Nemo Audiences Face Scrutiny
isney has hired security guards to scan audiences of its new animated film Finding Nemo with metal detectors and night-vision goggles to fish for viewers trying to tape the film illegally with video cameras, the Reuters news service reported.
Such tapers try to record the movie to make bootleg copies of the film for resale on the black market, the news service reported.
To combat piracy, Disney has hired the security firm Burns Pinkerton, a unit of Sweden's Securitas AB, to screen audiences.
The practice is relatively new, Reuters reported. Fox also used night-vision goggles in early screenings of X2 and more recently of Down With Love. Finding Nemo opened May 30.
Bruce Dials Up Trouble
ruce Almighty is causing headaches for Dawn Jenkins, a glassmaker from Pinellas Parks, Fla., and other people who share a phone number with God (Morgan Freeman), as depicted in the hit fantasy film, the Zap2it Web site reported.
Instead of the usual 555 prefix most films use for phone numbers, God's number matches Jenkins' cell-phone number, the site reported. Jenkins told the Associated Press that she's contemplating hiring an attorney.
And Jenkins isn't the only person with the same phone number. A South Carolina woman, whose pager number is the same as Jenkins,' said she's been "getting aggravated to death" by the incessant calling, the site reported. The number also matches a call center to a group of five Colorado talk-radio stations, including KWYD in Colorado Springs, KLMO in Longmont, KSKE in Vail, KDMN in Buena Vista and an FM station in Gunnison, the site reported.
Why Is Cordelia Off Angel?
oss Whedon, co-creator of The WB's Angel, confirmed to TV Guide Online that Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) won't be coming back to the vampire series and talked about the reason.
"Mainly because we felt like we had taken that story—just like Buffy [the Vampire Slayer] for seven years—about as far as it could go," Whedon told the site. "The Angel/Cordelia [love story] had gone pretty much as far as we wanted to take it. Their romance was definitely not a popular move on our part, and I think with most fans."
Whedon added, "It just seemed like it was time, because we were revamping the show, and then paring it down. ... It just seemed like a good time for certain people to move on. Not completely, obviously. I'm hoping that we'll get Charisma to do some episodes as Cordelia sometime during the year. She's a new mother, so, like [Buffy star] Sarah [Michelle Gellar], I'm waiting to hear what her schedule is like."
Whedon said that the show parted with Carpenter on good terms, but added, "Yeah, but that's also stuff between us and not stuff that I would talk about in an interview." Angel returns to its 9 p.m. ET/PT Wednesday timeslot in the fall.
Beckinsale Dug Underworld
ate Beckinsale, who plays a vampire in the upcoming supernatural film Underworld, told SCI FI Wire that the movie is an action thriller for which she had to train hard.
"Kind of a serious, scary, supernatural thing," she said in an interview. Beckinsale stars with Scott Speedman in a story about the ancient war between bloodsuckers and werewolves.
"I had three months of training," Beckinsale said. "I did gymnastics and wire work and yoga and guns and combat and fighting. It was really scary, because ... [I] was never really into running around that much. But I loved it, and I found out I was actually [good]. I found the gymnastics part of it quite difficult. I get dizzy quite easily. But I was really uncannily good with a gun, which I would never have known otherwise."
But the British actress added that one of the hardest parts of making the movie was shooting it in Hungary. "Four months in Budapest, ... with a short, gloomy, dark break in London for Christmas," she said. "So I did find by the end of it, I started to feel a bit oppressed just from the gray and the cold." Underworld opens Sept. 19.
Galactica Mixes Old And New
recent visit to the set of the upcoming SCI FI Channel original miniseries Battlestar Galactica revealed that the "reimagined" show will mix design elements from the original 1970s TV series with new designs.
The miniseries is currently shooting on soundstages in Vancouver, B.C.
The new Galactica's Vipers are essentially identical to the original's. But the miniseries will also introduce a new ship, the Raptor. Built for reconnaissance, not combat, the Raptor looks like a bulkier version of the Viper, bristling with antennas and sensors. The fighter pilot helmets will lose their Egyptian influence and be more streamlined.
The Colonial coins ("cubits"), on the other hand, are modeled on the original series' props.
As for the Cylons? Whatever new form those killer robots will take is being kept under wraps. But an actual Cylon costume from the original series will make an appearance—in a museum case. Battlestar Galactica visual special effects supervisor Gary Hutzel told SCI FI Wire that this old-style Cylon has been renamed "the harbinger of doom" and will be on display as an example of what the Cylons looked like in the past. Battlestar Galactica will debut in December.
