NBC Revisiting V
BC has confirmed rumors that a new film based on the 1980s miniseries about alien invasion is in the works, Variety reported.
The three-hour made-for-television movie, called V: The Second Generation, will be directed, written and produced by Kenneth Johnson, creator of the original series.
Johnson is talking to original stars Marc Singer, Robert Englund, Jane Badler and Faye Grant about reprising their roles, though no official casting decisions have been made, the trade reported. The Second Generation will be set 20 years after the original, with the alien Visitors now in control of much of the Earth, according to Johnson.
"The alien force is deeply entrenched, has turned many Earth people into followers and is sweeping them toward a dangerous new conquest," Johnson told the trade. "The Resistance seems to be fighting a losing battle when suddenly Earth gains a powerful and mysterious new ally."
While the movie is envisioned as a stand-alone project, future sequels are possible if ratings are high enough. If green-lighted, the project wouldn't be ready until fall 2004 at the earliest, the trade paper reported.
Alien Gets Frosty
on Krauss, director of the upcoming SCI FI Channel original movie Alien Hunter, told SCI FI Wire that the movie was shot in Bulgaria in the dead of winter, which perfectly suited the story, set in an arctic outpost.
"Life was imitating art," Krauss said in an interview. "The characters were supposed to be in the arctic, and they were wearing arctic clothing ... the whole time, because it was freezing."
Alien Hunter stars James Spader (Supernova) as a "cryptologist" investigating a potential alien intelligence at the scientific outpost. "We shot this in a foreign land," Krauss said, adding, "It was isolated ... [and] the isolation ... rang through in my mind and developed into the movie."
The film, shot in part in a converted sports arena in Sofia, features an alien designed by makeup effects artist Brian Wade (Hollow Man), Krauss said. Bringing the alien to life challenged Krauss and his crew. "Between the animatronics of it and the Bulgarian performer in the suit—who could not hear me and spoke no English—[he was] working on hand signals," Krauss said. But that actually helped Krauss improvise one of the alien's character traits, he added. "He was reaching out, because couldn't see, ... and that's when I kind of got [the] idea that [the] alien would be kind of reaching out."
Alien Hunter, written by J.S. Cardone and Boaz Davidson, also features Keir Dullea, best known as astronaut David Bowman in Stanley Kubrick's classic SF movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Alien Hunter premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT July 12.
Towers DVD Sneaked
SA Today got a preview of the upcoming extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and offered spoilers about the DVD's added scenes.
The three-hour, 43-minute extended cut reaches shelves in a four-DVD collection on Nov. 18, timed to the Dec. 17 theatrical release of the third Rings movie, The Return of the King, the newspaper reported.
A list of some added scenes, according to the newspaper's spoilers, follows.
•Sean Bean's Boromir, who died at the end of 2001's The Fellowship of the Ring, is resurrected in a lengthy DVD flashback after brother Faramir (David Wenham) finds a boat bearing his body.
•The twisted emotional ties that ensnare ruler Denethor (New Zealand actor John Noble, who officially joins the cast in King), his favorite son, Boromir, and scapegoat Faramir also are exposed. The scenes also help explain why the noble Faramir is rude when he meets Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin).
•Rohan horseman Eomer (Karl Urban) finds his mortally wounded cousin Theodred and brings him home, where his subsequent death goes all but unnoticed by his father, King Theoden (Bernard Hill).
•The plight of Eowyn (Miranda Otto), Eomer's sister, deepens as she sings a mournful dirge during Theodred's funeral.
•The truncated encounter between Treebeard the Ent and hobbits Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) is expanded.
Gibson Defends Passion
el Gibson issued a statement to Variety rebutting criticism that his upcoming film The Passion, about the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ, is anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic.
"To be certain, neither I nor my film is anti-Semitic," Gibson said in the statement.
"The Passion is a movie meant to inspire, not offend," Gibson added. "My intention in bringing it to the screen is to create a lasting work of art and engender serious thought among audiences of diverse faith backgrounds (or none), who have varying familiarity with this story."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had been critical of The Passion, but recently apologized for criticizing a film that has yet to be finished, the trade paper reported. It agreed to return all unauthorized copies of the script obtained by its members.
Gibson's production company, Icon, is in talks with the Anti-Defamation League, which also criticized the film, for a similar resolution, the trade paper reported.
