Hall Of Fame Inductees Announced
amuel R. Delany and Michael Moorcock will be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, organizers announced at ConQuesT 33, held during Memorial Day weekend in Kansas City, Mo.
The late James Blish and Donald Wollheim will be inducted posthumously, according to a report on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. The induction will take place at the University of Kansas on July 5 as part of the John W. Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards ceremony.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 by the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas and by the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society.
Episode II Is No. II
tar Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones dropped to the number-two slot in the box-office rankings, taking in about $20.6 million for the weekend of May 31, the Hollywood trade papers reported.
Episode II has taken in about $232 million after 18 days of release.
Spider-Man took the number-three slot, with about $14.5 million for the weekend and $354 million after 31 days of release.
The animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron slipped one place to number five, with $10.7 million in its second weekend and a total after 10 days of about $38.2 million.
Prowse Ready To Play Vader
avid Prowse, the 66-year-old British weightlifter and actor who portrayed Darth Vader in the original Star Wars, told the Reuters news service that he's eager to put on the black mask once again in the upcoming Episode III prequel film.
Prowse has suffered from arthritis and a bad hip since he first played the role more than 25 years ago, the news service reported.
"I would love to reprise the Darth Vader role," Prowse told Reuters. "If I am 100 percent physically able, and they offer the part to someone else, I would be very disappointed."
Prowse will undergo another hip operation in September. "I should be walking properly by Christmas and can get back into the gym and training. I am going to surprise them all next year," he said. He added, "If Christopher Lee [who plays Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones] can handle a lightsaber at the age of 80, then so can I."
Star Wars Games Previewed
ucasArts previewed several new Star Wars video games for SCI FI Wire at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last week.
The games, for various next-generation platforms, will be released this year, LucasArts said.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, for PlayStation 2 and GameCube, will feature Jango Fett from Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of The Clones. The third-person game pits Jango against a never-before-seen rival in a race to apprehend a brutal bounty hunter. The game spans six different worlds and 18 levels. Bounty Hunter will hit stores in the fall.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, for the Xbox and PC from Bio Ware, is set 4,000 years before the events in the Star Wars films, a time of war between the Jedi and the evil warriors of the Sith. Knights of the Old Republic is a role-playing-style game that will introduce players to a side of the Star Wars universe that has never been seen. The Xbox version of the game should be in stores in the fall; the PC version should be available in early 2003.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars, for PlayStation 2 and GameCube, places players in the middle of events initiated in Episode II. The game allows players to assume the role of either Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu or Obi-Wan Kenobi to lead an army of clones into battle against droid soldiers under the control of Count Dooku. Clone Wars is being developed by Pandemic Studios and is slated for a fall release.
Sony Online Entertainment, meanwhile, announced that it will unveil Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided in December. The online multiplayer game has been in development for more than two years and is set during the battle between the rebel alliance and the Galactic Empire, as featured in the original Star Wars film trilogy.
Portman Inserted Into Jedi?
umors are circulating that George Lucas will insert footage of Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode VI—Return of the Jedi, according to reports on the Ain't It Cool News Web site and MTV.
The new footage will reportedly be shot during production of the upcoming Episode III prequel.
Lucas also reportedly told E! Online that the reason droids C-3P0 and R2-D2 have no memory of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is because their memories have been wiped prior to the beginning of Episode IV, the original Star Wars movie. "[C-3P0's] memory system has been erased, and so has R2's," Lucas told the site. "So they don't remember anything from the first trilogy. I'm telling you something from Episode III, but I shouldn't be telling you that, but I think most of the fans already know that."
AICN also reported a wild rumor that the reviled computer-animated character Jar Jar Binks may wind up in a new, revised version of Episode IV.
Cumming Mutates In X2
lan Cumming will play the blue teleporting mutant Nightcrawler in the upcoming sequel to X-Men, Variety reported.
Cumming (Spy Kids) joins a cast that includes returning X-Men Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, James Marsden, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin and Famke Janssen, as well as newcomer Aaron Stanford as Pyro, the trade paper reported. Ian McKellen is also in the cast, reprising his role as the villainous Magneto.
