Berman Talks Trek X Movie
tar Trek producer Rick Berman told the Star Trek Communicator magazine that Brent Spiner (Data) has worked with screenwriter John Logan to develop the story for the proposed 10th movie, according to a report on the TrekWeb fan site.
"John is an extraordinary writer," Berman told the magazine.
Berman added, "I actually met him through Brent Spiner, and I am really looking to working with him. We have not begun working on the script yet, though John has written the story, along with myself and Brent Spiner. The premise has been accepted and approved by all the parties involved, and when all the proper contractual arrangements with our cast have been completed, John will commence writing the script."
Berman offered no plot details, but promised new developments for Spiner's character. "I think you could say that. It's not the reason Brent joined us in the story process, but there certainly is a wonderful arc for Data in this movie." He also promised the next movie will be "a bit more lighthearted and more action-oriented. In a nutshell, it's a rip-roaring adventure with a lot of humor."
It's doubtful Jonathan Frakes (Cmdr. Riker), who directed the last two Trek films, will helm the next. "Jonathan Frakes has done a terrific job on the last two movies, but I don't know what his schedule is going to be like," Berman said. "He has another project that he is involved with now--a movie he is going to be directing for Paramount and Nickelodeon. So I don't know if he is going to be available to do this, or whether we will be looking elsewhere."
X-Files Could Get 9th Season
he X-Files creator Chris Carter told fans in an official chat Nov. 6 that the show could continue into a ninth year.
"I read recently that David Duchovny is not ruling out a ninth season of the show," Carter said. "Robert Patrick [Agent John Doggett] has a multiseason contract, as does Gillian Anderson. Next year could be very interesting."
Carter also said he plans further feature-film versions of The X-Files, and won't kill off Agent Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny. "No, not if I have anything to do with it!" Carter said. "My contract runs out this year ... and I have big plans for more X-Files movies, and David Duchovny and Mulder are a part of those plans."
In the meantime, Carter did not rule out the possibility that Mulder will reappear to work again with the X-Files. "We'll try to make a virtue of the problems that arise from Scully's pregnancy. And Doggett and Mulder will undoubtedly have to work together sometime in the last half of the season," Carter said.
New X-Files Guy His Own Man
obert Patrick, the new FBI agent on Fox's The X-Files, told Science Fiction Weekly that he doesn't consider himself David Duchovny's replacement.
"I don't see it like that," said Patrick, who plays Agent John Doggett.
Patrick added, "I see it from the point of view of, David is a fantastic actor, and I understand that he's at a point in his career where he wants to walk away and pursue other interests, and he's a terrific actor. From my point of view, it's very exciting to be a new character introduced, and I'm a part of the ensemble."
Patrick, who has made a career of movie roles and television guest appearances, added that he understands the enduring appeal of The X-Files. "Well, I think it's a really diverse field: It's neat, it's conspiracies, it's things that aren't normal, it's a phenomenon, it's the dynamic of these people, and it's very intriguing," he said. "These are not everyday sort of experiences. And the fact that it's just great writing. What's going on on the surface is the structure of the story, and then the interesting thing here to me are the subplots, what's going on underneath. What is this really about--is this about this, or is it about this?"
Carter Calls Gunmen Light
he X-Files creator Chris Carter told Eon magazine that his upcoming mid-season spinoff series The Lone Gunmen will be lighter than the original.
He said Fox has ordered 13 episodes of the show, which will feature the three characters made famous in The X-Files.
"It will be much lighter than X-Files," Carter told the magazine. "The characters actually get to develop in ways we've never seen them before on The X-Files. They aren't in service to Mulder and Scully. They're working on their own beat."
Carrey Not Worried About Grinch
im Carrey, star of Ron Howard's upcoming How the Grinch Stole Christmas, told Cinescape Online columnist Cindy Pearlman that he's not worried about offending Dr. Seuss purists.
"I didn't have any reservations," Carrey told Pearlman. "It was just one of those things where you couldn't say no."
Carrey added, "If I destroyed it for you, I apologize. But I can't help myself. I'll say no someday to a remake of It's a Wonderful Life."
But Carrey denied that the live-action film will be too loud or scary for children. "No, I don't think so," he said. "I've sat with my daughter and watched things that are truly terrifying. I really don't think this movie is scary. I think [its] heart is good. The Grinch is a disenfranchised person. He's just the lonely, left-out guy. And he's funny. I think kids are going to like him."
Geisel Objected To Grinch Script
udrey Geisel, the widow of the late Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, objected to some of the humor in the original script of the upcoming feature film How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" Newsweek magazine reported.
"There were too many bathroom jokes," Geisel told the magazine. "That's not the Seuss world, not at all."
Geisel, 79, also objected to a joke about a home in Whoville with neither Christmas tree nor presents ("The Who-steins!" the Grinch concludes after spying a menorah) and a stuffed trophy of the Cat in the Hat on the Grinch's wall, Newsweek reported. She also didn't like a teenage Grinch depicted as a "who-venile delinquent." The offending lines were excised.
The $123 million live-action version of Dr. Seuss' classic Christmas book, directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey, opens Nov. 17.
Star Wars Fan Film Site Due
tomFilms has joined forces with the official Star Wars Web site to launch the Star Wars Fan Film Network, which will give fans an official outlet for their parodies, documentaries and other Star Wars-themed films.
AtomFilms is now accepting submissions of Star Wars fan films for consideration to be showcased on the site.
