Science Fiction News of the Week

Visit our sister site SCI FI Wire
for daily news updates from the world of SF

A Weekly Digest Of Sci Fi Wire

RECENT NEWS

December 17, 2001

Gods Named Best Book

eil Gaiman's American Gods got the most votes for best genre book of the year, according to an informal survey of sources by Locus Online. Gods was named best book of 2001 by seven authorities, including Amazon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post, Locus reported.

Among other books named best-of-the-year by various sources: Jonathan Carroll's The Wooden Sea, Stephen King and Peter Straub's Black House, Maureen F. McHugh's Nekropolis, China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, Kage Baker's The Graveyard Game, Clive Barker's Coldheart Canyon, John M. Ford's The Last Hot Time, King's Dreamcatcher, Ursula K. Le Guin's The Other Wind and Connie Willis' Passage.

SF&F TV, Film Among AFI Nominees

he American Film Institute announced nominations for the first annual AFI Awards in 19 film and television categories, and several genre projects made the grade, the Reuters news service reported. The AFI, which is dedicated to advancing and preserving the art of film and television, will present its awards Jan. 5, 2002, at the Beverly Hills Hotel in a live television broadcast, the news service reported. A list of SF&F nominations follows.

Motion Picture Nominations

Movie

•The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Shrek

Featured Actress

•Frances O'Connor, A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Cinematographer

•Janusz Kaminski, A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Production Designer

•Rick Carter, A.I. Artificial Intelligence
•Grant Major, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Digital Artist

•Robert Legato, Nick Davis, Roger Guyett, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
•Jim Rygiel, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Scott Farrar, Dennis Muren, A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Composer

•Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Television Nominations

Drama Series

•Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Rings Gets Globe Nods

he Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring copped four Golden Globe nominations on Dec. 20, including best drama film, leading the genre entertainment projects that received nods from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. A.I. Artificial Intelligence received three nominations, and the upcoming time-travel romantic comedy movie Kate & Leopold got two, the association announced.

The Golden Globes, considered a precursor to the Oscars, will be handed out in January 2002. A list of genre nominations follows.

Best Motion Picture, Drama

•The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

•Shrek

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama

•Nicole Kidman, The Others

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

•Hugh Jackman, Kate & Leopold

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

•Jude Law, A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Best Director, Motion Picture

•Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Steven Spielberg, A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Best Original Score, Motion Picture

•Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•John Williams, A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Best Original Song, Motion Picture

•"May It Be," The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•"Until ...," Kate & Leopold

Best Performance by an Actress in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television

•Julianna Margulies, The Mists of Avalon

Rings Rough Cuts Done

ord of the Rings director Peter Jackson told reporters that he has finished a rough cut of the next two films, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, the Dark Horizons Web site reported. Each film will feature roughly 500 to 600 visual-effects shots and will run between 2 1/2 and three hours long.

Jackson revealed that The Two Towers will feature the Ents and Treebeard, with a greater role for the character of the king's son. Rings actors are scheduled to head back to New Zealand in May and June to shoot any additional footage necessary for the final versions of the films. The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is in theaters now.

EA Announces Rings Deal

ame publisher Electronic Arts announced that it has signed an exclusive deal with New Line Cinema to create video games based on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. The license grants EA the exclusive rights to develop and publish products based on the movies for next-generation video game consoles and handheld platforms.

EA will launch the first of its games in Fall 2002, in conjunction with the release of the second Rings film, The Two Towers, which is slated to open during Christmas 2002. The first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is now playing.

Rings Still Resonates

eter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings films, told SCI FI Wire that he's not surprised the movie has dialogue that may resonate with audiences, given the context of world events. This, despite the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy—a timeless tale of the battle of good against evil—was written half a century ago.

"I think what is very apparent with viewing the film today is how timeless the themes really are in the book," Jackson said in an interview. "I do think it's one of those wonderful books where everybody that reads it can take different things from it. There are many things that Tolkien felt very passionate about when he wrote the book. But you just have to look at the history of the book. I mean, it was written in the second world war, and even though Tolkien himself denied it, you can obviously draw your own conclusions about what was influencing him at the time that he wrote the book."

War and Lord of the Rings also crossed paths during the turbulent 1960s. "It really became popular in the United States during the '60s, when the hippie culture sort of adopted the book, and they read all sorts of messages in it about the Vietnam War and the atomic bomb and that sort of stuff," Jackson recalled. "Of course, if a 20-year-old American kid picks up the book today, they're not thinking about the Vietnam War when they read it." The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is in theaters now.

McKellen Awed By Rings Fame

an McKellen, who plays the wizard Gandalf in the upcoming Lord of the Rings films, marveled to SCI FI Wire that the trilogy is already a phenomenon in New Zealand, though the first film hasn't opened yet. "We're on the stamps!" McKellen said in an interview. "Christopher Lee [Saruman] and I are on the 40-cent stamps. Everyone sending me a Christmas card from New Zealand is going to lick our backsides and then press us down on [the envelope]. Can you believe that? There's not many people alive that are on a stamp. And a Burger King cup!" he said with a laugh.

McKellen recalled receiving an e-mail from author Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City), whom the actor describes as "my godfather, in the sense that he encouraged me to come out and be open about my sexuality. He [wrote], 'I can't believe there's an openly gay man who's being given away with hamburgers by Burger King. Why do these actors in Hollywood still worry about not keeping their jobs?'"

