Towers Still Tops
ord of the Rings: The Two Towers retained its top slot at the box office on Christmas Day, with an estimated gross of $13.2 million for the day, the Hollywood trade papers reported.
This brought the film's total take to about $136 million. The sequel continues to outperform last year's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which earned $11.5 million on Christmas Day, 2001.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the spectrum, Roberto Benigni's live-action Pinocchio finished in 14th place on its Dec. 25 opening with a dismal take of only $290,000, the trade papers reported.
Hulk First Look Announced
niversal Pictures will unveil the first full glimpse of The Hulk in a new promotional trailer to air during the Super Bowl on Jan. 26, Variety reported.
Previous marketing efforts, including a Hulk-less trailer and a giant teaser poster, featured only hints of the familiar green Marvel Comics character, but the spot will be more revealing, the trade paper reported.
Universal's aim is to generate an early buzz for the summer film and quell rumored fears about the look of the computer-generated title character, the trade reported. The film opens on June 20.
Paquin Trained For X2
nna Paquin, who reprises the role of Rogue in the upcoming X-Men sequel film, X2, told SCI FI Wire that she had to prepare for the movie's physical rigors.
"I have some pretty cool stunts that I got to do, [for which] I trained for three months," Paquin said in an interview. "I would tell you about [them], but I can't tell you anything about the plot, so I can't tell you about the stunts, because it would give stuff away. I had a lot of fun with all this wire work on harnesses and stuff, and it's all me when you see the movie."
Paquin added that working on a technically complex movie made her appreciate the difference between blockbusters and low-key dramas. "Those kinds of movies are so completely different than any other film you'll work on, because so little of the time you spend on set has anything to do with the job that an actor does," she said. "You're waiting a lot for technical things to be set up and figured out. There's always going to be glitches along the way, equipment not working the way it's supposed to, or just all these things I don't really understand a lot about, but [that] have nothing to do with acting whatsoever. It just means it takes a really, really, really long time and can be very long hours. But there is also a lot of fun stuff you get to do in those movies that you wouldn't get to do in a straight, normal film." X2 opens May 2, 2003.
Studios Look To Future
everal Hollywood studios have announced release dates for their high-profile SF films as far into the future as 2005, Variety reported.
The trend has been growing since last summer, when Sony set a release date for its Spider-Man sequel on the first weekend of May 2004, the trade reported. Other studios have followed suit, claiming release dates throughout the summer.
Among the major films bowing in May 2004 are Fox's futuristic Tomorrow on May 28, Universal's vampire picture Van Helsing on May 21, Paramount's Mission: Impossible 3 on Memorial Day weekend and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in June, the trade reported.
Those looking to fill their calendars for 2005 can pencil in the weekend before Memorial Day for Star Wars: Episode III and either June or July for Indiana Jones 4. The summer will also see the releases of Jurassic Park IV and Disney/Pixar's Cars, the trade reported.
According to Variety, the reasons for the trend in long lead times include minimizing the financial risk, showing a commitment to talent and avoiding direct competition with other big-budget projects.
Odyssey 5 Canceled?
howtime has canceled its SF drama Odyssey 5, according to a post on the rec.arts.sf.TV newsgroup.
The post cites an e-mail from an unnamed member of the show's production staff, who writes, "Alas, Showtime canceled Odyssey this week, despite our being their highest-rated original series! Apparently the powers that be want to get out of doing SF (they picked up Jeremiah, as I understand it, because it's part of a long-standing deal with MGM)."
The e-mail added, "Sony/Columbia has approached the SCI FI Channel about picking it up, but we won't know anything until January. For now it's just a lump of coal in our Christmas stockings."
The pay cable network hasn't made an official announcement about the freshman series' fate yet. Six original episodes remain to be aired in the series' first season.
Southern SF Awards Given
he online magazine scifidimensions announced the winners of the 2002 Southeastern Science Fiction Achievement Award, honoring accomplishment in science fiction,
fantasy or horror by individuals born or living in the southern United States.
