Babylon 5 Movie Gears Up?
roduction Weekly reported that a feature film set in J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 universe will begin production in April in the United Kingdom.
Straczynski wrote the film, The Memory of Shadows, which will be directed by Steven Beck (Ghost Ship), the publication reported.
In Shadows, the technology of the ancient and extinct Shadow race is being unleashed upon the galaxy by an unknown force, and Earthforce intelligence officer Diane Baker, whose brother was recently killed in a mysterious explosion, sets out to find out who is behind the conspiracy, Production Weekly reported. Joining her is Galen, a techno-mage who has been charged with keeping the technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it.
Who Teaser Goes Live
he BBC has posted a teaser trailer for its upcoming new Doctor Who TV series, which premieres next year.
Christopher Eccleston will play the new Doctor, alongside Billie Piper as the Doctor's companion, Rose Tyler.
The Doctor and Rose will come face to face with a number of new monsters, as well as battling with the Doctor's archenemy, the Daleks, BBC reported. Filming in Cardiff, U.K., until 2005 for BBC One, Doctor Who is written by Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell and Robert Shearman.
Flux Challenged Theron
harlize Theron, who plays the title character in the upcoming SF action movie Aeon Flux, told SCI FI Wire that the film challenges her in ways both physical and mental.
"It's all pretty challenging, it really is," Theron said in an interview during a break in filming on the set in Berlin. "I mean, yeah, physically very challenging. Sometimes—although I really have to give [director] Karyn [Kusama] a lot of credit, she tries to stay away from green screen—but that stuff's always challenging. Weather's been very challenging, in my layered outfit," she added, referring with tongue in cheek to her character's skimpy black catsuit.
In Aeon Flux, which is based on the MTV animated series, Theron plays a female warrior 400 years in the future, who leads a rebellion against an oppressive government in a city-state ruled by scientists. SCI FI Wire spoke with her last week during a visit to the movie's set at Germany's famed Babelsberg Studios outside the German capital city. Theron performs several stunts—she injured her neck during a rehearsal in August, bringing the production to a halt for several weeks before she recovered enough to return to finish the movie. She must also balance a love story and human drama with SF action.
"The work has been challenging, but good, you know?" Theron said. "It's really interesting to take something that's loosely based on something that's quite familiar and, I think, quite known for not really having a linear story, and to try and put it into a linear story. .... [I] just struggle just because I do find myself constantly going, 'So, what are we doing?'"
But Theron added that she seeks out roles that keep her interested. "I have ADD," she joked. "And so for me to go and really dedicate myself to something for a period of time, it's very important for me ... to like it, like the people that I work with, want to work with the people that I'm working with," she said. "At the end of the day, I've no idea if this is going to be a success. So at least I know that, no matter what happens to this, I ... made my decisions based on something that was really satisfying to me. And, you know, that's I think the best gauge you can go with. If it's satisfying to me, I believe it will be satsifying to [everyone]. ... I like to make movies that I want to go and see. So I'm hoping that that's what we're doing. I think I really believe that's what we're doing." Aeon Flux is currently shooting, with an eye to a 2005 release.
Helmer Loved Flux Instinct
aryn Kusama, the director of the upcoming SF adventure film Aeon Flux, told SCI FI Wire that she was attracted to the movie because of its strong central character: a woman warrior 400 years in the future who leads a rebellion against an oppressive government.
"Aeon Flux is such an interesting kind of flawed and ambiguous heroine in that she behaves sort of irrationally at times, or she behaves sort of from a place of just sort of instinct or animus," Kusama (Girlfight) said in an interview during a break in filming on the movie's set in Berlin. "And I think that's really interesting."
SCI FI Wire visited the set of Aeon Flux at Germany's famed Babelsberg Studios last week and spoke with Kusama and the cast. Kusama added that she's a longtime science fiction fan. "I've always actually loved science fiction, and my interest in Girlfight was an interest in trying out a social-realist kind of movie within a contemporary setting," she said. "I think all movies end up being a kind of a form of experiment in that you're always trying to do something new, for yourself and hopefully for the genre. So I thought there was something in Aeon Flux that was particularly fresh and had the opportunity also to be really, really beautiful: ... visually beautiful and sort of bracing to look at and to interpret on a narrative level. I feel like that's something that's sort of missing from a lot of sci fi recently. It's sort of become so much about a kind of gray, dark apocalypse. And we have the opportunity to tell a story that's quite a bit brighter on the outside and perhaps even darker on the inside."
Aeon Flux is based on Peter Chung's animated TV series for MTV and stars Charlize Theron in the title role, fresh off her Oscar win for the serial-killer movie Monster. "For me what's interesting is that ... in Monster she could play someone who had a tremendous amount of pride and humiliation and violence and tenderness in herself at the same time," Kusama said of Theron. "And I found it to be her most committed and honest performance I think that I'd ever seen. And that commitment to ambiguity, to some degree, is why I think she's perfect for this role. That she can sort of play with the gray area and not be always on this straight trajectory is part of what ... I hope ... interests her about the character, and I know it interests me about the character." Aeon Flux is in production with an eye to a 2005 release.
Alias Wants Rossellini Back
sabella Rossellini told SCI FI Wire that she's been asked to reprise her role as Katya on ABC's spy drama Alias, which kicks off a fourth season in January.
