Spielberg Sued Over Soldiers
filmmaker sued Steven Spielberg, saying the director's production company stole the idea for the 1998 fantasy film Small Soldiers, according to the Reuters news service.
Gregory Grant argued that Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment production company lifted the idea from Grant's short film Ode to G.I. Joe.
Both films deal with toy soldiers who come to life and wage war. Vivan Mayer, a spokeswoman for Spielberg's DreamWorks studio, told Reuters, "We haven't been served with a lawsuit, so we can't comment.''
Spielberg, Kubrick Talked A.I.
teven Spielberg and the late director Stanley Kubrick had discussed the SF film A.I. long before Spielberg agreed to direct it after Kubrick died, according to the British Guardian newspaper.
Kubrick's brother-in-law and executive producer, Jan Harlan, told the paper, "He and Spielberg spoke all the time."
Harlan added, "I have six or seven years' worth of correspondence between them over A.I., which I recently passed over to Spielberg, along with over 1,000 drawings." Spielberg is directing the film, which is based on Kubrick's treatment and a 1969 Brian Aldiss short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long."
Harlan said Kubrick first began work on A.I. in the early '70s with Aldiss, but shelved it when Star Wars came out in 1977. He returned to the project in 1995. Because the film is set in a world where the ice caps have melted, "we did some test shots from a helicopter of oil rigs in the North Sea," Harlan said. "We wanted to see the sea during really bad weather. That was all. Spielberg is basically starting from zero."
Spielberg To Receive Kubrick Award
teven Spielberg will receive the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The award, named for the late director of 2001: A Space Odyssey, recognizes individuals who have distinguished themselves through their contributions to the art of cinema.
Spielberg, who has won three Oscars, will receive the Kubrick Award Nov. 4 in ceremonies in Los Angeles. The director of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the Indiana Jones films joins previous Britannia Award winners, including John Travolta, Dustin Hoffman, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Anthony Hopkins, Martin Scorsese, Peter Ustinov, Michael Caine and Albert "Cubby" Broccoli.
Spielberg's next directing job will be A.I., an SF thriller based on a treatment by Kubrick.
Christensen Nails Anakin?
ayden Christensen, rumored by Variety to be the lead contender to play Anakin Skywalker, may have a lock on the role in Star Wars: Episode II, according to reports on Dark Horizons, 4Filmmakers.com and other Web sites.
Christensen (In the Mouth of Madness) gave an "outstanding performance" during a test with Natalie Portman at Lucasfilm's Skywalker Ranch in Northern California, Dark Horizons reported.
The site also said Christensen was rumored to be the best fit of all to Portman, who will play Anakin's love interest, Queen Amidala. Christensen emerged this week as a dark horse contender for the role of the young Jedi who will become Darth Vader, supplanting previous favorite Colin Hanks, star of The WB's teen alien series Roswell and son of actor Tom Hanks.
Hanks, Phillippe In Episode II?
olin Hanks, a player on The WB's teen alien series Roswell, may show up in Star Wars: Episode II after all, according to the Ain't It Cool News Web site.
Hanks may play grown-up Kitster, Anakin Skywalker's pal from Tatooine, who was seen briefly in Episode I as a child.
AICN also reported a rumor that Ryan Phillippe (Cruel Intentions) has been cast in the key role of Bail Organa, Obi-Wan Kenobi's commanding officer in the Clone Wars. Organa eventually adopts and raises baby Leia.
Lucasfilm Confirms Star Wars DVDs
ucasfilm confirmed for Wired Magazine that it will produce a DVD version of Star Wars: Episode I, while DVDs of the other Star Wars films are in the works.
"Yes, Lucasfilm has officially begun work on DVDs for the Star Wars films, but it is still far too soon to know which films will be released when and what the content will be," Lucasfilm spokeswoman Jeannie Cole told Wired. She added, "They will not be released in 2000."
Lucasfilm changed its mind about releasing the DVDs in part due to pressure from Star Wars fans, including more than 30,000 who signed a petition and others who have posted some 100 Web sites pushing for the DVDs. "We're listening, and George [Lucas] is listening," Cole told the magazine.
Travolta Denies Earth-Church Link
ohn Travolta, star and producer of the upcoming SF epic Battlefield Earth, denied that the film shares any particular philosophy with Scientology, the church founded by Earth novelist L. Ron Hubbard, according to the JoBlo's Movie Emporium Web site.
"Well, the first distinction you should make is that probably Hubbard is more famous for science fiction than philosophy," Travolta told the site.
Travolta added, "I think that any of the values you'll find in this movie are just values that most good stories and decent people include in their scenarios. Good versus evil and things like that. So I don't think you're going to find anything particularly unusual that would reflect necessarily on the [church's] philosophy or not, other than the human condition."