The controversy over The Passion was sparked in March by a profile of Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson, in the New York Times Magazine. The profile explored the traditionalist and controversial Catholic beliefs of the actor's father, which are not condoned by the Roman Catholic Church, the trade paper reported. The story also quoted the elder Gibson as denying the Holocaust ever took place.
SCI FI Explores Hulk
he SCI FI Channel will air a one-hour, behind-the-scenes special on Universal Pictures' upcoming Hulk movie, Hulk: The Lowdown, starting at 10 p.m. ET/PT June 18.
The film's co-stars, Sam Elliott and Josh Lucas, will host the special, which will feature on-set interviews with director Ang Lee and stars Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly.
The Lowdown will also include never-before-seen footage from the film, take viewers inside effects house Industrial Light & Magic and feature an interview with comic-book legend Stan Lee.
In connection with the special, SCIFI.COM will feature exclusive clips from the Hulk movie, as well as original storyboards and key art.
Hulk: The Lowdown is the first of the SCI FI Channel's planned feature-film companion specials. Working closely with major studios, SCI FI plans to use the Lowdown franchise to bring SF fans an insider's look at Hollywood's hottest genre features, the network said. Hulk premieres June 20.
Universal and the SCI FI Channel are owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Hulk F/X All The Rage
ennis Muren, the Industrial Light & Magic wizard who supervised the visual effects for the upcoming Hulk film, told SCI FI Wire that his favorite F/X scene featured a fight between the titular character and a trio of giant, mutant dogs.
"If I had to pick one, it may be the dog fight," he said. "Because that was just brilliant. We started really early on this show looking at extreme sports, extreme fighting, where the guys are in cages, ... with the idea of finding what happens when you're in a rage, and you're really trapped in trying to win, what you're capable of doing."
Muren—whose credits include all of the Star Wars films, as well as Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park—said that director Ang Lee was very clear about what he wanted for the scene. "Ang took us along to these fights and found all sorts of footage of what it was like," he said. "It was just thinking of something in that visceral approach. If you look at the action, ... some of the things that Hulk is doing to those animals is pretty cruel and pretty neat, and it's all fun, because they're all Hulk things."
Muren said that having Lee aboard raised the level of quality for everyone involved in the film. "Ang's films have got levels and levels of story and backstory to them, and that all had to be in the Hulk character, so when you're seeing the shot, hopefully you're picking up more [about] his character than just the monster standing there. ... It's like the art in state-of-the-art." Hulk, based on the Marvel Comics series, opens June 20.
Lee Connects With Hulk
ng Lee, director of the upcoming Marvel Comics film adaptation Hulk, told SCI FI Wire that he sees the movie as an extension of his acclaimed martial-arts drama, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
"This is my new Hidden Dragon," he said in an interview while promoting the film. "American Hidden Dragon, to me. It's pulp art. It has the wildness, the secret pleasure, the aggression that you try to cover up. Only in pulp art [do] you see the psychology of it."
Many were surprised when Lee—whose previous work includes the dramas Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm—signed on to direct the action-heavy Hulk. But the director said that he felt an instant connection to the character. "I call him my new Green Destiny," Lee said, referring to the name of the legendary sword in Crouching Tiger. "He just speaks to me. Usually I don't think too much about story or character. It's the ingredients. If that clicks, I'll devote two years and go through anything, including self-deprecation, to bring the truth into reality."
Lee went so far as to perform the Hulk's facial expressions and movements in motion-capture sessions, so that he could be sure that he was getting exactly what he wanted from the digital character. "In closeups, they shoot me, and video references they can do it by hand. But the full body they have to reference my movement and start from there. Of course, that's just the beginning of the work. Then we have to start adding and adjusting from there. ... Sometimes, after certain [scenes], I thought my head was going to explode." Hulk opens June 20.
T3 Tests Arnold's Mettle
rnold Schwarzenegger, who reprises his most famous role in the upcoming film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, told SCI FI Wire that he performed his wildest stunt ever for the movie: a chase involving a construction crane.
"I think everyone will agree when they see it," Schwarzenegger said during an interview at the Los Angeles Comic Book Convention over the weekend. "That it is the most intense chase scene that you've ever seen in any movie."
