Greengrass Helming Watchmen
aul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) will direct Watchmen, a film adaptation of Alan Moore's classic superhero graphic novel, for Paramount Pictures, stepping in for Darren Aronofsky, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The news confirms a rumor reported last week on Ain't It Cool News.
David Hayter wrote the screenplay for Watchmen, which Paramount was eager to put into production. With Greengrass aboard, the project is now eyeing a possible 2006 release date, the trade paper reported.
Writer Moore and artist Dave Gibbon created the comic in 1986, and Aronofsky had been attached to direct, but bowed out because of scheduling conflicts. Aronofsky is shooting The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman, the trade paper reported.
Serenity Bumped To Fall
oss Whedon, writer and director of the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told the Whedonesque Web site that the film version of his canceled Fox TV show Firefly has been pushed back to Sept. 30, 2005, from its original April 22 opening date.
"See, sometimes studios shuffle around release dates," Whedon told fans on the site.
Whedon added, "So what happened? Well, nothing terribly original. April got crowded with a lot of titles aimed at a similar demographic, and the studio [Universal Pictures] decided September was a clearer corridor for the film to make the kind of impact it should. This isn't about a lack of confidence in the film. In fact, they told me this before they even saw it. And now they have seen it, and unless they're way better liars than I'm used to, they dug it. Actually, they dug it pretty large, which is a good sign, since there's not a single finished effect in the film. There's no reworking the end, no reshoots, no 'does it have to be in space?' It's just a marketing issue. Now you'll get to watch lots of trailers in the summer. And hopefully, by the time it comes out, other people, people who ain't us, will get a whiff of what we're up to and come along, too."
Serenity picks up the story of the ragtag crew of a transport ship 500 years in the future as they try to get by in the wake of a galactic civil war. "I love this movie," Whedon said. "I HATE waiting to show it [to] you. I felt pretty much the way I imagine you're feeling right now when they told me. But these guys know what they're doing, and they're trying to protect their investment, not bury it. So I gotta be a grownup. The release date is Sept. 30. Hopefully it won't change again." Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
X-Files 2 Still In Talks
he X-Files creator Chris Carter told SFX magazine that he's still trying to get a second movie based on his classic TV series off the ground.
"We are in negotiations right now," Carter told the magazine. "And because it's a sequel, there are peculiar and specific kinds of negotiations that are holding us up. I think that there's an appetite for it, but I think that it's got to be good. People won't just go and see anything. Whatever happens, I'm going to do something good that people will want to go and see regardless."
As for the sequel film's storyline, Carter said, "Not a mythology one, for sure!"
Dahl Lit Sparks Film, TV
ith 2005's film adaptation of his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the year is shaping up as the year of Roald Dahl, the British children's author, Variety reported.
Several films based on his books are speeding toward production, involving talent as diverse as Wes Anderson, Henry Selick, Robert Altman and John Cleese, the trade paper reported.
Mark Mylod is attached to direct The Twits, based on Dahl's tale about a vile couple and their unhappy band of performing animals, which Shrek producer John Williams is developing under his Disney deal. Cleese has co-written the script with a view to star in the movie, which will blend live action and animation, the trade paper reported.
Anderson and Selick (who directed the 1996 movie of Dahl's James and the Giant Peach) are collaborating on a stop-motion version of Fantastic Mr. Fox for Revolution Studios and Sony, about the feud between the chicken thief and three villainous farmers, the trade paper reported.
Producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall are developing The B.F.G. (short for Big Friendly Giant) at Paramount, with a script by Ed Solomon (Men in Black).
Altman's long-held desire to adapt some of Dahl's macabre adult short stories into a TV series is edging closer to fruition. The project was put into turnaround at HBO, but is now sparking interest among British broadcasters, the trade paper reported. Altman will produce all six episodes and is apparently keen to direct three himself. Dahl's stories were previously made for ITV in the late 1970s as Tales of the Unexpected, the trade paper reported.
Transformers Movie Hinted
ohn Rogers, who wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Transformers movie, told IGN FilmForce that the big-screen adaptation will be a "big-scale movie."