The Star Wars Fan Film Network will launch later this year. Participants in the Star Wars Fan Film Network will have access to a library of sanctioned audio clips--from Darth Vader's breathing to the lightsaber wave and rebel blaster fire--to incorporate into their own original works. As an added incentive to submit their short films for consideration, fan filmmakers whose short films are selected for the network will receive royalty payments based on the advertising and sponsorship revenues generated from the site.
Lucas Plans No Post-Jedi Films
eorge Lucas doesn't have plans for any Star Wars movies that would pick up the saga after the destruction of the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, a Lucasfilm spokesman said on the official Star Wars Web site.
"At one point early on, George Lucas talked of possibly needing nine movies to tell his tale of the Skywalker family," said Steve Sansweet, director of content management and fan relations in Lucasfilm's marketing department. "But as he actually worked through the storyline, he realized long ago that the story he wanted to tell could naturally be told in six two-hour films."
Sansweet added, "The nine-episode mantra, however, refuses to die ... and, we realize, never will. But George says that the story he has to tell will be complete in the six films, which can then be viewed as one epic saga. He says that he honestly has no story to tell now beyond the destruction of the second Death Star."
Ford Separates From Wife
tar Wars and Indiana Jones star Harrison Ford has separated from his wife of 17 years, screenwriter Melissa Mathison (E.T.), E! Online reported.
"We have been living apart for the past month," Ford, 58, and Mathison, 49, said in a brief statement. "We sincerely hope that we can work out our differences."
The couple added, "We would appreciate it if the media and the public would respect this as a very painful time for both of us and consider this a private matter henceforth." Ford and Mathison married in 1983 and have two children, Malcolm and Georgia.
More X-Men Scenes Planned?
-Men director Bryan Singer told the New York Post that he'd like to shoot additional scenes to incorporate on a future DVD edition of the film.
A DVD of the movie will be released on Nov. 21 and will include five scenes that were deleted from the theatrical release, but not the new footage Singer wants to film, the newspaper reported.
"Twentieth Century Fox has committed to doing a second X-Men DVD, in which I would use a slightly longer version, including two new scenes which I'd like to shoot, a commentary track and at least a dozen outtakes," Singer told the newspaper. "I would also include hundreds of hours of videocamera footage of the shooting of X-Men, chronicling the experience, which was inspired by Heart of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now."
In the upcoming DVD release, "There are certain scenes that take away from the theatrical movie which, when you see them on the DVD, you will understand why," Singer said.
Kramer Dukes Out Buffy
lare Kramer, who plays the mysterious new villain, Glory, on The WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told TV Guide Online that she took boxing lessons to prepare for her role battling Buffy.
"I've already had a couple of fight scenes with [Buffy star] Sarah [Michelle Gellar], and I loved doing them," Kramer told the site. "I started taking boxing lessons about seven months ago with the same guy who worked with Denzel Washington on The Hurricane. It's pretty hardcore, but I love it."
Kramer even gave Buffy's double a couple of black eyes. "Oh, that was awful!" Kramer said. "I accidentally punched [Sarah's] stunt double right in the forehead. I called her at home to apologize. She was very nice about the whole thing, but I felt terrible."
Will Rings Shoot Beyond Wrap?
heOneRing.net Web site reported a rumor that principal photography on Peter Jackson's upcoming The Lord of the Rings film trilogy may extend beyond the anticipated Dec. 22 wrap date.
Citing an unnamed source, the site reported that a second unit will continue to film scenes.
The site also reported that crews have been shooting around Wellington, New Zealand, using elephants to stand in for the "oliphaunts" that appear in J.R.R. Tolkien's Rings novels.
Press Allowed Access To Rings
ir Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf in Peter Jackson's upcoming film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, said the press has been allowed limited access to the top-secret filming locations in New Zealand, despite tight restrictions on information.
Writing on his official Web site, McKellen said, "There have been snippets of the action broadcast on the Internet; a longer trailer seen at Comic-Con in San Diego; the Vanity Fair preview of the hobbits, et al."
McKellen added, "The New York Times has visited, as well as many local newspapers. ... What with the Grey Book on this site and John Forde's entertaining filming reports on E! Online, Lord of the Rings is much freer from censorship than most."
McKellen added that he understands why New Line, which is producing the films, wants to preserve secrecy about the project in order to keep its publicity options open, particularly since the first Rings film doesn't appear until Christmas 2001, a year after principal photography ends.
L. Sprague De Camp Dies
ward-winning Golden Age science fiction author L. Sprague de Camp died Nov. 6 at his home in Plano, Texas, his official Web site reported.
He was 92.
In a career that spanned more than half a century, de Camp wrote more than 120 science fiction and fantasy books and several hundred short stories. He also wrote nonfiction in the fields of history, science and biography. In his career, de Camp won the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, the First Fandom Pilgrim Award, the Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement in Fantasy, the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Nebula Award and a Sidewise Special Achievement Award.
De Camp's best-known novel was Lest Darkness Fall, a time-travel story about an American who journeys back to ancient Rome to prevent the onset of the Dark Ages. De Camp was also known for writing humorous fantasy, particularly in the stories he wrote with Fletcher Pratt.
De Camp's short stories included "The Isolinguals" (1937); "The Gnarly Man" (1939); "The Wheels of If" (1940) and "A Gun for Dinosaur," the first in a series about time-traveling adventurer Reginald Rivers, to which Sprague de Camp wrote a number of sequels in the early 1990s that were collected as Rivers of Time. De Camp also wrote stories based on the character Conan the Barbarian, created by Robert E. Howard.
