Bradbury Still Going Strong
egendary SF author Ray Bradbury told SCI FI Wire that he's still got a few books left in him at age 81.
A new supernatural novel, From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance, came out on Halloween and will be followed in the spring by a new collection of short stories, One More for the Road.
Of Dust, Bradbury said in an interview, "I began work on it 55 years ago, and about two years ago, my editor ... said, 'It's about time you finished this book.' So, by God, I finished it. And it's a story of a very peculiar family that lives in the north of Illinois. They could be vampires. They could be ghosts. They could be phantoms. They could be shapeshifters. They're all kinds of strange people from a period of 2,000 years. And I've done a huge book from the viewpoint of a little 10-year-old boy, who's the normal person within the family, and the book's doing very well. It's getting excellent reviews. So I'm very happy I finished it."
Why the long delay? "I had other things to do," Bradbury said nonchalantly. "I got the job of writing [1956's] Moby Dick for the screen, for [director] John Huston, and a lot of other things intervened. I wrote a lot of books and 600 short stories. So that was a good intervention, wasn't it? ... It felt like [Dust] should finish itself. I'm not in control. My books write themselves when they feel like it."
Bradbury also recently released a compilation of his writings in A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis, and Ministers, a tongue-in-cheek aid to clergy. "It's a collection of essays, poems and stories and a bit of a screenplay," he said. "Various priests, rabbis and ministers ... wrote me during the last 20 years saying, 'Last weekend, I'd had it with the Sermon on the Mount. I didn't want to talk about the Burning Bush anymore. And I found this poem of yours,' or, 'I found this story, and I did the story or the poem from the pulpit last weekend, and I thought you should know what a great help you've been to me.' So I thought over the years, 'My God, if they found my stuff worth repeating in the churches or synagogues, why don't I make up a book of these things, which have influenced all these rabbis and priests?' So that's what the book is."
McKellen Talks Fellowship
an McKellen, who plays Gandalf in the upcoming Lord of the Rings film trilogy, praised the first movie on his official Web site—and corrected a misconception about the film's beginning.
McKellen screened the film, The Fellowship of the Ring, for the first time this week in New York.
"Over the months, I have leaked a few secrets, one of which now turns out to have been misleading, so perhaps I should in all fairness correct it," McKellen wrote. "The Fellowship of the Ring does after all begin with a prologue sequence, which sets the scene and story of The One Ring before the adventures proper begin. This is done so expeditiously and excitingly that it is almost like a film of its own, with glimpses of the Dark Lord and the forging of The One Ring. It is narrated by a female voice (guess whose) and leads you into the world of Middle-earth confidently, as if Peter Jackson had taken you by the hand and personally led you there."
McKellen added, "There you remain for about 2 hours 45 minutes, although I thought it was less than an hour, the journey was so entrancing. It's the film equivalent of 'not being able to put it down 'til I'd finished.'"
McKellen praised the designs, costumes and New Zealand locations, adding, "All this, with performances to match, allows the story to be the star of the film, and of that I couldn't be more pleased. ... But the real test will be when filmgoers go and, as I intend to, go again. ... My advice would be to see it at least once on a really big screen. There is so much detail to look and wonder at." Fellowship opens Dec. 19.
Rings Praise Starts
heater owners praised Peter Jackson's first Lord of the Rings film after a screening this week, Variety reported.
The positive reaction came as a relief to New Line, which is gambling $270 million on the three movies, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's books of the same name.
"We've had our fingers crossed for two years," New Line distribution president David Tuckerman told Variety. The exhibitors "are as happy with the film as we are."
New Line is particularly nervous about the upcoming release of the first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, in the wake of the thundering success of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone this month from New Line's sister studio, Warner Brothers. Rings has been licensed to more than 40 products, including video games, toys, collectibles, trading cards, even swords. The partnerships extend to tie-ins with Burger King, JVC, Barnes & Noble and General Mills, the trade paper reported. Fellowship opens Dec. 19.
No Hobbit Film Planned
an McKellen, who plays Gandalf in Peter Jackson's upcoming Lord of the Rings film trilogy, told fans on his official Web site not to expect a movie based on The Hobbit.
"I should emphasize that, despite any rumor, there are no plans to film The Hobbit," J.R.R. Tolkien's prequel to Rings.
Should a film version of The Hobbit come to pass, McKellen said he would not be interested in reprising the role of Gandalf. "Perhaps if it were ever adapted for the cinema, I should give another actor the part of a lifetime," he said. The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens Dec. 19.
