Buffy Faith Spinoff Mulled
hristopher Buchanan—president of Mutant Enemy, the production company behind UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer—told SCI FI Wire that producers are considering a spinoff starring Eliza Dushku as the renegade Slayer Faith, but that no deals have been signed yet.
"I believe that's something that's being bounced around, along with other things, too," Buchanan said in an interview.
Dushku is currently shooting guest spots on Buffy and its spinoff series, The WB's Angel. Fan Web sites have carried rumors recently that Dushku had signed to star in a spinoff, with some rumors suggesting the contract was for two years. Buchanan said that he was unaware of any such deal. "Certainly, because she's around doing Buffy and Angel, I know there've been discussions," Buchanan said. But, he added, "We're kind of sitting on our hands until UPN and Fox figure out what they want to do."
Though Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar has made no official announcements yet, it's expected that she won't sign up for more Buffy once her contract expires at the end of the current seventh season. Speculation has centered on whether UPN will renew the series without Gellar or seek a spinoff.
Astin Likes Evil Angel
ean Astin, who directs the upcoming "Soulless" episode of The WB's Angel, told the Zap2it Web site that he loved working with star David Boreanaz.
Astin's episode, which marks his directorial debut in a one-hour network series, deals with Angel's evil counterpart, Angelus.
"When you're working with David, and he's into Angelus, he's got so many layers and so many different shades and qualities, you want to keep exploring them and mining them and pulling them out," Astin told the site. "It's such a rich, meaty character for him to do. He's good at evil. It's a little creepy, yeah."
Astin, who is best known as Sam in the Lord of the Rings films, got the directing gig through his friendship with writer/director Dan Petrie Jr., who is also friends with former Angel executive producer David Greenwalt. "Soulless" aired Feb. 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
McKellen: King Rocks
an McKellen, star of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, told the Empire Online Web site that the upcoming third installment will not disappoint.
Speaking at the Empire Awards, where Two Towers picked up honors, McKellen told the site, "In an e-mail I got just now from Peter Jackson, I asked if he was coming tonight, and he said no, he can't, but he's recorded a video message, and then he put a p.s. at the bottom. It said: 'And Return of the King is looking very, very good!' So I tell you, if Peter Jackson's boasting how good the third film is now, then we'd all better watch out."
McKellen also confessed that the filmmakers worried how the second Rings movie would be received. "We did worry a little bit, even after the success of the first film, that the second film might have a bit of a difficult time," McKellen said. "Because, after all, it doesn't have a beginning, and it doesn't have an ending. The story doesn't finish until Return of the King in a year's time. But the public has taken it to its heart, no doubt because they liked the first film so much." Return of the King opens in December.
Affleck Defends Daredevil
en Affleck, who plays the title role in the upcoming Daredevil film, defended to reporters the decision to make the Marvel Comics character very dark in the film.
Revealing a few film spoilers, Affleck discussed director/writer Mark Steven Johnson's decision to have Daredevil stand by while a criminal dies and to take prescription drugs and to pull out one of his own teeth after a particularly violent encounter.
Allowing a villain to die "was a real controversial issue," Affleck said at a press conference. "I know that the really hardcore fans, myself included—and I think probably even Marvel—felt that was stepping over a line in a way. We went back and forth over that many, many times. That's the one way it kind of deviates from the heart of the book. Daredevil never killed anybody [in the comics]. He does let Bullseye drop in the comic book, and in this film we throw him out the window. That's very consistent with the comic. But he was not as vengeful as we portrayed him in the beginning."
But, Affleck added, the death was necessary to establish Daredevil/Matt Murdock's dark state of mind at the film's outset. "For the sake of giving the character an arc—letting him go from a guy who is seeking ultimate vengeance to a guy who understands the difference between that and justice and understands about mercy and compassion, largely because of the love of this woman—we kept it in there," he said.
Murdock is also shown taking prescription drugs in the movie. "I thought that was emblematic in a way in which this has its own tone," said Affleck, who has had his own public brushes with addiction. "It's a little grittier, a little bit more realistic. It represented the fact that in this comic-book, superhero universe, when a guy gets hit or is stabbed, he bleeds, and there are consequences to it. ... I think that speaks to the violence issue, that there are consequences to violence." Daredevil opens Feb. 14.
Garner Fought For Daredevil
ennifer Garner, who plays Elektra in the upcoming Daredevil movie, told SCI FI Wire that a year's worth of Alias prepared her for the hard-fighting role—but only up to a point.
"I don't think I could have just launched into this role with any confidence if it hadn't been for a year of fighting constantly every two days," she said in an interview. "But I did definitely have to bump it up a notch."
