SCI FI To Air Earth
he SCI FI Channel will begin running Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict at 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, starting Aug. 6.
In its deal with Tribune Entertainment, SCI FI will air the first 88 one-hour episodes of the series in order and will broadcast future seasons as well.
Earth: Final Conflict recently completed its fourth season in syndication.
Dante Producing Gremlins III?
he Diabolical Dominion Web site reported a rumor that Gremlins director Joe Dante would produce a third installment in the franchise, to be directed by Donald Petrie (My Favorite Martian).
Original cast members Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates are rumored to be in line to reprise their roles, with Rob Lowe joining the cast, the site reported.
The site added that a script for Gremlins III has been written, but offered no details.
Anderson Open To More X?
n a report that contradicts a British newspaper story last week, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson left open the possibility of staying with the Fox series for a 10th season, should the show be renewed again, the Reuters news service reported.
An earlier report in the London Sunday Times quoted Anderson saying the show's next season, its ninth, would be her last. Anderson's contract expires at the end of the ninth season.
Fox's renewal deal for The X-Files also ends at the end of the ninth season, Reuters reported. "She's happy to be going back to do the ninth season, then her contract is up, so the assumption is that will be the end," Anderson's manager, Connie Freiberg, told Reuters. "We don't even know if the show is continuing" beyond a ninth year, Freiberg added. Asked whether Anderson would return to the show for a 10th season if the series gets renewed for another year, Freiberg said, "We can only face that when it happens."
Burton To Direct Enterprise
tar Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton told Cinescape Online that he will be directing episodes of UPN's upcoming Trek series, Enterprise.
Burton--who recently recovered from surgery to donate a kidney to his ailing mother--told the site that he will go into the studio at the end of July to begin working on his first episode. Burton has previously directed episodes of TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.
As for the upcoming 10th Star Trek film, Burton confirmed that the script by John Logan has been written, with the help of co-star Brent Spiner (Data), but that no production start date has been set, the site reported.
In other Enterprise news:
•A new view of the titular starship for UPN's upcoming Star Trek series has hit the Web.
•The TrekToday Web site, meanwhile, has posted a preview of the new show from the news on UPN's Los Angeles affiliate, KCOP.
•The official Star Trek Web site has posted new images of the starship's engineering section, from Entertainment Tonight.
Enterprise Details Confirmed
ick Berman, co-creator of UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, revealed key details of the new show in an interview with TV Guide, the official Trek Web site reported.
Among the revelations: The titular starship will carry the designation NX-01 (NX referring to an experimental prototype ship); the ship will resemble an Akira-class starship; and the crew will number between 70 and 80. The ship's interior will be more cramped, Berman told the magazine: "In the captain's ready room, you can bump your head if you don't watch out."
Moreover, the time period of the show is 150 years from now, pre-Federation but early Starfleet, Berman said. "We wanted to go back to a time when space exploration was truly new," Berman said. Starfleet is strictly an Earth-based organization with headquarters in San Francisco. Relations with the Vulcans have been strained, with feelings on Earth bordering on resentment toward the race that made first contact with them nearly a century earlier, TV Guide reported.
The villains will be called the Suliban, a genetically enhanced race that is given a leg up from the distant future, where a temporal cold war rages. The Klingons will resemble the ones from the feature films and newer series, not the ones in the original series, Berman added.
Bakula Talks Enterprise
cott Bakula, who will play Capt. Jonathan Archer in UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, told ET Online that the series will try to anticipate the look of the original series.
"It's kind of a tricky thing, because we obviously have more technology now at our disposal in terms of the shooting of it, but we had to go back and make it look like it was before," Bakula told the site. "So this has more of a submarine type of feel to it. You go in the submarines of today, and there are a lot of similarities to their kind of stations and things. So projecting that ahead and still making it seem like it's before Kirk is complicated."
Bakula also confirmed details of Enterprise's uniforms, which were first reported on SCI FI Wire. "They're kind of jumpsuity, but with pockets," Bakula said. "Jonathan Frakes came by and was almost in tears: 'We would've killed to have pockets! And a zipper?' We have those things, so we're feeling pretty cozy in them, but they're not leotards, which is great. Again, that's another idea of bringing it closer to today, as opposed to the futuristic thing."
Bakula also confirmed details of the series' premise, about humankind's first ventures into intergalactic space. "This is 150 years from today; this is 2151, 100 years before Kirk and Spock," he said. "So we are the first. We've just figured out how to use the propulsion system, and we are going out in warp speed for the first time. ... There will be surprises. What's really fun about this is, because it's ahead of Kirk and Spock, there are references to things that, if you've seen the show, you'll get a kick out of. They're kind of inside things that people know what the outcome is, but we're still in the developmental stage of that. So you'll see some things and say, 'Oh, it's the first time they ever did that; it's the first time they thought of that.' There's that kind of fun stuff, which I think will be fun, not only for the people who know the show really well, but also for newcomers." Enterprise debuts in the fall.
TNN To Air Trek 'Thon
NN: The National Network, which bought the rights to three Star Trek series and five movies, will premiere reruns of The Next Generation in a week-long marathon.
TNN'S "The Big Bang" marathon kicks off Oct. 1 and runs through Oct. 5; it will feature 77 of the series' most popular episodes from TNG's seven seasons.
Preceding the marathon at 7 p.m. ET/PT Oct. 1 will be a new one-hour documentary, America's Love Affair With ... Star Trek, which takes a look at the Trek phenomenon. The documentary is produced by Kralyevich Productions.
Coruscant Featured In Episode II
tar Wars: Episode II will take viewers to more places on the planet of Coruscant, home of the Jedi Council, the chancellor and the senate, according to a report in the official Star Wars Homing Beacon newsletter.