"They called me the other day to see if I was available in January, so I hope they'll make me kill someone else soon," Rossellini said in an interview. "I did say that I was available, so hopefully [it will work out]."
Rossellini guest-starred three times last season as Katya, the sister of Irina Derevko (Lena Olin). In her first episode, "Crossings," Katya informed Jack (Victor Garber) that Sydney (Jennifer Garner) was still alive, and offered to do everything in her power to save Sydney, so long as Jack agreed to kill Sloane (Ron Rifkin). Later, Katya tried to kill Sydney and made romantic advances toward Jack.
"My character is pretty mysterious, and we're all very devious," Rossellini said. "So the moment you think you get your character—'I'm bad at this, but good at that'—uh-uh. The next script arrives, and you're betraying [someone]. We're meaner than the public can even imagine."
Rossellini added that playing so mysterious and devious a character wasn't unusual or difficult, as she's played dark characters before. But she said that perpetrating Katya's brand of violence did not come easily. "I had to take my chopsticks and put them [through] somebody's hands," Rossellini said, referring to a scene in "Crossings." "There were all these special effects, and I wasn't hurting the person, but even just doing it I flinched a little bit. So the director said to me, 'Isabella, you have the accent. If you get the violence, you can be governor. So go. Go for it.' They're a great bunch of people. [Executive producer] J.J. Abrams and Jennifer Garner, they're so great. It's fun to be with them." Alias begins its new season with a two-hour premiere on Jan. 5 and moves to a new timeslot, Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following Abrams' other hit series, Lost.
Rossellini Gets Earthsea Sick
sabella Rossellini, who co-stars as high priestess Thar in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Legend of Earthsea, told SCI FI Wire it was tough to play a character who spends much of the story quite ill.
"I'm being poisoned, and I don't know that I'm being poisoned," Rossellini said in an interview. "You know what was hard? It was hard to play the degree of my poisoning, because at a certain point I'm not poisoned, and I get a little bit well."
Rossellini added, "So, in my script, I had like a thermometer so that I could play the degree of sickness, not only makeup-wise, but also physically. We were [shooting] in such a different order, and it was hard to just remember how much to die, how much to limp and when to speak with a voice like that [sounding sickly]."
Legend of Earthsea stars Rossellini, Shawn Ashmore (X-Men) and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) in a story about a young wizard who accidentally unleashes a dark force that threatens his world, Earthsea.
Rossellini said that she's nothing at all like Thar. "I wish," Rossellini said. "My character in Legend of Earthsea is sort of this old, wise and fantastic woman. So that's what I'm aiming at [in real life]." The four-hour miniseries premieres Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Ashmore Takes Lead In Earthsea
hawn Ashmore told SCI FI Wire that playing the lead role in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Legend of Earthsea meant a dramatic change in his responsibilities.
"The entire time we were shooting [Legend of Earthsea], I think I only had three days off," the 25-year-old Ashmore (X-Men) said in an interview. "Looking at that schedule made me realize it was my time to step up."
Ashmore heads the Legend of Earthsea cast, portraying the wizard-in-training Ged and sharing the screen with Kristin Kreuk as Tenar, Isabella Rossellini as Thar and Danny Glover as Ged's mentor, Ogion. Ashmore said that cast and crew shot Legend of Earthsea in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, over the course of three months. The miniseries is based on the best-selling Earthsea books by SF author Ursula K. Le Guin.
"It was relatively quick for a four-hour miniseries," Ashmore said. "It was a nice schedule, because sometimes it's good to not have a chance to stop and catch your breath. This was definitely the most challenging project I'd been on, because we were all over. It was a completely different shooting schedule than X2. That was six months doing a two-hour movie. We filmed both in Vancouver. So that was a coincidence. I was a lot busier on Legend of Earthsea."
Ashmore recalled that he was very nervous on his first day of principal photography. "I had done all the costume and makeup [fittings and tests] already, so I knew what I was going to look like," he said. "I realized that we were creating this world from someone else's work. I had felt that before with X-Men, but to a lesser degree. We were filming in a tavern, and there was fake rain and all the people in costume. I was just shocked, because it was so real. It was an old bar, so it smelled like earth. It felt good once it was done, but the first day was nerve-wracking." Earthsea premieres Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Ashmore Conjures Earthsea Magic
hawn Ashmore told SCI FI Wire that he's a lifelong SF&F fan, but admitted that he was unfamiliar with Ursula K. Le Guin's work until approached by SCI FI Channel to star in Legend of Earthsea, the network's upcoming original four-hour miniseries based on her books.
"I read the script and really liked it," Ashmore said in an interview. "Then I got the books A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, read them and totally fell in love with the character. I decided it was something I wanted to be a part of."
Ashmore (X-Men) plays Ged, the central character in Legend of Earthsea. Ged is a young man destined for greatness as a powerful wizard, but that destiny is put to the test when he accidentally unleashes a dark force that threatens his world, Earthsea.
"I think it's the classic coming-of-age story," Ashmore said. "I'm 25, so I've already gone through what my character, Ged, goes through on a general scale, because I haven't studied at a wizard's school. It's a young man coming of age and dealing with the consequences we all have to deal with. I really liked Ged's dark side. He's a young man who is strong-headed, growing up in the middle of nowhere, and [who] feels destined for something else. I liked his drive and the fact that a lot of the bad things that happen to him he brought on himself. So it's him taking responsibility for his own actions. It was an interesting way to deal with someone growing up and becoming whole." Legend of Earthsea premieres Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Iceman: X-Men 3 On Ice?
hawn Ashmore, who played Bobby "Iceman" Drake in the X-Men movies, told SCI FI Wire that he's contractually obligated to reprise his role in a third film, but doesn't know the status of the sequel.