Rings Teases Rangers
theatrical trailer for The SCI FI Channel's upcoming original television movie Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers will screen before the first Lord of the Rings film in major cities.
The trailer will appear on about 800 screens in the top 10 media markets in the country, though exact theaters have not yet been determined, a SCI FI spokeswoman told SCI FI Wire. Rangers, from the creative team behind B5, is slated to air at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Jan. 19, 2002. The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens Dec. 19.
Despite earlier reports, no physical trading cards will be distributed at the theaters, the spokeswoman said. Instead, fans will be able to download digital trading cards from the official Rangers Web site. New cards will be released every Friday through Jan. 4, 2002.
The two-hour Rangers is executive produced by B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and Douglas Netter and picks up the story of the Ranger fleet as it attempts to restore order to hundreds of civilizations devastated by the Shadow War. The film is the pilot for a possible SCI FI series.
JMS: Rangers Extends B5
abylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming SCI FI Channel original movie Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers represented an opportunity to delve further into the mysterious Rangers, the fighting force first introduced on B5.
"I wanted to explore their history, their tradition, their philosophy," Straczynski said in an interview. "We've never done a show about an organization that's in essence a bunch of warrior priests, and particularly one about a group of alien priests."
The Legend of the Rangers follows the group as a ship's crew is assembled after the Shadow War and given the task of restoring order to the universe. Straczynski and Douglas Netter executive produced the movie, which Straczynski wrote. Michael Vejar directed. The two-hour movie stars Dylan Neal as Capt. David Martel, Alex Zahara as Dulann, Myriam Sirois as Sarah and B5 star Andreas Katsulas, who reprises his role as G'Kar.
"That dynamic was of interest to me, because it takes you out of the standard action without consequence, action without context and lets you play in a much deeper pond," Straczynski said. "They're trained in the philosophy of the Minbari and the Rangers, which is all about responsibility. It's about asking questions. It's almost a Zen-like approach to storytelling and characterization. They look at the larger questions. How does this fit into the universe? What is their role in things? What's their obligation to each other? That goes right into their creed, which is said in the course of the two hours: 'We walk in the dark places others will not enter. We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass.' That talks about individual responsibility and individual courage." Legend of the Rangers, which also serves as the pilot for a possible Rangers series, airs Jan. 19, 2002.
Potter Casting Rumors Fly
he Harry Potter Connection fan Web site reported casting rumors for upcoming Potter sequel films, including one involving a well-known Jedi knight.
Citing an anonymous source, the site reported that director Chris Columbus has been trying to reach Ewan McGregor's agent about McGregor's playing the role of Remus Lupin in the third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. McGregor will portray Obi-Wan Kenobi in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode II and Episode III.
The site added that British actor Robson Green is under consideration for the role of Sirius Black in the film.
British character actor Alfred Burke, meanwhile, is rumored to have landed the role of Prof. Dippet in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which is currently in production, the site reported.
ABC Gets Potter Rights
BC has acquired the television rights to the blockbuster hit Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and its sequel in one of the most expensive deals in TV history, the network told the Reuters news service.
ABC did not disclose how much it paid for those rights, but a source told Reuters the amount was between $60 million and $70 million for each film.
The deal gives ABC all non-pay television rights to the first Potter movie and its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which is currently shooting. It includes a 10-year license for each film, the wire service reported.
Rowling Supports Single Parents
arry Potter author J.K. Rowling publicly called on the British government to offer more support to the more than 1 million single-parent families living in poverty in that nation, the Associated Press reported.
"Lone parents and their children are the poorest groups in our society," Rowling told those gathered at the National Council for One Parent Families conference last week in London.
Rowling added, "We are a wealthy nation, yet we have one of the worst records of child poverty in the industrialized world. It is a scandal."
Rowling knows whereof she speaks. A single parent herself, Rowling rose from obscurity to international celebrity with her tales about Harry Potter, the orphaned wizard who develops his skills at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In early November, Rowling arranged for a charity screening of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first film based on the Potter novels, to be held in London. The screening raised more than $56,000 for single-parent families.
Niobe Kicks In Matrix 2
ada Pinkett Smith, who plays Niobe in the upcoming two Matrix sequels, told Cinema Confidential that her character is a female version of Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus.
