Enterprise Ad Posted Online
he newspaper advertisement purchased by fans of UPN's canceled Star Trek Enterprise has been posted at the campaign organization's official Web site, www.enterprisefans.com. The ad will run in the "A" section of the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, Feb. 15 (rather than Feb. 21, as previously reported), the Web site announced.
The full-page ad urges fans of the show to write to network executives in support of its continuation after it concludes its fourth season on UPN this spring. It also invites supporters to join in a rally on Feb. 25 outside Paramount Studios in Hollywood, where Enterprise is filmed.
Straczynski Wants To Reboot Trek
nspired by a recent SCI FI Wire poll, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski posted a message to a newsgroup urging fans to write to Paramount, owner of the rights to the Star Trek franchise, in support of a new Trek series that he and Bryce Zabel (Dark Skies) developed last year.
Although the studio originally passed on the treatment due to "political considerations," Straczynski feels that they might reconsider if they knew that fans were eager for such an idea. "I'm taking the unusual step of going right to the source ... right to you guys," Straczynski said in the message. "Fueled in part by a number of recent articles and polls, including one at www.scifi.com/scifiwire in which nearly 18,000 fans voted their preference for a new Trek series, and 48 percent of that figure called for a [J. Michael Straczynski] take on Trek."
Straczynski said that he and Zabel share an affection for the original Star Trek series, and a disappointment in the later iterations of the series. Together, they created a new treatment and a five-year story arc with the intention of returning to the roots of the world created by Gene Roddenberry. "If you want to see a new Trek series that's true to Gene's original creation, helmed by myself and Bryce, with challenging stories, contemporary themes, solid extrapolation, and the infusion of some of our best and brightest SF prose writers, then you need to let the folks at Paramount know that. If the 48 percent of the 18,000 folks who voted at SciFi.com sent those sentiments to Paramount, there'd be a new series in the works tomorrow," Straczynski said.
Straczynski added that he felt that the current stewards of the series have been too cautious in their stories, and the franchise has suffered as a result. "Over time, Trek was treated like a Porsche that's kept in the garage all the time, for fear of scratching the finish," Straczynski said. "The stories were, for the most part, safe, more about technology than what William Faulkner described as 'the human heart in conflict with itself.' Yes, there were always exceptions, but in general that trend became more and more apparent with the passage of years. Which was why so often I came down on the later stories, which I did openly, because I didn't feel they lined up with what Trek was created to be. I don't apologize for it, because that was what I felt as a fan of Trek. That's why I had [Roddenberry's widow Majel Barrett] appear on B5, to send a message that I believe in what Gene created."
Straczynski Ends Trek Campaign
day after calling for a letter-writing campaign by fans who wanted to see his version of Star Trek produced, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski posted a follow-up message to the same newsgroup retracting his statement. "[B]elay everything I just said," Straczynski wrote. "In the 24 hours between the time I composed the prior note, and sent it, and it made its way through the moderation software, two things happened."
The two things that changed Straczynski's mind were a tip from a trusted source at Paramount, which owns the rights to the Star Trek franchise, that the studio is "giving the Trek TV world a rest" for a year or two, and an offer to run a series premiering in the fall of 2006, which Straczynski has accepted. In Straczynski's words, the Trek campaign is now "kind of moot."
The writer/producer apologized to fans and assured them that he hasn't abandoned the project completely. "We can reconvene a year or two down the road to see where this takes us," he said. "But in the interim ... my apologies for waking everybody up in the middle of the night."
Serenity Comics Due Soon
oss Whedon, director of the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told fans that he will oversee a three-issue Dark Horse series of Serenity comics as a prequel to his upcoming SF movie of the same name, based on Fox's canceled SF western series Firefly. "Dark Horse is putting out a three-issue prequel to the movie Serenity that will sort of bridge the show and movie for some people," Whedon, an avowed comic fan and creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told an audience at WonderCon in San Francisco on Feb. 19. "That's going to be coming out starting in the summer. ... It's going to be written by Brett Matthews [who authored Dark Horse Angel comics] from a story we're working on."
Whedon added that each issue will have three variant covers drawn by different prominent comic artists, featuring all nine principal Serenity characters. "The first of which, of course, is John Cassaday, who will be drawing Mal [Nathan Fillion]," he said. "I have seen just a few of the covers. I called basically my dream team of artists. Nobody turned me down, and I've seen a few of them, and they're extraordinary."
Whedon also screened a clip from Serenity with footage from the film, featuring cast members Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau and Gina Torres, and showing a robbery that is interrupted by the arrival of the show's feared villains, the Reavers. Serenity, to be distributed by Universal Pictures, opens Sept. 30. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Meanwhile, Whedon announced that he has signed on to write a second year of 12 issues of Marvel Comics' Astonishing X-Men. After finishing the current run of 12 X-Men issues, he said, "We're going to take a brief respite after that and come back with another 12 and then finish up with our own giant-size ... Astonishing X-Men annual number one," Whedon said with his X-Men artist, Cassaday.
