Rings Tops Christmas Day
ord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring retained its No. 1 slot at the box office on Christmas Day, with an estimated gross of $11.5 million for the day, the Hollywood trade papers reported.
That brought Fellowship's total take to $94 million since its release on Dec. 19.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, meanwhile, inched past the computer-animated Shrek to become the highest-grossing film of the year, with nearly $268 million in ticket sales after 40 days in release.
The time-travel romantic comedy Kate & Leopold opened on Christmas Day in the No. 3 slot, with nearly $2.6 million in ticket sales.
Potter 2 Casting Revealed?
he Usher, a fan Web site, reported rumors about casting for the upcoming second Harry Potter movie.
Hugh Mitchell, 12, will reportedly play Colin Creevey, Harry's biggest fan, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Bonnie Wright will reappear as Ginny Weasley, the site reported.
Shirley Henderson (Bridget Jones' Diary) will play Moaning Myrtle, the ghost who haunts the girls' bathroom. Alfred Burke will appear as Hogwarts' former headmaster, Armando Dippet, and Julian Glover will provide the voice of Aragog the giant spider, the site reported.
Smith Talks Potter 2
aggie Smith, who will reprise the role of Prof. McGonagall in the second Harry Potter movie, told USA Today that she's looking forward to appearing in all seven proposed Potter films.
"I'm looking at it as a sort of pension!" she told the newspaper.
Smith has already shot some of her role in the second movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. "It was as if one had never been away," Smith said. "The kids are there, all a bit bigger." She added, "I think [Chamber] will be great fun. Ken Branagh plays this rather glamorous teacher who comes in. I love the idea that the detention [the children] have to do after school if they've misbehaved is to answer all his fan mail."
Potter 2 Images Missing
ondon police said that thieves stole photographic stills from the still-in-production second Harry Potter movie from the film's British studios, the Nando Times Web site reported.
The photos from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets went missing from a locked room at Leavesden Studios, north of London, where the film is being shot, the site reported.
Warner Brothers issued a warning to media not to publish any of the stolen pictures. Chamber of Secrets is slated for a November 2002 release.
Rowling Hints At Potter Future
oy wizard Harry Potter will face romance, may travel to exciting new places and will have to deal with death, author J.K. Rowling told the BBC, according to a report on the Reuters news service.
Rowling was talking about her plans for the fifth and subsequent Harry Potter books, in which Harry must face the challenges of growing up, the BBC reported.
In the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry developed a crush on fellow Hogwarts student Cho Chang. In the next installment, there will be "more boy-girl stuff, inevitably," Rowling told the BBC. "They're 15 now. Hormones working overtime." Rowling added, "Harry has to ask some questions that I hope the reader will think, 'Well, why hasn't he asked this before?' Harry finds out a lot more about his past."
Rowling has also written the last chapter of the final volume of the seven-book series, which she showed the BBC. "I'm not opening it for obvious reasons," she said. "This is really where I'll wrap everything. It's the epilogue, and I basically say what happens to everyone after they leave school—those who survive, because there are deaths, more deaths coming. I really don't think you need much insight to guess that death and murder are always a possibility in the world. And more people are going to die. And there's at least one death that's going to be horrible to write."
Nebula Plans Take Form
rganizers are solidifying plans for the 2002 Nebula Awards Weekend, to be held in Kansas City, Mo., April 25-27, 2002.
The city last hosted the awards in 1997.
The awards will take place in the Westin Crown Center downtown. Among other things, organizers hope to host a mass-autographing event in the Crown Center.
Craven's Fountain Gets Rewrite
irector Wes Craven told SCI FI Wire that he still hopes to make a movie out of his cloning novel, The Fountain Society, though the script is still being rewritten.
"We have [Changing Lanes writer] Chap Taylor writing it right now, so we're very hopeful about it. I think the biggest problem with translating a novel to the screen is, if the story is really big and sprawling, you have to pick a story within it that is tellable within the time period. So [the revision is] a little bit of shortening it and nothing beyond that."
Craven would not specify which subplots might be cut, but promised, "The idea of human cloning and some of the ramifications of that and kind of the folly side of getting your youth back and what that really means is really the central part of the story."
Craven said he doesn't worry about comparisons with last year's similarly themed film The 6th Day, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I thought it was interesting," Craven said. "It's not the same as ours, but I think it's a subject that's in the news already, and I'm glad I wrote the book when I did. Otherwise people will say I'm just taking it out of the newspapers, but fortunately, I did it about a year before cloning hit."
Craven Mulls Freddy Vs. Jason
reddy Kreuger creator and director Wes Craven told SCI FI Wire that he is open to working with the producers of New Line Cinema's long-proposed Freddy vs. Jason, contrary to earlier reports.
