King May Stop Writing Soon
orrors! Stephen King told the Los Angeles Times that he may hang up his pen for good.
King's Rose Red, the currently airing ABC miniseries about a haunted Seattle house, is one of his last projects, the horror author told the newspaper.
Up next: a book of short stories, due in March; a novel, From a Buick Eight, in the fall; the last three novels in the Dark Tower series, to be completed in the coming year; and a limited series about a haunted hospital for ABC. "Then that's it. I'm done," he told the Times.
King added, "You get to a point where you get to the edges of a room, and you can go back and go where you've been and basically recycle stuff. I've seen it in my own work. People, when they read Buick Eight, are going to think Christine. It's about a car that's not normal, OK? You say, 'I've said the things that I have to say, that are new and fresh and interesting to people.' Then you have a choice. You can either continue to go on or say, 'I left when I was still on top of my game. I left when I was still holding the ball, instead of it holding me.' I don't want to finish up like Harold Robbins. That's my nightmare."
WB Buying Rings Rights
he WB network is poised to acquire TV rights to the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, in tandem with its sister Turner Broadcasting cable networks, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The long-term pact is valued at more than $160 million, the trade paper reported.
The WB will share the rights to the films with its sister cable channels, TNT and TBS. The networks are all owned by AOL Time Warner, which also owns New Line Cinema, which produced the Rings films. It's unclear whether The WB or Turner will get first crack at the films, the trade paper reported.
The combined WB-Turner license fee for the first Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, is about $60 million; the price tag on the second and third movies will depend on their box-office tallies. The length of the licensing term on each film is 10 years. Turner and the WB will acquire the rights to the films in the fourth quarter of 2004, '05 and '06, successively, following the movies' pay-TV window on Starz! Encore, the trade paper reported. The second Rings film, The Two Towers, opens in theatrical release in December.
Rings DVD Adds Footage
ord of the Rings director Peter Jackson told the New Zealand Evening Post newspaper that the upcoming DVD edition of his first Rings film will include an extra 30 minutes of footage.
The new Fellowship of the Ring footage will include a performance by Kiwi actor Ray Henwood as a man from Lake-town in the scene at Rivendell.
"I don't really want to call it the director's cut," Jackson told the newspaper. The new footage is "all drama. There is this thing on the [Internet] about all this gory stuff I was supposed to have shot, but I didn't. We were going for a PG-13, and you can't waste time shooting stuff that you know is going to get cut." The DVD release "will tee everybody up before the release of The Two Towers" in December, Jackson added.
SAG Nominates Rings Cast
an McKellen and the cast of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring were nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards, SAG announced Jan. 29.
Rings was the only genre film to be singled out by SAG for its annual awards, which are widely perceived as precursors to the Oscars. The SAG awards will be broadcast on TNT on March 10.
McKellen (Gandalf) was nominated for outstanding performance by a male actor in a supporting role. The entire cast of Rings was nominated for outstanding performance by the cast of a theatrical motion picture.
Among TV nominees, the only genre nod went to Anjelica Huston, who was nominated for outstanding performance by a female actor in a television movie or miniseries for her role as Vivianne in TNT's The Mists of Avalon.
Rings Leads BAFTA Nods
ominees for the BAFTA awards, Great Britain's equivalent of the Oscars, included several prominent genre films in 2001, led by The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which received 12 nominations.
Shrek, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Planet of the Apes also received multiple nominations. Winners will be announced Feb. 24. A list of genre nominees follows.
Film
•The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Shrek
Alexander Korda Award (British Film)
•Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
David Lean Director Award
•Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Original Screenplay
•Alejandro Amenabar, The Others
Adapted Screenplay
•Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman, Roger S.H. Schulman, Shrek
•Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Actress
•Nicole Kidman, The Others
Actor
•Ian McKellen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Supporting Actor
•Robbie Coltrane, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
•Eddie Murphy, Shrek
Anthony Asquith Award (Film Music)
•Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell, Shrek
•Howard Shore, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Cinematography
•Andrew Lesnie, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Production Design
•Stuart Craig, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
•Grant Major, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Production Design
•Colleen Atwood, Planet of the Apes
•Ngila Dickson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Judianna Makovsky, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Editing
•John Gilbert, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Sound
•Shrek
•The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Special Visual Effects
•A.I. Artificial Intelligence
•The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
•Shrek
Makeup, Hair
•Planet of the Apes
•The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
•Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Roswell Not Canceled?
he Crashdown.com fan Web site has retracted a report that UPN's teen-alien series has been canceled, which had been rumored just the day before.