The sequel, called X2, is being directed by X-Men helmer Bryan Singer and will begin production in Vancouver, B.C., on June 17. Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty wrote the script.
Pyro Joins X-Men
ewcomer Aaron Stanford has been cast as Pyro, the newest X-Man, in X2, the upcoming sequel to X-Men, directed by Bryan Singer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Production is scheduled to begin in the summer for a May 2, 2003, release, with Ralph Winter, Lauren Shuler Donner and Avi Arad producing from a script by David Hayter.
Pyro is a young mutant and student who joins Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Rogue (Anna Paquin), Cyclops (James Marsden), Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) in the sequel, the trade paper reported.
Stewart's X Marks The Spot
atrick Stewart, who reprises the role of Professor X in the upcoming X-Men sequel, told SFX magazine that his character will deliver less exposition and backstory this time around, according to a report on the British Great Link fan Web site.
"The script for X-Men 2 is very different in tone from the first one, which in any case I always felt was just an extended trailer," Stewart told the magazine. "It was sort of 'this is who the X-Men are, this is the kind of thing that they do, and that's all we can tell you for now.' It was an establishing movie."
Professor Charles Xavier's extended exposition in the first movie bored Stewart. "Yes, indeed," he said. "That was tedious. But I had a couple of nice scenes with Sir Ian [McKellen, who played Magneto], which bookended the film. I'm happy to say that this screenplay now assumes that everyone knows what's going on and who we are. There has to be a little bit of 'this is what the X-Men believe in, this is what the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants believes in,' but it's minimal, and the script is almost entirely given over to plot and character and growth and development. I suppose Fox think they might have got their hands on their very own Star Trek, which is a curiosity for me, given that one is apparently winding down while the other one is just starting up."
Stewart added, "Well, there was a comic book, which was The Next Generation meets the X-Men! And they wanted to put me on the cover. This was right at the beginning of my involvement in the X-Men film, and I was able to use some influence to say, 'I think it would be best if you didn't do that,' because I knew there was a chance I might end up playing both parts. The curiosity is that now we will have Star Trek X [Nemesis], of course, which only adds to the confusion." X-Men 2, also called X2, is currently in production. Star Trek: Nemesis is slated for a December release.
Nemesis Not The End
atrick Stewart told SFX magazine that the upcoming Star Trek: Nemesis movie won't be the last for the Next Generation crew, according to a report on the British Great Link Web site.
"There's been a lot of gossip about this being the last Next Generation film," Stewart told the magazine. "Those conversations are only happening in the fan community. As far as the studio is concerned, and our executive producer is concerned, and indeed as far as all of us are concerned, though we all have our own opinions and feelings, there is nothing official at all about it being the last."
Stewart (Capt. Jean-Luc Picard) added, "This would be a very appropriate way to take our leave of Star Trek. Everything about the ending of this movie has a sense of closure about it. But there is also a huge opportunity for a sequel to this movie just sitting there, should it be taken up. And my feeling is that with Paramount it will totally be a matter of profits. If this film does really well, there will be another one. And that will continue, so long as they do well. The first time one does badly then 'clang!' We shall be put out to graze." Nemesis is slated for a December release.
Buffy Trolls For Emmy
roducers of UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer slipped DVDs of this year's musical episode into subscription copies of Variety to promote the episode for an Emmy nomination, a spokesperson told SCI FI Wire.
The episode, "Once More With Feeling," aired last November and was being touted in the unusual promotion by UPN and the show's producer, 20th Century Fox Television, the spokesperson said.
Though critically acclaimed, Buffy was snubbed at Emmy time last year by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. "Of course, the goal is to get some nominations this year," the Fox spokesperson said in an interview. "It's as big a campaign as last year. ... Every year we do big Emmy campaigns for some of our shows, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer is definitely one of them. This year it seemed like a way to reach a bigger and broader audience."
Ballots for the prime-time Emmy Awards go out to academy members next week, and nominations will be announced July 18. The awards will be broadcast Sept. 22 on NBC.