She's "very tough, very 'no bullcrap,'" Smith told the site. "She just puts it on the table. ... I had to go to Oakland for four months and do four months of kung fu training [and] wire training, and I have to go back in February for five months of filming in Australia. ... I put [husband] Will [Smith] in a headlock, you know, wrestle him down. ... He can't get up!"
Smith said shooting The Matrix Reloaded and the third film will occupy much of her time for a while. "We're shooting two and three, and we're also shooting a video game that has movie footage in it, a video movie. So we're doing three projects at the same time, and it's hectic." As for the films' visual effects, she said, "Oh man, you have no idea what's in store for you ... no idea."
Wick Hooked On Pan
roducer Douglas Wick told E! Online columnist Anderson Jones that he is developing a new live-action movie version of J.M. Barrie's classic fairy tale Peter Pan for director P.J. Hogan.
"P.J. wrote a brilliant script," Wick told Jones. "In it, Capt. Hook is a soulful, fascinating, frustrated man who's stuck on the wrong sea. It's beautiful work."
The movie will use computer animation to bring Neverland to life and "maybe Tinkerbell, too, we're not sure," Wick said. "The book has been a hit since the turn of the century, so it couldn't be more relevant about getting older, what youth is, what dying is," he said.
Disney, meanwhile, plans to release Return to Neverland, an animated sequel to its classic 1953 toon Peter Pan, in February 2002.
Like Mike Cast Signed
orris Chestnut and rapper Lil' Bow Wow will star in Fox's urban fantasy film Like Mike for director John Schultz, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film, produced by Barry Josephson, is scheduled to start in January in Los Angeles, the trade paper reported.
Written by Mike Elliot, Mike tells the story of a youth (Lil' Bow Wow) who finds a pair of Michael Jordan sneakers that have magical powers, which catapult him onto an NBA team called the Knights. Chestnut will play Tracy, a tough basketball player who resents his 11-year-old teammate, but comes to learn that they have a lot in common, the trade paper reported.
Elf Re-Ups For Clause II
avid Krumholtz has signed to star opposite Tim Allen in The Santa Clause II, Disney's upcoming sequel to The Santa Clause, Variety reported.
Krumholtz will reprise the role of head elf Bernard in the film.
Michael Lembeck will direct the movie, which is produced by Tim Allen's partner, Brian Reilly, Bobby Neumeyer and Jeff Silver. Clause II will start shooting Feb. 6 in Vancouver.
Miramax Plays With Toy
iramax Films has bought writer Cindy Davis Hewitt's fantasy film script This Is Not a Toy, Variety reported.
Based on an original idea by Cindy and Donald Hewitt, Toy tells the story of a young boy's toy, Action Man, who comes to life and winds up running for president, the trade paper reported.
Jane Startz of Jane Startz Productions is producing. The Hewitts are also working on a feature film for Pixar.
$6 Million Film Planned?
ix Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors told SCI FI Wire that Miramax currently holds the feature-film rights to the 1970s SF TV series—and that he thinks a Charlie's Angels-style movie should be made.
"It would probably be young kids, and I would be the Oscar, sending out these bionic kids," Majors said in an interview. "Steve Austin's Angels or something, Bionic Angels. I would hopefully be involved, but I don't really care."
Majors' suggestion falls somewhere between a faithful adaptation and an all-out comedy, as previously proposed. "I think what happened was Universal has lost the rights," Majors said. "At one point, the Farrelly brothers were interested, and they were trying to do something, which I assume would have come out as a comedy. Now I think the franchise is with Miramax. Miramax kind of stole it from Universal."
Epoch Scored High
he SCI FI Channel's original television movie Epoch scored high ratings in its Nov. 24 premiere.
Epoch had SCI FI's second-highest original movie ratings, after Frank Hebert's Dune, drawing a viewership of 1.7 million households and a 2.3 rating.
Epoch starred Ryan O'Neal and David Keith in a story about an alien weapon threatening the existence of Earth.
Dimension Hops On Harvey
imension Films has hired Craig Mazin to write the script for a proposed remake of the venerable fantasy movie Harvey, which originally starred James Stewart and an invisible 6-foot rabbit, Variety reported.
The original 1950 film was based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Mary Chase, the trade paper reported.
Tony-winning producer Don Gregory is producing the remake.
Ant Marches To Film
niversal has optioned the film rights to The Ant Bully, a children's fantasy book by John Nickle, for Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman's Playtone Co., Variety reported.
The studio plans to make Ant as a computer-animated movie, the trade paper reported.