A publicist for Roswell's production studio, 20th Century Television, reportedly asked the fan site to correct the report, which also said that UPN would cut to 18 from 20 the number of episodes it has ordered for the current season.
"According to the Roswell publicist, the final fate of the show will not be known until May," the site reported.
Powers 3 Drops Goldmember
he Motion Picture Association of America has ruled "inadmissible" the title Austin Powers in Goldmember, following a protest by MGM/UA, which owns the James Bond franchise, Variety reported.
MGM and Bond producer Danjaq Productions had argued that the title of the New Line sequel was an unauthorized parody of 1964's Goldfinger, the third Bond film, the trade paper reported.
New Line quietly took down its online promotional sites and began rescinding marketing materials on Friday, a day after the edict was handed down by the MPAA's three-member title administration arbitration panel, but has vowed to appeal, Variety reported. Until the issue is resolved, New Line told the trade paper that it would refer to the film as "the third installment of Austin Powers." The movie is slated for a July 26 release.
T3 Details Revealed
rnold Schwarzenegger told SCI FI Wire that his upcoming Terminator 3 sequel film will begin shooting on April 15 under the direction of Jonathan Mostow.
Terminator 3 begins with John Connor in his early 20s, with a new actor replacing Edward Furlong—a role that has yet to be cast. Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton in the previous two Terminator films) will have died prior to the sequel's opening. T3 is reportedly subtitled Rise of the Machines.
"[Sarah Connor] is in the movie as flashbacks and stuff like that, but I think they felt like they didn't want to have the exact same cast and have them be limited with the story, but really take certain people out, and just let's assume that she has died already," Schwarzenegger said in an interview. John is "on his own, rather than having still [with] the mother there, whining away, saying, 'Get it straight. You have to be the savior. You can't do this, and you can't date this girl.' Jonathan was very adamant [that] he wanted the kid now to be 22 or 23, the mother's died, and let's move on. Let's have him be on his own. Let's have him have a girlfriend. And let's go to the next level. So that was the idea."
Schwarzenegger said that he was confident about turning the series over to Mostow after James Cameron declined to participate. "First of all, Cameron was not interested in doing the movie, because he felt like he does not want to tie himself down to any time schedule, period, on any movie," Schwarzenegger said. "He just finished shooting an IMAX movie, and he will be finished editing it this summer. Then he will be thinking about the next thing, whatever that is. So when you buy something like that, a movie like that, I think you have to move on, because the amount of money you put out is extraordinary. So the next thing was, let's find someone that is young and that has this young spirit of new ideas and all that. And when we saw the submarine movie Jonathan did, U-571, we all felt that he had the kind of talent and patience and know-how to work with special effects, visual effects and all of that. Then when we met him and had subsequent meetings with him, it became more and more clear that he has the right personality and calmness to do the film. And he has since then proven that by hiring the best of the best people around him, from [Industrial Light & Magic] to stunt coordinators to cameramen. He's been extremely good at prepping the movie and reworking the script."
Arnold Says Conan In Works
rnold Schwarzenegger told SCI FI Wire that writer/director John Milius is working on a new draft of the proposed King Conan sequel to Conan the Barbarian.
"I just had a cigar with him the other day," Schwarzenegger said in an interview. "He's rewriting it as we speak, because he has written it, and it was a 168-page script."
Schwarzenegger said it was the advice of the Matrix creators, the Wachowski brothers, that prompted Milius to cut his script down. "One of the Wachowski brothers called and told him the script would take too much time and be a three-and-a-half-hour movie, [that] he should cut it down to 120 pages and take certain things out. And that's what he's doing right now."
There is no finish date in sight yet for the script. "As you know, with John, things take time," Schwarzenegger said. "He's not the quickest guy in town."
Childhood's End Film Due
imberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) is in final talks to direct a big-screen adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's classic SF novel Childhood's End for Universal Pictures/Beacon Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
A screenwriter is expected to come aboard shortly to adapt the project, the trade paper reported.
