Who Star Quits Abruptly
hristopher Eccleston has quit the title role of the BBC's new Doctor Who series after just one episode of the new series aired, the BBC reported. Eccleston, whose first appearance as the ninth Time Lord attracted around 10 million viewers in its premiere on March 26, feared being typecast, the network said.
Talks are taking place to replace him with Casanova star David Tennant.
The surprise news followed earlier reports that the BBC, buoyed by Doctor Who's huge audience, had ordered up a second season after just one episode had hit British airwaves. Russell T. Davies will again write the show, which is produced by BBC Wales.
Billie Piper, who plays Doctor Who's assistant, Rose, is expected to star again.
Eccleston's last appearance is expected to be in a Christmas special. He said that he is planning new projects and that he found filming the series grueling, the BBC reported.
Spielberg Helped On Episode III
.W. Rinzler, author of the behind-the-scenes book The Making of Revenge of the Sith, revealed to the official Star Wars Web site that director Steven Spielberg had an early hand in the creation of Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith.
"As George [Lucas] explains in the book, he gave Spielberg a few scenes to play with at the animatics stage: a bit of the Mustafar duel and Yoda's duel with the Emperor, along with a couple of others," Rinzler said, referring to the animated storyboards that are used to plan production. "How much of Spielberg's contribution made it to the final film, only Lucas or Spielberg could say, particularly as George revised and reinvented every scene in the film so extensively in editorial."
It's unclear whether Spielberg will receive any kind of credit for the final film. Episode III opens May 19.
Women Defend Sin Images
rittany Murphy and Rosario Dawson, who appear in the upcoming comic-book film Sin City, defended the dark story's depiction of women, who are shown variously as innocents, victims, hookers and sadistic killers in an assortment of revealing costumes. "I think that's been the question: ... Are women going to want to see this, specifically, for that reason?" Dawson asked in comments to reporters. "I think, absolutely."
Dawson plays Gail, the leader of a pack of hookers who use violence to protect their turf in Old Town, the red-light district of a corrupt mythical city, which is based on Frank Miller's noirish graphic novel series. "We're very in control of what we are," Dawson said. "We know what our assets are. We make money off of it, and we call the shots, which I think is very powerful. I think it's a very even-keel sort of strength between the men and the women. You know, the guys get their balls ripped off, and the girls threaten to do it and will. I think it's a pretty tough town on both sides."
Murphy, who plays a saloon waitress named Shellie, agreed. "If you look at the undertones of Frank Miller's writing, there's a balance to everything. If you're a true fan of his work and his graphic novels, ... there's actually a great balance to his work, and there's also subtle moments."
Robert Rodriguez, who co-directed the film with Miller, added: "It's not the real world. In Sin City, the men are all criminals, the women are very strong in their own way. It's supposed to be the dark side of life there." Sin City opens April 1.
Aoki Slices Into Sin City
evon Aoki, co-star of the upcoming comic-book film Sin City, told SCI FI Wire that her directors, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, made it easier to perform against green screens, which were later replaced with computer-generated cityscapes. "The environment that Robert and Frank created out there was easy," Aoki said in an interview. "It was sort of seamless and really enjoyable. You're working with actors who are brilliant, and who are talented, so you start to sort of believe the scene material and stuff."
Aoki plays a silent assassin named Miho, who protects a community of prostitutes in the corrupt title metropolis. Rodriguez and Miller shot the actors mostly against green screens and later filled in the backgrounds, props and vehicles with black-and-white, noirish computer-generated imagery.
Aoki said that she occasionally found it difficult to react to the minimal sets. "All of my scenes were shot with green screens," she said. "You show up, and you sort of basically go into the same set every day, the same stage. You're surrounded by this bright green color, and it could be sort of difficult to imagine the things that will be surrounding you once the movie's up on the screen."
But Aoki said that she enjoyed working with co-star Benicio Del Toro, who plays the villainous cop Jackie Boy, a victim of Miho's vengeance. "I basically kill, like, half of the people in the film," Aoki added. "It was scary fun. I'd be doing these [fight] scenes with Benicio, and he's like, 'Does she have to do this with me sitting here?' It was great." Sin City, based on Miller's graphic novel series, opens April 1.
Garner To Direct Alias
lias star Jennifer Garner directs the May 11 episode, "In Dreams," which features guest star Joel Grey and deals with the Rambaldi mythology, Zap2it reported.
Grey plays a mysterious man impersonating Ron Rifkin's Arvin Sloane, hot on the trail of some Rambaldi secret, the site reported. Amy Irving, who hasn't appeared on the show since 2003, will also appear, playing Emily Sloane, who appeared to have died in an earlier episode.
Lost Finale Expands
he season finale of ABC's hit SF series Lost has been expanded to two hours, from the originally planned 90 minutes, for creative reasons, Variety reported. The May 25 finale is also being scheduled directly opposite Fox's American Idol climax, the trade paper said.