Concept artist Robert Barnes contributed illustrations for key "animatic" scenes, or moving storyboards, for each of the planet's sequences.
"There are different parts of the sequences that feature different architecture or obstacles, with different things that are going on," Barnes told the newsletter. "It helps the animatics guys to have a sense of where these things happen spatially, particularly on Coruscant, where major design atmosphere changes happen."
For Coruscant, Barnes broke down the sequences into distinct design zones. "These are where things change character, to give the idea that we're really moving through a vast city," Barnes said. "One of the zones is kind of an industrial warehouse zone that I did the environmental designs for, determining the look of the buildings and the color and lighting palette of a specific part of the city. It was a combination of drawings that were digitized and colorized. Once [director] George [Lucas] agreed to the basic zones and general feel of each, Eric Tiemens and Ryan Church took over, doing full-blown color, architecture and atmospheric designs to be used both as matte paintings for animatics, and as the guide for final work done at [Industrial Light & Magic]."
Horror Guild Nominees Named
he International Horror Guild announced the nominees for its annual awards recognizing outstanding achievements in the field of horror and dark fantasy from the year 2000.
The awards will be presented during Dragon*Con, Aug. 31-Sept. 3, in Atlanta.
The Sept. 1 awards ceremony will be hosted by Angel co-star Andy Hallett, who plays the karaoke-singing green demon on The WB series. A full list of nominees follows.
Novel
•A Shadow on the Wall by Jonathan Aycliffe
•Silent Children by Ramsey Campbell
•You Come When I Call You by Douglas Clegg
•The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale
•Declare by Tim Powers
First Novel
•House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
•Adam's Fall by Sean Desmond
•Damned If You Do by Gordon Houghton
•Raveling by Peter Moore Smith
•Run by Douglas E. Winter
Long Story
•"Mr. Dark's Carnival" by Glen Hirshberg
•"Naming of Parts" by Tim Lebbon
•"Riding the Bullet" by Stephen King
•"Demons" by John Shirley
•"The Man on the Ceiling" by Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem
Short Story
•"No Story in It" by Ramsey Campbell
•"The Rag-and-Bone Men" by Steve Duffy
•"Bodywork" by Christa Faust
•"Candia" by Graham Joyce
•"Down Here in the Garden" by Tia V. Travis
Illustrated Narrative
•The House on the Borderland, adapted by Bruce Corben and
Simon Revelstroke with Lee Loughridge from novel by William Hope Hodgson
•Mostly White by Bruce Jones and Dave Taylor, with Pamela Rameo
•The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore
•I Feel Sick by Jhonen Vasquez
•Channel Zero by Brian Wood
Collection
•The Death Artist by Dennis Etchison
•Tales of Pain and Wonder by Caitlin R. Kiernan
•Toybox by Al Sarrantonio
•Magic Terror: Seven Tales by Peter Straub
•City Fishing by Steve Rasnic Tem
•Ghost Music and Other Tales by Thomas Tessier
Anthology
•October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween, ed. by Richard Chizmar and Robert Morrish
•Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror, ed. by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
•Embraces: Dark Erotica, ed. by Paula Guran
•Strange Attraction, ed. by Edward Kramer
•Shadows and Silence, ed. by Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden
Non-Fiction
•The Horror Reader, ed. by Ken Gelder
•Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters by Howard Phillips
•Lovecraft, ed. by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz
•On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
•At the Foot of the Story Tree by William Sheehan
•Horror of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History by Robert Weinberg
Publication
•All Hallows
•Horror Garage
•Prism: The Newsletter of the British Fantasy Society
•Talebones
•Third Alternative
Art
•John Picacio
•Lisa Snellings
•Jason van Hollander
•Douglas Walters
•Joel-Peter Witkin
Film
•American Psycho
•The Cell
•Pitch Black
•Requiem for a Dream
•Shadow of the Vampire
•Unbreakable
Television
•Angel
•Dark Angel
•Buffy the Vampire Slayer
•FreakyLinks
•The Others
Campbell, Sturgeon Awards Given
oul Anderson's Genesis won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year, and Ian McDonald's "Tendeleo's Story" won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction of the year, according to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site.
The awards were presented at a dinner on the University of Kansas campus on July 6.
At the same ceremony, Alfred Bester, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance and Ursula K. Le Guin were inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, the SFWA site reported.
The Campbell Award featured an unprecedented three-way tie for second place among Mary Gentle's Ash, Robert Sawyer's Calculating God and Jack McDevitt's Infinity Beach, the site reported. Among the Sturgeon nominees, Stephen Baxter's "Sheena 5" placed second.
Locus Poll Winners Named
he 2001 Locus Awards were presented July 6 at Westercon in Portland, Ore., to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll.
Complete Locus poll results will appear in the August issue of the magazine, according to the official Web site. A complete list of winners follows.
Best SF Novel
•The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin
Best Fantasy Novel
•A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
Best First Novel
•Mars Crossing by Geoffrey A. Landis
Best Novella
•"Radiant Green Star" by Lucius Shepard
Best Novelette
•"The Birthday of the World" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Best Short Story
•"The Missing Mass" by Larry Niven
Best Anthology
•The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed.
Best Collection
•Tales of Old Earth by Michael Swanwick
Best Non-Fiction
•On Writing by Stephen King
Best Art Book
•Spectrum 7: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner, eds.
Best Book Publisher/Imprint
•Tor
Best Magazine
•Asimov's
Best Editor
•Gardner Dozois
Best Artist
•Bob Eggleton
German Lasswitz Winners Announced
rganizers have announced the winners of the German Kurd Lasswitz Prize for best science fiction of 2000.
The awards--named after the Kantean philosopher, historian of science and short-story writer--will take place at the PentaCon in Dresden, Germany, on Aug. 25.
The prizes are chosen by German professionals in the SF field. A full list of winners follows.
