Farscape Returns Announced
he SCI FI Channel announced that it is planning to air the last four new season-three episodes of its original series Farscape in March or April 2002.
The fourth season will begin in June 2002.
The SCI FI Channel earlier announced that it had made a 44-episode commitment to Farscape for a fourth and fifth season. The series is currently SCI FI's highest-rated show.
Reruns of Farscape's first three seasons currently air Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. The new episodes will air on Friday nights.
Branagh Joins Next Potter Film
enneth Branagh will play Gilderoy Lockhart in the next Harry Potter feature, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Variety reported.
Lockhart is a
smooth and likable wizard who teaches at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft.
Among Lockhart's students are Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and
Hermione (Emma Watson), who develops a crush on Lockhart.
Production on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will begin on Nov.
16, the same day that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone hits theaters.
Potter To Open Very Wide
arry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone—Chris Columbus' film based on the first of J.K. Rowling's best-selling Potter books—will open in 130 foreign countries and in 40 languages, marking Warner Bros.' biggest international release ever, USA Today reported.
In the United States, Potter will open in a record 4,000-plus theaters on Nov. 16, the same day it premieres in the United Kingdom.
The movie has already screened to a select audience of filmmakers and studio executives and to preview audiences in Chicago and London, the newspaper reported. In Chicago, audiences greeted the 2-hour, 33-minute film enthusiastically. "The readers were ecstatic, and the non-readers loved the story and wanted to get the books," Columbus told the newspaper.
Potter Rumors Reported
he Dark Horizons Web site reported rumors about upcoming installments of the Harry Potter film franchise.
The site based the rumors on reports of a visit by Warner Bros. president Alan Horn to a film studies class at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
According to the site, the studio is in the process of shooting the second installment of the series, and a screenplay for the third is currently being written, all so that the child actors can "age appropriately." Due to its length, the fourth novel, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is under consideration to be adapted into a two-part film, the site reported.
Horn also reportedly denied a rumor that Steven Spielberg would direct the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Enya Sings In Rings Tongue
nya, the Irish singer who has recorded two new songs for the upcoming Lord of the Rings film trilogy, told the Sonicnet Web site that one is in Sindarin, a fictional language.
"It's so beautiful to sing in a language that no one's ever heard, to do something that no one's ever done before," Enya said of Aniron (Theme for Aragorn and Arwen).
The song backs a romantic scene between Liv Tyler's elf and Viggo Mortensen's human characters. A snippet of the other Enya song has been posted to the Web.
Buffy Cast Spoilers Revealed
uffy the Vampire Slayer executive producer Marti Noxon told TV Guide Online that familiar faces will join new ones in upcoming episodes of the UPN series.
Noxon also offered spoilers about the much-anticipated musical episode, "Once More With Feeling," which is slated to air Nov. 6. Among the cast spoilers:
•Amber Tamblyn guest-stars in the Oct. 30 Halloween episode as Janice, a classmate of Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg).
•Tony-winning Broadway performer Hinton Battle will appear in the musical episode, playing a demon, Noxon told TV Guide.
•Elizabeth Anne Allen—whose character, Amy, was transformed into a rat several seasons back—will return as a person.
UPN also issued a brief description of the upcoming musical episode: "A demon summoned in Sunnydale forces Buffy and the Scooby Gang to sing their most private—and sometimes shocking—secrets to one another." Noxon and co-executive producer David Fury reportedly make cameo appearances.
Episode II Book Draft Done
ongtime Star Wars author R.A. Salvatore has delivered the first draft of his novelization of the upcoming Episode II: The Attack of the Clones, the official Star Wars Web site reported.
Covering more than 20 chapters, the novel not only describes what will be seen on movie screens next year, but also offers insights into the characters' thought processes and establishes new scenes that did not appear in the screenplay, the site reported.
Salvatore worked with writer/director George Lucas to craft the new sequences. Among Lucas' mandates for the novel: Concentrate on Padmé's side of the story. "I thought the script had a lot of meat that I liked, because I like dark," Salvatore told the site. "A lot of it's psychological. You've got this really torn teen-ager. You start seeing the indications that something's not right in Anakin's world."
The next step? "It'll be mostly done, and it'll be tweak, tweak, tweak all the way through," Salvatore said. Del Rey Books is set to publish the Episode II novelization around the time the film is released in 2002, the site reported.
Portman Gets Hitched To Bride
atalie Portman has signed on to star in the supernatural romantic comedy The
Bride Wore Black, according to Variety.
The actress, who will reprise her role as Queen
Amidala in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones, will play the spirit
of a jilted bride who makes her presence known to a young man attending the
wedding of an ex-girlfriend.
Maurice Chauvet penned the script on spec. As yet, there are no other
production staff, casting or start date details for the 20th Century Fox
feature.