Episode III Hints Offered
ain McCaig, who returns as a concept artist on George Lucas' upcoming prequel film Star Wars: Episode III, offered the official Homing Beacon newsletter hints about how Anakin Skywalker makes his ultimate transition to the dark side of the Force.
McCaig based his hints on early script pages for the last prequel in the saga, which traces Anakin's eventual transformation into Darth Vader.
"In Episode I, when we saw Jake Lloyd, we wondered, 'Where's the dark side? Why isn't this kid creepy?'" McCaig told the newsletter. "And then, in Episode II, Hayden Christensen came across as a justifiably angry teenager more than a kid who crosses over to the true dark side. ... So I kept waiting for the dark side to take hold."
McCaig added, "In this film, you realize, it's more about Anakin making the wrong choices. He's given a glorious moment by George—I'm so happy with part of the script—where he truly has to make a choice. In the end, I think that's a smarter way to go than a slow transformation. It's more tragic this way."
McCaig added that Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) finds herself having to conceal her marriage and pregnancies. As in earlier prequels, McCaig will help develop her costumes. "What are we wearing this year in Star Wars?" he asked. "In Episode I, she was the queen, and she was wearing disguises. I once said she should be able to slip out of the back of the costume, and you'd never know she was gone. Ironically, in this one, she's back to wearing disguises. As well as now hiding this marriage to a Jedi, which is not allowed, she has to hide the fact that she's going to have babies. All of the costumes had to disguise these facts." Episode III will begin production this summer for release in 2005.
Console Galaxies On Hold
ucasArts confirmed to the GameSpot Web site that it has put on hold plans to release console versions of its upcoming Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided online role-playing game in favor of a planned PC launch.
LucasArts had previously announced that it would release Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions.
"We are currently focusing all of our efforts on the successful launch of the PC version of Star Wars Galaxies," the game publisher told GameSpot. The PC version is currently in beta testing. LucasArts has not yet announced an official release date.
Hamill Helming Comic
tar Wars actor Mark Hamill will star in and direct Comic Book: The Movie, a semifictional documentary for Creative Light Entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Slated for a fall release, Comic Book is an improv film that follows the world's biggest comic fan, who has been hired to direct a documentary about his favorite comic-book heroes of all time, the trade paper reported.
The movie was filmed on location at San Diego's Comic-Con International and features cameos from Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and Simpsons creator Matt Groening, among others, the trade paper reported.
Garfield Based On Real Cat
ohn Davis, producer of the upcoming live-action/computer-animated Garfield movie, told SCI FI Wire that the CGI Garfield will look like a real feline.
"Garfield is going to look like Garfield would if he was a real, live animal," Davis said in an interview. "The goal there is to make you believe that we found a cat that did all those things, even though it was all created in a computer. A tremendous amount of research and development has gone into making that cat look absolutely real."
But Garfield will still retain the distinct features of the traditionally animated and comic-strip characters, Davis added. "He has features like his ears and his eyes, and he's kind of a fat cat," Davis said. "He's bigger than any cat you've seen. You've got those big paws. You'll look at him and go, 'He's Garfield. That's Garfield.'"
Davis added that he is confident that his computer-animated cat will improve upon Scooby-Doo's computer-generated dog. "I thought Scooby kind of looked a little corny," he said. "We've gone to the next generation of technology." Garfield is slated for a June 4, 2004, release.
Murray Voicing Garfield
ill Murray has signed on to voice the role of Garfield the Cat in the upcoming Garfield movie for 20th Century Fox, Variety reported.
Based on the comic strip, the movie centers on the sardonic cat who must tolerate the indignity of being saddled with a nebbish owner (Breckin Meyer) and a nitwit dog as housemates, the trade paper reported.
Helmer Peter Hewitt (Thunderpants) directs the live-action/computer-animated film adaptation, which was written by Toy Story scribes Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, the trade paper reported.
Drawn by Jim Davis, the Garfield strip marks its 25th anniversary on June 19 and remains one of the most widely syndicated strips in the world, appearing in 2,570 newspapers in 111 countries, the trade paper reported.
Writers Added To Hall Of Fame
he board of directors of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame announced that Wilson Tucker and Kate Wilhelm are the 2003 inductees, according to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site.
Damon Knight and Edgar Rice Burroughs were named posthumous inductees. The announcement came at ConQuesT 34 in Kansas City, Mo.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 by the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas and the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society. The induction will take place at the University of Kansas on July 11 as part of the same ceremony awarding the John W. Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards.
Meanwhile, the Hall of Fame's board of directors recently met with representatives of the proposed Science Fiction Experience to explore the possibility of the Hall of Fame's participating in the museum, which is slated to open in Seattle in 2004.
