Flint's Coburn Dies
ames Coburn, the Oscar-winning character actor who appeared in genre films from Our Man Flint to Monsters, Inc., died Nov. 18 of a heart attack at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., Variety reported.
He was 74.
Coburn won the 1998 Academy Award as best supporting actor for his performance in Paul Schrader's Affliction. But to genre fans, he was best known for the 1960s Flint pair of James Bond satires and for voicing a character in the computer-animated Monsters, Inc., the trade paper reported. Coburn was generally known for supporting roles in films such as The Magnficent Seven and The Great Escape, among dozens of other features. Coburn worked with directors such as Blake Edwards, Budd Boetticher, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, Richard Brooks and Walter Hill, the trade paper reported.
Coburn is survived by his wife, Paula; son James H. Coburn IV; and stepdaughter Lisa, both from his first marriage to Beverly Kelly in 1959, the trade paper reported.
Whedon Helms Firefly Ep
oss Whedon, who is directing an upcoming episode of Fox's SF series Firefly, told SCI FI Wire that the installment features guest star Richard Brooks (good vs evil) as a bounty hunter named Early.
"It's basically about a bounty hunter who's come to seek River [Summer Glau] and actually manages to get on the ship while it's in the middle of space," Whedon said in an interview during a break in filming. "And so it's very sort of suspenseful. And it's also about the crew finding out what is River and ... is she dangerous? Is she psychic? Is she just weird? And juxtaposing her character and the bounty hunter as two outsiders who are sort of looking at the crew and this world."
Whedon also wrote the episode, "Objects in Space," which will air in December as the show's 11th segment. "It's actually a big existentialist tract about the sort of meaning of objects," Whedon said, with tongue in cheek. "But I don't really pitch that, because, 'Tonight, an existential tract on the meaning of objects right after you changed to the channel suddenly!'"
Directing Firefly is different from helming episodes of Whedon's other series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel, he said. "Every set has its own sort of tenor. The thing about Firefly is ... that this whole cast, ... they're extremely kind and professional, and they get along, and they help each other, and they work hard. I'm not saying my other casts don't work hard. And some of them get along, and it's great. But there's a star, and then there's the ensemble. And there's tensions on the set. ... It's not one big happy family. It seldom is on a television set. And [in Firefly,] I've got nine people, all of whom are great in a scene. Any pair of them works great. And all of them doing their best to help each other out. It's early on still. But they really feel like an ensemble than any bunch I've worked with." Firefly airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT; it returns with original episodes on Dec. 6.
Firefly Gets A Shot
oss Whedon, creator of Fox's new SF series Firefly, told SCI FI Wire that the network is giving the show another chance to attract viewers with its recent order of two more episodes.
Early in the show's first year, "we just couldn't have been more boned by baseball and clearly in the death [time] slot and not promoted very heavily and, you know, the show taking time to find itself, as shows do," Whedon said in an interview during a break in the filming of "Objects in Space," the show's 11th episode, which Whedon wrote and is directing this week.
Whedon added, "The only question is whether they're given that time. And now Fox is getting a good response to the episodes we're putting out, and so they're looking to see, well, if they do give us a bit of a push, can we build some and get a base that's big enough for them to justify keeping us around. So ... we all feel like we're on Serenity. We're looking ahead to that next job. We're still flying. The future's uncertain, but we're still flying."
The show has taken a while to find an audience, in part due to preemptions for the World Series. Fox won't air episodes this week or next, but will return with original episodes starting Dec. 6, with "War Stories." The series' two-hour pilot, "Serenity," which hasn't aired yet, will finally get special treatment in a full broadcast on Dec. 20.
"The ratings in December will matter" for Firefly's future, Whedon said. "A lot of that is on their shoulders. They have to bring the people in. Whether or not they stay is our job. ... That's our hope, that we're building. But we have started out kind of handicapped in not showing the pilot [yet]. That was a creative decision that threw a lot of people off and kind of put it out in the ozone that there was something wrong with the show, and that's never a good way to start. So we have a lot to overcome. But we're definitely in creative sync with [Fox] now, and we're working enormously hard to make the episodes as exciting as humanly possible. And they recognize that the quality of the work is really high, and I can say that without reservation, because the work that we're doing is so hard. The actors are as good a bunch of actors to a man as I've ever worked with. And I've got [executive producer] Tim Minear and [writer] Ben Edlund and ... some great goddamned minds working on the show. So when I say the quality is high, I'm not just bragging. Well, I'm sort of bragging. More boasting than bragging." Firefly airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Birds Flags; Firefly Flies
he WB is not expected to order more episodes of its fledgling Birds of Prey series beyond an initial 13, Variety reported.
But Fox has ordered two more episodes of its struggling SF series Firefly from creator Joss Whedon (UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer), raising its season total to 15, the trade paper reported. Fox had already ordered up six scripts beyond the initial order of 13 episodes.