Winners will receive a certificate designed by artist Dan Henderson. The SESFA Award is sponsored by Biting Dog Press, Atlanta-based Classic Comics, Galaxy Press and Henderson. Odyssey Workshop also contributed funding. A full list of winners follows.
Lifetime Achievement
•Andre Norton
Best Novel of 2001
•Deepsix by Jack McDevitt
Best Short Fiction of 2001
•"The Chief Designer" by Andy Duncan
Winston Working On Apocalypse
he Rue-Morgue Web site reported that special-effects guru Stan Winston will collaborate with game developer 3D0 in the creation of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The video game, which the site describes as "a dark adventure set in the present day," will be released on multiple platforms and will allow players to battle against four biblical plagues: Pestilence, War, Famine and Death.
Winston will lend his expertise to the creature designs in the game and has optioned the rights to a possible feature film, the site reported. Winston told the site that the game "has a compelling storyline with a dark, gritty look and feel that caught my attention."
Moscow Scrutinizes Potter
he Associated Press reported that Moscow prosecutors have opened an investigation into whether the Harry Potter series of children's books incite religious hatred.
An official from the Moscow city prosecutor's office told the wire service that the investigation was started at the request of a Moscow woman who was upset by the novels and believes they contain occult propaganda.
No criminal charges have been brought yet against the publisher or author J.K. Rowling, but prosecutors will determine if further legal action is necessary when the investigation is complete, the service reported.
Bell Digs Into Deathwatch
amie Bell, star of the upcoming supernatural war movie Deathwatch, told SCI FI Wire that much of the film unfolds in a haunted trench.
"It's set during World War I," Bell said in an interview. "It was difficult, because we dug about 400 meters of networking trenches, and we got mud from the bottom of a pond in order to get that sloppy, kind of thick mud feeling."
The 16-year-old Billy Elliot star, who plays a youthful British soldier in the ensemble film, added, "We had a tanker that held 60,000 liters of water, and that would spill over us every day. We just recreated the trenches for real and shot at 6 o'clock in the morning. We were out there for seven weeks, in Prague, in November, in minus-12 conditions. Camera equipment froze. Actors froze. It was terrible. It was probably the worst conditions you could really think of for filming, but it's a good movie."
Bell added that the movie offers viewers something different. "It's visually shocking," he said. "The film is a twist on the [horror] genre. It's got that kind of human touch to it. It's about the history of war and how war is evil. It doesn't glorify war in any way. And it's got a supernatural twist. It's got a haunted-house feeling to it, but it's set in a trench."
Deathwatch just opened in the United Kingdom. "I hope it will come over [to America] quite soon," Bell said. "The guy who plays Gollum in [The Lord of the Rings:] The Two Towers, Andy Serkis, is in it, too. It's also got some very good, young British talent—Matthew Rhys [The Lost World], Laurence Fox [The Hole] and Hans Matheson [The Mists of Avalon]—[who haven't] really been discovered yet."
Clone Wars Revealed
omic-book writer John Ostrander told the Newsarama Web site that upcoming issues of the Dark Horse series Star Wars: Republic will delve into the history of the legendary Clone Wars.
"To my mind, this is a pivotal moment in Star Wars lore," Ostrander told the site. "It has been referred to since the very first Star Wars movie came out, suggesting mystery and backstory that has intrigued and fascinated Star Wars fans ever since. As we now can see, the Empire has its roots probably here, with the great military buildup."
The stories will cover the span between Star Wars: Episode II and Star Wars: Episode III, which begins with the end of the Clone Wars. The cycle will conclude shortly after Episode III is released and will lead directly into the comic adaptation of the film, Ostrander told the site.
Familiar characters from the films, such as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, will make appearances in the comic, but Star Wars creator George Lucas will have final approval on the storyline, Ostrander said. "The fates of certain characters certainly will be decided by George Lucas in the films and we're aware of that," Ostrander told the site. "It's not all that different from playing with an established franchise character such as Superman or Batman; you know you're never going to kill that character off so, instead, you focus on showing different sides of a given character."