Best German-Language Novel
•Lord Gamma by Michael Marrak
Best German-Language Short Story
•"Troubadoure" by Marcus Hammerschmitt
Best Foreign Novel
•The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Best Translation
•Feersum Endjinn (Foerchtbar
Maschien) by Mary Doria Russell, translated by Horst Pukallus and Michael K. Iwoleit
Best Graphic
•Cover of the German edition of The Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
Best Audio Play
•No prize
Special Prize
•Wolfgang Jeschke
Endeavour Finalists Named
rganizers announced the five finalists for the Endeavour Award for distinguished science fiction or fantasy book by a Pacific Northwest author.
The award--named for the H.M. Bark Endeavour, the ship of Northwest explorer Capt. James Cook--will be presented at OryCon 23, which takes place in Portland, Ore., Nov. 9-11. The nominees follow.
•Storm Force by Chris Bunch
•The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin
•The Glass Harmonica by Louise Marley
•Wind Over Heaven and Other Dark Tales by Bruce Holland Rogers
•Terminal Visions by Richard Paul Russo
Emmy Snubs Most Genre TV
enre programming was virtually shut out of the major creative Emmys when the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced its nominations for the 53rd annual prime-time awards on July 12.
The highest nomination went to John Lithgow of 3rd Rock From the Sun for best actor in a comedy series.
In its last season, Star Trek: Voyager received the most nods of any genre programming, with eight technical nominations. The Powerpuff Girls and Futurama were both nominated as outstanding animated program less than one hour.
The special Peter Pan Starring Cathy Rigby received four nominations, including outstanding children's program. The SCI FI Channel's original miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune got three technical nominations. Dark Angel got one nod, for special visual effects. CBS will telecast the awards ceremony live on Sept 16.
WB Fumes Over Buffy Snub
he WB fumed over its complete shut-out in this week's prime-time Emmy nominations, particularly for its outgoing Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, Variety reported.
The snub came despite an extensive Buffy campaign by producer 20th Century Fox TV and the show's fans, who paid for ads in trade papers touting the critically acclaimed episode "The Body," Variety reported.
"If Catcher in the Rye were released today, Academy members would look at the book and consider it a dime-store paperback," WB Entertainment president Jordan Levin told the trade paper. "The academy is totally out of step with the viewing public. Every report I heard this morning listed the same old boring shows."
TV academy chair Meryl Marshall-Daniels disagreed. "The process is a tough one," she told Variety. "The WB has some superb programming, and there's no reason why that shouldn't be reflected somewhere. It's tough to break through the consciousness of a significant body of professionals." Buffy moves to UPN from The WB in the fall.
Meanwhile, Marti Noxon--who executive produces Buffy with creator Joss Whedon--told The Hollywood Reporter that the shutout has spurred her to campaign to get more of her younger industry friends and colleagues to sign up for membership in the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "To a very large extent, and this is just my opinion, the audience for our show skews to a younger [demographic] than typified by the academy membership," Noxon told the trade paper. "But my response to the total Emmy shutout is to get every younger writer I know to sign up for the academy. I became a voting member myself, because I felt that we need to make our voices heard. This is not meant as any disrespect to the shows that win, but it would be great to see newer, younger-skewing shows showing up in the nominations more often."
WB Closes Buffy Board
he WB announced that it will shut down The Bronze, the four-year-old posting and message board for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is moving from The WB to UPN in the fall.
The posting board, which ceases operation on July 10, has been the international nexus for Buffy fans, who have used it as a springboard for get-togethers and three annual charity fund-raising parties in Los Angeles.
Buffy executive producer Marti Noxon, one of several writers and producers who dropped by the posting board in the last day, assured fans that a new Bronze would be up and running when Buffy makes its debut on UPN. "This is a sad day, but rest assured, another Bronze-like Buffy board will be up soon," Noxon wrote. "We've been talking to UPN, and they are on it, believe me. They want you guys to continue to have a home to express your Buffy-related ... feelings/etc. ... Thanks for all your incredible passion and enthusiasm for the show. Many, many times--I've felt disconnected or discouraged, and I've come for a little lurk on the board to remind myself that there is actually an AUDIENCE out there--a living, feeling world of people responding to what we do, day in and day out. You guys are the reason we're still on the air, and you guys make us feel proud and honored to do what we do. Seriously--thank you."
Buffy Pal Willow Out-ed
lyson Hannigan--witchy Willow on Buffy the Vampire Slayer--will grace the cover of Out magazine, aimed at gays and lesbians, E! Online columnist Watch with Wanda reported.
Hannigan's character is the lesbian lover of Tara, played by Amber Benson.
In the magazine, the actors discuss the two characters' tender moment during last season's critically acclaimed episode "The Body," which dealt with the death of Buffy's mom, the site reported. "We must have kissed a hundred times," recalled Benson, whose character initiated the kiss to comfort Willow in her grief. "It was very nice."
Hannigan added, "After one take, [Buffy creator] Joss [Whedon] did say, 'Can we have one that's less like you're going to sleep together in about five minutes?'"
Wanda also reported that Tara would sing a love song to Willow in next season's previously reported all-musical episode of Buffy, for which creator Joss Whedon will write the songs.
BBC Buffy Spinoff Confirmed
he British Broadcasting Corp. will make a spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer centered on the character of Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), as previously speculated, according to a report in the British Observer newspaper and Variety.
SCI FI Wire first reported in May that Buffy creator Joss Whedon was talking with the BBC about the spinoff series, which was being considered in part to accommodate Head's desire to be closer to his family in the United Kingdom.
On July 8, the Observer reported that the BBC is planning the series, tentatively called The Watcher, to star Head as Rupert Giles. Twentieth Century Fox, which will produce Buffy for UPN in the fall, will also produce the BBC program, the Observer said.