Even though McKellen has done back-to-back film projects in genre movies—he'll be starting on the sequel to X-Men next year—the accomplished stage and film actor doesn't worry about the close proximity of the projects. "I don't really think of it as a genre," he said. "The only rule that I've ever had as an actor is to work with the best people possible, from whom I might learn, and to only do good scripts. Whether they're written by Bernard Shaw, Tom Stoppard, Anton Chekhov or William Shakespeare. The fact that these different scripts will require different things and different styles of acting is all part of the fun, because I make no distinction between being a film actor and a theater actor—or being a stand-up comic. It's the same person. We're all in the business of entertainment and using our imaginations to transform ourselves." The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is in theaters now.

It Wasn't Easy Being Frodo

lijah Wood, star of the upcoming Lord of the Rings films, told SCI FI Wire that life as a furry-footed hobbit wasn't always all it's cracked up to be. "Certainly there were days where it was more difficult than others," said Wood, who plays Frodo in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's famous trilogy. "Where I'd be like, 'I don't want to put my feet on today, damn it.'"

Wood added with a laugh, "But, you know, it's life, and films are difficult to make. And this is one of the most difficult films I'd ever worked on. It wasn't without its hardships. Just playing Frodo was like my own personal Ring. You know, after all the stress and fatigue, the relationships that we forged became like the reality of the characters in the book." The lengthy, 14-month New Zealand shoot "was a challenge," he continued. "But there would always be moments that bring you back to the reality that we were part of something incredibly special and brilliant."

Wood pursued his role independently. Upon hearing that Jackson was casting for the role of the heroic Frodo Baggins in London, Wood made his own homegrown tape of himself in costume, acting out Frodo's lines from the Tolkien books. A friend shot the footage, which Wood edited himself. "I went to the casting director and gave her the video the next day, and it was shipped to Peter. That's how I got my foot in the door, so to speak."

For the young actor, reading the novels, saying the dialogue and watching the dailies was one thing, but current events provided a whole new context to the finished product. Wood, like many others, sees in the story parallels to today's global unrest. "I think you can throw anything from our world into it, and it would work out," he said. "Particularly now. When I watched the movie again for the second time, there were some lines of dialogue and some moments that resonated—more than they had when I first saw them. And it's because of what's happening in the world at this moment." The first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is in theaters now.

Two Towers Trailer Planned

ew Line Cinema may attach a trailer for the second Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers, to prints of the first, The Fellowship of the Ring—but not until the first one's been around for a while, the New York Times reported. The current version features no teaser. "There was some discussion about including some scenes at the end from The Two Towers, but at the end of the day we decided that might be a little tacky," Robert Shaye, co-chief executive of New Line, told the Times. Fellowship is in theaters now; Towers is slated for Christmas 2002.

But once Fellowship is deep in its theatrical run—New Line expects it to be in theaters through March—the studio might recall all the last reels and replace them with new ones featuring a new teaser for The Two Towers after the end credits, the Times reported. "We're just thinking about it now," Rolf Mittweg, president for worldwide distribution and marketing, told the newspaper. "But there is a plan that we might do something rather innovative, depending on how the movie performs and how long it runs. ... It's just a question of exchanging the last reel, adding a minute of footage of the new movie that could possibly drive people back into the theaters." New Line is already preparing a teaser for Towers, the newspaper reported.

New Line plans to release DVD and videocassette versions of Fellowship in August, the Times added. The DVD would likely feature a full trailer for Towers that would include dialogue scenes and plot points.

Buffy Spoilers Revealed?

PN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer will venture into even more risque territory as the relationship between Spike and the Slayer heats up, according to rumored spoilers reported by an anonymous source to SCI FI Wire. In the most recent original episodes, Spike and Buffy took their love-hate relationship to a new level.

In coming episodes, the source reported, Spike (James Marsters) and Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) engage in sexual shenanigans in the Bronze, Sunnydale's only nightclub; Spike tries to persuade Buffy to let him turn her into a vampire; and Buffy—still experiencing mysterious side effects from her resurrection—takes a stake to the heart, with no ill effect. New Buffy episodes return to UPN in January.

GLAAD Nominates Buffy

PN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was nominated as outstanding drama series by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation as part of its 13th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, presented by Absolut Vodka. The awards will be handed out in three ceremonies, to be held in New York on April 1, 2002; in Los Angeles on April 13; and in San Francisco on June 1. The GLAAD Media Awards honor individuals and projects in the media and entertainment industries for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives.

GLAAD also nominated several genre comic books for an award, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dark Horse), Green Lantern (DC Comics), Strangers in Paradise (Abstract Studio), Top 10 (America's Best Comics/WildStorm) and User (Vertigo/DC Comics).

Buffy Creator Goes SF

ox Broadcasting Co. is finalizing a deal with Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon for a new SF adventure drama tentatively titled Firefly for the 2002-'03 season, Variety reported. The new ensemble series takes place 500 years in the future and revolves around the crew of a small spaceship whose aft end lights up, Whedon told the trade paper.

Whedon will write, executive produce and direct what's expected to be a two-hour pilot for the series, which is being targeted for a fall premiere, Variety reported. Whedon said the series is based on his reading of an account of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Reconstruction era, and the show is part Western, part space drama.

Fox will commit to 13 episodes once a deal is signed, the trade paper reported. Whedon has already dabbled in SF—in his Dark Horse comic book series Fray, about a futuristic Slayer, and also as the credited writer of the feature film Alien: Resurrection.

Buffy Getting Strong

uffy the Vampire Slayer's Danny Strong, who plays the recurring character of geek villain Jonathan Levinson, told SCI FI Wire that he hopes his character will eventually be immortalized as an action figure. "I'd love to be one," Strong said in an interview. "How great would that be? Maybe you can call and tell them they need a Jonathan action figure."

