B5 Creator Pitches Trek
abylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski told fans on a B5 Usenet group that he and Dark Skies creator Bryce Zabel have put together an idea for a new Star Trek series, which he said would revive the ailing franchise.
"I got together [with Zabel] and wrote a treatment earlier this year that specified how to save [Star Trek] and develop a series that would restore the series in a big way," Straczynski wrote. "I actually think it could be a hell of a show. Whether that ever goes anywhere
with Paramount, who knows?"
Straczynski added that Paramount called him last year to accept an executive producer position on the currrent Trek series, Enterprise, in its upcoming fourth season, but that he declined. "The series I mentioned has nothing to do with any current series," he added. "It's a new show."
Manny Coto, who created Showtime's SF series Odyssey 5, will take over Enterprise next year as show runner. "As for Manny, he's a good writer, and left to his own devices, I think he could be a big help over there without the other powers-that-be impeding the process," Straczynski said.
9/11's Moore Calls Bradbury
egendary SF author Ray Bradbury told the Associated Press that filmmaker Michael Moore called him to say he was "embarrassed" after Bradbury complained that Moore's political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 improperly co-opted the title of Bradbury's classic SF novel Fahrenheit 451.
Bradbury is demanding an apology from Moore and wants the new documentary to be renamed.
Moore called Bradbury on June 12, Bradbury told the wire service. "He suddenly realized he's let too much time go by," he said.
Joanne Doroshow, a spokeswoman for Fahrenheit 9/11, said the filmmakers have "the utmost respect for Ray Bradbury," the AP reported. "Mr. Bradbury's work has been an inspiration to all of us involved in this film, but when you watch this film you will see the fact that the title reflects the facts that the movie explores, the very real life events before, around and after 9/11," she said.
Bradbury said he would rather avoid litigation and is "hoping to settle this as two gentlemen, if he'll shake hands with me and give me back my book and title."
Serenity Flies On Tenacity
lan Tudyk, who reprises the role of space pilot Wash in the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that it was creator Joss Whedon's perseverance that got the movie off the ground. Serenity is based on Whedon's canceled Fox SF television series Firefly.
"I think it's a testament to his tenacity that he got Fox to sell the rights and that he got another studio—and no little studio, but Universal—to buy the rights and then to make this multi-million dollar movie based on a show that was canceled," Tudyk said in an interview. "Today is my day off, but yesterday I was shooting with everybody. And there's a very big dÈjý vu going on right now."
An SF western set 500 years in the future, Firefly aired for just a few weeks on Fox in the fall of 2002. The show starred Nathan Fillion as Mal Reynolds, captain of the spaceship Serenity, and featured Tudyk as the ship's pilot. The show's avid fans transformed the ensuing Firefly DVD set into a best-seller, prompting Universal to green-light a Firefly feature film.
Serenity is currently in production, with all the series regulars back in the fold and Whedon on board as writer and director. "Every day we did Firefly we were thankful," Tudyk said "And then, when we got canceled, even though we knew we had all these fans—because they were taking out ads in Variety and things like that—it seemed like it was over. ... It had kind of been coming, and we'd been mistreated by Fox for a while, to the point where we were like, 'This is going to be over.' And then when it was, it wasn't too big of a surprise. It was disappointing, but not a big surprise. But then Joss, at the closing party, said, 'Look, I'm not giving up.' It was inspiring, but you kind of questioned, 'What do you mean you're not giving up? Didn't we just get canceled?'"
Tudyk can be seen next in the upcoming SF film I, Robot, in which he plays the title character. Serenity is tentatively set for release on April 22, 2005. Universal Pictures is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Alias Gets Back To Basics
BC's Alias will get back to basics when it returns for its fourth season in January, TV Guide Online reported.
"We got so deep in the Rambaldi and Covenant [mysteries] that we lost sight of some of the stuff we fell in love with [in the beginning]," ABC entertainment president Stephen McPherson told the site. Series creator J.J. Abrams "is talking about getting back to some of the joy that [Sydney Bristow, played by Jennifer Garner,] used to have in her personal life early on ... while still living in this crazy world." The show will reportedly have Sydney balancing her spy work with her personal life, as in the first season.
For his part, Abrams told the site that he had an epiphany about Alias' disappointing third season while he was working on the pilot for his upcoming ABC thriller, Lost. "Going away to do Lost allowed me to look at Alias in a way that I could not have done otherwise: from the outside," he said. "And it was like an incredibly enlightening thing. I suddenly knew in my heart what I wanted and what I didn't want, and I saw what was happening. Not that I wasn't proud of what was there, but I saw some mistakes that I made and I thought, 'Oh, my God.'"
