Spielberg Taken With SCI FI
teven Spielberg will executive produce a 20-hour miniseries about alien
abduction called Taken that will air on SCI FI in the third quarter of 2000.
The project, which goes into production this summer, will weave together 50
years of abduction incidents into the story of one man's experiences.
"As a 20-hour miniseries, the project can give us the opportunity to involve
viewers in a way that combines the narrative scope of movies with the luxury of
unfolding that adventure over a much longer period of time," Spielberg said.
"There clearly was no other place but SCI FI Channel for a project of this
magnitude."
Taken will be shown in two-hour installments over a period of 10 days and is
being billed by SCI FI as the most ambitious miniseries ever created. No
director or cast has been named for the $40 million project.
Lucas Loses The Film
hen George Lucas shoots the second and third episodes of the new Star Wars trilogy, he'll be doing it without film.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Electronics and Panavision Inc. are developing a filmless digital camera specifically for Lucas to use on Episode II and Episode III.
Lucas has long been an all-digital advocate when it comes to making motion pictures, and he reportedly tested some filmless cameras on the set of The Phantom Menace. Sony says it plans to give Lucas the first production-ready prototypes of the new equipment this fall, which will use high-performance lenses developed by Panavision.
BKN Picks Up Starship Troopers
he Bohbot Kids Network has ordered 40 half-hour episodes of the computer-animated kids series Starship Troopers: Bug Wars.
Bug Wars follows the ongoing adventures of four members of the Starship Troopers, a group of futuristic soldiers who are fighting the First Interstellar War against giant alien insects.
The series--based on Robert Heinlein's classic SF book Starship Troopers--is being produced by Foundation Imaging and Flat Earth Productions. Bug Wars is slated to debut this fall along with several other Bohbot series, including RosWell Conspiracies.
The Bohbot "network" is a syndicated block of kids programming that includes shows such as Extreme Ghostbusters and Pocket Dragons. BKN is currently cleared in 92 percent of the U.S. TV market.
B5 Actors Slide Onto SCI FI
ormer Babylon 5 actors Peter Jurasik and Jerry Doyle will be joining the
universe of the SCI FI series Sliders next season.
Jurasik is set to play the recurring role of Dr. Oberon Geiger, a disembodied scientist who wreaks havoc with the Sliders when he causes the interdimensional travelers to have an identity crisis.
Meanwhile, Doyle will play Sgt. Vernon Larson, the commander in charge of
troops in a type of purgatory between Earth dimensions where he is ordered to
protect a mysterious bunker. Jurasik will appear in the season-five premiere
episode "The Unstuck Man" as well as "Eye of the Storm" and "Applied Physics,"
while Doyle will guest star in "Strangers and Comrades."
The fifth season of Sliders begins June 11.
WB Pulls New Buffy Episode
he WB Network has pulled a new episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer from its lineup due to similarities between that show and the recent high school shootings in Littleton, Colo.
The episode, titled "Earshot," was originally scheduled to run on April 27 but will be replaced by a Buffy repeat called "Bad Girls."
According to reports, the WB will continue with its original schedule of new Buffy episodes starting the week of May 2. It's not known if "Earshot" will ever be shown.
Alba Talks Dark Angel
essica Alba, the young star of James Cameron's upcoming science fiction TV series Dark Angel, recently spoke to the Toronto Sun about her role in the project.
"No, I'm not the Bionic Woman," explained the 18-year-old actress, who still lives at home with her parents in Los Angeles, Calif.
"I am a genetically enhanced superhuman living in the 21st century where government and police control everything," she said. She added that the series is set about 20 years in the future and focuses on her character, Max, who is on the run from government agents that want to return her to military service.
In order to escape her pursuers, Max hooks up with the underground movement in the now decadent city of San Francisco.
Galaxy Quest Gets Underway
ilming has begun on the DreamWorks science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest, which stars Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman.
Dean Parisot is directing the movie, about five washed up actors who used to star in a 1970s TV series called Galaxy Quest.
Twenty years later the actors still don their costumes to make appearances at science fiction conventions, but not all of their fans are human. It seems that a group of extraterrestrials think Galaxy Quest was a television transmission of "historical documents," and they enlist Captain Peter Quincy Taggart (Allen) and his crew to fight in a war against a deadly alien race.
Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni and Sam Rockwell will play supporting roles, while Industrial Light & Magic will provide the special effects. The screenplay was written by David Howard and Robert Gordon.
Is Cronenberg Like The Fly?
s director David Cronenberg as weird as the intelligent but oddly gory films he likes to make, such as Crash and the upcoming eXistenZ?