The film, based on Hubbard's 1,000-page novel of the same name, has come under attack for embodying tenets of the controversial Church of Scientology, particularly from the Washington Post and the F.A.C.T.net Web site. Travolta, an adherent of the church, has denied any connection between the church and the Warner Bros. movie. Battlefield Earth premieres May 12.
Sauron Looks Evil In Rings
! Online got a preview peek at Sauron, the evil villain of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy of novels, which is being translated to the screen in three movies of the same name.
From the New Zealand set of the films, E! reported that Sauron will be played by a stunt actor.
The actor will be covered in shiny, jagged armor with a poison ivy motif, the site reported. Sauron will also have a blue cape and a full-face helmet shaped like a sheep's skull with six jagged spikes.
E! also reported that production has moved to Whakapapa National Park, a ski field, for six weeks. And Australian actor David Wenham has been cast in the role of Faramir, once rumored to belong to Ethan Hawke.
Rings Makers Seek Extras
akers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films have put out a public call for extras, according to the New Zealand Herald newspaper.
Casting director Liz Mullane is looking for Wellington residents to show up at a call on the weekend of May 6, the paper reported.
Mullane is seeking "very tall, slim people and soldier types" to appear in the films, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy of novels of the same name. The extras would play elves and warrior Uruk-Hai.
German Lasswitz Winners Announced
inners of this year's Kurd Lasswitz Prizes, given to outstanding German-language SF works produced in 1999, have been announced.
The prizes, chosen by SF professionals of German-speaking countries, will be handed out in August at ElsterCon in Leipzig, Germany.
A full list of winners follows.
Best Novel
•Kelwitts Stern by Andreas Eschbach
Best Foreign Novel
•Distress by Greg Egan
Best Short Story
•"Die Cusanische Acceleratio" by Wolfgang Jeschke
Best Translation
•Distress by Greg Egan, translated by Bernhard Kempen
Best Graphic
•Lichtjahr 7 by Erik Simon, cover by Mario Franke
Best Audio
•"Traeumen Androiden" by Marina Dietz, from a story by Philip K. Dick
Special Prize
•Erik Simon and "Freundeskreis SF Leipzig e.V." for Lichtjahr 7
TNT Moves Up Witchblade
NT will bump the two-hour television movie Witchblade, based on the Top Cow comics series of the same name, to Aug. 27 at 8 p.m. from its original October release, the cable network announced.
TNT said it was moving the film, the pilot for a potential series, based on favorable reaction to an early cut.
TNT will begin advertising and marketing in the early summer, with plans for an aggressive campaign encompassing TV, print and billboards. Top Cow Productions will also be releasing a special photo cover edition of Witchblade No. 1, featuring the film's star, Yancy Butler.
Amazon Pulled
ing World has pulled Peter Benchley's Amazon out of syndication after one season, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
TNT bought the rights to air Amazon reruns, while King World considers a possible deal with a cable network to continue production of the series, the trade paper reported.
Amazon, created by the author of Jaws, drew lackluster ratings during its syndication run, the trade paper reported. Amazon is among the series that will fall under the Viacom banner when Viacom, the parent of King World, completes its acquisition of CBS.
Cohen To Direct Deceiver
ob Cohen (The Skulls) will direct The Deceiver, a supernatural thriller movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Based on a spec script by Keith Davidson, Deceiver tells the story of an ancient relic that prefigures the arrival on Earth of one of Satan's disciples, the trade paper reported.
Ivan Reitman (director of Ghostbusters) will co-produce the film. Davidson previously wrote the spec script Impact.
Hot Zone Comes Back
feature film version of Richard Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Hot Zone" may be resurrected with director Ridley Scott attached, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Crisis in the Hot Zone, originally to star Robert Redford and Jodie Foster, was shelved in the early 1990s in the face of competition from Outbreak, which had a similar theme, the trade paper reported.
Preston's story, which became a best-selling nonfiction book of the same name, chronicled the Army's infectious disease task force and its efforts to halt the outbreak of a deadly virus in the United States.
Scott, in Florence, Italy, to direct Hannibal, told The Hollywood Reporter that he was in talks to revive Zone. "It's too early to say whether it will be my next project," Scott said. "We talked about it because I'd been involved with them before."
Zombie To Lens Corpses
orror rocker Rob Zombie will begin production on his movie House of 1,000 Corpses in May, according to Variety.
The movie will star Rainn Wilson (Galaxy Quest), Jennifer Jostyn (Deep Impact) and Karen Black, among others, the trade paper reported.
Zombie, former front man for White Zombie, will write and direct the supernatural horror film. Universal will release Corpses in early 2001. Zombie plans to provide an advance look at the film in October by designing a maze for Universal's theme parks in California and Florida, Variety reported.