"That would entirely depend on the script," Craven said in an interview. "It's a really tough idea to get those two together in the same place and figure out whether they're going to be enemies of each other or working together. So far, nobody's really cracked the back of the script. Five years ago when they were first talking about it, somebody asked me if I had an idea, and I didn't."
Several writers have drafted stories in which Nightmare on Elm Street villain Freddy fights Friday the 13th killer Jason. But New Line has so far not committed to any. Craven will direct a film version of the video game American McGee's Alice and is overseeing rewrites on a script adaptation of his novel The Fountain Society. Should Freddy vs. Jason get the green light, Craven said, "I'm sure they'd be interested in me being part of it, since I was sort of the daddy of at least Freddy. And I'm friends with Sean Cunningham, who was the daddy of Jason. He was the producer of my very first film [, Last House on the Left]."
Craven Develops New Alice
es Craven told SCI FI Wire that he is in development on a film version of the video game American McGee's Alice for Dimension Films.
"It's very close to the game," Craven said in an interview. "Everything that we can take from the game, we will steal, and then we'll bring even more to it. I'm sure this will be a big CGI picture, and we'll try to duplicate as much of the sort of wonder part of the Wonderland as we can."
The game is a Quake-style adventure that takes place in a twisted version of the universe in the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll, and the game features much of the violence found in Quake. Craven plans to maintain that tone, even if it costs him the rating that Dimension hopes for.
"It's a little darker, got a lot more edge, so it's kind of like Wonderland seen through the eyes of post-21st-century America," Craven said. "[Dimension executive] Bob Weinstein was hoping for a PG-13. We'll see. Probably that's what we're shooting for." Alice is tentatively scheduled for a 2003 release.
Hawaii Stars In Bond 20
ilmmakers will shoot footage of Maui's famed "Jaws" big-wave surf spot in January 2002 for the opening scene of the upcoming 20th James Bond movie, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported.
The secret shoot on Maui's northeast coast will reportedly feature five famous surfers.
A six-member camera crew headed by Hawaii water photographer Don King, whose title is "director of photography, surf unit," and surf videographer Sonny Miller have been hired to film the giant waves using jet skis and speed boats, the newspaper reported. The crew is scheduled to film surfing sequences between Jan. 2 and 7.
Madsen Talks Bond 20
ichael Madsen (Species) is in talks to appear in the upcoming 20th James Bond movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Madsen would play Falco, a rogue CIA agent, the trade paper reported. Madsen would join a cast that includes Pierce Brosnan, John Cleese, Judi Dench, Halle Berry and Rick Yune. Neil Purvis and Robert Wade wrote the script for producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson.
Madsen is also in line to star in Blueberry, a supernatural Western based on a French comic book series, the trade paper reported. Set during the 1870s, the film tells the story of a spiritual marshal named Blueberry who tries to stop Blount (Madsen), the man who murdered his girlfriend, from getting to a stockpile of gold hidden in Indian territory.
Isaacs Puts On Tuxedo
ason Isaacs, who co-stars with Jackie Chan in the upcoming action-comedy The Tuxedo, told SCI FI Wire that the titular supernatural outfit gives its wearer extraordinary abilities.
"You put the tuxedo on, and basically anything you want to do, you can do," Isaacs said in an interview. "[For example], you can dance. I had to dance a tango."
Isaacs plays a James Bond-like superspy who falls into a coma. When Chan's chauffeur character finds the magic tuxedo, comic escapades ensue. "The reason I took the part was I knew they couldn't cut me, because it's my suit," Isaacs joked. "A lot of people say my coma acting is amongst the best work I've ever done." The Tuxedo is intended for a June 2002 release.
Site Sneaks Spy Kids 2
T Online has posted behind-the-scenes footage from the upcoming sequel film Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino reprise the roles of parents Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez, and Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara return as their kids, Carmen and Juni.
In the sequel to 2001's hit film, Carmen and Juni do battle with another pair of spy siblings, Gary and Gerty Giggles (played by Matthew O'Leary and Emily Osment), the site reported. Spy Kids 2 also stars Cheech Marin, Ricardo Montalban, Bill Paxton, Steve Buscemi and Holland Taylor. It is slated for a summer 2002 release.
Magique Heads For Web
anga Film is developing Magique, a sorceress video series that is aimed at the Internet and DVD, according to the Corona Test Pattern Web site.
Magique is described as a dark comedy centering on Denora, Ebony, Claudia and Lydia, a group of modern-day sorceresses.
Plans call for the series to air 45-minute episodes weekly on the Internet, with episodes eventually compiled for release on DVD.