That was the question running through Jennifer Jason Leigh's mind when she signed on to star in Cronenberg's latest movie, a high-tech thriller about a game designer whose creations are driven by organic technology.
"I really didn't have any idea what he would be like," Leigh told the Toronto Sun. "But I guessed the closest thing would have been Jeff Goldblum from The Fly--eccentric, very fast talking, ideas bubbling all over, high-strung and wired."
But the 36-year-old actress found that Cronenberg was just the opposite from that, a family man whose keen ideas were tempered with a sense of humor. "I think he is just so wise and so sweet and so gentle," she added. "I think the happiest people are the ones who are the most creative--and he is."
Interops Gambles On Star Wars
hat are the odds that Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace will break the opening weekend box-office record set by The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997?
Pretty good for the film but not so great for gamblers who want to place their bets with the online bookmaker Interops.com.
Interops is offering 1 to 20 odds for anyone who'd like to bet in favor of Episode I, meaning gamblers would win $1 for every $20 they lay down if the film surpasses The Lost World's record. On the flip side, Interops is offering 17 to 1 odds for those who want to bet against the Force, meaning players can win $17 for every $1 they bet if The Lost World hangs tough.
Anyone who is over 18 and wants to try their luck can place a bet with Interops between now and May 19, the film's official opening day. Interops said it will be basing its results on the four-day opening weekend total as calculated by ACNielsen EDI and Twentieth Century Fox Distribution.
Fox Lands The Matrix, Soldier
ox paid an estimated $10-$13 million for TV rights to the Warner Bros. SF flicks The Matrix and Soldier, as well as the non-genre film Lost & Found.
Variety reported the deal and also noted that HBO has picked up the pay cable rights to The Matrix.
As reported earlier in Sci Fi Wire, the Turner stations TNT and TBS already bought into the film, giving The Matrix a somewhat complicated TV schedule. As it stands, HBO will have a 20-month exclusive window to run the picture starting in about a year.
Following that, Turner will get the film for eight runs over a six-month span, then Fox will be able to show the flick twice during the next year and a half. Finally, the TV rights will go back to Turner for another three years or so.
Fortunately for TV viewers, the deal for Soldier was not nearly as complex. According to Variety, Fox has paid for one run of the film during a one-year span and then TBS will get the movie for the next four years.
1999 Hugo Nominees Announced
he World Science Fiction Society has announced the nominees for this year's Hugo Awards, which are given annually for achievements in science fiction.
This year's winners--determined by a vote of WSFS members--will be awarded at Aussiecon 3, the 1999 World Science Fiction Convention, which will be held in Melbourne, Australia, from Sept. 2-6. This year's nominees include:
- Novel
- Children of God by Mary Doria Russell (Villard)
- Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
- Distraction by Bruce Sterling (Bantam Spectra)
- Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor)
- To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (Bantam Spectra)
- Novella
- "Aurora in Four Voices" by Catherine Asaro (Analog Dec. 1998)
- "Get Me to the Church On Time" by Terry Bisson (Asimov's May 1998)
- "Oceanic" by Greg Egan (Asimov's Aug. 1998)
- "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang (Starlight 2)
- "The Summer Isles" by Ian R. MacLeod (Asimov's Oct./Nov. 1998)
- Novelette
- "Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson (Starlight 2)
- "Echea" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's July 1998)
- "The Planck Dive" by Greg Egan (Asimov's Feb. 1998)
- "Steamship Soldier on the Information Front" by Nancy Kress (Future Histories; Asimov's April 1998)
- "Taklamakan" by Bruce Sterling (Asimov's Oct./Nov. 1998)
- "Time Gypsy" by Ellen Klages (Bending the Landscape)
- "Zwarte Piet's Tale" by Allen Steele (Analog Dec. 1998)
- Short Story
- "Cosmic Corkscrew" by Michael A. Burstein (Analog June 1998)
- "Maneki Neko" by Bruce Sterling (F&SF May 1998)
- "Radiant Doors" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's Sept. 1998)
- "The Very Pulse of the Machine" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's Feb. 1998)
- "Whiptail" by Robert Reed (Asimov's Oct./Nov. 1998)
- "Wild Minds" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's May 1998)
- Related Book
- The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch (The Free Press)
- Hugo, Nebula & World Fantasy Awards by Howard DeVore (Advent:Publishers)
- Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years by Everett F. Bleiler (Kent State University Press)
- Spectrum 5: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art by Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood Books)
- The Works of Jack Williamson: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide by Richard A. Hauptmann (The NESFA Press)
- Dramatic Presentation
- "Sleeping in Light" (Babylon 5)
- Dark City
- Pleasantville
- Star Trek: Insurrection
- The Truman Show
- Professional Editor
- Gardner Dozois
- Scott Edelman
- David G. Hartwell
- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
- Stanley Schmidt
- Gordon Van Gelder
- Professional Artist
- Jim Burns
- Bob Eggleton
- Donato Giancola
- Don Maitz
- Nick Stathopoulos
- Michael Whelan
- Semiprozine
- Interzone
- Locus
- The New York Review of Science Fiction
- Science Fiction Chronicle
- Speculations
- Fanzine
- Ansible
- File 770
- Mimosa
- Plokta
- Tangent
- Thyme
- Fan Writer
- Bob Devney
- Mike Glyer
- Dave Langford
- Evelyn C. Leeper
- Maureen Kincaid Speller
- Fan Artist
- Freddie Baer
- Brad Foster
- Ian Gunn
- Teddy Harvia
- Joe Mayhew
- D. West
- John W. Campbell Award (Not a Hugo)
- Kage Baker*
- Julie E. Czerneda*
- Nalo Hopkinson*
- Susan R. Matthews*
- James Van Pelt*
(* second year of eligibility)
Several categories have six or more nominees due to ties for fifth place.
