Nebula Awards Announced
he 1999 Nebula Awards were announced Saturday, May 20, at a ceremony in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in New York, N.Y.
The awards are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, who honor their peers in the categories of Best Novel, Best Novelette, Best Novella, Best Short Story and Best Script.
The Nebulas are presented annually for works published in the previous calendar year. This year's winners and categories are:
- Best Novel
- Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
- Best Novella
- "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang
- Best Novelette
- "Mars is No Place for Children" by Mary A. Turzillo
- Best Short Story
- "The Cost of Doing Business," by Leslie What
- Best Script
- The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan
This year SFWA also gave out three special awards, naming Brian Aldiss a Grand Master, honoring "Flowers for Algernon" writer Daniel Keyes with the Author Emeritus Award, and presenting George Zebrowski and Pamela Sargent with the Service to SFWA Award.
Reeves Happy To Reprise Neo
eanu Reeves said he passed on other film projects for the chance to work again with brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski on the sequels to the hit 1999 film The Matrix, according to EON Magazine.
"I thought the first film for me was inspiring as an actor, and I look forward to see what they come up with next," Reeves told the magazine at this month's Blockbuster Entertainment Awards in Los Angeles.
Because of that, Reeves had no problem turning down other offers, he said. "It's about the directors, Andy and Larry Wachowski, and the material," he said. "For their imagination, for the vision and the way they direct. And for the people that they are."
Reeves' Matrix 2 and 3 co-star Laurence Fishburne told Eon that he expected the next two films to take about a year and a half to complete. "So far that's what I've heard," he said. "We're shooting both movies back-to-back [in Australia]. I don't know more than that. If I did, believe me, I'd tell everything."
DNA Buys SF Chronicle
NA Publications has bought Science Fiction Chronicle magazine from editor and publisher Andrew I. Porter.
DNA Publications publishes or handles the business end of several small-press genre magazines, including Aboriginal SF, Absolute Magnitude, Dreams of Decadence, Fantastic Stories and Weird Tales.
The sale of the magazine will reportedly relieve Porter of the pressures of small-press publishing, although Porter will remain with SFC as news editor. DNA also plans to increase the magazine's frequency to monthly from bimonthly. Porter is a three-time Hugo Award winner.
Company Sells Net Horror Films
idget Media, a new film production company, has opened a Web site to sell horror-comedy films directly to online users.
The site's premiere offering is The Foot, the pilot episode in the Midget Media: Annals of the Unnatural series of short films, the company said.
The company is seeking producers who will provide films to the site in exchange for royalties.
Pendulum To Become Film
mberto Eco's metaphysical thriller novel Foucault's Pendulum may come to the big screen under a deal between the author and Fine Line Features, according to Variety.
The book tells the story of three book editors who invent a worldwide conspiracy that turns deadly when people start to disappear.
Eco has resisted approaches from various filmmakers to film the novel, including Milos Forman and the late Stanley Kubrick, the trade paper reported. Eco was supposedly unhappy with the movie made from his earlier novel, In the Name of the Rose.
Taylor To Write Button
riter Jim Taylor will adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" into a movie for Paramount Pictures, according to Variety.
Taylor was nominated for an Oscar for Election, a script he co-wrote with Alexander Payne.
Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich) will direct the film. The story focuses on a man who begins aging backward once he reaches his 50th birthday. When he falls in love with a 30-year-old woman, they must deal with the consequences of his odd condition, the trade paper reported.
McTiernan Fought For Rollerball
irector John McTiernan told the Cinescape Online Web site that he got involved with Rollerball after an argument with a friend.
McTiernan (Die Hard) is directing the remake of the 1975 classic SF movie of the same name. The remake will star Chris Klein, LL Cool J and Jean Reno, and will film in Montreal.
"It didn't start as an idea of me doing it," McTiernan said. "It started as an argument with a friend, one of the executives at MGM. He was developing a screenplay, and it was set 400 years in the
future and on the far side of an awful lot of science fiction sociology. I just said, 'You don't have to set it that far in the future.' He said, 'You do, too.' And I said, 'You do not: Watch.'"