Schwarzenegger added, "I am stuck on the hook of a crane. The crane is being driven by TX, [the female cyborg played by] Kristanna [Loken]. ... What I go through, the kind of things that were planned stuntwise: ... hanging on the hook, going through buildings and going through cars."
Schwarzenegger said that the scene is shot in part from his character's point of view and that the sequence "took us a long time to shoot, because there were just so many wonderful ideas that were written in the script." The entire sequence is "most spectacular, ... but, again, also very very tiring and very dangerous." Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opens July 2.
T3's Loken Nailed Scene
ristanna Loken, who plays the female TX cyborg in the upcoming Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, told SCI FI Wire that she had to shoot a particularly hairy sequence in a single take.
Speaking in an interview at the Los Angeles Comic Book Convention over the weekend, Loken said that the sequence takes place "towards the end of the film, in [one of the offices]. And, I mean, it is just complete mayhem."
The sequence involved so-called T-1 robots, Loken said. "Things are blowing up, and people are being shot, and there's me, just walking through the destruction," she said. "It was very orchestrated. ... [I had] one chance." With large robots moving and explosions detonating around her, she said, "you just try to somehow ... detach from what's actually happening and just focus on your target and just keep going forward. But it was fun going forward."
Loken added that she studied the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga, in part to learn how to walk and sprint like a robot in the sequence. Loken's instructor "trained me in heels, so I was actually running in heels, which is really difficult. ... Learning to stay on the balls of my feet to get more of a sprintier kind of run. ... I wore the kind of, like, heels that you wear for dancing, like dance shoes."
T3 director Jonathan Mostow, meanwhile, told SCI FI Wire that Loken convincingly portrayed a machine, which he called "truly one of the hardest acting tasks imaginable." Mostow added that Loken spent hours with a mime coach to learn how to control her movements. "One of the things you have to do if you're playing this part is erase everything that is individualistic to yourself, ... even the way you walk," he said.
Loken said the demanding role often left her bruised. But she added that at least she didn't have to undergo hours of elaborate special-effects makeup, as did co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I don't actually get any injuries," she said. "I always look flawless in the movie, so I didn't have any weird face prosthetics." Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opens July 2.
Arnold Awaits Conan Script
rnold Schwarzenegger told an audience at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention that he will definitely be involved in the proposed sequel film King Conan: Crown of Iron.
But the actor added that he is still waiting for a finished script. "I don't think there's any doubt about my interest in Conan," he said. "I love the character of Conan. I think it's one of the most wonderful characters I've ever played in my whole movie career."
The film is currently in development at Warner Brothers, under the supervision of The Matrix creators Larry and Andy Wachowski. Schwarzenegger said that development on the project is moving slowly due to the Wachowskis' commitment to the release this year of the second and third films in the Matrix franchise. "Warner Brothers has the rights to Conan, and the Wachowski brothers are supposed to be in charge of it," Schwarzenegger said. "But obviously, as you can see, they're heavily involved in bringing out their next movie. I think as soon as they come to me and say we have a new script, and it's ready to go to the next stage, we'll sit down and talk about it."
Potter V May Struggle
he upcoming fifth Harry Potter novel may struggle to sell as many books as hoped, the Reuters news service reported.
A recent survey conducted by J.P. Morgan reported that many fans do not intend to buy the upcoming edition.
"To us, the biggest surprise from our survey is the fall-off in the intent to purchase [the new book] among existing Harry Potter fans," J.P. Morgan analyst Danielle Fox said in a report entitled "Harry Potter Survey: Do you believe in magic?", according to Reuters. Roughly 32 respondents, or 91 percent of those surveyed, said they had previously purchased Harry Potter books, but 16 percent said they do not plan to buy the upcoming release, the Morgan report said.
Pre-orders of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have topped a million at online retailer Amazon.com and thousands more at book chains such as Barnes & Noble and Borders. J.P. Morgan noted that the book was being heavily discounted, at times 40 percent off the list price of $29.99.
Potter's U.S. publisher, Scholastic Corp., plans an initial press run of a record 8.5 million copies for the United States alone, Reuters reported.
Da Vinci Challenged
uthor Lewis Perdue said that Dan Brown's best-selling supernatural thriller The Da Vinci Code has similarities to Perdue's Daughter of God, published in 2000, the Associated Press reported.