The sequel went into limbo when X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer dropped out to helm Superman Returns. "I'm signed to do the film," Ashmore confirmed in an interview while promoting his latest project, SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Legend of Earthsea. "But I have no idea what the script is like or who the director will be."
Whenever a third X-Men movie comes together, Ashmore said he hopes that the film will expand on the growing rivalry between Drake and John "Pyro" Allerdyce (Aaron Stanford). "I think that's a great opportunity for the two elements," Ashmore said. "Also, I like the relationship with Rogue [Anna Paquin]. I think it's not a typical teenage love story, because there is so much against them. They are in a relationship that they can't rush, so the tension there is a lot of fun."
Ashmore also had thoughts about Singer's decision to leave. "I think it's difficult, because he really crafted the first two films," he said. "It will be difficult to lose someone that had such a huge influence on the movies. [But] I also think it will be interesting to get some new blood in, [someone] with a different vision, as long as they stay true to the original comics. I don't think they should jump too far from Bryan's films, because people will think it's weird if they [make a new film that's] totally different from the first two. Bryan definitely set up a great franchise."
Kreuk Likes Smallville Changes
ristin Kreuk, who plays Lana Lang in The WB's Superman series Smallville, told SCI FI Wire that the show is entirely different this season and that her character has undergone changes as well.
"That's actually quite fun for me," Kreuk said in an interview while promoting her latest project, SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Legend of Earthsea. "I enjoying changing it up."
Among other things, Kreuk's Lana has developed a new relationship with Jason Teague (Jensen Ackles), a storyline that will continue to develop. "The show has evolved a lot," Kreuk said. "They were going darker last year, which I actually thought was quite interesting, going more adult and a little darker. But it wasn't appealing to the same audience anymore. So they brought it back to being more youth-oriented, and there's more sex, and I think the storylines are starting to shift again. There were a lot of shuffles in The WB itself this year, so powers were kind of shifting, and I think the direction of the show got confused. But now it's coming together, and all these really great storylines that we have are being fleshed out a little more."
Kreuk declined to discuss details. "I'm just going to be selfish about this, because I really only know where I'm going, mostly," Kreuk said. "But we've got the storyline with Lana's tattoo. Jane Seymour has come onto the show to play Jason's mother. Jane's character is quite evil and complex, and Lana has dreamt of her in her past, from when she was a witch. It's all convoluted, but they're going to flesh out that storyline and see how it connects to the mythology and to Superman and to these crystals. And that will eventually lead to ... well, that's the secret." Smallville airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT Wednesdays. The four-hour Legend of Earthsea premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Dec. 13.
Superman Bigger Than X2
an Harris, one of the writers of Bryan Singer's upcoming Superman Returns movie, told SCI FI Wire that the film promises to be larger in scope than director Singer's last movie, the X-Men sequel X2, which Harris also co-wrote.
"I thought that [X2] was a big movie, but this scope is another step bigger," Harris said in an interview. "It's [being shot on] a permanent backlot. It will be like a permanent New York City-slash-Metropolis."
Harris is co-writing the newest Superman movie with Michael Dougherty and Singer and has relocated to Australia for preproduction. The movie stars relative newcomer Brandon Routh as Clark Kent/Superman. Harris said that the film is scheduled to begin shooting in Australia as soon as March. "We're shooting in March, but we're there this early because it's such a big build," he said, referring to the time needed to construct the movie's massive sets. "They are building a portion of Metropolis, like a major backlot that's amazing. It's, like, three intersecting city blocks, and everything is four stories tall."
Harris added that Singer insisted on his participation in the early development of the film. "Bryan Singer works with writers all the time, start to finish through post-production," Harris said. "Because they built so much art-department stuff [in Australia], the art department has to be there, and because [Bryan] has to be there, we have to be there." Superman Returns is eyeing a 2006 release.
Superman Moves Forward
an Harris, writer of the upcoming fifth Superman movie, told SCI FI Wire that the movie will stand apart from the previous four installments in the durable superhero franchise.
"We're not operating on the same playing field," Harris said in an interview. "We didn't each pitch our stories to the same person, you know? It's like, the Superman vision that's out there for our movie is a combination of me, [co-writer] Mike [Dougherty] and Bryan [Singer, the director]."
Harris said that Singer (X-Men and X2) aggressively supported his script for the film, but encouraged collaboration from the screenwriters once it was accepted. "Bryan's really the champion here," Harris said. "Bryan decided, 'This is the story that I want to tell, and I believe in this story totally.' So we'll take it out and see if we can move it forward. It's really a group effort."
Harris also said that he is still changing many elements of the film before shooting begins next spring. "We don't start until March, but we're on our third draft," Harris said. "Right now we've done the requisite first draft, and then we chopped off 10 to 15 pages, [because] it's too expensive. But it's being molded and shifted, and it's coming along really quickly. So any work that we're doing now, by the next chapter, it's going to turn into really minor tweaking and just getting in there and making scenes better."