McPherson insisted that there's "not a chance" season four could be Alias' last. "It will be an asset for years," he said. How many, exactly? Cracks Abrams: "Exactly 100."
Voyager Star In Sex Scandal
ormer Star Trek: Voyager star Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine) alleged that she was pressured to have sex in front of other patrons at swingers' clubs in New York, Paris and New Orleans by her ex-husband, Illinois Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jack Ryan, according to newly released divorce documents reported on TheSmokingGun.com Web site.
The allegation is contained in nearly 400 pages of records ordered released on June 21 by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, who ruled on media requests to unseal documents from the Ryan case, the site reported.
Jeri Ryan leveled the charges in a court filing in connection with child custody proceedings in September 2000, the site reported. Jeri Ryan argued that she refused Jack Ryan's requests for public sex during the excursions, which included a trip to a New York club "with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling," according to the court documents.
Jack Ryan confirmed the trips with the actress, but described them simply as "romantic getaways," denying her claims that he sought public sex, the site reported. The politician has repeatedly claimed that his divorce file, portions of which were sealed in 2000 and 2001, contained no embarrassing information that would harm his chances against Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The Ryans were married in 1991 and, in November 1998, Jeri Ryan filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences," the site reported.
Hilton Eyes D&D 2?
eiress Paris Hilton reportedly told a Kansas City radio station that she is in talks for a lead role in a proposed sequel to the 2000 film Dungeons & Dragons, according to the Dark Horizons Web site.
"Sounds like fun," Hilton reportedly said. "I'll get dirty."
The first Dungeons & Dragons movie tanked, but a proposed sequel is reportedly on the drawing board. Joel Silver (The Matrix) produced the first film and also developed House of Wax, the upcoming remake of the classic horror movie, in which Hilton has a small part.
Wonderfalls Due On DVD?
odd Holland, executive producer of Fox's ill-fated fantasy series Wonderfalls, told fans at a screening in Hollywood, Calif., to expect a DVD set of the entire show on Dec. 7, according to a report on the Ain't It Cool News Web site.
The site added that series creator Bryan Fuller will record commentary tracks for six of the show's 13 completed episodes, of which only four aired on Fox before the network pulled the plug last season.
Wonderfalls starred Caroline Dhavernas as a slacker young woman who begins to hear inanimate objects speaking to her.
Watanabe Talks Batman
en Watanabe, who plays a mysterious mentor to Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Batman Begins prequel film, told the Batman on Film Web site that he liked the story's darkness.
"I chose the part because I liked the script," Watanabe told the site. "I picked it out immediately."
Watanabe (The Last Samurai) will play Ra's Al Ghul, familiar to fans of the DC Comics Batman series as one of the caped crusader's most formidable nemeses. In selecting Batman Begins as his next project, Watanabe said, "I don't really have a strategy, but I do pay attention to the way the script envisages the world and how that view is conveyed through the roles, as well as what the director wants to express. In Batman Begins I play a villain who has to guide a person who is wavering between good and evil. Exploring the dark side of human nature is something that interests me."
Christopher Nolan is directing Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale. The movie is currently in production for release in June 2005.
Dunst Hopes For Spidey Reunion
irsten Dunst, who reprises the role of Mary Jane Watson in the upcoming sequel film Spider-Man 2, told SCI FI Wire that she hopes her character and Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) wind up together.
"It'll be complicated, because now, if they do get together, ... he's basically risking his life every day, and [she would] probably [be] worried about him risking his life every day," Dunst said in an interview. She added, "I hope that one day they'll be together."
Dunst said that it felt comfortable returning to the spunky character in the sequel, which picks up two years after the events of the first Spider-Man. "It was nice," Dunst said. "I feel like all my relationships develop so much more on this one. I just felt more comfortable. [Director] Sam [Raimi] and I got to know each other better, and I changed a lot from how I was in the first movie and how I approached my work and my relationships with them. And it just grew, and I just felt it could be a more creative and open. He trusted me a lot, and he knew my work, and so it just made for a very comfortable shoot, where you could say anything and everybody knows you. And it just made it nice to go to work and know who's going to be there."
