Hugo Winners Named
he Hugo Awards for best science fiction works in 2002 were presented Aug. 30 at the 61st World Science Fiction Convention, Torcon 3, in Toronto.
Named in honor of editor Hugo Gernsback, often called the father of magazine science fiction, the Hugo Award (also known as the Science Fiction Achievement Award) is given annually by the World Science Fiction Society and determined by nominations from and a popular vote of the membership. Hugo Awards honor works that appeared in the previous calendar year. A full list of winners follows.
Best Novel
•Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer
Best Novella
•Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Best Novelette
•"Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick
Best Short Story
•"Falling Onto Mars" by Geoffrey A. Landis
Best Related Book
•Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril by Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary
Best Dramatic Presentation
•"Conversations With Dead People," Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
•The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Best Professional Editor
•Gardner Dozois
Best Professional Artist
•Bob Eggleton
Best Semiprozine
•Locus
Best Fanzine
•Mimosa
Best Fan Writer
•Dave Langford
Best Fan Artist
•Sue Mason
Garner Game For Alias
ennifer Garner, star of ABC's Alias, told Variety that seeing her doppelganger in the just-released show-inspired video game is "surreal."
"When I watch her walk, she twitches in a familiar way," Garner told the trade paper at a release party for the game and the show's first-season DVD set. "But she's bigger, better, curvier, tougher and meaner."
Revelers also screened the pilot and DVD gag reel at the Aug. 26 party in West Hollywood, Calif.
Meanwhile, E! Online's Watch With Kristin column reported that Merrin Dungey—whose character, evil Francie, appeared to die at the end of last season—will return in the coming season and will have some kind of relationship with Sark (David Anders). Lena Olin, who played Sydney Bristow's mom, will also be back, the column reported.
Alias Star Touts CIA
ennifer Garner, star of ABC's spy drama Alias, told The Hollywood Reporter that she has been asked to contribute to an official video promoting the real Central Intelligence Agency.
"It's not a commercial," she told the trade paper. "It's a recruitment video [to show] university graduate students."
Chase Brandon, film industry liaison for the CIA, confirmed that the project was in the works, the trade paper reported. "We very much would like to continue our discussions with Miss Garner and possibly other cast members to work with us on a recruitment video," he said. "We feel that Miss Garner, both in character as agent Sydney Bristow and as herself, embodies the intelligence, enthusiasm and dedication that we're looking for. Our continuing efforts to enlist the best and the brightest would be admirably served by having her support."
Garner would provide an introduction to the video that the CIA shows to prospective agents. Producers on Alias worked with Brandon in the early stages of the show, and the writers still occasionally contact him to check facts and details, the trade paper reported.
Bradbury Still Dreams Of Mars
egendary SF author Ray Bradbury celebrated his 83rd birthday on Aug. 23 in the company of well-wishers from the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif., with the red star of Mars overhead in its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years.
The frail author of The Martian Chronicles told the group that he had one fond wish for the future in connection with the exploration of the Red Planet.
"The thing I dream is this: That some night, a hundred nights, a hundred years from now, there will be a boy on Mars reading late at night with a flashlight under the covers," Bradbury said. "And he'll look out on the Martian landscape, which will be bleak and rocky and red and not very romantic. But when he turns out the light and lies with a copy of my book, I hope, The Martian Chronicles, the Martian winds outside will stir, and the ghosts that are in my book will rouse up, and my creatures—even though they never lived—will be on Mars. And that's the dream I have."
Bradbury accepted written birthday greetings from luminaries such as astronaut Buzz Aldrin, fellow author Arthur C. Clarke and filmmakers George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Charlton Heston, among others. Director Peter Hyams, who is helming an upcoming feature-film version of Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder," appeared in person to say, "The biggest perquisite I've every had my entire life and my quite checkered career was the opportunity not only to meet, but actually collaborate with, Ray Bradbury, who has been my idol since I was a child."
Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek TV series, was also on hand to pin a gold Starfleet badge on Bradbury's lapel and name him an honorary crew member of the starship Enterprise. Actress Angie Dickinson, a longtime supporter of the Planetary Society, gave him a birthday kiss. And SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson, author of his own Mars series of novels, was in attendance to compare stories of growing up in small-town Illinois with Bradbury.
