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October 21, 2002

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August 19, 2002

Hopkins Confirmed As Jor-El

irector Brett Ratner, who is tapped to helm a new Superman movie, confirmed to the Dark Horizons Web site that Anthony Hopkins will play the Man of Steel's Kryptonian dad, Jor-El. "He did such a good Brando impression for me, I said I got to get this guy to play the father of Superman," Ratner said, referring to Marlon Brando, who played Jor-El in 1978's original Superman movie.

Ratner added that Hopkins signed on two weeks ago. Ratner said that no one is under consideration for the title role yet, despite speculation to the contrary. As for the script, which is being blasted on the Internet, Ratner said, "I trust my instincts. ... A script is a script. It's not a movie. It's my interpretation of it, and I think they're reading like old drafts or something. I just got the new draft yesterday. That was hand-delivered by, like, a guy with a gun."

X2 Actors Get Blue

lan Cumming, who plays the mutant Nightcrawler in the upcoming X-Men sequel film, X2, told SCI FI Wire that it wasn't easy being blue. "Mentally, it's very difficult," Cumming said during a press conference on the sequel's Vancouver, B.C., location, referring to his makeup sessions. "I just have to get up really early. ... I have lovely, lovely makeup people ... who do it. And you just have to kind of get into a zone, where you don't mind grown men poking at your face for four hours and spraying you and stuff. And sometimes I watch films in the mirror. But it's quite hard if they're subtitled."

Cumming's character is a blue, tailed mutant from the Marvel comics. Unlike that character, the film version of Nightcrawler is covered with hieratic tattoos, which required elaborate makeup of their own. "I rue the day, actually. ... I was the one who actually said, 'No, let's go with the tattoos! They look really great,'" Cumming said. "And now they take a long, long time every morning to get stuck on. So I'm hoping maybe that if there's a sequel, that some strange mutant accident can have taken place, and Nightcrawler will have no tattoos and be white."

As for Nightcrawler's signature pointed tail, he said, "sometimes I'm wearing it, and sometimes I'm not. Because sometimes it's done afterwards [as computer animation]. ... I've a harness thing, and there's various tails of different consistency of boinginess. ... If I don't have the true tail, I have this little stub thing, with little kind of dots on it for the special-effects people to be able to do things afterwards. And that's quite popular with the ladies. And the gentlemen as well."

Cumming isn't the only blue creature in the movie, of course. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos reprises the role of the indigo shapeshifter Mystique. This time, however, Romijn-Stamos said she hasn't gotten sick from her full-body makeup. "The process has gotten a lot better," she said at the press conference. "We're not using the same kind of paint. We're not using the same kind of glue. They've completely changed the process. We've gotten it down to under four hours now, which is huge for me. But I've had a few 2 a.m. calls, we're still working on that. And the cleanup is a lot better. Yeah, I don't get sick like I got last time. But I still have blue in my ears [laughs]." X2 is in production with an eye to a May 2003 release.

X2 Sets Revealed

uy Hendrix Dyas, production designer on the upcoming X-Men sequel, X2, offered SCI FI Wire a glimpse of the massive sets used in the Vancouver, B.C., production, including the underground lair of the villainous Stryker (Brian Cox) and the interior of the revamped X-Jet. The lair set occupies a 113,000-square-foot former Sears warehouse that is now the largest soundstage in North America, Dyas said in an interview.

The lair set represents the interior of an underground military complex under a dam at Alkali Lake in Alberta, Canada, where Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) was headed at the end of the first X-Men film. It consists of 45-foot-diameter circular doors at the end of a 60-foot spillway pipe; a cavernous "loading bay" beyond the doors, complete with military vehicles; yards of concrete-and-steel corridors winding away from the bay; cylindrical "concrete" holding cells with domed roofs; an arched "control room"; and the setting for the film's ultimate battles: an immense, cylindrical "augmentation room," faced with tile and overhung with concrete beams. In the center of the chamber is a human-sized iron-and-glass tank, connected to an adamantium kiln; off the central chamber is an operating room, a morgue and an X-ray wall. The entire complex is completely interconnected, allowing director Bryan Singer to shoot tracking shots and follow his actors as they run and fight throughout the complex. "Because this place was underground, it seemed really natural to start looking at sort of old bunkers and some of the bunker architecture of the second World War," Dyas said of the set's design concept. "And a lot of these forms come from that: very crude, simplistic, square forms easily made in concrete. Bryan had an idea that this facility was perhaps originally made in the late '40s for an unknown function, and then was re-inhabited by our villain recently to use for his dastardly deeds."

As for the X-Jet, Dyas has enlarged and streamlined the look of the interior from the first film. In hues of light blue, light gold and metallic silver, Dyas has built an aircraft interior that recalls styles of the early 1960s and the organic shapes of the designers Charles and Ray Eames and Ross Lovegrove. "Really, it was a total redesign," Dyas said. "Because they had, I think, four seats in the first film and sort of a thrown-together cockpit, which worked really well. But it just didn't hold for a really long shot. ... [In X2,] we're in this jet so much, they needed to have things that you could look at for a long time and find them believable. So the level of detail and such is much higher."