Harris said his Superman experience differed from his previous work on X-Men in that there have been significantly fewer changes. "On X-Men, we did about 28 drafts, and halfway through those 28 drafts we were still rewriting the whole movie every time," Harris said. "It was still major shifts in story. Not this time around. This time around it's pretty much there."
Singer Still Runs For Logan
an Harris, writer of the upcoming SF movie remake Logan's Run, confirmed for SCI FI Wire that
director Bryan Singer is still planning on helming the film after he completes work on Superman, despite speculation to the contrary.
"Yeah. Well, Bryan's redoing Logan's Run, so that's another project of his that he's going to do after Superman," Harris said in an interview. "We're already done our work on Logan's Run. We turned in a first draft of that, and then we're going to get back in and start reworking that when Superman comes to a point where it's moving ahead without any troubles at all. Then we'll come on Logan's Run and do all that in Sydney."
The new Logan's Run will combine elements from both the 1976 film and the original book by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, Harris said. "[The script] takes the original and melds it with a reimagining of the book," he said. "It kind of takes it into a third big idea and puts it in a place that you've never seen before and tries something new."
The original Logan's Run movie dealt with a future society in which citizens were killed upon reaching the age of 30 (in the book, it was 21). Harris said that the update places the original ideas in a new fictional context. "It's not rooted in the real world," Harris said. "It's completely science fiction, and its core takes place somewhere else. I don't think we dive into the anti-aging of it quite as much, because it's more about the mechanics of the world, the mechanics of forced suicide. It becomes less thematically about that and more about the science fiction of it."
Harris added that the script is only in the beginning stages of development. But he said he was excited to remake a movie that has not aged well itself. "We'll figure everything out when we see the movie," he said. "But we've developed a new world and its morals. Maybe the original pushed a little further, [but] the cool thing is everybody nowadays is remaking all these great movies. Why not remake some movies that weren't so great that could be great?"
Sin City Is Faithful
live Owen, who stars in the upcoming comic-book film Sin City, told SCI FI Wire that writer-director Robert Rodriguez has remained faithful to Frank Miller's original graphic novel, right down to its look.
Owen plays Dwight in a sequence entitled "The Big, Fat Kill." Rodriguez is "doing this strip, cartoon, picture-book, Frank-Miller thing, and he's been so faithful," Owen said in an interview. "He re-creates image by image by image. To us, it was very weird. We were just standing in [front of] a sort of green screen every day, and everything else will be added. It was an extraordinary experience."
As in his previous films, Rodriguez is handling many of the film's tasks by himself, Owen said. "It was extraordinary," he said. "It was Robert Rodriguez, who is like a Renaissance man, really. He does absolutely everything. He shoots. He edits. He operates [the camera]. He lights. He composes the music. He's the most amazing cook."
Owen said that Rodriguez, who shoots his films in and around his hometown of Austin, Texas, was an unusual collaborator. "He's a complete one-off," Owen said. "I've never met anyone quite like him, but my most overwhelming memory is how hugely impressive the whole thing he's got going down there in Texas is." Sin City opens April 1, 2005.
Jackson Unveils King Kong
ing Kong director Peter Jackson took the wraps off some of the models and sketches he's using for the giant-ape movie and spoke passionately about his motivation for remaking the classic at the CineAsia movie convention in Bangkok, Thailand, Variety reported.
"It's not a love story; it's a story about love," Jackson told the convention. Jackson is shooting King Kong at his studios in Wellington, New Zealand.
Jackson aims to portray the 25-foot gorilla as an "absolutely believable creature" who bears the scars of many battles, the trade paper reported. As for the romantic angle, Jackson said he will show King Kong as a brutal creature who for the first time in his life feels empathy for another creature (the character played by Naomi Watts).
Promising to use the full array of special effects created by his Weta digital workshop, Jackson said, "We will play on the similarities between the jungle of the New York skyscrapers and the jungle where King Kong lives."
Browning Related To Lemony
mily Browning, who plays Violet in the upcoming fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, told SCI FI Wire that she isn't as resourceful as her character, a brilliant inventor.
"I'm not good with making things like Violet is," Browning said in an interview. "I'm not good at technology and that sort of thing. I'm probably more of a reader, like [Violet's brother] Klaus."
Based on the series of best-selling books by Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket tells the story of the orphaned Baudelaire children, who move in with the villainous Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) after their parents die in a mysterious fire. The Australian-born Browning, who just turned 16, said she enjoyed working on a film that accurately depicts children's feelings. "I'm sure some kids, including me, are really getting sick of having kids' movies where the kids are so cheesy and really up and happy all the time," Browning said. "That's what's kind of cool about this film. It has the moral, I guess, of kids being able to stick together and overcome all this, but you know that more bad stuff is going to happen."
Browning added that she didn't mind that the story had a moral, because the filmmakers told it from a kid's perspective. "Even though these kids are going to suffer pretty much their whole lives, they're going to be OK," she said. "You know that through all this terrible stuff happening they're going to be OK, because they're really tough. But I think it's great, because it shows kids and they have no adult allies. The adults are either horrible to them, or they're just not listening to them. These kids are completely alone, and I think it's good for kids to see other kids being able to deal with things by themselves." Lemony Snicket opens nationwide Dec. 17.
Carrey: Lemony Not Too Dark
im Carrey, who stars in the upcoming family fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, told SCI FI Wire that he doesn't think the grim tale is too dark for children.