Like the original, Rollerball will tell the story of a corporate-sponsored sport in which athletes on roller skates and motorcycles fight to the death. "The idea is that if you had something like the WWF--sports entertainment--somewhere else in the world other than North America and Europe, and somebody said, 'We could up our take $5 million a week if we just had some blood on the track,' how long do you think they'd struggle with that moral dilemma?" McTiernan said. "Our story is about an ordinary guy who gets caught in that circumstance."
McDiarmid Back In Episode II
an McDiarmid will reprise his role as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode II, according to the official Star Wars Homing Beacon newsletter.
McDiarmid played the character in Episode I, and played him as the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
Anthony Daniels will also reprise his role as C-3PO, the protocol droid who has appeared in all of the Star Wars films, as well as the Star Wars radio dramas and animated Droids cartoon series.
The newsletter also reported that two key crew members from Industrial Light & Magic recently began preliminary work on Episode II. Visual effects supervisor John Knoll oversaw the space battle and high-speed Pod race in Episode I. Animation director Rob Coleman led the team that created Jar Jar Binks, Watto and Sebulba for Episode I.
Jewison Says Limpet On Track
irector Norman Jewison told The Hollywood Reporter that his remake of the 1964 fantasy comedy The Incredible Mr. Limpet is on track.
Jewison will co-produce the film for Warner Bros.
Mike Judge (King of the Hill) will direct. The initial script, written by Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick, has been revised four times, "which I never really understood, since the initial script that had been written was pretty good," Jewison said. Judge is doing a fifth revision.
The 1964 film starred Don Knotts and combined live action with animation to tell the story of a man who becomes a fish and helps the U.S. Navy win World War II.
Outer Limits To End With Bang
howtime's SF series The Outer Limits ends its six-year run of new episodes with a star-studded finale in late August, the cable network announced.
Reruns of The Outer Limits air in syndication and on The SCI FI Channel.
The last episode, entitled "Final Appeal," brings back Amanda Plummer as Dr. Theresa Givens, who first appeared in the episode "A Stitch in Time" and for which Plummer won an Emmy Award. The finale also features Charlton Heston, Robert Loggia, Cicely Tyson, Swoosie Kurtz, Kelly McGillis, Michael Moriarty and Hal Holbrook.
When it ends, Outer Limits will have run for 132 episodes. The series was based on the 1960s series of the same name and is distributed by MGM Television Entertainment.
Ritual Coming From Dimension
imension Films will develop The Ritual, a supernatural campus thriller, with Peter Abrams and Tapestry Films, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Writers are being sought to pen the script, based on a pitch by Tapestry executive Andrew Panay.
Ritual tells the story of three freshman boys at a small-town college who discover that the most popular upperclassmen are secretly practicing black magic to manipulate the entire campus, the trade paper reported.
Piller Preps Day One
ormer Star Trek: The Next Generation executive producer Michael Piller and his son, Shawn, are developing Day One, an SF pilot for The WB network, Piller told the official Star Trek Web site.
Piller and son have formed a production company called Piller2 (Piller Squared) to develop TV and film projects.
Day One is a proposed hour-long action-adventure show about survivors who emerge 60 years after an asteroid has collided with the Earth and altered its climate. The pilot was shot earlier this year in Vancouver and is being considered for a mid-season replacement series next year, Piller said. Day One is based on a British SF miniseries of the same name.
Clooney To Have Revelation
eorge Clooney and Danny DeVito, who worked together in Out of Sight, will reteam for Revelation, a thriller with supernatural overtones, according to Variety.
DeVito will direct and Clooney will star in the Warner Bros. movie.
Clooney will play a cop who takes a bullet during an assassination attempt on a cardinal. While searching for the assassin, Clooney undergoes a religious awakening, the trade paper reported. Michael Petroni wrote the screenplay.
DeVito produced 1998's Out of Sight, in which Clooney starred.
Ritual Coming From Dimension
imension Films will develop The Ritual, a supernatural campus thriller, with Peter Abrams and Tapestry Films, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Writers are being sought to pen the script, based on a pitch by Tapestry executive Andrew Panay.
Ritual tells the story of three freshman boys at a small-town college who discover that the most popular upperclassmen are secretly practicing black magic to manipulate the entire campus, the trade paper reported.
Duchovny Will Return To X-Files
avid Duchovny announced late Wednesday, May 17, that he reached agreement with Fox to reprise his role as Fox Mulder in the eighth season of the network's hit series The X-Files.