De Camp's wife of 60 years, Catherine Crook de Camp, died April 9. De Camp is survived by two sons, Lyman Sprague de Camp and Gerard Beekman de Camp; three grandchildren, Michael Rossman, Patricia Chalstrom and Veronica de Camp; two great-grandchildren, Nicholas and Samuel Rossman; and a brother, Lyman Lyon de Camp. De Camp, who served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II, will be cremated, and his ashes, together with those of Catherine, will be interred at the Arlington National Cemetery.
Will McTiernan Helm T3?
ohn McTiernan--currently shooting the remake of 1975's Rollerball--is rumored to be in line to direct Terminator 3, according to the SFX Network Web site.
McTiernan previously worked with T3 star Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1993's Last Action Hero.
SFX speculates that McTiernan will shoot T3 in Canada, where he is now filming Rollerball. James Cameron, who created the Terminator franchise and directed the first two films, shot most of them in and around Los Angeles.
Why Arnold Switched On T3
rnold Schwarzenegger told SCI FI Wire that he changed his mind about appearing in the upcoming Terminator 3 movie when he saw a script.
Schwarzenegger had previously told SCI FI Wire that he wouldn't appear in the next installment of James Cameron's SF franchise if Cameron wasn't directing himself, and Cameron has bowed out of the sequel.
"I think it was that the script was really good, and Jim Cameron just said, 'Look, you can do it,'" Schwarzenegger said in an interview. "[Cameron said] I'm prepping True Lies [2], I have to move on, and all that stuff. I think it was because of that" that I changed my mind, Schwarzenegger said. Schwarzenegger will appear with Terminator 2 co-star Edward Furlong.
For his part, Robert Patrick, who played the T-1000 cyborg in T2, told Eon magazine that he hasn't been asked about T3 yet--"I'm not aware of it." Patrick, who just began his first season as a regular on Fox's The X-Files, might find it difficult to shoot T3 around his TV schedule.
Linda Hamilton, meanwhile, told the Internet Movie Database news site that she won't be back in T3. "I was asked," she said. "I turned it down. I felt it was more courageous not to do it. I spent nine years trying to get the image of my Terminator character out of people's minds. I'm tired of being ever-earnest and stricken."
6th Day Director Talks Arnold
oger Spottiswoode, director of Arnold Schwarzenegger's upcoming cloning movie The 6th Day, told SCI FI Wire that he had no problem with Schwarzenegger serving as both star and producer on the film.
"He knows filmmaking backwards," Spottiswoode said in an interview. "A lot of actors know a fair amount about it, but he completely thinks as if he's on the other side of the camera. He knows exactly what he does, how to make the shot better. He instinctively knows where things are. He's very, very smart, camera-wise. I've always thought he was smart. But he's extremely good at figuring out how to make a better movie."
For Spottiswoode, The 6th Day is a rumination on deep questions. "The theme of the film, I guess, is [the question] 'What is one's real identity?' Do clones have souls? What will happen when we can clone ourselves? Who are we really? Do we have souls? Are we complete people? Or are we some sort of biochemical machines that [have] been created by man? Is there such a thing as a being with a soul that can be made in a lab, or will they be different?"
What does the director of Tomorrow Never Dies think? "I suspect you can make us in a lab," he said with a laugh.
(Read Spottiswoode's full interview in an upcoming issue of Science Fiction Weekly.)
Arnold Is A Regular Guy In 6th Day
rnold Schwarzenegger, star of the upcoming cloning movie The 6th Day, told SCI FI Wire that he welcomed the chance to play an ordinary guy.
"I think that what was appealing to me about this film was [that] I had a chance to play a totally regular guy, the way I am at home with my family," Schwarzenegger said in an interview.
Schwarzenegger plays Adam Gibson, a pilot in the near future who arrives home one day to find that he has been replaced by a duplicate. Unlike Schwarzenegger's other roles, Gibson is an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation, he said. "If there's a problem, [he doesn't] just come in like a steamroller and say, 'I'm the action hero, and I can take care of the job.' ... You have emotional struggle, you have physical struggles, you have confrontations that are very difficult to overcome. And I'm going through all those traumas in this film. And it works really well that I am an ordinary guy, a pilot, a family man. So when ... someone is ... cloning me and taking my family from me ... it's a real struggle to fight back. And it becomes kind of like The Fugitive ... in some ways, even though it's a futuristic setting."
Schwarzenegger added that he's eager to broaden the kinds of roles he plays. "I always enjoyed movies where you see a little more about the person," he said. "I think maybe more so now than maybe 15 years ago, because we change. ... Fifteen years ago, I was looking forward to 'How big is the explosion?' and the action and 'How many people do you wipe out?' Then I was 35. And now, I'm over 50, so you think differently, and there's other kinds of elements of the story and the character and all this becomes very much more important. And I think it has to do with just growing up, I guess."
(Read Schwarzenegger's complete interview in this week's Science Fiction Weekly.)
Milius To Revive Conan
ohn Milius, who directed 1982's Conan the Barbarian, will write and direct a new installment of the film franchise that once starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, Variety reported.
Warner Brothers acquired the rights to the character created by writer Robert E. Howard from Stan Lee Media, the trade paper reported.
Milius, who wrote the original film with Oliver Stone, has talked with Schwarzenegger about coming back in some capacity, though they are still working out the story and it's unclear how prominent a role the actor would play, Variety reported. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was in early talks to appear in the movie, but passed after he agreed to star in The Scorpion King.
Larry and Andy Wachowski, creators of The Matrix, will co-create the new Conan concept with Milius and are eyeing directing the second unit on the film, the trade paper reported.