Buffy Game Rises At Last
he producers of the long-awaited Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game told SCI FI Wire that the title is about two weeks away from completion and is slated for a July release.
"Buffy is ... an actual lost episode from [the show's] season three," assistant producer Harish Rao said in an interview at the Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last week. "It's actually about two episodes rolled into one. It's certainly not a rehashing of an existing episode. It's actually brand new and exists in the [Buffy] universe."
Rao added, "[The main villain] is kind of a secret, but it is somebody from Buffy's past that everyone is going to be able to recognize." The game will feature Buffy's allies from the show—Willow, Xander, Giles and Spike—as well as Angel and his evil alter ego, Angelus.
Joss Whedon, creator of UPN's Buffy series, and fellow producers had a say in the game's storyline, Rao added. "Initially, we were going back and forth with them," he said. "We wanted their creative input, and then they signed off on our script. They liked the design and the direction of the game, so we kind of just went with it." The Collective developed and Electronic Arts will publish Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Xbox gaming platform, with a suggested retail price of $49.95.
Keaton Up For Beetlejuice 2
ichael Keaton told Foxnews.com that he's eager to do a sequel to his 1988 supernatural comedy film Beetlejuice.
"I've talked to [Beetlejuice director] Tim [Burton] about it," Keaton told the site. "You have to remember that a lot of what we did was made up as we went along. A script would never reflect what we would shoot. All that stuff that everyone likes is us riffing."
Keaton added that he and Burton are ready to roll if Warner Brothers gives them a green light.
SCIFI.COM Sneaks Dreamcatcher
CIFI.COM's SCI FI Stream page has posted exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of director Lawrence Kasdan talking about his upcoming SF movie Dreamcatcher, based on Stephen King's novel of the same name.
The clip, provided by Warner Brothers, features Kasdan discussing the making of the movie and glimpses of the film's production on location in British Columbia with star Morgan Freeman.
Dreamcatcher tells the story of four friends who reunite on a hunting trip in the Maine woods and join forces to challenge an alien force. Dreamcatcher, which is still in production, is slated for release in 2003.
Minority Gets Real
inority Report producer Bonnie Curtis told Cinescape Online that Steven Spielberg's upcoming SF movie may be set in the future, but it's based in reality.
"This is not a traditional science fiction movie," Curtis told the site. "Steven likes to say it's The Maltese Falcon meets Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is a sort of a futuristic thriller, and when you say that, you start thinking sci-fi, but that's not really it. We tried to keep it as reality-based as possible."
The movie, starring Tom Cruise, is based on a Philip K. Dick short story. "Phillip K. Dick's stories work so well for movies, because he is original," Curtis said. "And what makes this movie so interesting and unique is it's based on a concept that you've never seen in a movie before. Imagine a futuristic world without murder and a guy being on the run from that. Now we've always had many movies like The Fugitive, where the guy is on the run because he is innocent, but they think he is guilty. But in this one he is being told infallibly that he is guilty. It is a system that's worked for years, and there hasn't been a murder. So in the end of the day it's a movie about a real argument about the free will and about the basic life system we have as humans. Do we want a world or a system of government that prevents us from making our own decisions?" Minority Report opens June 21.
Spielberg On Adapting Minority
teven Spielberg, director of the upcoming SF thriller movie Minority Report, told Wired magazine that it was tricky adapting Philip K. Dick's short story for the screen.
"There are the aficionados who hold up the book and say it's heresy to change any element of a science fiction book, whether it's Childhood's End or Fahrenheit 451 or The War of the Worlds. 'You change a hair on that beautiful creature's head, and you've lost me,'" Spielberg told the magazine.
Spielberg added, "That sci-fi fanatic I'll never be able to win over, but I'll win over the sci-fi fans who want to have a good story told to them, even if it doesn't sound like the book they read 20 years ago. They never have to say it's better than the book. If they can at least say, 'I was really engaged,' then I feel I've done my job well." Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, opens June 21.