Jackman Sister Goofed In X2

ugh Jackman, who reprises the role of Wolverine in the upcoming X-Men sequel, X2, told SCI FI Wire that his look-alike sister, Sonya, played a prank on director Bryan Singer by donning Jackman's Wolverine costume and makeup for one spoof take on the set. "It was funny for me, until I actually saw it," Jackman said at a press conference on the sequel's set in Vancouver, B.C. "And then, it's really weird. I can't look at my sister anymore. We look remarkably similar."

Sonya, wearing Wolverine's signature hair, sideburns and tank-top, stepped in front of the cameras unbeknownst to Singer, who was watching the action on a TV monitor. "I thought it was Hugh making some creepy face, and [that he had] lost an incredible amount of weight," Singer said during the press conference. "Until it was over, I had no idea. ... They have the same facial structure. And then they put that [makeup] and the hair and the tank top."

"I have breasts, yeah," Jackman joked.

"It was the most disturbing moment," Singer affirmed.

Afterwards, the two "Wolverines" posed together for a picture. "My son looked at the photo and said, 'Ah, two dadas,'" Jackman said with a laugh. X2 is currently in production for a May 2003 release.

Singer Talks X2

ryan Singer, director of the upcoming X-Men sequel, X2, told SCI FI Wire that the film will give more screen time to each character, as well as to new characters such as Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore). "I solved that," Singer said during a press conference from the set of the film in Vancouver, B.C. "It'll be a longer movie. And that way, everyone will get the same amount of time."

Singer added, "Oddly enough, with all the characters and a bit of splintering that happens in terms of locations where people end up and how they come apart [and] come together, it's ... very evenly spaced, so to speak. ... I think that certain characters that weren't utilized as much in the last film will emerge a great deal more in this film, and then the new characters. ... Every character serves the story at any given time, so ... I have no tally in my head. Sometimes certain characters that have more lines have less screen time, and vice versa."

Singer said that he's a little more free in the sequel to tell a story, though he understands that audiences will expect more. "It's kind of necessary, because I think people are going to see a sequel, and they ... don't want to simply see a continuation of ... exactly what they've seen before. They want to see ... an evolution. So you want to improve upon it, make it better. The benefit here is not to be saddled with introducing a new universe to an audience that may not be familiar with it. Introducing 12 new characters. ... The characters are already introduced, so it's a great opportunity to now have fun with them. And the few new characters that are going to be introduced in this film, one can do with ... less exposition and have more fun with. ... So it's actually a lot easier. The pressure is, you know, you want to make it bigger. More spectacular. Fortunately, we have a little more time, a couple more dollars, and everybody knows what they're doing a little better." X2 is still in production in Vancouver and is slated for a May 2003 release.

Berry Storms Into X2

resh off her Oscar win, Halle Berry told SCI FI Wire that her new status hasn't affected the dynamics among her and other cast members of the upcoming X-Men sequel film, X2. "Do you know how sick of it they are [of the Oscar talk]?" she said during a press conference on the film's Vancouver, B.C., set. "But, no, I didn't bring it. And nothing else changed, honestly. No. Nothing, as far as this production goes. One of the good things about coming back to this, with Oscar in hand or not, is that ... when you start a movie, the first month is spent getting to know everybody. And just when you get to know everybody, the experience is usually over. Although that wasn't the case in the first X-Men—that was six months. But normally, just when you're finding that groove, and you're all starting to gel, then it's time to stop. And we got a chance to just reconvene and sort of pick up where we left off. And so that's been a really fun ... part of the experience, for me."

Berry returns as Storm, the platinum-haired mutant with powers over weather. Her character gets more screen time in this film, as well as a new hairdo. "I think everybody's happy with the hair change," she said of her longer, shaggier cut. "There was a big, big discussion about the hair, because I know [director] Bryan [Singer] and Lauren Shuler Donner, our producer, wanted to really get it right, because they felt like that was something that really desperately needed to be changed from the first movie. So hopefully everybody will like it better. And I think my character ... this time around, you do get to learn a little bit more about who Storm is. She definitely is allowed to present a point of view this time that I didn't get to present last time. Sort of what her emotional life is like. You know, you get a taste of that ... this time. So I think there's some evolution." X2, which is currently in production, is slated for a May 2003 release.

X-Men Game Available

ctivision has released X-Men: Next Dimension, a video game for the PlayStation 2 gaming platform and the Nintendo GameCube, Marvel Comics announced. Now available in North American retail outlets, X-Men: Next Dimension is a fighting game that features more than 20 mutants battling across 3-D levels, with interactive environments and combat-induced damage, the publisher reported.

X-Men: Next Dimension starts with Bastion, the leader of Operation: Zero Tolerance, and his Prime Sentinels, who kidnap Forge and plan to use his powers to create the ultimate weapon to annihilate mutants once and for all. To battle them, the X-Men team up with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants.

X-Men: Next Dimension carries a suggested retail price of $49.99. The game will be available later this month for the Xbox video game system.

Romijn-Stamos Discovers Godsend

ebecca Romijn-Stamos told SCI FI Wire that she will join the cast of the upcoming cloning film Godsend after completing work on X2, the sequel to X-Men. "It's about a couple who loses their 8-year-old son, and this doctor offers to clone their son for them, and they do it," Romijn-Stamos said in an interview. "It's a horror movie. It's creepy."