Series creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof had planned for a 90-minute Lost wrap-up, but once the final script came in longer than expected, the decision was made to expand the finale to two hours, the trade paper reported. Alias will air its season finale at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Iron Man Tests Card's Mettle
ugo-Award-winning SF novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game) told SCI FI Wire that he will re-imagine Marvel Comics' Iron Man by following the example of The WB's Smallville, a retelling of the Superman origin story. Marvel has asked Card to write two five-issue miniseries of Ultimate Iron Man, the first issue of which is out now. "I respond only to the Smallville angle, where the real person is Clark Kent, and it is the Superman role that fits him uncomfortably," Card said in an interview.
Card added: "That's one reason I appreciated the chance to work with Iron Man. There is no doubt that Tony Stark is the real guy, and Iron Man only a role he puts on and takes off. I think what I'm fascinated with is the development of a person into a superhero, which is why I love the Spider-Man movies but am left cold by other superhero films that jump too quickly to a full-blown, guy-wearing-a-suit adventure story. So as I work on the Ultimate Iron Man series, that's what I'm concentrating on, not the adventures of the guy in the elaborate Iron Man suit, but rather the child growing up with the kind of extraordinary needs and abilities and handicaps that turn him into someone as interestingly noble and yet troubled as Tony Stark."
Card had never heard of Iron Man until Nick Lowe at Marvel contacted him. He was immediately drawn to the character. "What intrigued me was the way that he, unlike any other superhero, represents in an iconic way the path of our society," Card said. "We are powerful, but only because of the technology we 'wear.' Yet our very reliance on technology weakens us in the natural world. Abilities our ancestors had—and the huge amount of knowledge they had of the natural world and how to live from and within it—are simply lost to us. We are relatively helpless outside our technological cocoon. So in developing my version of Iron Man for the Ultimate series—which provides the luxury of being able to reinvent the hero without being tied to decisions made decades ago—what I wanted was to concentrate on Tony's vulnerability without some kind of protection from the outside world, based on very high technology. So my version of Tony Stark is 'technological man': immensely powerful, yet dependent, crutchlike, on the high-tech armor with which he surrounds his life. It suggests that despite his courage and intelligence, he is also constantly aware of fear: not a bad description, I think, of our high-tech civilization. We might be sentimental about nature, but in fact we can't let go of high technology as a civilization because our civilization would die without it."
Card said he has no concerns moving to comics, because he has written other media, including plays, audio plays and video scripts. But how many he will do remains to be seen. "A lot depends on how happy Marvel is with what I do with the first five books, and of course on how the readers receive them," he said. "If nobody much cares for the direction in which I take Tony Stark, then it would be silly to leave the series in my hands! But if readers, publisher and I are all still interested, we'll probably do another five books and then see what happens."
Is Watchmen Film Imperiled?
peculation is running high that new Paramount chief Brad Grey is pulling the plug on the film version of Alan Moore's seminal superhero graphic novel Watchmen, but others say the studio will go ahead with the much-anticipated film, Variety reported. Producer Larry Gordon and studio spokeswoman Nancy Kirkpatrick insisted to Variety that Paramount will go ahead, with British director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) at the helm.
"We really want to make it," Kirkpatrick told the trade paper. "We think it's a great piece of material."
Watchmen came under scrutiny in the wake of Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman's replacing Donald De Line as studio president; De Line reportedly found out about the change while in London meeting with Greengrass about Watchmen and the need to cut its budget, rumored to be $100 million, the trade paper reported.
Paramount had been aiming for a June start, but in recent days, some of the crew members working on preproduction have been released. Kirkpatrick said some crews remain on the job, the trade paper reported.
Fantastic New Site Opens
new official Web site has gone live for Fox's upcoming Fantastic Four movie, with secret content that includes a video screened at ShoWest in Las Vegas, the C.H.U.D. Web site reported.
To access the content, called the "Von Doom Archives," go to the Web site, click on the language desired, then hold the "F4" key as the Flash page loads. That will take the visitor to the special part of the site, where the video can be accessed.
Fantastic Four, based on the Marvel Comics series, stars Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd and opens July 8.
Iowa Not Amused At Shatner
iverside, Iowa—the small town that was the focus of a hoax perpetrated by William Shatner's new Spike TV reality series Invasion Iowa—didn't take kindly to being the butt of the joke, Zap2it reported. A Sept. 30, 2004, editorial in the Iowa City Press-Citizen was titled "Riverside, IA: Birthplace of Captain Jerk" and said, in part, "Shame on William Shatner (aka Capt. James T. Kirk) and Spike TV. On Tuesday evening, they revealed that their film project in Riverside—the self-proclaimed and now studio-sanctioned birthplace of Captain Kirk—was a big hoax. A prank. An April Fools' joke pulled in autumn."
Invasion Iowa, airing as a five-hour miniseries starting March 29, chronicles how the Star Trek star fooled a small town into thinking it was the shooting location of his independent SF film. The town of Riverside was selected in part because townspeople decreed that it was the future birthpace of Shatner's Capt. Kirk, based on a line from the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Shatner Admits Iowa Guilt
illiam Shatner, who stars in the hoax reality series Invasion Iowa on Spike TV, told TV Guide Online that he felt guilt pulling the wool over the eyes of the residents of a small Iowa town, who thought the original Star Trek star was there to make an SF movie. In fact, the series was designed to fake the residents out, and there was no movie production in Riverside, Iowa.