As before, Dunst said, the challenge was maintaining focus on her character while hanging from wires and performing against a backdrop of complicated visual effects. "It's so hard, because it takes so long," she said. "The hardest thing is just keeping up your energy and to be there and present ... when you are so tired, because you've just done nothing all day [but wait around]. What is good is that Sam knows that the [dialogue] scenes are the most important thing, and if they don't work, then the whole movie doesn't work, no matter how good the action scenes are. And so we take all the time that we needed to get everything right, and the dialogue and those things are the easiest for me, honestly. Those are the things that I like to do. It's the scenes where I have to look at this piece of tape and look at this thing blow up, and then I get picked up, and I have to scream. ... It's like all those little details. And I don't like doing that kind of stuff. So I would just try to nail it in one take, or I always just try to nail any harness work right away. Because ... it's not fun for me. I don't like doing that stuff." Spider-Man 2 opens June 30.
Franco Talks Spidey 3
ames Franco, who reprises the role of Harry Osborn in the upcoming sequel film Spider-Man 2, hinted to SCI FI Wire that his character will play a bigger role in the proposed third film in the hit franchise.
"Am I looking forward to it? Yes," Franco said in an interview. "It's been a great experience, and [director] Sam [Raimi] is wonderful to work with."
In the Spider-Man comic series, Harry Osborn takes over the work his father, Norman Osborn, started; i.e., playing the Green Goblin. So will Harry become the next-generation Goblin? "That's what happens in the comics, but I don't think Sam will be predictable anyway," Franco said. "Who knows what's going to happen in number three?"
Whatever happens, Franco said that his character remains tortured by his father's death and Spider-Man's role in it. "He's very troubled, yeah," Franco said. Spider-Man 2 opens June 30.
Grudge Trailer Hits Web
ahoo! Movies has posted a teaser trailer for The Grudge, the upcoming supernatural horror film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, which is a remake of the hit Japanese movie Ju-On and its sequels.
The movie, produced by Spider-Man 2 director Sam Raimi, is the first major American remake of a Japanese horror film to be directed by the original helmer, Takashi Shimizu. Gellar introduces the trailer.
Also starring Bill Pullman, Clea Duvall, Jason Behr and Kadee Strickland, The Grudge was shot in Tokyo, the site of the original Japanese film. The Grudge concerns the legend of a curse of someone who dies in the grip of a powerful rage. Those who encounter the curse die, and the curse is reborn, passed like a virus from victim to victim. Gellar plays Karen, an American nurse living in Tokyo, who unknowingly uncovers the source of the curse. The Grudge opens Oct. 29.
Fox Mulls 28 Sequel
ox Searchlight is putting together a sequel to the SF zombie movie 28 Days Later, with the tentative title 28 Weeks Later, Variety reported.
The studio confirmed that a sequel is in the works, and sources told the trade paper that Rowan Joffe (Last Resort) is being wooed to write the script. Danny Boyle directed the original film, which was a sleeper hit in 2002.
Boyle is not expected to direct the sequel, though he and screenwriter Alex Garland likely will take producing roles alongside the first film's producer, Andrew Macdonald, the trade paper reported.
Harris Voices Kaena
hris Delaporte, the French director of the SF animated film Kaena: The Prophecy, told SCI FI Wire that the movie features the voice of the late Richard Harris in one of his final roles.
Harris is joined by a cast of Americans—including Kirsten Dunst, Angelica Huston and Keith David—in the French film, Delaporte added. "It's not very complicated to have Americans star in your movie," Delaporte said. "It's voice-over [work], and they are very pleased to do voice-over on an animated movie. It was really great to work with them."
Delaporte said that working with Harris, who had never done voice-over work before, proved challenging. "He was not used to this kind of work," Delaporte said. "I think it was the first time he did anything like that, so it was difficult to have him. But when he said yes, it was so great, because he was so concentrated on his work."
Delaporte added that Harris initially had trouble following the film's storyline, about a teenage girl on a distant planet who must save her compatriots in their village on a giant vine. "The day before I would record his voice, he told me that he didn't understand anything about the script," the director said. "He didn't know what it was all about. So he told me to explain the movie. ... I was really worried about the quality of his work. But when we started to work, it was just great. He just understood everything, and we only did one or two takes for everything. ... Impressive at the beginning, but great at the end." Kaena opened in limited release on June 25.
Alien Inspired Kaena
hris Delaporte, writer-director of the computer-animated SF film Kaena: The Prophecy, told SCI FI Wire that he borrowed from Alien and European artists and filmmakers for the film's visual design.
"As a painter, I really like [H.R.] Giger's work," Delaporte said, referring to the Swiss artist who designed the original Alien xenomorph. "I love the movie Alien, too. I was really inspired by [director] Ridley Scott's work."