Whedon Wooed For Wonder
roducer Joel Silver confirmed to SCI FI Wire that he is wooing Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon to write and direct a new film version of Wonder Woman. "I'm trying," Silver said in an interview at WonderCon in San Francisco on Feb. 19. "I'm trying to work a deal with Joss. ... I was just in the other room [where Whedon was talking about his upcoming SF movie, Serenity]. I don't know if I could work that out. It's a complicated deal to do, but I would love him to do it. It would be great if he could do it."
Silver (the Matrix films and the upcoming House of Wax) said that Whedon, an avowed comic fanatic and current author of Marvel's Astonishing X-Men series, came to him with a new twist on the venerable character. "It's just a great, legendary comic-book hero, and it's one that has never been kind of brought back to life after Lynda Carter [who starred in the 1970s Wonder Woman TV series]. I mean, it's a reinvention. ... Tim Burton reinvented Batman after Adam West, and ... [director Richard] Donner reinvented Superman after George Reeves. It's time to do that to Wonder Woman. It's a thing that could be great if it's done great. ... The idea is to try to find a way to make it, and I thought Joss has a great idea, because he understands a kind of female superhero character, and also he's great at what he does. So I'm trying to find the best way to do it. ... We're working our way through it."
Episode III Has Lucas Cameo?
blogger on the Underground Online Web site reported a rumor that director George Lucas will make a cameo appearance in the upcoming film Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, the last installment in the Star Wars franchise.
The blogger, who goes by the online moniker T'bone, posted a small photograph, which he identified as Lucas in costume for the role of "Baron Papanoida." According to the site, Lucas will briefly appear in a scene at an opera house.
SF Authors Sting Publisher
group of more than 30 SF and fantasy authors, upset at one online book publisher's marketing tactics and its derogatory comments about SF in general, perpetrated a hoax against the publisher, several members told SCI FI Wire.
PublishAmerica, based in Frederick, Md., purports to be a traditional publisher, not a so-called "vanity publisher," which charges authors a fee to print their books. But Jim McDonald decided to test that assertion by coming up with an intentionally awful bogus book, Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea, to be written by several SF&F authors and submitted to PublishAmerica to test the publisher's standards. When the publisher accepted the book for publication, the writers revealed the hoax, and the publisher withdrew its offer of publication. "The fact that they'd attacked science-fiction and fantasy writers [as] untalented hacks provided the motivation and the avenue of approach," McDonald said in an interview. On its Web site, PublishAmerica said, "[SF and fantasy writers] have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home."
Several young authors also have complained to Writer Beware, a Web site run by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, alleging that they were duped into signing with PublishAmerica, said Ann Crispin, a Washington, D.C.,-based author who volunteers running Writer Beware.
McDonald conceived Atlanta Nights in the spirit of Naked Came the Stranger, a 1969 hoax perpetrated by Newsday columnist Mike McGrady and several well-known writers and critics, in which everyone wrote a chapter that was sexually explicit and deliberately inconsistent with other chapters. It was a runaway hit.
For Atlanta Nights, McDonald asked several authors, including Sean P. Fodera and Victoria Strauss, to write the worst prose possible, using only sketchy details about characters and events to occur. The book was full of mistakes and inside jokes. There are two chapter 12s, no chapter 21 and a computer-generated chapter 34. Two authors wrote about a wedding of two characters, and there are many misplaced modifiers, malapropisms, spacing errors, incorrect descriptions and laughably bad writing (from Sherwood Smith's chapter 1: "Her [breasts] belonged to a beautiful face carved out of ice and whipped cream, with a pair of glowing emerald eyes"). Even the author's name was a joke when spoken fast.
As the group hoped and McDonald said he expected, PublishAmerica offered a contract. "We'd suspected that they offer contracts to essentially anything that's sent them, and that they don't read submissions before accepting them," McDonald said. After the group went public, PublishAmerica sent a letter of rejection. Asked to comment, a PublishAmerica spokeswoman asked that questions be e-mailed. As of press time, the publisher had not responded to SCI FI Wire's questions.
McDonald said this isn't the end of sting manuscripts heading PublishAmerica's way. "Kevin Yarbrough sent in a manuscript that consisted of the same 30 pages repeated 10 times, and had it accepted," McDonald said. "Dee Power has a sting manuscript that they've accepted. I'm sure that there are others in the works." Curious readers can buy Atlanta Nights, with proceeds going to the SFWA's Emergency Medical Fund.
Publisher Defends Hoax Charges
n an exclusive interview with SCI FI Wire, the president of PublishAmerica defended his company against charges by a group of SF and fantasy writers that his company is a "vanity press," despite falling for a hoax perpetrated by the writers. The writers, in response to PublishAmerica's criticism of SF&F writers, concocted a deliberately bad bogus novel, Atlanta Nights, and submitted it for publication to test whether PublishAmerica would accept anything; after the hoax was revealed, PublishAmerica rescinded its offer of publication.