Birds of Prey, based on the DC Comics series of the same name, has seen its audience drop by nearly half from its blockbuster premiere, the trade paper reported. The WB has not issued any formal announcement about Birds' future yet, and it is unclear whether producers WBTV and Tollin/Robbins will shoot the remaining four episodes from the initial order, the trade paper reported.
Meanwhile, Firefly has aired eight original episodes, and the show has averaged a meager 2.2 rating and 8 share among adults 18-49, with 4.8 million viewers, the trade paper reported. Whedon himself is directing an upcoming episode of the series, about a ragtag band of survivors of an intergalactic civil war 500 years in the future.
Two Towers Premieres Set
he Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers will premiere in screenings around the world, starting in New York on Dec. 5, New Line Cinema announced.
The European premiere takes place in Paris on Dec. 10, followed by the U.K. premiere in London on Dec. 11.
On Dec. 15, the film will premiere in Los Angeles and in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the queen of Denmark attending. A special screening in Seattle follows on Dec. 16. The film premieres in New Zealand, where the Lord of the Rings trilogy was shot, in the capital of Wellington on Dec. 18, and in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 19. The film opens to the public in North America on Dec. 18.
Two Towers Tix On Sale
ew Line Cinema started selling advance tickets to its upcoming sequel film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, nearly a month before its release date, the studio announced.
Fans will be able to buy tickets at theater box offices and at the film's official Web site.
Advance ticket sales for Two Towers is commencing twice as early as for the first Lord of the Rings film, The Fellowship of the Ring, last year. Fellowship advance sales broke presale records around the world, with online sales ultimately representing 8.25 percent of the film's domestic opening weekend, the studio said. The film went on to gross $860 million worldwide. The Two Towers opens Dec. 18.
Ripper Still Possible
nthony Stewart Head, who plays Giles on UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told SCI FI Wire that plans are still in the works for a British spinoff series based on his character, despite reports that the show was on hold.
"I had lunch with Jane Root, who's head of BBC 2, shortly before I came out [to Los Angeles], and we talked briefly about it," Head said in an interview. "Jane still wants to do it. And still thinks we will do it. But everybody knows, basically, that [Buffy creator] Joss [Whedon] is absolutely strapped at the moment. I mean, bless his heart."
Head added, "Ultimately, there isn't really time for him to start running another show. I'm seeing if I can put together a group of people in England for him. But the problem with Joss is that ... he has to be involved. I mean, that's the nature of the beast. And you can feel it when he's not involved. And so therefore, the more stuff he's working with and on, the more he's involved. And ... I think it's just a matter of, the timing will be right. If and when it happens. You know. I'm not going to say, 'It's going to happen next year.' Who knows? It may be three years down the line. The bottom line is, the story is still a good idea. The theory is still a good idea. So if and when it happens, I think ... it needs to have time and care spent on it. They've already written some scripts. [Buffy producer] Jane [Espenson] and he have already got some ... about three or four of the storylines."
Head said the proposed BBC 2 series will be called either Ripper or The Watcher and will explore Giles' background and darker side. "That's why [Whedon] wants to call it Ripper. Because Ripper is the darker side of Rupert. But in Joss' words, it's more about ... inner demons than ... the guys with prosthetics on their heads. It's about people coming to terms with their past and with themselves. His concept ... I've said it before, but it kind of puts it neatly in the box, which is ... it's Cracker, with ghosts."
Potter V Snippet For Sale
.K. Rowling will auction off a written preview of her upcoming fifth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, on Dec. 12 to benefit Book Aid International, the Reuters news service reported.
Sotheby's in London will auction a card with 93 random words of plot summary from the book and Rowling's autograph to benefit the charity, which provides books for developing countries, the news service reported.
The card is expected to fetch up to £6,000 ($9,461). In part, the card reads, "Thirty-eight chapters ... might change ... longest volume ... Ron ... broom ... sacked ... house-elf ... new teacher ... dies ... sorry." Rowling is still writing the fifth volume, and no publication date has been set.
Potter 3 To Get Angsty
arry Potter producer David Heyman told SCI FI Wire that Alfonso Cuaron, director of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, will incorporate teen angst of the sort seen in the director's Y Tu Mamá Tambien.
"He really has a keen understanding of the nuances of teenage life," Heyman said in an interview. "Y Tu Mamá is about the tail end of being a teenager. In Harry Potter 3, Harry turns 13 and becomes a teenager. I think you'll see a little more of that teenage spirit."
Still, Heyman is sure Cuaron will remain faithful to Potter author and creator J.K. Rowling's vision. "I think when different directors come in and make [each film] their own, while at the same time respecting Rowling's world and the spirit of her writings, that's our attention," Heyman said.
Azkaban begins shooting in February 2003, aiming for a release either in summer or fall of 2004. There were two reasons for taking more time on the third film, Heyman said. "One, we wanted [star] Dan [Radcliffe] to start a new school, to go back and experience that school and make his friends in the first semester," he said. "And also, we have a new director. That new director needs time to prep the film. It's quite different when you've got Chris Columbus, who's already immersed himself in the first film; you can move into the second more easily. Alfonso needs a little more time. I think it'll do us good." The second film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, is currently in theaters.