In an interview with SCI FI Wire, Bradbury said he was excited by the upsurge in interest in Mars exploration, as represented by the five separate unmanned missions currently in progress. "I'm praying every night that it works," he said. "I mean, we can't have any more failures here, because people take it wrong. We overemphasize everything, which I think is terrible. I mean, think of the people that died with Columbus in three expeditions, and Magellan died halfway around the world, right? ... So we've killed very few people so far. And we're going to kill some more. But we're going to make it. We're going to colonize Mars, and we're going to stay there forever."
The Planetary Society—founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman—is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that encourages the exploration of the solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life.
BBC1 Exec Wants More Who
orraine Heggessey, the controller of the British TV network BBC1, announced that she wants to bring back Doctor Who to Saturday evenings, the BBCi Web site reported.
Heggessey voiced her desire to bring back the show in an interview with the MediaGuardian, conducted at the Edinburgh International TV Festival, the site reported.
Heggessey said that rights issues were preventing a swift return of the Doctor to British television. "I would like to resurrect Doctor Who, but the rights situation is too complicated to do that at the moment," she said. "Maybe that will happen one day."
For its part, the site reported that it had looked into the rights issues and found nothing to prevent the show's return, though various writers hold the rights to various characters they created, such as Terry Nation and the Daleks.
New Angel Season Teased
oss Whedon, who is wrapping production on the third episode of Angel's upcoming fifth season, told SCI FI Wire that the characters will have a new mistrust of each other, as established in last season's finale.
"It's a different issue, because, first of all, nobody remembers Connor," Whedon said in an interview. "But it's an issue, because everybody has their own motivation for being at Wolfram & Hart, and nobody trusts anybody else's. That's going to continue to be an issue all year."
In the season premiere, Angel (David Boreanaz) is getting used to the perks of running Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles branch. "The first thing Angel has to contend with is the fact that he actually has people who are supposed to do his fighting for him," Whedon said. "And that's not really how he likes to work. But he's a big corporate head now, so that conflict is in the first episode." Angel returns on Oct. 1 in its regular Wednesday timeslot of 9 p.m. ET/PT.
New Buffy Game Debuts
uffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, the latest video game based on the long-running UPN series, hits stores this week.
Developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software and licensed by Fox Interactive, the game is written by Christopher Golden and Thomas E. Sniegoski.
Chaos Bleeds is a third-person fighting adventure game that takes place in Buffy's hometown of Sunnydale, Calif. The game is envisioned as a "lost episode" from the series' fifth season and deals with a "dimensional bleed" in which the First threatens to consume humanity. Gamers can choose to play as either Faith, Willow, Xander, Spike or Sid the Dummy, many of whom are voiced by the show's cast members.
Chaos Bleeds is available for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube platforms.
Exorcist IV Fires Schrader
he New York Post is reporting that Exorcist: The Beginning director Paul Schrader has been fired because he didn't put enough blood, guts and vomit in the prequel, the fourth film in the horror franchise.
Citing anonymous sources, the newspaper reported that Schrader (Auto Focus) turned the finished movie in to Morgan Creek, which refused to give him his post-production money because they hated it. According to the sources, Schrader delivered what was in the script: a creepy psychological thriller, with no gore.
But, the source added, "Morgan Creek wanted gore. They think that will sell. There were huge fights between Paul, who is more artistic, and the company, and earlier this week Paul was fired. They are planning on hiring a new director to reshoot some scenes."
Novelist Caleb Carr (The Alienist) wrote the Exorcist screenplay for Morgan Creek and told the Post: "The problem with Paul's cut of the movie is it does not deliver the psychological fear we were looking for. It does have some good dramatic elements, which can be rearranged with some good shooting into a very good movie." The picture, starring Stellan Skarsgard, Gabriel Mann and Francesca Barone, was shot in Rome and Morocco. Schrader declined comment, citing legal agreements.
Stars Up For Potter IV
he three stars of the Harry Potter movies told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that they intend to star in the upcoming fourth film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, according to a report on The Leaky Cauldron Web site.
Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) told the newspaper that she and co-stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) and Rupert Grint (Ron) will reprise their characters in the proposed fourth film.
But Watson declined to say whether the actors would stick with the franchise through a proposed seventh movie. "We're not up to speculate on that," she said. "One movie at a time." The three are currently shooting the third Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is due in 2004.
Helmer Talks Berry's Gothika
athieu Kassovitz, the French director of the upcoming supernatural film Gothika, told SCI FI Wire that star Halle Berry brought a lot to the film's central character, a criminal psychologist who awakes as an inmate in her own institution with no memory of a murder she's apparently committed.
"She brought her personality, first of all," Kassovitz said in an interview. "And ... everything is about her. It's all on her character."
Kassovitz added, "It's a psychological thriller mixed with a ghost story. So it's all about her. And scary movies are scary only if the main character is scared and if you can relate to this character. So she brought her own humanity and a lot of professionalism and a lot of energy for everybody in the crew, for me and for the other actors and all the crew members. We got a lot from her."
Kassovitz said that he encountered no "diva" attitude from the Oscar-winning actress. "She's a cool person," he said. "She's a nice person. ... We talked a lot about the movie. We worked a lot, tried to figure out her character and how to make it alive and find the right way to portray it for her, to make it easier for her. But she's easygoing. That's really something I can say about her, that she's not complicated." Gothika opens Oct. 24.
Order Name Change Explained
rian Helgeland, director of the upcoming supernatural horror film The Order, told SCI FI Wire that he changed the movie's original name—The Sin Eater—at the request of the Fox marketing department.
"They'd end up spending most of their advertising space just trying to explain what a sin eater was," Helgeland said in an interview.
The film still tells the story of a priest (Heath Ledger) and his pursuit of a so-called sin eater, a supernatural being who physically removes the sins of his victim before killing him.
Helgeland added that the film's release was delayed from its original January date because of marketing concerns, not because the film had visual-effects problems, as rumored. "They really felt that wasn't a good time," Helgeland (A Knight's Tale) said. "It's definitely not a summer movie, so as it got closer to summer, they just couldn't find a spot they were happy with. So they were basically waiting for the summer to end to come out in the fall. It's a dark movie, so they wanted to avoid the happy-ending season. Out of that, a story started that there [were] problems with the effects. But no one really knows where that story started, because the movie was done [by January], so there wasn't any more work to be done with effects." The Order opens Sept. 5.
Body Snatched Again
roducers Roy Lee and Doug Davison (The Ring) will produce an updated version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers for Warner Brothers, Variety reported.
Warner owns the remake rights after making the 1993 Body Snatchers, directed by Abel Ferrara, the trade paper reported.
No screenwriter is attached yet. The new version is expected to center on a female protagonist who uncovers a conspiracy in a small town where the inhabitants' personalities seem to be changing, the trade paper reported.
Don Siegel's original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, based on Jack Finney's story, became a cult classic and has been subject to several remakes, including one in 1978 starring Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams.
Alien Re-Release Restores Scene
idley Scott, director of the 1979 classic SF film Alien, told SCI FI Wire that an upcoming extended version of the movie will restore a never-before-seen three-minute sequence.
"The scene really explains what happened to Dallas [Tom Skerrit] and the others," Scott said in an interview.
At the time of Alien's original release, Scott said that he cut the scene to speed the movie's pacing. But upon reflection, Scott said that he is now happy to put it back. "I think it seemed to slow down the dynamics, and now, looking at it, I thought, 'Well, actually, it doesn't.' I think we didn't give it a fair shot then. [Now] I think it works." Fox will release the new cut of Alien in theaters on Oct. 31.
Episode III Vader Scenes Coming
ablo Hidalgo, the on-set Episode III diarist for the official Star Wars Web site, told fans that the production is near the end and that scenes of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader may commence next week.
"We're ahead of schedule," Hidalgo said in an Aug. 28 chat with fans. "Though I hesitate to call this an official wrap date, a lot of calendars around these parts have Sept. 18 circled." Hidalgo added that costume designer Trisha Biggar is already prepping the Vader costume.