Strong uttered one line in the unaired Buffy pilot presentation and first appeared as Jonathan during season two, in the episode "Inca Mummy Girl." This year, Strong has seen his role expanded tremendously as his character has teamed up with Andrew Wells (Thomas Lenk) and Warren Meers (Adam Busch) to make life a hellmouth for Sunnydale's already put-upon Slayer, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Strong will next turn up in the episodes "Dead Things" and "Gone." As for that action figure? "Actually, it should be a trio action figure, with Andrew, Warren and Jonathan," he said. "They had some action figures that they made for [the Jonathan-centric episode] 'Superstar.' ... I have those, but that's not really the real thing. I am on the cover of a comic book, though. They did a spinoff comic book from 'Superstar,' a one-shot comic called Comrades. It's just a riot being on the cover of a comic book. It's about these Russian vampires, and it's Jonathan and his gang. It's all from Jonathan's point of view, very much like `Superstar.' It was very funny. It was written by Jane Espenson, who wrote `Superstar.'" Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT Tuesdays on UPN.

Buffy Toon Progresses

teven DeKnight, one of the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told the BBC's official Buffy site that he and other writers are also working on scripts for the proposed animated version of the UPN series. "We have, I believe, five scripts already written," DeKnight told the site. "I've done one, Jane Espenson has done a couple, and it's a great experience."

DeKnight said that he was originally considered solely for the animated series. "When I was first brought in to interview, I was brought in to interview for the animated show, and I was shown rough sketches of the characters and some of the sets," he said. "I loved what I saw. I was dying to work on the show, and I was hoping once I was hired on the live-action [show], I would still get a chance to work on it. It's going to be an amazing show. It's funny. It's exciting. It's all the huge, gigantic action that we can't do in a live-action show. So, the sky's the limit. There's a lot of ideas that they've had in the past five seasons that were great ideas, but they just couldn't do, budgetwise. So, we get to do all those cool high-school stories that we couldn't tell back in high school. Plus, it's a return to the classic Buffy—the way it all started, with all the teen-agers and hijinks. It's going to be absolutely amazing."

Will the animated show feature Angel or Dawn? "You know, anything's possible in [Buffy creator] Joss Whedon world. I would say, more than likely, you will see a lot of the characters you saw in high school. As to whether or not Dawn will be there, it's completely possible. It could definitely fit into the whole timeline of season five, where Dawn was placed there by the monks, and everybody has a memory of her being there. So, it would be an interesting idea to actually put Dawn there and see how she would fit into all of this stuff."

Angel To Take Dual Bite

he WB will air its vampire series Angel twice weekly, starting Jan. 10, 2002, Variety reported. The frog network plans to air repeats of Angel on Thursdays at 8 p.m. PT/ET. First-run episodes will continue airing Mondays at 9 p.m.

The double runs will continue through February, after which time the network may consider moving Angel to Thursdays full-time, the trade paper reported.

Jeremiah Due In Spring

abylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told SCI FI Wire to expect his new SF series Jeremiah on Showtime in either March or June 2002. "It begins with a two-hour movie, and it stars Luke Perry and Malcolm-Jamal Warner," Straczynski said in an interview.

Straczynski said that he will write about half of the show's 20 episodes. "The main premise is that there's a virus of some kind that gets loose more or less in present day and wipes out about two-thirds of the population—anybody over the age of puberty," he said. "It targets hormones. Whoever has adult hormones gets nailed. It's now 15 years later, and the kids who survived the big death are now coming into their own. They've been riding, if you will, on the ashes of the old world, through clothes they'd grown into and food still in cans. Now they're at a point where they can keep on declining and running out of things, or they can begin to rebuild the world. It's at that cusp of the rebuilding where our story takes place. So it's a story not about endings, but beginnings."

JMS Talks B5 DVD

abylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told SCI FI Wire that the new DVD edition of the landmark SF television series features the first B5 movies, "The Gathering" and "In the Beginning." But Straczynski said in an interview that the selection of which movies to bring out first "really wasn't my choice."

Straczynski added, "I think Warner [Brothers] to some degree wants to test the waters to determine if there was enough interest in the show to release it on DVD." Straczynski only approved the cover art. The rest was handled by Warner Home Video.

The irony, of course, is that Babylon 5 was tailor-made for DVD, Straczynski said. Well before the DVD revolution began, Straczynski and his production team anticipated a future where a 16:9 theatrical widescreen aspect ratio would be appreciated for television shows. "Except for the pilot," he said. "We always tried to be a forward-thinking show. We were the first show to be shooting in widescreen. When we did our post-production, we would do full-surround mixes with a very aggressive subwoofer."

Although nothing new was done to "In the Beginning," Straczynski was directly involved with producing the widescreen version. "In terms of the widescreen versions, I was involved in that by way of the SCI FI Channel. There was a version in widescreen that was released overseas in PAL format, and when they were going to do the laser disc, Warner said there are no versions in widescreen. The only reason they're putting it out in wide is that The SCI FI Channel wanted to broadcast it in wide. Warners didn't have to go through the process, with SCI FI underwriting it, of reassembling the masters in the original aspect ratio. The good part of that is that The SCI FI Channel was able to work through the bugs along the way."

Shyamalan Reads Signs

. Night Shyamalan told USA Today that his upcoming film Signs deals with a well-known unexplained phenomenon—crop circles. "I enjoy asking the kind of personal questions that people don't necessarily know the answers to, like is there life after death or are aliens real?" Shyamalan told the newspaper. "Although I think they're hoaxes, crop circles are intriguing and seemed like a nice starting point for a creepy story."

Signs revolves around a farmer/pastor (Mel Gibson) who has lost his faith and wakes up one morning to find a 400-foot crop circle in his Bucks County, Pa., cornfield, the newspaper reported. Shyamalan said the discovery of the "signs" leads to an investigation about where they came from and what they mean.