Phantom Menace Sets DVD Record
he Force is with the DVD version of Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, which Variety reported sold 2.2 million copies during its first week of release.
Based on a $29.98 price tag, that translates into an additional $45
million for the international blockbuster's coffers and breaks the record of 2 million copies sold set by
The Mummy Returns just two weeks ago.
Industry analysts expressed mild surprise about the success of the Phantom Menace DVD since the film was released almost three years
ago, the video reached stores nearly two years ago and most fans consider
the Jar Jar-fest to be the weakest of the four Star Wars films to date. How
long The Phantom Menace holds its record remains to be seen, as the Shrek DVD
invades stores Nov. 2 and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas
arrives on DVD Nov. 20.
Kersh Becomes X-Files Regular
ames Pickens Jr., who has played FBI Deputy Director Alvin Kersh as a recurring character since season six of The X-Files, told SCI FI Wire that he was "surprised" by the offer to join the series as a regular for the show's ninth year.
"The character got such a reaction on a lot of fronts,
which I wasn't aware of," Pickens said. "I guess they
decided the character could be a little more vital in terms of the
storylines."
He added, "We'll have to wait and see what it means in terms of the
day-to-day on the show. People don't know who Kersh is, what's behind the
face, what his intentions are. I like that. It keeps people guessing and it
keeps people wanting to see him, to see which way he's going to go."
The actor, who's also playing a recurring role on the series Philly, laughed
when informed that a whopping 34 percent of those participating in an online poll of
fans think Kersh will "kick the bucket" this season. "If it happens, fine,"
said Pickens, whose only other genre credits are Sphere and the SF comedy
Rocket Man. "That's the nature of the business. I don't worry about that
stuff. Our whole career is spent going from one job to another. So I'll
enjoy the time that I've got on The X-Files and make it work to my advantage.
And if it's time to go, then I'll press on to something else."
The X-Files will begin its new season on Nov. 11 with "Nothing Important
Happened Today, Part I."
X-Files Debut Delayed
ox will delay the ninth-season premiere of The X-Files to Nov. 11 from Nov. 4, the Zap2it.com Web site reported.
The premiere is being moved to avoid the rescheduled Emmy Awards ceremony and the possible game seven of the World Series, the site reported.
The two-part premiere will feature Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless and Princess Bride actor Cary Elwes. The second part of the episode will air on Nov. 18.
Gaiman Teams With Marvel
cclaimed novelist and comic book writer Neil Gaiman will write a six-issue miniseries for Marvel, Cinescape Online reported.
Gaiman and the Marvel editor-in-chief made the announcement during a
conference call on Wednesday.
"I'm going to write as many of the Marvel
characters as I can without actually doing a Secret Wars kind of thing,"
Gaiman said. "There's going to be an awful lot in there, because there are
so many of them that I've never written. The overused and hackneyed
expression, 'as you've never seen them before,' will unfortunately apply—or
fortunately apply, depending upon which way it works. What I'm hoping to do
is the kind of thing in some ways that I did with Sandman, in that once this
project is done it will leave some fertile areas behind that Marvel will be
able to do other stuff in without me."
Quesada said that Gaiman would work with Marvel Knights editor Stuart Moore,
who collaborated with Gaiman at DC Comics. The miniseries will likely go out
under the Marvel Knights banner and could result in additional Gaiman-Marvel
endeavors.
"Assuming this is a pleasurable experience, and I see no reason why it
wouldn't be, I can definitely see myself coming back again and maybe doing
another one like this, or maybe doing something completely different," Gaiman
said. "Maybe that's the point where I'll ring Craig Russell and say, `Let's
do Dr. Strange.'"
Jones: Smallville Like Dawson
am Jones III, who
plays Pete Ross on The WB's hit Smallville, told SCI FI Wire
that the Superman series isn't a traditional superhero saga.
"It's got a kind of Dawson's Creek type of feeling," Jones said.
"Peter and Chloe [Allison Mack] and Clark [Tom Welling] are friends who hang
out, but then there's always something going on, where Clark has to save the
day."
Jones insists
that he didn't have to think twice about signing on for Smallville, despite
the fact that he risked his momentum in films for a supporting role on a TV
series filming in Vancouver, B.C., far away from the Hollywood
scene. "Smallville was something I wanted to be a part of," he said.
"Anything to do with Superman has always gone down in history as far as being
something good, like the comics, the original show, the movies and Lois &
Clark. Also, I had the opportunity to break barriers. To be an African-American and play Clark's best friend and have the character (in the comic
book) originally be white, I felt I'd be doing a good thing.
"It's consistent work and it's fun," Jones added. "And I knew it would be.
