T3 Pressure's On Mostow
onathan Mostow, director of the upcoming sequel film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, told SCI FI Wire that he felt the pressure of expectations about the movie's reportedly huge budget, as well as expectations about a follow-up to James Cameron's creative legacy in the previous two Terminator movies.
"Before the movie even started shooting, ... [the] Wall Street Journal ran this big front-page piece, and the New York Times [and] L.A. Times ran a lot of stuff about [the budget]," he said in an interview while promoting the movie.
Mostow added, "I was like talking to the publicity people, ... 'How do we stop running these stories?' Because what they were doing was creating this expectation. I mean, for $200 million, I expect to go sit down in the theater and have, like, an ass tickler installed in the seats, ... or like a personal masseuse."
But though he was unhappy that such publicity may have created unrealistic expectations, Mostow said that he nevertheless was eager to take on the creative challenge. "That's about 'Wow, those are two great movies you're following up. What are you possibly going to do to [live up to them]?'" he said. "Forget about exceeding them. Even to come up with something that can stand on its own as sort of the third installment of a trilogy and make it feel like it's part of a whole. ... The bet that I made—and we'll find out if I'm right—was that ... the reason ... people love these movies is [that] the stories were great. ... That was the creative challenge: ... Could we come up with a story and then execute it with performances that were in that league? And that's what kept me up at night, not the money. Because it wasn't my money." T3 opens July 2.
T3 Stars Come To SCI FI
erminator 3: Rise of the Machines star Arnold Schwarzenegger and co-stars Claire Danes, Nick Stahl and Kristanna Loken hosted the SCI FI Channel's presentation of Terminator 2: Judgment Day on June 29 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Throughout the three-hour widescreen broadcast, the actors answered questions from fans
about the upcoming T3 film, which opens July 2.
SCI FI also aired exclusive, never-before-seen footage from the new movie. Also joining the cast bill was visual-effects guru Stan Winston and director Jonathan Mostow.
Murphy Counts On 28 Days
illian Murphy, star of Danny Boyle's SF horror film 28 Days Later, told SCI FI Wire that he expected the movie to elicit the same kind of positive reviews and strong box office in America that it did upon its release in England late last year.
"People have used the phrase genre-busting to describe 28 Days Later," Murphy said in an interview. "You can obviously see elements of the classic zombie movies, and our zombies are so much more frightening than the traditional zombie-type characters. And then there are other levels to the movie."
28 Days Later is set in modern-day London, where animal rights activists have accidentally unleashed a lethal virus that turns people into murderous zombies, referred to as "the infected." Murphy, a young Irish actor, stars as Jim, a bike messenger who joins a small group of survivors in a desperate effort to live another day and outlast the virus.
"Events in the world have overtaken this to such a degree that 28 Days Later has a certain prescience that it might not have had before," Murphy said, alluding to the outbreak of the SARS virus that occurred after the film's completion. "It was a great idea that the virus is psychological rather than physical. It transfers biologically, through the blood, yet it preys on the mind. It's a very clever, terrifying premise for a movie." 28 Days Later spread into theaters on June 27.
28 Days Teaser, Auction Are Up
ahoo Movies has posted a two-and-a-half-minute featurette on the British SF horror film 28 Days Later, entitled "Rage."
Meanwhile, Fox Searchlight, which is releasing the Danny Boyle movie in North America, is sponsoring an auction of props, costumes, autographed posters and other items from the movie.
28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris, deals with the aftermath of a virulent plague that has decimated Great Britain. It opens in the United States on June 27.
Smith Loves Robot
ill Smith, who stars as police detective Del Spooner in the upcoming SF film I, Robot, told SCI FI Wire that his character is a technophobe, but that he himself is not.
"Oh no," Smith said during a press conference on the Vancouver, B.C., set of the movie. "I'm completely the opposite, a full-on tech junkie. Every new pager, new cell phone that plays hip-hop music, just, you know, I have to be right there, at the forefront of new technology."