Ellis Talks Matrix Chase
avid Ellis—the second-unit director who supervised some action scenes in the upcoming two Matrix sequels—told SCI FI Wire that a freeway chase sequence will surpass anything in movies so far.
Ellis directed the multicar sequence last year in Alameda in Northern California before the sequels moved to their current production location in Sydney.
"You have seen some really good freeway chase sequences in your day, but you haven't seen one where guys are leaping from car to car and fighting as they leap and doing all the Matrix stuff in the middle of the car chase as well," Ellis said in an interview. "And Trinity [Carrie-Anne Moss] does some pretty amazing motorcycle riding. It's going to be cool. ... Before they left [for Australia], we saw some, like, 60 seconds of stuff, some really quick things, but it's going to be cool. And those guys [writers/directors Larry and Andy Wachowski] are so talented and so hands-on and [involved with] every single little minute detail that happens in the film." The two sequels—The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions—are currently filming with an eye to a 2003 release.
Animatrix To Hit Web
en anime films set in the universe of The Matrix will debut on the official Web site in the fall, Warner Brothers announced.
The anime films—including four written by Matrix directors Larry and Andy Wachowski—may also make it onto DVD, with the last released theatrically, producer Joel Silver told SCI FI Wire.
The Animatrix shorts will be directed by Japanese and other animators, Silver said. The 10th installment will act as a prelude to the upcoming Matrix Reloaded sequel film, which is now in production in Australia and is slated for a May 2003 release. The 10-minute anime feature will be released by Square, the video game publisher that also produced 2001's computer-animated movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Silver said.
E3 Previews Movie, TV Games
ideo games based on movies and TV series were much in evidence at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, which took place in Los Angeles last week.
Several publishers are rushing out titles linked to popular genre movies.
A video game based on the upcoming sequel film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is due on Nov. 15, the same day the movie opens. Like the film, the game features a storyline similar, but not identical, to that in the second of J.K. Rowling's best-selling Potter books. Chamber of Secrets will be available on virtually every current gaming platform, including GameCube, Xbox, GameBoy Advance, GameBoy Color and PlayStation 1 and 2.
Scorpion King: Rise of an Akkadian, based on this spring's hit movie, will take up the story of the warrior Mathayus, who was played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in the movie. "The movie [is] about how Mathayus and his two brothers are the last of the Akkadians and how Mathayus has to avenge their death," game producer William Oertel told SCI FI Wire. "In the game, we parallel it in that he loses his tribe." Game designers were unable to obtain the rights to use The Rock's patented World Wrestling Federation moves, Oertel said, adding, "It's not exactly 'the people's elbow,' but it is an 'elbow of the people.'" Mark Hamill (Star Wars) will voice a villain. Scorpion King will be available for PlayStation 2 and GameCube, with a release in October.
Blade II, for the Xbox and PlayStation 2, shares little with the movie of the same name, but it does feature Wesley Snipes as the half-human, half-vampire hunter and the film's villains, the Reapers. Blade II is slated for release in September, coinciding with the release of the Blade II DVD.
Infogrames and Studio Canal, meanwhile, will bring out Terminator: Dawn of Fate, a game that serves as a prequel to the original Terminator movie. It features the characters of Kyle Reese, Katherine Luna, John Connor and Justin Perry, a character briefly mentioned in the film, but no images of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The third-person shooter-style game is scheduled for a September release on both the Xbox and PlayStation 2.
Simon & Schuster previewed a video game based on the SCI FI Channel original series Farscape. The game is due in June, the same month the show's fourth season kicks off. The game is designed for the PC, though other platforms may follow. Gamers can control several characters at once and must interact with other gamers to repair a Prowler, which has crash-landed and left them stranded on a foreign planet.
Encore Entertainment's highly-touted Daredevil: The Man Without Fear game, based on the Marvel Comics title, was not previewed. The game is slated for release in February 2003, around the same time as the upcoming Ben Affleck movie version of the comic. But producers said that the game will have no relation to the movie. Daredevil is being designed for the PlayStation 2.