"I am pleased we were able to come to an agreement that enables me to remain part of The X-Files," the actor said in a statement. "Now that all the business issues have been settled, I'm looking forward to going back to work."
Duchovny did not disclose terms of his agreement. But Variety, quoting unnamed sources, reported that Duchovny agreed to appear in about half of next season's 22 episodes, earning $350,000 to $400,000 per episode. Duchovny reportedly also settled his lawsuit against Fox, in which he charged the studio sold reruns of the X-Files at below-market rates. Variety reported that the total value of Duchovny's agreement was about $20 million.
The news resolves uncertainty over the future of the series on the eve of Fox's announcement of its fall television schedule. Both series creator Chris Carter and co-star Gillian Anderson are already committed to the eighth season.
Ghost Rider Wheels Onto Screen
day after announcing a major deal with Artisan Entertainment, Marvel Enterprises said it had signed a deal with Crystal Sky Entertainment to produce a feature film based on its Ghost Rider comic series.
The $75 million film is slated to begin production in early 2001.
Producers are aiming at Johnny Depp to play the title character, Ghost Rider. Jon Voight may also play a role in the film and will produce. David Goyer, the writer of Blade, which is also based on a Marvel Comics series, will write the Ghost Rider screenplay.
Ghost Rider tells the story of a motorcycle stuntman who makes a pact with dark forces as he seeks revenge for harm done to his true love. By day, the Ghost Rider is a motorcycle stuntman able to perform superhuman tricks; by night he is transformed into a demon on wheels as he hunts down those who bring pain to the innocent, Marvel said.
Sterling Wins Clarke Award
istraction by Bruce Sterling has won this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award, given to the best SF novel published for the first time in Britain in 1999, according to Locus Online.
The award, selected by members of the British SF Foundation and the Science Museum of London, carries a prize of £1,000, donated by legendary SF author Arthur C. Clarke.
Sterling received the award at a ceremony at the Science Museum in London on May 17.
UPN To Debut SF Series
PN will beef up the offering of SF fare in its fall schedule, according to the Hollywood trade papers.
UPN is already the home of Star Trek: Voyager, which enters its seventh and last season this fall.
On Friday nights, UPN unveils Freedom, a martial-arts action series with Matrix-like elements, from that film's producer, Joel Silver. Level 9 also bows on Fridays; it is a high-tech Internet police drama. In mid-season, the network will premiere All Souls, a haunted hospital drama from Aaron Spelling, and Special Unit 2, described as a Men in Black-like action series.
Is Rudy Rucker Ware-ing Out?
udy Rucker's popular series of Ware books may come to an end with the June
release of his next novel, Realware.
The author told SCI FI Wire: "When I finished Realware, I felt like it would be the last of the Ware books. Things are nicely rounded off and resolved."
Rucker describes Realware, the fourth book in the Ware sequence, as "a
novel set in 2052, about some aliens giving humans a tool that enables one to create whatever object one thinks of." It follows Software, Wetware and Freeware, which dealt with robots that evolved from sentience (boppers) to cyborgs (meatbops) and then morphed into a kind of living plastic (moldies), thanks to a chip virus.
Both Software and Wetware earned the Philip K. Dick Award for best new SF
paperback novel of the year, and Software is currently being developed into a feature film by Phoenix Pictures. Rucker has already moved on to other things and says he just finished "a historical novel about the life of the 16th century Flemish painter Peter Bruegel the Elder."
But Rucker said that publishers and fans love the Ware books, and he may well pen another volume in the series someday. Rucker's new short story collection, Gnarl!, was released in April.
Roofworld Heads For Screen
ine Line Features and Granada Films will develop Roofworld, an $18 million SF movie set on the roofs of a futuristic London, Variety reported.
Produced by Mark and Peter Samuelson (Arlington Road), Roofworld is based on Christopher Fowler's novel of the same name.
Ollie Blackburn will write the screenplay; no director is yet attached, according to the trade paper. Filming is slated to start in spring 2001.
Sturgeon Nominees Announced
inalists have been announced for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, presented annually to the best science fiction short story of the year.
The award, established in 1987, honors the late SF author. A committee chaired by Dave Truesdale, editor and publisher of the SF journal Tangent, and writer Christopher McKitterick will select the winner.