The movie, currently in production, is inspired by the book of short stories by Isaac Asimov. But unlike his previous SF turns in Independence Day and the Men in Black movies, Smith said I, Robot is more character-driven. "The process is very different," Smith said. Director Alex Proyas (Dark City) has his own style, he added. "The way that he creates the scene and the technical element is very different," he said. "And this character, for me, [out of] the special-effects, science-fiction genre, ... is the most developed, most layered character that I've played in the ... genre. More care was taken to create a character and a story that didn't depend on the robots being sexy."
Smith also receives an executive producer credit on I, Robot. "Yeah, that's kinda cool, you know," he said. "It's a very, very collaborative process. ... The movie is very different from what the original script was, very different from the short stories, and there was a long collaborative process that I'm happy to have been a part of. But it's very easy if you have really smart, intelligent people around, you get to take credit for stuff that you didn't do [laughs]." I, Robot is eyeing a July 2004 release.
Proyas Adapts Asimov Robot
lex Proyas, director of Fox's upcoming SF film I, Robot, told SCI FI Wire that the movie is only partly based on the classic short-story collection by famed SF author Isaac Asimov.
"If you know the stories, they're actually really difficult to distill down to one narrative, one cinematic narrative," Proyas said during a news conference on the film's Vancouver, B.C., set. "People have tried in the past to do that. So, in a way, we took a bit of a side step, and we're very faithful to the spirit of the Asimov stories, but we've more or less constructed our own narrative."
Proyas (Dark City) is making the movie based in part on Asimov's I, Robot and in part on an original script by Jeff Vintar (Hardwired). The movie is "using a lot of elements from a lot of different stories. Using a lot of sequences in the scenes and ideas," Proyas said. "I think it's really the only way you could take those nine stories and make a single ... dramatic movie out of it. And obviously, we hope that the film will be successful and that we'll be able to make more in the cycle of Asimov stories."
Among other things, the movie changes the stories' character of Dr. Susan Calvin into a young woman, played by Bridget Moynahan, and introduces a new main robot, Sonny, a computer-generated character whose voice and movements will be supplied by Alan Tudyk (TV's Firefly), a la Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. "I think we've actually come up with a very different take on ... the typical Asimov robot," Proyas said. "All of the stories ... pretty much were about contradicting the [three laws of robotics], and Calvin in most of the stories trying to work out how that was possible. And so we do that in our own unique way in this movie."
Proyas added, "There's also been a lot of stuff that's happened technologically between when Asimov wrote the stories and today, obviously. And we've tried to take a lot of those ideas on board." Will Smith stars in I, Robot, which is currently in production with an eye to a July 2004 release.
Rowling Teases Potter Fans
n a rare public appearance to answer fan questions, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling teased her fans by throwing doubt on whether her boy-wizard hero would make it all the way to adulthood, the Reuters news service reported.
Appearing live at London's Royal Albert Hall in a Webcast June 26 beamed to millions of fans, Rowling answered one boy in Sydney, who asked if she would write any stories about Harry as an adult: "You have to wait and see if he survives to be a grownup. I don't want to give anything away at the moment."
Rowling's response provoked a gasp of astonishment from the 4,000 children in the Albert Hall audience, the news service reported.
Rowling also confessed, "I don't believe in magic in the way that it appears in the books. I would want to believe in it, but I cannot." Rowling's latest book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, came out June 21.
Potter Magic For Retailers
ooksellers are reporting record sales of the highly anticipated fifth book in the Harry Potter saga, which was released on June 21, according to the Associated Press.
U.S. publisher Scholastic estimates that 5 million copies of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix were sold on the first day alone, well ahead of the pace set three years ago by the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the news service reported.
"We expected to sell 1 million copies in the first week, and we sold that many within the first 48 hours," Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio told the news service. Borders Group reported worldwide record sales of 750,000 the first day, while online retailer Amazon.com shipped out more than a million copies of the new book, making June 21 the largest distribution day of a single item in e-commerce history, the news service said.
Rowling's first four Potter books have sold an estimated 192 million copies worldwide and have been published in at least 55 languages and distributed in more than 200 countries, the news service said. The first two books have been adapted into blockbuster Hollywood films, while the third is currently in production for release in 2004.
Bloom Pirates Depp
rlando Bloom—who stars in the upcoming supernatural adventure film Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl—told SCI FI Wire that he was so taken with co-star Johnny Depp's performance that he asked to do an impression of him in the film.