Speaking for the first time about the hoax, Larry Clopper, president of PublishAmerica, based in Frederick, Md., said his company knew about the hoax before it became public knowledge and withdrew its offer of publication at that time. PublishAmerica is a "print-on-demand" publisher, meaning it creates books as demand rises, much like CDs and DVDs, and that PublishAmerica has never charged authors to sign up with it, a characteristic of a vanity press, Clopper added. "It won't be too far in the future when warehouses stack thousands of books [and] wonder if they'll be sold," Clopper said. "Our model is so totally anathema to a vanity press. ... We have a thousand authors who have not had one book printed. That goes to prove we take the same risk in publishing anything as every other mainstream publisher."
As for the hoax book, cooked up by author James D. Macdonald with the help of more than 30 SF and fantasy writers, Clopper admitted that PublishAmerica's acquisitions team accepted the manuscript before reading the entire thing, but added that staffers later noticed problems and suggested it be rejected before Macdonald went public. Clopper said many mainstream publishers similarly do not read the entire manuscript before making an offer of publication. "The hoax failed," Clopper said. "It was a very amateur gag."
Macdonald previously told SCI FI Wire that other hoaxes are being perpetrated against PublishAmerica. Writer Kevin Yarbrough sent a 300-page manuscript consisting of 30 pages repeated 10 times. Clopper said he recognized such a hoax, although he did not know who was the author. "In that one, the hoaxster apologized that he had done such a thing," Clopper said.
The publicity surrounding Atlanta Nights and PublishAmerica has not caused the publisher to change anything, Clopper said. "We have nothing to apologize for," he said. "There are people out there who say things about people who enjoy enormous success. We don't call people names. That's not just all of what we're about. We're about honesty and integrity."
Norton Riding With Ghost
ustralian stuntman and martial-arts star Richard Norton is in talks with producers to join the cast of the upcoming comic-book film adaptation Ghost Rider, according to the Moviehole Web site. Norton's previous credits include China O'Brien, Amazons and Gladiators and last year's Dream Warrior, co-starring Lance Henriksen.
Like the Marvel comic book of the same name, Ghost Rider centers around a motorcycle-riding vigilante who is part demon. The film also stars Nicolas Cage, Sam Elliot, Wes Bentley and Eva Mendes. It is currently in preproduction in Melbourne, Australia, for release in 2006.
Fonda Considers New Rider
ounterculture icon Peter Fonda is in negotiations to appear in the upcoming comic-book adaptation Ghost Rider, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Donal Logue (the WB's Grounded for Life) has also joined the cast, which includes Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley and Sam Elliott.
Based on the Marvel comic book of the same name, the film centers around the adventures of Johnny Blaze (Cage), a demonic, motorcycle-riding vigilante who saves the world from evil spirits. Fonda is eyeing the role of Mephistopheles. Logue will play Mack, Johnny's chief mechanic and best friend.
Ghost Rider began shooting this week in Australia under the direction of Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil). The film is scheduled for release in 2006.
Stars Discuss Cursed Changes
hristina Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg, the stars of the upcoming movie Cursed, told SCI FI Wire that there were numerous changes made to their characters during the production and subsequent reshoot of the film. "It changed quite a bit," Ricci said in an interview. "[Jesse and I] weren't related in the original version. We just both happened to be involved in this crash, and then when we came back we were brother and sister."
Cursed, a werewolf film from director Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street), famously shut down for several weeks during production for rewrites by screenwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream). When the production resumed, several members of the original cast had to be replaced, in part because of scheduling conflicts.
Eisenberg said that Craven retained some of the material from the first version of the film, but he and Williamson changed the story to improve the flow of the narrative. "They were able to keep some of the [scenes]," Eisenberg said. "The overall story, I think, is improved, [and] I think the final product is now better, but I think they were able to keep some of the great effects, which were more expensive, but they were still put into the story."
Ricci said that co-star Joshua Jackson only joined the cast after initial shooting was completed, and Williamson changed the film's centerpiece club location during reshoots. "Josh wasn't in the original one," she said. "There was no club that anybody was opening."
Eisenberg added that the original film featured a different setting. "There was a wax museum," he said. Cursed opens Feb. 25.
Dailies Prompted Cursed Reshoot
hristina Ricci, star of Wes Craven's upcoming werewolf movie Cursed, revealed to SCI FI Wire that the decision to reshoot the film in mid-production resulted from a dissatisfaction with the footage being shot. "We weren't seeing dailies," Ricci said in an interview, referring to the actors. "I think it was everyone who was watching the dailies, that they were the ones who could see that it wasn't really working. When you're not seeing what's actually on camera, sometimes it's hard to know that."
At the time of the shutdown, the filmmakers said the production was stalled so that screenwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream) could refocus the story and rewrite the script. Ricci's comments are the first indication that filmmakers were unhappy with the film's actual footage.
