Dushku Back In Buffy?
uffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon told a crowd at Comic-Con International in San Diego that Eliza Dushku had finally found time in her schedule to reprise the role of Faith next year, the Ain't It Cool News Web site reported.
Whedon also reportedly said that Anya (Emma Caulfield) will sing again in a flashback to last season's musical episode "Once More With Feeling."
TV Guide Online, meanwhile, offered several spoilers for the upcoming season, many of which have already been reported on SCI FI Wire in recent months. Among the new spoilers:
•George Hertzberg (Adam) will reappear, along with other familiar villains from the past, "for a very particular reason that I will not explain to you," Whedon told the site.
•Willow (Alyson Hannigan) may get a new girlfriend. "That's something I'm not going to comment on," Whedon said. "But it's definitely a possibility."
Benson Addresses Buffy Tiff
mber Benson, who played the ill-fated Tara in last season's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, talked with Zap2it about the vocal reaction to her character's death among lesbian fans of the UPN series.
Many lesbian fans were outraged that the Tara-Willow love affair ended in tragedy.
"I know, I know," Benson told the site. "A friend of mine is a lesbian, and we went to a lesbian bar with her right after it happened. I swear to you, this woman came over, and she was almost in tears. She was almost hysterical. 'I can't believe you're dead!' She was really broken up about it. I felt so bad, because I didn't know what to say. It definitely was not my choice, but I felt it was the right thing to do, just for the show. That was the only thing that would destroy Willow. So I understood, storywise, that it needed to happen. She couldn't have just been maimed, right? It wouldn't have worked."
Benson added, "It did last three seasons," referring to Tara's relationship with Willow. "Buffy can't seem to keep them. Xander and Anya are at each other's throats all the time. Maybe [Buffy's sister] Dawn will have a good relationship, I don't know. That's life. Life is like that. You can't expect the happy to be it, because without the crappy stuff, you can't understand how truly amazing the happy stuff is." Benson has been rumored to have a part in Buffy's upcoming seventh season, but declined to answer any questions about it.
Buffy Game Ready
lectronic Arts announced that its long-awaited Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game is ready to ship and will reach retailers on Aug. 19, the GameSpot Web site reported.
The game, developed by The Collective for the Xbox gaming platform, is based on the hit UPN series of the same name.
The Buffy video game is a third-person actioner that places the emphasis on combat. Players take the role of Buffy to battle vampires and other enemies in both armed and unarmed combat.
Mohr Previews Pluto Nash
ay Mohr, who co-stars with Eddie Murphy in the upcoming SF comedy film The Adventures of Pluto Nash, told SCI FI Wire that he plays a Sinatra-like lounge singer in Murphy's nightclub on the moon.
"My wife is a clone," Mohr said in an interview. "I have two wives, and they're identical twins. Somebody asks me if I married twins, and I say, 'No, I met the perfect woman, and I had her cloned.' He says, 'How do you tell which one is the original?' and I say, 'Who cares?'"
Mohr added, "It's very SF. Anytime we travel through a scene, there's a futuristic look. People are going by on jet packs. Even though it's set in the future, my character is pretty Rat Pack-ish, with a martini in the hand, in a bathrobe after a show, receiving people in his elaborate dressing room. So even though it's the year 3000, I was pretending it was 1958 and we were at The Sands."
The actor, whose genre credits include Black River, Small Soldiers and an episode of TV's Night Visions, also defended Pluto Nash against the negative buzz that resulted from repeated delays of the film's release. "There are three or four actors—Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams—where it's either Christmas or summer," Mohr said. "If you're in the Eddie Murphy business, why would you put Pluto Nash up against Dr. Doolittle 2? You don't want two Eddie Murphy movies going head to head. Do I think [Pluto Nash] is The Deer Hunter? No. Do I think it's Eight Legged Freaks? No, also. Do I think it's somewhere in the middle and enjoyable for a lot of people? Yes." The Adventures of Pluto Nash opens nationwide on Aug. 16.
Sansweet Talks Episode II DVD
ucasfilm spokesman Steve Sansweet told a Comic-Con audience that the upcoming DVD of Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones will include eight deleted scenes, but that those scenes will not be incorporated into the film.
Sansweet also told the San Diego conventioneers that the film's digital version, which was created for digital theatrical projection, will form the basis of the DVD master, the official Star Wars Web site reported.