"I was like, 'I really want to be doing what you're doing. Maybe I could do an impression or something.'" Bloom said in an interview. "And he was like, 'Yeah, yeah. You should do that.' ... So it was kind of cool that I got to do that. And I hope Johnny likes it."
Bloom, who plays blacksmith Will Turner, said that he learned a lot from Depp, who brought the character of Capt. Jack Swallow to life in a way that wasn't obvious from the script. "I was so envious of what Johnny was doing," Bloom said. "But Johnny created that character. That didn't read like that on the page. I mean, that's what Johnny does. That's what's so amazing about him. ... Jack Sparrow read like a bit of a rogue, but a sort of straight rogue. Do you know what I mean? And Johnny creates this drunken, sea-legged, Keith Richards number."
As the lovelorn Turner, Bloom was grateful for the leeway Depp gave him to play the romantic lead earnestly. "Will was written like a straight-shooting, true-blue, honest sort of hero character," Bloom said. "Had Johnny played his as more of the hero character, it might have conflicted. But Johnny left it wide open for me just to go the whole hog on the hero number, because the hero element to his is much more character-based. So it kind of left it open for me, which was great. And then I would be like, 'Forget the close-up, just give me a two-shot,' because it was just great to do stuff with him." Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, which was inspired by the Disney theme park ride, opens July 9.
Bloom Reshot King Scenes
rlando Bloom—who plays Legolas in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy—told SCI FI Wire that he recently returned to New Zealand to film additional scenes for the final installment, Return of the King.
"I did the reshoots a few weeks ago," Bloom said in an interview while promoting his upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. "[Director Peter Jackson] loved the audience's reaction in the first movie [to] Leggy running over the back of the cave troll and killing the cave troll, and then in the second movie, sliding down the stairs and jumping [off] the horse. And in the third movie, he's kind of combined a whole load of stuff. So it's like another one of those sort of Leggy moments."
The actor added that there are scenes in the previous two films he would have liked to have been able to shoot over again, if given the chance. "I've changed so much," he said. "And I thought, oh God, I would have done that different now. What was I thinking? I obviously wasn't. I was so nervous. I'm so tense. There's things like that. But s--t, it was an opportunity and I love that character. I tried really hard to get it right, and Pete was amazing and directed me really well, and I feel lucky."
Now that all of his scenes have been filmed, Bloom says that he is ready to put the project behind him and move on to other roles. "I had to go back, and I have done, and it's done," he said. "I'm holding out for f--king three guys sitting around a table playing cards. Not that I'm not grateful for the opportunities and experiences I've had, but I just think it would be good for me to do something like that just to show that I'm not just an action-reaction, one-line man. You know what I mean? There's more to me than that, and hopefully I can get an opportunity to show that." The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King opens in theaters Dec. 17.
Fans Undaunted By SARS
ans of author J.R.R. Tolkien are planning to convene in Toronto in December, despite the city's ongoing battle with the SARS epidemic, convention organizers announced.
At least 2,000 fans are expected to attend The Gathering of the Fellowship, a three-day event celebrating the author's works. According to organizers, 900 advance tickets to the event have already been sold.
"We continue to attract increasing numbers, despite the SARS scare," said Ed Rodrigues, president of the Gathering, in a press release. "The opportunity to see the three Lord of the Rings movies together in theaters with fellow Tolkien fans from all walks of life is simply too good to miss. Our success also shows that Toronto has an intrinsic quality that attracts people to this vibrant city, even in the midst of a perceived crisis."
Confirmed special guests include actors Craig Parker (Haldir) and Mark Ferguson (Gil-galad) from the Lord of the Rings films, Tolkien scholars Jane Chance, Michael Drout and Ted Sherman, and artist Ted Nasmith. More information about the event can be found on the organization's official Web site, tolkiengathering.com.
Catwoman Ready To Pounce?
he Hollywood North Report Web site has posted a rumor that the DC Comics adaptation Catwoman is set to begin shooting on Sept. 1 in Vancouver.
The production is reportedly scheduled to run through Dec. 31, 2003, the site said.