"I loved creepy fun when I was a kid," Carrey told reporters in a news conference. "It depends. I wouldn't bring your 4-year-old, maybe, but I think it is more than entertainment. It is entertaining, and it's funny, but at the same time—as the books did, I hope the movie does as well—it taps into something that's going on with young kids and teenagers, where even though we have two parents, sometimes, they're busy. And we all feel like we're on our own in the world. The kids do."
Based on the series of best-selling children's books by Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket tells the story of the orphaned Baudelaire children, whose parents perish in a mysterious fire. A relative, the evil Count Olaf (Carrey), takes the children in, but only long enough to try to kill them and claim their inheritance. The film, like the books, features children in peril, as well as several unpleasant situations and deaths.
"There's a moment where Count Olaf slaps one of the kids, and there was a controversy over whether to have that in the movie or not," Carrey said. "And I said, 'You know what? Bambi dies, dudes. Bambi dies.' In most really great ... movies that connect with people, there's some kind of tragedy involved and some kind of pain involved, and there's a strange kind of balance that we're striking here. I'm not sure if it's been done this way before. Although I want to be entertaining, the bottom line is Olaf is a f--ker. ... OK, for the kids' version, Olaf is not a nice person. I think he has to be that way. I said to them early on, I want him to laugh, but at the same time, the danger has to be real, or we have nothing. The movie is meaningless without real danger." Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events opens Dec. 17.
Carrey Saw Dad In Lemony
im Carrey—who plays the evil uncle, Count Olaf, in the upcoming fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events—told SCI FI Wire that he saw similarities with one of his own close relatives: his father.
"The weird thing is that Olaf turned out looking a lot like my dad, which is really frightening to me," Carrey said in a news conference to promote the movie, based on Daniel Handler's hit series of children's books. "I usually try to put a little bit of a dad-ism in my roles, so it's a kind of a wink to my family when they see my movies. But they saw the advanced pictures of this film, and they went, 'Dude, OK, now you're starting to scare us.' Because it really is like my dad."
In Snicket, Carrey plays the greedy uncle of the orphaned Baudelaire children, who seeks to adopt them so he can get his hands on their inheritance. Carrey looked to other inspirations for the character, who is also a bad actor and the leader of a scary theatrical troupe.
"I thought of a slightly less human inspiration for this role, really," Carrey said. "He was a kind of a smart bird, ... a kind of predatory bird. He was the kind of bird that waits for you to leave the nest and then steals the eggs. And of course I have much experience with actors and acting classes and how that can turn into Jesus and the disciples in moments. ... A lot of acting teachers kind of want that relationship, a type of guru thing. So, you know, Olaf is a bad leader. He's a bad leader. He's completely selfish, and if he's being nice to you, it's because you have something he wants. He's just a fun character to play. Not to mention, it's the most dangerous kind of character to play: ... an actor losing his hair. Responsible for many of the atrocities in the last century." Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events opens Dec. 17.
Butler Ignored Phantom Pressures
erard Butler, who stars in Joel Schumacher's upcoming big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical The Phantom of the Opera, told SCI FI that he chose to ignore the inevitable comparisons to previous versions of the show and earlier interpretations of the central character.
"You just focus on your performance and block out everything else," Butler said in an interview. "It's not that you don't feel the pressure at times; you do, but you have to use it to prove people wrong."
Butler steps into a role played onstage by dozens of leading men, including, most famously, Michael Crawford, who at one point was considered for the role in the long-in-development movie. Butler also uses his own voice in the all-singing role, a first for him in a movie.
Butler, whose credits include Timeline and Dracula 2000, added, "You adapt to everything else, working with Joel, mixing with the other actors. I was never doing Phantom for anyone else other than Joel, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the cast. If you think about anything else it just gets you in knots. Having played iconic figures before, people like Attila or Dracula or Beowulf, who I've just played, or the Phantom, I think you can only do what is physically possible." The Phantom of the Opera opens in limited release on Dec. 22 before haunting additional theaters in early 2005.
Film Alters Beowulf Subtext
erard Butler, star of the upcoming medieval adventure movie Beowulf & Grendel, told SCI FI Wire that the film puts an intriguing spin on the epic poem that is its source.
"[Beowulf] turns up as the hero to take on this troll [Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson as Grendel], only to find out that his hero's quest isn't exactly what he expected," Butler said in an interview while promoting his current project, The Phantom of the Opera. "Especially in older tales, it's just good versus evil."
In the original Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, the central character is a Norse hero who vanquishes the evil Grendel and saves his village. But in the film, Butler said, "Beowulf arrives to find that this troll everybody considers pure evil isn't necessarily pure evil. It's just the case that it's black and white. And even Beowulf as a hero, he's not a typical hero. He sees things a little more deeply and doesn't necessarily enjoy what he does. He's just very good at it. So he comes across this thing that everyone perceives as a monster, only to find out that this monster doesn't want to fight them, because they've never done anything to him. At the same time, we're on this inevitable path to conquest just because they're different."
Butler described Beowulf & Grendel as a metaphor for racism and the different ways in which cultures interact. "People's ignorance about other human beings can lead to violence," Butler said. "It's just a sad lack of understanding that causes all the problems. I think the story is so beautiful and powerful and human, and yet gritty and real. And the dialogue is so incredibly poetic, but tough." Beowulf & Grendel will be released in 2005.