In other Star Wars news, Sansweet confirmed that there would be a Celebration III convention in 2005, but did not specify where it will be held.
Jackman Not In Episode III
tar Wars: Episode III producer Rick McCallum, clearing up an earlier misunderstanding, denied rumors that X-Men star Hugh Jackman will appear in Episode III.
McCallum has been misinterpreted as having said Jackman will make an appearance.
But in answer to a question on the official Star Wars Web site, McCallum said, "No, we haven't spoken to him. I've heard the recordings on the 'net of a fan asking me that question at Celebration II in Indianapolis. What happened was that I couldn't hear the question, even when he repeated it, and the moderator said to me, 'I think he's asking about Sio Bibble [Oliver Ford Davies], so I replied, 'Yes, as of now,' or something like that. I didn't realize he was asking about Hugh Jackman. That's a question I misunderstood."
Hu Exults Over X2
elly Hu, who appears in the upcoming X-Men sequel X2, told SCI FI Wire that the original cast and crew have made her feel welcome as a newcomer.
"You would think it would be [difficult], because everybody sort of made relationships and everybody's sort of done it already," Hu said in an interview. "But they've been very welcoming and very friendly, so I don't really feel like an outsider at all. They've been really nice with me."
Hu will play Anne Reynolds, a character who eventually becomes Lady Deathstrike, in the second feature-film adaptation of the Marvel Comics series. Regarding her costume for the film, Hu said, "You would think that I would be dieting, but I'm not." But the Scorpion King actress could barely contain her excitement about commencing her portion of the film shoot. "I'm looking forward to working with some of the best cast and crew there are," she said. "I mean, these people are absolutely amazing. [Director] Bryan Singer showed one of the trailers at Comic-Con this weekend, and it was absolutely amazing. I was floored, and I'm in it." X2 is slated for a May 2, 2003, release.
Singer Teases X2
ryan Singer, director of the upcoming X-Men sequel film, told SCI FI Wire that a few new mutants will appear in the movie, a few old ones will not, and a new villain will emerge, played by veteran character actor Brian Cox.
In a spoilery interview at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, Singer said, "Young Pyro is in it, with young Bobby Drake [as] Iceman [and] ... Nightcrawler." Singer told a Comic-Con audience that Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) will have the blue skin and pointed ears of his comic character, with scars from his past in the circus.
As for the film's chief nemesis, Singer said in an interview, Cox "plays a character named William Stryker, but he's ... not a religious figure. He's a military guy. So he's kind of a couple of characters combined. But he has a history with ... a lot of the characters. He's a human nemesis from their past. They all know him. They remember. He was there. When they were emerging, he was emerging, in his own way." Cox is best known for playing Hannibal Lecter in 1986's Manhunter.
Characters that didn't make the cut include Jubilee, Toad (played in the first film by Ray Park) and Sabretooth (Tyler Mane). Gambit makes an appearance, "but not as a [main] character," Singer said. Storm, played by newly minted Oscar-winner Halle Berry, will have a lot more to do, he added. "Oh, yeah. She brought the gold statue and said, 'I want more,'" he joked.
Singer unveiled a new trailer for the film at Comic-Con, featuring Professor X (Patrick Stewart) playing chess with Magneto (Ian McKellen) in his plastic prison, a commando raid on the Xavier School, a shot of Pyro (Aaron Stanford) demonstrating his fire powers, and glimpses of fighting Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). The trailer proved popular with the fans, who asked that it be run twice.
Singer said in an interview that production has just started on X2. "We've shot for about a month, so we've got another ... three, three and a half months to go," he said. Like the first movie, the sequel will have a subtext about discrimination and the costs of hate. "That factors into it a bit with the younger characters," he said. "There's something that happens in the film, where they end up ... hiding out in the home of one of the ... students. And something happens there, so we explore that a bit. The theme of this is ... [from] the human perspective. The ... kind of blind rage that feeds warmongering, terrorism, things like that. And it's from a human perspective." X2 is slated for release May 2, 2003.
Cage To Sell Rare Comics
ctor Nicolas Cage, an avid comic-book fan and collector, will auction his rare-comic collection, EW.com reported.
Cage—who was born Nicolas Coppola, but assumed a stage name based on obscure Marvel Comics hero Luke Cage—has a collection that includes an issue of Action Comics No. 1, the first comic featuring a red-and-blue-clad character named Superman.