"Ordinary humans who discover the robots, scientists who tinker with That What Must Not Be Tinkered With, and cool soldier types teaming up with our new Autobot friends," Rogers told the site. "The name 'Witwicky' will be spoken. Even now, I say too much."
Transformers is based on the popular line of toys, comics and cartoons. "I was a big fan as a kid," Rogers said. "It was one of those tricks of age that once I grew out of it as a toy, I kind of assumed it no longer existed. It was a bit of a shock to find out they're still such major cultural icons. My new hobby is collecting ads from around the world starring cars transforming into funky robots. It's amazing how many there are. From a writing standpoint, what drew me to it was the chance to write widescreen fights on a scale not often done in Hollywood, and also cool human characters faced with such bizarre revelations." The Transformers is slated for release in the summer of 2006.
Lemony Goes Pop-Gothic
ulia Pistor, executive producer of the upcoming fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, told SCI FI Wire that the movie stays true to the darkly comic tone of Daniel Handler's best-selling books.
"I think it's more pop-gothic than dark, because it's funny," Pistor said in an interview. "Someone wrote that it's a gothic left-of-center fantasy. That's really what the books are, and that's really what we've delivered with the film."
In Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire children go to live with their greedy relative, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), after their parents die in a mysterious fire. Pistor said the books appeal to kids and adults, because they don't pander to the audience and they champion the child characters as heroes. "The 'series of unfortunate events' in the books is that in every book, these orphans are sent to a different guardian, which is just ridiculous, because the Baudelaires are so smart, and every adult around them is just an idiot," Pistor said. "They get sent to a guardian who says, 'You will be working in my mill!' And then Count Olaf shows up in disguise, and the orphans are like, 'That's Count Olaf!' And all of the adults are like, 'What are you talking about?' It's universal. Don't we all feel like everybody else is an idiot, and we're the only ones who see what's going on?"
Pistor added that Lemony Snicket treads the line between dark and darkly comic. "I don't even like using the word dark, because it makes fun of all of those Grimm's fairy tales, if you think about it," she said. "Cinderella is forced to sit in ashes all day, and the Baudelaire children are forced to eat gum for, like, three weeks. It's dark, but that's pretty silly. It's very witty and irreverent, and I think it taps into a universal theme. But it's fresh, and it's not afraid to be gothic." Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events opens Dec. 17.
Downey Barks Up Dog
alt Disney Pictures has set Robert Downey Jr. to join Tim Allen in its upcoming remake of 1959's The Shaggy Dog, Variety reported.
Brian Robbins will direct the comic remake, about a man who occasionally changes into a sheepdog, the trade paper reported.
Downey will play a yuppie entrepreneur who is using dogs to experiment with the miracle drug he hopes will give seven years to every human year. Danny Glover (SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Legend of Earthsea) and Kristin Davis also star, the trade paper reported.
Filming began Nov. 15, and Downey took the role partly because it will shoot in Los Angeles and give him time to promote the release of his album of original songs, The Futurist, the trade paper reported. Downey begins work right after Thanksgiving. He just completed the Richard Linklater-directed A Scanner Darkly, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick.
Imax, Fox To Jointly Open Robots
max and 20th Century Fox have reached a deal to release the computer-animated movie Robots in both Imax and conventional theaters simultaneously on March 11, 2005, Variety reported.
Robots is the first so-called "day-and-date" Imax release to open during the spring, marking a change to a year-round release strategy for the Canadian large-screen exhibitor, the trade paper reported. In the past, Imax movies opened only during the summer and holiday seasons, the trade paper reported.
Robots reteams Academy Award-winning animation director Chris Wedge (Ice Age) with Fox. Robots is voiced by Ewan McGregor, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Greg Kinnear, Drew Carey, Jim Broadbent, Amanda Bynes and Robin Williams, the trade paper reported.
War Speeds Into Production
teven Spielberg will make his upcoming H.G. Wells adaptation War of the Worlds in a breathtaking eight months, from the start of filming Nov. 7 to the June 29, 2005, release date, Variety reported.
Shooting in New York and New Jersey, the director will film the movie's big action sequences first, to give Industrial Light & Magic time to complete the estimated 500 visual-effects shots, the trade paper reported. Principal photography will take 75 days.