Published in 1953, Clarke's novel features giant spaceships that suddenly appear over every major city on Earth, ushering in an era of peace and prosperity and setting the stage for the end of the human race as we know it. Beacon's Armyan Bernstein and Rudy Langlais are producing the project, whose book rights are owned by the studio, the trade paper reported.
Paramount Acquires Voices
aramount Classics has acquired North American rights to Michael Petroni's Till Human Voices Wake Us, a supernatural romance movie starring Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter, Variety reported.
Pearce (The Time Machine) plays a psychologist who encounters a mysterious young woman (Bonham Carter), evoking memories of a long-lost love.
Written and directed by Petroni, Till Human Voices Wake Us is a U.S.-Australian co-production, the trade paper reported. Paramount Classics also acquired rights for the United Kingdom, South Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
Dreadnought Heads To Sea
roducer Douglas Wick (Peter Pan) told E! Online columnist Anderson Jones that he is developing Dreadnought, a futuristic film described as "Top Gun on the high seas."
Dreadnought pits a vintage battleship against a futuristic warship with stealth technology.
The film was originally going to be directed by McG, but he dropped out to helm the sequel to Charlie's Angels. No new director has been attached.
Wayne Coming To Smallville?
lfred Gough, co-creator of The WB's Superman series, Smallville, told Wizard magazine that he hopes to bring a young Bruce Wayne to the town where Clark Kent grew up, according to a report on Cinescape Online.
"Within the Superman universe, we're clear to use those characters," Gough told the magazine. "And DC [Comics has] been very supportive. But with other characters, it's a creative and business decision. ... Batman has a whole 'nother licensing thing and ownership, even though it's in the DC world."
Gough added, "I'd love to do a Batman episode. We're lobbying for it right now."
While Gough has not yet nailed down a script, he imagined the story could be a two- or-three-parter, Cinescape reported. "I think at that age, Bruce Wayne would be very much the opposite of Clark," Gough said. "I think he'd be very brooding. He'd be at a point where he'd gone through some of his training. ... At that point, Bruce Wayne's life is much closer to Lex Luthor's than Clark's. I think it would be a fun relationship to play out and kind of turn on its ear." Smallville airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Obi-Wan And Owen Related?
eading up to the May release of Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones, the official Star Wars Web site laid to rest one of the persistent rumors about the saga's mythology: that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Uncle Owen Lars are brothers.
"The two are from separate families with no connection through blood," the site reported. "Although a number of spinoff materials were published in 1983 and in subsequent years stating that the two characters were related, those materials were based on outdated and eventually discarded information."
Owen Lars, who raises young Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, is the son of Cliegg Lars. Obi-Wan's parents are unknown, and he has little to no connection to them, having grown up in the Jedi Temple, the site reported. Obi-Wan is aware of having a brother, but very little information about that sibling has ever been published, the site added.
Not Easy Casting Star Wars
o you want to be in a Star Wars movie? Robin Gurland, casting director for Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones, has very specific ideas about what she wants in an actor, according to the official Star Wars Web site.
"There's three big criteria," Gurland told the site. "Obviously, the person's work is foremost, and if they're appropriate for the role; those are the top two. The third is if I enjoy having dinner with them."
"It's true!" Gurland said. "The third criteria is the type of person that I'd like to spend any time with: if that person is someone I'd like to sit down and have a meal with. It works so well, because the cast is involved in publicity and with stills, and they're involved in post-production—they're involved with the afterlife of the film. They have to really be approachable and quite easygoing, and not have an ego that wouldn't be able to work with all the different layers of this production. You can't have an actor who is unapproachable or who is really dogmatic or very aloof from everyone, because that's not the environment of these films."
Gurland praised the cast of the current production. "The actors have been very gracious as far as the confidentiality aspect of this project, which is so different from most other films. They're great with dealing with the [official] fan club, the Web site; they've been incredibly gracious in incorporating that as part of the gig." Episode II opens in May.
Foster Pens Star Wars Book
lan Dean Foster, author of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, has returned to the Star Wars universe with The Approaching Storm, a hardcover prequel to the upcoming Episode II: Attack of the Clones movie, the 13th Street Web site reported.
Storm, published by Del Rey, introduces the character of Count Dooku (played by Christopher Lee in the movie), a former Jedi Knight who is now leading a movement for a number of important planets to secede from the Republic, the site reported.