Cursed stars Ricci and Jesse Eisenberg (Roger Dodger) as a brother and sister who develop superhuman powers after being bitten by a werewolf. As an actor, Ricci said she and her castmates were not aware of problems during the initial shoot. She added that finished films typically differ from what actors and filmmakers initially imagine, so it came as little surprise that Craven decided to rework it. "The final product of any movie usually feels like a totally alien thing than what you've been shooting anyway," Ricci said. "So we wouldn't really be able to have that perspective or the objectivity to know that it wasn't really going quite right."
Ricci added that Craven provided them with original footage for any scenes that would be linked to new scenes shot in the second phase of production. "If the case was you were going to exit the door in a scene that we shot five months ago, and now it's the scene that happens right after you come through the door, then I would watch," Ricci said. "[Craven] would show us what we were following so we could kind of get back into that." Cursed opens Feb. 25.
Cursed's Ricci Misses Ulrich
hristina Ricci, star of Wes Craven's upcoming werewolf movie Cursed, told SCI FI Wire that she was disappointed that Skeet Ulrich's character did not make it into the final film. Ulrich co-starred in the movie during initial production, but the actor dropped out of the movie after a production hiatus for rewrites. "That was sort of sad," Ricci said in an interview. "Originally, when we first were shooting, Skeet Ulrich was in the movie. But by the time they had reworked the script and everything, he didn't like the way his character had been changed, so he didn't want to be involved anymore."
In the film, Ricci plays a personal assistant who gains supernatural powers after being bitten by a werewolf. She said that prior to the extensive reshoots of Cursed ordered by screenwriter Kevin Williamson and director Craven, Ulrich played her boyfriend. "He was a love interest of my character," Ricci said. "He was involved in the [car] crash [which starts the movie]. It was the three of us involved in a crash, and then he and I become attracted to each other. But the way it was rewritten, he just didn't feel like there was enough to make him really want to be in the second version."
In his own interview, Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Ricci's brother in the film, said that Ulrich's role as it was originally envisioned was virtually eliminated by the time shooting began of the second version of the film. "I think the part that he was originally doing was eliminated, essentially," Eisenberg said. "So I think the interest for him, whatever that was at the time, may have not carried over to that new character." Cursed opens Feb. 25.
SF Author And Publisher Dies
ack L. Chalker, the award-winning author of more than 60 SF novels and anthologies, died at Bon Secours hospital in Baltimore, Feb. 11, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced. Chalker had been hospitalized since Dec. 25 for congestive heart failure and suffered from lung and kidney distress while in the hospital. He was 61.
Chalker is best known for his Well of Souls and Dancing Gods series of novels and frequent columns for Fantasy Review and Pulphouse magazines. He also founded a small publishing company, The Mirage Press, and is the co-author of the widely read reference book The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History.
Born in Baltimore in 1944, Chalker earned a bachelor's degree at Towson University and a graduate degree at Johns Hopkins University. As a lecturer, he spoke about SF and technology at numerous universities and institutions, including the Smithsonian Institute and the National Institutes of Health. He made regular appearances at many annual SF conventions around the world and was a three-term treasurer of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Chalker's writing earned him the Dedalus Award, the Gold Medal of the West Coast Review of Books, the Skylark Award and the Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award. He was nominated for the Hugo Award four times.
Chalker is survived by his wife, Eva C. Whitley, and his two sons, David Whitley Chalker and Steven Lloyd Chalker, both of Baltimore. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Sierra Club, Save the Bay/Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Emergency Medical Fund.
SF Author And Publisher Dies
.M. "Buz" Busby, the award-winning publisher and author of more than 20 novels and collections, died Feb. 17 at Health and Rehabilitation of Seattle, where he was moved following several weeks of surgery and treatment at Swedish Hospital of Seattle, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announced. He was 83.
Busby's most prominent works include The Singularity Project, Cage a Man and the Rissa Kerguelen series. He was also a well-known publisher of SF fanzines, including Polarity and Cry of the Nameless, for which he won the Best Fanzine Hugo Ward in 1959 and 1960. Busby chaired Westercon 12 in 1959 and was a guest of honor or special guest at many conventions. He was Toastmaster of IguanaCon II, the 1978 World Science Fiction Convention.
Busby survived by his wife, Eleanor Busby. A guest book has been set up online for messages of condolence.
Disney Seeks Hitchhiker Fans
alt Disney Pictures, which is producing the upcoming feature adaptation of Douglas Adams' SF spoof Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has announced a contest to find the most dedicated Hitchhiker's fans in the galaxy, the Dark Horizons Web site reported. Contestants are asked to submit an essay of 250 words or less on why they became fans and how they live their lives according to the titular fictional guide.
Six winners—a number derived from the addition of the digits in 42, which is hailed as the answer to "life, the universe and everything" in the Hitchhiker's series—will be chosen to have their profiles featured on the official Web site for the film. Entries must include name, age, city and e-mail address and may be sent to 42Fans@gmail.com. The deadline for the contest is Feb. 25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy opens in theaters May 6.