Published by Scholastic in 1999, Ant tells the story of a boy who is shrunk to ant size after soaking an ant colony with his squirt gun and who is sentenced to hard labor in the colony. Universal is developing several animated features, including Where the Wild Things Are, another Playtone co-production, and Curious George, which the studio is producing with Imagine Entertainment, Variety reported.
Blanc Back In Dark Angel
ennifer Blanc told SCI FI Wire that her character, Kendra, would return to the second season of Fox's SF series Dark Angel as an informant for Eyes Only.
Having hooked up with bad cop Walter Eastep last season, Kendra will now report to Logan with helpful information, Blanc said in an interview.
"He was a sleazy cop, but he turned nice," Blanc said. "I mean, we never know until we see [the script], so I don't know. This could totally change. In the first season, Kendra was supposed to be completely different and teach Japanese to kids, so you just never know. But basically, he knows everything that's going on with all the sector police, and he can find out certain pieces of information. Logan's whole vibe is finding out and saving people, cyberjournalism, running around, being the renegade and helping people."
Blanc will return to the set in January for two weeks and anticipates irregular stints of work. "I probably will go up for about two weeks to start, and we'll see," she said. "It's probably the same as last year, like little bits and then I'll be out for a while, then little bits and I'll be back in." Dark Angel airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Little 2 Is For The Birds
ouglas Wick, producer of the sequel film Stuart Little 2, told SCI FI Wire that advances in technology have allowed artists to introduce a new character.
"We created an entirely new character named Margalo (who's voiced by Melanie Griffith), which is a bird from the book," he said in an interview. "The technology just gets better. You can do anything you want."
As animators put computer-animated rodents, felines and birds in various creative situations, Wick said that filmmakers would not produce effects simply for their own sake. "The real thing is always storytelling," he said. "You can do anything you want with CG, anything you have money for, but the trick is always to tell a great story." Stuart Little 2 is scheduled for a summer 2002 release.
Berry Is New Bond Girl
alle Berry is in line to co-star with Pierce Brosnan in the 20th James Bond film, which is gearing up for a Jan. 14 production start at Pinewood Studios near London, Variety reported.
Lee Tamahori will direct.
Neil Purvis and Robert Wade (The World Is Not Enough) wrote the script for the film, which will be released during the 2002 holiday season to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the franchise, the trade paper reported.
Meanwhile, producers of the movie reached agreement with the British actors' union, clearing the way for the film's U.K. production to go ahead without being affected by an impending strike, the Reuters news service reported. Equity, which represents 36,000 actors, said it had come to an agreement with Eon, the Bond film's producers, in a dispute over payments, Reuters reported. Equity has ordered British actors not to work on any movie after Dec. 1.
Trek X Villain Cast?
he TrekWeb site reported that British actor Tom Hardy is being eyed for a key role in the upcoming 10th Star Trek film, Nemesis.
A source confirmed the casting talks for SCI FI Wire.
Hardy would play the villainous Shinzon, who leads a rebellion on the Romulan slave world, Remus, the site reported. Spoilers for the film, based on early drafts of the Nemesis script, suggest that Shinzon is actually a younger clone of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart).
Star Wars Site Boots Fans
he official Star Wars Web site will cease hosting the fan.starwars.com site, home to thousands of sanctioned fan pages, on Dec. 20.
Lucas Online and Homestead created the fan site in March 2000.
"Due to shifts in the overall online and hosting marketplace, we are sorry to announce that this service will end on Dec. 20," the official site reported. "Fans wishing to relocate their fan.starwars.com sites to another hosting service may do so, provided you continue to comply with the terms of service."
Batman: Year One OK'd?
he Screenwriters Utopia Web site reported a rumor that Warner Brothers has signed off on the proposed Batman: Year One movie, to be directed by Darren Aronofsky.
The site reported that the studio is eyeing an early 2003 release for the film, to be co-scripted by Aronofsky and Frank Miller.
The site also quotes an anonymous source saying that Warner has ordered designs for a "very gothic" Gotham City, as well as new designs for Batman, the Batmobile, Catwoman and the Joker.
Connelly Wins Hulk Role
ennifer Connelly has landed the female lead opposite Eric Bana in Ang Lee's The Hulk, the feature film based on the Marvel Comics series, Variety reported.
Connelly (Dark City) will play Betty Ross, a scientist who has a close personal and professional relationship with Bruce Banner (Bana), who transforms into the green-skinned hero after getting zapped by gamma rays, the trade paper reported.