In the book, Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luminara Unduli, and their Padawans, Anakin Skywalker and Barriss Offee, travel to the planet Ansion to prevent the secession. The book is now in stores.
Fisher Auctions Star Wars Items
arrie Fisher is putting souvenirs from her Star Wars days up for online auction by Sothebys and Entertainment Rarities.
Among the items for sale are a miniature snowspeeder prop used in The Empire Strikes Back, which is expected to fetch between $25,000 and $50,000. Also on sale are numerous posters and photographs autographed by Fisher, co-star Mark Hamill and others.
Fisher is auctioning memorabilia with her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds.
THQ Develops Scooby Game
ame publisher THQ is developing Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights, a video game for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube platforms, based on the classic cartoon series, the company announced.
The PlayStation 2 version is scheduled for a summer release, followed by the GameCube version in the fall.
Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights brings together Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby and pits them against classic villains.
Firestarter Ignites In March
he SCI FI Channel will present Firestarter: Rekindled, a four-hour miniseries based on Stephen King's classic book Firestarter, on March 10 and 11 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
The miniseries, starring Marguerite Moreau, Malcolm McDowell, Dennis Hopper and Danny Nucci, picks up the story of Charlie McGee (Moreau) 10 years after the events in the book and the 1984 movie it spawned, SCI FI announced. The miniseries will be presented in widescreen format.
McGee, who has the ability to start fires with her mind, has spent the past 10 years on the run from the unscrupulous government agents who created her. But now she's through running. Firestarter: Rekindled is written by Philip Eisner (Event Horizon), directed by Robert Iscove (She's All That), produced by Jeff Morton and executive produced by Tom Thayer.
Moreau will soon be seen in a starring role in the upcoming Queen of the Damned, opposite the late Aaliyah.
Witchblade Shoots Again
NT announced that it has commenced production on the second season of its supernatural series Witchblade.
The series, which stars Yancy Butler as NYPD detective Sara Pezzini, will return with new episodes in June, the network announced.
TNT is currently airing reruns of the show's first season. During its premiere run, Witchblade was watched by more than 35 million viewers, TNT reported. Based on the Top Cow comic series of the same name, Witchblade is produced by Top Cow Productions and Halsted Pictures, in association with Warner Brothers Television.
Paramount Options Regiment
aramount has optioned the movie rights to The Lost Regiment, William J. Forstchen's eight-part, time-traveling series of books, to be developed by C/W Productions, Tom Cruise and production partner Paula Wagner's company, Variety reported.
The first book in the series, 1990's Rally Cry, told of a Civil War regiment time-warped to the future, where humans are slaughtered like cattle, the trade paper reported. The latest volume in the series, Men of War, appeared in 1999.
The studio has optioned all eight books, but Wagner told Variety that C/W is still considering how the film will be developed. Forstchen is a history professor at Montreat College in North Carolina.
ABC Orders Genre Pilots
BC has ordered up several genre pilots as potential series for the 2002-'03 season, Variety reported.
The alphabet network is looking to develop series that may stand as long-term franchises, the trade paper reported. Among the orders:
•Veritas, from Touchstone/Storyline Productions, an Indiana Jones-style two-hour backdoor pilot about a father-son team of archaeologists.
•Astronauts, from 20th Century TV/Industry, about astronauts looking to win a spot on a mission to Mars.
•Paranormal Girl, from Touchstone, about a teen-age girl who discovers she has weird powers and is recruited by the FBI to help solve crimes.
Extra Sues Over Apes
n extra who worked on the set of Planet of the Apes is suing Fox and Entertainment Partner Service Group, arguing that he and other extras were exposed to harmful dust during the production of the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The suit, filed by Jeffrey Clark in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that the extras were not supplied with respiratory protection masks and were exposed to potentially carcinogenic dust for extended periods of time while filming dust-storm scenes, the trade paper reported.
On behalf of all extras, Clark is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction that each of the plaintiffs that meet the criteria of the class of extras be identified and provided with medical care and respiratory monitoring. The suit concerns scenes shot at the Trona Pinnacles in California between Jan. 28-March 23, 2001. A Fox spokeswoman had not yet seen the suit and declined comment to the Reporter. The trade paper could not reach a representative for Entertainment Partner Service Group.
Jeannie Heads For Stage
idney Sheldon, creator of the classic TV series I Dream of Jeannie, has granted rights to develop the show as a stage musical, eyeing a Broadway run, Variety reported.