Batman Game To Feature Cast
he stars of the upcoming comic-book adaptation Batman Begins, including Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman, have signed on to reprise their roles in the video game tie-in, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Co-publishers Electronic Arts and Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment confirmed the unprecedented crossover Friday.
Additional cast members appearing in the game will include Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy and Tom Wilkinson, the trade paper reported. All of the actors involved will have approval over how they and their characters are represented. The game is currently in development at EA and on schedule to coincide with the June 17 release of the film directed by Christopher Nolan, the trade paper reported.
Wax Fire Captured For MTV
lisha Cuthbert, star of the upcoming horror film House of Wax, told SCI FI Wire that an MTV crew shooting a behind-the-scenes series about the movie captured on tape the devastating set fire that derailed the production and destroyed a soundstage last summer in Australia. "Once you put aside that no one got hurt, you get to realize that we were also shooting this MTV series in conjunction with the actual shooting of the film, and how brilliant it was for this episode," Cuthbert said in an interview at WonderCon in San Francisco on Feb. 19. "People are going to be watching the show and go, 'Oh, my God!' They're watching this huge stage get completely demolished. It's like great television, too. So it was, like, perfect."
The fire broke out June 26, 2004, on a Gold Coast soundstage housing the title wax museum set, destroying it and delaying production a few days. No one was injured. MTV was shooting a series to be called Movie Life: House Of Wax, chronicling the making of the feature film, which also stars Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton. It's "the first time anyone has ever done this, but we chronicled the making of the movie for a reality show," producer Joel Silver said.
Cuthbert said that she thought at first the TV series wouldn't shoot anything interesting. "At first, I was thinking, 'God, I hope it's exciting. Because for us, it's a lot of waiting around. It's a lot of you're waiting to go in there, do your thing and get out. And I'm thinking, 'What are they going to shoot?' And let me tell you, they've got all kinds of stuff." The MTV series is set to air this spring in advance of House of Wax's opening on May 6.
New Matrix Game Announced
ndy and Larry Wachowski, creators of The Matrix and its two sequel films, are writing and directing a new game based on the franchise for video-game publisher Atari, the company announced. In a statement, the publisher and developer said the game, titled The Matrix: Path of Neo, will be released this holiday season for PC, Xbox and PlayStation 2 systems.
The game will allow players to assume the role of Neo, played by Keanu Reeves in the films. Other key characters from the films will appear in the game, as will footage from the movies and the Animatrix short films.
The Wachowski brothers previously wrote and directed the 2003 video game Enter the Matrix, which has sold 6 million units worldwide despite reports of serious bugs and lukewarm reviews. Atari announced last week that it intends to invest more time and money on the development of future games.
Hauer Takes On Minotaur
utger Hauer has joined the cast of the the horror-fantasy film Minotaur, Variety reported. Tom Hardy, best known to SF audiences for his role in Star Trek: Nemesis, and Tony Todd (Candyman, Final Destination) also star. Hauer will next be seen in two upcoming comic-book adaptations, Batman Begins for Warner Brothers and Sin City for Miramax.
Minotaur, a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, began shooting last month in Luxembourg with Jonathan English directing. It is slated for release later this year.
Video-Game Nominees Announced
he International Game Developers Association has announced its nominees for the fifth annual Game Developers Choice Awards, the Gamespot Web site reported. The nominees are chosen by game industry professionals and voted on by IGDA members. The awards will be announced during a ceremony on March 9 at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
The PC action game Half-Life 2 earned six nominations, while fantasy game Katamari Damacy and massive multiplayer online game World of Warcraft earned four each. The first-person shooter sequel Doom 3 was nominated in three categories. A list of SF and fantasy nominees follows.
Best Game
•Half-Life 2
•Katamari Damacy
•World of Warcraft
New Studio
•Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes)
•Crytek (Far Cry)
•InXile Entertainment (The Bard's Tale)
•Obsidian Entertainment (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords)
•The Behemoth (Alien Hominid)
Audio
•Doom 3
•Halo 2
•Katamari Damacy
Character Design
•Half-Life 2
•Katamari Damacy
•Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
•Sly 2: Band of Thieves
•World of Warcraft
Game Design
•Half-Life 2
•Katamari Damacy
•Pikmin 2
•World of Warcraft
Technology
•Doom 3
•Far Cry
•Half-Life 2
Visual Arts
•Doom 3
•Half-Life 2
•Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
•Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
•World of Warcraft
Writing
•Half-Life 2
•Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
•Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Nebula Nominees Announced
The final nominees for the 2004 Nebula Awards have been announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The awards will be presented in Chicago on April 29 at a banquet hosted by author Neil Gaiman. A full list of nominees follows.