In particular, Garner had to train with twin sais, or Asian short swords—Elektra's trademark weapons. Trainer Don Lee came to the Alias set during lunch and also worked with Garner during her breaks. "He would come to my house every Sunday for hours, and we would be in the backyard kind of tearing things up," she said. "He taught me fights, so I would learn how to fight with the sais. And my husband, Scott [Foley], would kind of look out the back windows on Sunday and say, 'Oh god, that's not good. This is not good.'"
In addition, Garner and star Ben Affleck had to learn wire work with martial-arts choreographer Cheung Yan Yuen and his team. "Ben and I trained for this one fight in the playground [three hours] every day for six weeks nonstop," she said. "We would work [on the film] all night, sleep ... from six to noon, meet each other around noon, [wire train] for three hours, and then go straight downtown and work all night again on a different fight."
The training and fighting eventually took their toll. "I took a divot of skin out of [Affleck's] nose," Garner said. "He fought with a stick, and he bashed all of my knuckles open, like just wide open. ... And then Colin Farrell [Bullseye] had to bite my lip in a fight and got so into it he just started gnawing on me. So the next day and for the next week I had a lip kind of out to here that was black." But because of ratings concerns, the lip shot didn't make it into the final cut of the movie, which opens Feb. 14, she added.
It's All New On Alias
lias star Jennifer Garner, who plays secret agent Sydney Bristow, told SCI FI Wire that the show's new direction means a whole different set of issues for all of the show's characters.
"It's really exciting," Garner said in an interview while promoting her upcoming film Daredevil. "We've made kind of a big change. ... [Sydney's] no longer a double agent. She's a CIA agent."
In addition, Sydney's former employer, the nefarious criminal agency SD-6, has been destroyed. "All of these characters who worked at SD-6 and thought they were working for the CIA and couldn't know that it wasn't the CIA, that kind of stunted all those characters," Garner added. "Now, ... the doors are blown open. The guy who plays my partner, Carl Lumbly, who plays Marcus Dixon, he now has all this genius stuff to play. 'You've betrayed me all this time.' What does this mean to his marriage? What does this mean in his life?"
Garner added that Marshall, the techno nerd played by Kevin Weisman, now works for the CIA. "He can be much more involved in the missions," she said.
As for her and co-star Michael Vartan, who plays CIA agent Michael Vaughn, Garner said, "It means that Sydney and Vaughn can fall in love. And we can explore what it means for two people at the beginning of a relationship to realize, 'We're not just in the beginning of a relationship. We're also CIA agents.' So they have to figure out what they're going to do trust-wise. And they've both been trained to lie all their lives. So what's that going to do to them? So it's going to be cool." Alias airs on ABC Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Daredevil, in which Garner plays Elektra, opens Feb. 14.
Garner Going On 30
lias star Jennifer Garner told SCI FI Wire that she's going to have to get in touch with her inner adolescent to star in the upcoming fantasy film 13 Going on 30 next summer.
"I play this young woman who at 13 suddenly fast-forwards to 30 physically, and ... the rest of her family has fast-forwarded that far ahead, [too,] but emotionally she's still where she is at her 13th birthday," Garner said in an interview while promoting her next film, Daredevil.
Garner, 32, said that she's still in touch with her 13-year-old side. "I think so," she said. "Everyone in the Alias cast is like, 'Oh, yeah, this is a no-brainer. She's 13 all right. She may be 12.'"
Garner added, "I'm so excited. I'm really nervous. But it feels closer to me character-wise than anything I have really played so far. It's ... the female version of Big. But it's a movie with a lot of heart, and it should be funny. And Mark Ruffalo is going to star in it with me. And it's at Revolution Studios, and Gary Winick is going to direct it, and it's going to be great." 13 Going on 30 is slated for a 2004 release; Daredevil, in which Garner plays Elektra opposite Ben Affleck's Matt Murdock, opens Feb. 14.
Superman Lead Cast?
anadian actor Victor Webster (Mutant X) is rumored to have been cast in Warner Brothers'
forthcoming Superman film, according to reports on the 4Filmmakers and IGN FilmForce Web sites.
Webster, who turns 30 this week, is best known for the role of Brennan Mulwray on the syndicated SF TV series Mutant X.
Webster's representatives refused to comment on the rumor to IGN, and representatives for Superman director Brett Ratner didn't reply to the site's inquiry. Superman is slated to begin production later this year for release in 2004.
Kidman Mulling Catwoman
icole Kidman is being sought to play the title role in Warner Brothers' proposed superhero film Catwoman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
While she has been offered the role, sources told the trade paper that she is waiting on the latest draft of the script before making any decisions.
Ashley Judd was attached to star in the film, which is being directed by French helmer Pitof and produced by studio-based Di Novi Pictures, the trade paper reported.