"[I felt] tremendous guilt," Shatner told TV Guide. "Every night, we'd come and spend three hours in front of the camera saying, 'Oh, my God, I feel so guilty. I cannot believe it. I'm falling in love with these people, and they think I'm such-and-such and I'm not.' There were actors who cried out of the pain of lying to them."
Since the hoax was discovered, some Iowans have expressed displeasure at the stunt.
For his part, Shartner said that he grew close to some of the townspeople. "There's an old fellow in the coffee shop who took me out to the grave where his wife was buried, because he [had become] my friend," Shatner said. "He's 89 years old. He's dying. So over this vista of the Iowa fields where this graveyard was, he says [to me], 'This is where I'm joining my wife.' He starts to cry, and I start to cry, and I tell him I know exactly what it is to lose a wife."
Shatner added: "Everybody became like buddies, and that was the pain of the last day when we had to tell them it was all a gag."
In the end, Shatner said, the townspeople took it pretty well. The show also donated about $100,000 to Riverside and also helped out individual residents financially. Invasion Iowa airs March 29-April 1 at 9 p.m. ET on Spike TV.
X-Files 2 Gets Closer
avid Duchovny told SCI FI Wire that he, Gillian Anderson and Chris Carter are on board for a second feature film based on their hit TV series The X-Files and that the project is inching toward becoming a reality. Carter would write and produce, while Duchovny and Anderson would reprise their respective roles as FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. "As far I know we're all getting very close to saying that it would be shooting sometime early next year," Duchovny said in an interview while promoting his latest film, House of D, a drama that he directed. "So it's much closer to being a reality than in the last couple of years."
Duchovny added: "I know that I'm in, Gillian's in and Chris Carter is in. It's just a matter of making sure that everybody is free at the right time. So I would be in it. I know that Chris has an idea. He's got an idea that he's told me that I think is good. He just has to get the go-ahead to execute it."
Gunmen Foreshadowed 9/11
ean Haglund, star of the short-lived The Lone Gunmen TV series on Fox, said in a statement that the show's pilot eerily foreshadowed the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center, though it was shot months before Sept. 11, 2001. In the pilot, which aired in March 2001, the title characters prevent a commercial airliner from crashing into the World Trade Center with barely enough time to spare.
"Conspiracy theorists might say otherwise, but we had no way of knowing," Haglund recalled. "When 9/11 occurred, and I actually witnessed those planes crashing into the towers, I was in a state of shock. We shot that eerily prescient episode eight months before 9/11. Soon afterward, everyone was carefully viewing episodes of The Lone Gunmen to reveal further prophecies, which was nonsense. For example, I personally don't believe the government has an army of super-intelligent military chimps. We weren't the Nostradamus of TV programming."
Haglund played Langly, one of a trio of ubernerds who investigated paranormal phenomena, in The Lone Gunmen, a spinoff of The X-Files. The show's 13 episodes have just been released on DVD.
Haglund, meanwhile, has chronicled his experiences on the show in a comic book, Why My Series Was Cancelled, which will be available in the fall.
Duchovny Stars In Parallel
ormer The X-Files star David Duchovny told SCI FI Wire that he's attached to star in the upcoming SF movie Parallel, which was written and would be directed by first-timer Josh Boone. "It's a very, very interesting, very well-written SF thriller, to throw a couple of genres at you," Duchovny said in an interview. "That's getting closer to becoming a reality to shoot."
Duchovny added: "Parallel is really an alternate-world story in the classic mold of SF, where not quite time travel, but dimension travel has happened, and something has been changed from one dimension to the other that has to be set right. And I would play a couple of characters in both the worlds, as would the other actors. And we'd be trying to make it all square up between the dimensions."
Duchovny has also recorded a voice-over for the upcoming video game Area-51, a Midway Games title that will be released later this month for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. "That wasn't a big kind of time commitment," Duchovny said. "That's just doing my voice, and it takes a lot less time than a movie. It's a game, and I don't play games. I saw some of it while I was up there doing the work, and I'm just amazed at the level of reality these things are at, but I don't play them, so I can't really speak to whether or not Area-51 is better than another one."
Duchovny added: "I'd done an X-Files game, and there are different ways the game can be played, so you do a different voice-over for each different scenario and see them through to their conclusion. I guess I'm the hero. I guess I'm the good guy or, not really the good guy, but a guy who's trying to figure out what's going on. Powers Booth is in it, and Marilyn Manson is also a voice in the game."
Amityville Director Shunned Original
ndrew Douglas, who directed the upcoming remake film The Amityville Horror, told SCI FI Wire that he avoided referencing the original 1979 version on which the new film is based. "I didn't watch the film again, deliberately," Douglas said in an interview on the set last September. "When that first came out, I was just about going into art school, which meant that I was pretentious, which meant that I would watch films like [George Romero's Night of the Living Dead], because they were arty. I'd kind of go and watch those before I'd go and watch mainstream horror."