Cage will sell the collection at this fall's Dallas ComiCon, the Associated Press reported. Heritage Comics Auctions will handle the auction of Cage's 400 comics, which also include the first appearances of Batman, Captain America and Green Lantern.
British Fantasy Nods Announced
inal nominees were announced for the British Fantasy Awards 2002, honoring works published in 2001.
The awards will be announced Sept. 21 at Fantasycon 2002 in London. A full list of nominees follows.
Best Novel (The August Derleth Fantasy Award)
•Always Forever by Mark Chadbourn
•The Night of the Triffids by Simon Clark
•American Gods by Neil Gaiman
•Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
•Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce
Best Anthology
•Futures, Peter Crowther, ed.
•The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: 14th Annual Collection, Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, eds.
•The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: Volume 12, Stephen Jones, ed.
•The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women, Stephen Jones, ed.
•Phantoms of Venice, David Sutton, ed.
Best Collection
•Aftershocks by Paul Finch
•The Conan Chronicles Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard
•As the Sun Goes Down by Tim Lebbon
•London Bone by Michael Moorcock
•Magic Terror by Peter Straub
Best Short Fiction
•"Goblin City Lights" by Simon Clark
•"Black Dust" by Graham Joyce
•"Telling the Tale" by Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis
•"Diamond Dogs" by Alastair Reynolds
•"Nearly People" by Conrad Williams
Best Artist
•Poppy Alexander
•Jim Burns
•Simon Duric
•Les Edwards
•Edward Miller
Best Small Press
•The Alien Online
•Dark Horizons
•PS Publishing
•Telos Publishing
•The Third Alternative
Mythopoeic Winners Named
inners were announced for the Mythopoeic Awards, honoring fantasy literature and scholarship.
This year's awards were announced at a banquet during Mythcon XXXIII, which took place in Boulder, Colo., July 26-29. A full list of winners follows.
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, Adult Literature
•The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, Children's Literature
•The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies
•Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on the History of Middle-earth, Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter, eds.
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies
•The Owl, the Raven and the Dove by G. Ronald Murphy
Tunes Back In Action
enna Elfman will star opposite Brendan Fraser in Warner Brothers' upcoming Looney Tunes: Back in Action, to be directed by Joe Dante, Variety reported.
In the film, the animated Looney Tunes characters move through a live-action world that takes them from Hollywood to Las Vegas to Africa in search of a mythical blue diamond.
Tunes is now in production and is targeted for a November 2003 release. Larry Doyle (The Simpsons) wrote the script.
Farscape Game On Sale
arscape: The Game, a PC game based on the SCI FI Channel's original series Farscape, arrived in stores this week, Simon & Schuster Interactive announced.
The game was developed in association with Jim Henson Interactive, a division of The Jim Henson Co., which produces the series.
The game is a character-driven, team-based, fully 3-D action game played from an isometric perspective. The company also launched an official game Web site.
In the game, Moya is attacked and boarded by a Peacekeeper strike force while in orbit around a desert planet. Though several of Crichton's friends are still trapped aboard the occupied ship, he escapes with Chiana, and the duo embarks on an epic adventure while trying to reunite with their crew and free Moya. The game features the voices of series actors Ben Browder (Crichton), Claudia Black (Aeryn Sun), Anthony Simcoe (D'Argo), Gigi Edgley (Chiana), Lani Tupu (Crais/Pilot) and Jonathan Hardy (Rygel XVI).
Farscape airs on SCI FI at 10 p.m. ET/PT as part of SCI FI Fridays.
Halo 2 Coming To Xbox
icrosoft announced that it will publish Halo 2, a sequel to its hit SF video game Halo, in time for the 2003 holiday season.
Bungie Studios will develop the sequel for Microsoft's Xbox gaming system.
Halo 2, a first-person shooter game, is a full sequel to the best-selling original and will continue the story of the Master Chief, a genetically enhanced supersoldier who is the only man who has successfully defied the Covenant, a coalition of alien races on a murderous march toward Earth, the company said. In the sequel, the Master Chief and his marine allies return to battle the full complement of Covenant forces, as well as new enemies who have not yet revealed themselves. Halo 2 will be playable as a single-player game or online, through Xbox Live.
Halo: Combat Evolved, the first game, reached the 1-million-units-sold mark faster than any other Xbox game in North America and was named game of the year by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, Electronic Gaming Monthly and IGN.com, Microsoft said.
