Firefly Feature A Go
niversal Pictures has green-lighted Serenity, a feature film to be based on the short-lived Joss Whedon television series Firefly, according to Variety.
Fox TV canceled Firefly in late 2002, after airing just 11 episodes of the futuristic western. The trade paper reported that Whedon is on board to write and direct the feature, and that the entire original cast of the series, among them Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres and Summer Glau, would reprise their characters.
Whedon told Variety that he chose to title the film Serenity in order to provide some distance from the TV version, and he added that the film's action would take place about six months after the last events seen on the show. "It was important that people understand that the movie isn't the series," Whedon said. "The movie is bigger, more epic than anything you can do in a series."
The idea, Whedon went on to tell Variety, was to make Serenity accessible even to moviegoers who never saw an episode of Firefly. "You're not going to bring people into a movie if you're explaining all the time what happened before," Whedon said. Production is slated to begin in June and the studio hopes to have Serenity ready for release in 2005. Universal is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Hellboy Fires Up Del Toro
uillermo del Toro, director of the upcoming movie Hellboy, told SCI FI Wire that he's thrilled with how his adaptation of Mike Mignola's popular comic-book series is coming together.
"My two favorite movies of the ones I've done are The Devil's Backbone and Hellboy," del Toro said in an interview. "I really feel proud of this one."
Hellboy tells the story of the title character (Ron Perlman of Beauty and the Beast), a beer-drinking, fun-loving demon living on Earth. When he's not fighting evil creatures out to dominate the planet, Hellboy romances a lovely firestarter named Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). Del Toro, whose other credits include Cronos, Mimic and Blade II, wanted to make Hellboy into a film ever since he first read Mignola's comic books nearly a decade ago, and he said he hopes he's done Mignola's creation justice.
"The humor is very big in it," del Toro said. "It starts rather grand. The 1940s section is like a little war movie, but then, when we come to the present, the tone shifts into Hellboy mode, which is very dry humor, very dark. The good thing about the movie is not only does it have spectacle and humor, but it has heart and a sweetness and a lightness in spite of all the dark characters and the monsters and all that. We're going to be rated PG-13, and I dare say that it's a movie that kids and parents can see together." Hellboy opens April 2.
Oldman Batman's Gordon
ary Oldman has signed on to play Lt. James Gordon in Batman Begins, according to Variety.
Production on the Christopher Nolan (Memento) film has started in Iceland.
Gordon is a detective on the Gotham police force, according to the trade paper, which described Batman Begins as exploring the origins of the Caped Crusader legend. Oldman, whose genre credits include Bram Stoker's Dracula, Lost in Space and the upcoming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, joins a star-studded cast that already includes Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred, Katie Holmes as Wayne's childhood friend Rachel, Liam Neeson as Wayne's mentor, Morgan Freeman as a former Wayne Enterprises board member and Ken Watanabe as the villain, Ra's Al Ghul. Warner Brothers will release Batman Begins in summer 2005.
Bell Previews Angel
eff Bell, co-executive producer of
the WB's recently canceled vampire series Angel, told SCI FI Wire that upcoming
episodes will focus on Lindsey (Christian Kane) and Connor (Vincent Kartheiser).
The episodes, "Underneath" and "Origin," were already in production when the WB made its
fateful announcement about Angel's fate.
"Lindsey showed up and then
disappeared quite quickly and we get to a place where we think, 'You know what? We need
information,'" Bell said in an interview. "And so we bust Lindsey out of hell. It's sort of
The Great Escape, with our guys going in and trying to find Lindsey so we can find
out what he knows about us being at Wolfram & Hart. So we've got Lindsey and Eve [Sarah
Thompson] front and center in that, and we also bring in a new character. Adam Baldwin is
going to do a few episodes for us as a representative of Wolfram & Hart. He'll be a contrast
to Eve. It's male-female, big-small."
Bell then revealed that "Origin"
will feature the return of Angel's (David Boreanaz) son Connor. "Vincent has agreed to come
in and do a new episode for us, and we're going to see the result of the deal that Angel
made at the end of last season," Bell said. "It'll be fun to have Connor show up as a really
happy, healthy and well-adjusted kid, the kid he could never be in season four. And for
Angel there will be the pain of knowing this is his son, but that nobody else can know
that."
Gellar Open To Angel Gig
arah Michelle Gellar, former star of TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told SCI FI Wire the reasons she reluctantly pulled out of appearing in the Buffy spinoff Angel earlier this season and left open the possibility that she might still make an appearance, if asked, before Angel winds up its fifth and final season this year on The WB.