As for the look of Episode III, Hidalgo revealed that the upcoming prequel may feature designs left out of the original trilogy of films. "The Ranch Art Department delved into the archives of [original Star Wars illustrators] Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie, ... and some of those designs will be making an appearance, which I'm sure will fuel needless and uninformed [extended universe]/canon debates," Hidalgo said, with tongue in cheek.
In other Episode III news, Hidalgo said:
•A character from the extended universe of Star Wars comics, books and games will make an appearance in the prequel.
•Anakin (Christensen) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) will have a nasty duel, which is currently being filmed.
XXX2 OK'd
evolution Studios is moving forward on the sequel to last year's XXX—now called XXX2—but it's not clear who will direct, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Rob Cohen, who directed the original, has right of first refusal. But if he opts instead to make Stealth next, the job will likely go to Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day), the trade paper reported.
Cohen has not officially stepped off XXX2 yet. If Tamahori comes aboard, it would mark the New Zealand director's third franchise, after directing the most recent James Bond movie and Along Came a Spider, featuring the character of Alex Cross from James Patterson's best-selling novels, the trade paper reported.
Spotnitz Readies 13th Floor
ormer The X-Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz has set up a supernatural series at FX tentatively titled The 13th Floor, Variety reported.
The show deals with a lawyer who serves as an advocate for dead people who believe they've been wrongly condemned to hell, the trade paper reported.
Spotnitz is working with novelist Brad Meltzer and Washington insider Steve "Scoop" Cohen on the series.
World Rights Snatched Up
aramount has picked up British, Australian and New Zealand rights to The World of Tomorrow, producer Aurelio De Laurentiis' retro SF movie, Variety reported.
The studio picked up North American rights in June.
The movie stars Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow and is directed by 29-year-old first-timer Kerry Conran, the trade paper reported. Principal photography on the live-action/computer-animated film wrapped in April in London. No release date has been set.
Death Linked To EverQuest
n Arkansas mother was arrested after her 3-year-old daughter died sweltering in a closed car while her mother played EverQuest, police told the northwest Arkansas Morning News.
Mary Christina Cordell, 36, faces a felony charge of manslaughter in the death of her daughter, Brianna Cordell, of Springdale, Ark., police spokesman Brian Simmons told the newspaper.
Cordell—who goes by her middle name, Christina—was being held in the Washington County jail on Aug. 25 awaiting a bond hearing, the newspaper reported. If convicted, she faces three to 10 years in prison and a fine up of to $10,000.
Authorities said Cordell and her boyfriend, Eric Long, 21, may have been so fixated with the online role-playing game EverQuest that she neglected to pay adequate attention to Brianna's whereabouts on Aug. 8, the day the child died, the newspaper reported. Brianna was found dead in the front seat of her mother's car at about 3:30 p.m. in the parking lot of their apartment complex.
Plissken Games Developing
amco Hometek announced that the company has secured the rights to develop and publish video games based on the character of Snake Plissken from director John Carpenter's Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. films.
Carpenter, producer Debra Hill and actor Kurt Russell own the Snake Plissken character rights and will be working with Namco on the development of the games, the company said.
The first of several titles featuring Plissken will launch in time for Christmas 2005, the company said.
Biel Sharpens Blade III
essica Biel (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) has signed on to star as a female vampire hunter in the David Goyer-directed New Line sequel film Blade: Trinity, the third movie in the vampire franchise, Variety reported.
Biel joins a cast led by Wesley Snipes; Biel plays the daughter of Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who inherits the vampire-slaying duties that once belonged to Blade (Snipes), the trade paper reported.
Ryan Reynolds also stars as a vampire hunter, the trade paper reported. The pairing of Biel and Reynolds could lead to a spinoff film and a new franchise for the company. Director Goyer also wrote the script for the third installment of the franchise, which is based on a Marvel Comics series.
Tron 2.0 Lights Up Stores
uena Vista Interactive announced the release of the Tron 2.0 video game, inspired by the groundbreaking 1982 SF film.
The first-person PC game delivers story-driven gameplay featuring high-speed "light cycle" racing and arena combat, the Disney unit announced.
