Alias Makes Big Changes
.J. Abrams, creator of ABC's spy drama Alias, told USA Today that Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) gets a new boss, played by Angela Bassett; a new job in the CIA; and a new permanent addition to her family, as Mia Maestro joins the cast as Sydney's half-sister, Nadia, in the upcoming fourth season.
Sydney and the rest of the team move to "a black ops division in the CIA," Abrams told the newspaper. "A cool new organization with cool new headquarters."
Abrams adds: "I think we have found a way to click back into the Alias we all enjoyed." That means a return to more streamlined stories. "The plot became our god, which was a huge problem," he said. "It ended up superseding character."
Alias returns Jan. 5, 2005, in a new timeslot: Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, where it will be teamed with Abrams' new hit, Lost.
Alias Season Premiere Set
he fourth season of ABC's spy drama Alias premieres Jan. 5 with a new two-hour episode that will air from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT, ZENtertainment reported.
The series, starring Jennifer Garner and created by J.J. Abrams, will then move into its new Wednesday 9 p.m. timeslot, after Abrams' other hit ABC series, Lost.
ABC delayed the premiere of Alias so that it could air new episodes each week without any
reruns through the end of the season. "When we made the strategic
decision this fall on Alias, we only hoped to be in the situation we
find ourselves in today," ABC president of entertainment Stephen McPherson told ZENtertainment. "Lost provides a terrific platform for Alias' new season. Not only do both shows have similar audience profiles with great appeal to television's most coveted young-adult viewers, but they
also share J.J.'s unique sensibility. This is a great two-hour block of programming."
Diving Into Serenity's River
ummer Glau, who reprises the role of River in the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told SCI FI Wire that the film version of Fox's canceled Firefly will resolve many questions about her enigmatic character.
"We were setting up all the characters [in the TV show]," Glau said in an interview during a break in filming last summer at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. "We were going back into the past and trying to set up each storyline for each character. And my character was just getting started, and now in the film you're really going to see an explosion of what's really going on with River. It's going to be exciting."
In Firefly, the crew of a transport ship 500 years in the future found themselves inadvertently aiding the escape of River from a top-secret Alliance facility, with the help of her brother, Simon Tam (Sean Maher). There were hints that River had acquired some martial arts and weapons skills, which the film Serenity will develop, Glau said. "I do a lot of wire work, so I get to do a lot of flipping and running up walls, so it's really exciting," she said. "I'm not a gymnast. I still don't like being upside down. If I don't know what my legs are doing up there, it makes me nervous."
Glau added, "When they first met with me to try to figure out what my physicality was, we went over things, and what we ended up with is kind of a blend of wu shu, kung fu and kick boxing. It's kind of tailored to my abilities, because I was a ballet dancer before I started acting. And so, you know, looking at the way I moved and seeing what kind of a body type I had, that's what they chose."
Glau said that it took only a little while to reacquaint herself with River once production started last spring. "I was very nervous," she said. "I was very nervous. I hadn't played River for a year and a half. I was so close to her in the beginning and through the whole series. And then when I came in for my first read-through with the entire cast, I was shaking and sweating, and I was really scared. And then after the first few days it felt like I'd never left." Serenity, which also stars Nathan Fillion and is directed by series creator Joss Whedon, is slated for release in April 2005. The film is being released by Universal, which is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Greengrass Directing Watchmen?
in't It Cool News reported a rumor that Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass will step in for Darren Aronofsky helming the adaptation of Alan Moore's classic superhero graphic novel Watchmen.
The site didn't cite a source for its information.
Lloyd Levin and Larry Gordon are producing the movie, which is still on track for a summer 2006 release, the site reported.
Newcomer Yates To Helm Phoenix
ritish director David Yates is close to signing to helm the fifth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for Warner Brothers, Variety reported.
Michael Goldenberg will write the script and David Heyman will again produce. Phoenix, based on J.K. Rowling's book, is slated to start production in late 2005 and hit theaters in summer 2007.
Yates has only one big-screen credit: the 1998 feature The Tichborne Claimant. But his television work is what caught the attention of Warner and Heyman, with prize-winning dramas that include The Way We Live Now and the miniseries State of Play, the trade paper reported.
Hanks Mulls Da Vinci
olumbia Pictures has begun talks with Tom Hanks to play Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon in the film version of Dan Brown's best-selling The Da Vinci Code, Variety reported.
The film is slated to begin production next year for a 2006 release. Former Columbia Pictures chairman John Calley will produce the film with Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard will direct, the trade paper reported. Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) will write the script.
No deal has been completed with Hanks, but it's expected he'll make room in his schedule to reteam with Howard, who directed him in Apollo 13, the trade paper reported.
Columbia now can turn to finding an actress to play French cryptologist Sophie Neveau, whose grandfather's gruesome murder in the Louvre sets Langdon on a journey to find a killer while weaving together clues that cut to the foundation of the Catholic Church, the trade paper reported.