Italia Awards Presented
orld SF Italia, an international association of people with a professional interest in the field of science fiction, presented the 2000 Italia Awards for the best SF published in Italy.
The awards were presented on April 30 in Courmayeur, Italy.
The winners were chosen by a jury of fans and members of World SF Italia. A complete list of winners follows.
Best Novel
•Retrofuturo by Vittorio Curtoni
Best International Novel
•Quando la luce ritornera (A Deepness in the Sky) by Vernor Vinge
Best Short Story
•"Al sorgere del Sole" by Adalberto Cersosimo
Best Essay
•"Storia del cinema di fantascienza" by Claudia and Giovanni Mongini
Best Short Essay
•"La mia love-story con la Fantascienza" by Vittorio Curtoni
Best Book Collection
•Cosmo Oro
Best Magazine
•Cosmo SF
Best Artist
•Maurizio Manzieri
Best Editor
•Piergiorgio Nicolazzini
Best Translator
•Vittorio Curtoni
Best Show
•Grandi Sogni sul Piccolo Schermo by Luigi Pachi and Silvio Sosio
Best Graphic Novel
•Nathan Never by Medda-Serra-Vigna
Best Fanzine
•Delos Web site
Best Fan Short Story
•"L'uomo dei pupazzi di schiuma" by Dario Tonani
Best Fan Short Essay
•"30 Anni dalla Luna" by Aresi-Catani-Curtoni-Sosio
Phillips Morphs Into Chameleon
PN is considering a show based on its Chameleon series of television movies, starring Bobbie Phillips, the actress told SCI FI Wire.
"UPN is considering it for a series in the fall," Phillips said.
The Chameleon films star Phillips as Kam, a futuristic investigator who is 80 percent human and 20 percent genetically altered material, which gives her super powers. The third film in the series, Chameleon 3: Dark Angel, airs May 19 at 8 p.m. as part of the UPN Blockbuster Video's Shockwave Cinema showcase.
The film's producers are talking with Paramount Television Group Chairman Kerry McCluggage. "He really likes the show," Phillips said. "He's been very supportive from the beginning. And we're meeting with guys at UPN to talk about moving forward, and we're waiting for the next week or two at the most [for a decision]."
To non-genre fans, Phillips is known for her portrayal of Julie Costello on ABC's Murder One. But to SF fans, Phillips is best known as the entomologist Dr. Bambi Berenbaum from The X-Files episode "War of the Coprophages." Her appearance--during which her character flirted with Agent Mulder--even spawned a tongue-in-cheek Dr. Bambi Death Squad fan Web site.
"That scared me at first," she said, until she realized it was a joke. "David Duchovny and I were laughing, ... because [the fans] were ... mad that I was coming between Mulder and Scully. ... But it was cute that on the ... site, they had a note to the actress Bobbie Phillips, 'Don't take it to heart, it's just for fun for us.' ... That made me feel a little better."
The prospect of a regular SF series appeals to Phillips, who said she likes the action and physical challenge of science fiction, as well as its ability to tell thoughtful stories. "I love shows that fit in that genre," she said. "Things that make you think, and make you realize you're not the highest being in the universe. ... I think that this is a big world, and I don't know anything that makes you stop your normal way of thinking and reevaluate and open your mind like science fiction."
Andromeda On Course For Fall
obert Hewitt Wolfe, who will shepherd the upcoming syndicated TV series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, said the show won't be your father's Star Trek clone, according to the Space.com Web site.
"What we're trying to do--and we haven't shot a frame of footage yet--but the intention is to give things a faster pace, have overlapping dialogue, use a lot of Steadicam and handheld camera to give it (for lack of a better term) a more 'modern' feel, a different feel," Wolfe told Space.com.
Wolfe, who wrote for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, added that the show is well on its way to production. Tribune Entertainment has committed to 44 episodes, or two full seasons, and the premiere is set for fall. The series stars Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) as the captain of a sentient starship who sets out to rebuild a lost galactic commonwealth.
"We are cast," Wolfe told Space.com. "But since it's Tribune's, they get to have the fun of announcing these kinds of things, and I don't want to steal their thunder. So it'll be according to Tribune's schedule about when they want to do this and announce things like the cast and stuff."
Wolfe added, "The props don't exist yet, [and] the ship is in development. The props are being built. The set is being built. No one has put on a costume. ... The ship is impressive. It is large. It works in a way that no other ship has worked before to my knowledge. It has a pretty unique design. Although this is still in development, it should have at least three different basic configurations: one for just puttering around in normal space, one for zipping around in slipstream and one for combat. That's the theory. We'll see if that all works out."