Tron 2.0 Boots Up At E3
ron 2.0, a video-game sequel to the cult 1982 movie Tron, got its first preview at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles last week.
The game, coming from Disney Interactive and Monolith, is due in spring 2003 for the PC.
"The one thing we really want to get across to people is that it's a continuation of Tron," Luigi Pardo, the game's supervisor of quality assurance, told SCI FI Wire. "It's 20 years later. It's not a remake of the [film]. It's really all about the evolution of Tron."
Gamers will take on the role of Jet Bradley, the son of Alan Bradley, the creator of the first Tron program, who was played by Bruce Boxleitner in the film. The movie's villain, MCP (Master Control Program, played by David Warner), will have only a minor role in the game. Developers have recreated and enhanced the world of Tron, including the film's discs, light cycles and blue-and-red glowing jumpsuits. Players will be able to alter their "subroutine systems" to make themselves more powerful, emphasizing the idea that Tron 2.0 is a video game about video games.
The game will eventually find its way onto other gaming platforms. "We definitely have an idea where we're planning on going out to a lot of different platforms," game spokesman Leo Olebe told SCI FI Wire. "We're working on a plan with Xbox, PS2 and GameCube. [There's] definite potential. It's the perfect game to go cross-platform [with], because it appeals to the whole gaming community."
Sequels Crowd E3 Aisles
inal Fantasy XI, Doom III, Resident Evil 0 and a new Tomb Raider were among the sequels to best-selling video games previewed last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
Final Fantasy XI was released in Japan on May 16, but it won't be until early next year that the new installment is available in the United States for both PC and PlayStation 2. Like the other Final Fantasy games, XI will have a new and different storyline.
Id Software and Activision's Doom III will rival Capcom's Resident Evil 0 in the gore department. Doom III continues the story of its predecessors. Resident Evil 0 is a prequel, with backstory to the already established Resident Evil storyline. Doom III, for the PC, is slated for release in 2003. Resident Evil 0, for the GameCube, may be available as soon as November.
Core Designs' Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness will be the sixth game in the popular franchise. Producer Andrew Watt told SCI FI Wire that that the game will differ from earlier installments. "It's got very little in common with the other games," Watt said in an interview. "The only thing it does have in common is the character, Lara Croft. It's a lot deeper and a darker storyline than we've had in the past." Watt added that Lara won't beat her way past monsters to uncover mystical artifacts this time around. Instead, she will try to prove herself innocent of murder charges. Lara will also ditch her familiar tank-top-and-shorts uniform and will wear civilian clothes. The game features underwater graphics and detailed European backgrounds. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness hits stores Nov. 15 and will be available for both PlayStation 2 and PC.
Rings Games Due Soon
fellowship of Lord of the Rings games debuted last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, including a video game based on the upcoming sequel film The Two Towers.
Visitors entered a re-creation of Bilbo Baggins' home, Bag End, to preview Sierra's Hobbit game and Universal Interactive's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings game.
In 2003, Bilbo will star in The Hobbit, Sierra's role-playing game, which follows the events chronicled in J.R.R. Tolkien's first Middle-earth story. The Hobbit will be available for the GameCube in the fall.
Universal Interactive unveiled The Fellowship of the Rings, slated for an Oct. 1 release for Xbox and GameBoy Advance. Gamers will be able to switch off between Gandalf, Aragon and Frodo to make their way through the story of Tolkien's first book and Peter Jackson's first Rings film.
Electronic Arts, meanwhile, previewed The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which is being released Nov. 5, five weeks before the sequel movie. The game is designed for the PlayStation 2 and GameBoy Advance platforms. Neil Young, EA's vice president and executive in charge of production, told SCI FI Wire that gamers will be able to play either Aragon, Gimli the dwarf or Legolas the elf. The GameBoy Advance version of the game will allow players to assume the role of Gandalf as well.
Hornsby Gets Haunted
ussell Hornsby offered SCI FI Wire a preview of things to come on Haunted, a new genre show that will debut next fall on UPN.