Douglas, a first-time feature director, said that he was heavily influenced by the disturbing atmosphere of 1973's The Exorcist, which he tried to emulate in the film. "I mean, that did to crucifixes what Psycho did to shower curtains and Jaws did to swimming," he said. "That was deeply, deeply unsettling, and that was an interesting lesson. It was one of the things I kind of tried to call up when I got invited to do this film, because my other work in documentaries and commercials didn't make me a natural for this. So I had to kind of call up things that I remembered from my youth and childhood and then think, 'What's going to creep me out?' When you're grown up, the same things creep you out."
Another major influence for Douglas was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which tells a similar story of an ordinary man slowly transformed into a homicidal maniac by his haunted surroundings. "I thought about The Shining for a while when we were prepping," Douglas said. "Then I tried to forget about it, because that was that story. ... You try and exploit those kinds of cues from the genre, but then you [ask], 'Well, how does my character go in a different way?' So it was really that. That's what I tried to do. But, you know, even when we're chasing around on a roof, I can't quite get the maze out of my mind." The Amityville Horror, starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George, opens April 15.
George Kept Amityville Light
elissa George, who stars in the upcoming remake film The Amityville Horror, told SCI FI Wire that co-star Ryan Reynolds kept her laughing on the set in between tense scenes. "Ryan does this character, Mr. Hollywood, and it just tears me apart," George said during an interview on the set last September. "And this morning it got me a little extra, because I'm a little giddy. I don't know what's wrong with me today. So he went into this act like he was in the bathroom [set] doing something, and then he'd just waddle off. He does subtle things only for my benefit. And of course no one else sees it and they think I'm the crazy one."
George said that she and Reynolds, who play a husband and wife in the film, agreed on the first day of shooting to be honest with each other and hold nothing back in their performances. "You're a mirror when you're working with somebody," George said. "And to have that kind of honesty and trust is wonderful. He makes me laugh a lot. And he freaks me out a lot, too, so it's a perfect balance. We work great together. We really listen and bring things to the table and just run with it. We get so into the scene that a couple of times he said that he wanted to stop in the middle of it , because he thought it was real, or he was really hurting me. I'm like, 'No, you're just so good I'm just responding.'"
George, who hadn't seen the original film before being cast in the remake, said she was impressed by the dramatic elements of the script, but it was the 1970s setting that excited her the most. "I really wanted to play somebody from the '70s and sort of get into that kind of wardrobe," she said. "And you know what attracted me to the role was just the scenes. There are so many great scenes. And for a scary film, there's some acting scenes in there. I mean there's some really juicy, meaty kind of scenes, which I loved. I mean, I didn't want to do a slasher film, just screaming and [freaking] out. I wanted there to be a substance to the film and a psychological element to these real people. And have the creepy element really strong instead of just the freak-out element." The Amityville Horror opens April 15.
Amityville A Horror For George
elissa George, who stars as Kathy Lutz in the upcoming remake of The Amityville Horror, told SCI FI Wire that she's swearing off horror films after making a movie that was, at times, a horror to shoot. "I was in the rain for three weeks straight, with rain machines," George (Alias) said in an interview. "I was like, 'Can you heat the water?' They said, 'Well, if you heat it you'll be showing steam on film. ...' I said, 'Where are you getting the water from?' And they said they were getting it from a Wisconsin lake."
George added: "It was so frozen. I've got no real clothing. I'm just running around in the rain and thinking, 'This is the last horror film I will ever do.' The conditions were inhumane, I swear to you. I don't think a regular person would have survived."
George emphasized that she isn't kidding when she says she doubts she'll ever appear in another horror film. "I think horror, when it's done well, you can't get a better film," she said. "28 Days Later is a favorite of mine. I thought it was done really, really well. I love it. Look, I've never done horror before. I've done other kinds of genre work [including Dark City and TV's Roar and Charmed], but not horror. Now I've done one, and I think that will probably be it. But if it's done well you can have the time of your life watching it. As an actor, it can be hard." The Amityville Horror opens April 15.
Reynolds Believed In Amityville
yan Reynolds, who stars as George Lutz in the upcoming remake The Amityville Horror, told SCI FI Wire that he wanted to portray his character's gradual descent into madness in a believable way. "That's the hardest thing I've ever had to do in a movie," Reynolds (Blade: Trinity) said in an interview on the set last September. "You've got to track it. It's just subtle little adjustments from scene to scene. When you're going from George Lutz in the B area to an X area in one day—you're shooting two of those scenes—that's a lot easier for me than going from B to F in one day. So you really have to sort of find those moments."
In one of the most challenging scenes for Reynolds, which SCI FI Wire observed during the visit to the film's Illinois set, his character regains his composure after flying into a rage and striking out against his wife, Kathy (Melissa George), and her children. "That scene's one of the most difficult scenes that I've done, just because there's so many things that have just happen, and it's very hard to find the right temperature," Reynolds said. "This is a scene where I've just basically torn into her kids. ... There's a point in the movie where George separates himself as their father—as their new father, or even stepfather—and begins to refer to them as her kids. 'Your kids.' 'That kid of yours.' So that is a moment where George comes back. There's these moments where you step on the gas, and you have to ease off a bit, and you have to bring Kathy back. You can't let her be completely dismayed or freaked out or horrified by George. So he definitely keeps reeling her back in."