Gellar, speaking for the first time about the issue, said in an interview that she had to bow out of a planned guest appearance on Angel when her aunt died late last year. Gellar spoke to SCI FI Wire during a break in the filming of her new project, the supernatural horror film The Grudge, in Tokyo.
Her Angel decision was "a really common misconception that people have written a lot about," Gellar said. "They had asked me to do Angel, and it was a very bad time in my personal life. There was a lot going on in my family. And I had to back out. And you sort of never hear the second side of the story. You never hear why I didn't do it. And then all of a sudden, people get really angry, and nobody asks why it didn't work for you." At the time, reports suggested that Gellar had pulled out because she wanted to distance herself from the Buffy franchise.
As for whether she will guest star in Angel's season-ending episodes, much as Angel star David Boreanaz did on Buffy when it wrapped its seven-year run last spring, Gellar said it hinges in part on her schedule. She's finishing the final weeks of 42 days of shooting on The Grudge, with at least nine more shooting days to go. The final Angel episodes are in production now.
"A lot has been written about recently, 'Oh, is she going to do it? Is she not going to do it?'" Gellar said. "Well, to be truthful, I don't know if I'm even going to make it home before they finish. But no one's contacted me. I'll be totally honest. And it depends. I think. I go back and forth on the idea, especially because Angel had such a hard time, in my opinion, always getting out from Buffy's shadow. And it never got to stand on its own. And I would hate for it to go out being about Buffy. It'll all depend on if I'm home in time
and what the ideas are."
Buffy and Angel creator Joss Whedon has said he'd welcome an appearance by Gellar. For her part, she said she's open to it, explaining, "If everything falls into place, and it feels like the right thing at the time for the right people." Angel airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Rowling Hints At Potter Future
arry Potter author J.K. Rowling told participants in a World Book Day Web chat held today that the wizarding world "is really at war again" in book six, which she is currently writing.
"[As a result, Harry] has to master his own feelings to make himself useful," Rowling wrote. "If personally I was Harry Potter, I would hide because I know what is coming."
Rowling has long declared that book seven would bring the Potter saga to an end. However, responding to one of the 16,000 questions she was asked, Rowling said she could not rule out penning a story about Harry's life after he completes school. "Probably not, but I'll never say never because every time I do I immediately break the vow!" she wrote.
Potter Squatter Sentenced
n American man has been found guilty of "typosquatting"—using names based on popular Web searches such as Harry Potter to trick people into visiting pornographic Web sites—and sentenced to two and a half years in prison, the Silicon.com Web site reported.
John Zuccarini, 56, had registered misspelled versions of Disney trademarks, as well as Harry Potter and other names, to fool Web users into visiting sites advertising porn and other goods, from which he earned a lucrative pay-per-click fee for each visitor, the site reported.
The typosquatting scam earned Zuccarini $1 million a year after he took advantage of children's tendency to misspell words, the site reported. The scammer was the first to be convicted under a new law, the Truth in Domain Names Act, which is part of the Amber Alert Act that makes attracting children to pornographic Web sites a criminal offense.
Zuccarini had been on the run for some time before his eventual arrest and had been sued several time previously for similar scams, after hijacking, among others, Dow Jones' and the U.S. Baseball League's domain names, the site reported.
Gellar Carries A Grudge
arah Michelle Gellar, who stars in the upcoming supernatural horror film The Grudge, told SCI FI Wire that it's been a challenge working with the all-Japanese crew and director on the film's set in Tokyo.
"To be part of the first Japanese movie that comes to America by the original Japanese artist, to be able to bring all those ideas to the United States, and then for me to get to come for three months and live in Tokyo and work on a set where nobody spoke English, those are the kinds of opportunities that you don't get," Gellar said in an interview during a break in filming. "Those are the ones that come around very rarely."
The Grudge is based on the hit Japanese film Ju-On and its sequels, which were written and directed by Takashi Shimizu. When producer Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures and Senator International picked up the rights for Sony, they decided to remake the film for U.S. audiences, but using the same director and crew and many of the same cast and to shoot it in Japan, just like the originals.
But that set up a clash of cultures between the director and crew, who speak limited English, and Gellar and her non-Japanese-speaking castmates, who include Jason Behr, KaDee Strickland, Clea Du Vall, William Mapother and Bill Pullman.
