Blalock Almost Missed The Starship
olene Blalock, the new Vulcan on UPN's upcoming Enterprise series, told TV Guide Online she almost turned down the show.
"I passed on the [Star Trek prequel] three times without reading the script," she told the site. "Had I passed on this, it would've been the dumbest move of my life. Talk about regrets! I'm so fortunate to be chosen for this part."
Blalock will don pointed ears and a Seven-of-Nine catsuit to play T'Pol, first officer to Scott Bakula's Capt. Archer. "It takes about two hours to get into full costume," she said. "It's really cool. Once I'm in the outfit, I am T'Pol."
Of her character, Blalock said, "She's 65 years old, so she's older than the rest of the crew. She is feline in movement. She is diplomatic with her words. And she does not look at humans condescendingly, though she is a superior race, [although] it may seem that way. She's just learning about human nature and the positives of feeling emotion." Enterprise premieres Sept. 26.
More Enterprise Cast Leaked
ore casting details have leaked out for UPN's upcoming Enterprise series.
The TV Tome Web site reported that longtime Star Trek: Voyager supporting player Steven Dennis will portray an Andorian named Tholos, joining Deep Space Nine actor Jeffrey Combs.
SFX magazine, meanwhile, reported that the show will feature a recurring character, nurse Nancy Struthers, to be played by an as-yet-unidentified actress. And the Enterprise U.K. Web site reported that the crew will also include a dog, Capt. Archer's (Scott Bakula) companion, Porthos.
Law, Nelson Up For Trek X?
he Coming Attractions Web site reported rumors that Jude Law (A.I. Artificial Intelligence) is up for the role of Shinzon, the main villain in the upcoming 10th Star Trek film.
The site added that Craig T. Nelson (Poltergeist) is rumored to be up for the role of Shinzon's advisor and right-hand man in the film, which is reportedly called Star Trek: Nemesis.
Shinzon is reportedly a character in his mid-20s to early 30s. Shinzon's advisor is older, perhaps middle-aged, the site reported. Rumors that Sean Connery was being considered for the part of Shinzon were never true, the site added. Instead, Trek producers are supposedly considering having Connery play the leader of the Romulan Senate in a cameo at the beginning of the movie.
Trek I Gets Special DVD
tar Trek: The Motion Picture will be released as a special-edition DVD on Nov. 6, Variety reported.
The film, the first in the Trek feature-film franchise, will come out in a "director's edition," the trade paper reported.
Oscar-winning director Robert Wise tweaked the sound mix and added digital enhancements to more than 90 shots, but added no new scenes, the trade paper reported. The more intense sound mix makes everything more menacing, raising the film's rating to PG from its original G.
In addition to the new 136-minute cut of the movie, the two-disc set ($29.99) will feature two hours of bonus programming, including group commentary by Wise, special photographic effects director Douglas Trumbull, special photographic effects supervisor John Dykstra, music composer Jerry Goldsmith and actor Stephen Collins; three new retrospective documentaries with cast and crew interviews; five additional scenes (from the 1979 theatrical version), plus trims and outtakes; and 11 deleted scenes (from the 1983 TV version), the trade paper reported.
A new VHS widescreen version of the movie will include a bonus featurette, with new interviews of the cast and crew. Paramount senior vice president of marketing Michael Arkin told Variety that, since the studio released standard DVD versions of the Star Trek movies in reverse order of their theatrical release, the studio is considering working their way back through the series in chronological order, with special DVD editions of each.
R2-D2 Branches Out In Episode II
xpect R2-D2 to perform some new tasks—and acquire a few new appendages—in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode II, "droid wrangler" Don Bies told the official Star Wars Homing Beacon newsletter.
"We do get to see Artoo do a few new things in this movie," Bies, a modelmaker for visual-effects house Industrial Light & Magic, told the newsletter.
As in previous films, Artoo will project holograms and interface with computer ports. But he'll also serve food. "We took one of his pincers from The Empire Strikes Back and modified it so that he can grab some bread in this one," Bies said. "We also needed a holder for the soup bowls that he delivers to Anakin and Padmé. That was a brand new device that we never had before."
The astromech droid is also slated to receive a number of computer-generated appendages that allow him to perform complicated tasks that would be too difficult and time-consuming to try to simulate practically, the newsletter reported.
Episode II Armor Hinted
tar Wars: Episode II costume props modeler Ivo Coveney told the official Star Wars site that his job is to make anything that falls between a traditional garment and a hand-held prop—such as Jango Fett's armor.
That includes "anything that's worn, but not actually part of the costume in a traditional way," Coveney told the site. "Props are all those things that are held, like backpacks, weapons and things like that. But there's a middle ground, which includes masks, jewelry and armor, that ends up on the costume-props side."
The idea is unique to Star Wars films and has yet to be adopted by the film industry in general. "A props department doesn't usually answer to the costume department, so if you ask the props department to make you a suit of armor or a backpack or a helmet, what they deliver is what you get," Coveney said. "Some designers got frustrated with that and said, 'This is really important to me, and I want to have control over it.' So that is how my role has come into being in the U.K."
For Episode II, Coveney's team designed the Mandalorian armor worn by Temuera Morrison's Jango Fett. Creating a costume based on the legendary Boba Fett "was fascinating and also frustrating," he recalled. "It's an image from 20 years ago, and it's such a stunning image. It was an honor to do it, and it was nice to be able to change the color scheme to create a bit of a new look. But in other ways, it was frustrating, because remaining faithful to that costume's look meant we couldn't take full advantage of a lot of our craft's advancements since the 1980s. Of course, Jango has a lot more action than Boba Fett ever did. I don't know how many costumes they had for Empire and Jedi, but we ended up with six full costumes, of which three were hero costumes—close-up work costumes—and three were stunt costumes. We had to have someone on-set to keep an eye on it, not realizing how much of a beating it would get. He was just doing so much, as you'll see, that you just can't make a costume to survive that really."
Doctorow Tours Kingdom
ory Doctorow's first SF novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, describes a future in which theme parks become battlegrounds of the mind, the author told SCI FI Wire.
Tor will release the novel in 2002.