The winner will receive the award July 7 in Lawrence, Kan., in conjunction with the presentation of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best SF novel and the induction of new members into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, according to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. A full list of Sturgeon nominees follows.
•"Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance" by Eleanor Arnason
•"The Window" by Judith Berman
•"macs" by Terry Bisson
•"Reality Check" by Michael A. Burstein
•"The Giftie" by James Gunn
•"Suicide Coast" by M. John Harrison
•"Five Days in April" by Brian Hopkins
•"The Chop Girl" by Ian R. MacLeod
•"The Wedding Album" by David Marusek
•"Once Upon a Matter Crushed" by Wil McCarthy
•"Winemaster" by Robert Reed
•"Everywhere" Geoff Ryman
•"Jennifer, Just Before Midnight" by William Sanders
•"Green Tea" by Richard Wadholm
•"Daddy's World" by Walter Jon Williams
("The Giftie," by Sturgeon judge James Gunn, was declared ineligible.)
SCI FI To Debut Invisible
he SCI FI Channel premieres the original series The Invisible Man on June 9, the network announced.
SCI FI will air a two-hour premiere episode at 8 p.m. The Invisible Man will subsequently air in its regular time slot on Fridays at 8 p.m.
The Invisible Man, which is distributed by Studios USA, will also air on broadcast stations in some markets, beginning June 17. The official Web site will launch on SCIFI.COM on June 2. Studios USA, SCI FI and SCIFI.COM are owned by USA Networks.
The Invisible Man stars Vincent Ventresca (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Prey) as Darien, a small-time thief who is drafted into secret government experiments on invisibility. The Invisible Man is part of SCI FI's "SCI FI Summer," featuring new episodes of regular series Farscape, Lexx, First Wave, Exposure and Crossing Over With John Edward.
BKN To Re-Air Roughnecks
KN (Bohbots Kids Network) will air all 40 episodes of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, the 3-D animated children's series based on the 1997 feature film Starship Troopers, the network announced.
Sony Pictures Family Entertainment Group, which produces the show, said that BKN set a Sept. 4 start date for the rebroadcast.
Roughnecks continues the story of the film, which was based on Robert A. Heinlein's classic SF novel of the same name and features the adventures of troopers Rico, Dizzy and Carl. Roughnecks currently airs on The SCI FI Channel Monday through Thursday at 7:30 a.m. ET as part of a two-hour programming block supplied by BKN.
More Marvel Heroes Go To Movies
arvel Enterprises is joining forces with Artisan Entertainment to develop movies, TV shows and Internet projects based on at least 15 Marvel superhero franchises, according to Variety.
The franchises include Capt. America and Thor, the trade paper reported.
Marvel is already partnering with other studios to develop films based on its characters, including Fox's upcoming X-Men and Sony's Spider-Man. Other projects in various stages of development include Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and Blade 2, Variety reported.
Universal, meanwhile, has hired two writers to work on Marvel projects, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie (X-Men, The Usual Suspects) will pen The Green Hornet, which will star Jet Li. Michael Tolkin (Deep Impact) will write The Incredible Hulk.
Following is a list of projects Marvel and Artisan will develop, according to Variety.
•Black Panther, about a black Indiana Jones-style character. Wesley Snipes (Blade) may produce and star.
•Deadpool, about a disfigured mercenary who becomes a hit man.
•Iron Fist, about an orphan with mystical martial arts powers.
•Morbius, about a scientist who becomes a vampire while trying to cure a rare blood disease.
•Longshot, about a genetically-engineered marksman slave from another dimension.
•Power Pack, a family of four kids with superhuman powers.
•Mort the Dead Teenager, about a kid who comes back to life after dying in a car crash.
•Antman, about a scientist who can make himself a giant or shrink himself to the size of an ant.
Smith Is Off $6 Million Man
ilmmaker Kevin Smith (Dogma) told the Ain't It Cool News Web site that studio politics torpedoed his involvement in The Six Million Dollar Man, a proposed movie based on the 1970s TV series of the same name.
"I was a huge fan and had all the toys and such. ... We went in and pitched it to Universal to [former senior vice president of production] Nina Jacobson, she dug it and I was hired and sent off to go."