David Hayter and James Schamus wrote the script for the film, which is slated to begin shooting in March.
Kidman Talks New Ghost Story
icole Kidman is in talks to star opposite Jim Carrey in a supernatural romance film from writer-director Gary Ross, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The as-yet-untitled film, previously titled Dog Years, tells the story of a New York man (Carrey) haunted by the ghost of his dead wife (Kidman). Kidman achieved acclaim this year in another ghost story, The Others.
Ross is producing the new film through his Larger Than Life Productions company, along with Jersey Films. Production is scheduled to begin in March for a Christmas 2002 release, the trade paper reported.
Fantasy X Due Dec. 26
quare Electronic Arts announced that its highly anticipated video game Final Fantasy X will ship in North America for the PlayStation 2 gaming platform on Dec. 26, not January, as originally scheduled.
Final Fantasy X was released in Japan on
July 19 and sold through 90 percent of the 2.14 million units it shipped in the
first four days. It is the first PlayStation 2 title to reach the 2 million-unit mark, the company said.
In Final Fantasy X, the main character, Tidus, survives the destruction of his homeland, meets a
young woman named Yuna in the ruins and teams up with her to defeat a malevolent force called Sin. James Arnold Taylor and Hedy Burress will voice the main characters in the U.S. release of the game. Final Fantasy X carries a suggested retail price of $50 and is rated "T" (Teen).
Jetsons Rewrite Ordered
aul Foley and Dan Forman will write a new draft of the script for a proposed live-action feature-film version of the animated TV series The Jetsons, Variety reported.
Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little 2) will direct for producer Denise Di Novi and Warner Brothers, the trade paper reported.
Foley and Forman recently set up their spec script The Fraud Prince with producer Adam Schroeder under his first-look deal at Warner Brothers, the trade paper reported. The comedy is a takeoff of the fairy tale The Frog Prince.
Clone Rebels Coming
on Shusett, who co-wrote the screenplay to Steven Spielberg's upcoming SF film Minority Report, has optioned the movie rights to the unpublished SF novella RH1658: A Very Human Story by R. Ellis Frazier and Geoffrey Ross, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Shusett is adapting the story for the screen under the title Clone Rebels, along with writers John Chadwell and Ian Rabin, the trade paper reported. Shusett's manager, Anthony Ridio, will produce with Billy Dietrich; they are in talks with several financiers to fund the film.
Clone is set in a post-plague 2081, when an underground society of cloned humans serves as a slave labor force. One laborer leads a clone rebellion.
McMahon Charmed By Charmed
ulian McMahon, co-star of The WB's witch series Charmed, told SCI FI Wire that he's pleased so far with year four of the supernatural series, its first without Shannen Doherty.
Doherty—who played Prue Halliwell opposite Alyssa Milano's Phoebe and Holly
Marie Combs' Piper—departed at the end of last season and was replaced this year by Rose McGowan as new sister Paige Matthews.
"The season's been good fun, particularly the last three or four episodes after we established Rose's character," McMahon—who plays Cole Turner, aka the demon Beltazor—said in an interview. "We've really gotten to mix it up with my character and play with things a lot. The girls don't know if they trust him [a problem, since he just asked Phoebe to marry him]. I've always liked the way the show has been written. It's always fun and ridiculous, but then it's also serious at some points and had emotional content. It gives you a variety of things to do as an actor. It's really been a joy for me." As for anyone who fears that Cole is getting soft
and mushy, McMahon said: "He gets bad." Charmed airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
McMahon, an Australian whose credits include a regular role as John Grant on Profiler, is currently dating Doherty and co-stars with her in the USA Network telemovie Another Day. The film, set to air on Dec. 4, stars Doherty as a young woman given the opportunity to relive the two days before the death of her husband, played by Max Martini (Harsh Realm and Level 9). McMahon plays a close friend of Doherty's character. USA Network is owned by USA Networks, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Riverworld Begins Shooting
rincipal photography has begun in New Zealand on The SCI FI Channel's original television film Riverworld, executive produced by Alex Proyas (Dark City) and based on Philip José Farmer's series of SF books of the same name.
Riverworld, envisioned as the pilot for a possible SCI FI series, is slated to air in mid-2002, SCI FI announced.