Tron 2.0 also features the voice talent of original cast members Bruce Boxleitner (Alan Bradley) and Cindy Morgan (Ma3a, an artificial-intelligence program), as well as Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (Mercury). Syd Mead, the conceptual artist for Blade Runner and other movies, has updated the light cycle design.
The film's writer/director, Steven Lisberger, and visual-effects supervisor, Richard Taylor, both consulted on the project. Original Tron composer Wendy Carlos provides music.
Coming soon: Tron 2.0 action figures from National Entertainment Collectibles Association and a Tron comic miniseries from 88 MPH Studios.
Mythopoeic Winners Named
he Mythopoeic Society announced the winners of its 2003 awards, honoring fantasy literature and scholarship.
The awards are chosen by society member committees. This year's awards were announced at Mythcon 34, July 25-28, in Nashville, Tenn. A list of winners follows.
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature
•Ombria in Shadow by Patricia A. McKillip
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
•Summerland by Michael Chabon
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies
•Beowulf and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Michael D.C. Drout
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in General Myth and Fantasy Studies
•Fairytale in the Ancient World by Graham Anderson
Newcomer Sells Monster Pitch
ledgling director Gil Kenan has sold his pitch for the fantasy movie Monster House to DreamWorks for Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers to produce, Variety reported.
The movie deals with the adventures of three kids who discover that a neighbor's house is a living, breathing monster, the trade paper reported.
No writer has signed onto the project yet, the trade paper reported. Kenan, who graduated from UCLA's film program last year, has been receiving a lot of attention recently for his student film The Lark, a 10-minute short that combines live action with stop-motion animation.
Scooby Out For Xbox
HQ announced the release of Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights for the Xbox video game system.
Based on the classic Scooby-Doo! TV series, the game features original characters and villains, as well as the voices of Don Knotts, Tim Conway and Tim Curry, the company announced.
The Xbox version is available for a suggested retail price of $19.95. Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights was previously released for the GameCube and the PlayStation 2.
Jeepers Actor Cheered Out
arieh Delfino, who plays a kick-ass cheerleader in the supernatural horror sequel Jeepers Creepers 2, told SCI FI Wire that she was actually kicked out of her cheer squad in high school.
"I was going through my, like, 16, feminist, 'This-is-exploitive-of-women, I'm-not-going-to-go-cheer-for-the-boys, What-is-that? They-can-cheer-for-me [phase]," Delfino said in an interview. "And my mom was like, 'You need this on your college transcript. You're going to do it, or you're going to be grounded all summer.' So I was like, 'Fine.'"
But Delfino rebelled anyway, she said. "I didn't learn any of the cheers, so they said I had a general bad attitude," she said with a laugh. "And I hemmed my skirt, but only in the back, so my skirt was long, but like all the way up to here in the back. And after that, they had a meeting behind my back and said I had a bad attitude. Oh, and then I would do this move called the camel that was really like unattractive and silly and awkward, and they banned the camel and they banned me."
In Jeepers Creepers 2, Delfino is a cheerleader on a bus filled with high-school basketball players and other students who find themselves stranded on a country road and pursued by a winged demon. Jeepers Creepers 2 opened Aug. 29.
SCI FI Roswell Diary Due
he SCI FI Channel has signed a three-book deal with Pocket Books for projects spun off from its successful SCI FI Declassified franchise of original documentary specials, the network announced.
The first title will be SCI FI Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries, based on SCI FI Channel's highest-rated original special, The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence, which documented the first archaeological excavation of the Roswell, N.M., site of a supposed UFO crash in 1947.
The book will be released as a trade paperback in November. SCI FI will promote the book during broadcasts of its upcoming Declassified special The New Roswell: Kecksburg Exposed in October, the network said.
SCI FI Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries will detail new information about the alleged 1947 crash at Roswell and will contain the first public release of the final archaeological report on the dig. The book also contains a special foreword by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Towers Celebrates TreePeople
ew Line Home Entertainment unveiled the new DVD edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at a celebrity event in Los Angeles' Franklin Canyon Park on Aug. 25, benefitting the nonprofit TreePeople environmental charity.