But, Smith added, "it took me a year to turn in a first draft because I was working on other stuff. ... I finally did get around to doing it, and I approached it like a comic book and turned in my draft. By that time Nina Jacobson was gone and replaced by ... [Universal president of production] Kevin Misher, and he read the script and said, 'This reads like a comic book.' And I said, 'Does it? Awesome.' He didn't like that. ... I was [later] told, 'The exec doesn't want to do another exec's project.' That I get. ... Now, they're making it into a comedy, and I think the Farrelly brothers are involved."
Potter Date Pushed Back
arner Bros. has pushed back the release date of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--a feature film based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling children's novel of the same name--to November 2001 from summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, to be directed by Chris Columbus, will require heavy special effects, and a fall date was considered more realistic, the trade paper reported.
Potter has gotten a slow start while waiting to see if Steven Spielberg would sign on to direct. He declined, choosing instead to develop A.I., based on a treatment by the late Stanley Kubrick. Filmmakers, meanwhile, are still searching for a young actor to play Harry Potter, an English boy who discovers that he comes from a long line of wizards.
Smith Mulls MiB2
alks are moving forward with Will Smith for the actor to reprise his Men in Black role in Men in Black 2, according to Variety columnist Michael Fleming.
But Fleming reports that Smith's people deny he's signed a deal to star in the sequel.
Smith's co-star, Tommy Lee Jones, and director Barry Sonnenfeld are also talking about joining the project. Columbia has hired Robert Gordon (Galaxy Quest) to write the script.
Sciography Seeks B5 Material
ciography, the upcoming SCI FI Channel series that looks at SF entertainment, is seeking footage, photos, memorabilia, anecdotes and other material about the TV series Babylon 5 for a future show.
Sciography is a new, monthly biography-style series that focuses on TV programs instead of people. It will debut on SCI FI in July.
The Babylon 5 show will look at the background of the series, how it came to the air and the phenomenon that has evolved around it. Producers have lined up appearances from producer and director John Copeland, actress Patricia Tallman, Claudia Christian and others. Producers hope to shoot the show between May 29 and June 10.
Anyone with material connected with the show can e-mail the producers at swsessi@hotmail.com.
USA Orders Fantasy Sitcoms
SA Network has ordered 13 episodes each of Manhattan, AZ and Kill, Kill, Kill, both half-hour comedies that will debut in July, the network announced.
Both fantasy shows were developed at Studios USA Programming and subsequently acquired by USA Cable Entertainment.
Manhattan, AZ, executive produced by David Richardson (Malcolm in the Middle), centers on a big-city cop and single father who redefines his life when he accepts the position of sheriff in a quirky desert town where social graces and physical laws are unlike anywhere else. Brian McNamara stars as Daniel Henderson.
Kill, Kill, Kill, written by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi (Snow Day), tells the story of a secret agent who retires from the CIA but is reluctantly pulled back into battle when his lifelong nemesis refuses to leave him alone. Each week, the hero and his foe wage a war to the death, with one emerging victorious. The loser is resurrected the following week for another fight. Linden Ashby and Damian Young star.
USA Network is owned and operated by USA Cable, a division of USA Networks Inc., which also owns The SCI FI Channel and SCIFI.COM.
The Others Being Shopped
he Others, the DreamWorks-produced paranormal drama that NBC just canceled, is seeking a home on another network, executive producer James Wong told SCI FI Wire.
Wong said DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg is shopping the freshman series to networks such as The WB, Fox and The SCI FI Channel.
"But I don't know really how realistic that is," Wong said. The show has wrapped its first season, but the sets have yet to be struck, he added. Wong attributed the show's weak ratings in part to a mid-season move from the Saturday 10 p.m. slot to 9 p.m., with little promotion.
The Others ended its first season last week with a cliffhanger in which all the major characters died. Wong said he and partner Glen Morgan have scripted a resolution to that episode, which may not see the light of day. But, he added, "I'd rather leave it the way it is, and if anyone picks it up, we'll have a whole new beginning. We did have a whole second part ... planned. I guess only NBC will know what happens now."
Jurassic 3 Delayed?
inor script problems have delayed production of Jurassic Park 3, according to the Steven Spielberg-DreamWorks SKG Fan Site.