The series stars Matthew Fox as Frank Taylor, a cop-turned-private eye who's guided by real ghosts and driven by a desire to find his kidnapped son; Hornsby plays Marcus Bradshaw, Taylor's ex-partner. "I would say that the show is about cross-worlds—the supernatural, the paranormal," Hornsby said in an interview. "It's about a man dealing with his life here and his life on the other side and trying to figure out what is real."
Hornsby, best known for his work on the series Gideon's Crossing and making his genre debut with Haunted, added, "There are a lot of things I'm still trying to figure out about [Bradshaw], but I think he's going to be an aide to Matthew's character, to pull Frank out of that world. Hopefully, as time goes on, Marcus will battle with the supernatural, he'll deal with family and friends, and he'll be a major cog in some of the show's problem-solving. Haunted is actually a detective/police drama with scary elements to it. It's not a scary show with cops. I think we have something original, I really do. This is a high-end product, and it will stand on its own. It won't have to be
compared to anything, because there's nothing to compare it to." Queen of the Damned director Michael Rymer helmed the pilot for Haunted, which will air in UPN's Tuesday night post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer timeslot.
Darabont Will Pen Indy IV
ariety confirmed rumors that writer/director Frank Darabont has been offered the job of writing the script for the fourth Indiana Jones movie and will sign the deal soon.
The Coming Attractions Web site reported the news this week, and the IGN FilmForce site broke the rumor earlier this month. The trade paper also confirmed rumors that Indy IV is eyeing a July 2005 holiday weekend opening.
Producer George Lucas previously courted The Sixth Sense writer M. Night Shyamalan and Shakespeare in Love co-writer Tom Stoppard to write the screenplay, the trade paper reported. Now Darabont is expected to take control and knock out a screenplay for a story that was hatched by Lucas and given a thumbs-up by both director Steven Spielberg and star Harrison Ford, the trade paper reported.
Darabont (The Green Mile) wrote several episodes of the 1992-'93 TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, as well as several editions of the Sean Patrick Flanery telefilms The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. Darabont also reportedly did uncredited writing work on Spielberg's upcoming Tom Cruise SF movie Minority Report.
Verbinski Grabs The Ring
ore Verbinski, director of the upcoming supernatural thriller film The Ring, told the Ringworld Web site that he faced a challenge adapting the original Japanese movie for Western audiences.
The Ring is based on Koji Suzuki's original film Ringu, about a videotape that results in the viewer's death seven days after seeing it.
"I found there to be a dream-logic-vs.-emotional-logic issue," Verbinski told the site. "The Western desire for linearity and resolution are so destructive to a film like this. It's hard to fight against that and still keep the audience interested. As a director, I tried to use the bread-crumb approach. rather than a hand on the back in leading the audience through the narrative. The only resolution in life is death, and I believe that we seek out resolution in stories as a response to this. I think the trick is to keep them seeking right up until the end. Emotionally the film is inherently on the cold side, yet it deals with the relationship between mother and child. So we tried to use this in conjunction with the tape to create the feeling of a resolution, yet at a price. What would you do to save your child?"
Martin Henderson and Naomi Watts star in The Ring. "I tried to maintain the minimalism of the original," Verbinski added. "Our film is set in Seattle, so we went for an overcast mood: wet and isolated. By only focusing on three characters, the film is a study in abstraction. Devoid of clutter. It takes on a sort of inner dream logic. I tried to keep the frame as a tableau wherever possible. I believe shot construction in this genre is so much a part of the creep factor, ... and sound is its partner. So the film is intentionally somewhat clinical." The Ring opens in October.
Pookie Aims For Movies
rian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment and Urban Entertainment will develop Pookie Poo, a fantasy movie based on the Web 'toon about a man who awakes to discover he's the only black person in America, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The 'toon appeared on Urban's Web site.
Universal optioned the animated series for Imagine and Urban. Jordan Moffet is in talks to write the screenplay based on A.J. Jamal and Gary A. Williams' Web series, the trade paper reported.