"OK, my long, high-concept, jam-everything-into-one-sentence description is:
It's about reputation economies in a far-future, post-scarcity world where
ad-hocracies run the only scarce thing left, which is location-based
amusements," Doctorow, winner of last year's James W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer, said in an interview. "And it's about the aesthetic wars between the people in Disney World, who want to preserve the old Rube Goldberg rides, and the people who want to build new simulator-style rides."
Doctorow added, "That's probably too jargon-intensive to be a good description. To stretch it out, I start with the premise that, in the future, if things become non-scarce—if things like magic nanotechnology and magic life-extension
technology and all the stuff that memes its way into SF actually comes true—the only thing that will be left that's scarce is the stuff that's inherently scarce, that's location-based, because as the population increases and the
standard of living goes up, the Earth doesn't actually get any bigger. As a
consequence we compete for things like restaurants and bars and amusement
parks and places to live. Further, all the traditional economies that we
rely on, where we exchange scarce goods for money, go away, because there are
no more scarce goods. Anything can be infinitely reproduced. What's left is
a very different economy from what we have now. I call this, sort of
jokingly in the book, the Bitchun Society. And in the Bitchun Society what's
left instead of money or goods is something called Whuffie, which is a measure of reputation, the esteem in which someone holds you. There are a lot of bloodless coups in this world, because one group of people will suddenly
decide they would do a better job of managing some arbitrary resource than
the group currently doing it, and they just step in and do it. I call these
groups ad-hocracies.
"So the action is set in Disney World, a future Disney World run by these
little ad-hocracy groups," Doctorow said. "Each of them manages little
bits of the park. Of course, in this world of infinite life extension and
other technologies is memory backup, where you can store a copy of who you
are at any given moment. If you die, you can be refreshed from that backup.
As a result, assassination is really more a conversational tool than an act
of war. People bump each other off to get each other out of the way for a
day or two. So the plot revolves around a series of assassinations with
unintended consequences."
Like much of Doctorow's fiction and non-fiction, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom indulges the writers' fascination with how computer networks function and also, obviously, his obsession with theme parks. Though he never quite
thought of it as such, Doctorow acknowledges that novels, in a sense, are
theme parks for the mind and the imagination. "They are in a couple of
interesting senses," Doctorow said. "Theme parks are perfect illusions. Go
behind the coral reef and you can see the chicken wire. The same thing is
true in a novel. You flesh out only as much as the readers are going to see
and not a whole lot further. So while I do a lot of extrapolation, it's
extrapolation in the service of a story. If there's a hole in the
extrapolation that isn't exposed by the narrative, I don't worry about it."
Not that Doctorow has the time to worry about it, actually. He's too crazed
with a batch of projects he's juggling simultaneously. Cases in point: He's
10,000 words into, or one-fifth of the way through, his next novel, Eastern
Standard Tribe; is co-writing a non-fiction book about peer-to-peer
networking; is collaborating with Grad Conn on Rome Is Burning, a novel
"about the ad agency with the commission to engineer the mass suicide of
humanity"; pens op-ed, factual pieces and reviews for Wired; and co-edits the BoingBoing Web log.
Bond Back In Aston Martin
ames Bond will once again drive an Aston Martin in the upcoming 20th 007 film, producers announced.
MGM, Eon Productions and Aston Martin said that the film is due for release in 2002.
Bond, to be played by Pierce Brosnan, will drive the new V12 Vanquish, which will be the fourth Aston Martin driven by the superspy character. The first was the legendary Aston Martin DB5, which Sean Connery's Bond drove in 1964's Goldfinger. In recent films, Bond has abandoned the British make for German-made BMWs.
Is Online Bond 20 Script Fake?
on Productions, which produces the James Bond films, told the Reuters news service that a purported script for its upcoming 20th 007 movie is a fake.
The script was posted to the Bond 20 fan Web site.
The script, which is titled Final Assignment, centers on Bond's confrontation with the killer of his father, Andrew Bond, a British spy to be played by original 007 Sean Connery. The story features locations in Australia, France, Tokyo and New York, with a final battle atop the Statue of Liberty.
"It's fabricated," a spokeswoman for Eon told Reuters. "We have spoken to the producers about it, and I'm afraid it's a fan who's done a James Bond script—it's not ours. ... The film hasn't got a name yet. It's only in the very beginning of preproduction." She added that casting should start in the next couple of weeks, with an eye to a January production start. Lee Tamahori is on board as director, she added.
For its part, the Web site responded that the story it has posted is genuine and is based on a treatment from early 2000.
Cruise To Take On Austin 3?
om Cruise will appear in Austin Powers 3, spoofing his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt, according to a rumor reported by the Popcorn U.K. Web site.
Cruise would play a spy who helps Austin (Mike Myers) out on a case, the site reported.
Myers has reportedly finished a script for the third installment of the satirical spy franchise, which he turned in to New Line Cinema. Myers and director Jay Roach are also rumored to be wooing former James Bond star Sean Connery to appear as Austin's father.
Scully Still Central To X-Files
rank Spotnitz, an executive producer of Fox's The X-Files, told the Zap2It Web site that Gillian Anderson (Scully) will be a full participant in the show's upcoming ninth season, despite rumors to the contrary.
"We have full-time Gillian," Spotnitz told the site. "It's really a three-lead show, because you've got her and Robert [Patrick] and Annabeth [Gish]," who play Agents Doggett and Reyes. "That's what's making it so challenging for us this year, because we've never had to do that before. We had to do it somewhat when Mulder returned, but this is different."
Spotnitz added, "There are a lot of questions about the baby. OK, like, she and Mulder had sex, but she still was barren ... so how did that happen? ... What is the mystery of the baby? Why did the aliens hunt it down and then leave it? Can Scully be at peace with this question? I think that's the biggest issue. Then there's a bunch of new issues that spring up around that."
The ninth season will feature many new story arcs, including one centering on former Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless, who appears in the first four episodes. "Also, the Doggett-and-Reyes-versus-the-FBI [one], and is it safe to work at the FBI, given the fact that there seem to be aliens walking around the corridors?" Spotnitz asked. "There were a lot of immediate things we knew we had to attend to our first day back at work."
Spotnitz also hinted that the show's signature motto, "The truth is out there," may change. "I think that's going to happen," he said. "You'll see changes there. You'll see a number of changes, actually, which I can't divulge yet. Keep your eyes open, don't go to the kitchen. We'll reward you if you're patient." The X-Files returns Nov. 4.