Twohy Relived Riddick On DVD
avid Twohy, writer and director of The Chronicles of Riddick, told SCI FI Wire that he noted his own film's flaws in the audio commentary for the director's-cut DVD.
"I always have dissatisfaction with my films," Twohy said in an interview. "Any time I see them, I go straight to the stuff that isn't right, and I beat myself up. I can't even see the good stuff. But that said, it is actually nice to kick back and watch the film with the actors and relive the better days on the set."
Twohy admitted there were some tense moments on set, but said that he enjoyed reliving them while recording the commentary. "Every set has good days, and every set has bad days, but it was a fun experience laying down the commentary," he said. "That's like the real premiere for me. Premieres aren't fun at all. They're tension-filled. But when you kick back with the actors, and you can laugh at yourself, you're laughing at tense moments, like I did on a couple of occasions with Karl [Urban, who plays Vaako]. When we did the commentary we were laughing about that tension on the set."
Twohy said that Urban revealed a few surprising reactions to his direction while they recorded his audio commentary. That was a healthy thing, he added. "Karl says one time he was shooting a scene with the second unit, and I went over to 'bless the scene,' and I spent all of my time dealing with the extra who was standing next to him," Twohy said. "I was assuming because it was an easy scene for Karl, he didn't need any leadership in that moment. But he brought it up in the commentary and said, 'You spent your whole time talking to the extra! What was that all about?' I never knew he felt that way until it came out." The Chronicles of Riddick: The Unrated Director's Cut DVD is now in stores from Universal Studios Home Video, which is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Singer, Diesel Create Game
-Men director Bryan Singer is partnering with Vin Diesel's Tigon Studios to create an original video game franchise, the first time Hollywood talent of this caliber has become involved in a game not based on a movie or television series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The working title of the property is Secret Service, and it will be a character-driven, tactical action-adventure game based on the life of a Secret Service agent who has been assigned to the president's detail, the trade paper reported. Singer developed the project with Mark Feigin, a former staff member on the White House advance team for President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and first lady Hillary Clinton. The game will offer players and the outside world an intimate and accurate look inside the activities of this powerful but not well-known government agency, the trade paper reported.
Based in Los Angeles, Tigon Studios was founded by Diesel with the goal of creating properties that could start as a video game but then extend into a franchise and other entertainment media. Diesel contributed his own likeness and voice talents to the first game from the young company, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, but no casting decisions have been made on the new project, the trade paper reported.
Disney Acquires CrossGen
alt Disney Co. has bought the assets of CrossGen Entertainment, a comic-book publisher whose fantasy and SF titles include Abadazad, Mystic and Route 666, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Terms were not disclosed. One of the first ways Disney may look to use CrossGen characters is in online content, the trade paper reported.
The acquisition of the more than two dozen titles comes as Disney is set to launch a TV series in the United States based on W.I.T.C.H., a comic for tween girls that debuted in 2001 in Italy, the trade paper reported. In addition, Disney already owns about half of the non-manga comic-book business worldwide, the trade paper reported.
DVD Restores Riddick Action
avid Twohy, writer/director of the SF movie The Chronicles of Riddick, told SCI FI Wire that the director's-cut DVD restores footage deemed too violent for the film's theatrical PG-13 rating.
"I submitted the film seven times to the [Motion Picture Association of America], and only on the seventh time did they say, 'OK, that's a PG-13,'" Twohy said in an interview. "Each time, I had taken stuff out of the movie. So I gathered up all of that stuff and put it back in. So the action sequences are longer and tougher."
Twohy said that the action in the director's cut is more intense than in the theatrical version. "There's a decapitation in this version of it," he said. "[There's] a lot of intense action, even in terms of sound sometimes: how hard a hit was, how 'wet' a sound was. The theatrical version had to dry out a lot of the sounds. We mixed it wet, so we just went back to the wet version of the soundtrack." Describing one scene in which he beefed up the action, Twohy said, "It was restoring the action, and particularly what we call 'One step, one kill.' We never invoked that to the MPAA, but that was the sequence during the escape from the prison, and the sun is rising behind them, and Vaako's men are in front of them, and they have to get into that hangar. It was shot as this great, brutal affair, and it got watered down because of the PG-13 rating, and I was most interested in restoring that to its full thing. And we were able to do that."
Twohy added that he also restored scenes that aided plot and character development. "I went back and looked at some of those scenes, how we had originally cut them four months before the release of the movie, and while I found them to be slower, they were also richer," Twohy said. "You knew more about the characters. There were more nuances to the characters. So I went back in and as often as not went for the earlier cuts of a given scene. We understand Riddick better. We understand Imam better. We certainly understand the Vaako characters better, the two characters played by Karl Urban and Thandie Newton, as they conspire to unseat the Lord Marshal and as they contemplate regicide. You understand that better, because I'm allowed to present their full scenes. There's some sexuality in their scenes as well that we [cut] from the theatrical version, and I was able to restore that." The Chronicles Of Riddick: The Unrated Director's Cut is now on store shelves.