Andromeda To Start Shooting
ene Roddenberry's Andromeda, the upcoming syndicated TV series starring Kevin Sorbo, is scheduled to begin production next week in Vancouver, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Writers have finished scripts for eight episodes, and producers are now casting supporting roles, the trade paper reported.
The set for the syndicated series is equipped with two versions of the starship Andromeda, and technicians have begun initial animation work for the series' special effects. Executive producer Alan Eastman said the show, based on an idea by late Star Trek creator Roddenberry, will be more of a swashbuckling adventure series than Trek. Eastman will direct the first episode and at least four others, according to the paper.
The cast will include Lisa Ryder, who will play Beka Valentine, commander of a space salvage ship; Lexa Doig, who will portray the human form of the sentient starship; and Laura Bertram, who will play a genetically engineered superbeing named Tyr Anasazi, the trade paper reported. Tribune Entertainment has ordered 44 episodes of the series, which will premiere in the fall.
Gemini Is On Fast Track
emini, an SF thriller from Touchstone Pictures and Disney's special effects house Secret Lab, is going into fast-track production, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film will tell the story of genetics company 20 years in the future that clones a younger version of its corporate hit man and sends him to kill the original.
Touchstone is looking to hire Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford to star, the trade paper reported. The Secret Lab reportedly tested footage of a younger Gibson from 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously mixed with footage from Gibson's work in 1999's Payback. The screenplay is by Darren Lemke.
Hollow Man Deals With Evil
irector Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troopers) told the Los Angeles Daily News that his upcoming SF thriller The Hollow Man offers a moralistic take on the invisible-man genre.
"Plato says you'd go into somebody's house, get what you want, rape the woman and kill the man" if you could get away with it, Verhoeven told the paper. "It's the constraints of society that makes man good. Take away those restraints, and you take away the goodness."
In the Columbia Pictures film, Kevin Bacon plays a scientist who turns invisible, and Elisabeth Shue co-stars as a colleague who tries to save him.
Verhoeven said that he wanted to avoid the cliches of the genre. "We're not going to have any pencils or cups flying through the air," he said. "You won't see Kevin eating a sandwich and then the food floating in the stomach. This is pure evil. The audience gets to watch evil encroach upon a man's soul." The Hollow Man opens July 28.
FX Begins Filming Shadows
he FX cable network has begun production on Shadows, its second original film, the network announced.
Written and directed by Paul Anderson (Event Horizon), the two-hour supernatural thriller stars Andrew McCarthy.
The film, which is reportedly being considered as a pilot for a potential series, will be shot entirely on location in London. McCarthy plays an American architect who discovers an ability to see ghosts. He uses his new talent to help the spirits of an old hotel resolve their problems on Earth. Shadows is scheduled to wrap production in early June, with a fall air date.
Bradbury Backs Ackerman
egendary SF author Ray Bradbury testified for his former literary agent Forrest J. Ackerman, who is suing a former colleague, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Ackerman is suing his former business associate Ray Ferry over the rights to the stage name "Dr. Acula."
On May 1, Bradbury, 80, took the stand in Los Angeles on Ackerman's behalf. "How do you pronounce it, derrr-Acula, or Dr. Acula?" Bradbury testified, according to the Times. "It's been a running joke ... I would say [for] 60 years." Ackerman is known in Los Angeles for his massive "Ackermansion" house, which is filled with horror and SF movie memorabilia.
Ackerman claims that he coined the pseudonym and further alleges that Ferry fraudulently induced him to sign a contract that would allow Ferry to buy millions of dollars worth of his assets for $1. Ferry, publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, claims that he owns the rights to the "Dr. Acula" trademark, the Times reported.
Nick Sagan Joins Space.com
he Space.com Web site hired writer and game designer Nick Sagan as producer of entertainment and games.
Sagan is the son of late astronomer and author Carl Sagan and artist and writer Linda Salzman.
Sagan will oversee the design and implementation of science-fiction-themed games, stories, comics, cartoons, artwork and original Webcast programming, Space.com announced.
Sagan has written screenplays, animation episodes and CD-ROM games and specializes in science fiction and fantasy. In 1977, his voice was recorded as a representation of the English language and placed on the Voyager II spacecraft. Most recently, Sagan worked as a story editor on Star Trek: Voyager.
Baker Could Create Apes
scar-winning makeup man Rick Baker (Men in Black) is in final talks to turn men into monkeys for Fox's upcoming Planet of the Apes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The remake of the 1968 Charlton Heston film of the same name will be directed by Tim Burton, the trade paper reported.
Baker's involvement is surprising, given that makeup effects wizard Stan Winston has worked with Burton before. But Baker has a long history of creating apes for the screen, including those in Gorillas in the Mist, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan and Mighty Joe Young, according to the paper.
Apes could begin shooting in the fall with an eye to a summer 2001 release.