New DVD Supplements Matrix
arner Bros. will release The Matrix Revisited, a new DVD of supplementary material for its 1999 hit movie The Matrix, on Nov. 20, the DVD Review Web site reported.
Since the release of the original Matrix DVD, Warner has compiled more behind-the-scenes footage and commentary.
Warner will release the new material by itself, freeing consumers of the need to buy a new edition of the film. The new DVD will also feature a look at the sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, which is now in production; a first glance at the upcoming Animatrix anime; a preview of the new Web site; interviews with fans; a featurette showcasing the fight choreography of Wu Ping; scene studies; a music montage with never-before-seen footage; DVD-ROM content; and four Easter eggs: "Chase in the Alley," "The Woman in Red," "Gun Training" and "Juke Box." The Matrix Revisited will carry a suggested retail price of $19.98.
Viewers To Choose For Cartoon Net
artoon lovers will get a say in choosing the Cartoon Network's next big animated series during the network's second annual Big Pick, which runs Aug. 24-26, a weekend that offers 52 hours of original programming.
Last year's winner of the Big Pick, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, is one of two cartoons that make up the network's new series Grim & Evil, which will premiere on Aug. 24 at 8 p.m.
Viewers can vote online for one of 10 pilots that will be presented in The Big Pick Show, which will air four times over the weekend: Aug. 24 at 9 p.m., Aug. 25 at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. and Aug. 25 at 9 a.m. Voting will close on Aug. 26 at noon; the new series will be announced at 9 p.m. that day. A list of the pilots follows.
•Captain Sturdy. Retired superhero Captain Sturdy must leap back into action when the Union of Super Heroes cancels his pension.
•Yee Hay & Doo Dah. A cowboy and his horse experience the trials and tribulations of living in Manhattan's Central Park.
•Imp, Inc.. Three imps travel in a meteor and hope to gain a promotion
by helping others.
•My Freaky Family. As if suffering through the first day of school
wasn't enough, Nadine must deal with a freaky family, too.
•Major Flake. A French cereal mascot and his sidekick strive to find a way to sell their cereal before it's pulled off the grocery store shelves.
•Utica Cartoon. Dan Bear and Micah Monkey discover a hot-dog eating
contest.
•Kids Next Door. In an effort to avoid the dreaded kiddie pool,
five kids join forces to get rid of the Adult Swim.
•Swaroop. Swaroop and his family attempt to assimilate their Indian
heritage into modern American culture.
•Ferret & Parrot. A paranoid ferret squares off against a parrot.
•A Kitty Bobo Show. Kitty Bobo gets a cell phone to prove he's cool,
but how cool is it when no one important calls him?
JLA Not Just Friends
roducers of Cartoon Network's upcoming Justice League animated series told the Comics Continuum that the individuality of the characters within the group will play an important part in the show.
"A lot of the decisions we made about how to approach a character had to with putting together a group dynamic so that each character has a role in the group, so that we understand how they fit in and how they react to the others," producer/story editor Rich Fogel told the site.
"With SuperFriends—and this is not to put it down—but a lot of times they were just the good guys, and they were pretty much interchangeable in terms of what they did or how they reacted to things," Fogel added. "We're trying to get it so they're very specific as to what their concerns are or what issues push their buttons."
Producer Bruce Timm told the site that the creators tried to draw from the Justice League's long history for the show. "Obviously we all had read [Justice League of America] comics off and on our whole lives," Timm said. "Once we got the assignment to do this show, we did some serious [research and development] and reread thousands of JLA comics. And not just JLA comics, but, like, team comics like Fantastic Four and Avengers and everything. There's a lot of arguing. Early on, when we were looking at the very original JLA comics, the Gardner Fox era, they're full of charm, and we all love them to pieces, and we all have a fondness for them. But they don't really work for what we want to do, because the characters are interchangeable. The only way you can tell the characters apart is by the colors they're wearing and what powers they have. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the more recent [Grant] Morrison stuff, we were looking at it and thinking, 'Wow, this stuff is pretty serious and pretty intense for a mainstream American audience,' because [a] lot of the market is going to be kids and younger. So we kind of have to find a balance between all that stuff. If anything, we're probably going more toward the Grant Morrison version. But it's not as dark and as complicated as that." Justice League premieres Nov. 17.
Kids Will Know Jack
enndy Tartakovsky, creator of Cartoon Network's animated SF series Samurai Jack, told the Reuters news service that the titular hero is a good role model for children.
"Samurai Jack is soft-spoken, but he has followed the warrior's code, so he is very empathetic toward everything," Tartakovsky said about the character, a Japanese warrior transported by an evil demon into the far future. "He will always rather help somebody than help himself, no matter what the cost is."
The series features lots of action, but little dialogue. "I think a lot of people are afraid to show smarter things to children because maybe they won't understand it," he said. "But I think that if we are successful in communicating an idea, they will pick it up, with or without dialogue." Samurai Jack premiered on Aug. 10 and airs new episodes Monday nights. Cartoon Network has ordered 26 episodes of the show.
Phifer No Fake In Impostor
ekhi Phifer, co-star of the upcoming SF movie Impostor, told SCI FI Wire that his role was added to the movie when it was expanded from a short feature into a full-length movie.
"I play a character that meets [star] Gary Sinise in the early part of the film, and we're enemies, but we wind up befriending each other in a sense, and I help him on this adventure all the way throughout 'til the end," Phifer said in an interview. Vincent D'Onofrio plays Sinise's archrival and Madeline Stowe plays his wife, the actor added.
The oft-delayed film started out as a half-hour short film, to be featured with two others in an anthology. When Miramax decided to turn it into its own full-length movie, they added Phifer's character. "I wasn't in the short," Phifer said. "They were going to make it into a full-length feature, and they called me in. I auditioned and got the role, so we started shooting and just added the whole middle basically."
Impostor is based on a Philip K. Dick story about a man who designs a weapon to fight aliens, but who winds up suspected of being an alien himself. Phifer is proud of the film. "I saw the movie. I love the movie," he said. "It's fun. It's great, and Gary Sinise is wonderful."
Choice Cuts Highlight Boogeymen
he upcoming DVD compilation Boogeymen—featuring clips from classic and modern horror films—takes a page from greatest-hits music albums and a page from VH1's Pop-Up Video show, producer Gary Shenk told SCI FI Wire.