Michael Fottrell (2 Fast 2 Furious), Sara White and Ed McDonnell are attached to executive produce, while Denise Di Novi (Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns) will produce. Visual-effects wizard Pitof (Alien: Resurrection, City of Lost Children) has been signed to direct. This will be only the second film for the novice director, whose previous effort was the stylish, esoteric French film Vidocq.
Jackson Spills Ep III Spoiler
amuel L. Jackson revealed the fate of his Star Wars: Episode III character, Mace Windu, in a spoiler-filled interview with MTV.com.
"I'm just going to die, you know?" Jackson told the site. "I'm basically going down there, hoping that I'm going to have this really awesome lightsaber battle with somebody that takes me out in the proper way. You know, the way a Jedi of my status deserves to be taken out."
Jackson said that he travels to Australia next month to begin work on George Lucas' third and final Star Wars prequel. "I never realized I would end up with some kind of franchise character that's in the middle of a big franchise of its own, but it's very cool," Jackson said. "Mace is kind of evolving for me. And it's been a wonderful experience, being able to be in Star Wars, first of all because I was a huge fan. I used to sit around and wonder how you got into something like that, and how great it would be to be in it. Fortunately for me, somebody must have heard me, and I'm in it!" Star Wars: Episode III is scheduled to hit theaters in 2005.
Orwell Revisited At 100
istorians unearthed surprising details about George Orwell, author of the SF political novel Nineteen Eighty Four, as the 100th anniversary of his birth approached on June 25, the Reuters news service reported.
The author, believed to be strongly anti-authoritarian, reportedly handed over a list of 38 "crypto-communists and fellow travelers" to the British Foreign Office months before his death from tuberculosis, according to recently unearthed documents.
Historian Norman Mackenzie said recently that the inclusion of his and several other names on the list was proof that Orwell had lost his grip on reality as the TB disease advanced, Reuters reported. "It's a very shaky list," Mackenzie told the British Guardian newspaper. "Tubercular people often get very strange toward the end. I am an Orwell man, I agreed with him on the Soviet Union, but he went partly ga-ga, I think."
Meanwhile, a story in the Washington Post accused Orwell of being anti-Semitic and a friendless loner who dressed working-class but spoke distinctly upper-class, and who was torn between his own socialist leanings and his detestation of Stalinist communism, Reuters reported.
Born Eric Arthur Blair in Motihari in Bengal, India, Orwell also wrote Animal Farm.
Punisher Cast Expands
aura Harring (Willard) is set and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (X2) is in talks to join the cast of The Punisher, based on the Marvel Comics series and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
A July start date is planned in Florida, with Thomas Jane in the title role. Hensleigh wrote the script, with a polish by Michael Tolkin, the trade paper reported.
Punisher is based on the comic, about a vigilante hero who dispenses harsh justice to criminals after his wife and children are slain by the mob, the trade paper reported.
Harring will play the ruthless, vengeful wife of the film's evil criminal mastermind Howard Saint (John Travolta). Romijn-Stamos plays Joan, the Punisher's neighbor.
Punisher To Fight Dirty
homas Jane, who stars in the upcoming film adaptation of Marvel Comics' Punisher series, told SCI FI Wire that he begins filming at the end of June and that the film's action will include realistic fighting.
"All old-school stuff," Jane said in an interview. "What would you really do to take these [bad] guys out? What it usually comes down to is, you poke their eyes out, you slit their throat, break their nose, brutal stuff. That kind of ends the fight kind of quickly. That's why you don’t see it too much. No wires, no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon stuff. It's all going to be real world."
Punisher will tell the story of a man whose family is killed, turning him into a vigilante with weapons and gadgets, in full costume. Jane has been undergoing physical training for the title role. "I'm working with Navy Seals," he said. "I've got two trainers, and I work out twice a day. I'm just exhausted all the time. I sleep." Artisan plans to release The Punisher in the summer of 2004.
Exorcist Creators Sue
illiam Friedkin—who directed the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist—and William Peter Blatty—who wrote the novel and screenplay—are suing Warner Brothers for breaching its fiduciary duty to them when it sold the rights to a remake of the film to its sister cable television networks, TNT and TBS, the Associated Press reported.