"This will either be the best acting of our lives, or possibly some of the worst that we might ever do," Gellar said with a laugh. "Just because you're very unsure. But I learned so much here just in the sense of, as an actor, it's your job to give yourself up completely to the director. But you never really do that, because you have a lot of control in America or in England or Australia or wherever you are, because you speak the language. ... Well, out here, you can't hear [what they're saying]. You don't understand it. So you really have to give yourself up to the director, to the [cinematographer], to the crew. You just have to trust that they're leading you in the right direction, because you don't know. As an actor, it's sort of a dream experience. We sort of say, 'It's like watching any of your old work with no sound and trying to figure out if you know what that person is saying and you know what's happening.' Because that's kind of what we're doing."
In The Grudge, Gellar plays Karen, an American nurse living in Tokyo who gets assigned to a mysterious and malevolent house where horrific events have taken place in the past. The Grudge is currently wrapping up principal photography at the famed Toho Studios and on location in and around Tokyo for release in the fall.
Pullman Has Revelations
ill Pullman (The Grudge) will play the lead role in NBC's upcoming apocalyptic limited-run series Revelations, Variety reported.
Natascha McElhone (The Truman Show) has taken the female lead in the series, about a Harvard professor (Pullman) whose daughter is murdered by Satanists, the trade paper reported.
McElhone will play a nun who recruits Pullman's character to help investigate whether what's told in the Book of Revelation is starting to come true, the trade paper reported.
New Cast Joins Clone
ew voice actors will join the cast of the Star Wars: Clone Wars "microseries," the official Homing Beacon newsletter reported.
The second season of 10 episodes will premiere March 26 on the official Star Wars Web site and on the Cartoon Network.
The new cast will include Kevin Michael Richardson (K'Kruhk), Daran Norris (Ki-Adi-Mundi and Daakman Barrek), Cree Summer (Luminara Unduli), Tatyana Yassukovich (Barriss Offee) and Futurama's John DiMaggio (Bender) as Clone Wars' villainous Gen. Grievous.
Returning cast members include Mat Lucas (Anakin Skywalker), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Tom Kane (Yoda) and Grey De Lisle (Padmé Amidala, Asajj Ventress and Shaak Ti).
Spidey 3 In The Works
pider-Man 2 isn't even in theaters yet, but Sony Pictures
and Marvel Enterprises are already hinting at another Peter Parker adventure to come, according to Variety.
The third film in the series would likely swing into theaters in 2007.
Sony confirmed to the trade paper that Spider-Man 3 was in
development, but provided no additional details. However, during an earnings conference call on Tuesday, Marvel Studios
chairman and CEO Avi Arad stated that "Spider-Man 3 is in development," and added that "a contemplated release date
will probably be 2007 at this point," putting three years between the releases of the second and third
adventures.
Variety further noted that there's no Spider-Man 3
script in place yet, but cited reports that Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 director Sam Raimi has committed to
returning for a third go-round. Likewise, the paper added, agents and managers for star Tobey Maguire are reportedly
working around a tentative Spider-Man 3 schedule when booking him for other films. Spider-Man 2 will be
released on July 2.
Disney Chronicles Narnia
alt Disney Pictures will
co-finance and distribute The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe, a film based on the children's fantasy books by C.S. Lewis, according to
The Hollywood Reporter.
The trade paper reported that the film will be budgeted at $100 million, with Shrek
director Andrew Adamson set to helm the production, which will go before the camera this
summer.
The Chronicles of Narnia
follows the adventures of the four Pevensie children, who use a magic wardrobe to enter the
world of Narnia, where they help a lion break a witch's spell that has frozen the once-beautiful land of dwarfs, beasts and giants. Ann Peacock penned the first draft of the
script, while Adamson, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely handled revisions.
"It's a very, very ambitious project
and one that we believe could be very important to the studio," Richard Cook, Walt Disney
Studios chairman, told The Hollywood Reporter. "The story and the characters are so
inviting that audiences around the world will be excited for the franchise." The Lion,
the Witch and the Wardrobe is tentatively set for a Christmas 2005 release, and Disney
retains the option to release subsequent films based on the Chronicles of Narnia
franchise.
Singer Runs With Logan
-Men helmer Bryan Singer will direct a remake of the 1976 SF classic movie Logan's Run for Warner Brothers and producer Joel Silver (The Matrix), Variety reported.