Scott Steindorff and Stone Village Productions will produce the musical, with Sheldon executive producing with Michael Viner and Deborah Raffin, the trade paper reported.
Steindorff had the idea of the transformation of the sitcom into a musical; Viner, who's executive producing a movie version of Jeannie with Sheldon at Columbia, got the creator aboard, the trade paper reported. Jeannie starred Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman and ran on NBC from 1965 to 1970.
Rymer Finishing Queen
ueen of the Damned director Michael Rymer told SCI FI Wire that the only thing star Aaliyah didn't complete before her tragic death in August 2001 was some looping of dialogue for her character, the vampire Akasha.
"All that really meant was that we were forced to use the production dialogue," Rymer said in an interview. "The track is a little noisier—with crashing waves in one scene, for instance—than we would have had if we could have had her come in and
re-record the dialogue." Rymer is an Australian who makes his big-budget debut with Queen after In Too Deep and the art-house films Angel Baby and Perfume.
Rymer confirmed earlier reports that he tapped Aaliyah's brother, Rashad, to finish the looping process. "Rashad [did] a
very subtle whisper track that's in complete sync with Aaliyah's voice, so that it would punch through any consonants and the words that were hard to hear," Rymer said. "It just added a bit of clarity. It's a strong stylistic device that works well, because Akasha is a 4,000-year-old, very powerful vampire. So it was appropriate to have this extra effect of her voice, and we tried to do it in a way that was organic and not electronic processing. We wanted to keep the humor and the sensuality and the fun of her voice and her performance intact. Rashad and Aaliyah's mother, Diane, were there for the
casting, the auditions, the rehearsals, and they were there in Australia [where Queen was filmed] every day. [So] it was, emotionally, a very nice feeling to have Rashad there to complete Aaliyah's work." Queen of the Damned
opens nationwide on Feb. 22.
O'Dell's Lost Parents Return
ennifer O'Dell, star of the syndicated television series The Lost World, told SCI FI Wire that her character's parents, long presumed dead, will return in the last four episodes of this season.
"I don't have any idea yet [how they will return]," O'Dell said in an interview. "The writers write everything, and we still have script revisions sometimes the day that we're shooting, but the show only keeps getting better over the past three years."
Though the gang of explorers will continue to face new dinosaurs, O'Dell said the character stories are what keep viewers interested. "The dinosaurs are OK, but people have seen that stuff," she said. "They watch the show for the characters and the character advancements in the storylines: Who did what to whom, who loves whom, and who's going to kill whom? They like to bring in at least one or two new dinosaurs every year. With the special effects getting better, technology advances so quickly that we like to keep the audience guessing with all the new stuff that we've got going on."
The Lost World is currently in its third season, with at least one more committed. O'Dell is hopeful for more. "It's always easier to get your fifth and your sixth season going after you've already got your 66 episodes," she said.
Trinneer Taking A Nice 'Trip'
onnor Trinneer, who plays Cmdr. Charles "Trip" Tucker on UPN's Enterprise, told SCI FI Wire that he's pleased his character seems to have caught the imagination of Star Trek fans.
"I think the character's probably pretty easy to write for," Trinneer said in an interview. "He's sort of ... the sarcastic, foot-in-mouth guy. And I think that, out of the gate, there were a couple of episodes that were written directly with my character's having the main story around him. And they've gone over pretty well. Hopefully that will happen more often."
Trinneer recently made his first appearance at a Star Trek convention, in Portland, Ore., near the town where he grew up. "Walking in, ... there were almost 400 people there, and when I walked in, man, they stood up. ... You are there with people who are really into you. Really into the show and really passionate about it. And that's kind of cool. And it's the kind of thing, where, I swear, man, you go down the line, there's a rainbow of types of people there. ... I think it's one of those things where, if you're into it, you have a connection to other people. And they have the luxury of coming together once a year, per location, and sharing the love."
As for the rest of the show's current freshman season, Trinneer said with tongue in cheek, "At this point, Capt. Archer [Scott Bakula] wins all the fights and gets all the girls. And a little parity here might be nice." Enterprise airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Law In Talks For New Jekyll
ude Law (A.I. Artificial Intelligence) is in talks to star in Diary of a Young London Physician, writer/director David Mamet's update of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic SF tale The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Variety reported.