Penguin Releasing 007 Books
enguin will release new editions of Ian Fleming's classic James Bond novels in the United States, starting on Aug. 27 with "retro package" releases of Goldfinger, Doctor No and Casino Royale.
Eventually, the publisher will release all of Fleming's Bond books.
Casino Royale is the first of Fleming's Bond novels, in which 007 battles Le
Chiffre, a French communist and paymaster of the Soviet murder organization
SMERSH. In Doctor No, Bond travels to the Caribbean to investigate the mysterious
disappearance of a secret service team. And in Goldfinger, Bond comes face to face with the evil genius Auric Goldfinger, who is planning to steal all the gold in Fort Knox.
Mage Knight Books Due
allantine Books announced a deal with game publisher WizKids to create a line of books based on WizKids' Mage Knight fantasy game.
Ballantine's Del Rey imprint bought the rights to publish original paperback novels based on the collectible-miniatures game.
Mage Knight was released on Nov. 1, 2000, and sold more than 40 million miniature figurines in the first 14 months, Ballantine said. The game combines sword-and-sorcery and steampunk elements with stories of intrigue, mystery and betrayal among warlords, magicians and temptresses.
Del Rey will publish six paperback novels based on the game—three in 2003 and three in 2004. The first, Rebel Thunder by Bill McCay, comes out in June 2003, followed by Dark Debts by Doranna Durgin in August 2003.
Future Law Series Pitched
scar-nominated writer Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show) is pairing with Ed Zuckerman (Law & Order) to create a futuristic legal drama that's being pursued by at least two networks, Variety reported.
The Universal Network Television series is a legal drama set in the year 2053 and will explore stories through the prism of an American legal system that has evolved 50 years hence, the trade paper reported.
ABC and CBS are said to be the most interested parties, though NBC has also been pitched the idea by exec producers Attanasio, Zuckerman and Katie Jacobs, the trade paper reported. Zuckerman will write the pilot.
Universal Network Television is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Del Toro Eyes Creature?
he IGN FilmForce Web site is reporting a rumor that Guillermo del Toro (Blade II) will direct a remake of the classic monster movie The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
Universal Pictures is remaking the 1954 classic film, the site reported.
The site reported that del Toro has clinched a deal with the studio, but that it has not been announced officially because del Toro is tied up with Hellboy for the next couple of years and has several other films in various stages of development.
Universal Pictures is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Mile Zero In From Cold
hoenix Pictures is developing Holly Brix's horror-thriller spec script Mile Zero, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie tells the story of a young woman's efforts to clear her father's name in a string of gruesome murders at a remote Alaskan oil facility by trying to prove that the place is haunted, the trade paper reported.
Phoenix vice president of production Brad Fischer will oversee the film for the company. Management-production company Benderspink is in talks to executive produce, the trade paper reported.
Reality Informs The Core
scar-winning actress Hilary Swank, star of the upcoming SF thriller film The Core, told SCI FI Wire that she took the role of a space-shuttle pilot because of the more realistic aspects of the story.
"I haven't done a science-fiction movie before," she said in an interview, following a panel discussion of The Core at Comic-Con International in San Diego. "I like science-fiction movies, but I never really saw myself being drawn
to them artistically as an actor, because there wasn't necessarily things in them that I could really relate to. And I felt that the writing in this made it a really real story. So all the kinds of special effects that go along with it are something that could really conceivably happen."
Swank added that she was also drawn to the part for the chance to fulfill a childhood dream
of becoming an astronaut. "I wanted to be an astronaut my whole life, even before I wanted to be an actor," she said. "So I was really all over this from the beginning, saying, 'I've got to be in this. I want to be an astronaut.'" After filming, Swank sent her parents a still photograph from the set, with a caption that read, "Looks like I got to be an astronaut after all. At least for a few hours."
The Core depicts the ramifications of a shift in the rotation of the Earth's core. Swank's character leads an elite team of experts in a specially designed ship to the center of the Earth in an attempt to correct the problem and save humanity. Swank described an
early scene showing why her character was chosen for the historic mission. "When the
electromagnetic field around the core [of the Earth] stops, lots of different things start
happening on Earth," she said. "It throws us off target when we're coming back to Earth in our spaceship. So when we come out, we're not on course, and we're not going to land where we're supposed to land. All of a sudden we have to find another place to land and hopefully not crash the space shuttle, but also not kill a bunch of people on Earth. So my character—and I love that she's so smart because this is something I could never do
myself—comes up with this amazing formulaic [solution]."