Novels
•Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
•Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
•Omega by Jack McDevitt
•Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell
•Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart
•The Knight by Gene Wolfe
Novellas
•"Walk in Silence" by Catherine Asaro
•"The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes" by Adam-Troy Castro
•"The Cookie Monster" by Vernor Vinge
•"The Green Leopard Plague" by Walter Jon Williams
•"Just Like the Ones We Used to Know," by Connie Willis
Novelettes
•"Zora and the Zombie" by Andy Duncan
•"Basement Magic" by Ellen Klages
•"The Voluntary State" by Christopher Rowe
•"Dry Bones" by William Sanders
•"The Gladiator's War: A Dialogue" by Lois Tilton
Short Stories
•"Coming to Terms" by Eileen Gunn
•"The Strange Redemption of Sister Mary Anne" by Mike Moscoe
•"Travels With My Cats" by Mike Resnick
•"Embracing-The-New" by Benjamin Rosenbaum
•"In the Late December" by Greg van Eekhout
•"Aloha" by Ken Wharton
Scripts
•The Incredibles by Brad Bird
•The Butterfly Effect by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress
•Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry
•The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sommers Enters Kingdom
tephen Sommers, director of The Mummy and Van Helsing, has signed on to direct a film based on the fantasy book series Magic Kingdom for Sale by Terry Brooks, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Universal, which owns the rights to the books, has tapped writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Robots, National Treasure) to adapt the screenplay.
The series, first published in the late 1980s, tells the story of a widowed attorney who leaves his old life behind when he responds to a mysterious ad and spends his fortune to purchase a magical kingdom, the news service reported. He and his two children get more than they bargained for when they find the kingdom on the verge of chaos. Five Magic Kingdom novels have been published, with a sixth due next year.
The project will be the first film Sommers has directed from a script he didn't write. He is also currently writing and producing a Flash Gordon remake, the news service reported.
Intermedia Picks Up Call
ntermedia and Kadakowa USA have signed a deal to co-produce and co-finance an English-language remake of the Japanese horror film One Missed Call, Variety reported. The original film, directed by Takashi Miike, centers around a college student who receives a mysterious voice-mail message on her cell phone in which she hears herself being murdered three days in the future.
One Missed Call is the latest in a string of Japanese horror remakes produced by Kadakowa USA, whose recent English-language imports include The Ring, The Grudge and the upcoming Dark Water.
Constantine Banned In Brunei
he Islamic sultanate of Brunei has banned the upcoming comic-book adaptation Constantine because of its depiction of demon possessions, visions of hell and a renegade angel, the Associated Press reported. The film, starring Keanu Reeves as a demon-fighting antihero, was deemed unsuitable for public viewing, Ahmad Kadir, the secretary of the Brunei government's censor board, told the news service.
Brunei has some of Southeast Asia's strictest censorship guidelines for movies and songs, especially involving material that might be considered offensive to Islam, the news service said. An edited version of the film opened last week in neighboring Malaysia, which is also mostly Muslim. Although Malaysian censors edited out several curse words and rated the movie as having "non-excessive violent and horrifying scenes," they did not object to the religious material, the news service said.
Constantine Game Ships
onstantine, the supernatural action game based on the upcoming film of the same name, is now available in stores for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox game systems, the GameSpot Web site reported. The release of the console versions of the game was timed to coincide with the opening of the film on Feb. 18. A PC version is due in March.
Players take on the role of John Constantine, played by Keanu Reeves on the big screen, and follow the same story told in the film. The game features the likenesses of Reeves and co-star Rachel Weisz, as well as other cast members, the site said. London-based Bits Studios developed the game, which was published in the UK by SCi Games and distributed by THQ and Warner Brothers Interactive domestically.
Midway Jumps Into Adult Swim
ideo-game publisher Midway and Cartoon Network have joined forces to develop future games based on the network's Adult Swim programming block, the IGN Web site reported. The deal includes popular animated series such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Sealab 2021, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and The Brak Show.
In a statement, executives from both companies said they felt the mature, cutting-edge humor of the late-night lineup was well suited to the video-game format. The first Adult Swim game is due in late 2006.
Dragons Explores Species
harlie Foley, creator of the upcoming Animal Planet program Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, told SCI FI Wire that the show examines different species of the mythical animal as if it had survived through periods of the Earth's history. "The way we tell the story of dragons is through the individual stories of four particular species of dragons throughout time and across the globe," Foley said in an interview. "The first dragon story we tell is the oldest dragon, which is the prehistoric dragon, [and] then we move in time through three other species of dragons to tell the story arc of the rise and fall of the predator, the dragon."
Kevin Mohs, one of the show's writers, said that the program begins with a confrontation between a real-life predator and a dragon to cement the possibility they actually existed. "We kind of start off with a surprise to get you in an unexpected scenario," Mohs said. "You see T. rex being a major predator, and lo and behold, there's something bigger and better out there: a dragon that comes and does battle with it. Then as you watch the show, you find out that there's a theory as to why when anything bigger than a cat was wiped out on Earth, the dragon survived."