Reporting from Cannes, the site quoted director Joe Johnston as saying in interviews that principal photography would begin in early August in Hawaii and California.
Johnston reportedly said that the sequel to Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World would be lighter and more like a 1970s disaster film. He also denied that Kathleen Turner had been cast in a role, the site reported.
Revell Signed To Score Dune?
OUNDTRACKMAG.COM is reporting that Graeme Revell has been signed to compose the score for The SCI FI Channel's upcoming six-hour miniseries Frank
Herbert's Dune.
But Dune executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein could not confirm the rumor, saying, "We can't comment on any potential deal until the paperwork is signed."
Revell is a New Zealander who first came to attention for composing the
score to Dead Calm, which earned him an Australian Film Industry award. He has since become a Hollywood regular, having scored films such as The Crow, The Crow: City of Angels, Strange Days, Spawn, From Dusk Till Dawn, The
Craft, Pitch Black and Fox's upcoming animated film Titan A.E.
Bram Stoker Winners Announced
he Horror Writers Association handed out its annual Bram Stoker Awards on May 13, recognizing superior achievement in the field in 1999.
The awards, named after the author of Dracula, were presented at a ceremony in Denver in conjunction with the World Horror Convention.
A full list of winners follows.
Novel
•Mr. X by Peter Straub
First Novel
•Wither by J.G. Passarella
Long Fiction (Tie)
•"Five Days in April" by Brian A. Hopkins
•"Mad Dog Summer" by Joe R. Lansdale
Short Fiction
•"Aftershock" by F. Paul Wilson
Fiction Collection
•The Nightmare Chronicles by Douglas Clegg
Anthology
•999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense, edited by Al Sarrantonio
Nonfiction
•DarkEcho Newsletter, written and edited by Paula Guran
Illustrated Narrative
•Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman
Screenplay
•The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan
Work for Young Readers
•Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Other Media
•"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" (Audio) by Harlan Ellison
Lifetime Achievement
•Edward Gorey
•Charles L. Grant
Specialty Press Award
•Ash-Tree Press, Christopher and Barbara Roden
Homer Award Winners Announced
ans on the science fiction and fantasy forum of CompuServe selected their choices for the annual Homer Awards, recognizing outstanding 1999 works.
A full list of winners follows.
Best Novel
•The Veiled Web by Catherine Asaro
Best Novella
•"Hunting The Snark" by Mike Resnick
Best Novelette
•"Stellar Harvest" by Eleanor Arnason
Best Short Story
•"Hothouse Flowers" by Mike Resnick
Best Dramatic Presentation
•The Matrix
Why Emmerich Passed On Godzilla 2
irector Roland Emmerich told Cinescape Online's Annabelle Villanueva why he and partner Dean Devlin opted out of the planned sequel to their 1998 film Godzilla.
"The studio probably for cost reasons wanted to go a certain way, and we kind of think it's the wrong thing to do, so we felt [like], 'Guys, move on to somebody else, because we cannot help you, because we have our own ideas about it,'" Emmerich said.
Emmerich added, "Honestly, I think Dean and I have kind of matured and have moved on to other kinds of movies. ... I never expected to direct a sequel. I felt that other directors [should] do it," he said. "It's different when you generate your own characters, like [with] Independence Day or Stargate. You're probably more inclined to do a sequel."
NBC Kills Saturday 'Thrillogy'
BC has canceled its three Saturday night series, The Pretender, Profiler and its freshman paranormal series The Others.
"There is no more Saturday night 'thrillogy,'" an NBC spokesman told SCI FI Wire.
The peacock network hasn't given up on genre series entirely though. In announcing its fall schedule, the network announced a new series, News From the Edge, a one-hour drama about paranormal investigators. The series debuts in the fall.
The network also announced two genre specials. The Monkey King will be a four-hour miniseries adaptation from Emmy Award-winning executive producer Robert Halmi Sr. (Gulliver's Travels), based on a Chinese folk tale. Bai Ling stars as a goddess who recruits an American scholar (Thomas Gibson) to save the world by battling malevolent spirits.
U-238 is a made-for-television movie about two college students who build a home-made nuclear device for a science project.
Christensen's Selection Is Official
t's official: Lucasfilm has confirmed reports that 19-year-old Hayden Christensen will play Anakin Skywalker in Episode II and Episode III of the Star Wars saga, according to the official Star Wars Web site.