Anderson Denies Practice Role
ormer The X-Files star Gillian Anderson denied on her official Web site a rumor that she will appear next season on ABC's The Practice.
The Lycos Web site reported the rumor earlier this week.
Anderson's site quoted her as saying she "would under no circumstances consider another TV role." Anderson played FBI Agent Dana Scully for nine years on The X-Files, which ended its run in May.
Expect Action In Destination II
avid Ellis, director of the upcoming sequel film Final Destination II, told SCI FI Wire that he's upping the action and surprise quotient in the new movie.
"I think there's more action than the first film, yeah," Ellis said in an interview on the sequel's Vancouver, B.C., set. "Definitely there is. ... They had their big plane crash sequence. We have a big freeway sequence. We're constantly flashing back to that and to other different things that are happening in the film. ... It was important for us to raise the bar and come up with something more, because the audience has already seen all that."
On a recent day, Ellis and his crew shot a scene in which returning heroine Clear (played by Ali Larter) and her new companions, played by A.J. Cook and Michael Landes, confront Mr. Bludworth, the undertaker from the first movie, played again by Tony Todd. As in the first film, which was directed by James Wong from his and partner Glen Morgan's script, Final Destination II will deal with the main characters' efforts to cheat death, with varying degrees of success.
"The thing that worked in the first movie are the times when you didn't know the deaths were coming," Ellis said. "I think one that stood out for me that was really well-executed was the bus crash. And that was because you didn't hear the bus coming—it just came right away. So we have a couple of those. They had one. We tried to put in three of those. And then in the other ones, we tried to trick the audience, because they're going to be looking. They'll be all over the place. And they're smart. And so they're going to be looking for, OK, how are these guys going to kill this guy? And I think we have enough fake-outs with misdirecting them so that hopefully, for 99 percent of them, it's going to come as a big surprise." Final Destination II is slated for release next year.
Harmon, Muniz Star In Banks
ngie Harmon and Frankie Muniz will headline Agent Cody Banks, a spy-spoof adventure movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Harmon (Law and Order) will play a government agent who trains a teenager (Malcolm in the Middle's Muniz) for covert operations, the trade paper reported.
The film also will star Hilary Duff. Harald Zwart directs from Jeffrey Jurgensen's script, which Zach Stentz and Ashley Miller have rewritten, the trade paper reported. Dylan Sellers Productions and Maverick Films are producing for Splendid Pictures.
Water Giant Due In U.S.
ndrew Herwitz's Film Sales Co. has picked up the North American sales rights for The Water Giant, a fantasy family film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Formerly titled Ogopogo, the movie tells the story of a 10-year-old boy who encounters a mythical monster, the trade paper reported.
The movie began an eight-week shoot April 21 on Lake Wakatipu in Queensland, New Zealand, with John Henderson directing. Giant stars Bruce Greenwood, Rena Owen and Daniel Magder. Barry Authors wrote the script. Rainer Mockert's Munich-based MBP and Authors' U.K. independent production outfit, BarryFilms, are producing the film, in association with Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which designed and created the titular creature, the trade paper reported.
Jones' Love Wins Clarke
wyneth Jones' SF novel Bold As Love won the 2002 Arthur C. Clarke Award, named after the venerable SF author and recognizing the best SF novel that had its first British publication in the previous year.
The award was presented at the Science Museum in London on May 18.
The juried award consists of an inscribed plaque in the form of a bookend and a check in an amount matching the year. This year, the prize was £2,002.
Columbus Drops Potter 3
hris Columbus, director of the movie versions of the first two Harry Potter books, won't direct the third, Variety reported.
Columbus has told Warner Brothers that he wants to bring his family home after living in Great Britain for more than a year, the trade paper reported.
Columbus directed last year's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and this year's upcoming sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mama también) is reportedly high on the list of candidates to take over the job. Cuarón, who directed A Little Princess, recently received a copy of Steve Kloves' new script for the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and is in conversations with Warner, the trade paper reported.
Seuss Honored In Home Town
pringfield, Mass., will erect a sculpture garden in its zoo to commemorate local hero Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel, the Associated Press reported.