Based loosely on the character in the Batman comic series, Catwoman is about a cat-loving gymnast whose alter ego, Catwoman, fights evil. Kidman previously played Dr. Chase Meridian in 1995's Batman Forever, the trade paper reported.
League Diverges From Comic
eague of Extraordinary Gentlemen stars Shane West (Tom Sawyer),
Peta Wilson (Mina Harker) and Jason Flemyng (Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde) told Wizbang! magazine that they read the original Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill graphic-novel series to prepare for their roles, according to a report on the IGN FilmForce Web site.
"There are two
characters—Stuart Townsend as Dorian Gray and Tom
Sawyer—who aren't in the comic," West told the magazine.
West added, "I've enjoyed playing off Mina Harker, played by Peta Wilson. It's a relationship that's different from the comic book, because my character isn't in it, and Mina's not the leader of the group [as she is in the comics]."
West said that Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery) is based on the comics. But a romantic triangle develops among Mina, Dorian Gray and Sawyer, West said. "You don't know which guy is going to end up with her, or if anyone's going to in the end. Or even should." League is slated for a July 11 release.
SF Authors Debate Columbia
F scholar Gary Westfahl's Locus Online essay arguing that science fiction has misled the public about the advisability of manned space flight has drawn a torrent of negative reaction from SF writers and others.
In the wake of the Columbia disaster, Westfahl—author or editor of 12 books about science fiction and fantasy—wrote, "What happened to the Columbia crushingly invalidates all the cozy dramas of science fiction's space adventures."
Westfahl added that SF literature has underplayed the risks of such endeavors and suggested that there was no good reason for such projects at this time. "The real reason why so many people feel this compulsion to carry on with space travel is simple enough," he wrote. "We must conquer space because science fiction has told us to. ... You've got to admire the astounding power of a form of literature that can keep inspiring people to do silly things. But you've also got to wonder, especially on the days when those things go horribly wrong, whether this is necessarily an admirable quality."
In response, SF writers Jerry Pournelle, Michael Swanwick, David Hartwell and many others blasted Westfahl in letters to Locus Online. The writers took issue with Westfahl's argument that SF has downplayed risks.
"As to why explore, some people like Westfahl have to ask," Pournelle wrote. "Some, like the crew of Columbia, don't need to ask that question. Like Scott at the South Pole, the Columbia crew knew the risks, and they chose to take them: as would many readers of science fiction, and many Americans, and all the astronauts and test pilots I have met. The star road takes a fearful toll: but it's one paid cheerfully."
Fox Pulls Doe Episode
ox pulled an episode of John Doe that deals with the death of an astronaut in light of the Columbia disaster, Zap2it reported.
The episode, "Illegal Alien," was slated to air on Feb. 7 and begins with an astronaut falling out of the sky.
"It was very much of a mutual decision," executive producer Brandon Camp told the site. "We have this episode that revolves around this mysterious appearance of an astronaut in a forest outside of Seattle, and there are all these whispers of a connection between the astronaut and John Doe throughout the episode."
An episode of Fastlane replaced the Doe installment.
Shuttle Stays In Core
avid Foster, producer of the upcoming SF thriller film The Core, told the
IGN FilmForce Web site that a space shuttle crash scene will remain in the film, despite the recent Columbia disaster.
"The picture will open as scheduled, on Friday, March 28," Foster told the site. "The shuttle scene remains intact. In fact, in the movie it is a very heroic scene when it crash-lands safely in the L.A. River basin—a funny thought itself. In every test screening that scene has received huge applause. If I must say so myself, it's a pretty exceptional visual effects sequence."
Foster added, "The only thing Paramount has done, with the blessings of myself and the director [Jon Amiel], is to pull the trailers and cut the few frames of the shuttle sequence out of them. The trailers will be back in the theaters this weekend. This was done out of respect for the seven extraordinary adventurers/scientists/heroes who perished Saturday morning. As I'm sure you know, their families have all said that the astronaut program and space exploration should go on, and we will feel the same way about our movie."
Core Shuttle Trailers Pulled
aramount has pulled its trailer for the SF thriller film The Core, which shows the space shuttle in jeopardy, in light of the Columbia disaster over the weekend, Variety reported.
But the studio is holding to its March 28 release date for the movie, the trade paper reported.
Paramount asked theaters to stop screening the trailer following the Feb. 1 disaster, and it is reviewing its advertising to make certain the campaign is sensitive to the tragedy, the trade paper reported.
The studio also told Variety that it's too early to say whether it will alter or excise shuttle sequences from the film. Directed by Jon Amiel, the movie tells the story of a group of NASA "terranauts" who must travel deep underground after the Earth's inner core stops rotating, creating a host of natural disasters that threatens life on the surface.
Smith Moved By Matrix
ada Pinkett Smith, who appears in and voices the key character in the upcoming video game Enter the Matrix, told SCI FI Wire that she performed for months to give programmers a model for her character, Niobe.
