JoBlo’s own Lance Vlcek recently had the chance to interview one of my favorite people in the entertainment business, Full Moon founder Charles Band, about his upcoming release The Primevals – and during their conversation, Band happened to mention a potential project that really captured my imagination. If all goes well, Full Moon will be teaming with a major streaming service to revive the Trancers franchise as a TV series!
Band told Lance, “We have a couple of really interesting possible reboot deals brewing. Now, of course, everything’s slowed down or stopped because of the writers strike and the SAG strike, but in time they’ll turn around, and it will be nice to see some of these movies like Trancers, which is one of them, get made – in the case of Trancers, into a really hopefully well-appointed series on one of the bigger streaming services.“
Trancers is one of my favorite Full Moon franchises, and I’ve been left hoping for another sequel for twenty years now, so it’s good to hear it might still have some life in it. The franchise dates back to the pre-Full Moon days, but all of the sequels were Full Moon releases. It began with the first Trancers in 1984, which saw Tim Thomerson taking on the role of Jack Deth, a police trooper from the 23rd century who specialized in hunting down trancers, people who were turned into violent, mindless “zombies” by a psychic villain. Deth had to travel back in time to ’84 to bring that villain to justice… but even though that bad guy was defeated, different variations of trancers kept popping up, giving Deth reason to come back for Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (1991), Trancers III: Deth Lives (1992), Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (1994), Trancers 5: Sudden Deth (1995), and Trancers 6 (2002). Thomerson reprised the role of Jack Deth in all of the sequels except Trancers 6, where Zette Sullivan stepped in as his daughter Jo Deth. There’s also a 20 minute short film called Trancers: City of Lost Angels, which was shot in the ’80s but not released until 2013.
Back in 2009, Thomerson mentioned that he might return for one more Trancers movie that would be filmed in China and could co-star Bill Moseley, but that project never made it into production. Thomerson is 77 now, so the chances of him playing Jack Deth one more time might be slim – but Harrison Ford just played Indiana Jones again at the age of 80, so I’m not ready to count Thomerson out just yet.
Whether or not Thomerson would be asked to play much of a role on Trancers TV series, I do think the basic concept of the franchise could sustain a series. Not only do you have a badass trooper hunting down violent, mindless beings, but the franchise also takes a unique approach to time travel where someone from the future can send their consciousness back in time to inhabit the body of an ancestor. Plus there’s other fun futuristic tech like time machines, androids, and gadgets like the “long second” watch, which slows down time around the person who activates it.
Are you a fan of the Trancers franchise? What do you think of it being rebooted as a streaming TV series? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Lance’s interview with Band can be seen in the embed at the top of this article.