Hathaway Enchanted By Ella
nne Hathaway told SCI FI Wire that she's just completed production on the Cinderella spoof Ella Enchanted, based on Gail Carson Levine's award-winning fantasy novel of the same name.
"I finished that a couple of weeks ago," the actress said in an interview. "I was living in Ireland for four months, and it's a lovely, lovely film for Miramax."
The actress added, "It's based on a great, great book, but the movie is a bit different, though. It's a variation on the story of Cinderella. Cinder. Ella. In-joke. Basically, instead of her being the typical stays-home-and-washes-the-ugly-stepsisters'-dirty-clothes type of heroine, she is very much a modern-day woman. She is a spunky, young and thoughtful woman with a very good head on her shoulders. On the day she was born, though, she was given a fairy gift. She got the demented fairy in the kingdom and instead of getting something good and useful like extreme intelligence or great hair, she was given the gift of obedience. Any command that is thrown at her she absolutely had to do. If in a conversation you just say, 'Oh, get out of town,' she has to get up and get out of town. That made for some really funny moments in the film. Eventually, she goes on a journey to overcome the curse. She tries to find the fairy and get her to take it back and the movie kind of starts from there."
Ella Enchanted also stars Hugh Dancy, Patrick Bergin, Eric Idle, Joanna Lumley and, as the dastardly Prince Regent Edgar, Cary Elwes. Hathaway noted that Elwes enjoyed playing a twist on his best-known character, Westley of The Princess Bride. "He was so happy to be working on this film," Hathaway said. "He just came in every day with all these ideas about how to make his character even more evil. It was wonderful. At the end we were chilling together and I asked him if he had fun working on the film and he said, 'The last time I had a film feel like this was The Princess Bride.'" Ella Enchanted is tentatively set for release on Aug. 8, 2003.
SF Games Named Best of '02
ameSpot has awarded Nintendo's Metroid Prime the title of Best Video Game of 2002 in its annual feature on the best and worst games of the year.
Other nominees included the futuristic action-shooter MechAssault, published by Microsoft, and the platform action-adventure Ratchet & Clank from SCEA.
Winners in specific platform categories included:
Game of the Year on PC
•Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, published by Blizzard
Game of the Year on Xbox
•MechAssault, published by Microsoft
Game of the Year on GameCube
•Metroid Prime, published by Nintendo
Game of the Year on Game Boy Advance
•Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, published by Atlus
Earning the dubious honor of Worst Game of the Year on PC was Demonworld: Dark Armies, published by Xicat Interactive.
Star Wars Galaxies Due
ameSpot reported that Sony Online Entertainment has set a release date for the massively multiplayer online RPG Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided.
The highly anticipated game, which will allow players to take on the role of one of several different characters from the Star Wars universe, will launch on April 15, 2003, the Web site reported.
Sony Online Entertainment will continue to expand on the game after its release, offering expansions that will let players explore and engage in combat in space, the Web site reported.
Briefly Noted
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Disney has posted a new trailer for the upcoming Pixar film Finding Nemo, which opens May 30, 2003.
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The Comics Continuum Web site has posted images and a description of the Jan. 7 episode of UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode, entitled "Showtime," will feature more potential slayers and a confrontation with the "Ubervamp," the site reported.
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Wizard magazine recently published a spread of photos from the upcoming comic-book adaptation The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, including a picture of actress Peta Wilson as Dracula heroine Mina Harker in full vampire makeup.
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Actor Ken Tobey, who appeared in such classic SF films as The Thing From Another World and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, died Dec. 22 at the age of 85, the Associated Press reported. Tobey's last project was the genre spoof Attack of the B-Movie Monster.
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EM.TV, the German media company that owns the rights to the Jim Henson Co. and the Muppets, is expected sell a 49.9 percent stake to a U.S. investor group headed by former UPN president Dean Valentine next month, the Associated Press reported.
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In its annual year-end Who's Next issue, Newsweek magazine has dubbed 2003 the Year of The Matrix. The issue, which hit newsstands Dec. 23, featured a sneak peek at some of the major action scenes in the film, as well as interviews with producer Joel Silver and key members of the production team.
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