"I had to do all the motion capture," Smith said in an interview at the premiere of the game. "Four months of motion capture and two, ... maybe three weeks, of facial capture. So it was pretty intense."
Pinkett Smith added, "They wanted to capture all my movements: kicks, runs, rolls, tumbles, climbing, fast walk, slow walk, scenes. We actually shot scenes. So it was like these makeshift props that we had to use. Most of the time we were acting by ourselves in these imaginary environments. ... They made it very clear that they needed it to be authentic."
Pinkett Smith also plays Niobe in the upcoming two Matrix sequel films, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Reloaded opens May 15; Revolutions opens in November. Enter the Matrix, for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PC, hits stores on May 15.
Matrix Anime, Game Sneaked
oel Silver, producer of the upcoming Matrix sequel films, presided over a preview on Feb. 4 of Final Flight of the Osiris—a 3-D computer-animated short prequel film—and Enter the Matrix, a companion video game.
Osiris, one of nine Animatrix animated films, and the video game—from Atari and Shiny Entertainment—are designed to enhance the experience of the upcoming sequel movies, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Silver told a preview audience on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, Calif.
"A movie wasn't big enough," Silver said. "So the story starts here [with Osiris], which will be seen in cinemas on the 21st of March. And then it will continue in the video game." Matrix writers and directors Larry and Andy Wachowski wrote the script for the video game and shot more than an hour's worth of film footage, featuring actors from the movies, exclusively for the game—an unprecedented cross-pollination of Hollywood and gaming.
The Wachowskis "really worked very hard to have the video game feel like it's a part of and an experience of the movie," Silver said. "Now if the audience doesn't see [Osiris] and doesn't play the video games, we think they'll love the Matrix [films]. We know they'll love the Matrix. But if they do see this, and they do see The Animatrix and they do play the video game, we think they'll have maybe a little bit of an enhanced experience."
Osiris, written by the Wachowskis, is a nine-minute film that serves as a prelude to The Matrix Reloaded. It tells the story of the hovercraft Osiris and its attempt to send a vital message to Zion, the last human city on Earth, while under attack from the Machine Army. It opens in theaters on March 21, attached to prints of Dreamcatcher. Other installments of The Animatrix will premiere on the official Matrix Web site, starting Feb. 4. Warner Home Video and Village Roadshow Pictures will release The Animatrix on DVD and VHS on June 3.
Enter the Matrix, starring Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, will be released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PC on May 15. The third-person action game is produced and directed and features a script by the Wachowski brothers. It follows Niobe, skipper of the hovercraft Logos, and Ghost (Anthony Wong), a Zen-master weapons expert, through the same timeline as The Matrix Reloaded.
Ellis Previews Matrix Chase
avid Ellis, who helped coordinate the massive freeway chase in the upcoming sequel film The Matrix Reloaded, told SCI FI Wire that he and directors Larry and Andy Wachowski mixed on-set special effects with computer graphics to achieve the eye-popping sequence.
Moviegoers got a glimpse of the chase in the movie's Super Bowl TV commercial, in which an agent appears to hop onto the hood of a speeding car, smash it and flip it over.
"We would do the car chase, and then when [the agent] is jumping from car to car, we would [first] actually implode the car," Ellis said in an interview. The filmmaker would then shoot an actor jumping against a green-screen background. A computer would then composite the two shots together, making it seem as if the actor were jumping onto the actual vehicle.
"That is how the front of the car crumples when [the agent] lands on it," Ellis said. The effects team would also catapult cars over the freeway, to make them seem as if they were being propelled by the agent's impact. "When he'd hit a car, we'd flip it over with a cannon, and then we would [composite] him in with that," Ellis said.
The Matrix Reloaded opens May 15.
Matrix Guys Eye Conan?
heArnoldFans Web site reported a rumor that Matrix directors Andy and Larry Wachowski are re-committing to produce a King Conan movie.
Citing an anonymous source, the site reported that the Wachowski brothers are back on board the John Milius feature, to which Arnold Schwarzenegger is also reportedly attached.
The site added that Warner Brothers and the Wachowskis were motivated by a petition on the site that generated nearly 10,000 signatures.
King Conan is a proposed sequel to Schwarzenegger's 1980s-era Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer.
Jolie Flies In Tomorrow
ngelina Jolie will play an aviatrix in The World of Tomorrow, an independently financed SF movie that will also star Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, Variety reported.
Kerry Conran will make his directorial debut and also wrote the script. Jon Avnet is producing with Marsha Oglesby, Law and his wife, Sadie Frost, the trade paper reported.
Giovanni Ribisi and Bai Ling are also in talks to join the film, financed by Italian-based producer Aurelio De Laurentiis, who is executive producing along with Raffaella De Laurentiis and Bill Haber.