Robert De Niro will play the scientist, and Greg Kinnear will play her husband. Romijn-Stamos said the horror element comes out of the potential realism of the situation. "I don't want to give anything away, but [the clone] starts getting weird," she said. "It's about human cloning, so it's kind of timely and real, because it could actually happen, so it's scary." Nick Hamm will direct the production in Toronto.

Romijn-Stamos is reprising the role of the blue-skinned mutant Mystique in X2, which is currently in production.

Buffy To End This Year?

uffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon told TV Guide Online that the current season may indeed be the show's last. "I'm beginning to suspect that it may be [Buffy's] last season," he told the site. "Nothing's official, but it's starting to feel possible. The way people are talking, there's a finality to it."

Buffy's ratings have dropped 16 percent over last year, the site reported. But Whedon said that his feeling isn't driven by the numbers. "I never check Buffy's ratings," he said. "It doesn't really affect me. It may affect the network."

Star Sarah Michelle Gellar's contract expires in May, and Gellar has expressed ambivalence about continuing, TV Guide reported. Eliza Dushku will reprise her role as bad-girl slayer Faith at season's end, and speculation is that Dushku could step in to head a spinoff series. "That possibility exists," Whedon said, adding, "It's one of many."

As for this season's story arc, Whedon said, "It doesn't really make a difference to me creatively, because I build every season to be self-contained. I do think where we're heading this year is kind of monumental. It's going to be a big finish in May, so that if it is the last season, that's great. And if it's not, if Buffy continues or some incarnation of Buffy continues, it will serve that as well. There's always more stories to tell."

Buffy Fans Benefit Hotline

ans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's lesbian couple, Willow and Tara, have raised more than $8,000 for The Trevor Project, a non-profit organization that runs a suicide hotline for gay youth. The fans, who post to the The Kitten, The Witches and The Bad Wardrobe Message Board, launched their initiative on Aug. 1.

Organizers say they were motivated to make the donation in the wake of the Buffy storyline that saw the death of Tara, played by Amber Benson.

Fans Find Buffy Stealth Site

hristopher Buchanan—president of Mutant Enemy, the production company behind UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer—told SCI FI Wire that alert fans quickly discovered a sly Web site connected with last week's seventh-season episode, "Help." In the episode, a Sunnydale High student, Cassie Newton (Azura Skye), put up a Web site with her poetry and artwork.

Producers of the show, at the urging of creator Joss Whedon, actually created Newton's site and posted it without fanfare on the Web, where it remains. The episode's writer, Rebecca Rand Kirshner, composed the poetry and created the art that appears on the site, based on her own teenage journals.

"Joss said, 'Well, could we put up a site, not affiliated with the official Buffy site or anything, but just, like, this is a teenage girl's site that she put up on Geocities. Very simple,'" Buchanan said in an interview. "And we didn't really publicize it. There was no link on the Buffy site. It was just kind of something we did for fun. Three of the writers were having a chat on one of the fan sites and mentioned just to check it out. ... By the time the show aired, ... some of the fans already knew about it. But 5 million people saw it, and all of a sudden, it just went crazy. We've had almost 200,000 hits. ... I get with alarming frequency things saying, 'You've exceeded your data transfer limits. For $5, you can have another 500 megabytes.' But it's been a lot of fun. The thing that's been amazing to me is, we put a basic guest book on there. ... I think it allows 50 entries. It has filled up 30 times. ... And we have so many e-mails, ... we've been returning the e-mails in Cassie's voice, and we're 100 behind. ... It's just been a blast."

Buchanan said that the site will remain live as long as possible. "The thing about it I loved was, we did things like, when we registered the domain, we registered it as Cassie Newton, and ... of course, the fans are like, 'We notice that she lives on 13 Shadow Lane [in Sunnydale].'"

Buchanan added that Whedon et al may employ similar sites in the future. "I think we will do it where need be," he said. "It's been a great experience. It's just been a lot of fun. And the fans really, really love it. And that's what Joss cares about. ... We've been talking about doing it for, maybe, who knows, maybe Dawn [Michelle Trachtenberg] has her own Web site. Or we do something with [Whedon's new Fox SF show] Firefly in a slightly different kind of vibe." Buffy airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Duchovny Eager For X-Files 2

avid Duchovny told the Associated Press that he's ready to jump back into The X-Files, reprising the role of Fox Mulder in a second feature film. "I think we're all kind of excited to go back and have a reunion, even though we haven't been apart for that long," Duchovny told the wire service.

Duchovny has been focusing on making movies since the 2001 TV season, when The X-Files ended its nine-season run on Fox. The first X-Files film was a 1998 box-office success, but no word has come down yet on when the second feature film will get off the ground, the AP reported.

BBC Will Air Taken

he BBC has won the bidding rights to show Taken, the SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries, in the United Kingdom, the Reuters news service reported. The BBC paid $3 million to secure the 20-hour epic miniseries, which charts the lives of three families against the backdrop of 50 years of UFO history, the wire service reported. Steven Spielberg is the executive producer.

"I am pleased that the BBC, which has long been a part of my life, has expanded their relationship with its commitment to Taken," Spielberg said in a statement, the wire service reported.