Swank said she would like to do more science fiction projects in the future, but only if the script and characters are as well drawn and believable as they were in The Core. "It has special effects, but it also transcends the special effects, and there's people that you relate to," she said. "And to me, that's what I'm always trying to find when I'm
playing a role. It's like, can I relate to these characters? Is this something that I can go through? Is this conceivable? And it absolutely is." The Core is scheduled to open in November.
Cameron Previews Solaris
ames Cameron, producer of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming SF remake film Solaris, screened a first-ever look at the unconventional movie, which stars George Clooney, to an audience at Comic-Con International in San Diego.
The clip, which ran more than five minutes, depicted a spacesuited Clooney following a trail of blood through a deserted stainless steel space station, entering what looks like a refrigerated morgue and opening a couple of body bags.
Audience reaction to the moody clip was muted, but Cameron told the crowd that he agreed to the project because it was "too intriguing a possibility to pass up to see what Steven would do with that material. ... He's done something I think is pretty phenomenal."
Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven) is helming the remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's classic 1972 Russian-language SF movie of the same name, based on Polish author Stanislaw Lem's SF novel. Clooney plays a psychologist who arrives on the troubled space station Prometheus, which is orbiting the planet Solaris, and encounters mysterious phenomena. Cameron said that Soderbergh has "made a film where you go to the edge of the known universe and confront yourself." Solaris, which also stars Natascha McElhone, is slated to open Nov. 27.
Passions Star Evans Dies
osh Ryan Evans, the diminutive actor who played Timmy on NBC's supernatural soap opera Passions, died Aug. 5 at a San Diego hospital from complications stemming from a longtime congenital heart condition, NBC announced.
He was 20.
Evans' final on-air appearance on Passions was Aug. 5. Future episodes will be edited to remove any scenes with Evans' character, the network said.
Evans, who was 3 feet 2 inches tall, was diagnosed at an early age with achondroplasia, a rare genetic disease that prevented his body from maturing, according to his official Web site. He starred in Passions since its debut in 1999, playing a doll who comes to life and who lives with Tabitha the witch (Juliet Mills). Evans previously appeared in other television shows, did voice-over work and played supporting roles in feature films, including Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas, in which he played the Grinch as a child, his site reported.
Evans is survived by his mother, Cheryl; his father, Chuck; his older brother, James Evans; and his grandparents Belle and Gene Riding. At the family's request, donations may be sent in Evans' name to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in lieu of flowers.
Kingdom Comes Next Month
ingdom Hearts, a role-playing video game featuring more than 100 Disney characters, will ship to retailers on Sept. 17, Square Electronic Arts and Disney Interactive announced.
The PlayStation 2 game features the voice of Haley Joel Osment (A.I. Artificial Intelligence) as Sora, a 14-year-old boy who joins forces with Donald Duck and Goofy to find the King of Disney Castle. In the course of the game, players journey into multiple Disney worlds and interact with familiar Disney characters.
Other voice talent includes David Gallagher, Hayden Panettiere, Sean Astin, Lance Bass, David Boreanaz, Mandy Moore, Christy Romano, Steve Burton and Billy Zane. Kingdom Hearts features a real-time battle system, the companies said.
Lee Catches A Dream
ason Lee, who plays Beaver in Lawrence Kasdan's upcoming SF film Dreamcatcher, told SCI FI Wire that he had to contend with unaccustomed special effects while shooting the Stephen King adaptation.
"I worked mainly on stages in Vancouver," Lee said in an interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego. "I was already used to being up there, because I was working on another movie right before that. It was pretty easy, except for the bathroom scene, because I get all sorts of attacked and bloodied up. And that was kind of brutal. That was a few days of that. But it was great. It was a good time. ... I had lots of fake stuff being puppeteered and lots of fake blood running down my body all the time, and it would harden, and I'd have to eat lunch, you know, very robotically. They did a really good job."