Klein Or Maguire Up For Spidey?
hris Klein (American Beauty) and Tobey Maguire (The Cider House Rules) are rumored to be the final contenders to play the title character in Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man, according to Spider-Man Hype and other fan Web sites.
Raimi (the Evil Dead films) will direct the feature film based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name.
But the Dark Horizons Web site cites sources at Sony studios saying that no casting decisions have been made yet.
Maguire has also been rumored to be in the running to play Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II. Klein, meanwhile, has been confirmed to star in Rollerball, the remake of the 1975 SF film of the same name.
Sony, meanwhile, was scheduled to meet with about 400 potential licensing, promotion and retail partners for the planned fall 2001 release of Spider-Man, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sony was expected to announce the formation of Spider-Man Merchandising, a limited partnership with Marvel, to handle promotions connected with the movie.
Cartoon Net Buys Anime
he Cartoon Network bought the rights to the Japanese anime series Tenchi Muyo!, about a child who unleashes a demon, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Tenchi, which will be translated into English, will premiere this summer.
The network will also air 10 original animated pilots, from which the network will select three to turn into series, the trade paper reported. The pilots will appear Friday nights at 9 p.m. from June 9-Aug. 11. They include The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?, Trevor!, Nikki, Foe Paws, Uncle Gus, Lucky Lydia, Longhair and Doubledone, Lost Cat and Prickles.
The network has also committed to 13 half-hour episodes of Sheep in the City, about a group of sheep who have escaped from a top-secret military group.
Stewart Blasts Play Producers
atrick Stewart (X-Men) blasted producers of the Broadway play The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, in which he is appearing, and the producers fired back by filing a formal complaint with the Actors Equity union, according to Variety.
At curtain call on Saturday, April 29, Stewart blasted the Shubert Organization on behalf of himself and playwright Arthur Miller for not doing enough to promote the production, the trade paper reported.
In response, Shubert filed a complaint with the actors' union arguing that Stewart was not authorized to make the statements. The complaint seeks a public apology.
Stewart, best known as Capt. Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, plays Professor Charles Xavier in Fox's upcoming movie based on the Marvel Comics series X-Men.
Dune Wraps Filming
rincipal photography has wrapped on The SCI FI Channel original miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune, SCI FI announced.
The miniseries was shot on location in Europe and on sound stages in Prague, Czech Republic.
The production, starring William Hurt and Giancarlo Giannini, now goes into post-production. Visual effects supervisor Ernest Farino (From the Earth to the Moon) will oversee the work of several digital effects companies, including E=MC2 Digital (Titanic), who will work to bring the story's many fantastic elements to life.
The three-part, six-hour miniseries is slated for a December release. Based on Frank Herbert's classic SF novel of the same name, Dune is written and directed by John Harrison (Tales from the Darkside: The Movie).
Bradley's Fantasy Mag To Close
arion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, founded by the late author of The Mists of Avalon, will cease publication in October with issue No. 50, unless a buyer steps forward, Bradley's cousin Ann Sharp told SCI FI Wire.
Bradley died last September, and Sharp is the trustee of Bradley's estate.
The quarterly magazine, which Bradley started in 1988, recently published issue No. 47. The magazine is no longer accepting manuscripts, and subscribers will receive a refund for the balance of their accounts should the magazine close in October, Sharp said.
Sharp said Bradley's living trust can no longer provide support to the Berkeley, Calif.,-based publication now that the author has died. But Sharp said the magazine is open to offers from suitors, and added that she is in touch with a potential buyer, whom she declined to identify. Sharp could not say how many subscribers the magazine has. It employs a staff of four.
In addition to publishing Fantasy, Bradley was a well-known author of SF and fantasy fiction, including the Darkover series of novels. She also edited an annual anthology of fantasy fiction, Sword and Sorceress. Mists, a feminist retelling of the Arthurian legends, has reportedly been optioned for a miniseries on the TNT cable network.
Trek Commando Game Coming
tar Trek Away Team, an upcoming game from Activision, allows gamers to assume the role of captain of an elite commando team, Activision announced.
Away Team, developed by Reflexive Entertainment, is slated to ship in 2001.
Away Team is a real-time squad-based strategy game set in the universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The player controls a covert operations unit of 22 specialists recruited by Starfleet. The game missions will combine both strategy and action.
Paramount reportedly tested the idea of an elite Starfleet strike force as a concept for the next Star Trek television series, but rejected it in favor of a concept yet to be announced.
Spock Backs Excelsior
riginal Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy threw his support to the Excelsior Campaign, the fan effort to persuade Paramount to base its next Trek TV series on Hikaru Sulu and the U.S.S. Excelsior.
Nimoy told the iFuse Web site that he would support such an effort.