Foley added that the producers wanted to show an evolution of the animal from prehistoric predator to the creature exalted in myth and fable. "The dragon that's found in the Cretaceous period and does battle with the T. rex [is] the first major dragon we visit in the CGI and computer graphics," Foley said. "The remaining dragons that we go to are the marine dragon, and that's sort of how we imagined dragons survived the KT event, the Cretaceous Tertiary extinction, that wipes out most life on Earth. Then, the marine dragon gives rise to a species of forest dragon that's in Europe and Asia, and then the last dragon story we tell is the dragon of Western myth and legend, which is a mountain dragon, and that brings us up until about the 15th century." Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real premieres on Animal Planet March 20 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Raze's Hell Due For Xbox
ajesco announced that it will release Raze's Hell, a third-person adventure game developed by Artech Studios, for the Xbox console system in April. Players will take on the role of Raze, an antihero who must battle an evil princess and her cuddly minions, known as Kewlettes, in order to restore his planet to its naturally ugly state.
The game features 20 mission-based levels and minigames, which can be played alone or in two-player mode. It will also be compatible with the Xbox Live feature, allowing players to compete with each other online, the company said.
Pan Prequel Flying At Disney
isney has optioned the film rights to the best-selling children's book Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, Variety reported. The studio is planning to adapt the book into a 3-D computer-animated feature, the news service said.
The book, which was released by Disney Editions last August, is a modern retelling of the events leading up to the classic story of Peter Pan. It centers around an 8-year-old boy named Peter, who leads a group of orphaned boys and a girl named Molly on an adventure to recover a trunk of magical starstuff before it falls into the hands of the pirate Black Stache.
New EverQuest Expansion Ships
verQuest: Dragons of Norrath, the next expansion for the massive multiplayer online game EverQuest, is now available at retail establishments and via digital download, Sony Online Entertainment announced. The expansion will feature appearances from familiar characters, enhanced graphics, updated creatures and new guild management tools, the company said in a statement.
The new story will revolve around the characters Firiona Vie and her nemesis Lanys T’Vyl, who return to find that a dark influence has seeped into the world of Norrath, causing new tensions to arise and conflicts to intensify as the dawn of a new age emerges. The game allows players to explore the world with a new interactive map, use a potion belt to access inventory quickly and swap weapons more easily. New quests, treasures and creatures—including drakes, goblins and dragons—have also been added.
EverQuest: Dragons of Norrath is available for download at the EverQuest Station Store. The boxed retail version includes a collector’s-edition cloth map and in-game health, mana and endurance potions.
Proyas In The Knowing
lex Proyas, director of I, Robot and Dark City, is in talks to direct the supernatural thriller Knowing, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Sony-based producer Escape Artists is developing the project.
The film centers around a man who unearths a 1950s time capsule with children's drawings predicting the future. One set of drawings depicts horrible events that already have come true, but one of the events has not occurred, and the man sets out to prevent it from happening, the trade paper reported.
Smith Comes Tonight
ill Smith, star of I, Robot and Men in Black, is set to play the lead in He Comes Tonight, a dark tale about a disillusioned superhero who romances a married woman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) will direct the project, which has been circulating in Hollywood for six years, the trade paper reported. The script was originally written by Vincent Ngo, but X-Files scribe Vince Gilligan has been brought on to rewrite. Columbia Pictures is in negotiations to finance and produce the film for a 2006 release.
Science Made Dragons Real
harlie Foley, creator of the upcoming Animal Planet documentary Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real, told SCI FI Wire that the program applies scientific fact to suggest how the mythological beasts might have lived throughout history. "This is something that the special definitely tries to honor, rather than just being [a] pure flight of fancy," Foley said in an interview. "Everything that we imagine in each of the dragons is inspired by something that is real biology or real behavior or real natural history."
Foley said the biggest obstacle was understanding how dragons might have survived the Cretaceous Tertiary extinction, or "KT event," that wiped out almost all life on Earth 65 million years ago. "In the KT event, the big animals that actually made it out alive were the ones that were marine or aquatic or otherwise escaped through the sea," Foley said. "So we're telling the story of dragons who were contemporaries of the dinosaurs. That's really the only way that they would have made it out, and so nature kind of led us along the way all the way."
Foley said that the producers of the show approached the animals from a biological, rather than fictional, perspective. "Even though we're telling one of humankind's oldest stories, the way that we are doing it is that we are imagining them as real animals, and our guide throughout the process has been real natural history. Kevin [Mohs] and I have worked at Animal Planet for a while and have worked on natural history documentaries before that, so we have a lot of interest [in] that area of the natural world, and we brought in scientific advisors as well who helped us come to a vision of what these animals would be like, how they would have to have behaved, and then, really, actually it gave a real identity to each of the animals, because we knew we had to honor that nature that we wanted to incorporate into it." Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real premieres on Animal Planet March 20 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Valderrama Talks El Muerto
hat '70s Show's Wilmer Valderrama, who stars in the upcoming indie comic-book adaptation El Muerto, told SCI FI Wire that he thrilled at the chance to make the movie because it reminded him of the comic books he enjoyed when he was younger. "I'm a big fan of Spawn, and the similarities between this comic book and Spawn were so interesting," Valderrama said in an interview. "Oddly enough, they had the same type of questioning of religion and of faith, and more importantly, dealt with love and friendship. There are a couple of things that Spawn is not, and a couple of things that are like The Crow, and this is all of that combined."