Shenk—a principal with FlixMix Inc.—said in an interview that the DVD attempts to bring together seminal moments from films featuring scary villains.
"We didn't go after the most gory scene in all cases, because the scenes really had to interact with each other and be an entertaining 60-minute program when played all together," Shenk said. "So in some cases, it's the gory scene. In other cases, it's a more thrilling scene based on suspense or whatnot."
The DVD features clips from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Candyman, Nightmare on Elm Street, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Wishmaster, Hellraiser, Puppetmaster, Leprechaun, Jason Goes to Hell, Scream, Phantasm and more. Producers picked 17 films from more than 1,000 in the genre, Shenk said.
The clips also feature Pop-Up style blurbs with gossip or background information about the films. Robert Englund (Freddy from Nightmare) provides audio commentary, and the DVD has games and other features.
Because the films had to feature a "bogeyman," the DVD does not include clips from such classic horror films as The Exorcist or Night of the Living Dead. And though a DVD poll rated The Shining as the genre's scariest film, the DVD features no clips from that Stanley Kubrick movie because of difficulty securing the rights, Shenk said. Boogeymen comes out Oct. 2 with a suggested retail price of $19.98.
Cage Coming To Boiled?
icolas Cage may star in Hard Boiled, a science fiction movie based on Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow's comic-book series of the same name, Variety reported.
Warner Bros. is in talks with the duo for the feature-film rights to the 1992 Dark Horse comic.
Hard Boiled tells the story of a killer robot who thinks he's a tax collector.
Miller is currently working with Darren Aronofsky on an adaptation of Miller's Batman: Year One, and Darrow was the comic-book artist behind The Matrix, the trade paper reported. Cage—a comic fan—has also been connected with the upcoming feature-film version of Marvel's Ghost Rider series.
Cage Still Up For Ghost?
avid Goyer, writer of the upcoming Ghost Rider movie, told the Comics Continuum Web site that Nicolas Cage is still interested in starring in the film, despite reports that Cage had dropped out.
Stephen Norrington (Blade), who was slated to direct Ghost Rider, has left the film to direct Tick-Tock first, and the project seems to be in a state of flux, the site reported.
"On Ghost Rider, Norrington bolted to Tick-Tock," Goyer told the site. "Cage is still interested, so we're exploring options now. Wait for Norrington? Talk to other people? Not sure yet."
Goyer will reportedly also write and produce the third installment in the Blade franchise.
"But not yet," he said. "Maybe a few months from now. We're kicking around story ideas, but nothing has been set in stone yet. No director—too early!"
Ricci Joins The Gathering
hristina Ricci will star in Granada Films' upcoming supernatural thriller film The Gathering for director Brian Gilbert and Samuelson Productions, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, which is budgeted at about $17 million, is slated to go into production Sept. 3 in England, the trade paper reported.
Anthony Horowitz wrote Gathering, which centers on a young American backpacker (Ricci) traveling through an English village where a first-century church has been unearthed, revealing a sinister mural. The girl begins to hallucinate and believes terrifying strangers are following her, the trade paper reported.
The Gathering also stars Ioan Gruffudd, Kerry Fox and Stephen Dillane.
Lurie To Helm Knowing
od Lurie will direct Knowing, a supernatural thriller film from Escape Artists that Columbia will distribute domestically, Variety reported.
Novelist Ryne Pearson wrote the script, about a 1958 time capsule that is unearthed accidentally and that contains drawings by children predicting future events that have come to pass.
The film—to be produced by Steve Tisch, Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and David Alper—is slated to go into production in 2002.
Lillard Saw All 13 Ghosts
atthew Lillard, star of the upcoming supernatural horror film 13 Ghosts, told SCI FI Wire that all of the ghost special effects were practical, on-set makeup work, not computer graphics added in later.
"I saw all of them," Lillard said in an interview. "They are all along the lines of, like, a Sixth Sense, so you see they're real people. The makeup is extraordinary. That's a movie that visually, I think, is going to be one of the most exciting films that I've ever done."
Lillard said ghostbusting is hard work, whether it's in 13 Ghosts or his other upcoming haunted film, Scooby-Doo. "You're running from 13 different ghosts, and it's pretty cool. A movie like that, the energy it takes to run from ghosts—run for your life every single day for three months—is exhausting. To do it if you're a cartoon character as Shaggy, you're running from ghosts, or you're hungry every day for six months, it's even worse. I feel that emotional output is infinitely more challenging and more exhausting than physical output, because the physical, your body's sore, but you can come back the next day or next week if you're in shape. Emotionally, just every day it drains. It's harder to replenish an emotional cell than a physical cell, so to speak."
In 13 Ghosts, Lillard plays an empath who tries to collect an unpaid bill from a family who inherits a ghost-infested mansion and ends up stuck in the haunted house himself. The Warner Bros. film—a remake of William Castle's schlock 1960 horror classic of the same name—opens Oct. 26.
Gibson Wooed For Max 4?
he 13th Street Web site reported a rumor that producers hope to woo back Mel Gibson to star in a fourth installment of the Mad Max film series.
Citing an anonymous source, the site reported that the proposed film will center on Gibson's original character, and that director George Miller would like Gibson back in the role.
A screenplay for Mad Max 4 is written and has the feel of The Road Warrior, the site reported. Miller reportedly has a backup script, which centers on the original Max's son.
TNT Renews Witchblade
NT will renew its successful original series Witchblade for another 13 episodes, starting next summer, a TNT spokesperson told SCI FI Wire.
The series, based on the Top Cow comic book series of the same name, ended its first season on Aug. 19.
Witchblade averaged a 2.3 rating for its first 10 weeks on the cable network, an improvement on programming that previously held that timeslot, the spokesperson said. Witchblade stars Yancy Butler as NYPD cop Sara Pezzini, who comes into possession of a supernatural gauntlet that alters her destiny.
Dykstra Talks Spidey FX
ohn Dykstra, visual effects supervisor for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man movie, told convention-goers that it is challenging matching a computer-generated Spidey with actors and stuntmen in costume, according to a report on the Comics2Film Web site.
"The toughest thing about this show is that we're going to make a character who is indistinguishable from a live character," Dykstra told fans at the Wizard World convention in Chicago.