Delaporte said that he was also inspired by Japanese animation and European comic books. "I grew up on Japanese animation, like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and the work of Hayao Miyazaki," Delaporte said. "I read a lot of French comics when I was young and things like Heavy Metal, where there were a lot of science-fiction authors. In Europe there was a very big movement with science-fiction comics, with guys like Moebius and a lot of people like that."
Delaporte added that his own background in graffiti art didn't significantly affect the look of the film, but that its novelty inspired him to push the boundaries of computer animation. "Graffiti is just one form of art," he said. "When I got into graffiti it was very new in Europe, so I think that the connection is that when I started graffiti, it was very new in France, too. So it's more the fact that I'm trying to do new things. ... I drew some of the textures of a lot of characters in the movie." Kaena opened in limited release in New York on June 25.
Kaena Has Game Origins
hris Delaporte, writer-director of the French animated fantasy film Kaena: The Prophecy, told SCI FI Wire that his first experience with the film's material was as an artist on another video game.
"I wrote the story [of Kaena] for a video game first, hoping that we were going to make the movie after that," Delaporte said. "But before that I worked on the video game, which was called Heart of Darkness. We did, like, 25 minutes of CGI animated sequences we showed at the [Electronic Entertainment Expo] in Los Angeles [in the 1990s]. Steven Spielberg sat at the table, and so did George Lucas and [Disney executive] Michael Eisner, and they were all impressed, because there were no CGI movies at that time; Toy Story was released after that."
Delaporte said that a note to the game's author from Spielberg gave him the motivation to create his own computer-animated world. "Steven Spielberg called the author of that project and told him he wanted to do a movie with him, or at least wanted to be involved with the project with him," he said. "When we came back to France, I was very excited by that, and I decided to start my own project as a video game first, hoping that something like that would happen to my project. That's why I started with a game, hoping I could bring that to Hollywood if someone allowed me to do a movie."
Delaporte said his test run on the characters and animation went over so well, the movie project was immediately approved. "We did five minutes of animation to see how the industry would react to that, and we showed that in '96 or '97," he said. "Everybody told us to put that into a movie. So we were confident at that time, and we decided to do a movie."
Kaena centers on a rebellious teenage girl on the distant planet Axis, who embarks on a journey to save her people and their village, which sits on a giant, coiling plant that stretches high above the clouds. Kaena opened in New York June 25 and will open in Los Angeles July 9.
The 4400 Comes To USA
ene Echevarria, executive producer of USA Network's upcoming SF show The 4400, told SCI FI Wire that the limited series picks up where Close Encounters of the Third Kind left off, as 4,400 long-missing people suddenly reappear all at once without having aged a day.
"They don't know what happened to them, who or what was responsible, and now they have to pick up the pieces of their lives," Echevarria (Dark Angel) said in an interview. "It's equal parts SF and nighttime soap, so there's something for everybody in it."
The 4400 features E.T. star Peter Coyote as Ryland, who heads up the regional office of a government agency formed to keep track of the 4,400 people after one of them commits a murder and others start to exhibit unexplained powers. The cast also includes Joel Gretsch (SCI FI Channel's original miniseries Steven Spielberg Presents Taken) as Tom, a government agent who discovers a link between his comatose young son and the return of the 4,400. Jacqueline McKenzie portrays Diana, a biomedical researcher who's partnered with Tom. Gretsch's Taken co-star, Michael Moriarty, plays Orson, a recent returnee devastated by all that's happened to his family, business and wealth in the 25 years he's been away.
"The show was originally developed as a weekly series, and that's still a possibility if audiences respond to the story," said Echevarria, who also wrote for and produced Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. "The challenge was in constructing a six-hour miniseries that builds to a satisfying conclusion, and at the same time leaves some questions unanswered so we could continue the story if there's interest in doing that." The 4400 will debut as a two-hour special at 9 p.m. ET/PT July 11 on USA Network, with subsequent hours airing Sunday nights until Aug. 8. USA Network is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Shyamalan Film Stolen
nknown thieves stole a videotape screener of SCI FI Channel's upcoming original film The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan, the New York Post reported.
The film is a profile of the famous filmmaker and creator of The Sixth Sense.
The so-called "clip reel" was being sent to about 50 reporters and critics when it suddenly vanished once it left a Manhattan distribution service, the Post reported. Only a handful of SCI FI people even knew of the existence of the clip reel, and management is determined to find out who hijacked the delivery and will press charges if necessary, the newspaper reported.