Bell Upped At Angel
effrey Bell, who has been running The WB's Angel since the departure of co-creator David Greenwalt, was formally promoted to co-executive producer, Variety reported.
Bell had previously been supervising producer. He replaced David Simkins, who exited Angel in August after a brief tenure as executive producer.
Bell joined the Angel writing staff last year, after a three-season run as a writer and producer on The X-Files, the trade paper reported.
Alias Revives Grunberg
reg Grunberg, whose character, CIA Agent Weiss, was shot on ABC's Alias, told SCI FI Wire that his character will return.
"I'm not dead, which is a good thing," Grunberg said in an interview. "It was a flesh wound. Lena Olin [who plays Irina Derevko] shot me in the neck, and it grazed me, didn't pierce the skin. That's sort of a sneak thing, so Weiss lives."
Weiss returns in episode 12 of the current season. Naturally, Grunberg feels the character is vital to the show. "I love that I'm somewhat of a character of comic relief in the way that I was at the beginning of Felicity," he said, referring to his role of Sean on the WB series. "But at the same time, I'm Vaughn's [Michael Vartan] confidant, and he's got to have someone to talk to about all the heavy stuff. That's what I like about it." Alias airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on ABC.
Stars Turn Out For Taken
ast, crew and special guests turned out Nov. 21 in Beverly Hills, Calif., for a special premiere screening of the SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Steven Spielberg Presents Taken.
Bonnie Hammer, president of the SCI FI Channel, welcomed the audience to the presentation of the 10-part miniseries' second episode, calling Taken "a labor of love and passion." She thanked all who helped create the epic miniseries, adding, "the quality you see tonight goes through all 10 episodes."
Guests included Taken cast members Dakota Fanning, Catherine Dent, Joel Gretsch, Julie Benz, Anton Yelchin, Ryan Hurst, Heather Donahue, Andy Powers, Tina Holmes, Julie Anne Emery and Chad Morgan, as well as writer and executive producer Leslie Bohem. Other guests included Jeffrey Katzenberg, partner with Spielberg in DreamWorks, which produced Taken; Ron Meyer, president and chief operating officer of Universal Pictures; Michael Jackson, chairman and chief executive of USA Entertainment Group; Darryl Frank, president of DreamWorks Television; and actors Kristin Davis and Martin Landau.
Taken chronicles the lives of three families against the backdrop of 50 years of UFO lore. It premieres on SCI FI at 9 p.m. ET/PT Dec. 2.
Taken's Gretsch Believes?
oel Gretsch, who co-stars as Capt. Owen Crawford in the SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, told SCI FI Wire that making the show has influenced his thinking about the possibility of alien abductions.
Gretsch appears in half of Taken's 10 two-hour episodes, playing an ambitious military man who uses his knowledge of the events at Roswell to advance his career. "I read more information," Gretsch said in an interview. "There were a lot of things I wasn't aware of."
Gretsch—son-in-law of Star Trek's William Shatner and most recently seen in Spielberg's SF film Minority Report—added, "I'd heard of Roswell, 1947, but I didn't know what they were talking about or how many sightings there were. There's so much information and so many people who saw things and have missing periods of time that they can't explain. It's odd. It's really odd. It makes you think, 'Why not?' Unless everyone was lying at that specific time. So, yeah, I'd take a leap with them." Taken premieres on SCI FI at 9 p.m. ET/PT Dec. 2.
Dent Taken With Spielberg
atherine Dent, who co-stars as Sally Clarke in the SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, told SCI FI Wire that the series is pure Spielberg and classic science fiction.
"The thing I love about this project is that the human experience and science fiction [elements] happen to [the characters]," the actress said in an interview. "So this is a character-driven piece."
Dent added, "You have real people living their real lives who happen to have extraordinary situations happen to them—science fiction, extraterrestrial and paranormal [situations]. It's not like we're all on some spaceship having to deal with robots. I'm home doing the laundry, and this good-looking alien comes down. He's a man as far as I'm concerned. I find out later that he's an alien. But that's what's classic Spielberg. You have real people. How do we react under these circumstances? My first day of work [on Taken] was Sept. 11, and it was an extraordinary day for all of us. It was a shocking, awe-inspiring, terrifying day for all of us. How do we respond to these
events in our lives? I think what Spielberg is interested in is that same
thing. I don't mean to trivialize Sept. 11 by saying it's the same as an
alien ship coming by—so please don't misunderstand me—but I think that's
why we love Spielberg."
Longtime Spielberg colleague Tobe Hooper, who directed Poltergeist, directed the first episode of Taken, Dent said. "I was watching a documentary on the making of Poltergeist. ... Steven Spielberg [who produced the film], as a little boy, was terrified by this huge elm tree outside of his house. So in Poltergeist, what happens? He has a big tree fall through, because his imagination went with him his whole life and haunted him. So he
used that in the work, and I think that's what you have in Taken. We don't forget these extraordinary events, and they affect our lives every single day. It's ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances."