The pre-World War II adventure tale stars Jolie as a pilot matched with a swashbuckling colleague (Law) and a probing journalist (Paltrow) and has science-fiction elements.
Lucas Talks Star Wars DVDs
eorge Lucas told fans not to expect DVDs of the original versions of the first three Star Wars films, TheForce.net Web site reported.
Speaking at a tribute to his Industrial Light & Magic visual-effects house and Skywalker Sound in Hollywood, Calif., Lucas said that upcoming DVDs will contain only the updated special editions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the site reported.
The special editions are what Lucas said he wanted the films to be originally, but time and money restraints did not allow him to make them at the time.
Lem Critiques Solaris Film
olish SF writer Stanislaw Lem lamented that last year's U.S. film adaptation of his classic novel Solaris focused more on emotions than ideas, according to a statement on the 82-year-old author's official Web site.
The U.S. Solaris was directed by Steven Soderbergh and starred George Clooney.
"The director exposed Chris' [Clooney] and [Rheya's (Natascha McElhone)] tragic love—hence the emotional element strongly dominates the intellectual one, while the Solarian Ocean is the Great Absent One," Lem said in the statement. But the author praised the movie's creativity: "Soderbergh's movie belongs to the category of ambitious, artistic cinema—difficult to crack for the mass audience used to Hollywood pap."
Solaris is vying for the Golden Bear prize at the Berlin film festival this week.
Dracula Theme Park Sited
omania will open a Dracula theme park at a lakeside resort near the burial site of Vlad the Impaler, the real-life Romanian prince who inspired the vampire myth, tourism officials told the Associated Press.
After a year of wrangling between building the tourist attraction deep in the Transylvania region or closer to Bucharest, officials announced the park will be built near Snagov Lake, an upscale resort 25 miles north of the capital, the wire service reported.
Estimated to cost $31.5 million, the park's planned attractions will include restaurants, hotels, a zoo, a golf course and a Gothic castle with spooky effects. The park will be built on government land and could cover up to 520 acres, Tourism Minister Dan Matei Agathon told the AP.
The body of the sadistic count, who inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 supernatural novel Dracula, is said to be buried in a monastery he built on a small island on the lake, the AP reported.
Chan Worries About World
ackie Chan, who plays Passepartout in the upcoming film adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, told SCI FI Wire that he worries about coming up with stunts appropriate to the 19th-century period.
"That makes me worry, because it's set in 18-something," Chan said in an interview.
Chan added, "[I wanted to use a] balloon, bicycle, blah, blah, blah. Then the director says, 'OK, we cannot do this, and we cannot do that.' The same as [shooting Shanghai Knights in 19th-century] England. That makes me worried."
Chan added that the movie begins shooting soon. "I start next month, in Bangkok first," he said. "I go [for] three weeks [of] location [scouting] for Around the World, then to Bangkok to start the movie."
Director Frank Coraci told SCI FI Wire earlier that he hoped for a Christmas 2003 release.
Hanley Rewrites Volunteer
rent Hanley (Frailty) will rewrite the upcoming SF film The Volunteer, with Nicolas Cage starring and producing via his Saturn Films at New Line Cinema, Variety reported.
Sam Egan (executive producer of The Outer Limits and Jeremiah) originally wrote the script, about a man who discovers that Earth's population is replete with aliens who have taken shelter here after their home planet was destroyed, the trade paper reported.
"They're aliens, but they're essentially humans that evolved elsewhere," Hanley told the trade paper. "I found it fascinating to ask what makes us human, to ask, 'Do they have blood running in their veins, too?'"
Cage and his partner Norm Golightly are producing, along with Ovation Entertainment's Richard Lewis.
Snipes Has Nine Lives
esley Snipes will star in and David Carson will direct the supernatural thriller film Nine Lives for Millennium Films and the Jacobson Co., according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The film is in preproduction and will begin shooting March 30 in Bulgaria, the trade paper reported.
Described as a cross between Jacob's Ladder and The Bourne Identity, Nine Lives tells the story of a former Army Special Ops soldier who gets injected with a hallucinogenic mind-control drug that allows people to alter his reality with simple suggestions.
Tom Vaughan wrote the script, and Jim Wedaa, Tom Jacobson, Avi Lerner and Brad Jenkel are producing, with Bob Misiorowski executive producing.
Ruccolo Gets Spellbound
ichard Ruccolo has signed to star in the supernatural TV pilot Spellbound for NBC/Warner Brothers TV, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Frasier alumni Rob Greenberg and Suzanne Martin wrote the pilot, the trade paper reported.
Stage actress Andrea Anders will co-star opposite Ruccolo in the romantic comedy, about a male witch (Ruccolo) who falls in love with a mortal (Anders).