Taken premieres on SCI FI on Dec. 2. It airs on BBC 2 in January 2003, Reuters reported.

Potter Stars Should Stop

arry Potter director Chris Columbus told SCI FI Wire that he thinks the franchise's young stars—Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint—should bow out after they complete production late next year on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third of seven proposed films based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling fantasy novels. "I would encourage it, because they have to go on with their lives," Columbus said in an interview. "I certainly wouldn't fight that at all."

Columbus—who relinquished his director's chair following the upcoming Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to spend more time with his wife and four children—added, "If they don't want to come back, they shouldn't. There's nothing worse than a kid who doesn't want to be there. Trust me. I've worked with kids who don't want to be on the set. These [Potter] kids love doing their jobs. When that leaves, if you're a director or an actor, then you're sunk. Then you're just doing it for the money or whatever other horrible reason. You've got to get out of it." Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets opens on Nov. 15.

Potter Stars Mull Sequels

arry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and co-stars Emma Watson (Hermione) and Rupert Grint (Ron) told SCI FI Wire that they haven't decided yet whether they will appear in future films beyond a proposed third movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, despite reports to the contrary. Two-time Harry Potter director Chris Columbus has previously said that he thought the young stars should retire from the franchise after completing Azkaban.

"I don't even know if they're going to make a fourth or a fifth film or whatever," Watson told reporters at a New York press conference to promote the upcoming sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. "But it's been a really, really good experience, and I've really enjoyed them," Watson said. "So, yeah, I suppose [she'd be open to further sequels]."

Radcliffe, sitting between Watson and Grint on a dais, said, "I'm definitely doing the third film. We're all doing the third film. After that, who knows? It takes more or less a year to film [each movie], so we've got quite a long way before we have to encounter that decision." Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets opens Nov. 15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, to be directed by Alfonso Cuar�n, is currently in preproduction for a 2004 release.

Agent Denies Potter Rumors

arry Potter author J.K. Rowling's agent denied reports in the British press that the writer plans to continue the best-selling series of books beyond a planned seven titles, the Reuters news service reported. "The plan is to have only seven books in the series," Neil Blair, of Christopher Little literary agents, told Reuters. "There is no truth in the rumors."

The British newspaper The Scotsman reported that Warner Brothers, which releases films based on the Potter books, has registered three more Potter titles as trademarks, raising the possibility of eighth, ninth and 10th installments. But Blair said none of the registered names would be used for any future Potter books.

More Potter Books Due?

lans for eighth, ninth and 10th Harry Potter books came to light when Warner Brothers applied to the United Kingdom patent office for rights to titles for the proposed tomes from Potter author J.K. Rowling, the British Scotsman newspaper reported. Warner, which is producing movies based on the Potter books, reportedly applied for rights to the titles Harry Potter and the Pyramids of Furmat, Harry Potter and the Chariots of Light and Harry Potter and the Alchemist's Cell.

News of the proposed books comes as a surprise, as Rowling herself has previously said she will finish the series after seven books. Rowling is currently finishing up the fifth volume, to be called Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the newspaper reported. That book is due next year.

A second Potter film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, is due in North American theaters on Nov. 15. Preproduction on a third Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is currently underway.

Ship Slices Into Action

oel Silver—who produced the upcoming supernatural film Ghost Ship under his Dark Castle Entertainment banner—told SCI FI Wire that the gruesome opening scene was inspired by a memorable moment from last year's Dark Castle release, Thirteen Ghosts. Revealing spoilers about the opening, Silver said, "In Thirteen Ghosts we had this really great scene where this guy just got cut in half. These kind of glass doors came in and just sliced him in half, and the audience really liked it. So we were saying , 'What could we do more than that? Well, let's cut a lot of people in half.'"

Ghost Ship takes place aboard an ocean liner haunted by the souls of the passengers who perished horribly four decades earlier. Silver said that the film's opening credits, which are projected in a nostalgic pink script, served the dual purpose of contradicting expectations while also establishing a false sense of security before the initial carnage begins. "We had this notion of opening the movie not so much in the '60s, but in a '60s movie. So you're looking at the pink type and the great kind of long dollies and the style is really not the kind of movies we make. And [we] lull the audience into thinking that here we are, we're watching a movie in 1962 with Rock Hudson or James Garner, and then all of a sudden it's not that way anymore. We felt at that point that we had to do something that would let them know the kind of movie we were making, and that's what we did."

Silver added, "It's always good, I think, to kind of let the audience know right away where they stand and what this movie is, to think it's one thing, and then it's something else. And that's, I guess, the theme of the movie." Ghost Ship opened Oct. 25.

Ghost's Margulies Channels Ripley

ulianna Margulies—star of Ghost Ship, the latest horror film from Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver's Dark Castle banner—told SCI FI Wire that she was flattered by the comparison between her salvage-worker character, Epps, and Sigourney Weaver's Ripley from the Alien series. "They had mentioned that character to me," she said in an interview while promoting the film. "I mean, [only] in my wildest dreams would I ever compare myself to Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. Because that was a phenomenal role."