Taken premieres on SCI FI at 9 p.m. ET/PT Dec. 2.
What Is Solaris?
teven Soderbergh, who wrote and directed an upcoming remake of the classic SF film Solaris, said his film differs markedly from Andrei Tarkovsky's original 1972 movie, with its own central metaphor.
"Within the context of the movie, the planet Solaris ... is basically a metaphor for anything that you don't know for sure," Soderbergh said in an interview while promoting the film. "So it can be a metaphor for God. It can be a metaphor for death. It can be a metaphor for love. It is a mirror in that regard, which is why everybody's having so much trouble with it, and why I purposefully kept it physically sort of inert and never tried to explain it or have it be active in a way that seemed human."
George Clooney and Natascha McElhone stars in Soderbergh's Solaris, which, like Tarkovsky's movie, is based on Polish SF author Stanislaw Lem's book of the same name. It's a difficult film about adult themes, the director said. "Because the entire movie is about whether you can surrender yourself to something that is unknown," he said. As for Tarkovsky's movie, Soderbergh said, "I'm a big fan of his. I've seen all the films several times. And there's clearly a mood that's common to all of them that I've found really appealing. But there are a lot of influences through [my] movie. At the same time, ... I feel like it's not quite like anything I've made before. It's just different. There's some things in it that feel like things I've done, but while I was making it, I certainly felt that it was something different for me, which is why I think I was so anxious during the making of it. I felt I didn't have the sort of handrails I guess I usually have when I'm making a film. Just every day seemed uncharted, completely." Solaris opens Nov. 27.
Clooney Talks Solaris Flap
eorge Clooney, star of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming SF movie Solaris, told SCI FI Wire that he was caught off guard by the mini-controversy surrounding the film's rating because of brief glimpses of his naked behind.
"It was sort of a non-event," Clooney said in an interview while promoting the film. "I think that Fox is struggling to find things to get ink on, and it was early on, and I think that that was sort of a leak in terms of, 'Let's get something going.'"
The film initially received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, reportedly because of two scenes in which Clooney bares his assets. Director Soderbergh appealed the ruling, and the MPAA reversed itself and eventually gave the movie a PG-13 rating without seeking changes in the movie. As far as Clooney is concerned, the dustup may have been partly orchestrated. "It feels like that to me," he said. "Didn't it seem that way, sort of, though? It seemed like sort of a non-story. You see it, it's not that hardcore of a scene. We've seen worse on so many television shows. So it felt like that was one of those things where they're just going, 'What do we do?' And 'How do we sell this?' And 'Maybe we'll sell it through sex,' and all that stuff, which is fine. It's certainly closer than the original [marketing plan], which was sci-fi, because people who go see this—young men who show up thinking it's going to be a sci-fi film—they're going to be really pissed." Solaris, loosely based on Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 movie and Polish SF author Stanislaw Lem's book, opens Nov. 27.
Cameron Ceded Solaris Helm
ames Cameron, who bought the rights to Andrei Tarkovsky's seminal 1972 SF movie Solaris, said that he briefly considered directing an update of the movie himself before handing the reins over to screenwriter/director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic).
Instead, Cameron (The Terminator) chose to produce the upcoming new version of Solaris, which is loosely based on Tarkovsky's film and Polish SF author Stanislaw Lem's original SF book of the same name. Soderbergh's Solaris stars George Clooney and Natascha McElhone.
"Certainly I'm more hardware-oriented than Steven is, and my film would have been a very different film," Cameron told a preview audience in Los Angeles. "But I think at the core of any good film, science fiction or otherwise, there's got to be a relationship that in some way touches certain universals in behavior. So certainly it's the relationship that's the core of this film, and I think in Steven's adaptation, it's certainly much more about the relationship than the two predecessor works. Far more so, but I think to the benefit of the film."
Cameron added, "I think we're well beyond Tarkovsky's film. It's what it was, and the choices that Steven made to take this using the same basic concept, using the same kind of five-character drama in the closed universe of this space station, he's told a really very different story that's thematically different. So it's truer in some ways to the Lem novel even than to Tarkovsky's film. I think they stand as separate works that need to be analyzed separately and appreciated separately." Solaris opens Nov. 27.
Solaris Updates Female Role
teven Soderbergh, director of the upcoming SF film Solaris, told a preview screening audience that he beefed up the lead female role from the 1972 Russian movie of the same name, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky based on the Polish SF novel by Stanislaw Lem.
"I think the biggest difference between the novel and the Tarkovsky film and this film is that she's more present," Soderbergh said of the role of Rheya, played by Natascha McElhone. "She's not passive."
The movie stars George Clooney as Chris Kelvin, a widowed psychiatrist called to investigate mysterious occurrences aboard a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. There he has an encounter having to do with his late wife, Rheya. Unlike the 1972 film, in the new Solaris, "We get to see the relationship as it existed on Earth," Soderbergh said. "Since the movie to me was about whether or not you were doomed to follow the same trajectory given another opportunity, I felt that if you could see the relationship on Earth, that that would be clearer for the audience that they were struggling with this idea of predestination."