Lifetime Dials Up Missing
ifetime Television has ordered production on Lions Gate Television's 1-800-Missing, a tentatively titled drama pilot with supernatural overtones, based on Meg Cabot's novel 1-800-Where R U, Variety reported.
Missing centers on a female FBI agent who partners with a young psychic woman, the trade paper reported.
Glenn Davis and William Laurin will write and executive produce. Debra Martin Chase also will executive produce. Michael Fresco will direct the pilot, based on the book by Cabot (The Princess Diaries), which she wrote under the pseudonym Jenny Carroll, the trade paper reported.
Speedman Digs Underworld
cott Speedman, who stars in the upcoming supernatural horror film Underworld, told SCI FI Wire that he plays a human caught in a war between vampires and werewolves.
"I'm not playing a werewolf. I'm not playing a vampire," Speedman said in an interview. "I'm playing this intern who gets pulled into this underworld. Kate Beckinsale plays a vampire, and the werewolves realize my strain of blood can save their race, so they track me and try to get my blood."
The action-packed movie deals with the vampire's attempts to rescue the intern and fight off the werewolves, Speedman said. "[There's] a lot of big action," he said. "We had a lot of the stunt guys from the Matrix movies and got to do a lot of the wire training. I had a lot of fighting."
Speedman also endured makeup to transform into "something at the end of the movie," he said cryptically. Underworld opens Sept. 19.
Begetting Children Of Dune
ohn Harrison, writer and co-producer of the SCI FI Channel's upcoming sequel miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, told SCI FI Wire that the miniseries compresses the events in Herbert's second and third Dune novels, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
"It was quite a bit of a challenge, because these books are so wonderful and so rich and so deep that any translation to screen is of necessity going to leave things out or change things or move things around, and I think that's the role of a good adaptation."
But, Harrison added, "One can't be slavishly loyal to every little thing, because they are, after all, two different media here we're dealing with." In following up last year's successful Frank Herbert's Dune, Harrison said he needed to deal with successive generations of the Atreides family on the desert planet of Arrakis. "I went to the network and I said, 'Look, I think that we can put these two books together, and granted there's over 800 pages of text here, but I think we can find a through line, a storyline that is true to the novels and basically gives us a companion piece to the first Dune miniseries," he said.
"I've moved some things around a little bit," Harrison said. "I have taken some of the internal monologues, and I've externalized them in terms of dialogue and action. I've basically taken what is a novel and turned it into a movie. But I maintain that I am absolutely true to the story and the spirit of the books." The six-hour Children of Dune debuts at 9 p.m. ET/PT March 16.
Kassovitz Helms Gothika
athieu Kassovitz will direct Halle Berry and Penelope Cruz in Gothika, Dark Castle's upcoming supernatural thriller film, Variety reported.
Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures will co-produce.
Kassovitz is best known as a star of Amelie. Sebastian Gutierrez wrote Gothika, which stars Berry as a criminal psychologist who awakens to find herself a patient in her own mental institution, unable to remember a murder she supposedly committed. She is victimized by a vengeful spirit in the asylum. Cruz plays a fellow inmate, the trade paper reported.
Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Susan Levin will produce the film, with Richard Mirisch co-producing. The film begins production in April and will be released domestically for Halloween by Warner. Columbia will distribute abroad, the trade paper reported.
MacLean Named SFWA Emeritus
he Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has named Katherine MacLean this year's SFWA author emeritus, Locus Online reported.
Formal presentation of the honor will occur during the Nebula Awards Weekend in Philadelphia, April 18-20.
Meanwhile, Gary Westfahl will receive the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association, honoring lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship, at the SFRA conference at the University of Guelph in Toronto, June 26-29, the site reported.
Cleese Adapts Twits
ohn Cleese is co-writing a film script based on Roald Dahl's children's fantasy book The Twits, Zap2it reported.
Disney has signed a deal to produce the movie with John Williams' Disney-based Vanguard Films (The Tuxedo), with Kirk De Micco (Quest for Camelot) co-writing the script, the site and Variety reported.
The story revolves around Mr. and Mrs. Twit, the two nastiest people in the world, who play mean practical jokes on each other and mastermind elaborate heists along with their crew of trained animals, until one day the creatures turn the tables on the Twits, the site reported.
Darkness Sequel Mulled
arkness Falls producer John Hegeman, who is pleased with the supernatural horror film's box office, told SCI FI Wire that the filmmakers are mulling a sequel.
"I think everyone ... would love to see Darkness Falls turn into a franchise property," Hegeman said in an interview. "And that's one of the reasons why we tried to really lay out a strong mythology and create a very identifiable core character."