Law would play both the doctor and his alter ego opposite Penelope Cruz, who is in early talks for the female lead, the trade paper's columnist Michael Fleming reported.
The Warner Brothers film is expected to begin production in late spring.
Rollerball Ads Challenged
niversal is protesting MGM's advertising for the upcoming Rollerball movie, which MGM touts as coming from the "filmmakers that brought you The Fast and the Furious and Die Hard," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In particular, Universal takes issue with the Furious claim.
John Pogue, one of the two credited writers on Rollerball, was an uncredited writer on Universal's Furious, for which he received an executive producer credit, the trade paper reported. Neither Furious producer Neal H. Moritz nor director Rob Cohen had anything to do with Rollerball. In high-level discussions between Universal and MGM last week, MGM refused to back off its advertising, the trade paper reported. Universal is currently exploring its legal options. Rollerball opens Feb. 8.
Rollerball Ads Banned
federal judge, responding to a complaint by Universal, barred MGM from running ads for its upcoming film Rollerball touting a connection to Universal's The Fast and the Furious, the Reuters news service reported.
MGM pulled the ads, which said that Rollerball was from the same filmmakers behind Fast. The ads were scheduled to end Friday anyway, the wire service reported.
Universal had argued that the link was misleading, because neither the director nor the producers for Rollerball had director or producer credits on Fast. The connection was John Pogue, one of two screenwriters for Rollerball, who was one of several producers credited for Fast, Reuters said. Rollerball opens Feb. 8.
Daredevil Casting Confirmed
he Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Michael Clarke Duncan and Jennifer Garner have signed to play roles opposite Ben Affleck in the upcoming feature-film version of Marvel Comics' Daredevil series.
Duncan will play Kingpin/Wilson Fisk, and Garner will take on the coveted role of Elektra, as previously rumored.
Writer-director Mark Steven Johnson will begin shooting March 25 for Fox. Colin Farrell will play the role of the villainous Bullseye. The last lead role, of Foggy, is expected to be filled soon.
Dinotopia Trailer Posted
BC has posted a trailer and other information on an official Web site for Dinotopia, its upcoming miniseries based on James Gurney's best-selling children's books.
The network also announced that the six-hour miniseries from Hallmark Entertainment will air starting May 12 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Dinotopia tells the story of Frank Scott (Stuart Wilson), a wealthy American, and his two teen-age sons, Karl (Tyron Leitso) and David (Wentworth Miller), who survive a plane crash and find themselves castaways on a lost continent where humans and dinosaurs peacefully coexist.
Strange World Riddles Answered
oward Gordon, executive producer of the short-lived ABC series Strange World, told Science Fiction Weekly that he's thrilled the show's 13 episodes will finally see the light of day when the SCI FI Channel begins airing them in sequence next month.
The SF series premiered in March 1999 and was canceled after airing only three episodes. The SCI FI Channel plans to air all episodes—including 10 that have never been seen before—beginning at 8 p.m. ET/PT Feb. 8. "I'm just really thrilled," Gordon told SFW. "Obviously, I put my heart and my soul in it, and a lot of people did. It's good to know that somebody's going to see it, that it won't be relegated to the dustbins of history."
Strange World, about a man with a mysterious disease who investigates abuses of science, wasn't Gordon's original idea. "ABC came to me," he said. "I wanted to do a family drama, and they wanted to do something that was a little more X-Files-like. In their brainstorming sessions, they came up with weird science as a general area they wanted to develop. I'm a science-fiction fan. It piqued my interest, so I developed the show. I think ABC liked the pilot a lot, but I also think they couldn't figure out what to do with it. I don't think it fit in terms of the way they saw themselves. So we all got the feeling, or maybe I kept it to myself, that we were kind of dressing a corpse [laughs]. I think the show was frankly nothing they ever really wanted to make. They didn't promote us, and we never really got a fair shake, so I was really happy to hear SCI FI was going to pick it up."