In Dreamcatcher, Lee (Almost Famous) plays a member of a group of Maine small-town friends who get together once a year for a hunting reunion, only to encounter a sinister force in the woods. "I play Joe Clarendon, aka Beaver, a little bit like my character in Mumford, but possibly a little bit slower," Lee said. "Not too slow, but big-hearted, has his own sayings, doesn't really get upset, loves everyone and loves Buddy Holly. Hence the glasses and hair and toothpick in the mouth at all times. Good character. He was supposed to have long hair, but I had the idea that I thought he would be into the '50s and like that kind of music, and so I e-mailed [director] Larry Kasdan, and I said, 'I want to go with a Buddy Holly thing.' And he said, 'OK.' And it worked. So it was kind of fun."
While his cast mates, including Morgan Freeman, Timothy Olyphant and Tom Sizemore, had to shoot outdoors in midwinter in Prince George, B.C., Lee managed to escape the Canadian snow. "Fortunately, I didn't have to work up in Prince George," he said. "It was a nightmare. It was minus a lot [laughs]."
Lee promised that Dreamcatcher would please both fans of Kasdan (The Big Chill) and King. "Larry Kasdan is a great writer, and William Goldman. ... Yeah, it was solid. And I think Larry kind of needed to do a movie like that. Because it had the friendship plot line to it, and it had that level realism to it, in the midst of chaos and bluescreens and puppets and things. So I think he's the exception of someone who can do a big kind of special-effects movie, but maintain the humanity ... with the characters. It's like directing two different movies. It's like directing a Big Chill in the midst of directing a big, suspense effects movie, and he can handle both very well, so it was impressive." Dreamcatcher is slated for a 2003 release.
Phillippe Eyes I Inside
yan Phillippe, star of the upcoming independent SF film The I Inside, told SCI FI Wire that the movie is a mystery dealing with parallel universes.
"A guy wakes up in a hospital with amnesia, doesn't know what year it is, is told that he has a wife, that he killed his brother and that someone is trying to kill him," Phillippe said in an interview. "Then you're trying to figure out throughout the whole movie how this happened, and it jumps back and forth between two different realities: the year 2000 and the year 2002. You have to figure out which is real and which isn't."
Phillippe considers the film his best work, because "I got to do things and go places that I haven't on film before," he said. "It's a descent into madness very much like the [Jack] Nicholson character in The Shining, so it's a fun, losing-your-mind trip. This character offered every range of emotion within it, and the script was so weird and original. It feels like something Kubrick or Hitchcock would have done." The I Inside is produced by MDP Worldwide, but has no release date yet. Phillippe wrapped filming in July.
Sarandon Boycotts Rocky Horror
usan Sarandon, one of the original stars of the cult 1975 SF movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, told SCI FI Wire that she wants nothing to do with a proposed remake—not even a cameo.
"I'm boycotting the Rocky Horror Picture Show organization," she said in an interview. "They should have shared some of the wealth from Rocky Horror. For me, it's the principle of the thing. There are other people involved with that movie who need some money, and they should spread it out a little bit. It's been a golden egg for the longest time, and it's the least they could do."
The last straw for Sarandon was when the producers asked her to participate in the DVD special edition. "I'll let you in on a secret," she said. "When they did the DVD, and they asked me to do the voice-over [commentary], I said, 'How about giving people some money? You could throw a little money our way.' And they wouldn't, and I didn't, so they took an interview from VH1 that I had done for their anniversary show. I've done a lot of press for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, because I love the movie and I love the people, but they took that and put it on the DVD [instead]."
The Fox network will celebrate the 30th anniversary of Rocky Horror with The Rocky Horror Birthday Show, a two-hour movie to be produced by Fox TV Studios, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Birthday will air in February 2003, 30 years after Richard O'Brien first penned Rocky Horror as a play that ran in London, the trade paper reported.
Winston Enters Area 51
tan Winston Productions announced that it has secured the movie rights to the SF video game Area 51, which Midway Games is relaunching on PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube in 2004.
Winston's company will also serve in a lead creative capacity in the development of the game's main alien enemies, the company announced.
The game combines elements of precision sniper attacks and hand-to-hand combat and allows players to be one of three characters on missions to unlock the extraterrestrial mystery behind the top-secret Nevada military site. Winston is the four-time Oscar-winning visual-effects guru behind such films as Jurassic Park and the Terminator franchise.
Arnold Trains For T3
rnold Schwarzenegger, who reprises his most famous role in the upcoming sequel Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, told SCI FI Wire that he had no problem slipping back into the part of the T-800 cyborg, even though it's been more than 10 years since the last sequel.