Darkness Falls opened in the top slot at the box office on Jan. 24 and saw its box-office revenues slip only 38 percent in its second weekend of release. "I think we want to see how the picture plays out the second week" before committing to a sequel, Hegeman said. "See if the picture is expanding its audience, and really try to get an idea of what the audience is going to be looking for. But certainly it's in the plans and in our thoughts, and it's one of the reasons why we tried to make a very identifiable mythology to the main character."
Hegeman added that the main cast members, including Chaney Kley and Emma Caulfield, have expressed interest in returning for a second installment.
Trek Film Future Unsure
tar Trek Nemesis executive producer Rick Berman told SCI FI Wire that several factors likely contributed to the film's lackluster box-office performance, and he added that the future of the film franchise remains uncertain.
"There's no way of telling what happened," Berman said in an interview. "I'm convinced that we made a very good movie, and I'm also convinced that the movie was promoted properly."
Berman added, "I thought the trailers and the television spots were all
excellent. It's easy to blame that sort of thing, but I don't think we can in this situation. I think that the competition of other films may have played some part in it, but I can't be certain of that, either. It's very, very hard to tell."
Berman sounded disappointed. "Obviously, you want a film to do well," he said. "You work for a long time, and you work for a long time, and if it doesn't do well, it's not fun."
Berman went on to say that he's not sure what the future will hold for the Trek film franchise. "There's a theory that there was too much time [between Insurrection and Nemesis]," he said. "There's another theory that there wasn't too much time. I, along with the people at Paramount, need a few months of perspective and thinking about it to then decide what's the best thing to do next. I don't think this is like falling off a horse, and you want to jump right back on it. But we'll see."
Fimmel's Tarzan
ustralian model Travis Fimmel will play the title role in The WB's drama pilot Tarzan, a contemporary update of Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic tale, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Warner Brothers Television and Laura Ziskin will produce the series, which will also star newcomer Sarah Wayne Callies as Jane.
The series focuses on Tarzan as a young man as he is brought from the jungle to his childhood home, New York, by his uncle, the head of Greystoke Enterprises. In this version, Jane is a fiery police detective, the trade paper reported.
Eric Kripke wrote the script for the pilot. Ziskin and Kripke are executive producing with David Gerber and the pilot's director, David Nutter (The X-Files).
Firefly Fans Collect Coats
ans of Fox's canceled SF series Firefly collected more than 1,600 coats and other items for charity in a campaign to raise awareness of the show, which producers are still trying to keep alive.
Firefly fans, who call themselves "Browncoats" after characters in the series, collected more than 500 coats and dozens of other items in the United States, Canada and Germany on Jan. 25, organizers said.
The items were donated to homeless shelters and other charities in 26 states, four Canadian cities and in Frankfurt, Germany. Fans also collected pledges for 90 hours of volunteer service and $550 in online donations to local charities.
The coat drive was the brainchild of Rebecca Thompson and was supported by Firefly: Immediate Assistance, a Web site for fans of the show, and Firefly: SOS, another fan group.
Mansion Mirrors Ride
arsha Thomason, who plays Eddie Murphy's wife in the upcoming supernatural movie Haunted Mansion, told SCI FI Wire that the film will feature elements of the popular Disney theme-park ride on which it is based.
"We've got the singing heads," Thomason said in an interview. "We've got the whole mausoleum. We've got Madame Leota. Jennifer Tilly is playing Madame Leota. There's a whole lot of the Disney ride in the movie."
Murphy plays a workaholic who travels with his family to a haunted house for a job interview. The ghosts he meets teach him about the importance of family. "It's fab," Thomason said. "We're having such a good time. It's so much fun. [Murphy's] kids have been on the set, and his wife."
Haunted Mansion, directed by Rob Minkoff (the Stuart Little films) will be released in November.
Spirited Tops Annie Awards
iyazaki's Spirited Away and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron were the big winners at the 30th annual Annie Awards, presented Feb. 1 by AFISA-Hollywood, the International Animated Film Society, Variety reported.
The awards recognize outstanding achievement in animation in film, TV, commercials, videos and special projects.
Spirited Away won four Annies, including top animated theatrical feature. Spirit also won four awards, recognizing the film's accomplishments in character design, production design, effects animation and storyboards. Other film winners included Monsters, Inc. and Lilo & Stitch, the trade paper reported.
BSFA Nominees Named
rganizers announced the short list of nominees for the British Science Fiction Awards, presented by the British Science Fiction Association and the British national SF convention (Eastercon).
The awards will be presented at the 2003 Eastercon, or Seacon '03, which takes place in Hinckley, Leicestershire, April 18-21. A list of nominees follows.