Riddick Sets Up Trilogy
in Diesel, who stars in The Chronicles of Riddick, told SCI FI Wire he's pleased that the new unrated director's-cut DVD restores three pivotal scenes featuring Kristin Lehman as Shirah, a character who was designed to play a larger role in subsequent installments.
"I think those scenes give you a sense of origin," Diesel said in an interview. "I think they start to flesh out a sense of origin for our Riddick character, this enigmatic character, enigmatic protagonist."
Diesel added, "In a cool way, the Shirah character really comes in at important moments, like when he's on the runway. The Shirah character, in creating this story, was designed to introduce Riddick to his Furyan nature. So, on the runway, she unleashes the radiance of [Furya], this burst of Furyan energy that actually repels his negative energy, which is this long explanation that you'll see in future Chronicles of Riddick pictures."
Diesel, who also co-produced Chronicles of Riddick, said that when he and writer-director David Twohy developed the Riddick storyline, they did so thinking of it as the first installment in a trilogy. "The Shirah character plays to that," Diesel said. "The Shirah character is introduced in this film, but it's paid off in the third film, if you will. The way that it's designed—and I hope I'm not giving too much away—in Chronicles of Riddick 2 we now go to the Underverse, and then C3 is that final return home to Furya. That's [the trilogy] in a nutshell."
For her part, Lehman told SCI FI Wire in a separate interview that Twohy intended to restore her scenes, though they were cut from the theatrical release. "These are characters and stories that literally came from him, so his investment in them and his [desire to fully realize his] vision is understandable," Lehman said. "I do think Shirah adds an element of mystique to Riddick. We want to know more about his connection to a world he is only discovering. [She's] a metaphor for his inner terrain, I think." The Chronicles of Riddick Unrated Director's Cut hits retailers on Nov. 16 from Universal Studios Home Video, which is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Diesel: Make Riddick 2 Cheaper
in Diesel, who starred in The Chronicles of Riddick, told SCI FI Wire that he thinks the franchise will soldier on, even though it fared less well at the box office than hoped.
"It depends who you ask," Diesel said in an interview while promoting the DVD release of The Chronicles of Riddick Unrated Director's Cut. "For me, we made Pitch Black with $20 million. I think you can continue this character regardless of the film budget."
Diesel added, "Will the next film be a PG, $100 million-and-something movie? Could the next film be—by virtue of the fact it takes place in the Underverse, which is obviously going to be a lot more gruesome than New Mecca—rated R? We would return to the rated-R fashion that Pitch Black was shot in."
Diesel also produced Riddick and has said that he and writer-producer David Twohy envisioned it kicking off a trilogy. But he added that it's a gamble to create a mythology and prepare for a trio of films when there's no assurance that it will all come to pass. "It is thrilling, and it's frightening," Diesel said. "It's thrilling because you're really going for a story that isn't done in a reactionary way. It isn't like we've done a film and said, 'Oh, we've made a lot of money off that. OK, let's put something together and do another one.' I think we're being responsible in our storytelling by thinking up all three stories before making the first one. But there is that level of anxiety, because you get questions like 'Is the future film dependent on that?' It's a realistic question. But if you're enjoying the creative process it's not life-threatening to be creative." The Chronicles of Riddick Unrated Director's Cut will be available on Nov. 16 from Universal Studios Home Video. Universal Studios Home Video is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Hasselhoff Rescues SpongeBob
tephen Hillenburg, director of the upcoming animated SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, told SCI FI Wire that he specifically wrote a part for former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, who plays himself in the movie.
Hasselhoff meets SpongeBob and Patrick in a live-action sequence on a beach toward the end of the film, and some of the movie's oddest bits deal with Hasselhoff's robust physique.
"The idea for David Hasselhoff came when we had the characters on the surface, and we were trying to figure out how to get them back in a funny way, and somebody mentioned 'Hey, how about some celebrities?'" Hillenburg said in an interview. "I forget who they were, but it was a little too weird, believe it or not. And so we started tossing around some ideas, and the idea of Hasselhoff came up, and you know, he's a lifeguard, he would belong in the space at the beach, that's his domain, at least his [Baywatch] character Mitch. And it just seemed really funny to us, and so we wrote this entire sequence without asking him."
To Hillenburg's surprise, the real Hasselhoff signed on without even seeing the script, in part because he was familiar with the Nickelodeon SpongeBob TV show on which the film is based. "I decided to call him, which was pretty scary," Hillenburg said. "And fortunately he is a great guy. He really likes the show. ... He has daughters that really like the show, and he didn't even see the material and said, 'I'm in. I think it'd be great. I'd love to do it. I think it's funny.' And we showed him what he was to do, and it was all these stunts. And he didn't even balk at any of it. He was great. He did a lot of his own stunts. He had to do a lot of that in the wintertime in this tank, and I realized later that no one else could have done this. He's familiar with water stunts and the rigors of that, and he was, I think, really great at making fun of himself, sort of winking like that." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie opens Nov. 19.