Gibson Labored On Evil
homas Gibson, who stars in the SF telefilm Evil Never Dies on TBS, told TV Guide Online that he worked a grueling schedule to complete the movie, which was shot in Melbourne, Australia.
"It was a month of working nights," Gibson told the site. "It's a spooky horror pic, and they wanted it to look appropriately moody, dark and brooding. But in Australian midsummer, it doesn't get dark until 9 or 9:30, so we'd have to shoot all night."
Gibson added with a laugh, "Oh, and the film is set in Connecticut. So if you look closely, you'll find a few nonindigenous plant species. There's lots of eucalyptus in our version of New England."
Gibson plays a cop whose wife is murdered. "I can't get over the death of my wife easily, which is an understandable thing," he said. "Then, this college professor—who can reanimate dead tissue—brings her executed killer back to life. So I have to fight him again. I hate when that happens, don't you?" Evil Never Dies aired at 8 p.m. ET/PT on June 1.
Jovovich In Two SF Films
creen Gems is developing two SF films with Milla Jovovich, Variety reported.
Jovovich will reprise the role of Alice in Alexander Witt's upcoming sequel film Resident Evil 2, the follow-up to the 2002 zombie movie based on the best-selling video-game franchise.
Jovovich will follow that with Screen Gems' Ultraviolet, a futuristic film in which she will play the title character, a vampire who finds herself the protector of a 9-year-old boy targeted for death against the backdrop of a civil war between humans and vampires, the trade paper reported. Ultraviolet will shoot in Shanghai in December, with Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium) directing from his own script.
Stepford Goes For Laughs
onald De Line, producer of the upcoming remake of The Stepford Wives, told SCI FI Wire that the film reinvents the story by going for laughs, but preserves the central SF premise: The men of a Connecticut village have replaced their wives with robots.
"You can remake something, [or] you can do it in a way where you take iconic elements of an original and then make it original again for its time," De Line said in an interview. "That's what is done with The Stepford Wives, [which] completely turns it on its head, because it's a comedy."
Stepford—based on Bryan Forbes' 1975 movie and Ira Levin's novel—starts filming June 16 in New York, with a cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Glenn Close and Matthew Broderick, De Line said. Frank Oz directs from Paul Rudnick's script.
Haysbert Is Sinbad's Warrior
ennis Haysbert, who voices the character Kale in the upcoming animated fantasy film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, told SCI FI Wire that his character fills many functions in the story.
"Kale is the ultimate warrior," Haysbert (TV's 24) said in an interview. "He's also Sinbad's best friend and confidant and conscience. He's also a spiritual leader of the crew."
The film has Sinbad (voiced by Brad Pitt) searching for an artifact called the Book of Peace, with an evil goddess (Michelle Pfeiffer) in hot pursuit. Haysbert recorded his lines alone and said he used a slightly different version of his normal speaking voice. "I just gave it a little accent," he said.
Haysbert added that voice acting gave him more freedom than any role he's played. "It's the most open and freeing acting there is," he said. "You can do anything you want, as long as the voice comes out right. Whatever machination you have to go through to bring that voice out works." Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas opens July 2.
Dunst Out, Howard In Woods
irsten Dunst has dropped out as the female lead in M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming supernatural thriller film The Woods and will be replaced by newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard, Variety reported.
Howard, 21, is a stage actress and actor-turned-director Ron Howard's daughter.
Howard will co-star with Ashton Kutcher and Joaquin Phoenix, the trade paper reported. The Woods is set in 1897 and tells the story of a close-knit community and a mythical race of creatures residing in the nearby forest. The movie is slated to shoot in October in Philadelphia.
Free Wolfenstein On Web
d Software and Activision are offering the free, online release of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, a stand-alone game set in the supernatural Wolfenstein universe.
Developed by Splash Damage and executive produced by id, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory enlists players to battle across multilevel World War II campaigns in one of five classes, battling with weapons ranging from tank-mounted machine guns to mortars, the companies said.
The title features multiplayer support for up to 32 players.
Caviezel Gets Final Cut
sim Caviezel (The Passion) will star opposite Robin Williams in the SF thriller film Final Cut for Lions Gate Films, Variety reported.
The movie goes into production June 29.
Written and to be directed by Omar Naim, Final Cut is set in a world where implanted microchips can record all moments of an individual's life. Caviezel portrays the leader of the organization that opposes the technology's development, the trade paper reported.
Nick Wechsler produces the project, with Guymon Casady executive producing.
Timeline Bites McDonough
eal McDonough, who stars in the upcoming SF movie Timeline, told SCI FI Wire that he broke three teeth shooting a scene with star Paul Walker.