While Margulies acknowledges a debt to other female action stars—such as Linda Hamilton in the Terminator films—she said she felt the strongest connection to Weaver's character because of her realistic portrayal. "Unlike Terminator, where she became this buff, gun-toting chick, I think Ripley is closest to Epps only in that, through survival of the fittest, she becomes a hero. So I think they both have certain skills to begin with. She mans a spaceship. I man a salvage ship. And then they're put into these situations where they become heroes. ... I'd love to be compared to Ripley. But I think that also they're so real. These are real women that you can relate to."

Margulies added that she wanted to make sure Epps stood up against male action heroes as well as female. "[Director] Steve Beck and I argued about it," she said. "[He said,] 'This is where you cry.' And I was like, 'No. Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn't be crying here. Neither would Sylvester Stallone.' ... And those are things I did stick to my guns with. Put a guy in my role, and you're not going to say, 'And the music comes [up] and cry.' ... Otherwise, who's going to buy me as some hero that's going to save these souls?" Ghost Ship opened Oct. 25.

La-La Releasing Sinner Score

a-La Land Records chief Michael Gerhard told SCI FI Wire that the label will release Christopher Lennertz's score to the upcoming SCI FI Channel original movie Clive Barker Presents Saint Sinner. Lennertz recorded the score in Budapest earlier this year with a 70-piece orchestra and a 30-voice choir. "Saint Sinner will be out on the 22nd of October," Gerhard said in an interview. "We're having a signing with Clive Barker and Chris Lennertz [at 2 p.m. Oct. 27] at [horror store] Dark Delicacies in Burbank [Calif.]."

The limited-edition soundtrack will feature liner notes from Lennertz, Barker and Saint Sinner director Josh Butler. "There are 3,000 copies in a hand-numbered, limited edition," Gerhard said. "The first 100 will be autographed by the composer and sold through our Web site."

Clive Barker Presents Saint Sinner aired on SCI FI at 9 p.m. ET/PT Oct. 26.

La-La Releases Genre Scores

a-La Land Records chief Michael Gerhard told SCI FI Wire that the indie label will re-release long-out-of-print soundtracks for genre movies, including those for George Pal's movies and for two recent H.P. Lovecraft adaptations. "Next month, we're coming out with Richard Band's score to From Beyond and Re-Animator," Gerhard said in an interview. "We'll have liner notes from [star] Jeffrey Combs [and directors] Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna. Plus, a really great in-depth interview conducted by Randall Larson with Richard Band, talking about the whole history behind the score and its Bernard Herrmann influences."

Gerhard added, "We also have The Fantasy Films of George Pal, a collection of music from all of his films that he made at Warner Brothers and MGM, like The Time Machine, Atlantis: The Lost Continent, Tom Thumb and Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Russell Garcia did Time Machine and Atlantis; Leigh Harline is Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Also, possibly Doc Savage, because George Pal produced that, and that's a Warner Brothers movie. It's a collection of all that stuff. We're working with Arnold Leibovit, who controls the George Pal library."

La-La Land is also preparing a re-issue of Fred Mollin's scores to Friday the 13th Part VII and Friday the 13th Part VIII.

Trek V To Be Reworked?

he TrekWeb site reported a rumor that Paramount may be considering issuing a reworked version of the maligned fifth Star Trek movie, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which was directed by star William Shatner. Citing anonymous sources, the site reported that the studio—encouraged by the success of recent director's editions of the first and second Trek films—may be in talks with Shatner about retooling the movie for a future DVD release.

A decision may be imminent, the site reported. Fans have expressed a desire to use modern visual-effects technology to restore original storyboarded sequences for the film, including a sequence toward the end involving rock creatures.

Jedi Outcast To Ship

he Xbox and GameCube versions of LucasArts' Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast are ready to ship and will be in stores the week of Nov. 18, the company announced. The GameCube and Xbox games are direct conversions of the PC game that was released early this year, the GameSpot Web site reported.

In Jedi Outcast, players assume the role of rebel agent Kyle Katarn in the first-person action game, the company said. Several years have passed since Katarn avenged his father's death and saved the Valley of the Jedi from Jerec and his band of Dark Jedi. Katarn has allowed his Force powers to languish for fear of falling to the dark side, but when a new threat to the galaxy emerges, he must rise to the challenge.

Jedi Outcast was developed in partnership with Activision developer Raven Software.

Russell Helms Rat Tale

huck Russell will adapt CrossGen Comics' Way of the Rat series into a martial-arts film, which he will direct for DreamWorks, Variety reported. Frank Darabont's Darkwoods Productions and Castle Rock Productions have set up Way of the Rat at DreamWorks.

The comic is set in Hong Kong and tells the story of a young and acrobatic hero, a wise-talking monkey and a princess who's handy with blades, the trade paper reported.

Darabont also hopes to direct, but not produce, a new film version of Ray Bradbury's classic SF novel Fahrenheit 451, the trade paper reported. Darabont will adapt 451—which will be produced by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions and Castle Rock—as soon as he finishes writing the script for the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones movie.

Darkwoods is also developing Doc Savage, based on the series of pulp novel by Kenneth Robeson and adapted by David Johnson. Russell was once attached to direct. Darabont says it's unlikely that he would direct this project, adding that he would seek a devoted action director, the trade paper reported.

UPN Stays In The Zone

PN announced that it has given a full season order to The Twilight Zone. The network has ordered nine more episodes of the anthology series, on top of the current 13.