Finding SpongeBob's Voice
om Kenny, who voices the title character in the upcoming animated SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, told SCI FI Wire that he thinks of the yellow sea creature's signature high-pitched voice as "an elf on helium."
Kenny, a voice-over artist and musician, said he and franchise creator Stephen Hillenburg were after a voice suitable for a character who was neither young nor old.
"We got together a number of times before he even showed it to Nickelodeon, and figured out where the voice placement was and just figured out how to twist it around and make a voice that was young, but not really a child, but not really a man, either," Kenny said in an interview. He added: "I hadn't really trafficked in that range before, even though I'd done a lot of voice-over. I hadn't really found that quadrant yet. It was just a matter of finding a voice that went with this drawing and these very descriptive little bios that Steve had made as part of the bible prior to the pitch."
In the film version of the hit children's TV series, Kenny also gets to sing two songs he wrote for the soundtrack. "There's a song called 'Best Day Ever' that SpongeBob sings that's over the closing credits of the movie, actually, as it turned out," Kenny said. "And then there's [a] song called 'Employee of the Month' that's on the soundtrack album if you buy it at Target as a bonus track." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, which features the guest voices of Scarlett Johansson and Alec Baldwin, opens Nov. 19.
SpongeBob Gets Film Treatment
tephen Hillenburg, creator and director of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, told SCI FI Wire that it was a natural idea for him to want to expand the hit animated Nickelodeon TV series into a film.
"When we first started doing the show, I was only interested in doing SpongeBob shorts, and ... most of those ... were like 15, 16 minutes [each]," Hillenburg said in an interview. "That's because the plotlines were really simple, and you could keep people's interest for that amount of time and we could just focus on simple, silly stories. [But] they reached a point where we had written 60 half-hours of material, and I had this thought about SpongeBob going on an extended road trip where he encountered the surface world and there was live action involved. We would marry the two, and it certainly seemed like a bigger story and basically a feature idea, a feature hook."
Hillenburg, a marine scientist who created SpongeBob SquarePants in 1999, added, "I didn't ever want to make just an inflated episode. And so this movie is really SpongeBob's big adventure; I think it's his greatest adventure. It's still about him. It's about having this character, SpongeBob, he has an innocent kid-like perspective, and he's naïve, and he launches into this journey, and in the end, in his way, he manages to save the day. And I think it shows the town and himself that there's some value in his point of view."
Expanding to feature length meant that Hillenburg had to adjust the way he told the story of SpongeBob, his friend, Patrick, and the denizens of Bikini Bottom. "The shows are small in the series, and this obviously is big, and ... it has a different cadence," he said. "And I actually don't think you can keep the same cadence and rhythm. ... You do need to have the characterization remain the same. You need the characters to come through, and I think the story has to ultimately be about SpongeBob. It has to reinforce what he is, and I think it is that story. It really is about kids. It's about keeping your point of view, ... your kid nature in life, and not totally becoming a curmudgeon. As we get older I think it gets harder to do that." The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie opens Nov. 19.
Puss Film In Works
reamWorks has hired Ed Decter and John Strauss to write the animated movie Puss in Boots, based on the Antonio Banderas-voiced character from Shrek 2, Variety reported.
The studio is contemplating a direct-to-video release.
The exact storyline of the film is unclear at this point, but the movie will focus on the swashbuckling kitty voiced by Banderas. The role was self-referential to the Spanish actor's role in The Mask of Zorro, the trade paper reported. Although no deal has been signed, it is likely Banderas would return to voice the character.
Bradbury, L'Engle Honored
egendary SF author Ray Bradbury visited the White House on Nov. 17 to collect his National Medal of Arts, the Washington Post reported.
Madeleine L'Engle, the author of the classic children's SF book A Wrinkle in Time, was awarded the National Humanities Medal.
"This is the happiest day in my life," Bradbury told the newspaper. "I started from nothing. It was a long haul, and now I'm here."
Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, was one of the 16 leaders in the arts and humanities (14 individuals and two organizations) saluted in an Oval Office ceremony by President Bush. Other recipients included Carlisle Floyd, Twyla Tharp, Anne Tatlock of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and John Ruthven, the newspaper reported.
L'Engle was unable to attend the White House ceremony and was represented by her granddaughter Charlotte Jones, the newspaper reported.
Rocker Lee Talks Narnia
my Lee, singer in the rock band Evanescence, told MTV that she will provide music for Disney's upcoming book-to-film adaptation The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, according to a report on ComingSoon.net.
Lee said that she was a fan of C.S. Lewis' books, about four children who discover a magical land in the clutches of an evil witch.
"I love the kind of stranger children's stuff," Lee told the music network. "I think that's very much what our music is inspired by. Not only death and the morbid stuff, but that it comes from the perspective of a child and things relating to childhood, because that's what I went through."