Dykstra added, "The fact that we don't have a face to work with in order to create the emotional content for the character means that we have to use body language. So for everyone, for the actors who are involved with the scene, and the director of course, and the animators who have to subsequently animate the computer-generated version of this character, all have to have the same mindset. It's a tough thing to do. And to keep that personality of body motion throughout the picture is going to be the hardest thing."
Dykstra is supervising some 400 effects shots for the movie. As for the Green Goblin, Dykstra said, "The costume exists, in reality, as a costume. He's complete. He's three-dimensional. He's there. At this point, he can walk around without any [computer] enhancements. When it comes to flying his glider, inasmuch as that technology doesn't really exist, when he flies, generally speaking, he's either a stuntman on a rig of some kind that supports the glider, or a CGI character."
Dykstra also discussed Spider-Man's powers. "He has all the capabilities that he will have in the comics, and hopefully capabilities that would fall to a character who has the capabilities that you would know about," he said. "In other words, there's no limitation to what the character's going to be able to do with his webs. He'll sling them and use them in, hopefully, all the fashions you've seen before and maybe some innovative new ones."
Fines Proposed For Spidey Death
tate regulators have proposed fines of nearly $59,000 against Sony Pictures for safety violations on the Spider-Man movie set for a March 6 accident in which a welder was killed, Variety reported.
California's division of Occupational Safety and Health cited nine violations against Columbia Pictures in its notification, the trade paper reported.
Variety said that Sony had no comment. State officials told the trade paper that the studio had not indicated if it will appeal the findings. Sony has until Sept. 6 to file an appeal.
Welder Tim Holcombe died after being struck in the head when a boom extension toppled onto an aerial basket in which he was riding at the former Rockwell International aerospace plant in the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, where the movie was shooting. Most of the proposed penalty came from two violations: $25,000 for alleged use of a shop-made extension to a forklift, which caused the forklift's load capacity to be exceeded and the forklift to become unstable; and $25,000 for allegedly making the modification to the forklift without prior written approval from the manufacturer, Variety reported.
Astronomer Hoyle Dead At 86
ir Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer, author of SF and non-fiction works and the man credited with coining the phrase "big bang," died Aug. 20 in Bournemouth, England, according to newspaper reports.
He was 86.
Hoyle came up with the phrase "big bang" while dismissing the scientific theory that a massive explosion eons ago resulted in the creation of the cosmos. Though Hoyle's own ideas about a "steady state"—in which new galaxies emerged as old ones broke apart—were essentially proven incorrect, Hoyle remained a respected figure in the scientific community for his work on gravity, atoms, stars and galaxies.
Also a prolific author, Hoyle wrote or co-wrote countless scientific papers, such non-fiction tomes as Lifecloud, Space Travelers: The Origins of Life and A Different Approach to Cosmology, as well as numerous SF novels, most notably The Black Cloud, Ossian's Ride and others on which he collaborated with his son, Geoffrey.
In addition to Geoffrey, Hoyle—who never recovered from a stroke he suffered a year ago—leaves behind his wife, Barbara; a daughter; and four granddaughters.
WB Swings With New Tarzan
he WB has ordered a pilot that takes a new swing at the Tarzan myth, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Warner Bros. Television will produce the pilot, from producer Laura Ziskin and feature-film writers Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, the trade paper reported.
Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' books about Lord Greystoke, the pilot tells the story of a 17-year-old Tarzan who is sent to live with his aunt in New York after being seriously injured by poachers in the African jungle. The teen Tarzan "becomes the protector of the ultimate urban jungle," the studio told the Reporter.
Werb and Colleary's credits include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and 1997's Face/Off.
Timeline Production Delayed
irector Richard Donner told About.com's Action-Adventure Movies site that his feature-film version of Michael Crichton's SF novel Timeline was delayed because of fears of strikes that never materialized.
"Because of what we thought was going to be [an actors' union] strike here, we got delayed a whole year," Donner told the site. "And I can't shoot. It takes place in Europe, and I can't shoot, and it's all exteriors. So I can't shoot until the spring in Europe; otherwise, I'm into a rainy season and four hours of daylight. So because of this proposed strike, I lost a whole year of my life. So we'll start preparing it by October and shoot it starting [at] the end of February."
Donner said the film will vary from the book. "It's the essence of the book," he said. "It's the reason you wanted to make the movie. Characters have come to life a little different. We had to obviously size down a tremendous amount. In so doing, we lost a couple of people, but is it true to the book? I think cinematically—if you read the book and then you see the movie—you're going to come away and not be disappointed." The Timeline movie, about archaeology students who travel back to 14th-century France to rescue their professor, will feature Gerard Butler and Paul Walker.
No Nookie On Special Unit 2
ichael Landes, who plays a monster-hunting cop in UPN's Special Unit 2, told TV Guide Online not to expect him and co-star Alexondra Lee to get romantic.
"[Creator Evan Katz] doesn't want us to ever get together," Landes told the site. "He's compared it more to a Mel Gibson/Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon kind of relationship. But I like to toy with her. There's a flirtatious, playful, teasing kind of thing."
The show, which returns for a second season on the Smackdown network, is about "a super-secret division of the Chicago police force that deals with paranormal, out-there beings," Landes said. "It's less X-Filesy and more like Men in Black or Ghostbusters. It has a sense of humor. And it's not just dealing with extraterrestrials or vampires. There's myths that you hear as a kid, like the bogeyman. ... Well, we believe there really is somebody under your bed." Special Unit 2 begins its new season on Oct. 3.
Mutant X File Reopened
ox—which holds rights to Marvel Comics' X-Men series—has filed new motions to prevent Tribune Entertainment from using Mutant X as the title of an upcoming syndicated SF series, Variety reported.
A little more than a week ago, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Tribune's use of the title violated Fox's rights, though it stopped short of ordering the company to change the series' name, the trade paper reported.
But Fox, which contends that the series is too similar to X-Men, has filed a motion for an injunction and motion for an expedited appeal in U.S. Court of Appeal 2nd Circuit. Fox seeks damages if Tribune persists in using the Mutant X name, the trade paper reported. Mutant X is slated to premiere the week of Oct. 1.
Nash Reshooting For 2002
luto Nash, the Eddie Murphy SF comedy film, is currently reshooting scenes and has been delayed to January from its original release date in April, the Dark Horizons Web site reported.