Brad Johnson, Emily Lloyd and Cameron Daddo star in the production, from Alliance Atlantis, Tasman Films and Box TV. Stuart Hazeldine (Proyas' The Masque of the Red Death) wrote the script for the movie, which is being directed by Kari Skogland (The Crow series pilot). Riverworld explores the afterlife, a place where every person from every era of humanity has been reborn young and healthy.
Madonna Up For Madagascar?
he Dark Horizons Web site reported a rumor that Madonna is under consideration to voice a character in DreamWorks' upcoming computer-animated movie Madagascar.
The chanteuse would voice Gloria, a hippo, in the movie, about a group of zoo animals who wind up in the wilds of Madagascar off the African coast.
The site added that Jennifer Lopez is also being considered for the role. The project is due out in either 2003 or 2004.
Graduating From Roswell High
aura J. Burns and Melinda Metz—the editor and author who created the Roswell High series of youth novels—told SCI FI Wire that it's like entering an alternate universe now that they are staff writers on UPN's teen-alien series Roswell, which is based on the books.
Writing partners Burns and Metz recently completed their first Roswell script, "A Tale of Two Parties," which finished production the week of Nov. 19 and is slated for a Jan. 1 air date.
The TV show is based on the first of the Roswell High books, but its plot and characters have diverged widely from the book series, the writers said in an interview. "It's sort of that we started in the same places ... and the show went in one direction, and the books went in a different one," Burns said.
Burns added, "The characters are on different paths. The show has always been more adult. ... The books were basically aimed at 10-year-olds. ... So it had to be a much younger voice. And it was very much high school. And the show, the characters have just gone through so much, they're sort of wise beyond their years now and much more mature than your average group of 17- and 18-year-olds, and the stories are much more adult. ... But we love it just as much. We were always big fans of the show."
Burns and Metz's first episode takes place on New Year's Eve. "We knew what kind of feel we wanted—just kind of a fun, fast-paced, bouncing around," Burns said. "There's a party, kind of a secret party. It's like a treasure hunt, and you follow clues. Everybody knows where the first clue is, and that leads you to the next clue, and the next clue that leads you to the party. And this is an annual thing that's legendary, like a rave, just the best party of all time, called Enigma. And what we thought is that we're going to put them on the road to this party, in various groupings, and follow their adventures as they try to find the party."
Metz said she enjoys the collaborative nature of television writing, in which ideas and storylines are developed by a group of writers working together. "That's one of the things that I really like after writing books," Metz said. "I think I'll always like writing books and will always want to do it. But ... I just got tired of being in my apartment all by myself all day. ... I really love it. It's the opposite, but it's still stories. So I get to take that part, which I really love, and combine it with people, which I also love." Roswell airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
More Cast Set For Ring
ew Zealand actor Martin Henderson will co-star opposite Naomi Watts in Ring for director Gore Verbinski and DreamWorks Pictures, Variety reported.
The remake of the hit 1998 Japanese horror film is based on a series of novels by Suzuki Koji about a journalist (Watts) who investigates an urban legend about a cursed videotape said to kill anyone who watches it, the trade paper reported.
David Dorfman, Amber Tamblyn, Rachael Bella and Brian Cox also join the cast of the film, which is slated to begin production at the end of the year.
Watts Takes The Ring
ulholland Drive star Naomi Watts told Empire Online that she will star in the remake of the Japanese horror film Ring.
Gore Verbinski (The Time Machine) will direct.
The original film told the story of a videotape that kills anyone who sees it. "It's horrific, it's truly disturbing, and I'm really excited about it," Watts told the site. The tape—which contains an evil curse—is "full of esoteric, weird things, and you can't quite make out what it is or what it means," Watts said. "It looks like a bad student film, but when you've finished watching it, the phone rings, and you're told you have seven days to live. My character sees it, and a family member is caught up in it and killed, so she has to work out how to stop it and also save herself. She's a really smart survivor chick."
SCI FI Gets Forsaken
he SCI FI Channel has bought the rights to air the recent vampire film The Forsaken, a spokeswoman confirmed.
SCI FI will share the rights with a broadcast network to air the film on television for the first time, but Columbia Pictures hasn't signed the other network yet.
SCI FI also acquired rights to several other genre films, including The Fifth Element, Flatliners, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Starman, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Seventh Sign and The Bride.
The Forsaken, starring Final Destination's Kerr Smith and Brendan Fehr (TV's Roswell), grossed less than $7 million domestically when it was released in April.