Lee was offered a small role in the film, currently in production in New Zealand. "They were like, 'Do you want to do a cameo?'" she said. "And I was like, 'Hell, yeah! Let me die. I want to be somebody who gets murdered.' So I don't think that's going to happen."
Roth Talks Next Project
eteran film producer Joe Roth (The Forgotten) told SCI FI Wire that his company, Revolution Studios, is moving forward with Next, a big-screen adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man."
Roth added that he is undaunted by the spotty track record of recent Dick-inspired films, such as Impostor, Minority Report and Paycheck. Nicolas Cage (Face/Off) has signed on to star in the SF film, which Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) will direct.
"I don't look at these things as an anthology or a collection," Roth said in an interview. "I only look at the screenplay I read." Roth added, "What worked about the screenplay is in the title: the notion that someone can actually see what's about to happen next [and thus change the future]. And it's the curse of that and how valuable that is to people who want to misuse it. In this case, there are governments. It's that conflict."
Roth praised Tamahori and Cage. "I think that Lee is a really interesting director, and Nic is a very interesting actor who can play both an action figure and kind of a tortured guy," he said. "It certainly felt like it worked for me." Gary Goldman, who previously wrote 1990's Total Recall based on Dick's story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," adapted "The Golden Man." Production will begin next year with an eye toward a 2006 release.
Raimi Raises Dead Again
pider-Man 2 director Sam Raimi and his Evil Dead producing partners Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell will remake the 1981 cult hit that launched their careers, Variety reported.
Raimi wrote, directed and produced The Evil Dead, which tells the story of five friends holed up in a remote cabin who discover a Book of the Dead that raises demons.
Raimi will not direct the remake and is looking for a helmer to reinvent the franchise before a script is written, the trade paper reported. The movie will be produced by Ghost House Pictures, the joint venture of Raimi, Tapert and Senator International. The original movie spawned Evil Dead II (which was essentially a remake of the first film) and Army of Darkness, all of which starred Campbell as the demon-fighting Ash.
Dawson Slinks In Sin City
osario Dawson, co-star of the upcoming comic-book film Sin City, told SCI FI Wire that she wears a provocative costume in the upcoming Frank Miller adaptation.
"I play this character named Gail, who used to be a prostitute and walks around in a sort of like leather string to blend in," Dawson said. "I have handcuffs on my hip and a machine gun in my hand."
With Miller, Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids) wrote and co-directed Sin City, about a man named Marv (Mickey Rourke) who prowls a corrupt, crime-filled town to seek revenge on the person responsible for the death of his girlfriend, Goldie (Jaime King). Dawson said the skimpy nature of her costume surprised her. "I sent pictures back to my mom, and I look like an S&M superhero," Dawson said. "She was like, 'Oh, my God, Rosario, what's your superhero name?' And I said 'Gail.'" Sin City opens April 1, 2005.
Wachowskis Develop V
ndy and Larry Wachowski (the Matrix movies) will produce a film adaptation of Alan Moore's futuristic graphic novel V for Vendetta, and Matrix first assistant director James McTeigue is in talks with Warner Brothers to direct, Variety reported.
The Wachowskis originally wanted to direct the adaptation themselves, but set it aside to do the Matrix trilogy of films. Matrix producer Joel Silver will also produce V, the trade paper reported.
V for Vendetta takes place in an alternate future in which Germany wins World War II and Great Britain becomes a fascist state. A terrorist freedom fighter known only as "V" begins a violent guerilla campaign to destroy those who've succumbed to totalitarianism and recruits a young woman he's rescued from the secret police to join him, the trade paper reported.
The project has been around for years, with Romeo Is Bleeding writer Hilary Henkin taking a stab at it at one point, but without success, the trade paper reported.
New Flash Returns To Roots
roducer Bob Ducsay, who is developing an updated Flash Gordon movie with Van Helsing director Stephen Sommers, told Now Playing Magazine that he envisions a return to the venerable SF serial's roots and not a reprise of the campy 1980s movie.
"It in fact is actually going back to a lot more of the original source material for Flash and is not based on the 1980 movie," Ducsay told the magazine. "And tonally, as sort of broad entertainments as the films we make are, clearly we haven't ever worked at that level of camp. So we're not moving in that direction at all. There's all kinds of material. There's comics. There's serials. So all of those things provide source material."
Ducsay worked with Sommers on the two Mummy movies as well as on this year's Van Helsing.
He added that it's still unclear who will actually write or direct Flash Gordon. "[Sommers] is not committed to directing," Ducsay said. "What really happens is he comes across a screenplay or he writes a screenplay that he's interested in. And it really always comes down to the script, and since these things are works in progress, it's really hard to say. For him as a director, I don't think he's really settled on what it is that he's going to do next."
Paramount Gets Mean
aramount Pictures has bought the supernatural comedy pitch Mean Streak from Shrek 2 writers J. David Stem and David N. Weiss, Variety reported.