The movie, about a man trying to escape a mandatory death sentence on his 21st birthday, is being fast-tracked to start production this year, the trade paper reported. (The original film had the hero facing death at 30.)
Singer is expected to tackle Logan's Run before he does an expected third installment in the X-Men franchise. "I was drawn to X-Men because of its universal issues of tolerance," Singer told the trade paper. "This deals with a utopian society, but also with the obsession of youth and mortality. I've already started working with my X2 production designer, Guy Dyas, to create a visual world we've never seen before."
Ethan Gross and Paul Todisco, with Singer, are writing a script. The studio plans to release the movie in 2005. No stars have been cast as of yet, the trade paper reported.
The 1976 original starred Michael York. Singer lowered the age to 21, as it was in the original William Nolan novel on which the films are based.
SCI FI Develops Rex
aniel Baldwin and Sam Trammell will star in SCI FI Channel's Anonymous Rex, an upcoming TV movie and pilot for a possible series based on Eric Garcia's comedic SF mystery novels, the network confirmed.
Trammell will play Vincent Rubio, a private investigator, and Baldwin will play his partner, Earnie Watson, both of whom are in fact dinosaurs disguised as humans.
Garcia's books posit that dinosaurs never became extinct, but rather evolved into human-sized creatures who pass unnoticed among people with the use of disguises.
Joe Menosky (The Dead Zone) wrote the script for the movie, which is based on the Rex prequel novel, Casual Rex. SCI FI has also ordered two more scripts for a possible Rex series. Julian Jarrold will direct. Production is slated to begin March 22 in Toronto.
Upcoming Enterprise Hinted
ick Berman, executive producer of UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise, told the official Star Trek Communicator magazine that the third season will wrap up with a finale called "Zero Hour," which will air May 26, according to a report on the
TrekWeb site.
Berman told the magazine that viewers will learn a reason for T'Pol's strange behavior this season, and a future episode may reveal that she has become addicted to small doses of Trellium-D, the substance known to cause insanity in Vulcans from "Impulse."
Berman also said that an upcoming episode, "E2," will put the Enterprise into an encounter with a future version of itself.
Dracula Rises Again
huck Gordon's Daybreak Productions and Adrian Askarieh's Prime Universe Productions have optioned the feature-film and TV rights to Sword of Dracula, based on the comic-book series by Jason Henderson, Variety reported.
The series, published by Image Comics, is a contemporary revamp of the Dracula story, in which competing military forces find themselves racing to excavate the great vampire himself, the trade paper reported.
Critical Mass Interactive previously bought the franchise's video-game rights, the trade paper reported.
Simpson Eyes Mort
essica Simpson told MTV.com that she tested for a role in the proposed Mort the Dead Teenager movie, which remains in limbo.
"It's an adorable script," Simpson told the site. "I would love to do it. It's the next Back to the Future, it's that cool. I think it'll have a cult-type following. It's a clever, clever script, and the way it could be shot would be really cool."
Based on an out-of-print Marvel Comics series, Mort would deal with the ghost of a teen who is commanded by Death to haunt the friends he had during his life. Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis bought the books for adaptation, commissioned a script and enlisted Elijah Wood to play Mort, but DreamWorks then sold the rights to Artisan Entertainment, which sold it to Quentin Tarantino's A Band Apart and Madonna's Maverick Films for them to co-produce, with distribution by Dimension/Miramax, the site reported. Now, a representative for Dimension told the site that the company is not involved, and a representative for Marvel said that there's no director, leaving the project in limbo.
"I think it's just about placing it with the right studio," Simpson said. "And if they can still get Elijah, that would be perfect."
Jane Talks Punisher
homas Jane told SCI FI Wire that he knew little about The Punisher before signing on to star as the title character in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of the long-running comic book.
"I knew about the skull, that it was really cool-looking," Jane said in an interview. "I thought he was some kind of superhero, but that turned out not to be true at all."
Jane added, "He doesn't have any super powers. He's just this guy. I wasn't interested in doing a play on super powers. I never got into that as a kid. So when I found out that Frank wasn't a superhero I got really intrigued. He's just this normal guy who's kind of cracked his crackers."
The Punisher tells the story of Frank Castle, an ex-Marine and undercover agent who seeks revenge following the murders of his wife and son. Castle doesn't use laser vision or telekinesis, nor does he spin webs, but rather he relies on an impressive array of weapons to topple his enemies. Preparing for the role, Jane, whose previous genre credits include Deep Blue Sea and Dreamcatcher, bulked up considerably, read as many Punisher comic books as possible and picked the brain of Garth Ennis, whose Welcome Back, Frank comics served as writer-director Jonathan Hensleigh's main inspiration.