Dark Materials Film Omits God
ilmmakers are adapting Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, in which two children do battle with an evil, all-powerful church, to remove anti-religious overtones, The Times of London reported.
Chris Weitz, the director, has horrified fans by announcing that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film. Meanwhile the "Authority," the weak God figure, will become "any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual," the newspaper reported.
The studio wants alterations because of fears of a backlash from the Christian right in the United States, the newspaper reported. The changes are being made with the support of Pullman, who told The Times last year that he received "a large amount" for the movie rights to his books.
Weitz, a rising Hollywood star who directed American Pie and About a Boy, said that the studio, New Line Cinema, had expressed concern that His Dark Materials' perceived anti-religiosity might make "it an inviable project financially."
In Pullman's Carnegie Medal-winning books, nuns turn into atheists and the church is described as "wrong and bad." The film trilogy, the first of which is expected in 2006, has already run into difficulty after Tom Stoppard, the Oscar-winning playwright, was dumped from the project and his draft shelved, the newspaper reported.
Vaughn Cries U.N.C.L.E.
atthew Vaughn is negotiating to direct the feature-film version of the classic TV series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. for Warner Brothers, Variety reported.
John Davis will produce, with Warners-based producer Basil Iwanyk's Thunder Road Productions. Davis Entertainment bought the series' film rights from Ted Turner in 1993, the trade paper reported.
Created in 1964, Man From U.N.C.L.E. starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as superagents Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin, operatives for the United Network Command for Law & Enforcement. The show ran on NBC until 1968, the trade paper reported. (The director grew up believing that he was the biological son of Robert Vaughn, but later discovered that his father was George de Vere Drummond, a minor British aristocrat, the trade paper reported.)
The film is envisioned as a big-budget action thriller that pits Solo and Kuryakin against the international crime syndicate THRUSH.
NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Star Wars Helmet Auctioned
rare stormtrooper helmet from the original 1977 Star Wars film will go under the hammer at Christie's auction house in London on Dec. 14, British news sources and Zap2It reported.
The helmet is one of six that were custom-made for Star Wars director George Lucas as a prop for his pitch of the original 1977 film to movie executives.
The armor piece was purchased 12 years ago for $13 at a "car boot sale," the equivalent of the American flea market where second-hand items are sold out of the back of a car, the site reported.
The helmet is expected to fetch a winning bid of approximately $13,300.
Darrow Delivers Shaolin Cowboy
eof Darrow told SCI FI Wire that he came up with the idea for his latest comic book, Shaolin Cowboy, several years ago.
"I thought of this before I got involved in The Matrix," Darrow, who served as a conceptual artist on the Matrix trilogy, said in an interview. "I always liked samurai movies and westerns and kung fu, and I thought it would be fun and funny to try to do something like that in comic-book form."
Darrow added, "The title came just from trying to put two goofy words together. 'Shaolin' and 'cowboy' don't actually go together very well, but what makes it interesting is that they don't go together."
Shaolin Cowboy follows the title character, a deceptively lumpy and quiet Asian man who kicks, shoots and stabs anyone who gets in his way as he rides across a post-apocalyptic landscape on his talking mule. The comic, to be published by Matrix creators the Wachowski brothers and their Burlyman Entertainment imprint, is Darrow's first as creator-writer-illustrator after years of collaborating with the likes of Frank Miller (Hard Boiled and Big Guy and Rusty the Robot) and Steve Skroce (Doc Frankenstein).
"It's just a big road trip for Shaolin Cowboy," Darrow said. "He keeps running into obstacles along the way. The Wachowskis refer to it as a comic-book video game, because of the levels, and the levels get crazier and crazier. I didn't do it consciously, but when I look at it now it is a bit of a video game on paper. But I do have an idea what's going to happen to him. Whether what happens happens in issue number 21, I don't know. It could be issue number 10 or number 50. But I know where he's going." Shaolin Cowboy number one arrives in comic-book shops later this month.
Resident Evil 3 Mulled
esident Evil: Apocalypse producer Paul W.S. Anderson told Now Playing Magazine that there's talk of doing a third movie based on the Capcom video-game series.
"It's still just a concept at the moment," Anderson told the magazine. "The second movie did better business than the first movie did, so obviously there's talk of doing a third film."
Anderson added that he always envisioned doing a trilogy of Resident Evil movies. "I always had a vision for a trilogy of films, and the way I imagined it was that the first movie would be a prequel to the video games, the second movie would be set in the same timeframe as the video games, specifically Resident Evil: Nemesis, and then the third movie I always saw as kind of a sequel, or a postscript, to the video games, set slightly after the time of the video games. So it's something I would definitely like to do. But we're still kind of in negotiations. But there's definitely a will to make the movie, that's for sure."
Resident Evil: Apocalypse, starring Milla Jovovich, is due in a special two-disc special-edition DVD set on Dec. 28.
Riddick Ready For PC
ivendi Universal Games told the GameSpot Web site that it has shipped a "developer's cut" of its hit first-person-shooter game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay for the PC.
The game features bonus content and is priced about $20 less than the Xbox version. A sequel to that game is in the works, the site reported.
Escape From Butcher Bay is a prequel to the SF movie The Chronicles of Riddick and features the voice and likeness Vin Diesel as the futuristic antihero. Diesel also helped oversee the game's development through his game company, Tigon Studios. Actual development for both versions of the game was done at Swedish studio Starbreeze, which recently signed a deal with Majesco to develop a next-generation title, the site reported.