The proposed movie centers on a teacher who goes on a field trip to a mockup of Salem, Mass., gets dumped by his fiancee for being too nice, wishes he were meaner and falls under a curse, the trade paper reported. Guy Walks Into a Bar partners Jon Berg, who came up with the idea, and Todd Komarnicki will produce.
Stem and Weiss wrote Clockstoppers, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and the first two Rugrats films for Paramount.
Ringers Targets LOTR Fans
-Men producer Tom De Santo will produce Ringers: Lord of the Fans, a feature-length documentary centering on Lord of the Rings fandom, written and directed by first-timer Carlene Cordova.
The documentary will feature interviews with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and several cast members, including Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis and John Rhys-Davies.
Ringers explores how J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books have influenced Western popular culture for the past 50 years and the fandom that has grown around them.
Emperor Has New Groove
isney Channel has given the green light to an animated series for 2006 based on Disney's 2000 theatrical release The Emperor's New Groove, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The kids' cable network has ordered 21 episodes of Emperor's New Skool from sister studio Walt Disney Television Animation. Skool's executive producer is Bobs Gannaway, who also oversees another Disney movie-turned-TV property, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, the trade paper reported.
Directed by Dave Knott (Recess), Skool transplants the main characters from Groove into a new setting: the Incan public school system. Deposed emperor Kuzco must now pass all of his classes and foil the scheming partnership of Yzma and Kronk to reclaim his throne. Casting has not yet been announced, the trade paper reported.
De Ravin Rides Santa's Slay
milie de Ravin (ABC's Lost) told SCI FI Wire that her next project is a horror-comedy feature film entitled Santa's Slay.
"It's a black-comedy Christmas movie," de Ravin said in an interview. "That was a lot of fun to shoot. I have some comedy to work with, which I hadn't really explored too much before."
Written and directed by first-timer David Steiman, Santa's Slay posits that Santa Claus (professional wrestler Bill Goldberg) is actually a demon who lost a bet with an angel and has spent a near-eternity spreading joy and doling out presents. When the bet ends, however, the demon returns to his wicked ways.
"I play Mac, who's a high school student," de Ravin said. "My friend Nicholas [Douglas Smith] and I pretty much save the day in the movie, or at least we're trying to. It turns out that Nick's grandpa [Robert Culp] was actually the angel, and he gave up his eternal life to marry his wife. And all is being revealed now because Nick has found the Book of Claus, which is pretty much the book of secrets to do with what actually happened. So he's back, and now we're trying to save the day and kill Santa. It was fun playing high school again [as she had on The WB's Roswell] and being the kids on the run." Santa's Slay will be released in 2005.
Web Spinning To Film
ickelodeon Films is joining Kerner Entertainment as a producer on Paramount's live-action/computer-animated film adaptation of E.B. White's beloved children's book Charlotte's Web, Variety reported.
Paramount's also in talks with Walden Media, which is part of Anschutz Film Group, to co-finance and produce, the trade paper reported.
Gary Winick will direct Charlotte's Web, which is expected to start shooting in January. Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) wrote the script, with revisions by Karey Kirkpatrick (Chicken Run), the trade paper reported.
Charlotte's Web, written in 1952, is the best-selling children's paperback of all time and centers on a 10-year-old girl and a spider who saves the life of her friend, a pig named Wilbur. The book was previously made into a 1973 animated movie by Paramount and Sagittarius Productions, the trade paper reported.
Time Keepers Bought
niversal-based Working Title Films has bought the spec fantasy script Time Keepers, by author Alex Garland (The Beach), Variety reported.
The movie tells the story of two boys who discover that magic is real and that they have a strange role to play in the history of the world, the trade paper reported.
Barry Mendel will produce, with Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Classic Atari Games Released
tari announced that it has released Atari Anthology, featuring 85 classic Atari arcade and other video games available for the first time for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
Atari Anthology includes Asteroids, Battlezone, Missile Command and Pong, as well as sports games and rare titles such as Casino, Tempest and Circus Atari.
Atari Anthology also incorporates new "Challenge Modes," such as the psychedelic Trippy Mode, Time Warp and Double Speed. The title also boasts a new 3-D interface. Atari Anthology carries a suggested retail price of $19.99.
Toy Story 3 Boots Up
alt Disney Studios is actively moving ahead with its long-in-discussion third installment in the Toy Story movie franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Disney is in the process of setting up a digital animation facility in Glendale, not all that far from DreamWorks Animation's digs, that will be used for the production of Toy Story 3, the trade paper reported.
The project falls under the aegis of David Stainton, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation. Andrew Millstein, who headed the company's now-shuttered animation facility in Orlando, also is involved and has begun the process of recruiting animators from rival animation studios and effects shops, the trade paper reported.