Reynolds said that the characters in the updated version have more realistic motivations than those in the original 1979 film, which left audiences wondering why the family stayed in the house so long after realizing it was haunted. "That never made sense to me in the first movie, but in this one it does," he said. "There is a bit of a jockeying as the movie goes on, where some strange thing starts to happen, then something really redeeming happens, or something that's just enough that keeps them there. And I bought it. ... And there are other factors as well. I mean, these people are in over their heads mortgage-wise. They've got this house. This is their dream house that they got for a quarter the price that it should be. So they knew going in what happened in the house, and they accepted that and they were going to make it work no matter what. So I buy that they were there. I wouldn't buy that they were there any longer than they stayed. I mean, it was only 28 days. But it makes sense when they leave. In this version it makes sense that they get out when they get out." The Amityville Horror opens April 15.
Halo 2 Expansion Due
ungie announced plans to release an expansion for its popular Xbox first-person shooter Halo 2, the GameSpot Web site reported. But the expansion is not expected to contain a single-player portion that many hoped might wrap up Halo 2's abrupt campaign-mode ending, the site reported.
The additional content, called Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack, will contain nine multiplayer maps of varying shapes and sizes, and the first four will show up in late April. Two of the maps will be free, and the other two will be available for $5.99. The remaining five maps will be downloadable for $11.99 on June 28, the site reported.
Anarchy Gets Organized
erri Perkins, product manager for Funcom, told SCI FI Wire that the company will announce the latest game expansion to the successful Anarchy Online multiplayer series on April 20. Perkins added that the games have been successful despite a rough start in June 2001.
"When [Anarchy Online] came out, we had the worst launch in game history," Perkins said. "We had a hundred times more players than we ever expected, and we were completely swamped. But we survived that and were able to turn things around with the addition of Notum Wars expansion packs and more of an emphasis on player-vs.-player elements."
Shadowlands, released in September 2003, was an expansion to the Anarchy Online universe that featured a more linear game world, Perkins said. The game offered instant dungeons, seven-day trials and a tiered system of seven worlds, in which the completion of certain tasks—often taking weeks or months—was required to advance to the next world.
Alien Invasion continued the expansion of the Anarchy concept in September 2004, with an ambitious array of player guilds, cloaking-device options and comparable attack modes. According to Perkins, the constant refinement of the Anarchy series has led to positive reviews and a steady increase in the number of players: More than a million players have joined within the last year, she said. The games' online fees are also currently undergoing a change.
"We've taken away the subscription fee from Anarchy Online basic, and while we have subscription and client fees for Shadowlands and Alien Invasion, those are subject to change as well." As for the problems that plagued the start of Anarchy Online, Perkins said: "We've definitely had fewer problems with the follow-up games."
Vaughn Still Cries U.N.C.L.E.?
atthew Vaughn, who has been tapped to direct a third X-Men film, still plans to make a movie update of the 1960s spy TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E., though in a different form, Variety reported.
Vaughn is still working with writer John Hodge on the project for Warner Brothers, but has persuaded the studio to develop it as an original screenplay, and not as an U.N.C.L.E. redo, the trade paper reported.
Vaughn always said his and Hodge's concept for U.N.C.L.E. would radically reinvent the series, keeping nothing but the title. That prompted howls of outrage from the show's fans, which helped Vaughn convince Warner there was no upside in associating his project with the old show, the trade paper reported. Vaughn is not related to Robert Vaughn, who starred in the original Man From U.N.C.L.E. series.
Vaughn Toplines Fantasy Comedy
ince Vaughn has been set to star in an untitled fantasy comedy that David O. Russell has written and will direct for Universal Pictures, Variety reported.
Vaughn will play the wiseass host of a radio call-in show whose life gets turned upside down when he starts becoming his callers, the trade paper reported.
Russell started with a pre-existing script by David Cohen and Tony Lord, but changed it dramatically. Russell's previous comedies include I Heart Huckabees and Flirting With Disaster.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Life Wins PKD Award
wyneth Jones' Life won the 2005 Philip K. Dick Award. The announcement was made March 25 at Norwescon 28 in Seattle.
Named for the prolific SF author, the PKD Award recognizes an original science-fiction paperback published for the first time during 2004 in the United States.
A special citation was given to Lyda Morehouse's Apocalypse Array.
The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. The 2004 judges were Arthur Byron Cover, Karin Lowachee, Syne Mitchell, James Van Pelt and Sherryl Vint.
River Of Gods Wins BSFA
Ian McDonald's River of Gods won the 2004 best novel award from the British Science Fiction Association on March 26, the BSFA announced. The award was one of several presented during Paragon2, the British national science fiction convention, or Eastercon, at the Hinckley Island Hotel in Leicestershire, U.K. A full list of winners follows.