The reshoots are intended to fill out the film's running time, which is now a trim 86 minutes, the site reported.
The movie is set on the moon in the year 2087. Murphy plays the title character, a nightclub owner who finds himself in hot water when he refuses to sell his club to the local mob.
Fathom Film News Due
ike Turner, creator Top Cow's Fathom comic series, told the Comics Continuum Web site to expect news soon on a proposed live-action feature film based on the underwater saga.
Fox had optioned the series as an animated film, but changed its mind in light of Titan A.E.'s box-office failure.
"We were sort of in limbo there for a while," Turner told the site. "It's very much alive now, and we're going to have some very, very big news very, very soon," Turner told the site. "But I can't tell you now."
Top Cow executive Marc Silvestri add, "It's going to be titanic, that's how big it is." Fathom centers on Aspen Williams, an Olympic swimmer who discovers that she has unusual abilities and a link with a mysterious species of underwater creature.
New Rings Editions Coming
arperCollins, J.R.R. Tolkien's British publisher, and Houghton Mifflin, Tolkien's U.S. imprint, will release a new edition of his Lord of the Rings books to tie in with Peter Jackson's upcoming Rings film trilogy, the Associated Press reported.
Tolkien "is not ironic and modern and all-knowing, but he appeals to people," Ian Collier, a member of the British-based Tolkien Society, told the AP. "It is a great story, and like all great stories, it connects with people in some way."
The Lord of The Rings has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, and fan clubs exist everywhere from Germany to Russia to Japan. Ironically, Tolkien's family reportedly dreads the upcoming release of the three Rings films. The first one, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens Dec. 19.
Naughton Still A Werewolf
avid Naughton—star of the 1981 movie An American Werewolf in London—told SCI FI Wire that he and co-star Griffin Dunne contributed new audio commentary to the upcoming 20th-anniversary edition DVD of the classic horror film.
"We did commentary, kind of like Mystery Science Theater [3000]," Naughton said in an interview. "We made some funny comments. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it."
The special-edition DVD, coming from Universal Home Video on Sept. 18, also features a digitally remastered version of the film, interviews with makeup artist Rick Baker and director John Landis, storyboards, a making-of featurette and never-before-seen footage, Naughton said. "They have a 16mm [film] at the first makeup meeting with Rick Baker, when we were getting some preliminary makeup done," he added. "So there's all kinds of neat stuff on it. [It's] new and improved."
Naughton said he never expected the film to remain popular as long as it has. "We're still holding up," he said. "And the film seems to work. People are still scared by it. It's still funny. The makeup's as good as it's ever been. You look at [computer graphics] and some of the computer-generated stuff that's around, and this seems to hold up. Rick Baker's very proud of it, [and] so is John Landis. ... We knew we had something special. We didn't know it would be an international kind of thing. But who knew? I didn't know I'd be a Pepper this long, either, but here I am."
Del Toro Vamps For Blade 2
lade 2 director Guillermo del Toro told the Popcorn U.K. Web site that he finished shooting the vampire sequel four weeks ago and is busy editing it.
"I really, really, really love the thing," he told the site. "I'm enjoying myself like crazy."
Del Toro said that he had tried to make Blade 2 a "fun martial-arts horror combo." The vampires won't resemble the "Tom Cruise-in-dreadlocks, languishing-by-the-side-of-Brad-Pitt" image they have acquired, he added. "I wanted a really nasty, animalistic vampire that's like a human leech and that would again make you repulsed by the possibility of being drained," he said. "It's only in modern times that we've come to glorify vampirism. I wanted to make it scary again, to make it almost icky. Hopefully people will go, 'Oh my God, I don't want to be sucked by that f--ing thing!'"
Others Unsettled Kidman
icole Kidman, star of the supernatural horror film The Others, told TV Guide Online that she had nightmares while filming the haunted-mansion movie.
"I didn't sleep well. I would have nightmares sometimes and strange dreams," Kidman told the site. "But I really like to be scared. I love to watch scary videos at home. I don't know why I'm drawn to that. I think it's that strange part of human nature, where you're fascinated by things that don't necessarily make you feel good."
Kidman added, "What I like about The Others is that it's not a slasher movie that's full of gore. It sort of gets under your skin in an unsettling way, which I think is more interesting." The Others is currently showing.
The Others Remains No. 4
he Others, Nicole Kidman's supernatural thriller film, remained the No. 4 movie at the box office on the weekend of Aug. 17, the Hollywood trade papers reported.
The Others took in about $10.8 million for the weekend, for a total of about $32 million after 10 days of release.
Genre films rounding out the top 10 included Planet of the Apes at No. 7, with an estimated $6.9 million for the weekend and a total of about $161 million, and Jurassic Park III at No. 9, with an estimated $4.3 million for the weekend and a total of about $168.2 million.
Ubi Soft To Market Shadowbane
bi Soft Entertainment will market the upcoming online massively multiplayer fantasy game Shadowbane in North America, the company announced.
Ubi Soft will publish the boxed version of the game, while its new online division will host the intricate worlds of Shadowbane. Wolfpack Studios, based in Austin, Texas, is developing the highly anticipated game.
Shadowbane is the first persistent-world massively multiplayer online game to combine the fantasy role-playing and strategy genres. Players can physically affect the history, politics and landscape of the game itself by building castles, raising armies and laying siege to vast areas of virtual terrain.
Shadowbane is expected to launch online commercially in the first half of 2002. Ubi Soft aims to attract several hundred thousand players and to generate in excess of $40 million over the first two years of operations, the company said.
Galleon Coming To GameCube
nterplay Entertainment announced that its upcoming video game Galleon: Islands of Mystery would be designed for the next-generation Nintendo GameCube platform.
Released under Interplay's Digital Mayhem banner, Galleon is being developed by Confounding Factor, the development studio founded by Toby Gard, creator of Lara Croft and lead designer of the original Tomb Raider at Core Design Ltd.
Set across six unique islands, Galleon: Islands of Mystery introduces a new hero: Rhama Sabrier, the dashing, fearless captain of the galleon Endeavour. Galleon is slated for a winter 2001 release.
De Bont Eyes Eater For FX
irector Jan De Bont is in final talks with Fox to produce Eater, an SF miniseries for FX that would be the network's first original long-form show, Variety reported.