"Paul hit me too hard in a couple takes," McDonough (Minority Report) said in an interview.
McDonough plays Gordon, the captain who leads a team of archaeology students back in time to medieval France to rescue their professor, who has become lost in the past. He said that the film's elaborate sets convinced everyone that they were in the Middle Ages.
"They spent the bank on the [sets]," McDonough said. "They looked real. You'll see in the film. It really looks like we're back in time, and they did a fantastic job." Timeline opens Nov. 26.
SCI FI Has Hot Streak
he SCI FI Channel reported that its May ratings ranked it in the top 10 of all non-news cable networks in key demographics and represented a record-setting 13th consecutive month of year-over-year ratings growth.
The ratings represented the longest current prime-time streak in television and set a channel record.
The channel reported its best May ever, with a 0.9 prime-time ratings average, 29 percent higher than the same month last year. In overall prime-time ratings among all non-news cable networks, SCI FI ranked in the top 10 among the following key demographics: persons 25-54, persons 18-49, males 25-54 and males 18-49.
Stargate SG-1's Monday night four-hour prime-time block garnered an impressive 1.2 average household rating for the month, a 50 percent improvement over the time-period average in May '02. SG-1's back-to-back Friday night episodes also delivered a strong 0.9 average rating.
The SCI FI original action movie Silent Warnings premiered on May 3 with a 1.6 household rating and was also basic cable's highest-rated movie that day among persons aged 25-54.
SCI FI Debuts Blue
he SCI FI Channel will premiere the original feature-length UFO documentary Out of the Blue as part of its Tuesday Declassified prime-time block, 9 p.m. ET/PT June 24.
Filmmakers James Fox, Tim Coleman and Boris Zubov produced the documentary, which takes a look at the legitimacy of the UFO phenomenon and features military and government personnel going on record for the first time saying that certain unidentified flying objects could be of extraterrestrial origin. Peter Coyote (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) narrates.
The documentary features former astronauts, including Apollo 14's Edgar Mitchell, disclosing knowledge of the covert effort to keep the subject matter classified. Military personnel also recall witnessing UFOs' disabling nuclear missiles during test flights. And former U.S. presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter come forward to offer accounts about their involvement with the UFO phenomenon.
Cat For Kids And Adults
athan Whitman, a producer for Vivendi Universal Games' upcoming title Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, told SCI FI Wire that the video game will be geared toward kids aged 6-12, but will also appeal to adults.
"It's basic in its gameplay, but it's something you can pick up right away and have fun with," Whitman said in an interview at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
Inspired by the upcoming movie of the same name, the multi-platform, side-scrolling adventure game will be released in conjunction with the movie in November, Whitman said. "We're working on implementing both the voice of [star] Mike Myers and movie footage, but that's still a work in progress," he added.
Vivendi Universal Games is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Parsec Winners Named
inners of the 2003 Parsec/Confluence Short Story Contest have been announced, the Locus Online Web site reported.
This year's theme was "The Alien Wore Fishnet Stockings." Submissions came from all over the United States, as well as from India, France, Pakistan, Singapore, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.
First prize is $200, with publication in the Confluence 2003 Program Book. Second and third prizes are $75, with publication in a future issue of Parsec magazine. A list of winners follows.
First Place
•"Inter-Species Relations" by R. Lee Smith
Second and Third Place (tie)
•"Dad on the Moon" by Rebecca Carmi
•"Two for One" by L.K. Farrar
Jeepers 2 Creeps Up
ictor Salva, writer and director of the upcoming supernatural sequel film Jeepers Creepers 2, told SCI FI Wire that he set his movie mainly on a school bus stranded in the middle of the country, beset by a winged supernatural creature.
"At one point I said it felt like we were shooting 12 Angry Men in a toothpaste tube with a monster outside," Salva said in an interview.
In the sequel to 2001's sleeper hit film Jeepers Creepers, the creature is nearing the end of its 23-day feeding cycle, when it focuses on a busload of high-school basketball players, cheerleaders and students as its next victims.
"My template was [Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 classic film] Lifeboat, which I love, because Hitchcock pulled off this amazing drama on this little boat with 12 people, and you never get off the little boat," Salva said. "And The Birds, which I loved as a kid. ... But there's [also] a big piece of Moby Dick in it, too," he added, referring to a farmer played by Ray Wise (Twin Peaks). Wise plays a man who has an obsession with the creature, called the Creeper, because the monster abducted his young son. Jeepers Creepers 2 opens Aug. 29.