"Mel can handle action and comedy and still be the guy you believe would protect his family at all costs," Shyamalan said. "It's a thriller, and there are twists, which I won't ruin, but we also throw in some comedy. I want you to laugh before you start screaming." As for the crop circles in the movie, "We actually made them all in the fields," the director said, joking, "We contracted out to some guys a couple of galaxies away."

New Trailers Go Online

easer trailers and updated Web sites have gone up for several upcoming genre movies. New trailers have been posted for Signs, Blade II, Austin Powers: Goldmember and Queen of the Damned.

Queen opens in February 2002; Blade II in the spring; Goldmember on July 26, 2002; and Signs on Aug. 2, 2002.

Fox Kids Orders Galidor

inegroupe is producing Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension, a half-hour science fiction children's series to begin airing on the Fox Kids Network in February 2002, producers told SCI FI Wire. The live-action/animated Galidor tells the story of two teen-agers (Matthew Ewald and Marie M. Sabongui) who get transported to a parallel universe called the Outer Dimension, where they must search for the legendary dimension of Galidor. Each episode takes them to a new dimension, which will be created with computer-generated backgrounds.

"The other dimensions find their roots [in] the great elements," producer Marie-Claude Beauchamp told SCI FI Wire. "There's an environment that's totally inspired by sand and rock. It could be inspired by a real [location], but it is somewhere else that you've never seen before by its skies, by its rock formation, by its vegetation."

Other backgrounds will be based on ice, jungle and city elements. Some practical sets will be used for interiors, such as the dimension-jumping vehicle "The Egg." Galidor will be designed for HDTV broadcast. Cinegroupe is currently committed to producing two 13-episode seasons.

Goyer Talks Blade II

avid Goyer, who wrote the screenplay for the upcoming sequel film Blade II, told the Comics Continuum Web site that he didn't just want to rehash the first movie. "If you consider [Terminator 2: Judgment Day] and Aliens two of the best sequels, what they both did in some ways kind of turned the first movie on its head," Goyer told site. "They didn't just do, 'OK, it's an alien again.' We tried to do something similar. OK, what would be the last thing you would expect Blade to do? Which is to have him to team up with the vampires."

Goyer added, "With this movie, we went in just a completely different direction. Also in this film, we've already dealt with his backstory. He's made peace with who he is, and we went sort of deeper in vampire mythology. In the first movie, we learned that there's this whole subculture. In this movie, we delve even deeper into that, the way the vampires get their money and their language. There's barely any humans in the second movie. Because the vampires are the ones being hunted, and not just by Blade. The Reapers are hunting the vampires in the second film." New Line has released a trailer for the movie; Blade II is slated for a spring 2002 release.

Shrek Game Extends Story

en Fox, producer of TDK's Shrek video game for Xbox, told SCI FI Wire that his team wrote a new story that goes beyond the one in the hit computer-animated movie on which it's based. "We pretty much abandoned the story of the film, and we continued it," Fox said in an interview. "We basically said we were going to take the story from where the movie ends and go off into a different direction from there. We wanted to get away from what a lot of licensed property games do, which is to retell the story of the film. So we created a whole new world and a whole new story and whole new places to go and be Shrek."

In the game, the player controls Shrek, who now must rescue Princess Fiona from a new enemy, Merlin. Merlin has created a fog that blocks the way to his Dark Tower Fortress of Pure Evil, so Shrek must perform good deeds for the inhabitants of various lands to clear the fog. The first level is Mother Goose Land, with characters such as Little Bo Peep and Humpty Dumpty. Subsequent levels include Creepy Crypt, Prince Charming's Castle and Molasses Sewers.

Fox said this story provides for approximately 25 hours of gameplay the first time around, with many more hours if gamers experiment with the available race and cheat modes. Shrek is now available in stores.

Addy Eats Up Sin

ark Addy will reteam with his Knight's Tale co-stars Heath Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon and the film's director, Brian Helgeland, in the upcoming supernatural thriller movie Sin Eater, Variety reported. Addy will play Father Thomas Garrett, who helps a young priest (Ledger) and a detective (Sossamon) solve a case involving a corpse covered with religious symbols, the trade paper reported.

Former Polygram Filmed Entertainment president Michael Kuhn and his new production company will co-finance and produce the movie with Fox. Sin is budgeted at $30 million-$40 million, Variety reported. Addy is also co-starring in the upcoming Time Machine.

Disney Eyes Dick's 'Elves'

isney and Jim Henson Pictures are in talks to develop a movie based on Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story "King of the Elves," Variety reported. Screenwriter Wally Wolodarsky is attached to adapt the story for the screen.

The story concerns a boy who is anointed king by a secret race of elves, who declare that only he can lead them in their battle against the Troll King and his minions, the trade paper reported.

Mutant X Speeds Up

ohn Shea, who stars as Adam on the hit syndicated SF series Mutant X, told SCI FI Wire that producers have addressed complaints about the show's preponderance of slow-motion shots. "That's already been changed," said the former co-star of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. The changes will be evident in episodes airing in January.

"Every once in a while, there's a moment where you need to slow it down, because something will happen so quickly you can't see it," Shea said in an interview. "But what we've done is bring someone in from Jackie Chan's organization to work with us here as one of our stuntmen. Our fight coordinator works with Jet Li and comes from Hong Kong. So what we've decided is that when we shoot a fight scene, we're going to devote much more time to it. We just had a huge fight sequence I was involved in a couple of weeks ago, in an [upcoming] episode called 'A Whiter Shade of Pale.' We devoted an entire day, 10 hours, to shooting this one sequence. It's really cool, and there's no slow motion. In the first few episodes, [the slow motion] was like a new tool the editors had. I think they overplayed their hand. And I think we've got a new style of action that's evolving."