Doc Savage On Track
rnold Schwarzenegger told SCI FI Wire that a script has been completed for Doc Savage, a proposed film based on the Doc Savage series of novels and comics created by pulp writer Lester Dent.
Schwarzenegger would play the titular millionaire adventurer.
"Doc Savage is a movie that is written," Schwarzenegger said in an interview. "It's all done. It's just a matter of me having time to film the movie. Because these are all huge projects, and you can only do ... them one at a time. But it will be done, ... I would say, probably next year."
Doc Savage is spearheaded by directors Frank Darabont (The Green Mile) and Chuck Russell (who directed Schwarzenegger in 1996's Eraser) and has been in development since 1999.
Smallville Cast Sought
casting call has gone out for the pilot for The WB's proposed Smallville, which will chronicle the early adventures of the DC Comics superhero Superman, the Zentertainment Web site reported.
Producers are seeking actors around age 16 who resemble Clark Kent and Lana Lang and an actor around 21 to play Lex Luthor, the site reported.
Genre television veteran David Nutter (Dark Angel, Roswell) will reportedly direct the show's hour-long pilot this March.
2001 To Screen In London, Berlin
remastered version of Stanley Kubrick's SF classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey will close the 2001 Berlin Film Festival before being re-released in several major territories worldwide, Variety reported.
The Berlin screening is set for Feb. 18; the movie will be released on March 7, coinciding with the second anniversary of the director's death, the trade paper reported.
Before that, 2001 will screen once, on Jan. 1 at the National Film Theatre in London. Organizers hope that Kubrick's widow and children will attend the NFT presentation and the screening in Berlin, along with the film's special-effects creator, Douglas Trumbull.
Pocket Books Launches DS9 Series
ocket Books will launch a series of novels based on the defunct television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Cinescape Online reported.
The series takes off in 2001.
"We're moving beyond the series' conclusion on television," editor Marco Palmieri told Cinescape contributors Gregory Norris and Laura Van Vleet. "The book picks up three months after 'What You Leave Behind' [the DS9 series finale], and because of the departures of Capt. Sisko, Chief O'Brien, Worf and Odo in the finale, we had some empty slots to fill. So we decided to create four new faces who will shake things up a bit."
Palmieri said that each of the newcomers belongs to a different species--one of them a race that has been seen in the Trek universe before. Readers may also learn what some of the departed characters have been up to from time to time. The book series opens in May with the two-part Avatar, written by S.D. Perry, Cinescape reported.
Cinefantastique's Clarke Dies
rederick S. Clarke, the creator, owner, editor and publisher of Cinefantastique magazine, died on Oct. 17 in Adair County, Iowa, of an apparent suicide, The New York Times reported.
He was 51 and lived in Oak Park, Ill. Steven Jay Rubin, a friend who formerly wrote for the magazine, told the Times that Clarke had been suffering from depression and committed suicide.
Clarke began publishing Cinefantastique in 1970. Its circulation was 1,000 then and is 30,000 now, Rubin told the newspaper. Clarke's wife, Celeste, the magazine's business manager, told the Times that the magazine will continue to be published, as will Clarke's other film magazine, Femme Fatales, about horror and SF actresses.
In addition to his wife, Clarke is survived by two daughters, Whitney and Caitlin; a stepson, Drew Sikula; a stepdaughter, Ana Sikula; and two brothers, George W. and Charles H., the Times reported.
ABC To Unveil New Mouse
BC will replace its Saturday morning cartoon Disney's Mickey MouseWorks with the new animated series Disney's House of Mouse in early 2001, Variety reported.
House of Mouse will air as part of the network's One Saturday Morning lineup.
Reminiscent of the old Muppet Show, House will feature Mickey Mouse as the master of ceremonies at a nightclub frequented by various characters from Disney's stable of features, TV series and cartoon shorts, the trade paper reported. The show will feature cartoon clips culled from the series of shorts produced for Mickey MouseWorks, as well as unusual pairings between Disney characters past and present, such as Hercules, Mulan, Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh.
WB Beams Up More Roswell
he WB network has ordered nine more episodes of its teen alien series Roswell, giving the show a full second season of 22 episodes, Variety reported.
Roswell has earned good reviews and respectable ratings and was renewed after a successful fan campaign to bring the show back.
With a new emphasis on its SF elements in its second year, the show has given the WB its best 9 p.m. Monday ratings since Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved out of the slot in January 1998, Variety reported.
Disney Takes A Minute
he Walt Disney Co. will develop the fantasy comedy movie Minute Men, based on a pitch by writers David Diamond and David Weissman, Variety reported.
Minute Men tells the story of three geeks who create a time machine that can go back only 10 minutes.
Forming a company called Minute Men, the guys try to capitalize on the invention by using it to help people solve their problems, the trade paper reported. Diamond and Weissman also wrote the script for Universal's upcoming fantasy film Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage.
Potter Casting Confirmed
arner Brothers confirmed casting and other details of its upcoming Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the feature-film version of J.K. Rowling's best-selling children's novel of the same name.
The news has been posted to the official Harry Potter movie Web site.
John Cleese will play Nearly Headless Nick, aka Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Popington; Robbie Coltrane will play Hagrid; Richard Griffiths will play Harry's Uncle Vernon; Richard Harris will be Professor Dumbledore; Ian Hart is Professor Quirrell; Alan Rickman is Professor Snape; Fiona Shaw will play Harry's Aunt Petunia; Dame Maggie Smith will be Professor McGonagall; Julie Walters is Mrs. Weasley; and Zoë Wanamaker will play Madame Hooch.