I'm basically about the material. As long as it's good material I'm going to
pursue it. At first, it was a little weird coming into a situation where I
wasn't the lead, because I'd been used to working in every scene, all day,
every day on the films I'd just done. When we shot the (Smallville) pilot I
was here in Vancouver for four weeks and I worked six days. I wasn't used to
that at all. But it's okay. I sit in my trailer and hang out with people.
I'll watch DVDs. I like it when I'm working and I don't mind getting paid
well to watch DVDs when they're not using me."
Author Goes From Dune To Nemo
uthor Kevin J. Anderson—currently riding the bestseller list with Dune: House Corrino, which he co-wrote with Brian Herbert—told SCI FI Wire that he'll be back in bookstores next with Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius.
"If all plans go as they're supposed to, Nemo will be out at the very end of December, right after Christmas," Anderson said. "So everybody who comes in to exchange the dumb books that people bought them for the holidays will hopefully go, 'This one looks cool,' and pick up Nemo."
Anderson describes Nemo, to be published by Pocket Books, as the life story of the infamous captain from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. "I've got it set up so that Nemo and young Jules Verne were childhood friends," he said. "Nemo went off, joined a sailing ship, fought pirates, got stranded on a mysterious island and discovered a cave that took him to the center of the Earth. He comes home and tells his friend Jules all these adventures he's been having and Jules uses them as material for his novels. So you learn how Nemo started out as a good guy and went through some nasty things. [For instance,] he was forced to create the Nautilus submarine by a sultan in Turkey.
"It's historically based, but of course it's fantasy," added the author, who spent two and a half years conducting research for the novel. "All the people who liked the Jules Verne novels or the Walt Disney movie or—the one I'm personally fond of—the Mysterious Island movie with Ray Harryhausen's monsters should like Nemo. I wanted to write a book that would hit everybody who loved all of Verne's stuff, and I had a blast with it."
As usual, Anderson is juggling several projects at once. In February Bantam will publish his stand-alone SF novel Hopscotch, then in July Warner Books will publish The Saga of Seven Suns, the first in another SF series Anderson expects will extend to five or more novels. Finally, he's teaming again with Brian Herbert to launch another trilogy of Dune prequels. "It will be set in the time of the Butlerian Jihad and pretty much gives you the genesis of the Dune universe," Anderson says. "We're on the fifth draft of the first novel and it should be out this time next year."
Carter And Burton Dating?
irector Tim Burton and Planet of the Apes leading lady Helena Bonham Carter are dating, according to Reuters and Zap2it.com.
Burton had been engaged to Lisa Marie, the model and actress who'd served as his artistic
muse and appeared in Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow and Planet of the
Apes.
The relationship between Burton and Carter seems to be more than hearsay, as Carter's
publicist reportedly acknowledged the situation. "It is a brand-new relationship,"
Melody Korenbrot told Reuters. "Nobody knows where it's headed yet."
Burton and Carter will celebrate their three-week anniversary next Monday,
Korenbrot added, a statement that indicates the relationship did not begin on
the Apes set.
Cage Will Play Constantine
icolas Cage will at long last take to the big-screen as a comic-book character, but not as Superman or Ghost Rider.
According to online reports, after both Superman and
Ghost Rider fell through, Cage has decided to play the title role of John Constantine in the
big screen version of the DC Comic Hellblazer.
Tarsem, who most recently directed Jennifer Lopez in The Cell, will helm the
Warner Bros. project. The supernatural story involves a man, Constantine,
who uses his unique powers to neutralize situations that threaten everyone
and everything on Earth. Cage, of course, took his stage name from a comic
book character: Marvel's Luke Cage, better known as Power Man.
Hellblazer will commence production on March 1, 2002.
Bean Discusses Equilibrium
ean Bean shed some light on the
upcoming Dimension SF-thriller Equilibrium during an interview with SCI FI Wire.
"It's set in the future, where
these thought police [operate] and a very sterile society has developed where
everybody is told what to think and is very reliant on Librium as a way of
life," said the actor, who also plays Boromir in the highly anticipated film Fellowship of the Ring.
"Everyone is very
controlled and there's no real room for anything spiritual or for any passion
or anything anymore," Bean said. "Everything is working very well, like clockwork, but it's a very empty
world," added the actor, who co-stars opposite Christian Bale, Taye Diggs,
Emily Watson and Angus MacFadyen in the film, which was written and directed
by Kurt Wimmer, who previously penned Sphere.
"Unfortunately, my character
is very good at his work, which is keeping people in order. But I can't get
away from what the world used to be," Bean said. "You're not allowed to read poetry.
You're not allowed to look at art. He just can't cope with it anymore. He
harkens back to the old days, when people were people were people, and he
can't stand what's going on, what's happening to society. It's very 1984.
There are resonances of that. It should be very interesting."