Visitor Reveals Angel Rift

ana Visitor—who played Madame X/Renfro in Fox's Dark Angel—told SCI FI Wire that her character's speedy demise resulted from her decision not to stay with the show. "I think they were angry with me," the actress said in an interview. "I know they were angry with me, because they perceived [that I was] trying to manipulate for a lot of money or something like that, when it was really just life. It was just impossible. So they were a bit angry with me, and my demise may have been given a little short shrift." Madame X took a bullet and was burned to a crisp near the end of the current season's premiere, "Designate This."

Before that, Visitor said that she was initially set to become a series regular. She liked the idea and was ready to relocate from New York to Vancouver, B.C., with her two young sons (one from her first marriage and the other from her marriage to former Star Trek: Deep Space Nine co-star Alexander Siddig). "That's a big deal when you have two boys at school age," Visitor said. "Then they decided that they wanted to make the show's target audience younger and didn't want anyone over 40, really 35, in the cast. So they fired everyone that was older, except John Savage. And they offered me the same deal that they did him, a recurring role. Well, financially, I couldn't keep up an apartment I own in New York and take two boys to Vancouver. What they wanted me to do was commute. So what that would have meant was having someone else raise the boys while I went back and forth for weeks at a time. I found out afterwards that with the work schedule the way it was, I would have been in Vancouver, and my boys would have been [in New York] with a nanny on 9-11. So it was a heartbreaking decision and a financially difficult one to make. But I had to say no. At a certain point, you can't think about lifestyle. You have to think about having a life." Visitor is now performing on Broadway.

Showtime Brings Out Dead

howtime has ordered a two-hour pilot and additional scripts of Dead Girl, a proposed supernatural drama series from Star Trek writer-producer Bryan Fuller to be produced by MGM Television Entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Described as My So-Called Afterlife, Dead Girl centers on an underachieving 18-year-old girl who dies in a freak accident and returns to Earth as one of many grim reapers assigned to take out the souls of those whose time is up, the trade paper reported.

Fuller's writing credits include Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager.

Elliott, Nolte Join Hulk Cast

am Elliott and Nick Nolte will join the cast of Ang Lee's upcoming feature-film adaptation of Marvel Comics' The Hulk comic series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film is slated for a spring start and a June 20, 2003, release.

The actors join stars Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly. Elliott will play Gen. Ross, father of Connelly's Betty. Nolte will play Bruce Banner's (Bana) father, the trade paper reported.

Hulk Release Date Set

niversal Pictures announced that its upcoming movie version of The Hulk is slated for release on June 20, 2003. Universal staked out the date after Fox announced earlier this month that its upcoming X-Men sequel, X², would open on May 2, 2003. Production on The Hulk, based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name, starts March 18, 2002.

Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is set to direct the film, from a screenplay by James Schamus, with Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee as executive producer, the studio announced.

Lee will go back to the early incarnations of the character created in May 1962 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, staying true to the spirit of the early Marvel years while completely updating the story, the studio said. Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly will star.

SCI FI Airing Godzilla-thon

he SCI FI Channel will air Stompathon 2001, a marathon of old and new Godzilla films, starting at 1 p.m. Dec. 30. The channel will air eight full-length Godzilla features.

The schedule follows: 1 p.m., Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971); 3 p.m., Godzilla vs. King Ghidora (1991 updated version); 5 p.m., Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992 updated version); 7 p.m. Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla (1994 updated version); 9 p.m. Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995 updated version); 11 p.m., Godzilla vs. Megalon (1976); 1 a.m., Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster (1974); 3 a.m. Godzilla on Monster Island (1972).

Keating Praises Enterprise

nterprise co-star Dominic Keating told SCI FI Wire that he thinks he knows why the UPN series continues to win stellar ratings, while its Star Trek predecessor, Voyager, declined following its premiere. "I never watched Voyager, but Voyager got a huge pilot figure, even bigger than ours, dare I say," the British actor said in an interview. "Why they dropped off? I don't know. It probably got a bit sterile, and that's why [creator-executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga] brought Enterprise back to be a prequel and [brought] it closer to some sort of sense of human drama."

Keating plays Lt. Malcolm Reed on the freshman series and counts among his other genre credits episodes of Poltergeist: The Legacy, G vs E, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Immortal and Special Unit 2. "Our show definitely appeals to an audience now because it's close enough in time where you can get a concept of what it might be like," he said of Enterprise. "We live like spacemen in those suits a lot of the time, and we mess up. We don't get it all right the whole time. It's kind of like Lewis and Clark. We're explorers, and it's the first expedition into deep space for humankind. There is an earthy quality to it, even though it's SF drama. It's [also] funny, and it's sexy and altogether more human." Enterprise airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT Wednesdays on UPN.

Queen Adapts Two Books

ichael Rymer, director of the upcoming vampire movie Queen of the Damned, told Cinescape Online that the film compresses events from two Anne Rice novels. "There's two books: The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned," Rymer told the site. "The two books have about a third in common anyway. They cover the same story parts. We've had to do a lot of compressing. Sort of the story about how Lestat becomes a vampire is much more elaborate, and the story of Jesse and her aunt and the aunt's relationship with Akasha is very much diminished [in the film]."

Queen stars Stuart Townshend as Lestat and the late Aaliyah as the vampire queen Akasha. "The people who read the books some time ago love [the film], because it touches on enough things in the book that remind them, and the style of it is very much in keeping with the books," Rymer said. "People who know the books backward have a real problem with the film, because they have a problem with everything. They have a problem with the fact that Lestat doesn't have blond hair, that Akasha's black, all the things that I've done as a filmmaker that I thought were good for the film."