John Seale (The English Patient) is director of photography; Stuart Craig (The English Patient) is the production designer; Judianna Makovsky (Little Princess) is costume designer; and Richard Francis-Bruce (Air Force One) is the editor.
Potter Behind Schedule?
arry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the movie based on J.K. Rowling's book of the same name, is rumored to be running weeks behind schedule, forcing filmmakers to scramble for doubles of their child stars, according to the IMDB Web site.
The underage stars of the movie have already used up the maximum number of shooting days allotted under British child labor laws, the site reported.
As a result, producers are searching for child actors who can double the stars, start work immediately and work through next March, the IMDB reported. A spokesman for the Mad Dog Casting agency told the site, "We are looking for people who look like the actors already cast, and what they would be involved in doing is quite a lot of acting. They won't just be used as stand-ins for lighting setups or production purposes; they will get to perform. We need them to start really soon--days rather than weeks in some cases."
Outlaw Heads For Theaters
utlaw, a futuristic character from the British 2000AD comic series, is headed for the big screen, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Fine Line Features has optioned the rights to Outlaw from software developer Rebellion, the trade paper reported.
Outlaw tells the story of a criminal captured by a weapons design company, who is turned into the ultimate fighting machine. Outlaw is being targeted to start production early next year, the trade paper reported. Andrew Upton is expected to direct from a script by Lloyd Foneville.
2000AD also spawned the 1995 feature film Judge Dredd; the series also features the mutant bounty hunter Strontium Dog and cloned soldier Rogue Trooper.
Sony Announces PlanetSide
ony Online Entertainment announced the development of PlanetSide, which it calls the first massively multiplayer first-person action game in PC gaming history.
Sony described PlanetSide as a "soldier-to-soldier combat and vehicular warfare game, set within a massive persistent environment."
Players will assume the roles of mercenaries and reside in a distant galaxy, where little semblance of law exists. PlanetSide continents will vary from arctic wastelands to scorching deserts, and players will work to capture various technological bases--using both soldier-to-soldier as well as vehicle-based combat--to influence the control of the continent toward their chosen corporation.
PlanetSide is due to ship in the third quarter of 2001 for the PC platform.
Clay Headlines Colosseum
omedian Andrew "Dice" Clay will star in a time-travel television series, Colosseum, which Pearson Television is readying for syndication, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Clay will play a Chicago fight promoter who is transported back in time to ancient Rome, where he ends up as a talent scout for the Colosseum.
The series will be rolled out at the upcoming National Association of Television Programming Executives' annual syndication sales conference in Las Vegas Jan. 22-25, 2001, the trade paper reported. Writer-producer Sam Egan (Outer Limits) has signed on as the series' show runner. Mario Azzopardi (Stargate SG-1) is set to direct.
Pixar Will Find Nemo
ixar Animation Studios plans to release its fifth computer-animated feature film, Finding Nemo, in summer 2003, Pixar CEO Steve Jobs announced, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Nemo will tell the story of Nemo, a boy clownfish stolen from his coral-reef home, and his timid father, who must search the ocean to find him.
Finding Nemo will be directed by A Bug's Life co-director Andrew Stanton. It will be Pixar's fourth co-production with the Walt Disney Co. The two companies collaborated on Toy Story, A Bug's Life and the upcoming Monsters Inc., which is slated for a November 2001 release.
Production is underway on Nemo, but no announcements have been made on who will voice the characters, the trade paper reported. Other Pixar films in development include a new feature from A Bug's Life co-director John Lasseter, tentatively set for late 2002, and a feature by Iron Giant director Brad Bird.
Imax Nixes 3-D Shrek
max has canceled plans to release DreamWorks' animated feature Shrek in its 150 digital 3-D theaters because of increased costs related to creative changes made by the studio, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Based on a children's book of the same name by William Steig, Shrek features the voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and Eddie Murphy and tells the story of a green monster who searches for his perfect mate.
Imax originally was scheduled to pay $10 million for the computer programming required to transfer the 2-D cartoon to 3-D. The Imax release of Shrek was expected to have a different ending than the conventional film to take advantage of the 3-D format, the trade paper reported. Shrek was slated to hit Imax theaters in December 2001, six months after its May 18 debut in traditional theaters. DreamWorks told the Reporter that it is reviewing its options for Shrek.
B5's Doyle Loses House Bid
abylon 5 star Jerry Doyle was soundly defeated in his Republican bid to unseat Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman in California's 24th congressional district, according to news reports.
Doyle polled just 30 percent (63,040) of the district's voters, while Sherman got 67 percent (142,398), according to CNN.com.
Doyle was running for U.S. Congress in the district that represents parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. He entered the race when the GOP's previous candidate, former Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, pulled out of the race.
7th Portal Movie In Works
roducer Mark Canton told SCI FI Wire that a script is in the works for a feature film based on The 7th Portal, the animated Web-based fantasy series from Stan Lee Media.
"We have a young writer for it we just closed a deal with," Canton said in an interview. "And I just love working with Stan. He's one of my heroes."
7th Portal premiered on Lee's Web site in February. It tells the story of six young computer gamesters who are sucked into a parallel dimension to battle the forces of darkness. "It's new characters who [have] evolved in the Internet world and, I think, will develop ... more like a Batman ... dark and kind of mysterious and very contemporary," Canton said of the proposed movie.
Apes Worker Dies
al/OSHA is investigating a fatal accident that occurred during pre-production of Fox's upcoming SF movie Planet of the Apes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Paul Trachtenberg, 42, a scenic artist who was painting a floor-to-ceiling backdrop for the film's set, was killed Oct. 30 when he fell off a platform that had been raised about 20 feet above the floor of the Los Angeles Center Studios, the trade paper reported.