Vivendi Universal Games is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Disney/Pixar Postpones Cars
isney and Pixar said they would postpone the theatrical release of their upcoming computer-animated movie Cars to June 2006 from November 2005, the Reuters news service reported.
Officials from both companies told the wire service that the move was aimed at profiting from potentially stronger movie attendance by kids on summer break. But analysts said it may help buy Pixar more time to find a new distributor for its films, Reuters reported.
Cars, a road movie helmed by Toy Story and A Bug's Life director John Lasseter, is the seventh and final film produced by the successful Disney-Pixar partnership.
Pixar chief executive Steve Jobs said the schedule shift would also apply to films released after Cars, meaning they will be released in theaters over the summer and on home video at the holidays.
Pixar's distribution and production agreement with Disney is set to expire in 2005 with the delivery of Cars.
Fanning Snared In Web
oung actress Dakota Fanning will star in Paramount's adaptation of E.B. White's classic children's tale Charlotte's Web, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Gary Winick is directing the live-action/computer-animated movie, in which a young farm girl (Fanning) teams up with a spider named Charlotte to save a pig named Wilbur from the butcher's block, the trade paper reported.
The film is eyeing a late January start date in Melbourne, Australia. Paramount, Nickelodeon Movies and Walden Media are co-financing and producing. Jordan Kerner and his Kerner Entertainment banner also produce. Susannah Grant and Karey Kirkpatrick wrote the screenplay, the trade paper reported.
Fanning is currently shooting Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds opposite Tom Cruise. She is prepping for her role opposite Kurt Russell in DreamWorks' Dreamer for helmer John Gatins, and she is attached to play Alice in a live-action adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, which Les Bohem is writing for DreamWorks, the trade paper reported. Fanning starred in SCI FI Channel's Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, which Bohem wrote and produced for executive producer Spielberg.
Anybodies Gets Film Deal
aramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies, who most recently partnered on Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, have acquired the screen rights to The Anybodies, the best-selling children's fantasy book series written by N.E. Bode, the pen name of Julianna Baggott, and illustrated by Peter Ferguson, Variety reported.
Nickelodeon executive Julia Pistor brought the book in, and Paramount president Donald De Line made the deal.
The Anybodies is a whimsical adventure about an 11-year-old who learns she was switched at birth and is actually a member of "The Anybodies," a rare breed of humans with shape-shifting powers. She's soon pitted against a sinister magician to gain possession of a manual that holds the key to being an "anybody," the trade paper reported.
The deal includes Baggott's second installment, The Nobodies, and a third book, The Somebodies. The latter two books will be published by HarperCollins Children's Books, as was the first.
Super Ex Spec Bought
egency Enterprises has bought the spec film script Super Ex from Emmy-winning Simpsons writer/co-executive producer Don Payne, Variety reported.
The story centers on a man who discovers that the woman he's dating is a superhero.
When he decides to break up with her, she uses her super powers to turn his life into a living nightmare, the trade paper reported.
Darkness Falls On Dimension
latinum Studios and comic publisher Top Cow Productions announced a deal to sell Dimension Films the film rights to the comic series The Darkness, which centers on a young assassin who possesses a mystic power.
The deal for a live-action feature film is the first since Platinum Studios acquired the film and television rights to Top Cow's comic-book library in July, the companies said.
The Darkness was created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis and David Wohl and boasts print sales of more than $25 million, Platinum said. The comics' popularity has prompted inter-company crossovers, the latest with Superman in a two-issue series shipping this month.
Platinum chairman Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and Silvestri will be co-executive producers, with Matt Hawkins.
Moore Mulls Next
evolution Studios is in talks with Julianne Moore (The Forgotten) to play the female lead in the SF thriller film Next opposite Nicolas Cage, Variety reported.
Cage is also attached as a producer, while Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) will direct the movie, which Gary Goldman adapted from Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man," the trade paper reported.
Moore would play a federal agent who's looking for people who can help predict terrorist acts. Her search puts her in pursuit of a man (Cage) who has the ability to see his own future and take a different path if he chooses, the trade paper reported.
Before Next goes into production, Moore would most likely shoot Freedomland, which is aiming for a spring start date. Cage is supposed to shoot Ghost Rider in Australia for writer-director Mark Steven Johnson. Next would then go into production in the second half of 2005, the trade paper reported.
Incredibles Leads Annie Nods
ixar Animation Studios led the pack with 16 nominations for The Incredibles for the Annie Awards, presented by ASIFA-Hollywood to honor achievements in film, TV and commercial animation, Variety reported.
DreamWorks came in a close second, with 14 nominations for its Shrek 2 and Shark Tale, the trade paper reported.
The Incredibles received nominations for best animated feature, character design, animated effects, character animation, directing, music, production design, storyboarding, voice acting and writing, the trade paper reported. Other films vying for the best feature award include Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Shrek 2 and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
Five programs will fight for the animated TV production trophy: Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, My Life as a Teenage Robot, SpongeBob SquarePants, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Batman, the trade paper reported.
Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, will host the ceremony Jan. 30 at the Alex Theater in Glendale, Calif.
Xbox Knights Ships
he Xbox version of LucasArts' Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords video game has shipped to retailers, with a PC version due in February 2005, the GameSpot Web site reported.