But Rymer defended the resulting film. "I've heard some reactions to [Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone] that lead me to almost argue if you're too literal about the book, you kill the book. The book is the book. It's a beautiful thing and exists in your imagination. You don't want to see it blow by blow in a movie, because that destroys the book. The movie ought to be its own thing." Queen opens in February 2002.

Opus Heads For Movies

imension Films has acquired the rights to develop and produce an animated feature based on Opus, the penguin character from Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County comic strip, Variety reported. Pulitzer Prize-winning Breathed is attached to write and direct, the trade paper reported.

Opus debuted in the first year of Bloom County in 1980. He appeared in Breathed's 11 best-selling cartoon collections, as well as in an animated television Christmas special.

Behr Bears Roswell

oswell star Jason Behr told SCI FI Wire he's got mixed feelings about the show and its fate—a fate that remains uncertain as UPN considers whether or not to move forward with an additional nine episode of the SF series to complete a full 22-episode third season. "Roswell is what helped me get to this point right now," Behr said in an interview, referring to the fact that he's attained status enough to share the screen with Julianne Moore, Kevin Spacey and Scott Glenn in the upcoming film The Shipping News. "I think the character [of Max Evans] was someone who helped me hone my craft. I've learned so much from Roswell, from working [steadily] to trying to develop a character to just the logistics of it. I wouldn't take that away for anything."

On the other hand? "When we first started this, it wasn't a job—it was fun," Behr said. "It was showing up today, working with friends and telling a good story. I felt really positive about everything. I told myself the moment it becomes a job, when it becomes work, it's not worth it anymore for me. There are days [now] when I walk on that set, and I laugh so hard and have such a great time. But there are days when it is work. It can be hard."

If the powers that be cancel Roswell, effective with episode 13, Behr said that hour could be altered to close out the show, as series creator/executive producer Jason Katims has yet to provide the script to his cast. Regardless of whether Roswell ends with episode 13 or episode 22 or even continues for another season, how would Behr like to see Max's arc wrapped up? "I don't know," he replied. "Max dies or, ultimately, I think he would probably stay on Earth." And what about his son? "I would hope he would find him," the actor said. "I would hope so, because he's been working so hard to be that responsible person and live up to his responsibilities. Even though they might be mistakes, he's not trying to run away from them. So I'd hope they'd give him that sort of closure." Roswell airs at 9 p.m. ET/PT Tuesdays on UPN.

Yune Takes On Bond

ick Yune (The Fast and the Furious) will play the lead villain in MGM's upcoming James Bond film for director Lee Tamahori, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project will begin shooting at the end of next month and continue through the spring, the trade paper reported. John Cleese and Judi Dench will reprise their roles as R and M, the trade paper added.

The top-secret story reportedly involves a device that enables facial mutation. Yune will play a North Korean general named Zao, who is being tracked by Bond (Pierce Brosnan). Yune will wear facial prosthetics, as his character undergoes facial transformation, but the experiment goes awry, leaving him half-changed, the trade paper reported. Neil Purvis and Robert Wade wrote the script for this film, the 20th 007 movie.

Berry Has Bond Ambitions

alle Berry told SCI FI Wire that if she does get to play a villainous Bond girl in the upcoming 20th 007 adventure, she would like to have a special power to top the vise-grip thighs of Goldeneye's Xenia Onatopp and the poison-tipped boots of From Russia with Love's Rosa Klebb. "I think I'd have a tongue that could choke [people]," Berry said in an interview.

Bad Bond babes in previous movies have been the girlfriends of a bigger, male nemesis. But Berry said of her potential character, "I'm nobody's girlfriend. That's all I know." Berry said that she is still waiting to see if she can coordinate her shooting schedule for X², the second X-Men movie, with that for the upcoming Bond film.

Buckaroo DVD Fixes Flaws

.D. Richter, who produced and directed the cult 1984 SF film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, said the upcoming DVD release of the film corrects flaws in the original video release. MGM Home Entertainment will release Buckaroo Banzai on DVD on Jan. 1, 2002.

"First of all, it's a really clean, beautiful print of the movie," Richter said in an interview. "The [VHS] video [release] was just a quick and dirty thing that was panned and scanned without any thought about who was speaking or what a possible frame line was. We stuck back the prologue that had Jamie Lee Curtis playing young Buckaroo's mom. We've done our best to jam a lot of strange special features in there. We've gone to Buckaroo lengths to keep this conceit going that Buckaroo's real, and that the [Banzai] Institute is authorizing the DVD. So, if you've really been a fan of Buckaroo Banzai and have been waiting for this, what comes is not just the movie plopping on your screen, but a celebration of what you've been hanging on for all these years."

Richter said that Buckaroo—the story of a rock-and-roll surgeon adventurer and his band of alien-fighters—was pretty close to being the movie he envisioned. "I have to qualify that," Richter said. "I think every director tells people he couldn't realize what he set out to do. With Buckaroo, it was hard to have a fixed vision of what it was supposed to be because it was so offbeat a thing on the page." He added, "So we kind of built it incrementally and discovered our vision along the way. We said, 'If we can get John Lithgow, that's one thing. If we can't, that's another. If we can get Chris Lloyd, that's one thing. If we can't, that's another.' We started with Jordan Cronenweth, the guy who shot Blade Runner, as my [director of photography], and [studio executive] David Begelman fired him because David, from his eyes, thought it was going to look like a murky, Rembrandt-lighted I-don't-know-what. From my point of view, it was going to be startlingly interesting-looking. Visually, Buckaroo is not what I hoped it would be, because they replaced him with Fred Koenenkamp, a very nice man, but who has a totally different lighting style. So, a lot of the storytelling techniques that I'd hoped to use were ripped out from under me. I've always felt a little sad about that, but the caliber of the cast and the way they brought the characters to life and the production design were things I only hoped we could get."