Trachtenberg was rushed to a local trauma center, where he died of his injuries. Dean Fryer, a spokesman for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, told The Hollywood Reporter that the agency would investigate such issues as training and proper operation of the lift on which Trachtenberg was working.
Atwood Wins Booker Prize
anadian novelist Margaret Atwood, a sometime SF author, won Britian's prestigious Booker literary prize for her non-SF epic novel The Blind Assassin, the Reuters news service reported.
Atwood also won the equivalent of $29,980 for the book, one of whose characters is an SF author.
Atwood was picked from more than 120 entries from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth. Among SF aficionados, Atwood is best known for her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, winner of the Governor General's Award of Canada and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1986. The book was turned into a 1990 film of the same name.
Manga Readies Street Fighter Zero
anga Entertainment has allied with video game producer Capcom to release the new animated movie Street Fighter Alpha (Street Fighter Zero in Japan), which is scheduled to hit video stores on Jan. 30.
According to Manga, the movie will be released in both VHS and DVD format, with interviews, a "making of" documentary and trailers on the DVD.
The Street Fighter Zero movie is based on the popular game franchise Street Fighter II and serves as a sequel to the television series Street Fighter II V, also released by Manga. It follows street fighters Ken and Ryu--reunited by the death of their master--as Ryu begins to accumulate the energies of the Dark Hadou. Things are complicated with the sudden appearance of Shun--who claims to be Ryu's long-lost brother--and Akuma, the vicious lord of the Dark Hadou himself.
Red Planet Is No Mission
ark Canton, producer of the upcoming SF thriller movie Red Planet, told SCI FI Wire that he's not worried about invidious comparisons between his movie and this year's similarly themed but critically blasted Mission to Mars.
"I don't think it'll affect us at all," Canton said in an interview. "I think people who choose to come to this movie will have a different experience. I always felt that this movie clearly is a movie that is meant to ... stand alone. It's very cool, and it has a style."
Like Mission to Mars, Red Planet tells the story of the first manned expedition to Earth's planetary neighbor. The two films also deal with the consequences of disasters that imperil the crews sent to Mars. But that's where the comparisons end, Canton said. "[Director] Antony [Hoffman] used a lot of the Matrix crew, including sound effects, costumes and production design," he said. "I think that it's a cool cast, and I think it's a very interesting combination of storytelling, characters on a mission and in jeopardy, and also dazzling effects: creatures like [the robot] AMEE you've never seen the likes of before."
First-time feature director Hoffman agreed. "For science fiction enthusiasts ... anyone especially who knows about those things, they'll say, 'Wow, these are theories that are out there. They're not crazy, not preposterous,'" Hoffman said in an interview. "NASA endorsed all of these theories from the beginning. What we're doing, what we're saying in the movie--the whole idea of terraforming, the whole idea of colonizing Mars--this is not conjecture. This is in the cards." Red Planet, which stars Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss and Tom Sizemore, opens Nov. 10.
Farrell Mulls Minority Report
rish actor Colin Farrell (Tigerland) is the lead candidate to replace Matt Damon in Steven Spielberg's upcoming SF movie Minority Report, Variety reported.
Scheduling conflicts forced Damon to drop out of the movie, which also stars Tom Cruise, the trade paper said.
Minority Report is based on the Philip K. Dick story of the same name.
Barrymore Talks Barbarella
rew Barrymore told the Calgary Sun newspaper that her proposed update of the 1967 camp SF movie Barbarella will differ from the original.
"I'm not going to play Jane Fonda's character," Barrymore told the newspaper. "I might be her granddaughter."
Barrymore added, "I don't have anything like a firm starting date yet, because I'm waiting until John August is available to write the screenplay, and he's still working with Steven Spielberg on Minority Report."
Space Show Still A Go
urvivor producer Mark Burnett told the New York Daily News that he'll still make a show for wanna-be astronauts, even if Russia's Mir space station falls out of the sky.
Burnett had proposed a reality game show called Destination Mir, about contestants competing for a chance to travel into space to the ailing orbital platform.
That was before a Russian official said Mir would be allowed to plunge into the Pacific in February. Burnett is not dissuaded. "My inclination is that Mir will stay up because it's been heavily funded," Burnett told the Daily News. "But, regardless of what happens to Mir, a reality show that's set in space will come to be."
If Mir falls, Burnett said he'll try to send a civilian to the international space station or build a show around propelling a civilian into orbit around the Earth for a week or so.
Earth Battle Comes To TV
okyo-based Pine Com International will produce an animated television series based on L. Ron Hubbard's SF novel Battlefield Earth, which was also the basis of this year's disastrous John Travolta movie.
Pine Com has licensed the rights to Hubbard's book from Author Services Inc. and will make 20 one-hour segments of the series to be sold into syndication in the spring of 2002. The series has a budget of $4 million.
Pine Com also secured the rights to make Battlefield Earth computer games and a comic book series, the companies announced. Hubbard is the founder of the Church of Scientology, of which Travolta is an adherent. Travolta has said he's readying a sequel to the feature-film version of Battlefield Earth, which tanked at the box office and was blasted by virtually every critic.
Rex Heads For SCI FI
Eric Garcia's SF novel series Anonymous Rex will become a television show from Alliance Atlantis and The SCI FI Channel, Variety reported.
The books tell the story of a race of dinosaurs who wear latex disguises to pass as humans.
Garcia will write a pilot and will co-executive produce the television series, which SCI FI hopes to air next fall, Variety reported. Random House will publish the second book, Casual Rex, in March, to be followed by Hot and Sweaty Rex later.