Cobb Calms Andromeda Fans
eith Hamilton Cobb, who plays the hulking Nietzschean Tyr Anasazi in the syndicated SF series Andromeda, reassured fans that the show will go on, despite the departure of co-creator Robert Hewitt Wolfe, the Sy Fy Portal Web site reported.
"This is the sort of situation which occurs in television probably a great deal more often than any of you know," Cobb said on the Slipstream Web site message boards. "Any time several factions come together to create a product, there will always wind up being more generals than soldiers. And more often than not, each general will want to do things a little differently than any other. Does the product suffer? Of course it does."
Cobb added, "In my case, the work will go on. The show will change and evolve as it's pulled in various directions by the various forces. That doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Through it all, I will continue to love Tyr, and his voice and presence will continue to remain unique regardless of the amount of screen time. I'm an actor, he is my creation, and his integrity is the only stake I have in all of this."
Andromeda Sacked Wolfe
obert Hewitt Wolfe, who co-created the syndicated SF series Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, told the SlipstreamNews Web site that he is leaving the show over creative differences with production companies Tribune Entertainment and Fireworks.
The companies and series star Kevin Sorbo—who is also an executive producer—disagreed with the complex arc-based storyline Wolfe envisioned, the site reported. Instead, they wanted the show to be more action-driven, more focused on main character Dylan Hunt and more episodic.
"You're probably wondering what the hell happened," Wolfe wrote at the Slipstream BBS. "Short answer: Television happened."
Wolfe left the show in late September, during the production of the 12th episode of the season, "Ouroboros," the site reported. The writing staff is currently being led by the writing team of Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer, while most of the original writing staff is also still working on the show, the site added.
New Cylons Described
he show may be on hold, but Battlestar Galactica producer Tom DeSanto nevertheless offered some clues as to the look of the Cylons in the proposed updated series, the Dark Horizons Web site reported.
Studios USA and the Fox network pulled the plug on the pilot for the proposed new series when X-Men director Bryan Singer dropped out of the project due to a scheduling conflict.
Former Industrial Light & Magic art director Guy Dyas is the principal designer of the "next-generation" Cylons, "which we're confident will thrill the faithful and capture the imagination of new viewers," DeSanto told Dark Horizons. "Our Cylons will be stuntmen in armor and will only be computer-animated when called upon for superhuman battle." Chris Gilman's Global Effects, which created Gary Oldman's battle armor for Bram Stoker's Dracula and space suits for Sphere and Armageddon, have come up with a 6-foot-8-inch Cylon and will cast a set of armor this week, DeSanto added.
Fans have signed a petition urging Fox and Studios USA to revive the series. Studios USA is owned by USA Networks, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Matrix Back Online
n infusion of funds from an anonymous donor has allowed the SF Web publication The Infinite Matrix to relaunch, the Locus Online site reported.
Eileen Gunn edits Matrix, which started up in late 2000, then lost funding, Locus reported.
The current 'zine features columns by Bruce Sterling and Terry Bisson, a novel excerpt by Kathleen Ann Goonan and contributions by Richard Kadrey, David Langford and Simon Ings.
Dimension Game For Nocturne
imension Films will develop a feature film based on Terminal Reality's supernatural video game series Nocturne, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Collision Entertainment, headed by Paul Rosenberg and Scott Faye, is bringing Nocturne to the big screen for the studio, the trade paper reported.
Brent Friedman (TV's Dark Skies) and Steve DeJarnatt (who wrote and directed Miracle Mile) recently completed the script. Dimension will distribute the film in the United States. The action-adventure movie, expected to aim for a PG-13 rating, will begin production next year, the trade paper reported.
Nocturne tells the story of a secret government group called the Spookhouse that investigates supernatural cases to defend the United States from monsters and other evil entities.
Chaykin Muses On Mutant
ust how surprised is Mutant X head writer and executive consultant Howard Chaykin by the success of the freshman genre show? "I'm not at all surprised," Chaykin told SCI FI Wire in an interview.
"Come on! What do you want from my life? That's a horrible question."
Actually, it's not a horrible question. Plenty of shows debut poorly and die. Plenty of others start strong and then fade quickly. Mutant X—which centers on a group of mutants trying to protect their own kind from the government and other mutants—scored with its October premiere, and the series remains one of the top-rated shows in first-run syndication.