SCI FI To Air Zone 'Thon

he SCI FI Channel will air a marathon of Twilight Zone episodes, starting at 7 a.m. on New Year's Eve and continuing through New Year's Day. The Channel will air 44 hours of the classic Rod Serling series, including original, uncut versions of classic episodes in prime time, from 8 p.m. to midnight both days.

The uncut episodes will include "Will the Real Martians Please Stand Up?" "To Serve Man," "The Dummy," "Eye of the Beholder" and "The Howling Man" on Dec. 31 and "A Penny for Your Thoughts," "The Masks," "The Hitch-Hiker," "It's a Good Life" and "The Midnight Sun" on Jan. 1. SCI FI has aired a Zone marathon annually since 1995.

Lilo Has Island Flavor

ia Carrere, who voices a character in Disney's upcoming animated SF movie Lilo & Stitch, told Prevue Magazine that the film has an island flavor. "It's so cute!" Carrere told the site. "It's set in Hawaii, and I play the guardian of my little sister. I've been working on it for two years. It's a much heavier film than you have ever seen from Disney, in that the girl's parents aren't present. You just sort of infer that it's the older sister taking care of the younger sister. I'm working hard, trying to get jobs, and there is a social services worker checking on the welfare of the child. I'm constantly trying to keep my head above water, so that social services doesn't take my sister away."

The film centers on a young girl and the furry alien she befriends. "I've always wanted to be a Disney cartoon character," Carrere said. "I was really upset when Mulan slipped through there. I had heard about Mulan and thought it would be great. It has the same casting director as Lilo & Stitch, and apparently she tried to get in touch with me. But I was in Slovakia shooting a film. [The role eventually went to Ming-Na.] When I walked in for the first session of Lilo & Stitch, she told me that she had tried to get in touch with me for Mulan. In the end, it all came around for a great project. Anyway, I'm more from Hawaii than I am [from] mainland China. Besides, I get to sing in it too. I get to sing a Hawaiian song to my little sister. I get to sing Aloha O'e, which is a traditional Hawaiian song that was written by Queen Liliuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch." Lilo & Stitch is slated for a summer 2002 release.

Kate Gets Trimmed

ven though Miramax has already screened its time-travel romantic comedy Kate & Leopold for critics, the studio has taken the unusual step of trimming a few scenes and altering the storyline before release, Variety reported. The cuts affect the movie's plot twists, which may include spoilers.

Among other things, the movie deletes references suggesting that Kate, played by Meg Ryan, has a genetic relationship to her 21st-century boyfriend, played by Liev Schreiber, as established in the original version. Filmmakers also cut an early scene in which Ryan briefly appears in the background of a 19th-century party. Director James Mangold also cut a sequence in which he makes a cameo appearance as a director whose film is being altered to meet the demands of a test screening, the trade paper reported. Kate & Leopold opens on Christmas Day.

Ryan Liked Leopold Fantasy

eg Ryan, star of the upcoming time-travel romance film Kate & Leopold, told SCI FI Wire that the film's fantasy aspects attracted her to the role. "That was part of it," she said in an interview while promoting the film. Ryan said that she told director James Mangold, "I can't do another romantic comedy. I'm like this compulsive romantic comedy doer. I need a support group. I can't keep doing this. He said, 'Oh, this is different,' and [he] told me all these smart things [about the movie]."

In addition to the fantasy and time-travel elements, Ryan described the film as having a "Henry Mancini vibe. ... I think this is a swank movie. It's all pretty classic, romantic-comedy stuff."

Ryan described her character, Kate, as "a person who, I think, is a little out of bounds. I think she's spent a lot of time focused exclusively on her career and on her career track, and I think it's made her life a little out of whack. What I like about her is, there she is, just broken-hearted, and she has to live downstairs from the guy she's just broken up with. They've been apart for four months, and she's aware of every little thing he does up there. It just drives her crazy. I think it's a hilarious dilemma. She's somebody who is not at all the person who would believe in magic. And, of course, she's forced to believe that this guy [she meets, Leopold,] is really who he says he is." Kate & Leopold opens on Dec. 21.

Neutron Aliens Are No Yolk

ohn Davis, director of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, told SCI FI Wire that the aliens in the film—gooey green masses encased in clear shells—were inspired by a childhood film project. "One of the first movies I made in junior high with my parents' home movie camera, I built a spaceship out of a L'eggs pantyhose container, so it was literally an egg ship flying around in space," Davis said in an interview. "But then when we started designing the aliens, the Yolkians, I wanted them to be this highly, highly advanced race, and they were so advanced that everything was done for them to where they just atrophied into a puddle of goo. Then they needed to be contained by something, so they were encased in this shell that resembled an egg, and that gave us a motif to have all the puns, and they'd fly in giant chicken warships and they worshipped this great chicken god."

Davis expanded the motif to some more subconscious symbols throughout the film. "It became a thread that we would weave into Neutron's home," he said. "If you look around, one of the first images you see are two eggs on a plate. And then Jimmy opens the [refrigerator] door, and there's a jillion eggs in the refrigerator for no particular reason. Ms. Fowl [the teacher] is very chicken-like. It just became really fun to go run with that."

Writer Steve Oedekerk made no bones about portraying extraterrestrials in a negative light. "Aliens are rude," Oedekerk said. "They come down here, they slap us on tables, they leave. They clearly have all kinds of advanced knowledge, [but] do they ever tell us, 'Here's something that turns dirt into a cookie?' They give us nothing, and I think we should just keep laughing at them." Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius opens Dec. 21.

Norrington Helming Gentlemen

teven Norrington (Blade) will direct a feature film based on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a Victorian-era superhero comic series by Alan Moore, Variety reported. Set in 1900, the penultimate year of Queen Victoria's reign, League tells the story of a crew of misfits drawn from the period's literature.