Last week, Perdue sent a letter to Doubleday, Brown's publisher, saying that he was seeing too many of his own ideas in The Da Vinci Code, Brown's fourth novel, the wire service reported.
"There are far too many parallels between the two books for it to be an accident," Perdue told the Associated Press on June 9 in an interview from north Lake Tahoe, where he is on vacation. "We've decided to take legal action."
For his part, Brown told the AP that until last week, he had never heard of Perdue, who has written about a dozen books, including The Da Vinci Legacy, which deals with a church secret involving the illegitimate offspring of St. Peter. Brown said he has not read any of Perdue's books, the wire service reported.
Brown's protagonist, who made his debut in a previous novel, is a professor who studies religious symbols. Perdue's hero is a professor of religion. Brown's heroine is a cryptologist; Perdue's is an expert specializing in art forgery. Both deal with curator deaths, the wire service reported. Both books also deal with a secret that the church wants to keep under wraps, the AP reported.
U.K. SF Influenced 28 Days
lex Garland, who wrote the script for the upcoming British SF movie 28 Days Later, told SCI FI Wire that he was influenced by British apocalyptic literature, including John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids and the stories of J.G. Ballard.
Garland also cites post-apocalyptic cinema, including Night of the Living Dead and The Omega Man.
Like them, 28 Days Later deals with a cataclysmic event that decimates humankind—in this case, a rage-inducing plague. "Britain at the time was ... very paranoid," Garland said in an interview from his home in London. "Two and a half years ago, when I started working, it was still paranoid back then. And the thing about the books and films I was just talking about was that I think they were responsive to paranoid times as well."
Garland added that rage is a theme both he and director Danny Boyle found meaningful for current times. "I think you could say it's getting worse and ... is a kind of growing feature of modern life," he said. "I suppose that I was thinking as well just about our sort of generalized intolerance ... and a kind of misperception of how other people are that makes people afraid of other people. ... I think that's something that exists in our country ... or in Western countries. But I actually think it's something that exists generally: It's not just our problem."
28 Days Later opens in North American on June 27. Theaters in select cities will screen sneak previews of the movie on June 13, and ticket holders with red shirts will receive something special.
Transformers Film Due
live-action movie is in the works based on the Hasbro Transformers toy line, from X-Men writer/producer Tom DeSanto, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Transformers toys formed the basis of previous comic books, television series and an animated movie, the trade paper reported.
Angry Films chief Don Murphy (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and DeSanto will produce the movie, the trade paper reported. DeSanto is currently working on a story treatment for the project before he and Murphy hire a screenwriter to adapt it for the big screen.
The Transformers brand centers on a group of robots that are able to change into a variety of objects, such as cars, trucks, planes, ships and other technological creations. The feature film will tell the story of an intergalactic war between two races of robots: the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, the trade paper reported.
Hasbro introduced the Transformers in the United States in 1984. The Transformers came to the big screen in 1986 with the animated feature The Transformers: The Movie.
Sagnier Tinkers On Pan
udivine Sagnier, the French-born actress who plays Tinker Bell in the upcoming live-action Peter Pan film, told SCI FI Wire she studied mime to help her silent performance.
"It was very clownish, so it was a kind of work that had to be a performance," Sagnier said in an interview. "So the references were more like cartoons and silent movies, things like that. Comics, too. It was a very thrilling opportunity to get into that kind of cinema."
Working with big-studio-level special effects was also new for Sagnier. "What was hard about this character was that I was on a blue screen all the time," she said. "I didn't have a partner. The only partners I had were [pieces of] gaffer tape. So I felt very lonely sometimes, and I had to recreate the whole world in my imagination. That's the work of focusing and imagining all this. It was very draining."
Peter Pan, directed by P.J. Hogan and starring Jason Isaacs and Jeremy Sumpter, is based on J.M. Barrie's original play about the boy who wouldn't grow up. It opens Christmas Day.
Tremors, Scare Return
ll-new episodes of the SCI FI Channel original series Tremors and Scare Tactics return to the SCI FI Friday lineup on June 20, at 8 p.m. ET/PT and 10 p.m.
All-new episodes of Stargate SG-1 will air at 9 p.m.
Future episodes of Tremors will feature guest stars Christopher Lloyd, Vivica A. Fox and Nick Turturro.