"George Takei [the actor who played Sulu] has been wanting this Excelsior series to work out for a long time," Nimoy told the site during a Los Angeles signing for his new spoken-word CD, Star Trek: Spock vs. Q. Asked whether he'd support an Excelsior series, Nimoy answered, "I've been hearing about this because he's out there beating the drum. If another one of us can get another series, then why not? Sure. My only concern is that they do good work, that's all it's about."
X-Men Toy Site Opens
oysrus.com, the Web site for the toy retailer Toys R Us, has launched a special channel to market toys and collectibles connected with Fox's upcoming film X-Men, the retailer announced.
"Marvel's X-Men Official Online Store'' went live May 1 as a partnership among Fox, Toys R Us and Marvel Comics, on whose series the film is based.
Toysrus.com will carry a range of licensed X-Men products, including action figures from Toy Biz. The channel will also offer movie trailers, links to partner sites, exclusive character biographies and comics, free downloads of comic artwork and a sweepstakes.
Bova Eyes Jupiter Next
F author Ben Bova told SCI FI Wire that his new novel Jupiter will take readers on a journey to the solar system's largest planet.
Due in January 2001, Jupiter "involves exploration on the planet Jupiter itself, the surface itself," Bova said. "It's the largest planet of the solar system, with an ocean 10 times bigger than the Earth, and with no land. And the ocean has some very strange things in it."
Bova's last four novels have taken readers to Mars, the moon and Venus. "I'm really writing a saga about human expansion through the solar system in the 21st century," Bova said. His current volume, Venus, "is a novel about the people who do it, and why they're doing it," he said.
"The big problem with Venus is, it's such an inhospitable place, it's hard to think of a reason why anyone would want to go there," Bova said. "So [Venus is] about very driven men and women. It was a challenge to make a reasonable story set in the worst imaginable place in the solar system. The ground is hot enough to melt aluminum. It's like a trip to hell."
Bova, author of more than 80 novels and nonfiction books and a longtime advocate of manned space flight, argues that such trips should be undertaken out of curiosity and the drive for new frontiers. But, he acknowledges, more often than not the motivation is more basic: money. It's one of the driving forces in Venus. "I think it's the major human motivation. I may not always admire it, but it has made people do exciting and strange things."
Card Discusses Shadow
rson Scott Card's upcoming novel Shadow of the Hegemon is the next installment in the Ender's Game series of novels, but Ender Wiggin won't appear in it, the author told SCI FI Wire.
"He gets talked about a lot, though," Card said.
Shadow of the Hegemon is a direct sequel to Ender's Shadow, and takes place in the same future history as Ender's Game. (The first two volumes in the series, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, won both Hugo and Nebula awards.) "The story follows Bean, the hero of Ender's Shadow, and Petra, a friend and fellow soldier from Battle School, as they get caught up--against their will--in the struggle for hegemony on Earth," Card said.
"Various nations catch on to the idea that these kids who were identified as the greatest military minds of their time might just be useful in geopolitics and geowarfare, and if they don't happen to volunteer for service, they can be 'drafted.'" Card added. "Inevitably, too, Ender's older brother, Peter Wiggin, and Bean's old nemesis, Achilles, get involved in this most dangerous game." Shadow of the Hegemon is slated for release in the January 2001 from TOR Books.
Stephenson To Win Net Award
F author Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon) will receive the top prize in the Internet category of the Prix Ars Electronica, the New York Times reported.
Citing "people involved with the prestigious computer arts competition," the Times reported that Stephenson's award would be the second time in as many years that the award has gone to something other than an online art work.
Stephenson will reportedly be honored for his depictions of the virtual universe in novels like 1992's Snow Crash and 1999's Cryptonomicon. Stephenson, who did not apply for the award, bested about 250 entries in the ".net" category, the Times reported.
The awards are sponsored by the Austrian Broadcasting Corp. The award will be presented at the Ars Electronica Center's festival in Linz, Austria, in September.
Stephenson Talks Cryptonomicon
eal Stephenson said that he relied on real World War II characters in creating the people who inhabit his massive SF novel Cryptonomicon.
In particular, the character of Bobby Shaftoe is based on soldiers who served in a real military unit in China at the time, Stephenson said in an interview on SCIFI.COM's RealChannel.
Shaftoe is based on the China Marines, who were stationed in Shanghai between World War I and World War II, Stephenson said. They would patrol the Yangtze River on gunboats and fly the flag, while keeping the river open for commerce and navigation. The marines were legendary for their toughness. On occasion, "other Marines would say they had 'gone Asiatic,'" meaning they had been in country a little too long, Stephenson said. "That made them seem even a little tougher and weirder."