"Garth was down there," Jane says, referring to the Tampa, Florida, set of The Punisher. "We had a couple of great cups of coffee together. He's a fantastic, fantastic guy, and I made him give away all his secrets about what he's going to do with Frank. I also read as many comics as I could get my hands on. Now, I said I didn't like superheroes, but I love comic books. I've been collecting them since I was a kid. So I know all the stores and places to go. I collected horror comics and sci-fi comics, not the superhero stuff. In the end, I approached Frank like I approach any role. I just approached Frank Castle as if I were playing a real guy who was known to millions of people." The Punisher opens on April 16.
Universal Wants Wanted
niversal Pictures has acquired the film rights to Mark Millar's Wanted comic-book series, according to Variety.
Millar is best known for his work on such Marvel titles as Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four and DC Comics' Superman: Red Son.
Wanted centers on Wesley Gibson, a nerdy average Joe with a chip on his shoulder, who learns that he's the son of the planet's most evil supervillain. When his father dies, Wesley inherits his father's powers and begins life anew as one of the supervillains who clandestinely rule Earth. Despite his associations with Marvel and DC, Millar wrote and independently published Wanted through his own imprint, Millarworld, with Top Cow as the title's distributor.
Marc Platt will produce Wanted for Universal, with Millar on board as an executive producer, Variety said. Platt is currently seeking a writer. Universal is owned by Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Tron 2.0: Killer App Xbox-ed
uena Vista Interactive announced that is readying Tron 2.0: Killer App, an Xbox-exclusive port of its PC game Tron 2.0, according to the GameSpot Web site.
Climax, creator of Sudeki and Warhammer Online, is already at work on Killer App.
"We saw Climax as the perfect choice and look forward to providing gamers with an even edgier, action-packed Tron universe," Bob Picunko, director of marketing for Buena Vista Interactive, said in a press release. According to the release, Killer App will be Xbox Live-enabled, allowing players to engage in either lightcycle races or first-person shootouts on Microsoft's online service. Buena Vista Interactive expects Tron 2.0: Killer App to be released in the fall.
Yuzna Unleashing Rottweiler
rian Yuzna told SCI FI Wire that he'd next direct Rottweiler.
"That's a monster-dog movie," Yuzna said in an interview. "It's a chase across some rough terrain, with a dog that's kind of like the Terminator's dog."
Yuzna, who most recently directed the SCI FI Original Picture Beyond Re-Animator, added, "Rottweiler is based on a book by a very famous Spanish writer named Alberto Vazquez Figueroa, which we have a turned into a genre film. His story is more like a duel between a dog and an escaped prisoner, with the dog chasing the prisoner across Central America. In our story, we're putting it a little in the future and adding a bit of technology and also overlaying an Edgar Allen Poe-ish atmosphere. I'm excited about it. It could be really good if we can just make the dog believable."
The filmmaker explained that he intended to realize the titular dog through a combination of tricks and methods. "Obviously, on the budget we're dealing with you don't get Jurassic Park," Yuzna said. "But, of course, we will use a lot of CGI. So I'll try to mix elements. You saw it in Beyond Re-Animator with the half-man. If we'd done that back in the '80s it would have been real tough. We would have been limited in the way we could shoot it. Now, we still have makeup effects, mechanical effects and animatronics, but having digital technology really helps a lot. So for the dog we'll have a real dog, an animatronic dog and CGI all just to make it a scary monster." Production on Rottweiler is scheduled to begin this month.
Bruckheimer Seeking Sands
erry Bruckheimer Films is negotiating a deal to acquire the film rights to the popular video game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, according to Variety.
The trade paper added that the deal also involves the talents of game creator Jordan Mechner, who will write the script, and John August (screenwriter of Big Fish), who will executive produce.
The latest title in one the video game industry's oldest franchises, Sands of Time is set in ninth-century Persia and follows the adventures of a young prince who discovers a dangerous artifact in a remote mountain kingdom. The prince teams with an enemy princess to thwart a despot from unleashing a sandstorm that could destroy mankind.
Mechner told Variety that Sands of Time would pull a page from the successful Pirates of the Caribbean playbook. "Rather than do a straight beat-for-beat adaptation of the new video game, we're taking some cool elements from the game and using them to craft a new story, much as Pirates did with the theme park ride," he said.