Upcoming bits in Scare Tactics will introduce the Shannen Doherty reality show, Harsh Reality, and will also pay homage to the feature film Men in Black.
Cast Beams To Other Worlds
ara Buono (Hulk) and Isaach de Bankole (Ghost Dog) will star in the upcoming SF comedy film From Other Worlds, Variety reported.
Linda Moran and Rene Bastian of Belladonna Productions will produce, along with Diana Williams of Exit Five Entertainment, the trade paper reported.
Writer Barry Strugatz, who wrote She-Devil, makes his feature directing debut on the film, which started shooting June 5 in New York.
Buono will play a depressed Brooklyn housewife sleepwalking through life until she encounters a UFO in her backyard, the trade paper reported.
Episode III To Bridge Gap
tar Wars: Episode III producer Rick McCallum told fans on the official site's new fee-based Hyperspace message board that the prequel will lead directly into the original Star Wars film.
"It'll take place three years or so after Episode II," McCallum posted, adding, "I do believe Ep III will bridge the gap and answer most all of the unanswered questions. I think it's much more of a fun, adventure feel. Although, of course, Anakin [Hayden Christensen] turning into Vader is pretty intense."
McCallum said to expect more action and dueling. "Ep III definitively has the most lightsaber action of any Star Wars film," he said. "The battles will be on an even larger scale."
Episode III is gearing up for production this summer in Sydney.
Glenn Up For Episode III?
he Moviehole Web site reported a rumor that actor Scott Glenn (Silence of the Lambs) might be in line for a role in George Lucas' upcoming Star Wars: Episode III.
Citing anonymous sources, the site reported that Glenn has had talks with director Lucas about an unspecified part in the upcoming prequel.
Glenn appeared in the Lucas-produced 1979 sequel film More American Graffiti.
Watts, McGregor To Stay
aomi Watts (The Ring) will star with Ewan McGregor (Star Wars: Episode III) in Stay, a supernatural thriller film from director Marc Forster, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Regency Enterprises movie is set to start shooting in late September.
David Benioff wrote the script, about an Ivy League psychologist who tries to prevent one of his students from committing suicide. Watts will play the lead female role, the girlfriend of McGregor's character, the trade paper reported.
Battle.net Boots Cheaters
he Battle.net online gaming Web site announced that it has permanently closed 112,000 accounts tied to the use of a hack or cheat program while playing Diablo II.
The site added that repeat offenders risk having their CD keys disabled, which would result in permanent removal from Battle.net for their copies of Diablo II.
The site has also moved aggressively against players using a "map-hack" program, which gives players unfair advantages.
Will Back On Alias
radley Cooper, whose character, Will, apparently died at the end of this season's Alias, will return in the upcoming third season on ABC, E! Online columnist Watch With Kristin reported.
Series creator J.J. Abrams was able to save Will from extinction, despite network wishes to the contrary, the site reported.
But Merrin Dungey—whose character, Francie, was killed and replaced with an evil double who wound up shot at the end of the season—is not expected to return, the site reported. A new actor named Archie Kao is reportedly on board for a few episodes this season.
Lena Olin (Irina Derevko) earlier told SCI FI Wire that she hopes to return as well.
Grimm Rounds Out Cast
ena Headey, Peter Stormare and Jonathan Pryce have joined the cast of The Brothers Grimm, a supernatural film centered on the fairy-tale authors, Variety reported.
Headey (Possession), Stormare (Minority Report) and Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) join previously announced leads Matt Damon and Heath Ledger in director Terry Gilliam's film, which starts shooting June 30 in Prague.
Ehren Kruger (The Ring) wrote the script, an action-adventure fantasy in which the brothers battle a real magical curse after a history of trading in hoaxes. Richard Ridings and Mackenzie Cook co-star, the trade paper reported.
Elite Force II To Ship
ctivision announced that development on its latest Star Trek-inspired first-person shooter game, Star Trek Elite Force II, is complete.
The game will be released later this month for the PC.
Set in the Next Generation universe, Elite Force II lets players take command of the elite Hazard Team to battle new and familiar aliens.
Webs Spins On SCI FI
ichard Grieco fights off mutant spider people in the upcoming SCI FI Channel original movie Webs, premiering at 9 p.m. ET/PT June 28.
David Wu (The Snow Queen) directed the creature feature.