The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan is a three-hour cinema verite film directed by Nathaniel Kahn (My Architect) and produced by Callum Greene (Lost in Translation). Shyamalan initially sanctioned the project last fall, but pulled out during production in an episode captured on film. The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan premieres at 8 p.m. ET/PT on July 18. Shyamalan's next movie, The Village, opens July 30.
Voyage Rises
ox 2000 is remaking Irwin Allen's 1961 SF adventure movie Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, to be written by Justin Haythe, Variety reported.
The movie centers on the world's most advanced submarine, which is sent on a deep-sea salvage hunt and inadvertently brings aboard a predatory organism from the ocean floor, the trade paper reported.
Jon Jashni and Kevin Burns will produce, and Allen's widow, Sheila, will be executive producer.
Allen created and directed Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which starred Walter Pidgeon. Voyage was later turned into a 1960s ABC TV series, starring Richard Basehart and David Hedison, the trade paper reported.
Burns and Jashni formed Synthesis Entertainment several years ago and made a deal with the Allen estate to guide feature and TV series adaptations of his series creations, which also include Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants, the trade paper reported.
Adams Voicing Hitchhiker
ate SF author Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, will be heard in an upcoming U.K. radio dramatization of the final three books in the beloved series, the British Press Association news service reported.
The author recorded the part of Agrajag—a character who repeatedly dies and is resurrected—at his home studio 18 months before his sudden death in 2001 at the age of 49, the PA reported.
Producers have used digital technology to bring his voice back to life in the radio program based on Life, the Universe and Everything; So Long and Thanks for All the Fish; and Mostly Harmless.
The series began life as a radio broadcast in 1978. Five of the original radio cast, including Simon Jones as Arthur Dent and Geoffrey McGivern as his alien traveling companion Ford Prefect, will voice the new Radio 4 series, which will be broadcast in 14 parts starting later this year, the PA reported.
The creators used Adams' instructions and notes, which he made in preparation for the latest radio productions, the news service reported.
Senor Dracula Develops
lenn Williamson's Back Lot Pictures has set up Senor Dracula at Focus Features, with Cheech Marin to direct, Variety reported.
Marin's concept deals with the Spanish-language version of the 1931 horror classic Dracula, which was filmed concurrent with the original English version, at night, on the same sets, the trade paper reported.
Senor Dracula will focus on a romance between an American actor and a Hispanic actress. Focus is seeking a writer for the project, the trade paper reported.
Williamson was an executive producer on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Half-Life 2 Draws Stars
obert Guillaume, Lou Gossett Jr., Robert Culp and Star Trek's Michelle Forbes will voice the upcoming video-game sequel Half-Life 2, the GameSpot Web site reported.
Gabe Newell, head of the game developer Valve, announced the casting to the site.
The game's hero, Gordon Freeman, will again be the strong and completely silent type. But the supporting roles will be played by Guillaume (Dr. Eli Vance), Forbes (Judith Mossman), Culp (Dr. Wallace Breen) and Gossett (Vortigaunt). Alyx will be voiced by newcomer Merle Dandridge, and British actor Jim French will play Father Grigori, the site reported.
Two members of the original Half-Life voice cast will also be back: Mike Shapiro (G-Man and Barney Calhoun) and Harry S. Robins (Dr. Isaac Kleiner).
Kretschmann Boards Kong
homas Kretschmann (The Pianist) is in talks to join the cast of Peter Jackson's update of the 1933 classic SF movie King Kong for Universal Pictures, sources told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kretschmann is also in line for a role in another classic movie redo, Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, for USA Network, the trade paper reported.
The German-born Kretschmann would join a Kong cast that already includes Naomi Watts, Jack Black and his fellow Pianist cast member Adrien Brody, playing the boat captain who transports the king-sized gorilla of the film's title to America, the trade paper reported. Jackson and his Lord of the Rings co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens are writing King Kong.
Meanwhile, the two-hour Frankenstein pilot is in production and being executive produced by Koontz, with Martin Scorsese and Tony Krantz, the trade paper reported. Kretschmann has taken on the role of Dr. Frankenstein, joining other cast members Parker Posey, Vincent Perez, Adam Goldberg and Michael Madsen, the trade paper reported.
Both Universal and USA Network are owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Wormwood Rights Acquired
ortitude Films has bought the film rights to Wormwood, the upcoming fantasy novel by Shadowmancer author G.P. Taylor, Variety reported.