The league is led by Mina Harker (from Bram Stoker's Dracula) and includes Allan Quatermain (from H. Rider Haggard's books), Capt. Nemo (from Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), Dr. Henry Jekyll (from Robert Louis Stevenson's book) and Dr. Hawley Griffin (H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man), the trade paper reported.

The project had been in development for several years at Fox, with an initial script penned by Alan Ayers. The Ayers draft has been discarded in favor of a new adaptation by James Robinson (DC Comics' Starman series), the trade paper reported.

T3 Roles Revealed?

he Dark Horizons Web site reported the rumored casting breakdown for the upcoming Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Based on a casting sheet for major roles, the site reported that filmmakers are indeed seeking an actor to replace Edward Furlong in the key role of John Connor.

Connor is described as now in his early 20s, a haunted and reluctant hero not trusting that everything has been set right. Other characters include Kate, who is the same age as John and is a medical professional who's warm, physical and smart; T-X, a female Terminator who's sexy, composed and deadly; Brewster, a scientific military man in his 40s or 50s who is a thoughtful, strong leader; and Scott, a young man with good looks and charm.

RKO Remaking Monkey's Paw

KO Pictures is teaming up with DreamWorks to develop a remake of the classic horror film The Monkey's Paw, according to The Hollywood Reporter. DreamWorks will distribute the movie, which will be produced by RKO chairman and chief executive Ted Hartley. No writer or director have been attached, the trade paper reported.

Distributed by RKO in 1933, the original film tells the story of a magical monkey's paw, which falls into the hands of a mother who uses it to bring back her dead son—with unforeseen consequences.

Jones Posts New Yule Toon

egendary animator Chuck Jones' new original animated Christmas cartoon, Ohhh! Christmas Tree, has debuted exclusively on the Web at Warner Brothers' official site, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The 'toon, featuring the Thomas T. Wolf character, is Jones' first holiday animation since he co-directed the 1966 classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the trade paper reported.

Ohhh! Christmas Tree uses Flash animation and is designed for Internet audiences only. The Christmas episode will remain at the site for at least three weeks. Jones conceived the story and produced the 5 1/2-minute show, which was developed and co-written by executive producer Stephen Fossati. It features the voice of Joe Alaskey as Wolf and Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson) as Earl Squirrel, the trade paper reported.

Briefly Noted

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring took in a whopping $18.2 million domestically in its first day of release Dec. 19, according to a revised estimate by New Line Cinema, Variety reported. In 13 overseas territories, including the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the film collected $11.5 million in its first day.

Wes Craven told syndicated columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith that he's about to direct Pulse, a supernatural horror movie based on a Japanese film. "We'll be doing that next," Craven said. "It's a ghost story involving computers."

Michael Bay told E! Online's Anderson Jones that he hopes to direct Will Smith in a feature-film version of Richard Matheson's SF novel I Am Legend. "It's a combo of Alien and Cast Away," Bay told the site.

The official Web site has been updated for the upcoming vampire movie Queen of the Damned, with a trailer, the official poster, images and message boards. Queen, starring the late Aaliyah, opens Feb. 22, 2002.

A new trailer has gone live for Universal's upcoming Scorpion King movie, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and opening in the spring of 2002.

Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) will play the title role in ABC's upcoming Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, a new version of the classic fairy tale, airing March 17, 2002, on ABC, Zap2it reported.

The Coming Attractions Web site reported a rumor that X-Men director Bryan Singer will step in front of the camera in a cameo role in the upcoming 10th Star Trek movie, Nemesis. Singer directed Nemesis star Patrick Stewart in the mutant film.

A video of Enya's song "May It Be," from Peter Jackson's first Lord of the Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, has been posted to the movie's official Web site. Fellowship is now playing.

Timothy Olyphant and Donnie Wahlberg have been added to the cast of Castle Rock Entertainment's upcoming Dreamcatcher movie, based on Stephen King's best-selling novel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Lawrence Kasdan will direct the film, which also stars Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee and Morgan Freeman.

Screenwriter Zak Penn will make his feature-film directing debut with his SF script John Doe for New Line, Variety columnist Michael Fleming reported.

The original 1968 Planet of the Apes is among the 25 films selected by the librarian of Congress for inclusion this year in the National Film Registry, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Miramax delayed the opening of its time-travel romantic comedy film Kate & Leopold to Christmas Day from its original Dec. 21 debut date, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The studio reportedly made the switch to avoid competition from the first Lord of the Rings film, which opened Dec. 19.

Former X-Files villainess Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias) told TV Guide Online that there's little chance she will reprise her role in the series. "I don't think so," Holden told the site. "I think Marita's had her run. I feel like she had a graceful, great exit."

Seymour Reit, author and creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost, died Nov. 21, the Zap2it Web site reported. He was 83. Reit and Casper's illustrator, Joe Oriolo, both lay claim to Casper's creation, but Reit said that he developed the idea for a friendly ghost who tries to make friends and hates scaring people in a short story in 1940, the site reported. The character appeared in 55 animated shorts, comic books, a television show and a 1995 film produced by Steven Spielberg.

SF author Philip José Farmer, 83, is recovering from a stroke, which he suffered a few days ago, according to a report on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. Farmer is expected to recover completely.

Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven told the e-Splatter Web site that he's doubtful about the future of a Freddy vs. Jason movie. "They've been struggling for years and years," Craven told the site. "They don't have a script, and they don't have a legal agreement between themselves. ... So, I don't know whether it will ever get made or not, but I won't do it. It's a little bit too much of going back."

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association chose Shrek as best animated film of the year and Howard Shore's score for the upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as best music in its annual awards, Reuters reported.

Back to the top.