Zemeckis Splits With Spielberg?
irector Robert Zemeckis (What Lies Beneath) is in talks to move his Imagemovers production company from pal Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio, where it has been based since 1997, Variety reported.
Zemeckis is mulling a move to Warner Brothers, a source told the trade paper.
Imagemovers' five-year deal with DreamWorks ends next year; it has yielded two Zemeckis-directed films, Beneath and Cast Away, the trade paper reported.
Bana Was TV Hulk Fan
ric Bana, who will play the title character in Ang Lee's upcoming Hulk movie, told SCI FI Wire that he was more influenced by the 1978-'82 TV series than the Marvel Comics series of the same name.
"I was obsessed with the TV show," Bana said in an interview. "I was never a huge comic book reader when I was a kid, but was completely obsessed with the television show. So I was very familiar with it."
Bana said the show could possibly influence his performance, but he added that it was too early to talk at length about the movie. "All I can tell you is I play both the scientist and the monster, and how we do that I'm not allowed [to say]," he said.
Jennifer Connelly, who will play Betty Ross, told SCI FI Wire earlier that Ang Lee was planning to interpret the film as a Brecht-ian tragedy. About this Bana would only say, "We've talked about a lot of things, but I really am not at liberty to discuss them too much. I can confirm that I'm doing it, and I can confirm that we're shooting it next year." The Hulk starts shooting in March 2002, aiming for a 2003 release.
Neutron Ready For TV
ohn A. Davis, director of the computer-animated film Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, told SCI FI Wire that a Neutron Nickelodeon TV series will hit the airwaves in September 2002.
"The TV show's going to concentrate mainly on day-to-day life of the kids—school life and home life, something we didn't have a lot of time to get into in the movie that was a big epic story," Davis said in an interview. "So the characters will be more fleshed out. You'll see backgrounds, where they come from and what drives them more, because we really explore the characters deeper."
The show will feature the same 3-D computer animation as the movie, thanks to Lightwave animation tools that can recycle existing elements into new scenes, producers said. "Everything you build for one area can be used in another area," the movie's co-producer and co-writer, Steve Oedekerk, said in an interview. "It physically exists from that point on, even, in some cases, motion files."
Oedekerk added that the success of the TV show will in no way preclude more Jimmy Neutron theatrical features. "The amazing thing about Neutron is [that] wherever you take it and wherever it goes, people start coming up with new ideas for Jimmy, from kids to the animators. There's so many things Jimmy can come up with and so many places he can go with time travel and all of this that so far nothing seems to be canceling out anything. Another sequel could easily live with the series going on."
Roswell's Doe To Sing
ocker-actor John Doe, who plays Liz's dad on UPN's teen-alien series Roswell, told the Zap2it Web site that he will play one of his new songs in an upcoming episode.
Doe first gained fame as one of the leaders of the seminal L.A. punk band X and recently released a solo album, Freedom Is ... .
Doe will reportedly play the song "Totally Yours" from the album in the Jan. 8 episode, over the finale in which one of the show's couples breaks up. Doe won't say who it is, the site reported.
Perlman Beams To Nemesis
eteran genre actor Ron Perlman (Alien: Resurrection) will join the cast of Star Trek: Nemesis, the official Star Trek Web site reported.
The site also confirmed the casting of newcomer Tom Hardy as Shinzon, the nemesis of the film's title, as expected.
The TrekWeb site offered a few spoilers about Perlman's character. He will reportedly play the Viceroy, a mentor to Shinzon, who cared for him during his youth on Remus, the Romulan sister world. The Viceroy is "Nosferatu-like," with a horrifying appearance that includes long, grotesque fingernails. The Viceroy is also telepathic and helps Shinzon invade Counselor Troi's mind at one point in the film, TrekWeb reported.
Perlman is perhaps best known for his starring role in the 1980s TV series Beauty and the Beast. More recently, he voiced characters in the animated SF movie Titan A.E. and the animated TV shows Mortal Kombat and Batman.
Nemesis Casting Reported
teven Culp and Dina Meyer have joined the cast of Paramount Pictures' Star Trek: Nemesis for director Stuart Baird, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The 10th Trek movie is in production in Los Angeles. The Reporter also confirmed an earlier SCI FI Wire rumor that Whoopi Goldberg will appear in the film.
Meyer (Starship Troopers) will play Cmdr. Donatra. Culp, who recently starred in the HBO Creature Feature How to Make a Monster, will play Cmdr. Madden. They join a cast that includes Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Tom Hardy, Majel Barrett, Kate Mulgrew and Wil Wheaton. Rick Berman is producing.
Bullock Still A Wonder
andra Bullock remains the front-runner to play the title character in a proposed Wonder Woman movie, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Cindy Pearlman reported.