During the event, the nonprofit education and advocacy group received a donation of seedlings from celebrities that included Lorenzo Lamas, Thora Birch, Giovanni Ribisi and others in the company of actors dressed like the treelike Ents from the movie.
Invited guests were also treated to a screening of the DVD, including a preview of footage from the upcoming third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King. The DVD goes on sale Aug. 26. The Return of the King opens Dec. 17.
TreePeople is a 30-year-old environmental education and advocacy organization. Its mission is to inspire the people of Los Angeles to take personal responsibility for the urban forest.
Mutant X Goes Wide?
he Comics Continuum Web site reported a rumor that the upcoming third season of the syndicated SF series Mutant X may be broadcast in widescreen, letterbox format.
The site based its report on anonymous sources.
The site added that Mutant X will begin its new season the week of Sept. 29 with the episode "Into the Moonless Night." Other upcoming episodes include "Wages of Sin" the week of Oct. 6, "The Breed" the week of Oct. 13, "Where Evil Dwells" the week of Oct. 20 and "The Taking of Crows" the week of Oct. 27, the site reported.
Karen Cliche will join the cast this season. Lauren Lee Smith has left, and John Shea will be a recurring guest star, the site reported.
EverQuest: Evolution Ships
ony Online announced that it has shipped EverQuest: Evolution, an all-inclusive collection of titles in the popular online role-playing game franchise.
The package includes the original EverQuest game, as well as the five current expansion packs: The Ruins of Kunark, The Scars of Velious, The Shadows of Luclin, The Planes of Power and The Legacy of Ykesha. Evolution carries a suggested retail price of $29.99.
EverQuest: Evolution offers players a total of five continents, a moonscape and many planar zones to explore, as well as 15 races and thousands of creatures to battle. With more than 400,000 active subscribers around the globe, players can quest alone, form a temporary group or join a guild for cooperative play, Sony said.
Bancroft Joins Toon Cast
nne Bancroft will voice a villain in the upcoming computer-animated movie Delgo, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Bancroft joins a cast in the Fathom Studios movie that includes Jennifer Love Hewitt, Val Kilmer, Michael Clarke Duncan and Chris Kattan, the trade paper reported.
Bancroft will voice Sedessa, an eccentric leader who is as ambitious as she is charming. Delgo, the first theatrical production from Atlanta-based Fathom, is set in a divided land where a troubled youth and some unlikely friends must save the world from itself, the trade paper reported.
Kassovitz Preps Babies
irector Mathieu Kassovitz (Gothika) told SCI FI Wire that he's prepping a new English-language SF movie, Babylon Babies, based on the French SF novel of the same name by Maurice G. Dantec.
Set about 30 years in the future, the film is "about the evolution of our species and the future of our civilization," Kassovitz said in an interview. "It's a big thing."
Kassovitz is adapting the book with Eric Besnard and is eyeing his actor friend Vincent Cassel (Le Pacte des loups or Brotherhood of the Wolf) for a role. He added that the movie will be a big effects film. "If it was an American movie, it would be $120 million or something like that, but the way I want to do it, we can do it for really half of it and make it look like a $120 million movie," he said.
Kassovitz said he will prep the film through the end of next year, with plans to begin shooting for six months after that in Montreal, where he recently wrapped Gothika, starring Halle Berry. "It's not going to be a French film," added Kassovitz, who is perhaps best known to U.S. audiences as an actor in the French movie Amelie. "It's going to be an international production. It's going to be European and American, too."
Swinton Up For Constantine
ilda Swinton is in talks to join the cast of Warner Brothers' Constantine, a feature film based on the DC/Vertigo comic series Hellblazer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Francis Lawrence is directing the movie, which will star Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, a man who dabbles in the occult and teams with a female police officer to fight evil forces.
Rachel Weisz has already been announced to play Angela, the cop who becomes involved with Constantine when her twin sister dies in a mysterious suicide, the trade paper reported. Swinton would play Gabriel, a rogue angel battling Constantine.
Suitors Mull Passion
everal distributors are talking with Mel Gibson about handling his controversial Aramaic and Latin-language movie The Passion, about the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ, Variety reported.