Docter Operates Lavish Monsters
onsters, Inc. director Peter Docter told SCI FI Wire that he and his fellow animators at Pixar took advantage of strides in computer technology development over the five-year process of making the Disney/Pixar film.
"Generally what happens is that every year the computers increase speed by eight to 10 times," Docter said. "Instead of just doing things eight to 10 times faster, we asked (the computers) to do eight to 10 times as much."
Docter continued, "We added complexity. You'll see it on the screen. If you look at the images—in the fur and claws of the monsters, in the movements of Boo—it's much more rich and lavish now than it could have been even five or six years ago."
Monsters, Inc., which will open nationwide on Nov. 2, features the voice of John Goodman as Sulley, a big blue lug of a monster who makes his living as a Scarer at Monsters, Inc., the company responsible for collecting the screams of young human children, screams that are then used to power the city of Monstropolis. Problems arise when a human child named Boo follows Sulley back to Monsters, Inc., causing all sorts of problems for Sulley and his pal/assistant Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal), who race to get Boo back to her room before it's too late.
Industry analysts expect Monsters, Inc. to be a fall blockbuster and pull in Toy Story 2-like grosses. And there's already buzz about a sequel. Docter, however, isn't ready to commit to a follow-up just yet. "I would have to think about that and see what happens," said the director, who spent five years on Monsters, Inc. and devised the initial monster-in-a-closet story concept. "At this point I'm relieved to be done with this film. It's been a long process. I'm happy with the film, but I haven't thought about a sequel."
John Edward Won’t Focus On 9/11
rossing Over With John Edward—the show where psychic medium John Edward claims to relay messages from lost loved ones to their living relatives—will not be running episodes focused on the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Various newspapers and Internet sites had reported that Studios USA, which produces the series, was mulling over the concept of airing one or more specials featuring family members who had lost relatives during the Sept. 11 tragedy.
The reports sparked a minor controversy that prompted Studios USA’s president of domestic television, Steve Rosenberg, to tell the Wall Street Journal, "We are not making the shows." Rosenberg had earlier told the Broadcasting & Cable Web site that "it seemed wrong" not to do the show after many families who had lost relatives on Sept. 11 had contacted Edward seeking private sessions.
Crossing Over airs both on the SCI FI Channel and in various syndicated TV markets. On Oct. 26 SCI FI released a statement that said: "Many people believe in life after death. If you watch Crossing Over, every show is about people who have died—and aiding those who are grieving. In this instance, the show has been inundated with calls and pleas for readings from grieving families of the World Trade Center victims looking for comfort and closure. Many of these readings have been done privately and will continue to be done privately. However, these readings will not air as part of the Crossing Over With John Edward television show."
Studios USA, the SCI FI Channel and SCIFI.COM are owned by USA Networks Inc.
Jack Black Enters The Ice Age
ack Black told SCI FI Wire that providing the voice of a saber-toothed tiger
for the upcoming animated feature The Ice Age was nothing like his work in such
previous films as Demolition Man, Waterworld or Mars Attacks!
"You go into
the sound room, you're alone and you don't meet any of the other actors,"
Black said. "You just read lines off the script."
"They put the image to the sound later, but they videotaped my face
to get some subtleties of my expressions to put into the animation," Black added. "I love
animated movies. This wasn't a very big part. I only worked a total of six
days. It went by really fast. I'd do one day and then, like six months
later, they'd call me to come back and do another day."
Black—due next opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal and Roswell's Colin
Hanks in Orange County—is joined in The Ice Age by Denis Leary, Kirsten
Johnston, Ray Romano, Goran Visnjic and Jane Krakowski. The film, about
prehistoric creatures that try to return a human baby to its tribe, will open
nationwide on March 15, 2002.
Ridely Scott To Direct Swift
idley Scott will direct the movie Swift as his next project, Zap2it.com reported.
The script, by
Stephen Cornwell, follows a young detective as he discovers that a series of
violent murders are part of a much bigger, supernatural scenario.
The film
will be the first in a recently signed three-year development deal that calls
for Scott, the director of Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator and Hannibal, and
his brother, fellow director Tony Scott, who helmed The Hunger, to each
direct one film for the studio.
Scott's next film to hit theaters is Black Hawk Down, a contemporary
military drama opening in March 2002 that stars a roster of genre veterans that includes Josh (The
Faculty) Hartnett, Ewan (Star Wars: Episode I) McGregor, Tom (Red Planet)
Sizemore and Jason (Soldier) Isaacs.
Silver To Launch Ghost Ship
roducer Joel Silver, whose Dark Castle production company produced the upcoming 13 Ghosts, told SCI FI Wire that the company is now working on the supernatural thriller film Ghost Ship for Halloween 2002.