Best Novel
•Effendi by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
•Light by M. John Harrison
•Castles Made of Sand by Gwyneth Jones
•The Scar by China Mieville
•The Separation by Christopher Priest
•The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Best Short Fiction
•"Singleton" by Greg Egan
•"Coraline" by Neil Gaiman
•
"Voice of Steel" by Sean McMullen
•"If Lions Could Speak" by Paul Park
•"Router" by Charles Stross
•"Five British Dinosaurs" by Michael Swanwick
Best Related Nonfiction Publication
•"The Interrogation" by Nick Gevers
•"Dave Langford's Introduction to Maps"
•"Mapping Mars" by Oliver Morton
•"The Timex Machine" by Lucius Shepherd
•"Once There Was a Magazine" by Fred Smith
Best Artwork
•Peter Gric, Experiment 1
•Dominic Harman, cover of Interzone 179
•Fraser Irving, page 1 of Judge Death: My Name Is Death
•Joachim Luetke, illustration for The Routine
•Richard Marchand, Obliquitese
New X-Files Game Due
ivendi Universal Games and Fox Interactive announced the development of The X-Files: Resist or Serve, a video game for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox game systems.
Black Ops will develop the title, and Sierra Entertainment will publish the game, which is due in the summer.
Resist or Serve is a 3-D survival horror game spanning three original episodes created by the executive producers of the X-Files television show and featuring the likenesses and voices
of David Duchovny (Mulder) and Gillian Anderson (Scully), the companies said.
The game takes Mulder and Scully to a small Rocky Mountain town to investigate a string of unusual murders linked to ghost
sightings, the undead and other paranormal phenomena.
Sierra Entertainment is a studio of Vivendi Universal Games, and Vivendi Universal Games is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Briefly Noted
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Final Destination 2 fell three places in the box-office rankings to number five, taking in about $8.7 million for the weekend of Feb. 7, its second in release, the Hollywood trade papers reported. Its total rose to $28.1 million.
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The upcoming fifth Harry Potter novel, The Order of the Phoenix, is breaking records months before its June 21 publication date, and with a suggested retail price of $29.99, it ranks as the highest-priced new children's novel in history, TV Guide Online reported.
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Zentertainment reported a rumor that Jake Gyllenhall (Donnie Darko) will make a brief appearance as Kletus Kasady in the upcoming sequel film The Amazing Spider-Man.
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The Daily Telegraph reported that Jeremy Sumpter, star of the upcoming Peter Pan live-action movie, has broken his foot, throwing the $100 million production into disarray. Sumpter is expected to be out of action for a few more weeks.
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Most of the Lord of the Rings actors will fly back to New Zealand for reshoots before the December release of the third film, The Return of the King, which is expected to clock in at three-and-a-half to four hours, Dark Horizons reported.
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The "Godfellas" episode of Futurama, written by Ken Keeler, received a nomination for a Writers Guild of America award on Feb. 6, Variety reported.
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Gina Torres, who played Zoe on Fox's canceled SF series Firefly, told SCI FI Wire that the show won't be back, despite the best efforts of producers to find another home for it. "We are canceled," Torres said in an interview. "We won't be on TV."
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Donnie Yen told SCI FI Wire that he will serve as action director for the upcoming Hong Kong vampire film Twins Effect, which he described as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Blade."
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Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. has written an episode of the Mutant X television series that will kick off the May sweeps in syndication, the Comics Continuum Web site reported. Prinze's episode is called "One Step Closer."
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The BBC Cult Web site will launch Ghosts of Albion—an animated horror serial from former Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast member Amber Benson and Christopher Golden, a prolific writer of Buffy and Angel novels—on March 27.
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E! Online columnist Anderson Jones reported that Val Kilmer will play an alien villain in the upcoming fifth Superman movie.
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Superhero Hype! reported that Fox will fire up the world's first "flaming billboard" on Los Angeles' Sunset Boulevard on Feb. 6 to promote the upcoming Daredevil movie, which opens Feb. 14. The billboard will feature the character's signature flaming Double-D logo.
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The Comics2Film Web site reported that Fox will offer sneak peeks at its upcoming Daredevil film on Feb. 13, the night before it officially opens. The movie will screen with a new, never-before-seen trailer for Fox's upcoming X-Men sequel, X2.
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Malcolm McDowell, Howie Mandel and Whoopi Goldberg have been added to the vocal cast of CineGroupe's P3K, Pinocchio 3000, Canada's first full-length 3-D animated feature film, which is slated for a 2004 release, Variety reported.
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The complete first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is now available on DVD. The six-disc DVD set includes interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and a space station model. The second season arrives March 4.
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Ben Kingsley has signed to star in the live-action film version of the 1960s cult U.K. television puppet series Thunderbirds, opposite Bill Paxton, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Kingsley will play the Hood, the movie's international master criminal.
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A new trailer and Web site have gone live for Willard, the upcoming remake of the 1971 classic horror film. Willard, starring Crispin Glover, opens March 14.
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