Atlantis Casting Announced
CI FI Channel announced today that casting has been completed on the network's highly anticipated original series, Stargate Atlantis.
Joe Flanigan (Profiler, Tru Calling) leads the cast and will be joined by Torri Higginson (TekWar), Rainbow Sun Francks, David Hewlett (Stargate SG-1) and Rachel Luttrell (Impostor).
Set to debut in July with a two-hour premiere, Atlantis follows the adventures of the Stargate Atlantis team, which is formed after a secret base, abandoned by the original builders of the Stargates, is found buried in the ice of Antarctica. Their discovery leads to a daring expedition to the distant Pegasus galaxy, where they encounter a primitive human civilization and a sinister new enemy that threatens human life everywhere.
Flanigan will play Maj. John Sheppard, a courageous and gifted pilot, while Higginson will portray Dr. Elizabeth Weir, head of the mission and a diplomatic relations specialist. Rounding out the cast are Francks as Lt. Aiden Ford, an enthusiastic young officer who becomes Sheppard's second-in-command, Hewlett, reprising his Stargate SG-1 recurring role as astrophysicist Dr. Rodney McKay, and Luttrell as Teyla, a beautiful young leader among the primitive alien civilization that the Atlantis team encounters. In a special guest starring role, sci-fi favorite Robert Patrick (Terminator 2, The X-Files) will appear as Col. Marshall Sumner in the two-hour Atlantis premiere event. Following its premiere, 18 additional original episodes of Atlantis will air during the show's regular Friday night 10 p.m. ET/PT slot, as a companion series to the all-new eighth season of Stargate SG-1.
Ladd Visits Kingdom Hospital
iane Ladd told SCI FI Wire that Mrs. Druse, her character in the new ABC television series Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital, resembles a psychic version of Angela Lansbury's Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote.
"I've always seen my character as a detective," Ladd said in an interview. "She's like a spiritual detective, though in this case she happens to be working in a hospital."
Mrs. Druse is one of the many characters populating the halls of Kingdom Hospital, where doctors (Andrew McCarthy, Bruce Davison, Ed Begley Jr.) and patients (Jack Coleman) alike discover that they're not alone, but rather that the facility is haunted. Horror master King based the series on Lars von Trier's Danish miniseries The Kingdom, and the author wrote nearly every word of the show's 15 episodes following his own near-fatal accident, an incident that is re-created in the opening moments of Kingdom Hospital.
Ladd (Living with the Dead) added, "Mrs. Druse is a woman who wants justice and fair play for everyone. She's no different from a really good sheriff or a good detective or a good FBI agent. It's just that in her case, she's psychic, and her talents let her pick up living energy, living matter. She can tell sometimes who's been in the hospital and where they're going. She's also very funny. She's seen a lot, so she needs a sense of humor. It's sort of like Murder, She Wrote, but with more inclusive levels of energy." Kingdom Hospital debuts tonight at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) on ABC.
Drakengard Game Ships
quare Enix U.S.A. announced yesterday that it had shipped its latest game, Drakengard for PlayStation 2 systems, to North American retailers.
The game weaves action gameplay with character and weapon development in the setting of a mysterious kingdom.
According to a Square Enix press release, Drakengard follows the struggles of a Union soldier named Caim and tells a tale of love, sacrifice, obligation and bitter compromise after he learns that the Empire he once knew has raised an army with unexplainable great power and has taken his sister prisoner. In the ultimate sacrifice, Caim joins souls with the dragon he despises in order to save his sister, in the process discovering a connection among the Empire, Caim's sister, the mythical Seeds of Resurrection and the gods themselves.
Players ride astride the fire-blasting dragon, but can dismount it in order to enter the battleground on foot. Drakengard also allows players to choose from more than 60 weapons, each with its own history and magic. The game is rated "M" for Mature and is available for a suggested retail price of $39.99.
Hurd Options Events
eteran genre producer Gale Anne Hurd's Valhalla Motion Pictures has optioned the film and television rights to David Goleman's sci-fi novel Events, according to Variety.
Events has not been published yet and is the subject of a bidding auction, but Valhalla director of development Stephen Emery discovered the manuscript and is actively developing the property.
