Two big geek culture properties got TV deals this week, plus there’s more TV news on Rick and Morty, Lord of the Rings, The Boys, Roche Limit, and Snowpiercer.

FremantleMedia North America has acquired TV rights to Astro City, the long-running comic series written by Kurt Busiek, with art by Brent Anderson and covers by Alex Ross.  FremantleMedia plans a live action drama series; the pilot script is being written by Busiek and Rick Alexander, whose major TV credit is writer and producer on Lifetime medical series is Strong Medicine. Alexander’s been moving geekward recently, with involvement in developing properties American Flagg! (see "’American Flagg!’ Bought for Television") and Gravel (see "Warren Ellis’ ‘Gravel’ Gets a Director").

The monthly Vertigo Astro City comic series is ending, pending a transition to original graphic novels as the primary vehicle for new story content (see "’Astro City’ Monthly Ends").

Entertainment One / Mark Gordon will develop, produce, and finance a live action TV series based on the Capcom Street Fighter property, according to Deadline.  The executive producing team was responsible for the Machinima web series (see "Live Action ‘Street Fighter V’ Miniseries Announced").  The storyline will be tied to the World Warrior arc from the 1991 video game release.  Looking for broad four-quadrant appeal, Gordon noted the "ethnically diverse characters and powerful women featured in the game" as a path to "an inclusive and engaging TV universe."  The game franchise has sold over 40 million software units since launch.

Karen Fukuhara, who played Katana in Suicide Squad, has been cast as Female in the upcoming Amazon series The Boys, based on the Garth Ennis – Darick Robertson comic series, according to Deadline.  Erin Moriarty will play Starlight (see "First Casting for ‘The Boys’"), and other cast members include Antony Starr, Dominique McElligott, Chace Crawford, Jesse T. Usher, and Nathan Mitchell, according to the report.

There’s no deal so far for a fourth season of Rick and Morty, co-creator Dan Harmon said on Twitter last week, throwing a chill down the spines of retailers, publishers, and fans everywhere.  Responding to a fan who was asking about the next season, Harmon said "[I]t can be challenging, especially with crippling lazy alcoholism, to write a show that hasn’t been ordered by a network."  It seems doubtful there won’t be a fourth season, given that we just saw a whole new raft of Rick and Morty licensees announced by Adult Swim and the show has blown up into a massive success, but the pace looks like it will be slow.  That hasn’t been crippling in the past; the wait between the second and third seasons was long, but the third season seems to have been the one that set the property on fire.

Amazon may spend as much as $250 million in production and marketing on two seasons of its Lord of the Rings series, according to internal documents obtained by Reuters, which would bring the total cost, combined with the $250 million it spent to obtain the rights (see "Amazon Makes Long-Term Commitment to ‘LOTR’"), to over a half billion dollars for two seasons.  That could still be a money-maker for Amazon.  Other information in the documents obtained by Reuters showed that The Man in the High Castle, based on the Philip K. Dick novel, had one of Amazon’s highest production costs per episode, but had the lowest "cost per first stream," a metric Amazon used to measure the effectiveness of bringing new members into its Amazon Prime universe.

TNT has brought in Graeme Manson, who co-created Orphan Black, as the showrunner for its Snowpiercer series, according to Variety.  The series will star Jennifer Connelly, and is based on the 2013 film, which was in turn based on the bande dessinee by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette (see "January Geek TV Round-Up").

And here’s another place the Orphan Black lineage is turning up.  Syfy has ordered a pilot for a series based on the Image Comics series Roche Limit, by Michael Moreci, Steve Seeley, Vic Malhotra, and Kyle Charles, according to io9.  Will Pascoe, who was a writer and co-producer on Orphan Black, is set to adapt and may be showrunner.