Soderbergh added, "The script went through a lot of different things. This was just one of those movies that went through a lot of drafts of the script. The movie was overhauled in the editing room several times. It just took a while to find that shape of it and find the emotional core that would carry through the film. It was just a real struggle. I feel very, very late in the game that we found, at least to my mind, ... the structure that worked best for the movie. But it was really tricky. It was a difficult shoot. There wasn't a simple shot. There wasn't a simple scene. Normally in a movie you've got a day of drive-bys or establishing shots, and there was none of that. George was saying people are used to coming by the sets, and our sets are pretty fun and pretty loose. They would show up on this one with a smile on their face, and you could watch it fade as they got closer into the set, because the atmosphere was just so intense, because we were struggling with what the tone of it should be. It was just tricky." Solaris opens Nov. 27.
Four Bonds Meet Queen
our of the five actors to play James Bond were on hand to meet Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, at the 40th anniversary reception of the British movie franchise, the Zap2it Web site reported.
The event in London's Royal Albert Hall also doubled as a premiere for the new Bond film, Die Another Day, with the venue having been transformed into an ice palace for the occasion, the site reported.
Joining current Bond Pierce Brosnan were George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton and Roger Moore, the site reported. Conspicuously absent was Sean Connery, the most famous actor to assay the role.
Also present at the premiere was Halle Berry, who plays Jinx in the upcoming film, and Madonna, who sings the title song and has a cameo in the picture as a fencing instructor, the site reported.
007: NightFire Released
A has released James Bond 007: NightFire, a video game for several console systems, the company announced.
NightFire is being released for the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox gaming systems.
A PC version of the game is due on Nov. 25, the week following the Nov. 22 release of the upcoming 20th Bond film, Die Another Day.
NightFire features an original single-player storyline in which gamers play 007. Bond finds himself in situations from the Austrian Alps to outer space and the South Pacific as he tries to defeat the evil criminal mastermind Rafael Drake. Pierce Brosnan portrays Bond via a cyberscan process, the company said.
Legion Marches To TV
ainframe Entertainment announced that it is developing the comic series Alien Legion for television.
Vancouver-based Mainframe will develop and produce the computer-animated series, based on the comic created by Carl Potts, Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco.
Alien Legion focuses on a band of interstellar fighters called Force Nomad, culled from the dregs of three galaxies and hardened by intergalactic battles into a seemingly unstoppable fighting corps. The TV series will place Alien Legion characters in new adventures, the company said.
Checker Book Publishing Group released the first of a series of large high-format Alien Legion trade paperbacks, Force Nomad, in December 2001. The second Checker volume, Piecemaker, debuts this month.
Farmer Wins National Book Award
ancy Farmer's SF novel The House of the Scorpion won the National Book Award in the young people's literature category, Locus Online reported.
Announced on Nov. 20 in New York, the award includes a cash prize of $10,000, the site reported.
Scorpion is set in the poppy fields of a futuristic Mexico, where laborers are controlled by computer chips in their brains. Farmer is best known in the SF field for having won the Writers of the Future Grand Prize in 1988 and a Golden Duck Award in 1995 for her novel The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, the site reported.
Caan Joining Elf
ames Caan is in talks to take on the role of Will Ferrell's father in the New Line Cinema fantasy comedy film Elf, to be directed by Jon Favreau, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ferrell stars as Buddy, a man raised from infancy by elves at the North Pole.
Elf is being produced by Jon Berg and Todd Komarnicki through their Guy Walks Into a Bar production-management company and executive produced by Jimmy Miller and Julie Wixon of Mosaic Media Group. The script is based on a David Berenbaum spec script that was rewritten by Favreau, the trade paper reported.
Roxburgh Mulls Dracula Role
ichard Roxburgh (Moulin Rouge) is in talks to play Count Dracula in Universal Pictures' upcoming vampire film Van Helsing, Variety reported.
Roxburgh will appear opposite fellow Australian Hugh Jackman, the trade paper reported.
Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) wrote and will direct the film. He is also producing with Bob Ducsay, the trade paper reported. Based on Bram Stoker's classic supernatural novel Dracula, Van Helsing centers on the vampire hunter Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, who travels to Eastern Europe to confront Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man as well, the trade paper reported.
Roxburgh recently completed shooting The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen opposite Sean Connery, the trade paper reported.
Universal Pictures is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Zucker Boards Scary 3
avid Zucker (Airplane!) has come aboard to direct Dimension Films' Scary Movie 3: Episode I—Lord of the Brooms, which spoofs recent genre movies, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The project, the third installment of the satirical franchise, is expected to go into production in March.
Scary 3 is written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who co-wrote the original Scary Movie, but were not involved in the sequel. Brothers Keenen Ivory, Shawn and Marlon Wayans, who were involved in the first two Scary projects, will not be part of Scary 3, the trade paper reported.
