catching the President's plane
arriving from his vacation in Martha's Vineyard to make the speech about
bombings in the Sudan and Afghanistan.
Lieberman told me they'd also
constructed replicas of the Oval Office and corridor leading to it in the
White House, which undergoes a bloody siege in the film. The $16 million ABC
mini is exec produced by Gil Cates, Dennis Doty and Steve Pieczenik and
skedded for February airing.
More Netforce news bytes
From the Washington Post
THE RELIABLE SOURCE
By Annie Groer and Ann Gerhart
Friday, August 21, 1998; Page B03
So what was a real movie crew doing setting up near the
executive mansion? Filming an ABC movie about a gang of cyber-baddies who take over the White House, of course. In "Tom Clancy's Netforce," starring Scott Bakula and set to air in February, an FBI anti-terrorist force run by Kris Kristofferson battles Internet iniquity. Much virtual reality ensues.
and...
Is Son of a Union Man All They Bargained For?
By R.H. Melton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 19, 1998; Page V02
Gilmore's Presidential Role
...Speaking of boffo, Gilmore had a walk-on Monday night at the Richmond filming of "NetForce," a new Tom Clancy thriller starring Sandra Bullock...
[ed. note: ****Sandra Bullock??????****]
that will be a miniseries on ABC.
Special effects crews turned the Capitol grounds into a mock White House
and the adjacent Executive Mansion became -- at least for a night, anyway
-- a Georgetown-style private home.
Gilmore's role: president of the United States. Shooting went to about 5
a.m. yesterday and included Judge Reinhold, Brian Dennehy and Gilmore
-- shown arriving at the mansion in a presidential motorcade. He was
accompanied by his first lady on screen and in life, Roxane Gilmore.
And
from Wendy on AOL
"I have just been told that Netforce by Tom Clancy, will be coming out in
paperback on September 3rd over here" [ed note: this book came out in the U.K., and, according to sources, is not the same story as in the movie]
"Net Force" news bytes
From Mary S. on AOL and "Superlibrarian Rose"
I found the following items doing a news search on Yahoo. Both are from Reuters.
First is from a series of news stories from the state of Virginia:
Miniseries Filmed In VA - (RICHMOND) -- Lights... camera... and film action in Central Virginia. The Richmond area is the setting for production of a television mini-series called ``NetForce''... based on a soon-to-be-published book by Tom Clancy. The city is standing-in for Washington, D.C. NetForce has an eleven- week shooting schedule... and the crew will spend half of that time in Central Virginia. The mini-series will air on A-B-C over two nights next February.
The other item is from the 7/31/98 column of Army Archerd:
[Brian] Dennehy's now also in ABC's four-hour Tom Clancy "Net Force" with Scott Bakula, Kris Kristofferson and Joanna Going for Cates/Doty Prods., with Rob Lieberman directing.
Some more info on Netforce from August of 1997, courtesy of Donna.
A press release from 8/97.
ABC Pictures, C.P. Group And Big Entertainment To Develop 'Tom Clancy's Net Force(TM)' As Mini-Series For ABC Television Network
BOCA RATON, Fla., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- "Tom Clancy's Net Force(TM)," a thriller about electronic-based terrorism and crime with worldwide catastrophic effects, will be developed into a four-hour miniseries to air on the ABC Television Network in 1998, in an agreement announced today by ABC Pictures, the C.P. Group and BIG Entertainment.
The agreement represents BIG Entertainment's second joint effort with ABC, Inc., a division of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS), and its first major foray into primetime network television. "Tom Clancy's Net Force" is a property of Netco Partners, a 50/50 joint venture between BIG Entertainment and the C.P. Group
-- New York Times best-selling author Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who, as a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, served as the nation's principal hostage negotiator.
Set in the near future, "Tom Clancy's Net Force" focuses on an elite, military-style division of the F.B.I. that is granted extraordinary powers to combat technology-based crime and terrorism.
Didier Peitri, Senior Vice President for ABC Pictures, said, "'Tom Clancy's Net Force,' will be a major television event. We are delighted to work with Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik and BIG Entertainment and we know that we will create a property with worldwide appeal."
"We are thrilled to join with ABC in bringing this exciting entertainment property to network television," said Mitchell Rubenstein, Chairman of BIG Entertainment. Added Steve Pieczenik, "Tom Clancy is unquestionably one of the world's greatest storytellers, and I am proud to have partnered with him, and now, with ABC Pictures, to produce Tom Clancy's Net Force."
The William Morris Agency represented Netco Partners in its agreement with ABC.
Three of Tom Clancy's novels, "The Hunt for Red October," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," have been worldwide box office and video blockbusters, generating revenues in excess of $1 billion.
And this article The Write News 8-21-97
Thanks to Donna
And from Margaret
Simultaneously with shooting Luminarias, Scott is filming the four-hour ABC miniseries Tom Clancy's Netforce. He plays Alex Michaels, deputy commander of Netforce, a new division of the F.B.I. which polices the Internet. One Internet site says the action takes place in 2025; a press release says "the near future". When Michaels' boss/best friend is murdered, Michaels is promoted to Commander and must try to find the killer. However, someone is trying to infiltrate the computer system at Netforce, an act which could have devastating repercussions. Scott playing a computer whiz is a nice irony for someone who's said in the past that he's not very computer-oriented.
It looks like this project is being planned as a major event, as many Clancy projects are. Netforce wasn't a novel first, but a couple of tie-in novels aimed at teen-agers are planned in conjunction with the mini-series, as are some toys, including some action figures.
Netforce is based on a story and characters by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, written for television by Lionel Chetwynd, and directed by Rob Lieberman. Executive producers are Gilbert Cates, Dennis Doty, Clancy and Pieczenik. Pieczenik's says that the mini-series was originally planned to be aired in May, but was pushed back to November 1998.
Info courtesy of Margaret Colchin at PQL fan club
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