The network called the series, an update of the classic Zone created by Rod Serling, the most successful pairing with a Star Trek series in the network's history. Zone airs after Enterprise on Wednesday nights.

Since its premiere on Sept. 18, The Twilight Zone has held onto an average 73 percent of Enterprise's audience and garnered 74 percent of its lead-in's ratings, the network reported.

UPN Revives Thrasher

PN has ordered a one-hour series based on Marvel Comics' black superhero Night Thrasher, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ben Silverman's Universal-based production company, Reveille, and Marvel Studios will produce the live-action version of the 1990s comic series.

Michael Elliot (Brown Sugar) has come aboard as the writer on the project, which has received a premium script commitment from UPN. Elliot will executive produce with Silverman and Marvel's Avi Arad and Rick Ungar, the trade paper reported.

In the comic, the Night Thrasher by day is Dwayne Taylor, a New Yorker whose parents were killed mysteriously when he was 5. As an adult, he uses his excellent athletic skills and mental prowess to fight evil when the sun goes down, the trade paper reported. The UPN show will be set in the present and turn Taylor into a 25-year-old multimillionaire owner of a hip-hop clothing line who also lends his superhero services to the CIA.

New Phantom Developing

rusader Entertainment and Hyde Park are developing an updated film version of Lee Falk's classic comic-strip hero The Phantom, Variety reported. Steven De Souza will write the script, which have nothing to do with the 1996 Paramount movie, which was a period adventure that did lackluster box office, the trade paper reported.

The new film will reinvent the character to be closer to films such as Spider-Man and The Matrix, the trade paper reported.

BBC Keeps Tardis Rights

he London Metropolitan Police have lost an appeal for the rights to Doctor Who's famous time-traveling police box, Tardis, the BBC Online reported. The BBC retained the copyright to the blue box, which became the subject of a legal wrangle between the police and the network.

Tardis is modeled after the once-ubiquitous police telephone boxes that have largely disappeared from London streets since the 1960s. But the police objected to the BBC's using the image of the Tardis on comics, T-shirts, videos and other merchandise, something it has done since the 1970s.

In losing its appeal, the Metropolitan Police were ordered to pay �850, plus legal costs, BBC Online reported. The case has been rumbling on since 1996, when the Patent Office originally accepted the Tardis as a BBC trademark.

Fox Enlists Travelers

ox 2000 has acquired Omar Naim's spec script for Travelers, a futuristic SF movie, Variety reported. Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen (American Beauty) will produce the movie.

The film's plot is secret, but reportedly is set in the future and takes place in space. Naim is a newcomer who directed a 1999 documentary called Grand Theater, about the Lebanese civil war's roots and aftermath.

Andromeda Lightens Up

evin Sorbo, the star and executive producer of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, told SCI FI Wire to expect a lighter mood and a less conservative Dylan Hunt as the syndicated SF TV series begins its third season. "This season you'll see us running into more and more problems with the Commonwealth that Dylan formed, because it's not the Commonwealth that he wanted," Sorbo said in an interview on the show's Vancouver, B.C., soundstage.

Sorbo added, "There's all kinds of corruption, so he becomes disillusioned and pretty much before the season's over, I think people will see Dylan say, 'You know what? Screw the Commonwealth. You know what? Let's just go out and do good for people. I don't have time.' He's going to become a little bit more impatient, ... more of a renegade. He's going to be more of a guy who's just going to say, 'You know what? I got nothing to lose anymore. I've lost everything. Let's just go out and have some fun."

Part of the change is attributable to the show's new head writer, Robert Engels, who is best known for co-developing Twin Peaks with David Lynch. "I think it's just different in the fact that there's more of the humorous beat to it," Sorbo said about Engels' addition. "There's more of a quirky beat to it. We're not going to go so overboard of what he did with Twin Peaks, but there's still just more strange twists and turns. But I think we're making it just more accessible for everybody. I think we're making it easier to follow. We were getting off the track, and the show was getting too dark and too hard to follow, and I think season three just brings a lot of shows that just have a beginning, middle and end. Pretty much like the original Star Trek was. If you weren't watching every week, you could, boom, pop on and still see what's going on and have fun."

SCI FI Backs UFO Disclosure

he SCI FI Channel joined with John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, in calling for declassification of secret government records on UFOs, the network announced. SCI FI is backing a Freedom of Information Act initiative to obtain government records on cases involving retrieval of objects of unknown origin by the secret Air Force operations Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly. Assisting SCI FI in its effort is the Washington, D.C., law firm of Lobel, Novins and Lamont, the network announced. "It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon," Podesta said in a statement.

Explaining SCI FI's involvement, network president Bonnie Hammer said, "For the past decade, SCI FI programming has explored the often-blurred line that separates science fiction from science fact. But when credible scientists conclude that 5 percent to 10 percent of UFOs cannot be explained by natural or artificial causes, we think it is worth taking a much closer look at what is clearly a real and ubiquitous phenomenon."

SCI FI has also commissioned a report by independent journalist Leslie Kean to document the government's failure to carry out systematic scientific research into the UFO phenomenon. "The fact is that scientists who have spent time studying, classifying and analyzing these phenomena agree that they are real and that it will require a sustained research effort to determine their cause," Kean said in a statement. "The public has a right to know what is being observed in our airspace, once it has been determined it is not a foreign or domestic aircraft," said Kean.