Li Beside Himself In The One
et Li, star of James Wong's upcoming SF thriller movie The One, told SCI FI Wire that the movie required him to fight a formidable opponent--himself.
The film tells the story of a man traveling through alternate realities, killing the other versions of himself to absorb their power. Li plays both the evil entity and an alternate version who must stop him.
In an interview, Li said he shot each side of the fights against a stunt double. Computer technology will blend the two sides and erase the double. "The One has a lot of computer help, a special way to shoot it, because I fight myself," Li said. "It's quite different. I become good guy first, then I become bad guy second, and then I become good guy again to make it work." Sony will release The One in the fall.
Glen Enlightens Darkness
ara Croft: Tomb Raider co-star Iain Glen told the Empire Online Web site that he will be starring in an upcoming supernatural thriller film, Darkness, for Miramax.
"I play the father of this family," Glen told the site. "Lena Olin is the mother, and Anna Paquin is the daughter. We are an American family out in the sticks, and we are drawn back to Europe, where I left when I was 7. It's a psychological horror. We are an innocent family who are taken back to demons that we had forgotten existed, which start to come out of the walls."
Glen added, "We literally finished [shooting] a week ago, so it's up to the powers of Miramax and finding an opportune moment to release it. There is a lot of post-production with horror films. You play the role straight, and then a lot of the horror is added on afterwards, so it'll be a good few months before that comes out."
Fantasy Opens Well
inal Fantasy: The Spirits Within took in about $5 million in its first day of release July 11, a respectable showing that augurs well for the weekend, Variety reported.
The computer-animated SF movie opened in 2,649 theaters amid mixed reviews.
The Fandango ticketing Web site reported that Final Fantasy represented more than 70 percent of its ticket sales on Wednesday, the trade paper reported. Observers expect the movie, based on the Square video-game series Final Fantasy, to top the weekend box-office rankings.
Fantasy To Morph For PS2
hris Lee, producer of the upcoming computer-animated movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, told SCI FI Wire that the film's innovative computer graphics will allow it to take on new life on DVD and the PlayStation 2 gaming platform.
"I think the fact that we've created a digital movie [with] truly digital environments--not just a flat-background digital movie with movement in the front--but everything digital means that the movie can repurpose itself in new and interesting ways in the future," Lee said in an interview.
The film--which features "hyper-real" animated human characters in fully realized 3-D environments--is being considered for a release in PS2 format, which would allow viewers to move around the movie's world and even move the cameras for a new take on the story, Lee said. "An actual PS2 version of the movie ... is something new that you haven't seen before," he said. He added that filmmakers will release a "great DVD two-disc [set] in time for Christmas, with outtakes and early stuff and a Matrix system to re-edit scenes."
Lee said the use of such advanced computer animation is in keeping with the nature of the movie. "No one had done photo-real before," he said, adding, "they're really not photo-real. They're really this convergent aesthetic of somewhere between gaming and film, I think. I think it's a very pleasing aesthetic. And I think that this movie ... because it takes you to a different reality, it's germane to ... accomplishing that goal. No one had done it before, and everyone pretty much thought you couldn't do it. And even our lead animators--like Andy Jones, who did all those people that fell off the Titanic--even he thought it was kind of crazy. But the reality is, because in science fiction you have this very singular vision and the wherewithal to put ... [your] money where [your] mouth [is] and say, 'You know what, we're going to do this,' we accomplished ... skin textures and hair and clothing and movement that you've never seen before. And I think all of it adds up to a breakthrough, not just in animation, but in filmmaking in general. And I think other directors who have this kind of big-imagination, big-canvas kind of point of view will be able now to take this technology and tell their stories." Final Fantasy opens July 11.
Axis To Debut In 2002
xis, Europe's first computer-animated movie, will premiere in the United States in 2002, quickly followed by European and Japanese releases, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The fantasy film is a co-production of Chaman Productions, Vivendi Universal's StudioCanal and TVA International.
The 85-minute movie will be previewed at the 28th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, or SIGGRAPH, Aug. 12-17 in Los Angeles. The film features the voices of Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston, Keith David, Greg Proops and Michael McShane. The movie tells the story of Kaena (Dunst), a teen-age girl from a village in a towering tree called Axis, which rises 100 miles above her planet's surface. Kaena embarks on a journey to discover why the tree's sap is disappearing and encounters the Selenites, an alien race, the trade paper reported.
Moebius Animates Strip
he French conceptual artist Moebius (Jean Giraud) has partnered with American computer-graphics expert Frank Foster and Hong Kong digital-film producer Raymond Noeh to create Thru the Moebius Strip, a 3-D computer-animated SF film, the Reuters news service reported.
Moebius conceived and developed the story and drew the characters and storyboarded the film.
Moebius tells the story of a physicist named Simon Weir, who becomes lost in a space-time portal and must be rescued by his family on a strange planet, Reuters reported.
A team of French, Chinese and American animators has been working on the film since March in China's southern special economic zone of Shenzhen; by September, the team will have grown to its full complement of 150 members, the wire service reported.
Moebius, 63, achieved his first fame in 1963 with the Lt. Blueberry character created for the French magazine Pilote. Metal Hurlant (Screaming Metal) magazine, which he co-founded in 1975, became, in its American incarnation, National Lampoon's adult science fiction/fantasy comic magazine Heavy Metal. He also helped design Disney's groundbreaking film Tron.
Baldwin Drops Devil Suit
lec Baldwin has dropped his lawsuit against The Devil and Daniel Webster producer David Glasser and has returned to finish the movie, his directorial debut, the Popcorn U.K. Web site reported.
Baldwin also stars in the film with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Anthony Hopkins; the movie is an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's supernatural story of the same name, about a writer who sells his soul to satan.