Although over the past year Disney chairman Michael Eisner and studio head Dick Cook have signaled their determination to embark on a Toy Story sequel, the fact that the studio is now actively beginning that process could make it more difficult for it to resume negotiations with Pixar chief executive Steve Jobs to extend Pixar's relationship with Disney. The current Pixar/Disney deal expires next year with the release of John Lasseter's Cars, the trade paper reported. Pixar produced the first two Toy Story movies, but Disney holds the rights to do sequels.
Del Toro Talks Hellboy 2
ellboy director Guillermo del Toro told the Now Playing Magazine Web site that he is actively developing a sequel film for a 2006 release, again based on Mike Mignola's graphic novel series.
"The storyline for this one is going to be created both by Mike Mignola and [me], and we've been on the phone [talking] about it and just jamming," del Toro told the magazine. "We have one idea that we have been nurturing since the early stages of the first film, and we're fleshing it out. Definitely, it's been a very active communication."
In addition to bringing back Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, with a voice by David Hyde Pierce), Hellboy 2 will also feature other characters from Mignola's universe, del Toro said. "You will get new characters from the B.P.R.D. comics," del Toro said, referring to Hellboy's organization, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. "You're going to get Johan, the guy with no body, which is a really great character. And we're going to have a little surprise cameo from one of the villains from the first film."
Mexican-born del Toro said he wants to begin production on Hellboy 2 after he shoots a smaller, Spanish-language movie first. "We're going to be thinking about late 2005 at the earliest to start preproduction," he said. "You never know with these things, but that would be a good guess."
Black Hole Starts Early
he independent SF movie Black Hole will begin production on Nov. 28, months earlier than the original early 2005 start date, because of healthy foreign presales at this year's American Film Market, Variety reported.
The movie was sold to Star TV in Asia, Bridge Rights in Benelux, Swen in Brazil, Metropolitan in France, Kinowelt in Germany, Art Port in Japan, Scanbox in Scandinavia and Filmax in Spain, the trade paper reported.
Hole, budgeted at $3.5 million, will be shot in St. Louis and stars Kristy Swanson and Judd Nelson in a tale about an experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island that goes horribly awry, resulting in the formation of a black hole on Earth, the trade paper reported. The movie is part of Nu Image's deal with SCI FI Channel.
Atlantis, SG-1 Renewed
CI FI Channel announced that it has ordered a second season of its hit original series Stargate Atlantis and a ninth season of its long-lived Stargate SG-1.
The channel has ordered 20 new episodes of each show from MGM Television Entertainment, and production on both is set to begin in March 2005 for summer premieres on SCI FI.
Stargate Atlantis debuted in July and drew more than 4.2 million viewers, breaking ratings records. The second season will bring back stars Joe Flanigan, Torri Higginson, David Hewlett, Rainbow Sun Francks, Rachel Luttrell and Paul McGillion.
With a ninth original season, Stargate SG-1 will tie Fox's The X-Files as the longest-running SF drama series on American TV. MGM is currently in talks with the series' original cast members for their return.
Robert C. Cooper and SG-1 co-creator Brad Wright will continue to serve as executive producers on both series, which are distributed by MGM Worldwide Television Distribution.
The remaining new episodes of SG-1's current eighth season and Atlantis's first season will return in January 2005, along with the series premiere of Battlestar Galactica.
Tingler Screams Again
eal Moritz is set to bring back the 1959 horror classic The Tingler for Columbia Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Greg Pace is set to write the feature, the trade paper reported.
The original movie starred Vincent Price as a scientist who discovers an organism that grows along a person's spine when that person enters a state of extreme fear. One way to defeat the creature is to scream, the trade paper reported. The movie was directed and produced by horrormeister William Castle, who was known for his promotional gimmicks: For The Tingler, Castle wired theater seats so that audiences felt a jolt when a scream occurred during the movie.
The new version will follow a scientist who, in the search for a medical cure for fear, unleashes the Tingler, an entity that kills its victims with fear, the trade paper reported.
Flash Illustrator Lampert Dies
arry Lampert, the illustrator who created the DC Comics superhero series The Flash and later became known for his instructional books on bridge, died Nov. 13 in Florida, the Associated Press reported. He was 88.
Lampert, who had been suffering from cancer, died at Boca Raton Community Hospital.
Lampert began drawing professionally at 16, inking cartoons at Fleischer Studios in New York for characters such as Popeye, Betty Boop and KoKo the Clown. Six years later, Lampert created the DC Comics original Flash Comics 1 in 1940, collaborating with writer Gardner Fox. The first edition featuring the physics-defying superhero has become a classic among comic-book collectors, the AP reported. Lampert received a steady stream of fan mail and requests for his early Flash drawings.
Besides his daughter, Lampert is survived by his wife, Adele Lampert, and two grandsons.
Space Patrol's Kemmer Dead
d Kemmer, who played the steel-jawed Cmdr. Buzz Corry on the popular 1950s SF TV series Space Patrol, died Nov. 9 in New York after suffering a stroke on Nov. 5, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 84.