The third installment spoofs such fantasy and science fiction film franchises as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. The script tells the story of an orphan who embarks on a magical quest to rid the universe of evil, the trade paper reported.
Zone Booster Granet Dies
ert Granet, the television writer and producer who helped bring the classic Twilight Zone series to life, died Nov. 15 in Santa Monica, Calif., of injuries sustained in a fall, the Los Angeles Times reported.
He was 92.
The native New Yorker began his Hollywood career in 1934 and over the next four decades produced nearly a dozen motion pictures and television shows or series, and wrote scripts for 30 others, the newspaper reported.
Granet's greatest effect on television history and science fiction popularity was probably his role in getting Rod Serling's Twilight Zone on the air in 1959, the newspaper reported. Granet literally pulled the show off the shelf, where CBS had stuck an episode titled The Time Element, after buying it from Serling. It was Serling's plan to use the script as a pilot for the science fiction series he envisioned, but CBS was skittish about the commercial value of science fiction, the Times reported.
Granet is survived by his wife of 63 years, the former Charlotte Lewis, and their daughter, Gaye, the newspaper reported.
Doe To Meet Nemesis
randon Camp, co-creator and co-executive producer of Fox's hit John Doe, told SCI FI Wire that popular genre actor Doug Hutchison (The Green Mile) will guest star in two upcoming episodes as hero Dominic Purcell's enemy.
"We have a character that turns out to be John Doe's nemesis," Camp said in an interview. "I think those episodes will be two of the most compelling episodes thus far." Hutchison is perhaps best known to SF fans as the liver-eating mutant Tooms on The X-Files.
Camp added, "Mimi Leder [co-executive producer and frequent director] is directing the first of the two. It's action-packed and chock full of mystery and suspense, and it has a lot of twist and turns. And the character that Doe comes up against is potentially another John Doe. He is as smart as Doe, and yet he might be the yang of the yin." The first episode, "The Mourner," will air Dec. 13 on Fox. The second as-yet-untitled episode will air in January 2003.
Smallville Comics Coming
C Comics will release a new series of comics based on The WB's Superman TV series, Smallville, the
Comics Continuum Web site reported.
The new bimonthly comic, starting with a new number-one issue, will kick off in March 2003. The ongoing series follows a one-shot comic that DC released last month, the site reported.
Editor Tom Palmer told the Continuum that the lead comics story for the first issue will be written by Mark Verheiden and Clint Carpenter, with Kilian Plunkett on art. It will focus on Pete and Clark on a camping trip after Pete learns of Clark's super powers.
Like the one-shot, the ongoing series will also include features on the TV show. Smallville number one will have a set visit and interview with series star Tom Welling, both by the Continuum's Rob Allstetter, and an episode guide for the first season.
Hewitt To Helm Garfield
eter Hewitt has come aboard to direct Fox's big-screen live-action/computer-animated adaptation of the long-running Garfield comic strip, which John Davis will produce through his Davis Entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
There is no start date for the project.
Fox optioned feature-film rights to Garfield 11 months ago and hired Toy Story writers Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow to pen the script, the trade paper reported. The strip centers on the eponymous orange cat, his dull-witted canine cohort Odie and their perpetually single owner Jon Arbuckle.
UPN Gets In Danger
PN and Paramount have struck a deal with producers Chuck Gordon and Adrian Askarieh to develop a drama series based on the Danger Girl comic-book character created by J. Scott Campbell and Andy Hartnel, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Analisa LaBianco will adapt the comic for the small screen.
Danger Girl was optioned as a film project by New Line Cinema shortly after its debut in 1998, but that project never got off the ground. The comic was first published by the Cliffhanger imprint of Image Comics, the trade paper reported.
The comics tell the adventures of the members of an underground network of female spies that grew out of the government's success in recruiting women for espionage duty during World War II. The main character masks her true mission in life by working as an "outlaw archaeologist" based out of San Francisco, the trade paper reported.
Danes Fights Evil In T3
laire Danes, who co-stars with Nick Stahl in the upcoming sequel film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, told SCI FI Wire that her character finds herself caught up in the ultimate battle.
"I play Kate Miller," Danes said in an interview. "She is a veterinarian who's engaged to a conservative, pleasing-to-the-folks kind of man. And she is
abducted by the Terminator."
Danes added, "John Connor—who is played by Nick Stahl, a really wonderful actor—[comes to her aid], and our adventures unfold. We attempt to fight evil. We do. We give it a good shot. It was neat. Jonathan Mostow, the director, is a really good action director. He understands suspense and tension. It's going to be tight. It's going to be a really cool, fast chase."
A genre neophyte, Danes said that she's open to the idea of reprising her role as Kate Miller should T3 merit a T4. "Well, I've contracted to do one again," she said. "If audiences would like to see more of me doing this kind of thing, I'm obliged to give it to them. But I don't know if I'm going to make it a habit to pursue every other kind of movie franchise that's out there. I really love doing as many different kinds of work as possible." Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines will be released July 2, 2003.