The sculpture garden will feature likenesses of several fantastical creatures from Seuss' beloved children's books, the wire service reported.
The May 31 opening of the $6.2 million sculpture garden will launch a weekend of Seussian celebrations, including a read-a-thon and a parade down Mulberry Street, whose whimsical Victorian homes were the setting for Geisel's first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published in 1937, the AP reported.
Sidewise Finalists Named
he judges for the Sidewise Awards for Alternate History announced the finalists for the 2001 Sidewise Awards, which will be presented at ConJose, the 60th World Science Fiction Convention, Aug. 29-Sept. 2 in San Jose, Calif.
The Sidewise Awards were founded in 1995 to recognize excellence in alternate history and are named for Murray Leinster's short story "Sidewise in Time." A list of finalists follows.
Long Form
•The Age of Unreason series (Newton's Cannon, A
Calculus of Angels, Empire of Unreason, The Shadows of God) by J. Gregory Keyes
•Chronospace by Allen M. Steele
•The Children's War by J.N. Stroyar
Short Form
•"First to the Moon" by Stephen Baxter and Simon Bradshaw
•"The Human Front" by Ken MacLeod
Briefly Noted
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Brian Henson is stepping down as chairman of the Jim Henson Co. after nearly 12 years as the head of the company founded in 1955 by his late father, Jim Henson, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Brian Henson said that he wants to focus on directing and producing movies and television.
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Warner Brothers has shifted the release date of The Matrix Reloaded to May 15, 2003, from May 23, 2003, Variety reported.
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IBM sold 150 workstations to Oscar-winning Weta Digital Ltd., the New Zealand visual-effects house, to aid in the production of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the Reuters news service reported.
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The Comics2Film Web site reported a rumor that Disney has given the green light to a feature film based on Matt Wagner's Mage comic series. An anonymous source told the site that the studio has given the go-ahead to Spyglass Entertainment to produce a film for release in 2003.
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Die Another Day, the 20th James Bond movie, will make its world premiere at the Royal Film Performance Nov. 18 in London, Variety reported. Either Queen Elizabeth or Prince Charles will attend the charity gala, a fund-raiser for the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, the trade paper reported.
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The Orlando Sentinel reported that Florida's Disney World-MGM Studios theme park will retrofit the motion-simulator Star Tours ride with an updated Star Wars film. The current film only features characters and scenes from the original trilogy, not the prequels, including the current Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones.
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The Comics2Film Web site reported that New Line Home Video will bring out new DVDs of the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, with the second and third titles in the franchise hitting store shelves on Sept. 3.
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The Lycos Web site reported a rumor that former The X-Files star Gillian Anderson will appear on ABC's The Practice next season.
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Universal Pictures Video Australia announced that it is postponing the planned June release of a Battlestar Galactica DVD box set until mid-2003.
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George Lucas reiterated to the Infobeat Web site that he has no intention of creating a third Star Wars trilogy once he's done with the upcoming Episode III. "I thought it might be fun to bring Carrie [Fisher] and Mark [Hamill] and Harrison [Ford] back when they're 65 and make another movie with them," Lucas said. "But I'm going to be over 60 when I finish this, and it takes 10 years to do a trilogy. I'm not going to spend my last 10 years doing Star Wars."
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Yale University awarded director Steven Spielberg an honorary doctorate on May 27, the Associated Press reported. The honor comes only a few weeks after the director completed the requirements for his bachelor's degree from California State University, Long Beach, more than 30 years after he dropped out.
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A new trailer has gone live for the upcoming SF movie Simone, starring Al Pacino as a producer who creates a computer-generated actress. Simone opens Aug. 16.
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The Schwarzenegger Interactive Web site has posted spy photos from the production of the upcoming Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
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George Lucas told MTV.com that he is at work on a fourth Indiana Jones movie, as previously reported. "I'm working on a story right now," Lucas said. "I've got something that both Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford like." Lucas added that a writer will be hired soon, with production slated to begin the year after next.
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