Suitors include Newmarket, Paramount Classics, Sony Classics and Lions Gate, who are all talking with Gibson's Icon Productions, Bruce Davey and ICM chairman Jeff Berg about a possible North American distribution deal, the trade paper reported.
No distribution decisions will be made until after Labor Day, the trade paper reported. Whoever ends up with the film may still have to tackle the issue of its title, as Miramax has already laid claim to it for a period romantic drama to be produced through Killer Films, the trade paper reported.
Smith Doubts ID4 2
riginal Independence Day star Will Smith told Radio One that he doubts a much-hoped-for sequel will ever come to pass, according to a report on the Empire Online Web site.
"I think that will never happen," he reportedly told the radio network.
Smith added, "It's Hollywood, so you never know—you can never say never—but I'm pretty doggone sure that will never happen." Independence Day creators Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich have been trying to get a sequel off the ground for a while, to no avail.
Briefly Noted
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Pierce Brosnan (Die Another Day) won a legal battle to claim the Internet Web site bearing his name, the Reuters news service reported. The Irish star brought the case against a company that was a front for the now infamous cybersquatter Jeff Burgar, who redirected piercebrosnan.com to a commercial Web site.
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Costumes and set pieces from director Darren Aronofsky's defunct SF epic movie The Fountain were auctioned off in Australia this week, the C.H.U.D. Web site reported. The proposed big-budget movie fell apart after star Brad Pitt bailed.
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Spike TV and FX have emerged as front-runners to license the syndication rights to ABC's Alias reruns, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Cinescape Online reported a rumor that producers are eyeing Jeepers Creepers 2 director Victor Salva to helm a proposed remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
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The Smokinggun.com Web site has posted a 1977 interview California GOP gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) gave to the defunct magazine Oui, in which he discusses sex and bodybuilding, among other things.
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Tony-nominated Broadway actress Jayne Atkinson is joining the cast of M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming supernatural film The Woods, which is shooting outside Philadelphia.
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MGM is planning to release a two-disc special-edition DVD of John Carpenter's Escape From New York in December, Cinescape Online reported. The DVD will feature two full-length audio commentaries, one from actor Kurt Russell and Carpenter, the other with producer Debra Hill and production designer Joe Alves.
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Director Kevin Smith, who wrote a draft of the proposed next Superman movie, told E! Online columnist Anderson Jones that he's not interested in directing it. "Too big and too many people in the audience who are like, 'You're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong,'" Smith said.
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The C.H.U.D. Web site reported that the Motion Picture Association of America has shut down the official site of the upcoming horror movie House of the Dead, written by C.H.U.D. contributor Dave Parker, "because of gore and the like." Artisan and the film's producers are reportedly working to alter the site to get it back up.
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The just-released DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers contains a 10-minute preview of the upcoming third Rings film, The Return of the King, which includes footage of the climactic Battle of Pelennor Fields. The Return of the King opens Dec. 17.
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ABC Family will air the SF film Clockstoppers as part of a $10 million deal for 30 movies from the Paramount theatrical library, Variety reported. ABC Family gets an exclusive four-year network window for Clockstoppers, beginning in October 2004.
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Rob Minkoff (Haunted Mansion) has secured the film rights to the comic strip Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley for a live-action movie, the first to be directed by Kirk Wise, who helmed Disney's animated hits Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Variety reported.
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LucasArts launched the official Web site for its Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy video game.
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The official Web site for the upcoming movie version of the Alone in the Dark video game has posted a new teaser trailer. the film, starring Christian Slater and Tara Reid, is still in production.
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Whoa! The Matrix Reloaded has hit $730 million at the worldwide box office, the Reuters news service reported. The tally for the Wachowski brothers' film includes $450 million in ticket sales overseas and $280 million domestically.
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Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) made a personal plea to the Russian government on Aug. 24 not to force thousands of Chechen refugees in Ingushetia to return to their war-torn homeland, the Reuters news service reported. Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, also added her voice to appeals for the release of a Dutch aid worker kidnapped a year ago in Dagestan, just east of Chechnya.
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