Eater, based on the novel of the same name by physicist and astronomer Gregory Benford, tells the story of an astrophysicist and his wife who discover a black hole hurtling toward Earth.
De Bont and Jessika Borsiczky, who heads De Bont's Blue Tulip production company, will executive produce the four-hour miniseries with Vince Gerardis and Ralph Vicinanza of Created By productions, the trade paper reported.
Blue Tulip also has a series project in the works at Viacom Productions based on Benford's six-book Galactic Center Series anthology. Galactic Center is described as The Odyssey set in the future.
Blade 2 Will Up Horror
esley Snipes told E! that his upcoming Blade 2 sequel will have a bigger horror element, according to a report on the Comics Continuum Web site.
"We wanted to come with a new concept, some new ideas," Snipes told the channel. "And [director] Guillermo del Toro is an excellent filmmaker, as well as an excellent horror filmmaker. We wanted to enhance the horror element of it."
Kris Kristofferson, who returns for the sequel, explained how his character comes back, even though he was killed in the original film. "It turns out Wesley, Blade, searched the world for him and found out that the vampires were keeping him alive in a tankful of blood," Kristofferson told E!.
Goyer To Script Blade 3
avid Goyer—who wrote the scripts for the first two Blade movies—will write and produce Blade 3 for New Line, Variety reported.
The studio has struck a deal with Goyer to go ahead with the third installment of the vampire franchise, which is based on the Marvel Comics series Blade the Vampire Hunter, the trade paper reported.
"After Blade 3, I'm done writing for other directors," Goyer told the trade paper. "I've had enough frustrations over 10 years that I've realized I can do it myself." Stephen Norrington directed the first Blade film.
Blade 2, directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson, premieres in March 2002. Goyer has previously written screenplays for Dark City and The Crow and directed Zig Zag, a coming-of-age story of a young boy with a learning disability and an abusive father.
Goyer also has a deal at Miramax to adapt and direct a film based on the Neil Gaiman short story "Murder Mysteries," as well as an option to script and direct a film based on the Marvel comic-book series Dr. Strange, Variety reported. For Dimension and Crystal Sky, Goyer is writing the script for the feature-film version of Marvel's Ghost Rider series.
Hellboy Helmer To Woo Vin
irector Guillermo del Toro told the Ananova Web site that he will meet this week with Vin Diesel to discuss starring in Hellboy, the feature-film version of Mike Mignola's comic-book series.
Del Toro (Blade 2) told the site that he hopes to convince Diesel to take the title role in his new film.
Diesel previously told SCI FI Wire that he has no attachment to star in the film, despite rumors to the contrary. Hellboy is set during the final days of World War II and centers on a demon conjured by the Nazis to help their cause.
Carpenter Mined Earth For Mars
ohn Carpenter, director of the upcoming SF thriller film Ghosts of Mars, told SCI FI Wire that he derived the idea for the Red Planet's possessed human savages from primitive Earth cultures.
"Science fiction is a mirror," Carpenter said in an interview. "So anything in the future's got to resonate with us here. We looked at kind of ancient war cultures—tribes going way back to the Celts, the Vikings and all those guys."
Carpenter, creator of such SF and horror classics as Halloween and The Thing, said that he did a fair amount of research while writing the script for the film. "Throughout the various countries and cultures, there's some things they have in common. They paint their faces, they pierce their skin, they chop heads off, they have fetishes." The director used these elements not only to enhance the horror aspects of the film, but also to create a sense of identification with the otherworldly adversaries, whose goal is to eliminate all human life on Mars.
"You're not really looking into a future," Carpenter added. "It would be pretty dull if you try to create a future, because it needs to resonate with us. We need to kind of recognize part of it. [We need to say,] 'Oh, that's kind of like us.'" John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, the director's
20th film, opens Aug. 24.
Spirit Movie Materializing?
he Ain't It Cool News Web site reported a rumor that Dimension Films was preparing a feature-film version of Will Eisner's classic superhero comic series The Spirit.
Citing an anonymous source, AICN reported that Russell Mulcahy (Highlander) would write and direct the adaptation.
The comic tells the 1940s-era story of a Central City detective who is mistaken for dead and emerges as a masked avenger and crime fighter.
TNT Cloning Boys From Brazil
NT will remake The Boys from Brazil, the SF Nazi movie based on the novel by Ira Levin, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Carlton America and the Producer Circle will produce the remake of the 1978 feature film, which starred Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier.
Heywood Gould, who wrote the script for the film, will also write the television remake for TNT, the trade paper reported. Brazil tells the story of an effort by Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele to clone Adolf Hitler.
Carlton America is the U.S. production arm of U.K.-based Carlton International, which acquired Brazil as part of the original ITC library of 350 feature films, the trade paper reported.
Buffy Kicks Onto Xbox
lectronic Arts' video-game version of UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer series will come to the Xbox gaming platform, not the PC, the IGN Xbox Web site reported.
The game's story will take place between the third and fourth seasons of the show, when the Scooby Gang is still at Sunnydale High.
Buffy will be the only playable character in the game, but all of the other major characters will pop up, with the exception of Oz, the site reported. Buffy cast members, except for lead Sarah Michelle Gellar, will provide voices. Angel will also make an appearance. The villians will include the Master.
The Buffy game is slated for release sometime in early 2002, IGN reported.
Tomb 2 In The Works
ngelina Jolie told the British Daily Record newspaper that work is about to begin on a sequel to Lara Croft Tomb Raider, according to a report on the Tomb Raider Chronicles Web site.
"It looks like it's going to happen," Jolie told the Record. "They are writing another one. I am going to be Lara Croft again. If we can make it a hundred times better, if we can do a whole bunch of new things, think of a whole new sequence, get a great script with everything that nobody has ever seen before, then we will do it."
Tomb Raider, based on the Eidos video game series of the same name, grossed more than $230 million worldwide since opening June 15.
Universal Developing SF Comedy
niversal will develop an as-yet-untitled SF comedy based on a pitch by writer Dan Schneider, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Tollin/Robbins Productions will produce the movie, a Back to the Future-type story about a group of disenfranchised kids who save the world from an alien invasion, the trade paper reported.