"We're doing another one now. It's going to be out next Halloween," Silver said in an interview while promoting 13 Ghosts. "It's called Ghost Ship and [13 Ghosts director Steve Beck] is going to
direct. It's about a haunted ocean liner."
Silver said the majority of the film will take place on board the spirit-plagued vessel. "A salvage team is towing the boat, and something happens, and we stay on the boat." he said. "We can build a really great set, and we can really have, you know, great aesthetics and great ideas and have a great artistic feel about it. I think that a big character in these movies is that set," Silver added.
Dark Castle Entertainment was founded by Silver and his partner, Robert Zemeckis, to produce horror films in the spirit of the late filmmaker William Castle. "We like [his] movies, and we like where they came from, and we like the ideas, and we like the lineage," said Silver. "I mean, Dark Castle is really a company that's me and Bob and the spirit of the late William Castle. That's what we say. That's what we talk about. And I think that's what we're trying to do."
Silver and Zemeckis plan to release one horror film a year on Halloween weekend under the Dark Castle banner. "We got ahold of the estate, and we got the rights of everything we could get the rights of, and we just started to put it together. And the first thing we got together was House on Haunted Hill, and [13 Ghosts] was the second one, and we're just going to keep on going."
Ghost Ship is next on the production schedule, with more remakes of classic Castle films to follow. Like House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts, the new films will be updated for a contemporary audience. "Bob Zemeckis and myself, we always felt that, you know, we need to take the Bill Castle movies, and we have to use them as a springboard. We have to go beyond them," Silver said. 13 Ghosts opens Oct. 26.
Digga Added Spirit to Ghosts
ah Digga, who co-stars in the upcoming horror film 13 Ghosts, told SCI FI Wire that most of her comedic performance was the result of improvisation.
"I improvised about 80 percent of this film," she said in an interview while promoting the film.
Digga added, "There were lines in the script that ... weren't making the scene. And then [director Stephen Beck] would give me the look like, 'Okay, do you think you can give us something with a little more spunk?' ... Usually by the third or fourth take, the whole production crew was on the ground." Digga was often called upon during filming to add her own individual sense of humor to the character of Maggie, and she learned to adapt accordingly. "I would, like, automatically in advance try to formulate an idea of where I would want to go, you know, as far as the ad-libbing. Because I always knew at some point in time before the day was over Steve was going say, 'You think you can give us ... something a little edgier than that?' Like, I knew it was gonna come at some point in the day, so I always tried to have something in advance."
The filmmakers were initially so taken with Digga's performance that they rewrote the script to allow her character to live longer in the film. "Actually, Maggie was scheduled to have a gruesome untimely death. And about a week or two into production I think I made them fall in love with Maggie. Everyone just kept saying to me, 'Oh I don't want your character to die.'"
Although Digga had plenty of encouragement on the set, making her feature-film debut was still nerve-racking for the rapper-turned-actress. "It's been a whole year since we shot the film and, like, I knew one day it was going to come out. I didn't know what day. And it's like, 'OK am I funny? Is what I'm doing even funny in this film?' ... Like, I didn't even know if the whole comic relief bit was even going to play out." It wasn't until the press screening, when she saw the film with an audience for the first time, that Digga realized that she was indeed funny on-screen. "That's what I felt, but I didn't get that resolve until last night. ... Like, now I can say, 'OK, I stole the show,'" she joked. 13 Ghosts opens Oct. 26.
Witching Hour Heads To TV
nne Rice is in talks to adapt her best-seller The Witching Hour as a television miniseries, according to syndicated columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith.
John Wilder, who wrote the screenplay for Showtime's Anne Rice's The Feast of All Saints miniseries, is in line to write the script for The Witching Hour, Rice told the columnists.
Wilder's script for that project turned out to be "the most faithful adaptation of my work I've ever seen," Rice said. "It's even more faithful than the adaptation I did for Interview with the Vampire." Witching Hour follows the 400-year history of a dynasty of witches.
Roswell Happy With UPN
onald D. Moore, co-executive producer of UPN's teen alien series Roswell, told SCI FI Wire that he's pleased so far with the direction the show is taking on its new network.
"We feel very good about the show creatively," Moore said in an interview about the series, which airs its third episode of the season on Oct. 23. "It seemed like by the end of the second season and the last, like, half-dozen episodes, we had sort of found what we thought was the best and most comfortable mix of science fiction and the relationship aspects of the show, and we were really happy with where we ended up last season."
Moore added, "So this year what we tried to do was sort of stay in that groove and maintain that kind of feeling to the show and the mix of stories. ... The opportunity to introduce the show to a whole new crop of viewers also meant that we could also relaunch the show in a certain sense. So we looked at the first episode as almost like a new pilot, to sort of say, 'Here's the show, here's the characters. And here's where they are in the world, and what you've kind of missed.' And then to sort of look at the rest of the episodes a little more episodically than we had previously."