Best Novel: River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Best Short Fiction: "Mayflower II" by Stephen Baxter
Best Artwork: The cover of Ken MacLeod's Newton's Wake by Stephan Martinière
SF Hall Of Famers Named
he Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame named several inductees into its Science Fiction Hall of Fame on March 24, including filmmaker Steven Spielberg, prolific SF author Philip K. Dick, artist Chesley Bonestell and special-effects maven Ray Harryhausen. The class of 2005 will be honored during the first-ever induction ceremony at the Hall of Fame's new home at the Science Fiction Museum on May 6 in Seattle.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame honors the lives, work and ongoing legacies of science fiction's greatest creators, the museum said. Founded in 1996, the Hall of Fame was relocated from the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at Kansas University to its permanent home at SFM in 2004. The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame Induction is sponsored by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Foster, Pepper & Shefelman.
The new inductees:
Film, Television and Media: Steven Spielberg, whose films include E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jurassic Park.
Literature: Philip K. Dick, whose novels and stories have inspired some of Hollywood's best science fiction films, including Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.
Art: Chesley Bonestell, the most influential creator of photo-realistic astronomical art.
Open: Ray Harryhausen, the stop-motion animator whose work can be seen in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans.
As part of the induction, a new display featuring personal artifacts and video footage from each inductee will be added to the existing Hall of Fame exhibit.
Hugo Nominees Announced
CI FI Channel's Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica and SCIFI.COM's SCI Fiction site were among the nominees announced for the coveted 2005 Hugo Awards. The short list for the Hugo Awards, recognizing achievement in science fiction during 2004, was announced over the weekend. Named for writer, publisher and inventor Hugo Gernsback, the Hugos are voted on by members of Interaction, the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, which takes place in Glasgow, Scotland, Aug. 4-8.
The first episode of the Battlestar Galactica series, "33," was nominated for best dramatic presentation, short form, as was the two-part SG-1 episode "Heroes."
SCI Fiction was among the nominees for best Web site. Editor Ellen Datlow got a nod for best professional editor. James Patrick Kelly's "The Best Christmas Ever", which first appeared on SCI Fiction, was nominated for best short story, and the site's "The Voluntary State" by Christopher Rowe got a nod for best novelette.
The Hugo Awards will be announced at a ceremony on Aug. 7. The 2005 Hugo Awards nominations listed below include finalists in 14 categories, plus the John W. Campbell Award.
Best Novel: The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks, Iron Council by China Miéville, Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Best Novella: "The Concrete Jungle" by Charles Stross, "Elector" by Charles Stross, "Sergeant Chip" by Bradley Denton, "Time Ablaze" by Michael A. Burstein, "Winterfair Gifts" by Lois McMaster Bujold
Best Novelette: "Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes,' by Benjamin Rosenbaum" by Benjamin Rosenbaum; "The Clapping Hands of God" by Michael F. Flynn; "The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link; "The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bacigalupi; "The Voluntary State" by Christopher Rowe
Best Short Story: "The Best Christmas Ever" by James Patrick Kelly, "Decisions" by Michael A. Burstein, "A Princess of Earth" by Mike Resnick, "Shed Skin" by Robert J. Sawyer, "Travels With My Cats" by Mike Resnick
Best Related Book: The Best of Xero by Pat and Dick Lupoff; The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, eds.; Dancing Naked: The Unexpurgated William Tenn, Volume 3, by William Tenn; Futures: 50 Years in Space: The Challenge of the Stars by David A. Hardy and Patrick Moore; With Stars in My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom by Peter Weston
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Incredibles, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Spider-Man 2
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: "Heroes, Parts 1 and 2," Stargate SG-1; "Not Fade Away," Angel; "Pilot," Lost; "Smile Time," Angel; "33," Battlestar Galactica
Best Professional Editor: Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, David G. Hartwell, Stanley Schmidt, Gordon Van Gelder
Best Professional Artist: Jim Burns, Bob Eggleton, Frank Kelly Freas, Donato Giancola, John Picacio
Best Semiprozine: Ansible, Interzone, Locus, The New York Review of Science Fiction, The Third Alternative
Best Fan Writer: Claire Brialey, Bob Devney, David Langford, Cheryl Morgan, Steven H. Silver
Best Fanzine: Banana Wings, Challenger, Chunga, Emerald City, Plokta
Best Fan Artist: Brad Foster, Teddy Harvia, Sue Mason, Steve Stiles, Frank Wu
Best Web Site: eFanzines, Emerald City, Locus Online, SCI Fiction, Strange Horizons
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Elizabeth Bear, K.J. Bishop, David Moles, Chris Roberson, Steph Swainston
Daybreakers Develops
ustralian filmmakers Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig told Now Playing Magazine that they are drafting Daybreakers, a new vampire film, for Lions Gate. The writing/directing team is finishing up a zombie movie, Undead, which Lions Gate will release in the United States this summer.
"[We] just finished the next draft [for Daybreakers] and are about to deliver it to Lions Gate," the Spierigs said. "Everyone's very excited about it. The film is much darker and far more serious than Undead. It's about a world dominated by vampires."
The Spierigs added: "[The vampires] have tried to continue their lives as normal people. Human beings are on the brink of extinction, [and] it's just a matter of time before the entire human population is wiped out. Vampires will suffer an eternity of starvation and madness if they can't find an alternative to human blood, [but] one man discovers a solution that will save the vampire race: They must become human again."