Michael Goldman, who heads Tollin/Robbins' management division (which manages Schneider), will executive produce the project. Tollin and Robbins next executive produce The WB's upcoming fall series Smallville, about the adventures of a teen-age Clark Kent.
Universal Takes Time
niversal will develop Hands of Time, a time-travel movie based on a pitch by writer Joanna Johnson, Variety reported.
Team Todd's Jennifer and Suzanne Todd are in talks to produce.
Time is a dramatic thriller about a man who goes back in time to look for the person responsible for murdering his wife, the trade paper reported.
Paramount Invoking Venus
aramount will develop Venus Down, a fantasy comedy from the team behind the Chris Farley/David Spade movie Tommy Boys, Variety reported.
Venus is based on a pitch by writers Peter Segal and Fred Wolf, to be directed by Segal (Nutty Professor II: The Klumps), the trade paper reported.
The movie, set in New York, tells the story of an arrogant goddess of love who wagers her father that she can win the love of a mortal without using her powers in 30 days.
The duo recently teamed on a rewrite of The Incredible Shrinking Man, a remake of the classic 1950s SF movie, which is being fashioned as a vehicle for Eddie Murphy, Variety reported.
Stewart To Play Gadget
rench Stewart (3rd Rock from the Sun) will play the title character in Disney's upcoming direct-to-video sequel Inspector Gadget 2, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Stewart will take over the role played by Matthew Broderick in the 1999 feature film, which is based on the animated Inspector Gadget television series. Alex Zamm will direct.
Jordan Moffet wrote the most recent draft of Gadget 2. Ron Anderson wrote the original draft, on which Alex Zamm and Bill Robertson did a rewrite.
Briefly Noted
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The Aug. 21 season finale of TNT's original series Witchblade scored a 2.7 rating, tying the show's best single-episode number, for the June 12 series premiere, the Comics Continuum Web site reported. More than 35 million viewers saw the finale, the site reported.
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Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has received the Walpole Medal of Excellence, an award for promoting British excellence, the Reuters news service reported. Previous recipients of the Walpole Medal included actress Judi Dench and racing driver Jackie Stewart.
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Arrow Features has acquired worldwide rights to writer-director Jacqueline Garry's dark comedy film The Curse, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Arrow has pegged an October release for the film, which stars Amy Laughlin, Mike Dooly and Sara Elena Knight in the story of a shy, lonely woman who, after being bitten by a werewolf, finds herself becoming increasingly more desirable to the opposite sex.
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The official Star Wars fan club, Wizards of the Coast and Lucasfilm will sponsor Star Wars Celebration II, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the first movie, the official Web site reported. The celebration will take place May 3-5, 2002, at the Indianapolis Convention Center and will feature celebrity guests, screenings of never-before-seen footage, rare collectibles, exclusive merchandise, special presentations and more.
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Gloria Stuart, who appeared in 1933's classic SF film The Invisible Man, makes a guest appearance on The SCI FI Channel's original series of the same name on Aug. 24 at 8 p.m. Stuart will play Darien (Vincent Ventresca)'s long-lost grandmother, whom he tracks down after he starts
having dreams about her and the father that abandoned him as a child.
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Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford returns to Broadway this season in Dance of the Vampires, a musical based on Roman Polanski's 1967 movie spoof The Fearless Vampire Killers, Variety reported. The show opens April 11, 2002, at the Minskoff Theater in New York.
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A Swedish court has reversed the State Board of Censors, which had imposed a 15 rating on the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, barring anyone younger than 15 from seeing the film, Variety reported. Distributor Sandrew Metronome had appealed the rating, and the court agreed, saying the film should receive an 11 rating, which allows children as young as 7 may see the movie if accompanied by an adult, the trade paper reported.
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Star Wars puppeteer Frank Oz (Yoda) told the British Big Breakfast show that he has finished recording all of Yoda's dialogue for Episode II, but declined to answer questions about the character's new appearance, the Dark Horizons Web site reported.
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Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced that it will release Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series on DVD on Nov. 20, the DVD Review Web site reported. All 14 episodes of the short-lived 1974 series will be included on the four-disc set, with a suggested retail price of $49.95.
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The Toronto International film festival announced that director Scott Hicks' Hearts of Atlantis and Johnny Depp's From Hell will be among the films in competition, Sept. 6-15, E! Online reported.
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Sierra's steampunk role-playing game Arcanum is set to arrive in stores later this week. The game is set in a world of humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and other races, where magic and technology co-exist in an uneasy balance, the Zentertainment Web site reported.
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Mobile phone maker Ericsson told the WAP.com Web site that fans of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider movie have raided its inventory of GPRS headsets, as used by the titular adventurer in the summer film, according to a report on the Tomb Raider Chronicles Web site. Ericsson will now press ahead with plans to complete its new Bluetooth headset design and expects to replenish within the next two months, the site reported.
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Entertainment Weekly reported that the start date for the second movie based on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of children's novels is Nov. 18. The first Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, opens Nov. 16.
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TV Guide Online has posted a story, set report and images from UPN's upcoming Enterprise series. The TrekToday Web site, meanwhile, has posted an interview with series star Anthony Montgomery.
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Ain't It Cool News' Harry Knowles once again responded to allegations made by a star of the upcoming Scooby-Doo movie—in this case, remarks by Matthew Lillard to SCI FI Wire.
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Graig Welch, creator of BeyondComicsTV.com, is seeking investors for an SF comic-book film entitled Project: Evolution, which will star David Prowse (Darth Vader in Star Wars).
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Jeff Bridges' agent told the Moviehole Web site that the actor's character in the upcoming Tron 2.0 sequel "is being written like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. The other guy is looking for him, but he's fully entered the cyberworld. It sounded like fun, and Jeff is interested. We'll see."
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Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan—husband of Star Trek: Voyager star Kate Mulgrew—became the first Democrat to announce plans to challenge Ohio's Republican Gov. Bob Taft for the office next year, the Associated Press reported. Hagan, 55, said he hopes Mulgrew (Capt. Janeway) will aid in his fund-raising for next year's race, the wire service reported.
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Sony Pictures Classics has picked up U.S. distribution rights to director Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-language supernatural horror film The Devil's Backbone (El Espinazo del Diablo), sources told The Hollywood Reporter. Del Toro (Blade 2) wrote the film, which is set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, with Antonio Trashorras and David Munoz.
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