Baldwin and Glasser have reportedly settled their differences, which concerned financing. Baldwin is now editing the film.
Raimi Talks Spidey And The Web
pider-Man director Sam Raimi told the Spider-Man Hype! Web site that he's a bit overwhelmed by the Internet interest in his film.
"I've never experienced anything like it," Raimi told the site. "Like, if you were a plumber, and you had, like, 40,000 other plumbers looking over your shoulders to see how you were putting it all together, and they all have a really strong opinion, and it's printed for everyone to see. ... It makes it difficult to replace the pipe."
Raimi added, "I think directing the picture is even a harder job than plumbing. It's filled with a thousand creative decisions, and none are right or wrong. I can't look in the book and say, 'These people are right, and these people are wrong, because the book says that the way that you replace this part with a No. 2 socket wrench and with this particular fitting so I can proceed with confidence knowing that, even though half of these people disagree with me, I'm doing the right thing by the book.' Directing a picture is just a summation of opinions. ... The reason it's difficult is because we know the right way to make the movie is not to listen to everyone, as much as we want to please everyone, and that's our goal. We know the road to success must be in following our own instincts in telling the Spider-Man story the way we feel it in our hearts, because we know we can't tell the story of a thousand different people. It would be homogenous. You can't satisfy everyone. So it's difficult."
Raimi also offered some insight into the decision to feature the character of Mary Jane Watson, rather than Gwen Stacy. "Well, I wanted to go with Gwen Stacy, and I think in fact [producer] Amy Pascal wanted to go with Gwen Stacy, and even the first writer, David Koepp, wanted to go with Gwen Stacy," Raimi said. "But through the journey of working the Gwen Stacy story out, it seemed like the most dramatic element of Gwen Stacy was her death. Looking in the [comic] books, the early part of her life was less interesting--you know, her actual relationship with Peter. She is just very fond in memory. If you actually look through the books and see her relationship with Parker, there isn't a lot of dynamics there. So that had a lot to do with it. We really wanted to have a good love story, and there was a lot more interaction with Mary Jane Watson in the comic books with Peter Parker than there was with Gwen. In addition, we really wanted to have all the characters interact in a dramatic way, and because Gwen Stacy had no relationship with Harry Osborn, and Mary Jane Watson did, there was much more potential for dramatic conflict. So we pursued her because of that added advantage. She liked both of them. So they're best friends, and it's a lot of potential for drama there."
The first teaser trailer for Spider-Man, which is based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, is now available on the official Web site. Spider-Man opens May 3, 2002.
Indy Astronaut Gets Deal
ndependent film distributor Artistic License Films has picked up the U.S. distribution rights to the SF musical movie The American Astronaut from BNS Productions, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Artistic plans to roll out the film in the fall.
Astronaut is described as a surreal space-western-musical; it premiered in dramatic competition at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the trade paper reported. The movie stars its writer-director Cory McAbee as a hard-boiled spaceman who goes on an intergalactic journey while being pursued by a mysterious figure from his past. McAbee is a member of the San Francisco-based rock act the Billy Nayer Show, which recorded original music for Astronaut, the trade paper reported.
Macy Denies Jurassic Complaint
illiam H. Macy, star of the upcoming dinosaur sequel Jurassic Park III, denied to SCI FI Wire that he ever complained that the movie was troubled.
"I was reported as having said I was miserable on the set, and that it was anarchy," Macy said in an interview. "I'd like to set that straight. I never said that."
Last December, when the film was in production, the New York Post quoted Macy as calling Jurassic Park III "a $100 million ship without a rudder." But in interviews this week to promote the movie, Macy denied that he ever said such things--at least about Jurassic Park III. "I did say that, but it wasn't about this movie," Macy said. "It was the State and Main junket, and I was talking about another movie, and I won't tell you what movie that was, because I'll get in trouble all over again. But in reality, what I said at the junket was, you know, 'Why would they do this? Why would they start a big movie without a script?' And then went on to say, 'Jurassic Park, on the other hand, we had a great time.'"
Director Joe Johnston has admitted that he threw out the film's script only five weeks before the start of shooting, and that the movie began production without an ending. Macy was philosophical about that. "And I've since learned the truth of it, and it's this. There was a certain amount of rewriting that has to go on when you get into these big technical things," he said. "There's nothing to be done. That's the way of the world. That's the way it's got to be. I mean, if you've got a spinosaurus that's supposed to come in and bite the head off the T-rex, and it's technically not working, you can't do the gag, and they've got to rewrite. If you get in someplace, and the forest is supposed to catch fire, and there's not time, and it's too expensive, and they want to put the money elsewhere, then they have to rewrite."
Macy--who plays a man seeking to rescue his son from the dinosaur-infested Isla Sorna--did acknowledge that shooting the big-budget action movie was physically demanding. "We got beat up," he said. "I'm so old, the first thing I look for in a script is when do I get wet and how long do I have to stay wet. Because, for some reason, every script you have to get wet. And it's miserable. And this one was bad. You got wet in September and we dried off in January. ... The bad parts were: We were wet, and it was Los Angeles in the wintertime, and that rain that they would bring down. There were a couple of scenes where we couldn't shoot the scene, because we got the shakes. The kind of shakes where you can't control yourself. Then they brought in hot tubs. And that's the benefit of doing a big, fat Hollywood movie. They brought in a hot tub. They had it cranked to parboil. We'd get in that thing until we were so hot, we were going to faint, then go do the scene. And when that freezing-cold rain came down, it actually kind of felt good. And that was the only way we could do it. We'd get hot, we'd jump into the water and get our clothes to the water temperature--otherwise, we were steaming. It looked like we were on fire. It was rough." Jurassic Park III opens July 18.