Hammer also announced that on Nov. 8 SCI FI will sponsor a symposium at George Washington University exploring the potential for interstellar travel and the evidence of unidentified aerial phenomena. Panelists will include American scientists and aviation experts.

SCI FI also announced the formation of the Coalition for Freedom of Information, to be headed by Ed Rothschild. "We have constructed a new Web site to generate public support for greater disclosure of government records and for more scientific investigation," Rothschild said in a statement. "We are providing the public with an opportunity to get directly involved in this issue. The site contains some of the best information available on this issue, as well as letters that citizens can send to their senators and representatives."

The activity comes a few months before SCI FI airs its upcoming 20-hour epic miniseries Taken, a fictionalized account based on the 50-year history of the UFO phenomenon, from executive producer Steven Spielberg. Taken premieres Dec. 2.

Kidman Moves To Stepford

icole Kidman is in talks to star in Paramount's remake of the 1975 SF thriller film The Stepford Wives, Variety reported. The movie tells the story of a town in which a group of husbands are transforming their feisty wives into robots that cater to their every whim, the trade paper reported. Frank Oz will direct, and Scott Rudin and Donald DeLine are producing.

Kidman's negotiations have just begun with her reps at CAA and Handprint, the trade paper reported. The plan is for the actress to step into Stepford after she completes the Jonathan Glazer-directed Birth for Fine Line Features. Kidman will play the role originated by Katharine Ross.

The remake will update the story into a black comedy, the trade paper reported. Paul Rudnick (Addams Family Values) wrote the script.

Gilliam Gets Grimm

erry Gilliam (Time Bandits) will develop, with an eye to directing, Brothers Grimm, a fictional action-adventure fantasy movie about the fairy-tale authors, according to The Hollywood Reporter. A spring production start is being targeted for the MGM/Mosaic Media Group movie.

The movie will center on writers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, called Jake and Will in this version. While traveling from village to village pretending to protect townsfolk from enchanted creatures, they encounter a real sorceress with terrifying powers and are put to the test, the trade paper reported.

Gilliam previously worked with Mosaic's Charles Roven, who produced 1995's SF thriller Twelve Monkeys. Roven is producing Grimm with Daniel Bobker. Ehren Kruger (Skeleton Key) wrote the Grimm screenplay.

Woo Mulls PKD's Paycheck

ohn Woo is in talks to direct Paycheck, an SF movie based on a story by legendary author Philip K. Dick, for Paramount Pictures, Variety reported. The futuristic tale concerns a man who can't remember what he has done for the past two years and uses clues such as a ticket stub and bus token to uncover a government secret, the trade paper reported.

Brett Ratner had been in talks to direct Paycheck before committing to the upcoming fifth Superman film. Kathryn Bigelow also had considered helming the project, the trade paper reported.

Dean Georgaris adapted Paycheck, which was originally published in 1953. Dick's fiction has also been adapted for the films Minority Report, Total Recall and Blade Runner, among others.

Kruger Sells Horror Pitches

niversal Pictures has bought a pitch from screenwriter Ehren Kruger (The Ring) for Skeleton Key, as well as his pitch to adapt Stephen King and Peter Straub's supernatural horror novel The Talisman for the screen, Variety reported. Skeleton Key's plot is secret, but it is set in New Orleans, and the protagonist is a young woman, the trade paper reported. Iain Softley (K-Pax) is attached to direct, though no deal is in place yet, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Talisman tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who travels between parallel universes to obtain a talisman that will save the life of his ailing mother, Variety reported.

Universal is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Dorothy Returns to Oz

roducer Robert Kosberg is developing Surrender Dorothy, a sequel film to the classic Wizard of Oz, with Drew Barrymore attached to star for Warner Brothers, Variety reported. Kosberg previously produced Twelve Monkeys for Universal, among other things.

The trade paper reported little else about the upcoming sequel, which follows up the beloved 1939 Oz. Other TV shows and films, notably 1985's Return to Oz, have dealt with the universe based on L. Frank Baum's classic Oz books.

Jumanji Sequel Spaces Out

hris Van Allsburg's upcoming illustrated children's sequel book Zathura reveals what happened to the children who played the disastrous board game Jumanji, USA Today reported. A boy, Danny, rolls the dice on a new board game and launches himself and his older brother, Walter, on a space adventure that includes pirates, meteor showers and evil robots, the newspaper reported.

Zathura had an initial printing of 170,000 copies, and a second printing of 30,000 is on the way, the newspaper reported.

Van Allsburg's illustrations for Jumanji were inspired by Victorian ideas of African jungles, USA Today reported. For Zathura, he looked to the 1950s for Forbidden Planet-style robots and War of the Worlds-inspired spaceships.

Mythology Game Touted

icrosoft's PC games unit will use a feature-film-like promotional campaign to back the debut of its upcoming game Age of Mythology, a follow-up to its hit Age of Empires franchise, Variety reported. The campaign will include trailers for the game to be shown through the holidays on 1,500 Loews Cineplex Entertainment screens before many of the holidays' biggest movies, including the next James Bond film and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the trade paper reported.