Events, the trade paper reported, treads in familiar Hurd territory. It centers on mankind's battle with a potentially Earth-ending visitor from a mysterious realm. "This project has the tone of Raiders of the Lost Ark and blends all the wonderful elements essential for a genre tentpole film," said Hurd, producer of Aliens and The Terminator. Hurd will next be represented on screen by the April 16 release The Punisher, and Valhalla is also in preproduction on Aeon Flux.
Rodriguez Ventures To Mars
obert Rodriguez has signed on to
direct a big-screen version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic Princess of Mars,
according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Paramount Pictures will finance and distribute Princess of Mars, which is based on
the first novel in Burroughs' 11-novel series, John Carter of Mars.
In John Carter of Mars,
Carter is a Civil War officer from Virginia who is transported to Mars, where he finds
himself imprisoned by the green men of Thark. Over time, Carter becomes a great warrior,
weds the lovely Dejah Thoris and leads a life of adventure.
Paramount bought the rights to
project in 2002, after Walt Disney Pictures relinquished them. Mark Protosevich (The
Cell) wrote the script. Rodriguez will co-produce Princess of Mars with his wife,
Elizabeth Avellan, and production will begin after Rodriguez wraps the just-announced Sin
City.
Shrek 3-D DVD On The Way
reamWorks Home Entertainment will
release Shrek 3-D, an animated short, on DVD about a week before the May 21
theatrical debut of Shrek 2, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Shrek 3-D will feature the voices of original cast members Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy,
Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow.
"With approximately 30 million more
households across the United States and Canada making the switch from VHS to DVD since the
November 2001 release of Shrek on DVD, combining the original DVD in a two-pack with
Shrek 3-D gives fans an opportunity to get a DVD copy of the original animated
feature along with Shrek 3-D," Kelly Sooter, head of DreamWorks Home Entertainment,
told the trade paper.
Priced at about $17, the Shrek
3-D package will include the animated short in 3-D and 2-D versions, a preview of
Shrek 2, four pairs of 3-D glasses and the original Shrek film. Shrek
3-D will be released on May 11.
March Muses On Mutant X
orbes March, who plays Jesse
Kilmartin on the syndicated series Mutant X, told SCI FI Wire that the just-shot
third-season finale puts everything and everyone in jeopardy.
"I think they're just going to throw everything up in the air and see where the pieces
land," March said in an interview. "Nobody knows who's coming back, nobody knows if there's
a Sanctuary, nobody knows if Adam [John Shea] is alive or dead, and nobody knows what the
Dominion is doing."
March added, "It's a good
cliffhanger. There are no easy answers and I think a lot of it is because they don't have
the answers. They don't know which characters are coming back next year. They don't know if
we're going to have the same studio space. Last year's [finale, "Lest He Become"], for me,
was a convenient sort of throwing it up in the air. It just left you thinking, 'We don't
know who survives.' But it didn't throw up in the air any big questions about the world of
the show, and this one does."
Tribune Entertainment recently
announced that Mutant X would return for a fourth season in first-run syndication.
The third-season finale will air in the spring.
Duguay To Direct Runelords
hristian Duguay has committed to
direct The Runelords, a film based on the novels by David Farland, according to
The Hollywood Reporter.
Duguay, director of Screamers and Scanners III, will commence principal
photography on the $80 million project in July in Prague, the trade paper added.
David Woolverton (Star Wars: The
Courtship of Princess Leia) first published The Runelords in 1997 under the David
Farland pen name. Subsequent novels in the epic fantasy series include Brotherhood of the
Wolf, Wizardborn and, most recently, Lair of Bones. Franchise Pictures,
Story Island Entertainment, Origin Entertainment and Entertainment Business Group are
producing The Runelords, The Hollywood Reporter noted, with an eye toward a
trilogy.
In a press release issued by
Franchise Pictures, Woolverton said, "When I first conceived of the Runelords novel
series, I immediately saw that it was a great property and a powerful motion picture, games
and merchandise platform. It's a story that takes us to another world, a place where we
enjoy being. We will want to develop the story in a variety of mediums which connect to the
most important facets of our lives."
Ward Contemplates Tomorrow
ela Ward, who co-stars in the upcoming film The Day After
Tomorrow, told SCI FI Wire that the Roland Emmerich (Godzilla)-directed drama is based on science fact.
"At the beginning of the movie, I think, you'll be able to read about the state of melting glaciers, the sort of thing
that is actually happening, which is the idea behind something like what happens in the movie taking place," Ward
(The Haunting of Sarah Hardy) said in an interview. "It's pretty scary to think about. Something very real, which
could lead [to the events depicted in the movie], is already taking place."