New Guy Wins Dino Smackdown
tan Winston, who created the animatronic dinosaurs for Jurassic Park III, told SCI FI Wire that filmmakers waited until the end of shooting to pit the robotic tyrannosaurus rex from previous Jurassic Park films against a new robotic spinosaurus--with the older dinosaur ending up the worse for wear.
"The spinosaurus won, and the T-rex died," Winston said in interviews while promoting the film.
The shot doesn't end up in the final movie--a fight between the two dinosaurs instead combines animatronic dinosaurs with computer-generated ones. But in the real smackdown, Winston's effects crew sent the two giant robots careening toward one another on tracks in a Universal Studios soundstage. "The spinosaurus ripped the T-rex's head off for real," Winston said.
It's not surprising. The new dinosaur is a 44-foot-long, 12 1/2-ton machine powered by a 1,000-horsepower motor, Winston said. By contrast, the old T-rex was only 38 feet long and weighed nine tons, powered by 300-horsepower motors, Winston said. "We built a bigger and badder dinosaur," he said. Jurassic Park III, starring Sam Neill and Téa Leoni, opens July 18.
Jurassic III Had Shaky Start
oe Johnston, director of the upcoming sequel Jurassic Park III, confirmed for SCI FI Wire that the movie barely had a script when it began shooting last year, and production actually started before the filmmakers knew how the movie would end.
"We threw out the script about five weeks before we started shooting," Johnston said in a candid interview to promote the film. "The previous version, which was a totally different story, that we had storyboarded and budgeted and scheduled, we threw it right out the window and started over, page one." Eventually, Peter Buchman, Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne received screenwriting credit for a story inspired in part by an idea by Jurassic Park co-writer David Koepp.
Uncertainty about how the movie would turn out placed so much stress on Johnston (Jumanji) that he tried to quit. "I thought about it a few times," he said. "And there were actually phone calls where I called my agent and I said, 'Look, you have to get me off this movie. I don't care what it takes. I don't care if it's the end of my career, you have to get me off tomorrow.' And he didn't do it, obviously. ... It's hard enough to make a movie when you've got a script that you really love and it's been polished to death. But to start over, and start shooting a $100 million movie without a script, you want to blow your brains out. It was actually much harder on the production designer than it was on me. He had to literally build things sometimes overnight. ... He almost hung himself [laughs]."
The actors--including William H. Macy, Téa Leoni and Sam Neill--all signed on to the film without a finished screenplay. "We finished filming in Hawaii at the beginning of the schedule without an ending," Johnston said. "And we came back and wrote it, near the end of the schedule, and we returned to Hawaii." He added, "I tried to convince the cast that it gave us infinitely more freedom to not have a script, because we can decide along the way, 'Hey, tomorrow, we can decide what that scene's going to be.' They never bought it [laughs]. But they were creative enough to understand that I was flexible, and that if they had ideas, it's possible to incorporate them." Indeed, Macy actually wrote one of the film's scenes, and Leoni bowed out of a couple of sequences to benefit the storyline, Johnston said.
Before the start of the massive production, "We had a whole bunch of ... effects sequences storyboarded," Johnston said. "And they were in pretty good shape, so we tried to adapt those to the new story. And a lot of it did. We actually brought in some earlier ones that were in the first version of the draft that we had thrown out a year earlier. ... The story you see in Jurassic Park III is the third complete version of the story." Jurassic Park III opens July 18.
Giant Lizards Threaten NY?
t takes a lot to catch the attention of New Yorkers--but a crew of workers in haz-mat suits did just that last week as they handed out flyers and affixed stickers warning of impending street spraying to ward off "sewer lizards," giant underground reptiles that threaten the city.
Even the New York Daily News took note of the distribution in its pages.
What the New Yorkers didn't know at the time was that the men and their warnings were part of a hoax perpetrated by The SCI FI Channel to promote its upcoming paranormal series The Chronicle.
The hoax became clear when residents consulted the "Sewer Alert" Web site, which quickly linked them to SCIFI.COM and the Chronicle's home page. The promotion was in keeping with the show's theme, "Believe Everything," and its storyline, about a New York tabloid newspaper whose stories about monsters and unusual phenomena are absolutely true.
"It's amusing," Frank Allman, 29, of Michigan told the Daily News. But his friend, Jared Shapiro, 25, wasn't as charmed. "It's not amusing," Shapiro told the newspaper "It's not clever, and/or funny." The Chronicle, starring Rena Sofer and Chad Willett, premieres at 9 p.m. July 14.
Black Knight Moved Up
ox is moving up the release date for Martin Lawrence's time-travel comedy Black Knight to Nov. 21, Variety reported.
The movie, currently in post-production, had been slated to premiere in 2002.
"Preview audiences have made it perfectly clear that this picture belongs in front of a holiday movie-going crowd," Fox vice chairman Robert Harper told the trade paper.
In Black Knight, Lawrence plays a con man and medieval theme park worker who finds himself in 14th-century England, where he uses his street smarts to help a down-and-out knight and a beautiful woman defeat an evil king. Gil Junger directed.
Taken Preps For Fall Start
roduction will commence in Vancouver in September on Taken, Steven Spielberg's original miniseries for The SCI FI Channel, the network announced.
The 10-part, 20-hour saga--from producer Spielberg, SCI FI and DreamWorks Television--chronicles the 50-year history of alien abductions.
Taken will star Steve Burton, Julie Benz (Angel) and Joel Gretsch (The Legend of Bagger Vance), with additional cast members to be announced in the coming weeks. Leslie Bohem wrote and will executive produce the miniseries with Steve Beers.
The miniseries will interweave the stories of three families and their experiences with UFO abductions. Burton will play Randall Keys, a World War II fighter pilot who encounters strange lights in the night sky while on a mission over Germany. Benz will play Kate Keys, Randall's wife, who is forced to raise their son alone as Randall struggles to cope with his abduction experience. Gretsch will play Owen Jones, an unscrupulous Army officer who sees the Roswell crash as an opportunity to jump-start his career. Taken is scheduled to air during the fourth quarter of 2002.