Mythology allows players to build one of nine ancient civilizations, including mythological creatures from those civilizations' histories, the trade paper reported. Developed by Ensemble Studios, Age of Mythology ships to stores Oct. 31.

Bunyan Film Coming

teve Perry has signed on as producer on Exodus Film Group's upcoming feature film Paul Bunyan, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Perry is the chief executive officer and president of Masque Entertainment.

Bunyan is a live-action/computer-animated film based on the folklore of the Paul Bunyan character, the trade paper reported. Tarquin Gotch will executive produce the script, from Michael Nickles and Julia Wall.

Left Behind Aims For TV

roducers of the Left Behind movies—based on Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins' Christian-themed apocalyptic best-sellers—are readying a TV series that will take the franchise onto the small screen. Cloud Ten Pictures' chief executive Peter Lalonde announced that the series is slated for broadcast in Canada in early 2003. The series will also be available on video and DVD in both the United States and Canada, Lalonde said in a statement.

The series will follow the development of Nicolae Carpathia's global command center and chronicle the Tribulation Force's efforts to undermine and expose the man they believe to be the biblical Antichrist, the company announced. Cloud Ten production head Andr� van Heerden will serve as the series' show runner.

Cloud Ten intends to produce 13 episodes for the series' first season. The company is talking with several broadcasters about airing the show, but no agreements are in place. A second film, Left Behind II: Tribulation Force, will be released Oct. 29 on home video and will hit theaters on Dec. 31.

Briefly Noted

The MovieHole Web site reported that British actor Paul Rhys has joined the cast of Miramax's upcoming supernatural horror film sequel Hellraiser: Deader.

New Web sites have gone up for the upcoming SF movie Solaris, which opens Nov. 27, and the upcoming DVD releases of the classic Back to the Future movies.

Fox has ordered three additional scripts for its SF western series Firefly from creator Joss Whedon, but has yet to order a full season, TV Guide Online reported. The Oct. 25 installment, meanwhile, contains flashbacks to the series' origins, the site reported.

Musical guests The Breeders (Nov. 5) and Aimee Mann (Nov. 19) will perform at The Bronze on UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the network announced.

The choreographers behind an episode of ABC's Alias were among the winners at the eighth annual American Choreography Awards at L.A.'s Orpheum Theater on Oct. 20, Variety reported. John Medlen took honors for fight choreography for the episode "Truth Be Told."

Fox Searchlight has updated the Web site for its upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller film 28 Days Later, from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. The film opens in the United Kingdom on Nov. 1 and in North America in January 2003.

Dark Horizons reported a rumor that Shiri Appleby (Roswell), Winona Ryder and Udo Kier (Feardotcom) are all in talks to appear in Stephen Sommer's upcoming vampire movie Van Helsing.

The Coming Attractions Web site reported a rumor that Alan Burnett, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm—the creative team behind the animated Superman TV series—will be among the producers of the upcoming fifth Superman movie, to be directed by Brett Ratner.

Raymond T. McNally, Dracula scholar and author of In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends with Radu Florescu (1972, revised 1994), died Oct. 2 at the age of 71, The New York Times reported.

The Coming Attractions Web site reported a rumor that Selma Blair has signed on to play Liz Sherman opposite Ron Perlman in the upcoming film version of the Hellboy comic series.

SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg was named winner of the Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation, Variety reported.

Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter movies, told the Latino Review Web site that he plans on producing a film version of Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four series, with a first-draft script by Mike Frances.

The MovieHole Web site reported a rumor that Kari Wuhrer (Eight Legged Freaks) will play the lead role in the upcoming supernatural horror sequel film Hellraiser: Deader, which is set to begin shooting in Romania.

Sela Ward will co-star with Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal in the upcoming SF movie Day After Tomorrow, from director-writer Roland Emmerich (Independence Day), Variety reported. Shooting starts mid-November in Montreal.

Gary Scott Thompson (The Fast and the Furious) has made a deal with Sony Pictures Animation to write the script for an animated film entitled Shangri-La, Variety reported.

Joss Whedon, creator of Fox's new SF series Firefly, will direct the 11th episode, which goes into production the week of Nov. 4, a production spokesman told SCI FI Wire. Firefly airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

A new trailer for the upcoming X-Men sequel, X2, could hit theaters as early as mid-November, attached to prints of Solaris, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and other films, a Fox spokesman told SCI FI Wire. The new trailer, similar to footage screened during last summer's International Comic-Con, features glimpses of new characters, including the new X-Men Nightcrawler, Iceman and Pyro, as well as villains Stryker and Yuriko Oyama.

A new trailer for the upcoming Daredevil movie could hit theaters as early as Nov. 1, a Fox spokesman told SCI FI Wire. The Marvel Comic adaptation, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, is slated for a February 2003 release.

EW.com has posted several new images from the upcoming X-Men sequel film, X2, which opens in May 2003.

TheOneRing.net reported that Liv Tyler (Arwen) will record a song for the soundtrack of the upcoming sequel film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which opens Dec. 18.

Dark Horizons reported that Jessica Biel is up for a role—maybe Gwen Stacey?—in The Amazing Spider-Man, the sequel to this year's hit movie.

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