Winston Readies Alien Baby
tan Winston Productions will develop an as-yet-untitled movie code-named the "Alien Baby Project" for Revolution Studios, Variety reported.
The movie will tell the story of a family that adopts an alien baby who grows up to become a professional wrestler, the trade paper reported.
James Orr and Jim Cruickshank will write the script. Winston is also producing the five-film series Creature Features for HBO, based on the classic 1950s monster movies produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff.
Titan A.E. Gets Annie Nod
itan A.E. is among five feature-length films nominated for an Annie Award for best animated movie released between Aug. 1, 1999, and July 31, 2000, by ASIFA Hollywood, the international animated film society, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The other nominees include Fantasia/2000, Toy Story 2, The Road to El Dorado and Chicken Run, the Times reported.
ASIFA will announce the winner at its 28th annual Annie Awards ceremony on Nov. 11 in Los Angeles. The black-tie awards ceremony is open to the public, with tickets priced at $50 each.
Titan A.E., from legendary animator Don Bluth and his partner, Gary Goldman, was a critical success but a commercial flop; the $90 million movie grossed only $22.8 million in North America, the Times reported.
Craven Preps Fountain Society
irector Wes Craven told Eon magazine that he is preparing to helm Fountain Society, a feature-film version of his own SF novel of the same name.
Craven said a first draft of the screenplay is finished.
"The Fountain Society is a secret government project--a code name for a project--that is exploiting the fact that seven clones were created in the '60s by a scientist working in a big government lab who used the skin scrapings from his own peers, just wanting to see if he could do it," Craven told Eon. "Thirty to 35 years later, he realizes these people are all coming near the end of their careers, and he went to the government base saying, 'Look, I can extend the lives of these scientists who are all doing incredible work in weapons systems. I can extend their lives indefinitely by exploiting their clones.' It's the first time this is done."
The movie tells the story of one of the people who is cloned, and the woman who loves him, Craven said. "Its kind of an exploration of what cloning might be all about in the near future, and also, on a more realistic level, it's an exploration of the old American fantasy of eternal youth and what it would be like to return to your youth and some of the darker sides of that."
Craven would like to get the film started before impending actors' and writers' strikes next year. "Obviously, we have to have the script right, and every week that goes by, we're more and more worried," Craven said. "We're trying desperately to get it ready, but we're not going to do it unless it is ready. We'll see what happens in the second draft. But we're going to try."
Blade II Starts Pre-production
avid Goyer, writer of the upcoming movie Blade: Bloodhunt, told the Comics Continuum Web site that pre-production has begun on the sequel to 1998's hit Blade.
Guillermo del Toro will direct the New Line film, which is based on the Marvel Comics series Blade the Vampire Hunter. Wesley Snipes returns as the titular character.
"We began pre-production on Blade II last Monday," Goyer told the site. "Right now, Guillermo has been working with Mike Mignola and Tim Bradstreet and a number of other conceptual artists. Looks like Steve Johnson will be doing the creature effects. Casting begins next week."
Goyer is also writing the feature-film adaptation of Marvel Comics' Ghost Rider series for Dimension Films and Crystal Sky Entertainment, the Continuum reported. "I'm just finishing up the first draft," Goyer said. "Should be turning it in by the end of the month."
New John Edward Due In January
he SCI FI Channel will premiere the second season of Crossing Over with John Edward on Jan. 21, 2001, with an expanded Sunday-night format, the network announced.
SCI FI recently renewed the show for 65 more episodes and will move to an hour-long format for its 10 p.m. ET/PT Sunday episodes, beginning in January.
Currently taping in New York, the second season will feature new half-hour shows Monday-Thursday at 11 p.m. ET/PT. Since its debut in July, the five-night-a-week series has become the highest-rated late-night show in SCI FI's history.
Wheel Of Time RPG Coming
izards of the Coast announced that it has acquired the rights to produce role-playing games, miniatures and other merchandise based on Robert Jordan's best-selling Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels.
The company will produce a Wheel of Time role-playing game based on the engine that drives the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the company said. The hardcover core rulebook of The Wheel of Time RPG will contain background information on the geography, organization and history of Jordan's world.
Steven Long, Charles Ryan and Christian Moore of Wizards of the Coast are designing the game for a summer 2001 release. The first product will include all-new character classes, races, skills and feats.
Holmes Feeling Abandoned
atie Holmes (Disturbing Behavior) is in final talks to star in Abandoned, a supernatural horror movie for Paramount, Variety reported.
Ed Zwick (The Siege) is on board to direct, the trade paper reported.
Holmes will play a university student who is troubled by visions and glimpses of her ex-lover, who suddenly vanished during her freshman year--as well as by implications that she may have had something to do with another, similar disappearance, Variety reported.
Crichton Designs Timeline Game
rolific author and filmmaker Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) has set his sights on video games, having just finished designing a game based on his best-selling time-travel novel Timeline, E! Online reported.
The Timeline game is the first product to come from Crichton's Cary, N.C.-based development studio, Timeline Computer Entertainment, the site reported.
Timeline is currently scheduled for release for PCs this holiday season by publisher Eidos. Like the novel, the game will blend action and adventure in a story-driven, immersive 3-D world in which players travel back in time to 14th-century feudal France.
Dunn Wins First White Award
ark Dunn's short story "Think Tank" won Ireland's first-ever James White Award for science fiction, named in honor of the beloved Irish author who died last year.
Dunn won $254 and will see his story published in Interzone, Europe's leading English-language SF magazine.