Fortitude, led by financier Steve Delaportas and producer Lisa Marie Butkiewicz, previously bought rights to Shadowmancer, which became a U.K. publishing phenomenon and best-seller by Taylor, an Episcopalian vicar who took up writing when a shoulder injury sidelined him from playing golf, the trade paper reported.
Wormwood refers to a mythical comet that will smash into the Earth and tells the story of a young housemaid in 18th-century London who must decipher a secret text to stop the comet, the trade paper reported.
Taylor considers Wormwood to be the second volume in a thematic trilogy, but the characters are completely new, and the book is a free-standing movie property, the trade paper reported.
Vaughn Revs Up Racer
ince Vaughn has pitched his take on the proposed live-action Speed Racer movie, based on the Japanese animated series, with himself cast as Racer X, Variety reported.
Vaughn joins the project as an executive producer, along with David Lane Seltzer, the trade paper reported. Joel Silver and Richard and Lauren Shuler Donner are producing the movie.
Speed Racer has remained a viable title at the studio, despite a decade of false starts, the trade paper reported. Directors as Gus Van Sant, Hype Williams, Alfonso Cuaron and Julien Temple have all been attached at various points.
Vaughn revived Speed Racer by pitching a streamlined take that concentrated more on character and a family angle than budget-busting race scenes, the trade paper reported.
Between Writer Hired
organ Creek Productions has hired Jon Glascoe to write the supernatural horror film The In-Between, Variety reported.
The movie follows a high-school girl haunted by the ghost of her recently deceased boyfriend, who wants her to join him in the afterlife, the trade paper reported.
Glascoe recently sold his original screenplay Premonition and was a writer-producer-director for Cypress Films, where he worked on the SF telefilm Harrison Bergeron, based on a story by Kurt Vonnegut, the trade paper reported.
Morgan Creek head James G. Robinson will produce The In-Between. Universal Pictures will distribute domestically; Universal and Morgan Creek International will distribute internationally.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Sentinel Gets Green Light
he Adventure Company, a division of DreamCatcher Interactive, announced that it will publish Sentinel: Descendants in Time, an SF video game for the PC, the GameSpot Web site reported.
The game is being developed by the Polish studio Detalion for a November release, the site reported.
Sentinel follows an explorer named Beni who travels to the Tastan Caverns, the only known legacy of the Tastan civilization. Players will solve puzzles throughout eight different worlds, with varying degrees of tectonic activity, the site reported.
SG-1 Spoilers Revealed
obert C. Cooper, executive producer of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming eighth season will wrap up a few things.
"To a certain extent I hope that fans will feel that at the end of this season that a lot the threads and storylines that ... they want to see resolved will be resolved," Cooper said in an interview on the show's Vancouver, B.C., set.
Among other things, the series will deal once and for all with the Replicator threat, Cooper said. "They become a force in our galaxy, and then ultimately get into a ... big war with the Goa'uld," he said. "And we kind of get caught in between the two and have to decide who we want to side with and help."
Cooper added that the show will deal with the fallout of Daniel Jackson's (Michael Shanks) ascendance and return to Earth. "Daniel's going to come to a bit of a closure with the whole ascendance storyline and what happened to him while he was ascended and his relationship with Oma and his kind of personal battle with Anubis and his feeling of responsibility for maybe not being able to complete the process of eliminating Anubis." As for Anubis (David Palffy), who appeared to have perished at the end of the seventh season, Cooper teased, "I'll say that there are still issues out there." Baal (Cliff Simon), another Goa'uld System Lord, will also return.
And SG-1 will deal further with the Jaffa rebellion, including reprising the character of Ishta, played by Star Trek: Enterprise's Jolene Blalock, who first appeared in the season-seven episode "Birthright."
In response to a question about whether the upcoming season will be the show's last, Cooper said, "We also are not going to completely end the show. We never wanted to end the show. Our intention was to leave it open so that SG-1 was still out there on adventures and also leave the door open for features or TV movies or direct-to-video movies or whatever, that sort of thing, so that the franchise will continue." Stargate SG-1 returns with a two-hour season premiere at 9 p.m. ET/PT July 9.
Robbins Mulls Zathura Role
im Robbins is in the final stages of a deal to star in Columbia Pictures' fantasy film Zathura for director Jon Favreau, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Shooting on the movie is scheduled to start this summer, the trade paper reported.