Foster Readies Daredevil Shoot
roducer Gary Foster told the Popcorn U.K. Web site that he's getting ready to begin filming a feature-film version of Daredevil, the Marvel Comics series about a blind superhero.
Foster told the site that shooting could start in November, based on a script by Mark Steven Johnson and Brian Helgeland (A Knight's Tale); Johnson will direct.
As for who will put on the red tights, Foster said there won't be any news for another few weeks. But he has some ideas. "[I'd] like to see Edward Norton do this movie," he said. "I'd like to see Guy Pearce do this movie. I'd like to see Matt Damon. There are a lot of people who would be great--Mark Wahlberg."
Foster told the site that he's looking forward to the film because it will "certainly be different" and will stand out from the crowd of comic-book adaptations because it is "more character-driven," "darker" and "edgier."
Helmers On Bond Short List
tuart Baird (U.S. Marshals) and Stephen Hopkins (Lost in Space) are on the short list of directors to helm the next James Bond movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The next film, the 20th in the longstanding franchise, will star Pierce Brosnan as 007.
Directors Brett Ratner and Tony Scott were also reportedly interested, but neither is still under consideration.
Ratner Wanted To Helm Bond
irector Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) told the Zap2it Web site that he was star Pierce
Brosnan's choice to direct the next James Bond movie, but that the producers had a different idea.
"The studio [MGM] wants me, and Pierce Brosnan wants me, but the Broccolis [the family that runs Bond production company Eon] don't want me," Ratner told the site. "But I begged them. I call them everyday and send them cookies."
Brosnan "called me and said, 'I want you to direct the movie,'" Ratner said. "He said he was a huge fan. Unfortunately, he has nothing to do with it." He added, "It's because I'm American, really. I'd be the only American director ever to direct a Bond. Also, I'm not 50 years old, and I have a mind of my own, and I'm a strong personality."
Given the chance, Ratner said he'd make a few changes. "I'm sure it could use some new lifeblood," he said. "I'm trying to infuse some excitement into them. ... His suit is a little tight, so I'd loosen it a little. ... I'd get rid of the BMW. I'd get an Aston Martin," Bond's original vehicle.
Stuart Baird (U.S. Marshals) and Stephen Hopkins (Lost in Space) are on the short list of directors to helm the next James Bond movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Avalon Doesn't Forget Men
njelica Huston, who plays high priestess Viviane in TNT's upcoming miniseries The Mists of Avalon, told TV Guide Online that the retelling of Arthurian myth isn't purely a women's story.
Avalon has "a lot of men, a lot of swords and a lot of sword battles," Huston told the site.
Avalon is a distaff re-imagining of the Camelot story, based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's best-selling novel of the same name. "The men feature pretty strongly in this, so I wouldn't classify it as something that was entirely driven by women," Huston said. But, she added, the miniseries does put women "in the front seat rather than the back seat for once."
Huston co-stars with Julianna Margulies and Joan Allen as a priestess with power over nature. "I have to say, I quite developed a taste for creating fire and lifting mist and changing the weather," she said. "It was great to be a goddess." The four-hour Avalon airs in two parts on TNT, at 8 p.m. July 15 and 16.
Avalon Star Liked Battles
ulianna Margulies--who plays Morgaine in TNT's upcoming TV adaptation of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon--told TV Guide Online that she liked the swords as much as the sorcery in the miniseries.
"It's incredible, but it's hard, and [director Uli Edel] gave me the confidence in myself to know that I could do it," Margulies told the site.
Margulies--who plays the part of a Pagan priestess in Zimmer's distaff take on the Arthurian legends--takes up arms to help battle invading Saxons in the story. "My first time into battle, I understood why men fight, because there's a testosterone level you get that you don't find anywhere else," she said. "I never got it before. I'm like 'Eww ... war.' But after my first fill of it, it was quite thrilling. I hate to say that; it's probably politically incorrect. But it was. It was a blast. Girls never get to do that." The four-hour Avalon airs in two parts on TNT, at 8 p.m. July 15 and 16.
Talks To Start For Shrek 2
alks could begin by the end of the week to bring back Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz to reprise their Shrek voice roles in the upcoming sequel, Variety reported.
The trio could fetch as much as $5 million each to sign on to the follow-up to this year's computer-animated box-office smash, the trade paper reported.
The three actors deferred their salaries to little better than scale up front on the first film and made roughly $3 million apiece based on their share of the domestic gross, which is at $240 million, Variety reported.
Darksiders In Development
ew Line will develop Darksiders, a vampire feature film based on a spec script by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein (The Flintstones), Variety reported.
The film tells the story of a group of vampires who become special operatives for the FBI, the trade paper reported.
Tracie Graham and Alison Rosenzweig will produce. New Line president Toby Emmerich and executive Michele Weiss will steer the project, which is being eyed as a potential franchise, the trade paper reported.
Chupacabra Comes To Film
riter Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez (The Thirteenth Floor) has signed a deal with Revolution Studios to write Bloodlust: Legend of the Chupacabra, a supernatural horror movie, Variety reported.
The film is based on the Puerto Rican folklore legend of a goat-sucking creature that stalks the countryside.
William Sherak and Jason Shuman will produce the film under their Blue Star Pictures shingle, along with John Hegeman of Distant Corners.com, the trade paper reported.
O'Toole To Play Supermom
nnette O'Toole, who played Lana Lang in the 1983 movie Superman III, returns to the superhero franchise by playing Clark Kent's mother, Martha, in The WB's upcoming television series Smallville, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The fall series will focus on Superman's high-school years.