White, a native of Ulster, was best known for his Sector General series of stories and novels, set aboard an immense space hospital inhabited by multiple species on the galactic rim. Other White works included Second Ending and The Watch Below. White was also a prolific fan writer and co-edited the fanzine Slant with Walt Willis.
Malkovich Says No To Spidey
ohn Malkovich told the Empire Online Web site that he won't be playing the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man movie, despite rumors to the contrary.
"I won't be doing Spider-Man," Malkovich told the site. "It's not really my genre particularly, and there were scheduling difficulties, and what they offered wasn't in any way an inducement for me to do it."
Malkovich added, "It was everything. Way too much time, not enough money, not enough of anything. I mean, if I'd have loved it, obviously I would have done it, but those sort of films aren't art films, they're business propositions."
Malkovich has been linked with the role of Spidey's nemesis in the movie, which will be based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name.
Dimension Preps The Ritual
imension Films will develop The Ritual, a supernatural horror movie to be written by Sheldon Turner, Variety reported.
The movie tells the story of two undergraduates at a small-town college who discover their peers are using black magic to manipulate events on campus, the trade paper reported.
Turner is also developing scripts at Lions Gate and Universal and has a blind pilot deal at Fox TV.
Briefly Noted
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The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will record music that may be used on the soundtrack of Peter Jackson's upcoming film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, the kiwi newspaper The Evening Post reported. The orchestra's chief executive, Ian Fraser, told the newspaper that it was still too early to know how much, if any, of the orchestra's performance would be used in the three films
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The newest teaser trailer for the upcoming Final Fantasy movie, based on the video game series of the same name, will be attached to copies of The 6th Day and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and will be posted to the official Web site on Nov. 14, the Dark Horizons Web site reported.
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The Election Day broadcast of The WB's twinned hits Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel brought the network its highest ratings ever among men aged 18-34, Variety reported.
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The Dark Horizons Web site reported that Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would decline to appear in Total Recall 2, the proposed sequel to his 1990 hit Total Recall. Speaking on a Chicago radio show, Schwarzenegger reportedly said the script for TR2 was bad.
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Linda Harrison, the actress who played the speechless Nova in the original Planet of the Apes, said on her official Web site that she will make a cameo appearance as a "Nova-like" character opposite Mark Wahlberg in Tim Burton's upcoming remake.
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The Comics2Film Web site reported that producer Mark Canton hired Michael Tabb to write the screenplay for a proposed feature-film version of Stan Lee Media's Web-based animated series The 7th Portal.
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New Line Cinema told the OneRing.net Web site that teaser posters for its upcoming The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which were recently posted to the Internet, were actually only test concept art and are not to be used to promote the movies.
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Star Wars: Episode II producer Rick McCallum told crew and staff at Fox Studios in Australia that he and director George Lucas would return to the land down under to shoot Episode III, the IMDB Web site reported.
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Interplay told the IGN PC Web site that it is developing a PlayStation 2 version of its popular Baldur's Gate II role-playing game, according to FGN. "Yep, Baldur's Gate II is coming to PlayStation 2," an unnamed spokesperson told IGN. "Not a whole lot is concrete right now, but we're working on it."
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The Coming Attractions Web site has links to teaser posters for Peter Jackson's upcoming film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, now in production.
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Universal has moved the premiere of its fantasy holiday movie Family Man back one week to Dec. 22 from the original Dec. 15, Variety reported. The movie stars Nicolas Cage as a man who awakes one morning to find himself living an alternative life.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger received the Billy Wilder Award Nov. 6 from Wilder, the director of Some Like It Hot and other classic films, Variety reported. The award honors Schwarzenegger's achievements in film and philanthropy and for upholding the international reputation of the Austrian image in movie-making.
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The Ain't It Cool News Web site is reporting a rumor that character actor J.K. Simmons (Oz) has been offered the role of newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man movie, based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name.
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Decipher will release a new Star Wars trading card game, Jedi Knights, by the end of the year, with the first expansion set coming in March or April of 2001. The new game will feature computer-generated artwork. Jedi Knights player leagues will be introduced in early January and offered to select retailers around the country.
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Pierce Brosnan, who plays British agent James Bond, told London's Sunday Express newspaper that he has started the process of becoming an American citizen. Brosnan, 47, recently bought a beachfront house in Malibu, Calif., leaving his native Ireland and England, where he spent most of his adult life, the Associated Press reported.
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The Nov. 5 season premiere of Fox's The X-Files, featuring new cast member Robert Patrick, ranked as the night's top program in adults 18-49 and was the series' best showing since last November, Variety reported.
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The Ain't It Cool News Web site is reporting a rumor that Kurt Russell (Soldier) is under consideration to don Batman's cowl and cape in the next installment of the movie franchise.
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Julie Walters joins the cast of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the movie version of J.K. Rowling's best-selling children's novel of the same name, the Popcorn U.K. Web site reported. Walters will play Mrs. Weasley, the mother of Harry Potter's best friend, Ron.
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Steven Spielberg received Great Britain's first Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award, the top honor of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the Associated Press reported.
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Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 saw its box-office receipts drop by 60 percent in its second weekend of release, to $5.3 million, the Hollywood trade papers reported. Blair 2 ranked No. 5 in the box-office rankings.
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Mika Boorem, 13 (Ally McBeal), will join the cast of Hearts in Atlantis, the Anthony Hopkins movie based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, Variety reported.
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FOX.com will host an international chat with Chris Carter, creator and executive producer of The X-Files, on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. ET. The one-hour dialogue will be available live in English, Spanish and Portuguese