One of the key changes this season is a move away from long, multi-episode story arcs, Moore said. "On The WB, the network really wanted long, continuing complicated storylines, making it heavily serialized, which also kind of put new viewers at a distance to a certain extent," he said. "And at UPN, it's sort of the opposite. We want it to be more episodic. We want you to be able to tune in and not feel like you've missed everything. But it's a delicate balance, because at the same time, we need to maintain the continuity of the show to the people who are already our fans and who expect a certain follow-up. But we don't want it to be so burdensome to the new viewer that they turn it off and go, 'Oh, God, I don't know what's going on.' But we feel pretty good about it, and we think we've sort of struck that balance."
Moore added that the show's creators aren't overly concerned with competition from The WB's Smallville, which premiered last week to stellar ratings. "We knew going in that it was going to premiere very big," Moore said. "It's the new Superman show. I mean, it's like, I'm curious. There's a given curiosity factor that is going to bring people over to that show to just see it. 'Yeah, what's this new Superman thing they're doing?' So we knew that, and so we were prepared to let them have a big premiere and a solid follow-up rating or two. ... But after the bloom is off the rose, and they have to do it every week, then it's going to be a fair fight, and we'll just see what happens." Roswell airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Is K-Pax Ambiguous?
irector Iain Softley told SCI FI Wire that his upcoming film, K-Pax, is purposely ambiguous. "I think that the thing that is really important about this story is that, in a way, two truths exist, and each has to be given equal weight," Softley said in an interview while promoting the film.
"One of the themes of the film is that reality or truth can be determined by the angle or the perspective that you see it from."
The film stars Kevin Spacey as a man named Prot, who claims to be from the distant planet K-Pax. As he undergoes traditional Earthbound psychiatric treatment, the film leaves the question open-ended as to whether he is an alien or a victim of multiple-personality disorder.
"It might be that seen from here, he's a mental patient, but from there, he's an alien, and then that becomes a metaphor for all sorts of other things in the film," Softley said. "Perhaps he's both, and I won't elaborate on what I think my feeling is about the end of the film, because I don't want to influence people. I think that what is good about it is that you become a participant as an audience in this film, in that you bring your own views or the way they've been changed by seeing the film. And that determines how you interpret it in the way that you would respond to an event in real life. I don't like films that tell you how to respond, because I think, 'Well, yeah, you're telling me that, but why should I believe you?'" Decide for yourself when K-Pax opens Oct. 26.
Starman Gets Spacey In K-Pax
evin Spacey told SCI FI Wire that playing a purported alien opposite former Starman Jeff Bridges was an irony not lost on the performers.
"I kid Jeff to this moment that he now has the Karen Allen part," Spacey said in an interview. "He said, 'Yeah, you're right, Kevin.'"
In K-Pax Spacey plays Prot, a mental patient who claims to be a visitor from the planet K-Pax, who has come to Earth on a temporary mission. He meets psychiatrist Mark Powell (Bridges), who starts to believe his patient's story. To make Prot convincing yet ambiguous, Spacey had to find a balance between the extreme "starman" and an Earthbound multiple-personality patient.
"In the beginning of rehearsals, we had a lot of talk about all the movies that have been done that deal with this subject, including Starman, partly because we talked about tone," Spacey said. "Some movies that deal with the idea of an alien subject are very broad, comedically. In the case of that film, Jeff was playing a character who was embodying a human's body. So it was almost like he didn't know how to move, and it was all very mechanical and was an incredible physical performance. We wanted Prot to be eccentric on a certain level, but we didn't want it to go so far or be so broad in terms of its comedy that the film couldn't make the turn it has to make about an hour and 45 minutes into the movie." K-Pax opens Oct. 26.
Matrix 3 Title Revealed?
oming Attractions and 13th Street reported that the third Matrix movie will be called The Matrix Revolutions.
13th Street confirmed the rumor first reported on Coming Attractions.
The second Matrix film is to be called The Matrix Reloaded. Both are currently in production. Matrix producer Joel Silver is also one of the producers of the upcoming Thirteen Ghosts, which opens Oct. 22.
Matrix Reloaded Is 'Smart'
oel Silver, producer of the two upcoming sequels to The Matrix, told Cinescape Online that the films "are very, very smart."
"It's the boys—they want to outdo themselves," Silver said of directors Larry and Andy Wachowski. "That's what [the challenges] are. They feel that there are so many movies now that have literally Xeroxed whole parts of their picture—digital effects, ideas, points of view, images from the movie. So they are desperate to make something that you've never seen before, and I'm telling you, they are doing that."