Kidman Wed To Stepford
icole Kidman, who stars in the upcoming remake of The Stepford Wives, told SCI FI Wire that the update will offer a different take on the 1975 original.
"It's going to be done as a comedy," Kidman said in an interview. "And I've wanted to do a comedy. ... I'm in the middle of Cold Mountain now, which is sort of an epic, tragic love story. I just went, 'I've got to do a comedy.' I need to have some lightness."
The Stepford Wives tells the story of Joanna (Kidman), a wife and mother who relocates from Manhattan to Stepford, Conn., only to discover that all the women in town seem overly eager to please their husbands. Kidman takes on a role first played by Katharine Ross, and Kidman said that she recognized the comic potential in director Bryan Forbes' 1975 film. "Black comedy," she said. "I love black comedy."
Frank Oz (Little Shop of Horrors) will direct the new Stepford Wives from a
screenplay by Paul Rudnick (Addams Family Values). The remake, like the
original, is based on Ira Levin's SF novel. Production will begin in March 2003 for a late 2003 or early 2004 release.
Clone War Books Coming
ucasBooks announced that is will issue a series of Star Wars publications chronicling the events of the Clone Wars, whose beginning viewers glimpsed in this year's feature film Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones.
The publications will include comics, adult novels, middle-grade fiction, audio books, short stories and more, according to the official Star Wars Web site.
Among the upcoming publications:
•The ongoing Star Wars: Republic series from Dark Horse Comics will focus on the Clone Wars, starting with the double-sized issue No. 50. Dark Horse will also release Star Wars: Jedi next year, four one-shots detailing the heroic efforts of key Jedi Knights during the war.
•Del Rey Books will publish Star Wars: Shatterpoint, a hardcover novel featuring Mace Windu, by Matthew Stover, which is due out in 2003. William Dietz will write a stand-alone Clone Wars paperback novel due out in 2004. More Clone Wars novels and audio books are planned in both paperback and hardcover, to be released over the next few years.
•Scholastic Inc. will continue to explore Boba Fett's youth in its series of middle-grade books. The first two hardcover books take place in the days after the Battle of Geonosis. The Fight to Survive and Crossfire will be released in paperback as part of the Clone Wars series, and the series will continue with the third book, Maze of Deception by Elizabeth Hand.
•The Star Wars Insider magazine will carry original Clone Wars short fiction and will see the return of HoloNet News as a printed edition, with official news of the Republic and Separatist governments.
Paramount Mulls Rama
aramount Pictures will decide whether or not to make Morgan Freeman's long-percolating Rendezvous With Rama, a proposed film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's 1973 SF novel, Variety reported.
Freeman and producing partner Lori McCreary, through their Revelations Entertainment company, have been developing the film with director David Fincher (Alien 3), the trade paper reported. Bruce McKenna is writing the script.
Paramount gets a crack at the project under its new two-year, first-look deal with Revelations, Freeman and McCreary, the trade paper reported.
Thomason Moves In Mansion
ritish actress Marsha Thomason will star opposite Eddie Murphy in The Haunted Mansion, a Disney movie based on the theme-park attraction of the same name, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Thomason, who made her U.S. film debut opposite Martin Lawrence in the 2001 comedy Black Knight, will play Murphy's wife in the film, about a work-obsessed father (Murphy) whose encounter with a ghost makes him realize the importance of his own family, the trade paper reported.
Rob Minkoff is directing Mansion, and Andrew Gunn of Gunn Films and Don Hahn are producing. David Berenbaum wrote the script. Production is scheduled to begin Jan. 6, 2003.
Pixar Animator McQueen Dies
lenn John McQueen, the Pixar animator who helped create characters like Woody in Toy Story and Tiny Boo in Monsters, Inc., died Oct. 29 of melanoma in Berkeley, Calif., Variety reported.
He was 41.
The Toronto native worked at Pixar's Emeryville studios for eight years, first as an animator on Toy Story, then a supervisor on Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc. Most recently, he was working on the upcoming feature Cars.
McQueen is survived by his wife, Terry; a 4-year-old daughter; two sisters; and his parents. Donations can be made in his memory to UCSF Foundation, Box 0248, San Francisco, Calif. 94143.
Tremors Debuts Jan. 10
he SCI FI Channel announced that Tremors: The Series, a new original weekly show based on the popular SF movies, will premiere at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Jan. 10, 2003, where it will become part of the network's SCI FI Friday block of original series.
The show's premiere will coincide with the return of new episodes of Farscape, in a new 8 p.m. timeslot, and Stargate SG-1, at 9 p.m.
Tremors: The Series stars Michael Gross, who reprises the role of survivalist Burt Gummer, and takes place in the tiny town of Perfection, Nev., which is beset by El Blanco and his fellow monsters: Graboids, Shriekers and AssBlasters. Tremors: The Series is produced for SCI FI by USA Cable Entertainment, in association with Big Productions Inc., and co-stars Victor Browne, Marcia Strassman, Lela Lee, Gladise Jimenez and Dean Norris. David Israel, Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson and Nancy Roberts serve as executive producers.