In El Muerto, Valderrama plays Diego, a young man who dies on the Mexican holiday the Day of the Dead, only to be resurrected one year later with supernatural powers. Valderrama said that the screenplay enhanced the core ideas of the comic book, which was created by Javier Hernandez. "The script was just genius," he said. "It was brilliant, and it was even more of a wonderful adaptation from the comic to the screenplay. The finished screenplay enhances completely the entire idea. When I first read it, I was looking for something that gave me an excuse to do something really cool, and at the end of the day, it's hard to find certain things when you read them at first, and this was one of the things that caught my eye where I said, 'You know what? It makes sense.'"
Valderrama added that he appreciated the dedication and respect the film's producers and director showed the source material. "The team is great," Valderrama said. "Larry Rattner and the producers and [director] Brian Cox [make] a great team. Everybody's very solid and very passionate about it, and that's what I really liked about it. I liked the fact that people were going to take it very serious and weren't just going to do a straight-to-video movie, and that appealed to me a lot. The fact that this movie is turning out the way it has been, it's been a dream come true. We're having a ball, man." No release date has been set yet for El Muerto.
WB Takes Toons Into Future
he WB network has announced a new animated series starring futuristic versions of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the rest of the Looney Tunes characters, the Associated Press reported. Loonatics, which will air Saturday mornings in the fall on the Kids' WB, is set in the year 2272 and features characters such as Buzz Bunny and other superhero descendants of the Looney Tunes family.
David Janollari, president of the Kids' WB, told the news service that the network was impressed with the re-imagining of the classic characters and that the new series will not tarnish their legacy. "I think the legacy is intact," he said. "If anything, it's an homage to the legacy instead of a destruction of the legacy."
Radcliffe Goes Platinum
latinum Studios has acquired the rights to the next four graphic novels by horror writer Wil Radcliffe, to develop as live-action features, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The deal includes the titles Bone Hill, The Whisper King, Macabre and Play Dead.
In Bone Hill, a psychiatrist tries to save a young female patient whose psychoses might hold the key to ending an ancient evil. The Whisper King is the story of a man who must protect a group of kids from the monsters who abducted him as a child. Macabre is a teen supernatural horror story about a young man possessed by a vengeful spirit. And Play Dead is about a family haunted by the malevolent spirit of their beloved household pet.
Purefoy Has Vendetta
ames Purefoy (Resident Evil) has signed on to star opposite Natalie Portman in the upcoming film adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The script, adapted for the screen by Matrix creators Andy and Larry Wachowski, takes place in a dark alternate reality and centers around a white-masked vigilante who takes revenge on those who tortured him in a British concentration camp after a devastating world war.
Joel Silver, who produced the Matrix trilogy, is producing along with the Wachowski brothers. James McTeigue, who served as assistant director on the Matrix trilogy and Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, will make his feature directing debut. Filming is scheduled to begin in Berlin in early March for a Nov. 4 release, the trade paper reported.
Transformers Has New Writers
oberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have been brought on to rewrite the script for the upcoming film Transformers, according to the IGN FilmForce Web site. The writing team are best known for their work on television series such as Alias and Xena: Warrior Princess, but they have several feature scripts currently in production, including The Island, The Legend of Zorro and Mission: Impossible III.
The film's previous screenwriter, John Rogers (The Core, Catwoman), announced on his personal blog that he turned in a revised draft of the script, but is no longer working on the film. Steven Spielberg told SCI FI Wire in an interview last week that he is still producing Transformers, and that he will be announcing a director in a couple of weeks.
Briefly Noted
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TV Guide reported in its current issue that Star Trek: The Next Generation stars Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis may appear in the finale of Star Trek: Enterprise, which airs in May.
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Dimension Films has launched the official Web site for Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's upcoming comic-book adaptation Sin City, which opens April 1.
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Warner Brothers has acquired the rights to the best-selling fantasy book series Midnight for Charlie Bone by Welsh author Jenny Nimmo, Variety reported.
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Jared Padalecki (House of Wax) and Jensen Ackles (Smallville) have been cast in the upcoming WB series Supernatural as two brothers who travel the country in search of the paranormal, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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A new, full-length trailer for the upcoming SF comedy Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has gone up at Amazon.com.
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Sony announced that it has changed the release date of the SF action-adventure film The Cave to Aug. 19.
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Universal has moved back the release date of its upcoming supernatural thriller Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson, to Aug. 12, the studio announced.
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