David Koepp wrote the most recent version of the script, based on the novel by Chris Van Allsburg, who also wrote the family adventure film Jumanji. Zathura is not being billed as a sequel to that film, since no characters from Jumanji carry over, but like the first film, Zathura centers on a board game that sends kids into another world—in this case, an intergalactic environment, the trade paper reported.
Robbins will play the father of the children who discover the board game in a role that is said to bookend the film, the trade paper reported.
Ghost Pitch Sold
olumbia Pictures has bought the pitch Ghost Story by writers Jon Felson and Rusty Gorman, centering on a ghost in the White House, Variety reported.
Leonard Goldberg and Amanda Goldberg will produce through Mandy Films, the trade paper reported.
Ghost Story centers on the 11-year-old son of a newly installed president, who discovers a ghost in the presidential mansion, the trade paper reported. The ghost element of the story is based on White House folklore, the trade paper added.
Robots Game Develops
ivendi Universal Games announced that it is developing the SF video game Robots with Eurocom Entertainment Software for a first-quarter 2005 launch, to coincide with the theatrical release of a Robots animated film, the ComingSoon.net Web site reported.
The Robots game will be developed for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC.
The computer-animated movie is aiming at a March 11, 2005, release and comes from Chris Wedge (Ice Age). The game will place players in the role of the film's hero, Rodney Copperbottom, as he sets off on adventures through the world of the Robots movie, the site reported.
Roswell Diary Lands
CI FI Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries will be the first title published under a three-book deal between the SCI FI Channel and Pocket Books for projects spun off from the network's original documentary specials, SCI FI announced.
The Roswell Dig Diaries, which is due July 6, is based on SCI FI's highest-rated original special, The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence, which dealt with the archaeological excavation of the supposed crash site of a UFO in Roswell, N.M. The Dig Diaries is being released near the anniversary of the supposed crash in July 1947.
SCI FI Declassified: The Roswell Dig Diaries will reveal never-before-seen information about the 1947 incident at Roswell and will contain the first public release of the final archaeological report on the landmark dig. The book also contains a special foreword by New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, the network said. Contributing authors include Roswell investigators Don Schmitt and Tom Carey, University of New Mexico archaeologist Bill Doleman and SCI FI executive Thomas P. Vitale. The editor is Michael McAvennie, a freelance writer from New York. The trade paperback carries a suggested retail price of $14.95.
Swanwick's Next Anthologized
ward-winning SF&F author Michael Swanwick told Locus Online that readers can get a preview of his next novel in an upcoming anthology.
"The first section of my next novel, a fantasy, has been published as 'King Dragon' in The Dragon Quintet, edited by Marvin Kaye," Swanwick told the site. "It is set in a Vietnam-style war in Faerie. A dragon crashes and, wounded, crawls into a small village and declares himself king. The events of that story shake loose the novel's protagonist and send him out into the larger world as a refugee. He goes off to a much stranger place than his native Faerie, toward adventures I hope will be satisfying to the fantasy reader while at the same time being a subversion of all that is good and decent in fantasy!"
Swanwick has received the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon and World Fantasy Awards for his work. Swanwick, a prolific short story writer, also recently published The Periodic Table of Science Fiction, weekly installments of 118 elements, on SCIFI.COM's SCI Fiction page. The stories will be published in a collection by PS Publishing, due later this year.
New Zone Due On DVD
ew Line Home Entertainment is releasing a six-disc DVD set of The Twilight Zone, UPN's 2002 update of the classic SF TV series by Rod Serling, on Sept. 7.
The set will include all 43 episodes of the anthology series, which was hosted by Forest Whitaker and featured Jessica Simpson, Jaime Pressly, Shannon Elizabeth, Jason Bateman, Amber Tamblyn, Usher, Jason Alexander, Lou Diamond Phillips, Vivica A. Fox, Dylan Walsh, Portia de Rossi, Patrick Warburton, Paul Rodriquez and Eriq La Salle, among others.
The DVD set includes remakes of two popular classic episodes, "The Eye of the Beholder" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." The set also includes "It's Still a Good Life," the sequel to "It's a Good Life," featuring the original stars Bill Mumy and Cloris Leachman.
SG-1 Gets Hair Raising
hristopher Judge, who plays Teal'c on SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, told SCI FI Wire that his character undergoes one notable change in the upcoming eighth season: He grows hair.
"Yes," Judge said in an interview during a break in filming on the show's Vancouver, B.C., set. "It took a lot of years of begging and groveling for me to finally get it, but yeah, ... that will be the most obvious change, definitely."
