Flash Gordon reusing sets

Written by: Michael Hickerson (SoSF Journalist)

SciFi is getting its money’s worth with a series of sets from the upcoming “Tin Man” miniseries. The alien-world sets are being used for their upcoming production of “Flash Gordon,” which is set to debut later this summer.

“Flash Gordon” will make use of some the elaborate sets created for “Tin Man” in Vancouver, Canada, according to Mark Stern, SciFi’s executive vice president of programming. The sets are being used to create the planet Mongo for the upcoming series permiere, which goes before cameras this week.

“There are some elements of the villain in ‘Tin Man’ that are similarly dictatoresque in the villain Ming the Merciless on Mongo,” Stern said in an interview at an NBC press event in Pasadena, Calif., over the weekend. “The Wicked Witch in ‘Tin Man’ definitely has this dictatorship thing going on. So her palace has this Albert Speer-like 1930s design, with Roman columns and fascinating big elaborate halls. So we could retool and repaint and change the glass, and it will be very distinguishably different.”
We’re shooting in Vancouver, same place, but this is a very different set,” said series star, Eric Johnson. “It’s like if someone gave you the frame of a car, and you can easily put a new engine in it.”

“Flash Gordon” will debut on SciFi in August.