Arguing on behalf of Friedkin and Blatty, attorney Lawrence Iger alleged that the studio made hundreds of millions of dollars from the film and made promises of profits to both men it didn't keep. The studio claims it has no financial responsibility to the men, who were hired to perform a service and were paid for that service, according to the AP. A Superior Court judge heard arguments June 19, but has not made a ruling on the case. A trial date has been set for July 14, the news service reported.
Hypnotic Options Darkness
roduction company Hypnotic has bought exclusive film and TV rights to Nintendo's 2002 video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, Variety reported.
Hypnotic will spearhead development, financing, production and distribution.
Last summer, Hypnotic oversaw a contest for Nintendo, in which short films were submitted illustrating the themes of sanity and loss of control that are crucial to the game, the trade paper reported. Hypnotic chair Liz Hamburg also has a longtime relationship with the game-making giant.
The game, which debuted a year ago, was developed by Silicon Knights for Nintendo and revolves around an awakened ancient race and a dozen humans chosen to decide the destiny of their species, the trade paper reported.
Studio Buys Da Vinci Rights
olumbia Pictures has acquired film rights to The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's best-selling thriller novel, about an ancient conspiracy, Variety reported.
Code, published in March, is Brown's second novel centering on Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor who studies religious symbols. The first, Angels and Demons, was published in 2000. Brown is at work on a third Langdon book, which would be included in Columbia's deal.
Code centers on the murder of a curator at the Louvre and clues to a 2,000-year-old conspiracy encoded in the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci, the trade paper reported.
The book is also the subject of allegations by author Lewis Perdue, who claims that Code borrows material from Perdue's novel Daughter of God, published in 2000. Brown has said he never read Perdue's books, the trade paper reported.
UPN All Over Game
PN announced that it has picked up the computer-animated SF comedy pilot Game Over as a series.
The network has given a six-episode midseason order to the Carsey-Werner-Mandabach show, which features the voices of Marisa Tomei and Patrick Warburton.
Written and executive produced by David Sacks, David Goestch, Jason Venokur and Ross Venokur, Game Over centers on the Smashenburns, an ordinary suburban family who live in an alternate video-game universe inhabited by action heroes, monsters and cartoon characters. Also executive producing are CWM's Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach.
In addition to Tomei and Warburton, who will voice Mrs. and Mr. Smashenburn, the voice cast also includes E.G. Daily and Rachel Dratch, who portray their teen kids, and Artie Lange as the family's 300-pound pet creature.
Author Sues For Chicken
British children's author is suing DreamWorks in London for millions of pounds in damages, accusing the studio of stealing his story for the big-screen hit film Chicken Run, the Associated Press reported.
Alan Davidson argues that the animated film, produced by DreamWorks and animators Peter Lord and Nick Park, infringed copyright protecting Escape from Cold Ditch, his children's tale of a hen that leads an escape from a chicken farm, the AP reported.
DreamWorks and Peter Lord's Aardman Animations company, based in Bristol, U.K., are named as the main defendants in papers filed at Lewes County Court in southern England on June 24, the wire service reported.
A spokesman for Aardman told the AP, "We deny that there is any basis whatsoever for Mr. Davidson's claim, and we intend to defend the litigation."
IQ 83 Gets Smart
reamWorks Pictures has tapped writer-director David Frankel to rewrite and direct the SF movie IQ 83, based on the book by Arthur Herzog, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
IQ 83 tells the story of a virus that causes everyone's IQ to drop and of the virus' creator, who must find a cure before his own mind decays, the trade paper reported.
Although the studio has been developing the project for some time, shepherded by studio co-heads Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, Frankel (HBO's Band of Brothers) is expected to go back to the book and pen his own draft.
Pearson To Open Eye
creenwriter Ryne Pearson (Mercury Rising) will write the script for a U.S. remake of the Pang brothers' supernatural thriller film The Eye, Variety reported.
Paramount Pictures-based Cruise/Wagner Productions and Vertigo Entertainment will produce.