The 13 episodes will answer questions raised in the pilot, Gordon added. "Fortunately, because I think we smelled the end [laughs], I think our most successful episode frankly was the very last one we did, which really does tell a close-ended story," he said. "In a sense it works as a limited-run series. Obviously, we left our door open in case we were to come back, but we also closed up what we needed to do so a lot of the questions are answered in the last episode. In the end, we discovered the secret of this thing was really telling it from the point of view of someone who himself was a science experiment. Who was at once the beneficiary and the victim of a science that was beyond what we have. He has this incurable disease, but here he was being cured on a provisional basis and used by this woman for purposes which it seems were to uncover abuses of science. Clearly whoever she was, and however nefarious she seemed, however obtuse, the mission seemed to be the reason he was kept alive, to uncover these corporate and individual excesses of science."
Clarke Finalists Announced
udges have announced the final nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, given annually to the best science fiction novel published in the United Kingdom in the previous year, Locus Online reported.
The award, named for the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, will be announced in a ceremony at the Science Museum in London on May 18. The nominees are listed below.
•Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
•Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
•Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson
•Pashazade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
•Passage by Connie Willis
•The Secret of Life by Paul McAuley
Vornholt Does The Wave
ohn Vornholt jokingly describes The Genesis Wave—Book Three, his latest Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, as "the third book in a duology."
The author, in an interview with SCI FI Wire, said, "The first two books sold really well, so they wanted more. The first two told a complete story, but I left lots of things hanging. It was kind of a disaster story. So book three is an aftermath story. It's everything that happens after books one and two, when we think the threat's over, but it's really not."
Incorporating elements of the feature films The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, as well as Vornholt's previous Trek novels Gemworld and Mind Meld, The Genesis Wave—Book Three finds the not-to-be-trusted Romulans in control of the Genesis Wave. "It's almost a non-proliferation scenario, where we're trying to keep everything from getting out of control once again," Vornholt said. "We're also dealing with a smaller, mobile Genesis Wave device that's fallen into the hands of some very religious Bajorans. They think it's one of their orbs, a gift from the Prophets, to use to rehabilitate their planet. So we've got these do-gooders trying to use a Genesis Wave device and the Romulans, who are up to no good, as usual. They're trying to make sure no one else has it. And then we've got our guys, the good guys, trying to make sure nobody uses it again. I look at it as a 'the good, the bad and the ugly' situation, where everybody wants this thing, and the question is who's going to wind up with it."
Vornholt is currently readying the release of two young adult stories, Dinotopia: Dolphin's Quest, out in March, and The Troll King, set for release in August. He is also ready to Trek again. Pocket Books' Star Trek editor John Ordover "wants a Genesis Wave—Book Four," Vornholt said. "It's entirely doable, because I introduced lots of new characters in book three, sort of an X-Men-like group, and they'll be able to continue in other books. So as long as the books sell well, I guess there will be Genesis Wave four, five and I don't know how many." The Genesis Wave—Book Three is available now in hardcover from Pocket Books.
DreamWorks Revives Helm
reamWorks has optioned the movie rights to a series of 27 Matt Helm spy novels by Donald Hamilton, Variety reported.
Australian director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) is attached to the project.
The books were the source for a series of kitschy 1960s movies starring Dean Martin and a short-lived 1975 TV show on ABC. The Helm books were published as pulpy paperbacks from 1960 to 1993.
Shrek 2 Reunites Stars
ike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz have all agreed to return to voice characters in the upcoming computer-animated sequel film Shrek 2, the Reuters news service reported.
Myers will again voice the green ogre, Murphy will play Donkey and Diaz will voice Princess Fiona.
Shrek 2, slated for a 2004 release, is being co-written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who wrote the original Shrek.
MTV Developing Spidey Show
omics writer Brian Michael Bendis confirmed for the Comics Continuum Web site that he is developing an animated Spider-Man TV series for MTV.
"Well, the worst-kept secret in comics, this week, is true," Bendis said. "I am writing the new MTV animated Spider-Man series for Sony and Marvel. It's a very exciting project with some truly inspiring people involved in it."
Bendis added, "It's too early to go into a bunch of specifics. It's not airing until the fall, but I can tell you that I am one of the executive producers and have written the pilot. I am writing a smattering of episodes in the first season, but not all of them. ... This is a [computer-animated] series, but you have never seen CGI like this. Forget what you are picturing. It does not look like that. It's using CGI to create a traditional and really spectacular Spider-Man. Great character acting and animation. This is not the Ultimate Spider-Man TV show, as has been rumored. It is based on movie continuity, if continuity matters to you, but it has the same feel and tone of Ultimate Spider-Man. ... As MTV announced earlier in the week, the show is green-lit and in physical production."