Judge, who is not naturally bald, said that seven years of shaving his head daily took its toll. "I got really tired of it," he said. "Just shaving my head every morning. And by three quarters of the way through the season it was really painful to actually shave. So, you know, this is very welcome. Very welcome. Hopefully the fans will like it."
Judge added that it took a little persuasion to get the show's producers to allow such a dramatic change to his character's appearance—and he even tried a more radical look. "It first was at least considered when there was going to be all the changes this year," he said. "I'd done a bunch of conventions and had cornrows [during hiatus], so I talked to [executive producer] Rob Cooper before I left, and he said, 'OK, maybe so.' So I kind of unveiled the cornrows at the conventions. So we got here [when filming resumed], and it was the Friday before the Monday we started shooting, and pictures were sent down to MGM. And they didn't like it. So I had to shave the cornrows. But this is what's left."
Judge's hair is now closely cropped. "Believe me, Iím grateful for it," he said with a smile. "I think it was time for it. You know, I mean eight years for this character to be on Earth? I just think that was the next move toward his ... final assimilation. So yeah, I think the timing is right."
So how will the show acknowledge Teal'c's new do? "Nothing's said about it until we find [star] Rick [Dean Anderson, who plays O'Neill] in ... the first episode of the season. And he comes out of the little chamber and says, 'So what's with the hair?' In typical O'Neill fashion." Stargate SG-1 begins its eighth season on July 9.
Front Mission 4 Is Here
ront Mission 4, the latest installment in the SF strategy game series, is now available at North American retailers for the PlayStation 2, Square Enix announced.
The game, a turn-based strategy title, is set in 2096, six years after the Second Huffman Conflict in the original Front Mission.
As an unidentified group of mechanized "wanzers" assaults and destroys an Earth Corps German base, Elsa, a new recruit in the E.C.'s Durandal corps, is sent to investigate. The story then turns to Darril, a U.C.S. Army sergeant in South America, whose company is sent to Venezuela in order to prevent secession.
Front Mission 4 offers an enhanced battle system, new graphics and voice-overs.
Briefly Noted
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Yahoo! Movies has posted a new trailer for the upcoming SF movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which opens Sept. 17.
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Screenwriter Ben Ramsey has signed a deal to adapt the anime series Dragonball Z for the movies for 20th Century Fox, Variety reported.
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King Arthur received a PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America after Disney trimmed enough of the violence from the epic's climactic battle scenes to avoid an R, Variety reported.
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Director Ed Zwick, who replaced Vadim Perelman as director of DreamWorks' supernatural film The Talisman, has also dropped out of the project a month after he signed on, Variety reported. The problem was that the film wasn't creatively together in time for the start date, the trade paper reported.
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Jason Schwartzman will join Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell in Columbia Pictures' big screen Bewitched adaptation, to be directed by Nora Ephron, Production Weekly reported. He is set to play the agent of Darrin Stephens (Will Ferrell).
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The iFilm Web site has posted the first eight minutes of the upcoming supernatural horror film The Grudge, a remake of the Japanese horror movie Ju-On. The Grudge, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, opens Oct. 29.
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Over the Rainbow, the classic song from 1939's The Wizard of Oz, was named the the top movie song in the June 22 CBS special AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Songs.
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Madonna's Maverick Films is developing a movie based on the children's book Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, by high-school teacher Rick Riordan, Variety reported. The book, which is due in 2005, tells the story of the Greek god Poseidon's 12-year-old half-human son.
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Gary Oldman (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) is in talks to perform a character voice in the upcoming prequel film Star Wars: Episode III, the ComingSoon.net Web site reported. The site added that the character may be the archvillain Gen. Grievous.
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Salem's Lot, TNT's adaptation of the Stephen King story, drew close to 6 million viewers in its June 20 premiere, better than ABC's and FOX's averages for the same time period and better than anything else on cable last week, Zap2it reported.
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The Mediasharx Web site reported a rumor that J. Michael Straczynski is developing a theatrical movie based on his Babylon 5 TV series, to be called Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows.
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A new teaser poster and trailer are due next week on the official Web site for the upcoming vampire sequel film Blade: Trinity, which opens Dec. 10.
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New Line Cinema has picked up the horror script Bedbugs from writer Carter Blanchard, about a small town that is infested with a species of killer bugs that come at night and burrow inside a person, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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In a groundbreaking move, Sony is issuing 11 different versions of the CD Music From and Inspired by Spider-Man 2 worldwide, with different music depending on the regions in which the CD is released, Variety reported.
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