"It was like putting on a comfortable shirt," Schwarzenegger said in an interview at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, where Fox previewed exclusive new footage of the upcoming film. "I mean, it's like it always feels great to get back into it again, and I somehow click into the character very quickly."
But the 55-year-old former Mr. Olympia admitted that he had to get back into shape to play himself as he appeared more than a decade ago. "The only thing I ever do is, you know, get going with my training again, because one of the things that you can't hide is when you arrive from the future to the present, ... you arrive naked," he said. "So you have to have the same body as you had in the first movie or the second movie, because otherwise you're not the same mold or the same kind of a robot. So the pressure is on. And [director] Jonathan [Mostow] said, 'I think you'd better gain some weight.' And I look a little slender today, you know? All this pressure [was] put on me. So I started going with the heavy workout again for the last six months. ... I love it. Whenever you have a reason for it, and you say, 'This day we're going to shoot this scene. For this week we're going to shoot these scenes.' In the middle of June or whatever it is. And [it's like] the Mr. Olympia competition is that day, and I'm going to train for that day, so that's what you do. You go on a diet again, and you eat more, and you train more. Instead of training at home, I ended up training in the gym much more, you know, with the guys again. And it was fun. ... I'm very fortunate, on the set I get enough time to train during lunchtime, because it's very important for me to train twice a day when I train heavier and harder. So we have an hour during lunch, which I take for working out. They have an exercise trailer on the set, where I have a chance to work out."
Terminator 3, which also stars Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken and Claire Danes, is currently shooting in and around Los Angeles, with an eye to a July 2, 2003, release.
Alias In Family Way
.J. Abrams, creator of ABC's hit spy series Alias, told SCI FI Wire that next season will see a new family dynamic, fewer cliffhangers and a few new faces.
"What's fun about the show is that ... mom's in town," Abrams said in an interview at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. "And with the mother [Laura Bristow, played by Lena Olin,] being around, it has a profound impact on Sydney [Jennifer Garner]; obviously on Sydney's father [Jack, played by Victor Garber], who was abandoned by this woman; and also on Sydney's CIA handler [Vaughn, played by Michael Vartan], whose father was killed by her mother. So you've got this woman showing up, suddenly affecting everyone in a huge way. There are a lot of great secrets, great mysteries revealed. And we're approaching this year from the point of view of, if you've never seen the show, this is the time to watch, because we're making the stories accessible, whether you've ever seen the show before or not."
Abrams added that the series may modify its trademark cliffhangers in each episode. "You don't have to have seen the week before to get into it," he said. "Our cliffhangers are going to be a little bit less. We'll still do some the way we did, but there will be a little bit less of the immediate life-and-death-moments kind of cliffhanger, and the episodes will be satisfying in and of themselves. But there will always be something, a little nugget, to intrigue you to watch next week."
As for new faces, Abrams said, "We're working on some really cool guest stars, new ones and return. ... I promise we're going to do everything we can to sort of outdo last year." And Abrams promised more revelations about Milo Rambaldi. "That's going to be a big part of what we're doing this year, but we're doing it in a slightly different way," he said. "But it'll absolutely be part of the show. And to me, it's the part that keeps Alias unique, in that it's a spy genre show with a little bit of sci-fi thrown in for fun, which I love. So we're definitely using that. It's an angle that I don't want to overdo, but I feel the sci-fi audience is so smart that a little bit actually goes a long way, and they don't need to be hit over the head with too much obvious stuff. And it's almost like a sexier way to approach it anyway." Alias returns for a second season in its 9 p.m. ET/PT Sunday timeslot, starting Sept. 29.
Freddy Vs. Jason A Go
onfirming months of rumors, New Line Cinema gave a green light to Freddy vs. Jason, which pits the villain of the Nightmare on Elm Street films against the nemesis from the Friday the 13th series, Variety reported.
Brad Renfro will star beside Robert Englund, who will reprise his Elm Street role of Freddy Krueger for the eighth time, the trade paper reported. The studio hasn't decided who will play Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th's hockey-masked serial killer, who has been played most recently by Kane Hodder.
Hong Kong director Ronny Yu (Bride of Chucky) will helm the film, which is slated to start shooting Sept. 9 in Vancouver, B.C. Mark Swift and Damian Shannon wrote the script, and longtime Friday the 13th producer Sean Cunningham will produce, Variety reported.
MGM Reaches Outer Limits
upert Wainwright will direct MGM's big-screen version of the 1960s SF anthology TV series The Outer Limits, Variety reported.