The movie begins when electrical workers stumble upon an underground portal that transports them to a parallel world, where spider people have overtaken the city of Chicago. To get home alive, they must defeat not only the creatures, but also their queen. Grieco stars with Kate Greenhouse, Richard Yearwood and Jeff Douglas.
Olin Hopes For Alias Return
ena Olin, who played Irina Derevko on ABC's Alias, told SCI FI Wire that she is trying to work out her schedule to return in the series' upcoming third season.
"I couldn't be [a regular], because I live in New York," Olin said in an interview. "I'll see if we can work it out so that I can work a chunk of time [in Los Angeles, where the show is filmed]. There are two other [films] that I want to do that I want to fit in with the Alias schedule, and so I don't know how it's going to work out."
Olin added that the season-ending cliffhanger—in which Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) wakes up two years after being presumed dead—shocked the cast as much as it did viewers. "That was a surprise to everybody in the cast as well," Olin said. "Nobody knew about that." Alias airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Mr. Peabody Is Way Back
r. Peabody & Sherman, a movie about a brilliant dog and his pet boy who time-travel via their "wayback machine," has gone into development, based on the segments in Jay Ward's animated Rocky and His Friends TV series, Variety reported.
Director Rob Minkoff's Sony-based production company Sprocketdyne Entertainment will team with Bullwinkle Studios to develop and produce the live-action/computer-animated feature film.
A screenwriter has not yet been hired; producers hope to have one in place by the end of the summer. It's not decided if Minkoff will also direct. The film could lead to a TV series, but no decisions have been made, the trade paper reported.
Classic Media is also currently in development on the live-action/computer-animated movie Underdog, with Spyglass Entertainment, and a live-action version of The Lone Ranger, with Columbia Pictures via Red Wagon Productions, the trade paper reported.
Minkoff is currently directing Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion, based on the theme-park ride, for Disney.
Ice Team Eyes Robots
he makers of the hit computer-animated film Ice Age are developing the CGI SF movie Robots, set in a world composed entirely of the mechanical creatures, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Ice Age trio includes 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky Studios and director Chris Wedge.
Robots is already in production, with a scheduled March 11, 2005, release, the trade paper reported.
Voice actors will include Halle Berry, Ewan McGregor, Mel Brooks, Drew Carey, Jim Broadbent, Stanley Tucci, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Coolidge, Paul Giamatti, Dan Hedaya, D.L. Hughley, Jamie Kennedy, Harland Williams, Sofia Vergara and Amanda Bynes, the trade paper reported.
Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel wrote the script, which centers on Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor), a young genius inventor who dreams of making the world a better place. Berry voices Cappy, a sexy executive robot with whom Rodney is instantly smitten. Other lead voices include the nefarious corporate tyrant Ratchet (yet to be cast), who locks horns with Rodney, and Big Weld (Brooks), a master inventor who has lost his way. Other characters include a group of misfit robots known as the Rusties, the trade paper reported.
Trekkies 2 Green-Lighted
rekkies 2, a follow-up to the 1997 fandom documentary Trekkies, has gotten the official green light from Paramount, the official Star Trek Web site reported.
Denise Crosby (Star Trek: The Next Generation) will reprise her role as host and executive producer for the sequel, as will director Roger Nygard and producer Mike Leahy, the site reported.
The feature documentary is already in production and will reportedly widen its scope to explore the fan community abroad. The team has already filmed at several conventions in Europe, the site reported.
Trekkies 2 is a separate project from Trek Nation, a similarly themed documentary being produced by Eugene W. Roddenberry Jr., son of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
Sturgeon Finalists Named
inalists have been named for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, honoring the best SF short fiction of the year, Locus Online reported.
Winner of the award, named for the legendary SF author, will be announced at the Campbell Awards Banquet, July 11 in Lawrence, Kan. A list of finalists follows.
•"Breathmoss" by Ian R. MacLeod
•"Bronte's Egg" by Richard Chwedyk
•"Coelacanths" by Robert Reed
•"Halo" by Charles Stross
•"In Paradise" by Bruce Sterling
•"Liking What You See: A Documentary" by Ted Chiang
•"Madonna of the Maquiladora" by Gregory Frost
•"Over Yonder" by Lucius Shepard
•"The Seasons of the Ansarac" by Ursula K. Le Guin
•"Singleton" by Greg Egan
•"Stories for Men" by John Kessel
•"The Wild Girls" by Ursula K. Le Guin
•A Year in the Linear City by Paul Di Filippo
Rings, Monsters Top Home Nods
he Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Monsters, Inc. topped the nominations for this year’s Home Entertainment Awards, with four nods apiece, Zap2it reported.