Silver added that it won't be difficult reshooting footage that featured pop singer Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in August. "Most of the work in San Francisco was plate photography, because the real movie is being shot in Australia," Silver said. "So there were a lot of plates that we shot up there, and plates are like backgrounds for other scenes. She wasn't really in anything. There's nothing we have—she's not in the movie, because her scenes were all in Australia. It's sad that she couldn't play the part. She had a great role; it was a great part. Zee is an incredible character." Scenes featuring the character are slated to be shot in January. The first sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, is set to wrap in May, the site reported.
Dredd Comes Alive
omic book publisher 2000 AD has signed a deal to produce two movies based on its character Judge Dredd, the heroic lawkeeper of a 22nd-century metropolis, Variety reported.
The Dredd character was previously adapted for the screen in the 1995 film Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone, which flopped at the box office, the trade paper reported.
The first picture under the pact with independent producer Shoreline Entertainment will be Judge Dredd: Dredd Reckoning, in which the judge will lose confidence in the corrupt legal system. It will be shot back-to-back with the second picture under the deal, Judge Dredd: Possession, in which Dredd has to face the moral dilemma of having to kill his partner when she is possessed by Judge Death.
"We are reinventing the franchise by taking it back to the edge and style of the original comic book," Shoreline principal Morris Ruskin told the trade paper.
Trekkers Launch Charity Auction
he Star Trek Galactic Newsletter and SyFyPortal.com are sponsoring an online auction to benefit victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Net proceeds from the Star Trek Charity Auction will benefit the New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund for the families of the victims of the attacks.
Items will go on auction Dec. 1 and will remain on auction until the end of December, organizers said.
Swank Burrows Into Core
ilary Swank (The Gift) will join Aaron Eckhart in the upcoming SF thriller film The Core, to be directed by Jon Amiel for Paramount, Variety reported.
The film is slated to start production Dec. 10.
Eckhart plays a scientist who discovers a problem with Earth's core that will destroy the atmosphere and make the planet uninhabitable. Swank, an Oscar winner, will play an astronaut pilot who makes the trip to the center of the Earth, the trade paper reported. John Rogers wrote the most recent draft of the screenplay.
Regency Develops Braque
egency Enterprises has optioned Margaret Mahy's award-winning fantasy book The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance and will develop a film based on it called Carmody Braque, Variety reported.
Daniel Bobker will produce from a screenplay by Christopher Landon.
The book tells the story of Carmody Braque, a mystical toy store proprietor who enthralls a town in a magic spell, and the two children who cross his path. Mahy, who lives in the United Kingdom, won England's prestigious Carnegie Medal for The Changeover, the trade paper reported.
Weiss Is No Jarod In Bones
ichael T. Weiss told SCI FI Wire that he goes evil Pretending to be the bad guy in the upcoming supernatural horror film Bones.
"I play this fat, corpulent evil cop," Weiss said in an interview. "I had to gain a hundred pounds of prosthetic weight, not real weight." Weiss added, "It's a fun gangster horror film, like an urban Shaft meets a horror film."
The film stars Snoop Dogg as Jimmy Bones, legendary protector of a thriving neighborhood who comes back 20 years after he's murdered to take vengeance on those who betrayed him. While Weiss said playing good guy Jarod on TV's The Pretender was an actor's "dream," he also enjoyed taking on the role of the bad guy in the film. "The wonderful thing and the problem with playing Jarod is that Jarod is such a nice man. He's such a good person. He sees the world pretty black and white. For me as an actor, a lot of characters aren't so nice. It was fun to play someone who was kind of ... despicable," he said with a laugh. "His energy level and what he thinks of as important are completely different. So in that way, when people go out to see that movie, which I hope they will, they'll see I am nothing like Jarod. Jarod was a character. It's always fun to play another one." Bones opens Oct. 24.
Fans of Pretender, meanwhile, won't have to wait long to find Weiss back in the more familiar role of Jarod. He will star in TNT's The Pretender: Island of the Haunted on Dec. 10, the second Pretender movie since the series was canceled after a four-year run on NBC.
Clute Goes Earthbound
ohn Clute told SCI FI Wire that he's sold his next book, Earthbound, to British publisher Orbit for publication in December 2002.
"I'm not finished writing it, so everything will be fairly tight," the SF critic and novelist said in an interview. "But that's the way I kind of like to work."
Clute describes Earthbound as the second volume in a trilogy that began with the acclaimed Appleseed, but stresses that it's a "virtual stand-alone" story, and that one need not have read Appleseed to follow Earthbound. "Basically, it's the backstory to Appleseed," he said. "It is the story of how the Made Minds managed to shepherd the survivors of planet Earth—which was in the center of this terrible maelstrom of empathy, death, 'plaque' and information overload for many centuries—through the long years of darkness, until the war which is indicated is about to take place in Appleseed is imminent. In other words, it's the story of how the Earth survived the bad years."