Kemmer died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York, the newspaper reported.
Television was still a novelty when Space Patrol debuted on March 9, 1950, as a 15-minute show that aired live five days a week on Channel 7 in Los Angeles. By the end of the year, a weekly half-hour Space Patrol was being broadcast live on the ABC television network, where it ran until 1955, the newspaper reported. Kemmer was ideal for the heroic lead role of Corry, who policed the solar system as commander of the 30th-century battle cruiser Terra V.
But Kemmer was also a real-life hero, having been a World War II fighter pilot who spent 11 months in a German prisoner of war camp. After the war, he studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse on the GI Bill, the newspaper reported. After Space Patrol, Kemmer played villains in episodes of Perry Mason, Gunsmoke and Maverick. In the early 1960s, he played a Cape Canaveral flight engineer on the live soap opera Clear Horizons on CBS and eventually moved to New York in 1964 and spent the next 19 years as a regular on the soap operas The Edge of Night, As the World Turns, All My Children, Guiding Light and others, the newspaper reported.
Kemmer, who retired from acting in 1983, is survived by his wife of 35 years, former actress Fran Sharon, and three children: Jonathan, Todd and Kimberly.
Briefly Noted
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Mel Gibson's producing partner Bruce Davey told Variety that Gibson won't spend a dime on an Oscar ad campaign for his controversial film The Passion of the Christ.
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Warner Home Video will release Crusade: The Complete Series on DVD Dec. 7, featuring all 13 episodes of the J. Michael Straczynski Babylon 5 spinoff show in a four-disc collector's set with a suggested retail price of $59.98.
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Lucas Digital president Jim Morris is parting ways with George Lucas' Marin County studio after two decades of service, and when Morris departs at year's end, his position as head of Lucas' holding company will cease to exist, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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The Moviehole Web site reported a rumor that Welsh actor and Fantastic Four star Ioan Gruffudd is the front-runner to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in the venerable 007 film franchise.
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Fans who buy a DVD box set of Highlander, Xena: Warrior Princess or Hercules: The Legendary Journeys will get a free sword-shaped letter opener themed to the show in the "Grab the Adventure" promotion, which runs through Dec. 31, 2005.
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British actor Jude Law (Sky Captain, A.I.) was named this year's "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, the Reuters news service reported. The 31-year-old actor appears on the cover of People's Nov. 19 issue.
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Shrek writer Joe Stillman has been hired by Fox 2000 Pictures to adapt Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, based on the children's fantasy book of the same name by Rick Riordan, Variety reported. The movie centers on the demigod offspring of Poseidon, a 12-year-old boy who sets out on a quest in present-day America to rescue his mother, return Zeus' stolen lightning bolt and prevent a civil war from erupting among the gods.
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Navi Rawat will star in the Wes Craven-produced Project Greenlight monster movie Feast with Balthazar Getty, Krista Allen, Henry Rollins and Jason Mewes, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The horror film centers on a group of people locked in a bar who are forced to fight monsters.
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Power Rangers: Space Patrol Delta, the 13th incarnation of the kids' action-adventure franchise, has started production and will debut in February in the Jetix programming block shared by ABC Family and Toon Disney, Variety reported. Space Patrol Delta will introduce seven superheroes, one of whom, for the first time in the franchise's history, will be an alien life force.
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Farscape, which ran for 88 episodes on SCI FI Channel from 1999 to 2003, will air in syndication under a deal with Debmar Studios, which bought the domestic rights and is offering the series to TV stations for weekend play in fall 2005, Variety reported.
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Michael Goldenberg (Peter Pan) has come on board to write the next installment in the Harry Potter film series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which will be the first in the franchise not penned by Steve Kloves, Variety reported.
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Moviehole reported that director Brett Leonard (Man-Thing) has signed to direct the next installment in the Highlander film series, Highlander: The Source, rumored to be the story of four new charismatic Immortals as they quest to locate the Holy Grail of their world.
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Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence will be released on DVD Dec. 28 by DreamWorks Home Entertainment, with special features that include a commentary by director Mamoru Oshii and animation director Toshihiko Nishikubo and a behind-the-scenes program with the filmmakers and voice talent.
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The Polar Express set an opening-weekend record for a Hollywood film released in Imax Corp.'s giant-screen format, the Reuters news service reported. The computer-animated film grossed $2.1 million over the weekend in 59 North American Imax theaters, for a total of $3 million in receipts since its opening Nov. 10.
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The Official Halo 2 Guide sold 270,000 copies on its first day of sales Nov. 9, the same day the game launched with retail sales of more than $125 million, or more than 2 million units, the Reuters news service reported.
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Yahoo! Movies has posted production designs and a teaser trailer for the upcoming film version of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which opens May 6, 2005.
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Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman told fans on his official blog that his upcoming film Mirrormask "will definitely be going to the Sundance Film Festival in January, which means that [director] Dave McKean and I will be going there, too."
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