In Cryptonomicon, Shaftoe is hand-picked to be part of Detachment 2702, a top-secret unit of the war designed to provide disinformation to the Germans. The detachment was formed to keep the Germans from realizing that U.S. cryptographers had cracked Nazi codes, Stephenson said.
Stephenson's Next Book To Plumb Past
ryptonomicon author Neal Stephenson told SCIFI.COM that his next novel will be a departure from the futuristic cyber tales he's known for.
"The book that I'm working on right now is actually a historical novel that's set about 300 years in the past," Stephenson said in a RealChannel interview on the site.
But Stephenson said he's also planning to write a book that deals with issues of privacy and cryptography similar to the ones he deals with in the best-selling Cryptonomicon. "I do have intentions of eventually writing something that's set in a more futuristic environment, and I would expect these things would definitely come into play. ... I'm trying to avoid using words like sequel or series, because that would imply a closer relationship between the books than really exists. I'm trying to write it in such a way that you could read any one of these and not even suspect there were other books in the series."
Stephenson said he envisions writing as many as five such books. His next book will come out sometime in 2001. A limited gold-cover edition of Cryptonomicon went on sale this week.
LeGuin Wins Kirsch Award
egendary SF author Ursula K. Le Guin won the Robert Kirsch Award, given annually to a highly acclaimed author living in the American West.
The award, from the Los Angeles Times and named for the paper's late literary critic, was presented April 29 in Los Angeles.
Jonathan Kirsch, the critic's son, called LeGuin an "anthropologist of the post-nuclear world," the Times reported. LeGuin introduces readers to "whole new races and places of her own device, filling them with people who pulse with plausible life, fleshing out her self-invented worlds with languages and cultures, politics and folkways, dreams and terrors of their own," Kirsch added.
Dava Sobel, author of Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love, won the Times book prize for science and technology writing. The judges praised Sobel's "masterpiece of counterpoint," which highlights the 16th century astronomer's struggle to understand the first telescopic observations amid Europe's poverty and plague, the Times reported.
Deep Red Sea In The Works?
arner Bros. may be working on a sequel to 1999's super-shark thriller Deep Blue Sea, according to a fan Web site.
Citing a "mail room" source at the studio, Upcoming Horror Movies.com reported that the sequel would be called Deep Red Sea.
The sequel would pick up nine months after the end of the last film, with nine surviving genetically enhanced sharks. A boat captain captures one shark and ends up on the shores of a beach resort called Atlantis. The eight other sharks have followed, and soon make a meal of bathing tourists.
Meanwhile, an earthquake sends a high-rise hotel tower crashing into the sea, where it is flooded and invaded by the man-eaters. Mayhem ensues as a SWAT-like team tries to rescue tourists while destroying the sharks, the site reported. LL Cool J's character from the first film would return in the sequel.
Hey Feels Link To Zhaan
irginia Hey, who plays the blue-skinned mystic Zhaan on The SCI FI Channel's Farscape, told fans that she feels a connection to her 800-year-old character.
"Yes, I have learned a great deal from Zhaan," Hey said during a chat on SCIFI.COM.
She added, "As you know, like Zhaan, I am in love with science, all things medical and sprititual. ... As Zhaan develops in these areas, so do I."
Hey added that she is growing accustomed to the arduous makeup process, which takes three hours. As for her character, she said, "In order to get to the next level, Zhaan must jump hurdles of dark impulses and confusion. Tests and challenges are always provided in spiritual quests. Zhaan has free will and choice to accept the challenges and go through that particular learning process, or back away and accept fate at its present level."
But Hey declined to answer questions about where the series is headed in its second season. "All I can say is that every character will surprise you and delight you in more ways than you can ever imagine," she said. The full transcript of Hey's chat has been posted to SCIFI.COM.
Plug Film Has Old Roots
lug, the SF short film from USC student director Meher Gourjian, has its roots in the 1908 short story "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster, Gourjian told The SCI FI Channel series Exposure.
Forster's story was a rebuttal to the optimistic future envisioned by his contemporary H.G. Wells, Gourjian said.
Gourjian's film, which combines live action and computer animation, tells the story of "a man who wakes up one day and realizes the reality around him is not the one he's grown accustomed to," he said. "When his machine ... that feeds him his virtual reality breaks down, he sees for the first time the real world he's in. It becomes his goal to plug back in."
Though it has a theme reminiscent of The Matrix, Plug has a look and feel all its own, with a retro design that calls to mind the video game Riven. Gourjian says one twist he added was that the virtual reality scenes are all shot with live action, while the scenes of the real world are done with animation. "I took the idea of virtual reality and turned it on its ear," he said. The film and an interview with Gourjian are posted to the Web site for Exposure, a series that spotlights new filmmakers.