"I prepped the first three episodes, hands-on," said Chaykin, who has previously worked on Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict and The Flash, and before entering the realm of television made his living as an award-winning comic-book and graphic-novel artist-writer. "I was [also] up there [in Montreal], I think, for a bit of the fourth. So I spent three weeks up in Canada at the beginning of the production. There are always honeymoons, schisms and problems, but I pretty much knew from the first days of shooting that we had something special going on. We had some nice chemistry between our actors. We had a nice look to the show, and things seemed to be coming together."
Briefly Noted
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Tickets are on sale for the upcoming Star Wars Celebration II, coinciding with the May 2002 release of Episode II—Attack of the Clones, the official Web site reported. The fan convention takes place May 3-5, 2002, at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis.
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Sixty Australian Seventh-Day Adventist schools have banned Harry Potter books for fear they could encourage children to delve into the occult, the Reuters news service reported.
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Wes Craven is likely to direct Pulse, a proposed horror film based on a Japanese ghost story, Variety reported. Craven will also write the script.
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Solaris Entertainment has optioned the film rights to Rebecca Reisert's novel The Third Witch, recently published by Pocket Books, Variety reported. Witch retells Shakespeare's Macbeth through the eyes of the youngest of the play's three witches, who is a mysterious young girl on a dangerous quest for vengeance.
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Bridget Fonda will star in the Hallmark Channel's upcoming fantasy miniseries The Snow Queen, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the Zap2it Web site reported. The miniseries is currently in production in Vancouver, with Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. executive producing. Hallmark plans to air the mini in winter 2002.
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Cliver Barker will sign copies of The Altruistic Alphabet to benefit charity at the Dark Delicacies bookstore in Los Angeles from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Dec. 2.
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E! Online columnist Ted Casablanca reported that Angel star David Boreanaz and his new wife, Jamie Bergman, who were married on Thanksgiving, are expecting a child in early May. Boreanaz's vampire character just became a father himself on The WB series.
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The Dark Horizons Web site reported that Disney has given the green light to a new movie version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.
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A release date of Aug. 2, 2002, has been set for M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, a film starring Mel Gibson and dealing with the appearance of crop circles in rural Pennsylvania. Filmmakers have also opened an official Web site for the movie.
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ToyBiz has opened an official Web site to promote its line of action figures and toys licensed for Peter Jackson's upcoming Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, opens Dec. 19.
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Rutger Hauer, who played a vampire in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer film, has signed on to play the lead role in Dimension Films' sequel to Dracula 2000, Variety reported.
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Disney/Pixar may include "outtakes" in the credit sequence of new prints of its computer-animated hit film Monsters, Inc., which could wind up in theaters by next week, sources told The Hollywood Reporter. Previous co-productions, A Bug's Life and the Toy Story films, featured the humorous animated bits in their credit sequences as well.
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The X-Files star Gillian Anderson has optioned Elizabeth Rosner's non-genre novel Speed of Light for her feature-film directorial debut, Variety columnist Michael Fleming reported. Anderson is now adapting the novel for a film that she plans to develop once she completes her ninth and final season on the Fox series, Fleming added.
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The broadcast premiere of Star Wars: Episode I on Fox Nov. 25 smashed the competition, averaging 17.6 million viewers and a 7.9 rating/18 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas videos and DVDs earned about $145 million in sales and rentals in the first six days of its Thanksgiving week release, surpassing first-week revenue of any other live-action video except Titanic, Variety reported.
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Xena: Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless is expecting her third child in late April or early May, the Zap2it Web site reported. The pregnancy could sink plans for Lawless to reprise her ninth-season role on Fox's The X-Files, the site added.
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Horrormeister Stephen King's official Web site reported that his ABC miniseries Rose Red has been slated to air Jan. 27, 28 and 31.
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The Upcoming Movies Web site reported that writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Danger Girl) will rework the script for the proposed supernatural horror film Freddy vs. Jason.
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The Upcoming Movies Web site reported that the giant-spider film Eight Legged Freaks has been pushed back to a summer 2002 release.
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Star Trek: The Next Generation star Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) expressed regret on his official Web site about remarks he made on a recent Trek edition of NBC's The Weakest Link that apparently offended Voyager star Roxann Dawson. Dawson reportedly told Entertainment Weekly that she didn't think it was funny when Wheaton joked that he was in love with Dawson. Both are married.
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Pirated videodiscs of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone have appeared in China, though the film hasn't even opened in theaters there, Variety reported. The copies were apparently shot by an audience member with a video camera in a theater, possibly in Taiwan, the trade paper reported.
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