Is Mulder Being Replaced?
avid Duchovny and his famous character Fox Mulder may be leaving the cast of The X-Files, reports Ain't It Cool News.
According to a source who was "sniffing around" around the Fox lot, Duchovny may be replaced by Stephen Rea of The Crying Game.
The Ain't It Cool snoop also reported that Duchovny would be absent from the last four episodes of The X-Files this season. Officially, both Duchovny and X-Files creator Chris Carter have said they will probably not return after the show's seventh season.
Whedon's X-Men Rewrite Axed
oss Whedon stopped by the official Buffy bulletin board over the weekend to let fans know that his rewrite of the upcoming X-Men film won't be used.
"Wanted to let you all know that they are not shooting my rewrite," Whedon told his faithful fans.
"There's about two pages of my stuff left in the movie and even that's been kinda tweaked so let's get the word out to all the kids that the movie ain't me. Not even a little," Whedon said.
Will Spielberg Direct Spider-Man?
eel.com columnist Jeffrey Wells is reporting that a "well-positioned source" claims Steven Spielberg may be interested in directing the Sony Pictures film Spider-Man.
Although Wells wrote that this particular rumor can't be taken to the bank just yet, he said Spielberg is being drawn into Spider-Man's web by the lure of screenwriter David Koepp.
Koepp penned the scripts for the Spielberg hits Jurassic Park and The Lost World, and he is currently at work on the Webbed One's screenplay. Wells said the director's spokesperson, Marvin Levy, claims the Spider-Man rumor is "not true" and that the story probably got started because Spielberg served as a consultant for Universal's Spider-Man theme ride.
Spielberg's next project will be the Tom Cruise SF thriller Minority Report, which suffered several delays but now looks like it might begin shooting as early as January 2000. As for the rumors of Spielberg taking over the Stanley Kubrick project A.I., Levy told Wells they were somewhere between untrue and up in the air.
Farscape Is Full Of Surprises
arscape executive producer David Kemper told SF fans that they can expect the unexpected during the show's second season, which is currently in pre-production in Australia.
During a chat with SCIFI.COM, Kemper said that D'Argo "features hugely" in the new season, and that another Luxan warrior will make an appearance in the show.
"I can reveal that another Luxan will be seen early next year in a script written by Grant McAloon," Kemper said. "However, you will hopefully be surprised by what you find when you get there."
Kemper said much the same thing about the character Chiana, who only recently joined the Farscape crew. "Chiana is a very intense, sexual person," he explained. "That will not change--it will grow. However, you may surprised where it leads us."
Kemper also told fans that they will learn more about the living starship Moya, who is due to have her baby any day now. "Moya is tough because she can't speak to us directly; however, we will learn a great deal more about her as we progress. Having a baby will do that to you."
He added that Moya's baby will be "something we're confident will surprise you." Among the tidbits Kemper dropped during the chat were that Farscape action figures will be available in 2000, and that a Farscape book deal is in the works.
Voyager Launches With Ratings Coup
he sixth season premiere of the UPN series Star Trek: Voyager scored a whopping 6.5 household rating in the Nielsens when it aired on Sept. 22, according to Paramount.
That was Voyager's best showing in the ratings since the February sweeps period, and it also marked UPN's strongest premiere for the new fall TV season.
Paramount said Voyager more than doubled its prior four-week time period performance in household rating, and it outdelivered its November 1998 time period performance by 14 percent. The season premiere was the second installment of a two-part cliffhanger episode called "Equinox."
Roughnecks Hits Rough Going
here is no good news for SF fans who have been waiting for new episodes of Sony's popular computer-animated series Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.
To date only nine installments of the half-hour show have been produced, and it will take some time before more episodes make their way through the production pipeline.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the animation studio Foundation Imaging has five teams working on Roughnecks and hopes to ramp up production to the point where it can turn out one episode of the series per week. However,
the development process is much more complicated and time-consuming than expected, and Sony has already fallen far behind its promised delivery schedule.
Complicating matters is the fact that another studio working on the project, Flat Earth Productions, parted ways with Sony after turning in only two of 15 contracted episodes. Nevertheless, Sony says it's now on track to deliver 40 new episodes of Roughnecks to distributor Bohbot Kids Network by January 2000. BKN says the syndicated series has been sold to about 80 percent of U.S. TV markets.
Roughnecks will also air on the SCI FI Channel through the end of September before being pulled from the cable channel's lineup. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series is being taken off SCI FI's schedule because BKN affiliate stations complained the show was competing against itself in several markets.
Roughnecks is based on Paul Verhoeven's movie Starship Troopers, which in turn was based on Robert Heinlein's famous book of the same name.
Will Patrick Stewart Star As Doctor Who?
atrick Stewart and Laurence Fishburne are rumored to be the leading candidates for the title role in Paul Anderson's upcoming Doctor Who film.
What's more, the team behind the summer hit The Blair Witch Project has reportedly been approached to work on the picture.
These rumors come from the London Sunday Times via Cinescape, along with some new information from Who producer Jeremy Bolt. Although it's unclear whether the movie has been given the green light or not, Bolt told the Times, "We intend, with the BBC, to make this bigger than Bond."
A "BBC insider" also told the Times, "There won't be an obvious love interest, and the script will be witty, suspenseful and very English."
Barrymore May Play Barbarella
arner Bros. has picked up the rights to remake the classic Jane Fonda SF film Barbarella and is negotiating with Drew Barrymore to star in the picture.
Variety reports that the movie deal is coming together quickly and that Ben Myron, Silvio Muraglia and Gilles Thomson are set to produce.
Barrymore has reportedly been interested in a remake of the 1968 film for some time, though the modern-day update won't play up the camp angle as much as the Fonda version did. Fonda has long said she would rather forget her part in the original, which was an adaptation of the sexy comic strip by Jean-Claude Forest.
Darabont Talks Doc Savage
he upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger film Doc Savage will definitely be a period piece and not set in the present day, according to producer Frank Darabont.
Darabont told Cinescape that the picture is still in the early stages of development and that a script is being written by Dave Johnson.
Darabont also said that, contrary to rumors, he would not be co-directing the film with his fellow producer Chuck Russell, though one or the other of them might end up helming the picture. "We're leaving that up in the air for now," he said. "We figured we'd get the material developed and ready to go and then we'd figure out the delineations."
Briefly Noted
- Tommy Lee Jones reportedly told the British film site Popcorn that he has not been asked to star in the oft-rumored sequel to his hit film Men in Black. He added that the only one from the original project who is so far actively involved with the sequel is screenwriter Robert Gordon.
- Actor George C. Scott, well known to SF fans for playing the role of Gen. Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, died Wednesday, Sept. 22, at the age of 71 in his Westlake Village, Calif., home.
- Screenwriters David Mack and John J. Ordover have put their SF thriller script Heartland up for auction on eBay with a minimum bid of $250,000. The writers say they hope their ploy will cut through "the Hollywood red tape."
- Sierra On-Line canceled work on its Babylon 5 space-combat game after the company underwent a massive reorganization.