The film stars Dennis Quaid (Frequency) as Professor
Hall, a paleoclimatologist trying to save the Earth and his son Sam, played by Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko). "I
am Dennis Quaid's ex-wife and Jake's mother," Ward said. "I am a doctor. I get caught up in the whole relief effort for
everyone who is heading to warmer climates because the new ice age is covering Manhattan. So I am outside of all the
special-effects stuff that's actually happening in Manhattan." The Day After Tomorrow opens May 28.
Cuthbert Melts Into Wax
lisha Cuthbert told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming film
House of Wax is not a straight remake of the 1953 Vincent Price horror classic.
"We're kind of taking the title and changing it a little bit," the 24 star said in an interview. "It's similar to
the original. It's similar, but we're still going through rewrites."
Newcomer Jaume Serra will direct House of Wax, which
will be produced by Joel Silver [Gothika] and co-star Chad Michael Murray of One Tree Hill and The Lone
Ranger. "I am going to be playing a twin, a twin to a male," Cuthbert said. "It's all about doing different things.
I wanted to do something different from The Girl Next Door, obviously."
Cuthbert added, "Joel had some really cool ideas for the movie
and I got excited about it. It's also an opportunity to shoot a movie in Australia. That should be lots of fun. I've
never been there and I'm excited to go. And I think I can bring a lot to this movie. I'm excited to dive in and see what
comes of it." Production on House of Wax will begin this spring, after Cuthbert wraps production on the third
season of 24.
GoldenEye 2 On The Way
lectronic Arts announced that it would follow up its acclaimed
and best-selling new video game James Bond 007: Everything Or Nothing with the tentatively titled GoldenEye
2.
John Riccitiello, president and chief operating officer of Electronic Arts, said that GoldenEye 2 would be a game
in which "players become the ultimate villain in the Bond universe."
More specifically, in GoldenEye 2, the player will
assume the role of a former agent and 00 prospect who was booted from the MI6 for reckless brutality. The game will be
released during the 2004 holiday season on multiple console platforms.
Briefly Noted
-
Fox has opened a new Web site for I, Robot, the upcoming SF movie based on Isaac Asimov's beloved short-story collection, which opens July 16.
-
Fox has posted a new trailer for its upcoming SF disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, which opens May 28.
-
Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry (Gothika) will be honored as Female Star of the Year at ShoWest 2004, which is set for March 22-25 in Las Vegas, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
-
The two-hour March 4 premiere of ABC's Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital won its 9 p.m. timeslot in both young-adult demographics and total viewers, Variety reported.
-
Stuart Baird (Star Trek: Nemesis) will direct a big-screen adaptation of the Peter James novel Possession, according to Variety. The trade paper describes the story as a supernatural thriller about a young man who appears to his mother following his death in a car accident.
-
American Pie producer Warren Zide has acquired the film rights to Namco's Soul Calibur fighting game series, according to the GameSpot Web site.
-
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over was the top-selling DVD and second-best-renting VHS for the week of February 29, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Game Over sold 2.3 million units combined and generated $4 million in rentals.
-
Walt Disney Pictures has bought an untitled Viking
action-adventure pitch from Freddy vs. Jason writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, according to The Hollywood
Reporter. The trade paper described the story's tone as similar to that of the studio's blockbuster Pirates of the
Caribbean, but with sea monsters, giants and beserkers.
-
John Singleton is in negotiations with Columbia Pictures to
develop and direct a big-screen version of Luke Cage, to be based on the saga of Marvel Comics' first black
superhero, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
-
Pierce Brosnan is not exactly quelling rumors that he won't return as 007 in the next James Bond
adventure. During the recent Oscar festivities, Brosnan told Variety that the chances of his reprising the British spy in the franchise's 21st film were "opaque."
-
Billy Boyd, who played Pippin in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, has signed on to provide the voice of Chucky (Brad Dourif) and Tiffany's (Jennifer Tilly) child in Focus Features' Seed of Chucky, according to Creature Corner. Child's Play creator Don Mancini is writing and directing Seed of Chucky.
-
Raymond J. Barry has signed on to play Senator Reed, father of Lauren
Reed (Melissa George), on several upcoming episodes of Alias, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Barry appeared as
Senator Matheson in three episodes of The X-Files.
Back to the top.