Sarandon, Maguire To Voice Dogs
usan Sarandon, Tobey Maguire and Michael Clarke Duncan will voice the live-action and animated fantasy comedy Like Cats and Dogs from Warner Bros., according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie will begin filming in June with an eye to a summer 2001 release.
Larry Guterman (Antz) will direct the movie, about a turf war between cats and dogs. Maguire provides the voice of a puppy who helps protect a scientist's vaccine for canine allergies that the cats want to destroy, according to the trade paper.
Plummer Stars In New Dracula
hristopher Plummer (The Insider) will take a bite out of the vampire genre when he stars in Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000, a feature film update of the classic Bram Stoker novel Dracula, according to Variety.
Plummer will play the role of vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing in the movie, which is scheduled to shoot in Toronto starting June 5.
D2K, as it's being called, has Plummer's character traveling to America to find his daughter Mary and save her from his longtime nemesis, Dracula. Patrick Lussier (editor of Scream) will direct from a script by Joel Soisson (Phantoms). Wes Craven will produce. The movie is slated for a winter release.
Briefly Noted
- Director Peter Segal told Cinescape Online columnist Cindy Pearlman that his upcoming Eddie Murphy film The
Incredible Shrinking Man "will be a contemporary update of the story, which will take place in New York City. I can't tell you too much about it, but Eddie will breathe in something really bad,
and he will start to shrink."
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Is James Cameron producing Aliens vs. Predator, a feature film based on the Dark Horse comic series of the same name? That's the rumor on the 4Filmmakers.com Web site. The film, like the comic, would combine characters from both SF series.
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Star Trek: Voyager executive producer Rick Berman told KCOP-TV news this week that the next Trek series will likely debut in September 2001. "I think we've come up with a concept that's dramatically different from Voyager or Deep Space Nine, but at the same time it's going to definitely be Star Trek at its core," Berman said, without discussing details.
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Roswell star Brendan Fehr is in final talks to star in The Forsaken, a vampire movie that will also star Kerr Smith (Final Destination). The movie would start shooting in Utah on May 22, according to the Crashdown.com Web site.
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Roswell star Majandra Delfino has released three original songs on the Web. Delfino wrote and sang the songs, which were produced and released by members of the band Sci-Fi Lullaby.
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Comedy Central will air the third annual San Francisco-based BattleBots competition of live robot combat, to be taped June 9-11. The cable network will also air 13 episodes of "bot-bashing" sports satire later in the year. The SCI FI Channel previously announced its own robot combat show, Robodeath, a one-time special that will air in the first quarter of 2001.
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The official Web site has opened for the upcoming syndicated television series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.
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Jonathan Davis, frontman for the rock band Korn, will write the orchestral score this summer with composer Richard Gibbs for Queen of the Damned, the feature film based on Anne Rice's vampire novel of the same name, according to Entertainment Weekly. The film will also feature new Davis songs for Lestat, Rice's vampire rock star.
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Elemental Films has put on temporary hold its independent film Elessar, based on characters from J.R.R. Tolkien's novels, according to TheOneRing.net fan Web site. The filmmakers attributed the hold to communication and legal problems securing the rights to Tolkien's characters.
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The DVD release this week of Galaxy Quest contains a first: an audio track of the film in the alien Thermian language. The language, spoken by the movie's squid-like characters, sounds like a series of dolphin squeaks.
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Universal Pictures will unveil the trailer of Imagine Entertainment's upcoming movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas via satellite on May 10 at the official Web site. The film, starring Jim Carrey and based on the book of the same name by Dr. Seuss, is set for a Nov. 17 premiere.
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Robert Beltran (Chakotay on Star Trek: Voyager) stars in the Latino-themed independent film Luminarias, according to the official Star Trek Continuum Web site. The film premiered in Beltran's hometown of Bakersfield, Calif., on May 5 in a screening to benefit the Heritage of America Educational and Cultural Foundation.
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Radio shock jock Howard Stern railed against Steven Spielberg on May 2, believing the director had bad-mouthed him, but abruptly stopped when he learned he'd been misinformed, according to the Reuters news service. Spielberg, who is currently working on the SF film A.I., didn't respond to Stern's comments.
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Kerr Smith (Final Destination) will star in Sandstorm Films' vampire movie Forsaken for Screen Gems, according to Variety.
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Star Wars: Rogue Planet, the new hardcover novel by Greg Bear, takes up the saga three years after the events in the film Star Wars: Episode I, according to the official Star Wars Web site. The book, about Anakin Skywalker's training and political upheavals under Chancellor Palpatine, is due in stores May 2.
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Frequency, the SF thriller starting Dennis Quaid, debuted in the No. 3 box-office slot during the weekend of April 29, bringing in $9.1 million. Final Destination stayed strong after six weeks of release, coming in at No. 10 with $2.5 million.