SCI FI Airs Metal Mayhem
he SCI FI Channel will air the original film Jackie Chan Presents: Metal Mayhem on Feb. 23 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Paul Rudd stars in the movie, part of SCI FI's Scinema Saturdays series.
Metal Mayhem is the sequel to the Hong Kong film Gen-X Cops and reunites original cast members Stephen Fung, Edison Chen, Sam Lee and Maggie Q. Benny Chan directed and produced Metal Mayhem, in which an FBI agent (Rudd) teams with a group of young police officers to deal with a lethal attack robot in Hong Kong.
I-Maniacs Convene In April
he I-Maniacs, the unofficial fan club of the SCI FI Channel's original series The Invisible Man, will sponsor a convention devoted to the show on April 6-7 in Linthicum, Md.
The convention will feature games, contests, episode viewings, music videos, a costume party, Sunday brunch and a charity auction of Invisible Man-related items, the club announced. Attendance is limited to 75 people; the deadline is Feb. 15.
Invisible Man airs its series finale Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Briefly Noted
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MGM is partnering with Best Buy to reintroduce the entire James Bond film series later this year on DVD, Variety reported. The campaign comes on the 40th anniversary of the release of Dr. No, the first film in the series, and is timed to precede the theatrical release of the 20th official Bond in November.
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The Matrix producer Joel Silver told Wizard magazine that creators Andy and Larry Wachowski will write half of the 10 upcoming animated Animatrix shorts, with Japanese anime masters Yoshiaki Jawajiri and Mahiro Maeda writing others, according to a report on Cinescape Online.
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Actor Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment banner has signed a three-year, first-look deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment, which will release his upcoming sequel film Men in Black 2, Variety reported. The arrangement calls for Smith to star in or produce features for the studio.
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The Dark Horizons Web site reported that reshoots are underway for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man movie, which is set for a May release. The reshoots reportedly involve low-key sets and minimal cast.
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New Line announced an April 26 release date for the long-delayed Jason X and a new March 22 release date for the upcoming sequel movie Blade II.
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The Dark Horizons Web site, referencing Darren Aronofsky Online, reported that Sean Gullete—star of director Darren Aronofsky's Pi—will have a principal role in Aronofsky's proposed SF movie Last Man, to which Brad Pitt is attached as well.
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Artisan announced that it will release DVD and video versions of its supernatural thriller film Soul Survivors on Feb. 26 in a new "Killer Cut," which restores R-rated footage cut for the film's PG-13 theatrical release last year.
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The first night of ABC's Stephen King's Rose Red miniseries scared up the best ratings among young adults for any movie on television in more than 2 1/2 years, Variety reported. According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, Rose Red averaged 19.9 million viewers and a 9.6 rating/22 share among adults 18-49 for ABC, the trade paper reported.
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The 2001 Aurealis Awards Ceremony will take place in Melbourne, Australia, at 6 p.m. March 22. All readers of Aurealis magazine and the public are welcome.
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Jason Turner, the U.K. representative of the Bring Back Kirk campaign, a fan-based effort to revive the popular Star Trek character, will appear on the British morning show The Big Breakfast in a competition on Jan. 31. Turner will compete in a series of games for the patronage of Richard Bacon, one of the hosts of the show.
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IGN FilmForce reported that Sean Connery may be under consideration for a role in the upcoming feature-film version of Alan Moore's comic series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Stephen Norrington will direct from a script by James Robinson.
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New Line Cinema has acquired the horror spec script Next Door from writer Jake Wade Wall, Variety reported. The film tells the story of a wraithlike serial killer who returns to his small-town home.
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Dark Horizons reported that Sony has canceled the low-rated syndicated series Sheena, which starred Geena Lee Nolin.
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The Mothman Prophecies premiered in the No. 4 slot in the box-office rankings, taking in about $11.8 million for the weekend of Jan. 25, the Hollywood trade papers reported. The only other genre film in the top 10 was The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which slipped to No. 8, with about $8 million for the weekend and a total to date of $259 million domestically.
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Melissa George has been cast as the lead in Lost in Oz, a dramatic pilot for The WB based on the mythology of The Wizard of Oz, Variety reported. George will play Tina Vittori, a 22-year-old Kansas student who finds herself carried away to Oz, where she winds up leading a revolt against the Emerald City.
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