Fans Waiting For Cryptonomicon
hile moviegoers are already lining up outside theaters to get their tickets for the May 19 release of Star Wars: Episode I, fans of SF author Neal Stephenson are doing the same thing in cyberspace for his new book Cryptonomicon.
Although Cryptonomicon isn't due to hit store shelves until May 4, it's already selling at No. 3 on the Amazon.com SF best-sellers list thanks to advanced orders placed online.
Cryptonomicon is also a hot topic on the Internet, where fans have been discussing the novel for weeks with those lucky enough to have read preview copies. Not bad for a science fiction novel that even the author admits isn't standard science fictional fare.
"What I am doing here is giving the science fiction treatment to characters, times and settings that are not the usual province of SF," Stephenson told Sci Fi Wire. "Half of the novel takes place during WWII and half during the present day--none of it in the future, and none in any sort of fantasy world."
"People who are accustomed to reading conventional (i.e. non-SF) novels will probably find that I come at these topics from weird angles," he added. "People who are accustomed to SF will probably recognize my approach as being SF-ish, even though the time and place
aren't."
Stephenson said he was "reasonably confident that a lot of SF readers will enjoy the book," which is the first in what the publisher is calling a "cycle" of novels. "We were trying to come up with a term referring to a set of books that were interrelated, but not as closely tied together as most trilogies are," Stephenson explained. "'Series' would work okay, but 'Cycle' sounds a lot more pretentious, so we went with that."
Precedence Plays Wheel Of Time
recedence Entertainment said it's at work on a collectible card game based on Robert Jordan's best-selling fantasy series Wheel of Time.
The game will launch in October with more than 300 cards, depicting characters, locations and events from Jordan's epic that will be illustrated by a cadre of world-class fantasy artists.
To date Jordan has released eight novels in the Wheel of Time series, which is set in a feudal world where Rand Al Thor, the Dragon Reborn, rises in a quest to unite nations and overcome the reawakening force of The Dark One. Gamers will play the opposing forces of Light and Darkness as they battle for control of The Pattern, an eternal force akin to fate.
Sierra Plans Half-Life Expansion
ierra Studios plans to release an expansion to its best-selling 1998 science fiction game Half-Life.
The add-on is called Half-Life: Opposing Force and takes place in the same covert Black Mesa Research Facility that was the setting for the original game.
In Half-Life players took on the role of scientist Gordon Freeman, who had to find his way out of Black Mesa after an accident unleashed hordes of deadly aliens. In Opposing Force, gamers will play one of the government soldiers sent in to "clean up" the accident.
In addition to providing a new story line, Opposing Force will give players access to a new arsenal of weapons and let them fight it out with a never-before-seen race of fierce aliens. The expansion will also include multiplayer maps designed by game industry all-stars.
Briefly Noted
- On May 11 Sonic Images will release the audio CD The Snow Files - The Film Music of Mark Snow, with selections from The X-Files, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and other movies.
- Toho has reportedly changed the name of its next Godzilla film from Godzilla Millennium to Godzilla 2000.
- Warner Bros. Family Entertainment plans to release the animated feature Batman Beyond: The Movie-- which is based on the Batman Beyond TV series--to home video on May 18.
- The 1999 German Phantastik Awards were announced on April 18. A list of winners is available on the Phantastik Web site.
- Disney plans to show its classic films Tron, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mary Poppins and Swiss Family Robinson at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., during the month of May.