In anticipation of Tremors' premiere, SCIFI.COM has launched a new Web site, which allows visitors to tour Perfection, meet some of the residents, spot El Blanco and take on Gummer's role in a Shriek & Destroy first-person shooter game.
SCI FI Sponsored Roswell Dig
he SCI FI Channel has sponsored an archaeological excavation of the site of a purported UFO crash near Roswell, N.M., in 1947 and filmed it for a documentary to air on Nov. 22.
The two-hour documentary, The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence, hosted by Bryant Gumbel, premieres at 8 p.m. ET/PT and features new eyewitness interviews and what the network calls a "smoking gun"—new evidence concerning the Roswell incident.
A team of University of New Mexico archaeologists, led by head investigators Tom Carey and Don Schmitt, visited the Roswell site over 10 days in September. Three archaeologists were joined by six volunteers to conduct the research, using state-of-the-art remote-sensing technologies and modern archaeological methods, the network said.
SCIFI.COM has also posted a new Web site, with information about the Roswell incident. On Nov. 22 at 10 p.m. ET, Carey and Schmitt will discuss the investigation in a live chat on SCIFI.COM.
New Wolfenstein Due
olfenstein: Enemy Territory, the latest installment in the supernatural World War II PC game series, introduces a new style of gameplay, id Software and Activision announced.
The game allows for squad-based single-player gaming, enlisting players as the leader of an Allied force in missions from Western Europe to Egypt. Gamers must pursue and confront Third Reich forces, as well as the products of Nazi experimentation with the occult and paranormal, the companies said.
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is being developed by Splash Damage Ltd. and Mad Doc Software, with assistance from Gray Matter Software, and is executive produced by id. The stand-alone game is expected to be available in the first half of 2003.
Briefly Noted
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The Ain't It Cool News Web site reported a rumor that Jim Caviezel (Frequency) is under consideration to star in Brett Ratner's upcoming new Superman movie.
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The Production Weekly Web site reported that Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) will direct a film based on his own fairy tale, Arthur e les Minimoys (Arthur and the Minimoys), which was just published in France. Morgan Freeman will star in the movie, about a 10-year-old orphan who is dragged into the magical world of the minimoys.
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Charisma Carpenter, who plays Cordelia on The WB's Angel, is expecting a baby boy in March 2003 with husband Damian Hardy, TV Guide Online reported.
The IGN FilmForce Web site reported that the theatrical teaser trailer for Stephen Norrington's upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie will debut on Dec. 13, attached to prints of Star Trek: Nemesis. League, based on Alan Moore's graphic novel, is slated for a July 2003 release.
The IFilm Web site has posted footage from the upcoming Star Trek: Nemesis film, including scenes first screened at ShowEast. Nemesis opens Dec. 13.
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The soundtrack for the upcoming Star Trek: Nemesis movie by Jerry Goldsmith will be released on CD by Varèse Sarabande on Nov. 26, the official Trek Web site announced. The movie opens Dec. 13.
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The GameSpot Web site reported that the GameCube version of Dragon's Lair 3D, an update of the classic '80s arcade video game, should be available before the end of the year.
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Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee received the Legend of 2002 lifetime achievement award at the inaugural Golden Panel Awards, presented by the New York City Comic Book Museum, on Nov. 9, the Zap2it Web site reported.
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Rob Schneider, star of the upcoming fantasy film The Hot Chick, has entered into a two-year first-look production deal with Walt Disney Studios, Variety reported. In Chick, Schneider plays a teenage girl who wakes up in the body of a 30-year-old man; it opens Dec. 13.
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Director Keenen Ivory Wayans and actors Marlon and Shawn Wayans (Scary Movie) will spoof Signs and Independence Day in an upcoming as-yet-untitled satirical film, Variety reported.
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Disney has made an overall deal for Lilo & Stitch partners Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois to write, direct and produce animated and live-action films under their newly formed Stormcoast Pictures banner, Variety reported.
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The Dark Horizons Web site reported that the upcoming supernatural horror film Darkness Falls, starring Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Emma Caufield, has been delayed two weeks and will open Jan. 24, 2003.
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AnotherUniverse.com, in conjunction with V3 Media, will release a limited-edition boxed "gold edition" DVD set of the classic SF TV series The Twilight Zone. The $399.99 remastered series will comprise 156 episodes on 44 DVDs, with five DVDs of bonus material, making it the largest DVD collection ever released, the site announced.
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Andrei Tarkovsky's classic 1972 SF film Solaris will screen in a complete, uncut version Nov. 22-28 at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles, the Film Threat Web site reported. The theater will screen the full 167-minute version of the Russian-language movie, with new English subtitles.
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The WB will release a soundtrack CD for its hit series Smallville in February 2003, the Zap2it Web site reported. The soundtrack will feature songs that have been used on the series, including the theme song, Save Me, by Remy Zero.
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