In the first weeks of shooting, production included action sequences with alien forces bombing streets, ripping up sidewalks and blasting apart buildings in industrial-type areas, the trade paper reported. By the second week of filming, sequences were already being shipped to ILM, and by the time production wraps, ILM will either have finished or be working on at least half the effects shots, the trade paper reported. Tom Cruise stars in the update of Wells' classic Martian-invasion story.
Grudge DVD Due Soon
he Grudge, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, will be released Feb. 1, 2005, on DVD and will include a featurette that asks why people seek out fear at the movies, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Michael Gillis said he sought the answer from author and New York University professor Joseph LeDoux, who has spent more than 30 years researching fear, the trade paper reported.
After interviewing LeDoux and vast numbers of moviegoers, Gillis came to one conclusion. "What it all really boils down to is that we go to the movie theater to be afraid, because it is only there in the dark where we can face our worst fears, seemingly alone, yet knowing that we're really safe all together in the same place," Gillis told the trade paper.
The Sony Pictures horror film, directed by Takashi Shimizu, has generated about $104 million at the North American box office, having cost less than $10 million to make. It is based on a Japanese film series, also directed by Shimuzu.
The Grudge DVD also includes a 55-minute, five-part making-of documentary, which includes segments titled "The Birth of The Grudge," "Myth of Ju-on," "Culture Shock: The American Cast in Japan," "Designing the Grudge House," "A New Direction" and "Understanding Takashi Shimizu," the trade paper reported.
Half-Life 2 Pirates Busted
ame developer Valve has suspended the online accounts of nearly 20,000 people who tried to access the online Half-Life 2 site without paying for it, the GameSpot Web site reported.
Valve announced the suspension on the forums of Steam, Valve's download service, the site reported.
The offenders have had their Steam accounts suspended indefinitely. Valve also warned that "accounts also may be closed due to fraudulent activity in an attempt to obtain additional products for your Steam account. This includes credit card fraud, theft of accounts you do not own and using cracked versions of Valve games."
Last week, rumors circulated that Valve had released a fake key to Half-Life 2 to various "warez" sites in order to trap game pirates. But Valve denied that it created a special version of Half-Life 2 to bust pirates. "Valve did not put out any kind of fake key or fake warez or hack instructions to trap people," read the statement. "The hack came from the 'community,' as do they all."
Toons Top Fall Box Office
hark Tale and The Incredibles were the top-grossing films of the fall box-office season, taking in more than $150 million each, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Shark Tale was the season's biggest film, netting $157.9 million in U.S.-Canadian box office, followed by The Incredibles, with $151 million, the trade paper reported.
The Grudge came in third place, with $100.6 million. It's only the second time that three films have surpassed the $100 million level during the fall, the trade paper reported.
The Forgotten took fifth place, with $66.6 million, and Resident Evil 2 placed eighth, taking in $50.7 million.
Silverman Joins Angel
onathan Silverman has joined the cast of the remake of the 1946 fantasy classic film Angel on My Shoulder for New York-based THEME Entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Silverman will play Al, a wisecracking assistant to a do-gooder Manhattan judge.
The original film starred Paul Muni, Anne Baxter and Claude Rains in a story about a gangster who dies, goes to hell and is sent back to Earth. Tim McCann helms the project, and Todd Baker will write the script and produce, the trade paper reported.
Whisper Gets Heard
old Circle Films, H2F Entertainment and Deacon Entertainment are teaming to produce the supernatural thriller Whisper, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Gold Circle is fully financing the project.
Scripted by producer-turned-writer Chris Borrelli, the New England-set story revolves around the kidnapping of a young boy by a former convict and three friends. After a series of unexplained events, they begin to realize that the child is less innocent than he seems, the trade paper reported.
The producers are Gold Circle president Paul Brooks and production executive Zak Kadison, H2F partner Walter Hamada and Deacon head Damon Lee. Executive producing are Gold Circle chief financial officer Scott Niemeyer and chairman of the board Norm Waitt and H2F partner Chris Fenton.