The original Eye, known in Asia as Jian gui, comes from the Thailand-based brothers Oxide and Danny Pang. It has grossed $219,000 domestically since its June 6 premiere in the United States. In Spain and the U.K., its gross is a robust $1.6 million, the trade paper reported.
The Eye tells the story of a blind girl who, after receiving a cornea transplant, begins to see ghosts among the living.
Episode III Roles Cast
he official Star Wars Web site reported a raft of casting news for minor characters for the upcoming last prequel film, Episode III.
Casting director Christine King picked local Australian actors from stage, film and television productions for Episode III, which will shoot in Sydney this summer.
Joel Edgerton returns as Owen Lars, a small part he played in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones. Jay Laga'aia reprises the role of Capt. Typho, which he also played in Episode II. Rena Owen also comes back, again playing Taun We.
Joining the cast are Kee Chan, who will play a senator; Chantal Freer, who appears as a handmaiden; Christopher Kirby, also a senator; Rebecca Jackson Mendoza, as a royal leader; Rohan Nichol, in the role of a young captain; Warren Owens as a senator; and Kristy Wright as a handmaiden.
Gaylactic Finalists Named
he Gaylactic Spectrum Awards—recognizing works of special and positive interest to gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people—announced the finalists for 2003 honors.
The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards, created and primarily sponsored by the Gaylactic Network, are presented by the independent Gaylactic Spectrum Awards Foundation. The 2003 awards will be presented at the World Science Fiction Convention, which takes place in Toronto Aug. 28-Sept. 1. A list of finalists follows.
Best Novel
•Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers
•The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman
•Fire Logic by Laurie Marks
•Hominids by Robert Sawyer
•Lorimal's Chalice by Jane Fletcher
•Nightmare: A Novel of the Silent Empire by Steven Harper
•Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge
Best Short Fiction
•"Bugcrush" by Scott Treleaven
•"For the Mortals Among Us" by Robert Knippenburg
•"Night of the Werepuss" by Michael Thomas Ford
•"Polyphemus' Cave" by David Nickle
•"Three Letters From the Queen of Elfland" by Sarah Monette
•"Till Human Voices Wake Us" by Stephen Dedman
•"Unspeakable" by M.C.A. Hogarth
Best Genre Comic Book/Graphic Novel
•The Authority (issues 28 and 29) by various authors
•Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow and Tara: Wilderness by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
•Green Lantern: Hate Crime (issues 154 and 155) by Judd Winnick
•Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman and Craig Russell
•Uncanny X-Men (issue 414) by various authors
•X-Statix (issues 1-5) by various authors
Best Other Work
•Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Seeing Red," by Joss Whedon et al. (TV)
•Eyes of the God: The Weird Fiction and Poetry of R.H. Barlow, S.T. Joshi, Douglas Anderson and David Schultz, eds. (academic work)
•Mind & Body, Cecilia Tan, ed. (anthology)
•Queer Fear II, Michael Rowe, ed. (anthology)
•Wired Hard 3, Cecilia Tan, ed. (anthology)
Muth Plays Dead
llen Muth, star of the Showtime series Dead Like Me, told SCI FI Wire that the show defies easy classification.
"I call it a supernatural dark comedy," Muth said in an interview. "It is supernatural, and it is funny, but in a dark way, because it has to do with death."
Muth is best known for her portrayal of the young Jennifer Jason Leigh
character in the Stephen King film adaptation Dolores Claiborne. In Dead Like Me, she plays Georgia "George" Lass, a young woman killed by a chunk of MIR space station debris and subsequently recruited by a team of not-so-grim reapers (Callum Blue, Jasmine Guy, Rebecca Gayheart), led by Mandy Patinkin.
"I love George's deadpan answers and how she doesn't really care much about this or that," Muth said. "She's still trying to discover who she is, and she has trouble with authority, which I've always had as well. She learns that there are consequences to be suffered when you don't follow the rules. But I don't really [take into account the fact that she's dead], because it doesn't feel
that way when we're doing it." Showtime launched Dead Like Me on June 27 at 10
p.m. ET/PT, with a 75-minute pilot.
Yankees Swings For Film
iramax Films co-chairman Harvey Weinstein has bought the film rights to the supernatural fantasy musical Damn Yankees, Variety reported.
Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago) will produce, the trade paper reported.
The 1955 musical concerns a die-hard Washington Senators fan who sells his soul to the devil so his team can finally topple the Yankees and win the pennant, the trade paper reported. Its original incarnation, with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, won seven Tony Awards. Wallop wrote the novel on which it was based, the trade paper reported.
The original Damn Yankees was choreographed by Bob Fosse, who did the same with Chicago. Rob Marshall, who directed the Oscar-winning film version of Chicago, choreographed the 1994 Broadway revival of Yankees.
Trek's Jefferies Feted
ast and crew of the various Star Trek incarnations paid tribute to original series art director Matt Jefferies—the man behind the saucer-and-nacelle starship design—at an informal gathering on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles on June 20, the official Trek site reported.
Jefferies, who also lent his name to the series' ubiquitous "Jefferies tubes," was the guest of honor at a viewing of a video piece about him, which is scheduled to be included on a future DVD release of Star Trek Generations, the site reported.
Among those attending were J.G. Hertzler, most famous as the actor behind Martok and other Trek characters, but who himself has produced DVD extras for the recent Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home DVD release and will be doing more for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the site reported. Old friend Harold Michelson, production designer on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, was there, along with other Trek veterans, including senior illustrator Doug Drexler, modelmaker Greg Jein, scenic artists Anthony Frederickson and Alan Kobayashi, Enterprise producers Dawn Velazquez and Stephen Welke and others. Jefferies' younger brother, John, a designer himself, was also on hand, along with other family members.
ADL Concerned Over Passion
ontinuing to raise concerns over Mel Gibson's The Passion, a film about the last days of Jesus, the Anti-Defamation League of America charged that, based on a study of an early version of the screenplay, the project could be "replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The ADL embraced the findings of an interfaith committee of scholars that has raised objections to the unreleased film, even though the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has distanced itself from the same group, the trade paper reported.
In its statement, the ADL contended that Gibson and his collaborators "must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism. Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as The Passion could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews."
"To be certain, neither I nor my film are anti-Semitic," Gibson said in a previously released statement, which his spokesman provided in response to the latest allegation. "Nor do I hate anybody—certainly not the Jews," added Gibson, who is a devout Catholic. "They are my friends and associates, both in my work and social life. Thankfully, treasured friendships forged over decades are not easily shaken by nasty innuendo. Anti-Semitism is not only contrary to my personal beliefs, it is also contrary to the core message of my movie."
Colonel Joins Platinum
latinum Studios has enlisted Col. John B. Alexander, longtime adviser to high-tech novelists and high-ranking intelligence officials, to develop movies, video games and comic books based on real security threats and the weapons designed to defeat them, the company announced.
A 32-year Army veteran, Alexander has consulted in the past with such authors as Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton on threat scenarios based on his experience with advanced weapons and machinery.
Platinum was founded by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, former president and owner of Malibu comics, best known for publishing the comic book Men in Black. Rosenberg sold Malibu to Marvel Comics shortly after the feature film based on the comic was produced. Under a four-year deal, Alexander will advise the development company on the creation of franchise properties.
Work has already begun on comic-book titles based on some of Alexander's scenarios, which should appear by the end of the year. Platinum has signed with video-game developers Blue Shift and Handheld Games to create titles for consoles and wireless platform, and is now shopping for screenwriters to craft feature projects based on the properties. "We're living in interesting times," Alexander said in a press release. "We're going to see some major changes in the way we apply force."
Lara Gets A Makeover
he sixth and latest Tomb Raider video game, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, represents a departure from the formula of the previous games in the series, according to the Associated Press.
After several delays, the game was released June 20 for PlayStation 2 and PC and has garnered mixed reaction from fans, the news service reported.
Angel features the game's central character, Lara Croft, trying to prove her innocence after she is framed for the murder of a rival, while simultaneously stopping an evil cult in the catacombs of Paris. Apart from some dramatic improvements in the graphics, which make the bombshell Croft look more lifelike, Croft can now sneak through levels, hide in the shadows and duck behind walls, instead of engaging other characters in battle, the news service reported.