The author, who lives in London, continues to pen essays, reviews and the "Excessive Candour" column for SCIFI.COM's Science Fiction Weekly. He is also in negotiations to collaborate with David Langford on the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, with Langford taking over for Peter Nicholls, who will serve as editor emeritus. Somewhere down the line, Clute said that he hopes to finish the Appleseed trilogy with The Garden of Uttered Names, a title derived from a phrase in Appleseed that describes the theoretical Garden of Eden. "I guess that will be the war novel," Clute said of The Garden of Uttered Names. "I'm not even going to look for a contract for that until I've happily completed number two. I'm too old to get caught into contract traps, too old and too happy, frankly."
Rock Conan Rumor Dismissed
ohn Milius, writer of the proposed sequel film King Conan: Crown of Iron, told the IGN FilmForce Web site that he is unaware of rumors that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was offered a role as Conan's son.
"It's news to me," Milius told the site.
The ArnoldFan.com Web site reported that King Conan star Arnold Schwarzenegger told fans that filmmakers were hoping to cast The Rock in the movie. Moviehole, meanwhile, reported that Johnson recently appeared on TV's Late Night with Conan O'Brien and denied the rumor himself.
Briefly Noted
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USA Today reported that New Line Cinema will release Goldmember, the third
film in the Austin Powers franchise, on July 26, 2002. Michael Caine and
Beyonce Knowles of Destiny's Child are negotiating for major roles, with
Knowles likely to make her feature debut as the next Powers Girl.
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Mutant X ranked No. 1 in the ratings among syndicated action-dramas for the week of Oct. 13, Variety reported. The new series just barely edged
out the season premiere of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda by a 3.3 to 3.2 margin.
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Variety reports that production is underway in Prague on an untitled
supernatural thriller about young British soldiers fighting the Germans
during WWII who find themselves under attack by a mysterious killer who's not
human. Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis, who will play Gollum in
The Fellowship of the Ring, star in the film by first-time writer-director
Michael J. Bassett.
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Dark Horizons reported the rumor that Lucasfilm may issue another Phantom
Menace DVD as a result of fan demand for more extras. The site said that the
current DVD used only a portion of the four-hour "making of" documentary and
that other commercials, scenes and media coverage could turn up on the
"supplemental" disc.
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UPN reported that freshman series Enterprise remains the highest-rated new
drama of the 2001-2002 season in the coveted 18-34 demographic. The latest
Star Trek series is placing ahead of Alias on ABC, Crossing Jordan on NBC and
Smallville on The WB.
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The IGN FilmForce Web site has posted new trailers for John McTiernan's upcoming remake of Rollerball, which opens on Feb. 8.
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Fox will delay the series premiere of The Tick one week, to Nov. 8 from Nov. 1. The Tick, starring Patrick Warburton, will air Thursdays at 8:30 p.m.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger received an honorary doctorate in business administration from Imadec University in Vienna, Austria, the Associated Press reported. The degree recognized the actor's life achievements and his work to promote Austria's economy.
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The Force.net Web site has posted a detailed description of the upcoming teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode II—The Attack of the Clones, which will arrive in theaters Nov. 2.
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Hershey's Food Corp.'s Reese's Pieces, which enjoyed a huge promotional windfall with the release of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982, is hoping to get another marketing jolt when Universal re-releases the film next March, Variety reported. Hershey's has joined Kraft Foods, Dairy Queen and an array of other companies in promotional agreements with Universal for the movie's 20th anniversary, the trade paper reported.
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Former Matrix star Joe Pantoliano will appear in episode four of Electronic Arts' online SF conspiracy game Majestic, the FGN Web site reported. Pantoliano will play Tim Pritchard, a reporter who has made a reputation of digging for the truth and, in doing so, ends up airing stories that compromise the TV station he is working at, FGN reported.
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The Dark Horizons Web site reported a rumor that Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man) is under consideration for a role in Star Wars: Episode III and that Robbie Coltrane is rumored to have met with Lucasfilm casting.
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The Dark Horizons Web site reported that Ray Park (Star Wars: Episode I) is in preproduction on his upcoming comic-inspired movie Iron Fist, with Beyonce Knowles of the band Destiny's Child being sought for the lead female role.
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The Comics Continuum Web site reported that Jason Marsden will provide the voice of Snapper Carr in Cartoon Network's upcoming Justice League animated series.
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From Hell, the Jack-the-Ripper thriller film starring Johnny Depp, topped the box-office rankings in its debut, taking in about $11.6 million for the weekend of Oct. 19, the Hollywood trade papers reported. Hell was the only genre offering in the top 10.
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