Another actress had been slated to play Martha Kent, but the role was recast to accommodate O'Toole, the trade paper reported.
Dragon's Lair 3-D To Preview
ragon's Lair 3-D, based on the venerable arcade game first introduced in 1983, will debut at Classic Gaming Expo 2001, Aug. 11-12 at the Plaza Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Dragonstone Software is producing the game for the PC.
Dragon's Lair 3-D will again feature the knight Dirk the Daring, as he fights to save princess Daphne from dragons. Legendary animators Don Bluth, Rick Dyer, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy created the original game.
Dan Dare Takes Off
an Dare Corp.--which is developing an animated TV series based on the British Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future comic series--will also develop a feature film based on the comics, Variety reported.
Columbia TriStar International Television picked up the worldwide rights to the Dan Dare Corp.'s 26-part series, which features British stars Robbie Coltrane, Tim Curry and Charles Dance, the trade paper reported. A second series, and the script for the feature, are in development.
The series was funded with British cash through Dan Dare Corp., an independent company headed by producer Colin Frewin, who also holds the rights to the 1950s character described as the "007 of outer space," Variety reported.
Potter Already In TV Auction
ime magazine reported that Warner Bros. is trying to sell the TV rights to its upcoming feature-film version of J.K. Rowling's best-seller Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone four months before the movie comes out, according to a report on the Zap2it Web site.
Time reported that the studio is seeking as much as $70 million from one of the four major networks, a huge amount.
The studio wants to secure a deal before the movie opens; the common practice is for TV rights to be bought after a movie has debuted and established how much it will likely make at the box office, the magazine reported.
Hopper Stars in Flatland
ennis Hopper is set to star in Flatland, a proposed 22-episode SF action series that is a combination of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Ruddy Morgan Organization and Shanghai-based Hweilai Studios will produce. Al Ruddy created the series with producing partner Andre Morgan and Steve Feke (Profiler) and will executive produce it with director Stanley Tong and Chinese television producer Ren Nai Chang, the trade paper reported.
The cast includes Bumper Robinson, Phillip Rhys, Francoise Yip, Katherine Kendall and Liam Waite. Flatland is set in Shanghai in 2010 and tells the story of three young Americans (Robinson, Rhys and Yip) who find themselves trapped in Flatland, a fourth-dimensional world controlled by a man known only as Mr. Smith (Hopper). In Flatland, the past and present intersect, the trade paper reported.
Morgan and Ruddy told the Reporter that they are in talks with several major broadcast and cable networks, but declined to give further details. All 22 scripts will be finished this week, and Flatland is set to begin production in Shanghai on high-definition digital video, the format that George Lucas is using for his upcoming Star Wars: Episode II, the trade paper reported.
Cats & Dogs Leashes Top Slot
he fantasy movie Cats & Dogs fought its way to the top of the box-office rankings, taking in about $22 million the weekend of July 6, the Hollywood trade papers reported.
In the five days since it opened on July 4, the film has taken in about $36 million.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which topped last weekend's rankings, fell to No. 3, with an estimated $14.2 million. The total take for the Steven Spielberg movie is about $59.7 million after 10 days of release, the trade papers reported.
Genre releases rounding out the top 10 included No. 6 Dr. Dolittle 2, with about $10.1 million for the weekend; No. 7 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, with about $ 6.8 million; No. 8 Shrek, with about $6 million; and No. 9 Atlantis: The Lost Empire, with about $5 million.
Briefly Noted
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The series finale of Xena: Warrior Princess earned a 3.9 rating, making it the No. 1 first-run action hour in syndication for the week ending July 1, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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A&E Television Networks will sell video and DVD versions of its Hammer House of Horror series at its online store, ahead of all retail stores. The complete run of Hammer House of Horror will be available in a collector's set on 6 videos or 4 DVDs.
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The Countingdown Web site has posted a new image of star Guy Pearce from Warner Bros.' and DreamWorks' upcoming feature-film version of H.G. Wells' classic SF novel The Time Machine.
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The Fictionwise.com Web site has released Robert A. Heinlein's Hugo-Award-winning novel Double Star as an e-book, available for $5.09.
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Wolfmill Entertainment has bought the TV rights to Astounding Space Thrills, Steve Conley's SF comic strip, the Comics2Film Web site reported. Wolfmill plans to develop Space as a TV series, the site reported.
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The Ain't It Cool News Web site passed on a rumor that Cartoon Network's upcoming Justice League series is slated for a Nov. 17 premiere.
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Sony has opened an official Web site for The Tick, its upcoming live-action series based on Ben Edlund's comic series and animated show of the same name. The site includes a video clip from the series, which debuts on Fox in the fall.
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The FilmJerk Web site reported a rumor that the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode II will be attached to prints of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, set to debut on Nov. 16.
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The Upcoming Movies Web site reported that New Line has set a March 22, 2002, release date for its upcoming vampire movie Blade 2, the sequel to 1998's hit Blade, which was based on the Marvel Comics series Blade the Vampire Hunter.
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The Coming Attractions Web site reported a rumor that Scott Innes, the voice actor who has supplied the voice of the titular dog in the animated Scooby-Doo series for the past four years, will voice Scooby in the upcoming live-action movie.
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A teaser trailer has gone up on the official Web site of the upcoming feature-film version of H.G. Wells' classic SF novel The Time Machine. The film is still in production.
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The Coming Attractions Web site has posted an image of the new starship from UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, drawn from a Brazilian edition of TV Guide. TV Guide will be publishing an Enterprise package in the United States on July 9.
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Don McGregor, creator of the comic series Detectives, Inc., will premiere the feature-film version of the comic at the upcoming International Comic-Con in San Diego, 4:30 p.m. PT on July 20. McGregor wrote and directed the independent feature, which stars Alex Simmons, Richard Douglass and Marsha McGregor.
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