Among other changes, players must take on the role of a character other than Lara Croft at one point in the game, a first for the series. The new character is Kurtis Trent, a muscular hero who takes the lead while Croft is relegated to the sidelines. "People have always wanted a love interest for Lara," Paul Baldwin, marketing executive with Tomb Raider publisher Eidos Interactive, told the news service. "And while we don't obviously have them shack up, so to speak, there's some sexual tension there."
Chucky Not Lucky
spokesman for producer Don Mancini denied rumors that the Child's Play franchise is moving to New Line, according to the Creature Corner Web site.
The Moviehole Web site reported the rumor that New Line was considering purchasing the rights from Universal, with the intention of making a fifth film about the possessed children's doll known as Chucky.
Universal put a potential sequel on hold after the fourth film, Bride of Chucky, achieved moderate success in 1998.
Brute An Xbox Force
icrosoft Game Studios announced that its squad-based action game, Brute Force, has sold more copies in its first two weeks at retail than any other Xbox title to date, according to GameSpot.
Brute Force also had the largest sell-through on its first day of any Xbox game at retailer GameStop, the site reported.
Brute Force lets players control a team of up to three characters who have varying abilities and specialties that make them useful in certain combat situations. The game, developed for Microsoft by Digital Anvil, was released on May 27.
Briefly Noted
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Charlie's Angels screenwriter John August will write a new, live-action, big-budget feature film version of Tarzan for Warner Brothers-based Jerry Weintraub Productions, Variety reported.
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Dark Horizons reported that director Mimi Leder (Deep Impact) is attached to direct The Cold, a Warner Brothers thriller film about a woman whose rental mountain cabin turns out to be haunted.
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The Moviehole.net Web site reported a rumor that Warner Brothers has secured studio space on Australia's Gold Coast, where it plans to begin shooting the sequel film Son of the Mask in the summer. Jamie Kennedy will star, and X2 star Alan Cumming will also appear, the site reported.
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The Z Review Web site reported that producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich have settled on a storyline for their proposed Independence Day sequel film.
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In a creative bit of cross-promotion, Fox is marketing its upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie to fans of its X-Men sequel, X2, with an exclusive film clip designed just for X2 fans. League opens July 11.
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Warner Brothers confirmed for SCI FI Wire that it will hold early screenings of its upcoming sequel film Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, in select theaters starting at 8 p.m. on July 1. The movie officially opens on July 2.
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A New Jersey man pleaded guilty on June 25 to making an unauthorized digital copy of the hit movie Hulk and posting the copyrighted movie on the Internet in advance of last week's release in theaters, the Reuters news service reported. Kerry Gonzalez, 25, appeared in Manhattan federal court to plead guilty to one count of copyright infringement and faces a maximum three-year prison term.
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U.S. Harry Potter publisher Scholastic has ordered another 800,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, bringing the total in print to 9.3 million.
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Cinescape Online reported that Marvel Comics and X3D Technologies, a three-dimensional graphics firm, have partnered to produce a line of 3-D comic books featuring Marvel's stable of superhero characters. The comics will exist on CD-ROM format and will be dubbed Marvel ComX3D.
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Marvel Enterprises shareholders saw its stock drop by 11 percent following the opening of the feature-film adaptation of its Hulk series, Variety reported. Marvel stock fell 11.56 percent on June 23, to close at $18.75.
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In a classic example of company synergy, Disney's upcoming film The Pirates of the Caribbean will have its premiere at Disneyland on June 28. For the first time since its 1955 opening, the entire park will be closed to all but invited guests, who will view the film from New Orleans Square as it is projected across the water onto a screen on Tom Sawyer's Island.
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Columbia Pictures has picked up the family comedy pitch Grown Ups for producer Ricky Strauss and his Sony-based production company, Ricochet, Variety reported. Written by Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson, the project is about the overprotective parents of a 13-year-old boy, who find themselves transformed into youngsters and enroll in their son's school.
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The annual Monster Bash film festival, which highlights classic creature features, opened June 20 in Butler, Pa. Among those appearing at the three-day festival are Ben Chapman—who played the Creature from the Black Lagoon in the 1954 film—and Sara Karloff, daughter of horror legend Boris Karloff.
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