Rossum Mulls Phantom Role
mmy Rossum is in talks to star as the female lead in the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, to be directed by Joel Schumacher, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group is producing the project, which begins shooting in October, the trade paper reported.
Scottish-born Gerard Butler will star in the title role, with Patrick Wilson as Raoul, the boyfriend of Christine (Rossum). Lloyd Webber and Schumacher wrote the screenplay. No domestic distributor is yet on board.
Rossum will also appear in the upcoming SF thriller film The Day After Tomorrow for director Roland Emmerich, the trade paper reported.
Columbia Develops SF Comedy
olumbia Pictures has signed filmmakers J.C. Baldwin and Eric Anderson to develop an SF comedy film about an alien attack that goes awry when the invaders discover life on Earth is nothing like what they imagined, Variety reported.
Based on an untitled pitch, Carolyn Caldera and Jean Luc De Fanti will produce the project through their production-management company Caldera/De Fanti Entertainment, the trade paper reported.
Baldwin and Anderson have each made several short films that have screened at the Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival, among others.
Lost Kingdoms II Is Out
ctivision has released Lost Kingdoms II, the sequel to the best-selling role-playing game, exclusively for the GameCube.
Set 200 years after the events of the original game, Lost Kingdoms II challenges players to uncover the origin of a new evil force that is threatening to destroy the Kingdom of Argwyll, the company said.
Developed by FromSoftware, Lost Kingdoms II lets gamers play a heroine named Tara, an abandoned child raised by a gang of thieves, who possesses a magical Runestone. Tara uses the Runestone to summon both supernatural and mechanical Guardian Creatures as they travel through more than 26 worlds filled with forests, mountains and fortresses. The game features single-player and multiplayer options. Lost Kingdoms II has a suggested retail price of $49.99.
Briefly Noted
-
A new trailer for and the first six minutes of the upcoming SF horror film
28 Days Later have gone live on the Web. The British zombie film, from director Danny Boyle, opens June 27.
-
The official Star Wars Web site will be opening a fee-based Hyperspace sub-site that will feature a deleted scene from Episode II, a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of Episode III and a preview of the Clone Wars animated series, among other things.
-
Hyde Park Entertainment has bought a supernatural martial-arts film pitch, The Hidden Kingdom, from writer Richard Outten, Variety reported. The story follows a Hong Kong-born hero who embarks on a quest to the mythical kingdom of Shambhala to recover stolen artifacts.
-
Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) and her estranged husband, Billy Bob Thornton, officially ended their three-year marriage on May 27, when court documents granting the couple a divorce were filed, the Reuters news service reported.
-
The Comics Continuum reported that Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee will voice a villain in MTV's upcoming animated Spider-Man TV series. Lee will guest star in a later episode in the show's first season.
-
Marco Beltrami (Hellboy, Blade II) has written the score for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which opens July 2. Varese Sarabande will release the film's score on June 24.
-
Producers are gearing up a musical version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings for premiere in London in the spring of 2005.
-
The Ain't It Cool News Web site reported a rumor that Sony is mulling three different titles for its upcoming Spider-Man sequel: Spider-Man 2 Lives, Spider-Man: No More and Spider-Man: Unmasked.
-
The British Daily Record tabloid reported a rumor that former Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar is vying for the lead role in the proposed Wonder Woman movie, according to a report on MSN.
-
Soundtrack.net reported that composer Christopher Young will write the score to Paul Schrader's prequel film Exorcist: The Beginning, replacing Michael Kamen. The film opens later this year.
-
Future Pastimes launched an online version of the classic SF board game Cosmic Encounter on May 28.
-
Ridley Scott's classic SF film Alien will be re-released in about 2,000 theaters on Oct. 3 with 12 minutes of previously cut footage restored, the FilmJerk and ComingSoon.net Web sites reported.
-
Producer Nitin Manmohan is working on a $4 million Indian SF movie, Rudraksh (Demon), which is slated to hit screens in August, Variety reported. The film is directed, written and edited by Mani Shankar and concerns a man with the power to take away pain from his subjects.
-
The Dark Horizons Web site has posted an image of the new Oracle from the upcoming third Matrix movie, The Matrix Revolutions, which opens in November. Tony-Award-winning actress Mary Alice steps in for Gloria Foster, who died during filming last year.
-
The New Zealand Dominion Post newspaper reported that New Line Cinema will hold the world premiere of the third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King, on Dec. 1 in the kiwi capital city of Wellington.
-
Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty) confirmed to radio shock jock Howard Stern that he met with Nicole Kidman about co-starring in a proposed film version of TV's Bewitched and that he's interested in the part.
Back to the top.