"We have a script, and we're in discussions with Sandra, her representative and the studio," producer Leonard Goldberg told Pearlman. "We're discussing what changes need to be made to the script so that we are all enthusiastic about going forward."
The movie will be based the DC Comics series and the '70s TV series of the same name. If cast, Bullock would beat out Jennifer Aniston and Joanie Laurer (the wrestler formerly known as Chyna), who also have been rumored for the role, Pearlman reported.
Park Set For Fist
ay Park (X-Men) will play the title role in Artisan Entertainment's Iron Fist, based on the Marvel Comics' series, for director Kirk Wong, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
But it's not yet certain if Park will reprise his role as the villainous Toad in the X-Men sequel, the trade paper reported.
Park is perhaps best known for his role as Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I.
Aaliyah Kin Loops Queen
ate actress and pop singer Aaliyah's elder brother, Rashad, will help touch up her dialogue in the upcoming vampire movie The Queen of the Damned, Time magazine reported.
Aaliyah had completed her title role in the Warner Brothers movie, but partly because she played her role with an Egyptian accent, some dialogue touchup was required to make her lines clearer. Aaliyah died suddenly in a plane crash last summer.
Her brother stepped in to dub some of Aaliyah's dialogue, the magazine reported. Rashad reportedly speaks in the same smooth tones as his sister, and he re-recorded a small number of words and stray lines of her dialogue. Rashad's voice was mixed with his sister's to give the lines more force and clarity, Time reported. Queen, based on two of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles books, opens in February 2002.
Scary 3 Takes On SF&F
imension Films will lampoon popular fantasy and space movies in its upcoming Scary Movie 3: Episode I—Lord of the Brooms, Variety reported.
Brooms will go into production in March, with a planned release in fall 2002—just in time to take on the second Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies and well after Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones has opened, the trade paper reported.
Brooms will tell the story of an orphan who embarks on a magical quest around the world and beyond to rid the universe of evil.
IMAX Version Pleases Beast
obby Benson—who voiced the Beast in Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast movie—told TV Guide Online that he's pleased with the new IMAX version of the movie, which is being released Jan. 1, 2002.
"From that first shot, [you think], 'This is the most vivid, beautiful thing I've ever seen,'" Benson told the site. "It's just phenomenal what the artists have done."
Benson admitted that he was nervous when the film was first released a decade ago. "You know, when you see something for the first time, no matter what kind of movie you're in, you're uptight, you can barely breathe, and you don't see the movie," he said. "It just ends. This time, I can completely relax and absolutely enjoy myself. That's a great feeling."
Buffy RPG Coming
den Studios announced an agreement with Donruss Playoff to design, produce and distribute a role-playing board game based on the UPN series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Donruss, which makes collectible-card games, is a licensee of 20th Century Fox, which produces the show. Currently in development, the Buffy game is slated to hit shelves in summer 2002.
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer core rule book is scheduled for release in late summer 2002. C.J. Carella, creator of the WitchCraft and Armageddon role-playing games, will write the Buffy book. The core rule book will be followed by the Slayer's Handbook, Monster Smackdown, Welcome to Sunnydale and other supplements.
Briefly Noted
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer love interest Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), who was last seen heading off to the jungle to fight demons last season, will return to the UPN series in 2002, creator Joss Whedon told the Zap2it Web site. "We have him doing an episode for us after Christmas," Whedon told the site. Whedon added, "Something rather more dramatic happened to him."
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The Art.com Web site is selling prints, photos and posters from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar has chopped off her long, blonde locks for an upcoming episode in which her character cuts her hair in a panic over her relationship with Spike, TV Guide Online reported. But don't panic—Gellar reportedly cut only a few inches off, leaving her tresses about shoulder length, or about the same length as they were in the series' second season.
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Andrew Crosby, producer of the upcoming feature-film version of the Mage comic series, told the Comics Continuum Web site that the script will go through at least one more revision before going before the cameras. "Currently, there's a new writer, Adam Simon, working up a polish for the director [F. Gary Gray] in preparation for taking the movie into production," Crosby told the site. "Hopefully, we'll see the new draft shortly after the New Year."
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A new teaser trailer and Web site have gone live for the upcoming sequel film Men in Black II. MIB II opens July 3, 2002.
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Director William Friedkin and author William Peter Blatty have filed a copyright suit against Warner Brothers in their continuing legal battle over rights to an updated version of 1973 horror classic The Exorcist, Variety reported. In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Blatty and Friedkin claim that Warners violated an oral agreement to pay Friedkin part of the new version's gross receipts as compensation for his work on The Exorcist—The Version You've Never Seen.
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