Tolkien's House Protected
ord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien's eight-bedroom house in Oxford, England, has been given protected status, Zap2it reported.
The residence at 20 Northmoor Road, where Tolkien wrote the beloved fantasy books, has earned a Grade II listing, which means that any future alterations will have to respect the character of the building, and its preservation must be taken into account in any redevelopment, Britain's Heritage Minister, Andrew McIntosh, announced Nov. 23.
"Buildings are usually listed because of their fine architecture or unique design," McIntosh said in a statement. "But we can also give protection to buildings that have historical association with nationally important people or events. Professor Tolkien's house in Oxford is a fine example of this."
Local architect Fred Openshaw built the house in 1924 for bookshop owner Basil Blackwell. Tolkien had initially lived at 22 Northmoor Road, but later moved his family to the now-protected abode next door in 1930, the site reported. The Tolkiens lived in the brick property, which was built for the county's leading academics at the time, until 1947.
SESFA Winners Named
inners were announced for the Southeastern Science Fiction Achievement Award, an annual award that honors accomplishment in science fiction, fantasy or horror by people born or living in the southeastern United States.
The Web magazine scifidimensions sponsors the prize. A list of winners follows.
Lifetime Achievement
•Joe Haldeman
Best Novel
•Hyperthought by M.M. Buckner
Best Short Fiction
•"The Door Gunner" by Michael Bishop
Advent Shadow Comes To PSP
ajesco announced the development of Advent Shadow, its first title for the upcoming PSP hand-held gaming device.
Written and directed by the creators of the Advent Trilogy and developed by Full Fat, Advent Shadow is a new game designed exclusively for the PSP system and scheduled for release in 2005.
Advent Shadow tells the story of Marin Steel, a mercenary pilot who finds herself caught up in a planetary invasion led by monstrous aliens bent on human genocide. In her efforts to escape a dying world, she encounters Gideon Wyeth, the protagonist of Advent Rising, and together they struggle against the forces bent on the destruction of humanity.
Kennedy Conquers Mask F/X
amie Kennedy, star of the upcoming sequel Son of the Mask, told SCI FI Wire that the movie featured more special-effects work than any of his previous films.
"It was way more than anything I've been involved in," Kennedy said in an interview. "There are so many different effects you have no idea what you're doing or what you're running from. You have to hit so many different marks and make sure that you react to the [nonexistent] thing that you have to trust that it will work."
In the follow-up to 1994's zany The Mask, Kennedy plays a struggling cartoonist who inadvertently imbues his infant son with the powers of Loki's mask. He said that working with a baby provided some unique challenges. "Sometimes they had the real baby, and they would just tweak his face a little bit with CGI, and then there are other times when they just created a totally fake baby," he said. "Literally on my first day, I was doing a scene with the real baby, and then in the middle of the scene, they would take the baby out of the scene, and they would say, 'We can't finish this scene today.'"
Kennedy also said that alternating between real and computer-generated sequences created continuity problems for the actors. "It was hard in the sense that there was no continuity," he said. "You might shoot a scene on Monday and then not be able to finish it until Thursday. So Tuesday and Wednesday you will be shooting something else. You would shoot many different scenes at once and get little pieces of them at a time, because they were so effects-based." Son of the Mask opens Feb. 18, 2005.
Briefly Noted
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The official Web site for the upcoming film adaptation Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events has been updated with new content including "an alarming tour of the villain's home, an upsetting game which forces users to become ruthless scoundrels, and downloadable desktop wallpaper that will make your computer unspeakably ugly.
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Director Hayao Miyazaki's (Spirited Away) new animated fantasy film, Howl's Moving Castle, holds the record for the biggest box-office debut in Japan since 2003's Bayside Shakedown 2, Reuters reported.
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Tim Allen (Galaxy Quest, The Santa Clause) received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Nov. 19 in Los Angeles, the Associated Press reported.
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"The Forge," the first episode of Star Trek: Enterprise's three-segment Vulcan story arc, scored only lukewarm ratings in its Nov. 19 airing, with a 1.9 rating, compared with 2.1 for the previous week's episode, "The Augments," on UPN, Zap2it.com reported.
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