Daybreakers is expected to hit theaters in 2006. Undead is slated for a July release.
Scott Eyed For Deja Vu
isney is in negotiations with Tony Scott to helm the SF romantic thriller film Deja Vu for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Variety reported. The film centers on an FBI agent who travels back in time and falls in love with a woman doomed to be murdered, the trade paper reported. Bruckheimer hopes to start shooting in summer or fall.
Disney bought the spec script by Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii last year for several million dollars.
Rossio and his Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean writing partner, Ted Elliott, will executive produce with Jerry Bruckheimer Films' Mike Stenson and Chad Oman, the trade paper reported.
Waters To Helm New Mitty
aramount has tapped Mark Waters to helm its remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, produced by the father-son team of Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Goldwyn, Variety reported.
Waters (Mean Girls) will direct from a script by Richard LaGravanese. Waters' most recent project was DreamWorks' If Only It Were True, a romantic fantasy with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo in the story of a man who falls in love with the spirit of a woman whose apartment he inhabits, the trade paper reported.
Samuel Goldwyn has been trying for a decade to mount a remake of 1947's Walter Mitty, a comedy in which Danny Kaye played a timid man who daydreamed of being a swashbuckling hero. The original film was based on a short story by humorist James Thurber, the trade paper reported.
Crowe In Talks For Duff
ussell Crowe and Ron Howard are circling The Power of Duff, a supernatural film scripted by Stephen Belber, about a TV news anchor whose on-air prayers start getting answered, Variety reported.
Universal purchased the script as a spec this month, the trade paper reported. DreamWorks will be a co-production partner.
Imagine chairman Brian Grazer will produce with Marc Platt, who originally brought in the project, the trade paper reported.
Negotiations are just getting under way for Crowe to play the news anchor.
Crowe, Howard and Grazer previously teamed for A Beautiful Mind and the upcoming Cinderella Man.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Biel Joins Illusionist
essica Biel and Rufus Sewell are joining Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti in The Illusionist, writer-director Neil Burger's $17 million turn-of-the-century supernatural drama that begins principal photography April 4 in Prague, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Burger's adaptation of the Steven Millhauser short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" is set in 1900 Vienna and centers on a magician (Norton) who uses his dark arts to win Princess Sophie (Biel) away from Crown Prince Leopold (Sewell). Magician/historian Ricky Jay is consulting on the film, the trade paper reported. Biel was last seen in Blade: Trinity.
Happy Feet Game Deal Signed
arner Brothers and Midway Games announced a deal to develop video games based on Happy Feet, the upcoming computer-animated film from Babe director George Miller. The multi-platform deal includes games for console, handheld and PC platforms.
Happy Feet is a comedy adventure set in Antarctica and centers on singing penguins who each need a special song to attract a soul mate. Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), the son of Elvis (Hugh Jackman) and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman), is the worst singer, but discovers he can tap dance. Happy Feet is slated for release in November 2006.
Showtime Readies Horror
howtime has nabbed rights to Masters of Horror, a series of 13 hourlong films to be helmed and/or written by the genre's top names, Variety reported. IDT Entertainment's New Arc unit, Industry Entertainment and Nice Guy Productions are producing Masters.
The idea came up during a bimonthly dinner of several of the participating directors. They include Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Roger Corman, Don Coscarelli, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Stuart Gordon, John Landis, Tobe Hooper and George Romero.
The anthology series will begin production next month in Vancouver, the trade paper reported.
The directors will produce new projects and adaptations, as well as retellings of classics. Among them are Deer Woman, which Landis co-wrote with his son, Max; Jenifer, to be directed by Argento, based on the comic book by Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson and adapted by and starring Steven Weber; Incident on and off a Mountain Road, adapted and directed by Coscarelli and Stephen Romano from Joe Lansdale's short story; and Chocolate, which Garris will direct, based on his own short story, the trade paper reported.
Bell Rings Up Pulse
risten Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) and newcomer Steve Talley will star in Pulse, the off-again, on-again supernatural horror film based on the Japanese Kairo, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Commercial helmer Jim Sonzero is making his feature directorial debut on the horror film, which is being produced by Mike Leahy and Joel Soisson of Neo Art & Logic, the trade paper reported.
Pulse revolves around a Web site that turns out to be run by a sinister force. As more people go to the site, the supernatural force begins to dominate the lives of those that log on. Bell and Talley's characters team up to unravel the mystery, the trade paper reported.
Shooting is scheduled to start in early summer in Romania.
Wes Craven was originally attached to the film, which was put on hold because it was feared too similar to The Ring.
Warner Climbs Treehouse
arner Brothers has teamed with Tapestry Films to develop the fantasy coming-of-age film The Treehouse from animation writers Ron Friedman and Steve Bencich, with Wes Ball attached to make his feature directing debut, Variety reported.
Story follows the adventures of a boy who discovers a magical treehouse in his backyard. He's propelled into a forest ruled by children, but woodland creatures invade it, and he must fight his way home, the trade paper reported.
The Treehouse will be a live-action project with computer animation and effects.