"I was just waking up, and my roommate walked in and handed me the phone, and it was my agent and manager, and they were pretty excited, so I knew as soon as I got on the phone," Christensen told the Web site.
The actor bested 442 candidates for the coveted role, including four who traveled last week to Skywalker Ranch to read with Natalie Portman (Queen Amidala). "I walked outside just stunned and in disbelief. I called my mom first thing, and my roommate started blaring the Star Wars soundtrack in the background. I didn't want to tell my mom right off, but of course she heard the music and started flipping out," he said with a laugh. He added, "It was only about a week ago that it started to hit me that I was testing for Anakin. ... Darth Vader! It's just been sort of hard to grasp."
Star Wars creator George Lucas praised Christensen on the site. "I'm looking forward to working with Hayden," he said. "He did a great screen test with Natalie last weekend. He is very talented, has a great command of his craft, and I know that he has the physical and emotional attributes to play Anakin Skywalker at perhaps the most complex stage of Anakin's life."
Episode II starts filming at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney next month. The final script is nearing completion, sets are well underway and costumes are being created, according to the Web site. Christensen was most recently seen on the Fox Family Channel series Higher Ground, and is currently in the Sofia Coppola film The Virgin Suicides. The Canadian actor has been working since he was seven years old, starting in commercials and doing theater, television and films.
WB Renews Roswell
he WB has picked up its teen alien series Roswell for a second year, SCI FI Wire has learned.
"That's what it looks like," a source at The WB said.
Other sources said the network had picked up the show for 13 episodes, half a year's worth. Such orders are apparently typical for the network. Roswell will reportedly remain in its current time slot, Mondays at 9 p.m.
The future of Roswell, which wrapped its freshman season with a finale episode on May 15, had been in doubt because its ratings were lackluster. But a move last month to Mondays from Wednesdays resulted in improved ratings.
Fans of the series had also undertaken a letter-writing campaign to save the show, sending in thousands of tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce to WB executives. Tabasco is the condiment of choice for the series' alien characters. The fans also took out a full-page ad in Variety.
Pocket Won't Publish Sulu Books
ocket Books won't be publishing a Star Trek novel based on the exploits of Capt. Hikaru Sulu and the crew of the U.S.S. Excelsior, John Ordover, the publisher's executive editor for Trek fiction, told SCI FI Wire.
Ordover said that fans failed to rise to his challenge to write 1,000 letters to him by May 1 seeking such a book.
"The mail has stopped coming in," Ordover said. "Sad to say, the total reached only 826 letters over the life of the challenge. While that is far more than we expected to receive, it falls short of the
1,000 letters needed for us to publish a Capt. Sulu novel." But Sulu won't disappear, Ordover added. "We will continue to use Capt. Sulu as appropriate in our Star Trek: The Original Series novels," he said.
Separately, Ordover announced a new series of Trek books, to be published between June and August. Star Trek: New Earth will comprise six novels set in the time period between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The series will focus on the U.S.S. Enterprise as it travels beyond the borders of Federation space to help establish, explore and defend a new colony of settlers on a planet called Belle Terre (French for Beautiful Earth). The last book, Challenger, will pave the way for a new New Frontier-style series of books to be written by Diane Carey, Ordover said.
SCI FI Cancels good vs. evil
he SCI FI Channel has canceled the campy supernatural series good vs. evil.
"We were always big fans of the series, and felt that it always belonged on SCI FI Channel," a network spokesperson told SCI FI Wire. "We waited as long as possible to see if it would pick up enough ratings steam to get renewed, but unfortunately, it didn't."
The spokesperson added, "Hopefully our hip, dead anti-heroes have earned their heavenly stripes."
The series, starring Richard Brooks and Clayton Rohner, started out as GvsE on SCI FI's sister cable network USA, where it ran for 13 episodes. Partly in response to fan interest, the show moved over to SCI FI, changed its name to good vs. evil and ran for an additional nine episodes. All 22 episodes will air again as reruns on SCI FI.
Briefly Noted
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CBS canceled the fantasy series Early Edition, which ends its four-year run in May. The Fox Family Channel will begin airing reruns of the show on May 28.