A total of 75 recent DVD, VHS and video-game releases were nominated for awards in 20 categories.
Other titles leading the list of nominees, with three nominations each, included Frailty and Ice Age, the site reported. Spider-Man received two nominations.
The Video Software Dealers Association organizes the awards and selects the nominees. Winners will be determined by ballots sent to all VSDA regular members. Winners will be announced on July 29, the opening day of VSDA's Home Entertainment 2003 event in Las Vegas, the site reported.
Grimwood Dies At 59
F author Ken Grimwood died June 6 in Santa Barbara, Calif., the Pensacola News Journal reported.
He was 59.
Grimwood, who wrote five novels, is best known for his 1986 novel Replay, in which a 43-year-old man dies of a heart attack and awakes in his 18-year-old body in 1963, with all the memories of his previous life. Grimwood was working on a sequel to Replay when he died, the newspaper reported.
Grimwood is survived by his father, F. Milton Grimwood, of Pensacola, Fla.; a sister, Theresa Panther-Yates, of Statesborg, Ga.; and a brother, Mark Grimwood, of New Orleans.
Hellboy Opening Set
evolution Studios has announced that its upcoming comic-book adaptation Hellboy will open on Memorial Day weekend, 2004.
"We are confident that with Guillermo del Toro at the helm, Hellboy will deliver the fantastic action, special effects and excitement that summer moviegoers have come to expect," said Revolution Studios Partner Tom Sherak in a press release.
The film, starring Ron Perlman, centers around an unlikely red-skinned hero who was born in hell and rescued from evil forces by a benevolent scientist. John Hurt, Selma Blair and Doug Jones also star. Filming is currently underway in Prague.
Artisan's Got Games
rtisan Pictures has picked up the distribution rights to the horror video-game adaptations House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark, Variety reported.
House of the Dead has already completed production and will open in wide release this fall. Alone in the Dark is set to begin filming next month in Vancouver, the trade paper reported.
Based on the bestselling video game from Sega, House of the Dead is the story of a group of college students who go to a rave on a mysterious island and find themselves stalked by killer zombies and terrifying creatures intent on feasting on the flesh of the living, the trade reported. It was directed by Uwe Boll (Sanctimony) and stars Jonathan Cherry, Tyron Leitso, Clint Howard, Ona Grauer and Ellie Cornell.
Alone in the Dark will also be directed by Boll, the trade reported. Like the classic horror game from Atari (formerly Infogrames), it follows a paranormal detective who unravels a mystery that brings him face to face with inescapable horrors both disturbing and deadly.
Horror Is Hot
tudios and independent filmmakers alike are cashing in on the recent success of horror films at the box office, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"I think there's clearly been a demand in the marketplace both at the distributor level and at the consumer level [for new horror titles]," Joe Drake, president of Senator International, told the trade paper.
Last year, Drake formed genre banner Ghost House Pictures with Spider-Man and Evil Dead director Sam Raimi and his longtime producing partner Rob Tapert. The company's first film, Boogeyman, is set to begin shooting in New Zealand in a matter of weeks, followed by a remake of the Japanese horror hit The Grudge (Ju-On), which starts filming this fall. Further down the line, Ghost House plans to release a big-screen adaptation of the award-winning horror comic title 30 Days of Night, the trade paper reported.
Other supernatural horror films in the works include Lions Gates' Cabin Fever, in which a flesh-eating virus attacks a group of college graduates trapped in the woods, May, a quirky but creepy take on the Frankenstein legend, and Godsend, a thriller about parents hoping to resurrect their murdered son starring Robert De Niro and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, the trade paper reported.
Drake cautioned that the potential glut of genre films is not necessarily a good thing. "Do I believe that all these companies that are announcing horror brands are going to be around in five years? No," Drake told the trade. "I don't think that there's room for a boatload of companies to be specializing in horror, but the marketplace will dictate that. Somebody else will be successful at comedy, and then everybody will go make comedies."