The game carries a suggested retail price of $49.99.
The Sith Lords, a sequel to 2003's hit title, is the first game from Obsidian Entertainment, a new developer created by veteran role-playing-game designers from Interplay's Black Isle Studios, the site reported.
The Sith Lords picks up several years after the first game left off, and characters learn that the war between the Galactic Republic and the Sith has caused large sections of the galaxy to regress into a state of anarchy, the site reported.
Arquette, Davis Join Lava
avid Arquette and Kristin Davis have won roles in Robert Rodriguez's upcoming fantasy film The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The story tells the tale of a 10-year-old outcast who goes on a mission with two imaginary friends to prove that dreams can become reality. Arquette and Davis play the boy's parents, the trade paper reported.
Newcomers Taylor Dooley, Taylor Lautner and Cayden Boyd, along with George Lopez, also have been cast. Dimension and Sony are co-financing the film, which Rodriguez is producing with Elizabeth Avellan via their Troublemaker Studios banner, the trade paper reported.
Harlin Develops Full Moon
enny Harlin will develop and helm a movie based on the upcoming SF graphic novel Full Moon Fever, Variety reported.
Joe Casey wrote the graphic novel for publisher AIT/Planet Lar, set in the not-too-distant future and centering on a group of blue-collar workers who are sent to repair the deserted first lunar base on the dark side of the moon and who fall prey to a pack of ravenous werewolves, the trade paper reported.
Casey, who has written X-Men and Superman comics, pitched the project at this summer's Comic-Con International and will write the adaptation while working closely with Harlin and producers Adrian Askarieh and Daniel Alter, the trade paper reported.
Full Moon Fever has not yet landed at a studio. Askarieh and Alter also plan to develop a Full Moon Fever video game to bow simultaneously with the film's release.
Christmas Poem Unsold
rare autographed copy of the poem that begins "'Twas the night before Christmas," which was estimated to fetch at least $200,000, failed to find a buyer at an auction on Dec. 3, Sotheby's told the Reuters news service.
The manuscript is one of only four known autographed copies of Clement Clarke Moore's poem, formally titled A Visit from St. Nicholas. The auction house did not reveal the name of the seller, Reuters reported.
Sotheby's had hoped the coming Christmas season would help the poem fetch a high price. The failure to sell the famed poem may be because there is a dispute about whether Moore authored it, Reuters reported. Family members of Henry Livingston Jr. have claimed their ancestor is the author. And a book by Donald Foster, Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous, most recently boosted that claim. Sotheby's maintains that "attribution has never gained credence," Reuters reported.
Moore is believed to have written the poem on Christmas Eve in 1822, Sotheby's said. Moore read the poem to his family that night, and it began to circulate among his friends. The poem was printed, unattributed, in the Troy Sentinel newspaper in New York a year later.
Briefly Noted
-
A teaser trailer has gone live for Steven Spielberg's upcoming War of the Worlds movie, based on H.G. Wells' classic SF book, which opens next summer.
-
ABC's Lost hit its highest Nielsen numbers to date on Dec. 8, becoming the night's most-watched program with an average of 18.9 million viewers and a 7.0 rating/19 share in the adults 18-49 demographic, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
-
Screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (The Terminal) has signed on to direct Ghosts of Girlfriends Past for Disney, replacing Mark Waters, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
-
John Hurt, famed for the "chest-bursting" scene in 1979's Alien, was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, at Buckingham Palace in London on Dec. 9, wire services reported.
-
Connecticut police were alerted by makers of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds that two life-sized mannequins were lost in a local river over the weekend during location shooting, Zap2it reported.
-
In the wake of Disney/Pixar's decision to move its upcoming computer-animated film Cars to the summer of 2006, DreamWorks said it would move Shrek 3 to May 2007 from its original fall 2006, Variety reported. The studio will also delay its planned direct-to-DVD Shrek 2 spinoff, Puss N Boots, until 2008.
-
MGM has posted a teaser Web site for its upcoming remake movie The Amityville Horror, and MTV.com has posted a teaser trailer for the movie, which opens April 15, 2005.
-
Micott & Bazara, the Japanese creators of the upcoming Japanese animated film Appleseed, have struck a deal with Axis Entertainment to co-produce two sequels in the franchise together, Variety reported.
-
Makers of the film version of Douglas Adams' beloved Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are seeking fan questions to be submitted to the movie's director, Garth Jennings, and producer, Nick Goldsmith. Hitchhiker opens June 6, 2005.
-
Endgame Entertainment is teaming with Maxmedia to co-distribute the South Korean animated movie Sky Blue, which premieres Dec. 31 in Los Angeles before a nationwide release that begins in New York in mid-February, Variety reported.
-
Fantastic Films International will represent the 3-D SF computer-animated movie Thru the Moebius Strip, produced by Hong Kong animation studio GDC Entertainment from a story by French artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Variety reported. The film tells the story of a physicist who becomes trapped on a distant planet after crossing a space-time portal.
-
Shrek 2 led the field of film nominees announced for the People's Choice Awards, with nominations in virtually every movie category, including a nod for favorite film of 2004, the Reuters news service reported. The Incredibles, Spider-Man 2 and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind also nabbed multiple nominations.
-
The official Web site has posted an image of the teaser poster for the upcoming Batman Begins movie, which opens June 17, 2005.
Back to the top.