Wainwright previously helmed Stigmata for the studio, the trade paper reported.
Wainwright takes on a film that the studio hopes will lead to a feature franchise. Gerald Di Pego (Phenomenon) and sons Justin and Zachary wrote the script. Mark Victor and Michael Grais of Victor/Grais are producing The Outer Limits, along with Trilogy Entertainment's Pen Densham, Guy McElwaine and John Watson.
SF Trove Donated To University
Canadian family has donated upwards of 35,000 volumes of SF and pulp-fiction magazines from the last century to the University of Calgary, which officials say will be a boon to literary and pop-culture research, the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper reported.
The family of William Gibson (not the cyberpunk author), who died in 2001 at the age of 92, donated the collection, which includes magazines dating back to the 19th century, many bought at second-hand stores in North America and Britain, the newspaper reported.
"It spans the age of science and technology," retired English professor Susan Stratton told the newspaper. "In it we can study changes in perceptions of the role of women in society, the promises and threats of atomic power, of biotechnology."
The trove includes works by Jules Verne, almost-complete runs of pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and cyberpunk from the late 20th century.
Briefly Noted
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The OneRing.net fan site reported that Lawrence Makoare, who appeared as Lurtz in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, will return in the third film, The Return of the King, as the Witchking of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgúl.
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Djimon Hounsou (Gladiator) has been set to star opposite Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider 2 at Paramount, playing a Masai warrior who helps Lara Croft on another daring mission, Variety reported.
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Warner Brothers has updated official Web sites for its upcoming genre films The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which opens Aug. 16, and Feardotcom, which opens Aug. 30.
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Fangoria reported a rumor that Young Indiana Jones star Sean Patrick Flanery will join the cast of USA Network's supernatural series The Dead Zone, playing politician Greg Stillson in the season-finale episode, "Destiny." Stillson will be a recurring character in season two, the site added.
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The Charmed Ones fan Web site has posted what it says are spoilers for season five of The WB's witch series Charmed, which moves to a new Sunday 8 p.m. timeslot, starting Sept. 29.
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Dark Horizons reported a rumor that director Richard Linklater (Waking Life) has been tapped by producer/director Steven Soderbergh and his producing partner, actor George Clooney, at Section Eight to direct an animated version of Philip K. Dick's SF novel A Scanner Darkly. Bob Sabiston, Linklater's director of animation on Waking Life, is also reportedly attached to the project, which is in development.
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Paul Ben-Victor (SCI FI 's The Invisible Man) told SCI FI Wire that he will play a character named Jose Quesada in the upcoming Daredevil movie. Quesada "dies a pretty gruesome death" in the film, Ben-Victor said in an interview. "It was a little physical and a bit of a challenge."
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The first DVD release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring contains a 10-minute preview of the upcoming sequel, The Two Towers, including an interview with cast and crew and behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the epic. The DVD is on sale now; The Two Towers opens in theaters Dec. 18.
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Star Wars creator George Lucas has joined the board of governors of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts/Los Angeles, Variety reported. Lucas recently received BAFTA/LA's Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for excellence in film.
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EMI Music Publishing may sue AOL Time Warner, contending that it is illegally using songs from such classic MGM films as The Wizard of Oz for promotional spots and background music on America Online and Turner Broadcasting, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst won for best "lip lock" for their upside-down smooch in Spider-Man at the annual Teen Choice Awards held Aug. 4 in Los Angeles. Spider-Man was also voted favorite action film in the ceremony, which was taped for broadcast Aug. 19 on Fox, the Associated Press reported.
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Director James Cameron quashed a rumor that he might direct a feature-film adapation of Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four series. "The Fantastic Four rock, but I don't have any plans to do it," Cameron told an audience at the Comic-Con International in San Diego.
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Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro told an audience at Comic-Con International in San Diego that his upcoming adaptation of Mike Mignola's comic is based primarily on the first series of books, as well as Mignola's original, unpublished backstory notes, according to a report on the Dark Horizons Web site.
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The Darren Aronofsky News Web site debunked a rumor that Johnny Depp will appear in Aronofsky's upcoming SF thriller film The Fountain.
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Trailers for the upcoming supernatural horror film The Ring have gone online in small, medium and large formats. The official Web site for the DreamWorks movie, a remake of the hit Japanese movie, has also been updated. The Ring opens Oct. 18.
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