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Jude Law told Empire Online U.K. magazine that he's currently filming the SF movie A.I. in Cuba with co-star Haley Joel Osment for director Steven Spielberg. "He has a tremendous visual imagination," Law said of Spielberg. "He'll do a fantastic job of this film."
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BBC Films is in talks with the Mutual Film Co. to bring the classic SF television series Dr. Who to the big screen, Variety reported. The long-lived BBC series was previously made into a 1996 television movie entitled Dr. Who.
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Destination Films has lined up merchandising and promotional partners for its July 26 release of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, a fantasy film based on the children's book of the same name by Britt Allcroft, Wilbert Vere Awdry and illustrator Tommy Stubbs. The partners include Amtrak, Kmart, Subway sandwich shops and Random House books, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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The official Web site has opened for The Specials, an upcoming Rob Lowe film spoofing superheroes. The movie opens in the fall.
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Jason Paige, singer of the Pokemon U.S. theme song "Gotta Catch 'Em All," has sued Nintendo of America, charging that the company cheated him of payments for using his voice in advertisements, according to Daily Radar.com. Paige seeks $120 million in compensation and damages.
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Paul Bartel, director of the cult hit Death Race 2000, died Saturday of liver cancer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 61. Bartel directed Race for legendary producer Roger Corman in 1975, before going on to a career directing non-genre independent films (Eating Raoul) and performing as a character actor.
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Edward Woodward (The Equalizer) is in line to play James Bond's spy chief "M" at the age of 70, Britain's Mirror newspaper reported. Woodward would replace Judy Dench, who played "M" in The World Is Not Enough, GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies.
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Josh Hartnett (The Virgin Suicides) is the leading candidate to play the vampire Lestat in Warner Bros. upcoming film Queen of the Damned, based on the Anne Rice novel of the same name, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Hartnett would replace American Beauty star Wes Bentley, who opted out of the movie.
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The tiny Asian kingdom of Sedang has issued a series of stamps commemorating the British SF television series Doctor Who. Pictures of the stamps are posted to the country's Web site.
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Star Trek: Voyager writer Mike Sussman discusses his script for the upcoming season finale, "Unimatrix Zero," on his official Web site.
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In announcing its fall schedule, The WB network said it will keep its Tuesday night combination of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel together, as expected. Also on the schedule, as previously reported: Roswell, for a second year; Charmed; Dead Last, about a rock band that sees ghosts; and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, moving over from ABC.
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CBS has canceled the SF drama Now and Again, the freshman series starring Eric Close as a middle-aged man whose brain was transplanted into a younger body.
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Director James Cameron is riding on Air Force jets as part of his research as he develops a five-hour, 3-D Imax film about the first manned mission to Mars, according to the New York Daily News. Cameron is also angling for a ride on a NASA rocket as he prepares the "science fact" miniseries, the paper reported.
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Director Darren Aronofsky (Pi) and Artisan Entertainment will develop an SF fantasy film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Aronofsky will write and direct the $30 million movie, which has yet to be named, the trade paper reported. Aronofsky is in Cannes to screen his new film, Requiem for a Dream.
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Confirming earlier reports, The WB announced that it would renew freshman teen alien drama Roswell on Mondays at 9 p.m., with an initial order of 13 new episodes. The network also announced that it would field a new mid-season series, Dead Last, about a struggling rock band that helps the dead.
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Battlefield Earth, the SF epic starring John Travolta, opened in the No. 2 box-office slot on the weekend of May 13, bringing in an estimated $12.3 million. The movie met with almost universally bad reviews and was beaten out of the top slot by Gladiator, which is in its second week of release.
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Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) will star in Donnie Darko, a supernatural film about a teenager who escapes death in a freak accident and wins 28 more days of life before he must relive the same accident. Drew Barrymore will executive produce, according to Variety.
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David Twohy (Pitch Black) will write and direct Proteus, a World War II film about a submarine crew haunted by ghosts from the deep, according to Variety. It's the first of three films Twohy will write and direct for Miramax Films and its Dimension Films banner.
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Emily Watson (Angela's Ashes) will star opposite Taye Diggs in Librium, an SF thriller from Dimension Films, which starts shooting in July, according to Variety. The movie, directed by Kurt Wimmer, tells the story of a fascistic future society in which feelings are illegal.