Unreal Prize Offered
everal game and technology companies have joined to offer $1 million in cash and prizes to designers and directors who can use the level-creation tools of Unreal Tournament to create novel kinds of entertainment, Variety reported.
Contestants are invited to design games, simulations, short films and other kinds of entertainment using the tools included in the game.
Graphics-card maker Nvidia, along with Epic, game publisher Atari and animation software company Alias/Wavefront will offer $500,000 in cash to various winners in 13 categories. The grand-prize winner also will receive a $350,000 license to the Unreal graphics engine technology. Winners will have their projects displayed at the upcoming second Machinima Film Festival, the trade reported.
AOL Offers Free SF Films
merica Online will be offering subscribers a month of classic science-fiction films for free on the MovieFlix.com Web site, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The AOL-MovieFlix partnership is part of a previously announced push on the part of AOL to encourage fleeing dial-up users to stick with AOL via its broadband service, the trade reported.
The service, called Theater B, will feature a new film each week based on a theme. July has been dubbed Sci-Fi Cinema Month and includes such films as Monster From Green Hell and Teenagers From Outer Space. "We wanted to have a little fun with camp," AOL Movies Vice President and General Manager Steven Yee told the trade paper.
Briefly Noted
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Paramount Pictures moved off its planned May 2004 opening for its Tom Cruise sequel film Mission: Impossible 3, Variety reported. The film won't begin shooting until January; no new release date has been set.
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Former Angel star Charisma Carpenter will co-star with Joe Millionaire's Evan Marriott and Charmed witch Holly Marie Combs in the upcoming ABC Family TV movie See Jane Date, TV Guide Online reported. The telefilm starts shooting June 13 in Montreal.
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Egypt's senior film committee has banned The Matrix Reloaded because it said the movie contains "violent" content and tackles "religious themes," Zap2it reported.
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German-born Til Schweiger and Swedish native Stellan Skarsgard (Exorcist: The Beginning) have signed on for roles in Jerry Bruckheimer's upcoming King Arthur movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Schweiger will play Cynric, a chief Saxon lieutenant, while Skarsgard will play Cynric's father.
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Mira Sorvino (Mimic) is set to play the female lead in the upcoming SF thriller film Final Cut for Lions Gate, Variety reported. Filming starts later this month.
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Legendary effects whiz Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animation master who created legions of movie monsters and aliens, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on June 10, the Associated Press reported. Harryhausen, who turns 83 on June 29, appeared at a ceremony with SF author Ray Bradbury and Forrest J. Ackerman, founder of the Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.
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Sony Online Entertainment has started accepting applications for the beta test of Lords of EverQuest, the follow-up to the popular online game, which is scheduled for release in October.
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The Creature Corner Web site reported that Kevin Zegers and Mekhi Phifer have joined the cast of the upcoming zombie remake Dawn of the Dead. Scott Frank (Minority Report) is currently rewriting the script.
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George Carlin and Ja Rule have joined the cast of Scary Movie 3, headed by Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards, Variety reported. The latest installment in the comedy franchise spoofs The Ring, Signs, The Others, The Matrix Reloaded and the upcoming Hulk.
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MGM has picked up the film rights to Steve Niles' supernatural detective comic series Criminal Macabre from Dark Horse, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series centers on supernatural private eye Cal MacDonald, who doubles as a hit man targeting monsters, ghouls and vampires.
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Benedict Jablonski, the longtime SF fan and booster who co-designed the Hugo Award based on a rocket-shaped hood ornament from an Oldsmobile 88, died May 15 in Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. He was 86.
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Vincent Kartheiser, who played Connor in The WB series Angel, may return next season for at least one episode, and could be back for more if needed, E! Online columnist Watch With Kristin reported. Former regular cast member Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia), meanwhile, may appear on a recurring basis, the site reported.
Cinescape Online reveals details of early drafts of the screenplay of The Matrix Reloaded, as reported by Creative Screenwriting magazine.
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Paul Levinson's SF novel The Consciousness Plague won the Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work, presented by the Media Ecology Association at its fourth annual conference June 7.
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At a comic-book and science-fiction convention in Los Angeles on June 8, Arnold Schwarzenegger jokingly opened a panel discussion on his new film, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, by announcing his candidacy for governor of California. He then retracted the statement, saying it was the "wrong speech."
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