SG-1's Tapping Gives Birth
targate SG-1 star Amanda Tapping and her husband, builder Alan Kovacs, announced the birth of a baby girl, Olivia B. Kovacs, on March 22 in Vancouver, B.C. She is Tapping's first child. Olivia was born at Saint Paul's Hospital and weighed in at 9 pounds 4 ounces, Tapping's publicist, Cynthia Semon, said.
Tapping will again play Lt. Col. Samantha Carter in the upcoming ninth season of SG-1, which is gearing up to begin production in Vancouver this month.
Kern Immersed In Mermaid Show
rad Kern, longtime executive producer of The WB's Charmed, told SCI FI Wire that he's written and is overseeing an as-yet-untitled pilot for a proposed WB series about a mermaid. "The mermaid is being played by a fresh new face that we've plucked out of Sydney, Australia," Kern said in an interview. "We were casting literally around the world looking for our mermaid. We looked in London and New York and New Zealand, Hollywood, Florida, Melbourne and Sydney."
Kern added: "I think we looked at around 300 people, and we finally found this amazing, fresh 20-year-old who is just an ethereal beauty. She's got a very unique look, which is what I was looking for. I wanted somebody to come out of the water who looked unlike anybody we've ever seen before. Her name is Natalie Kelley."
Kern said that, in a perfect world, The WB would pair Charmed with the mermaid series on Sunday nights. But such a scenario is contingent on The WB 's both renewing Charmed for an eighth season and green-lighting the mermaid series based on the presentation pilot that's currently before the cameras in Miami. "It's the normal course of business these days to order presentation pilots as well as full pilots," Kern said. "Charmed was a presentation pilot, actually. It saves them money, and it lets them get a sense of whether or not they want to buy the series. So they'll take my mermaid pilot and the six other 'dramatic' pilots that they've commissioned back to New York with them in early May and make their decision about it—and also about Charmed."
Dark Water Moves To July
ark Water, a supernatural horror film based on a Japanese hit, will sneak into theaters on July 8, a month earlier than planned, Zap2it reported. That puts the Jennifer Connelly film head to head with Fox's Fantastic Four movie, which had already moved from an earlier release date to avoid a conflict with Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.
"After viewing a recent cut of Dark Water, we were completely blown away by this amazing and powerful film," Chuck Viane, president of Buena Vista Pictures Distribution, told Zap2it. "A July release date seemed like the ideal time to reach the widest possible audience."
Dark Water stars Oscar winner Connelly as young mother Dahlia Williams, who discovers oozing liquids permeating her new apartment, accompanied by creepy noises and strange events that prey on her already fragile emotions.
Fire Breather Film Developing
aramount and Nick Movies are in talks to acquire the film rights to Fire Breather, a fantasy graphic novel by Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn, Variety reported. Fire Breather, published by Image Comics, revolves around high schooler Duncan Rosenblatt, who's half-human and half-dragon and constantly at odds with his divorced parents, a sweet-natured soccer mom and a 300-foot monster.
Project will be produced by Nick Movies, with Nick senior VP Julia Pistor as producer.
Hester is the author of the graphic novels Deep Sleeper and The Coffin, with artist Mike Huddleston. Kuhn is a longtime comic illustrator and animator.
Briefly Noted
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ABC will air The Muppets' Wonderful Wizard of Oz on May 20, TV Guide Online reported.
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Bryce Dallas Howard, who starred in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, will also headline Shyamalan's upcoming Lady in the Water, co-starring Paul Giamatti, Variety reported.
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Devil's Due Publishing is in final talks to acquire the license to the entire Dungeons & Dragons library from Hasbro to develop comic-book and graphic novels.
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The Walt Disney Co. and Harvey and Bob Weinstein on March 29 agreed that the brothers would step down from the helm of the Miramax Films unit they founded 25 years ago and which produced box-office hits such as Spy Kids, the Reuters news service reported.
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Kevin Munroe will write and direct a new computer-animated feature-length Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, targeted for U.S. release in spring 2007, the Gamerz-Edge Web site reported.
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The March 26 U.K. premiere of BBC's new Doctor Who series drew 10.6 million viewers, or a 43.2 audience share, marking the show as a huge hit, the Outpost Gallifrey Web site reported.
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Ain't It Cool News, which earlier reported a since-denied rumor that X-Men 3's Angel would be female, now reports a rumor that Thomas Haden Church's Spider-Man 3 villian will be The Sandman.
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Writer Skander Halim is set to make his feature directing debut on the horror thriller The Perfect Ghost, about a girl who is terrorized by ghosts, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Paramount has tapped the writing team of Bennett Yellin and James Johnston to pen the horror screenplay Let's Scare Jessica, taken from the 1971 chiller Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Variety reported.
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Pendragon Pictures announced that it has pushed back the theatrical release of its independent SF film H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds to late April from its original March 30, due to production issues. The film is unrelated to Steven Spielberg's upcoming version of the same classic SF story, which is due June 29.
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Warner Brothers has optioned the film rights to the French children's book The Last Giants by Francois Place, about an adventure to discover a mythical lost land of giants, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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