Ellison Talks Spielberg's War
F writer Harlan Ellison questioned why director Steven Spielberg didn't give more credit to fellow author H.G. Wells in his upcoming film adaptation of The War of the Worlds. Speaking to SCI FI Wire at Enigma Con at the University of California, Los Angeles, Ellison said: "What annoys me is that Spielberg is such an egomaniac these days that it has to be 'Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. No, you puss-bag. It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and it wouldn't kill you to put his f--king name on it."
Ellison, author of such books as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, added: "That shows his arrogance. It's like Disney. Disney didn't write Snow White or Robin Hood or Bambi, but it's 'Walt Disney's universe.' It's the universe according to frozen Walt."
Ellison hosted a 90-minute panel at the conference, which he titled "How Does SF Stay in Business in a World of Marching Morons?" "Spielberg is only a craftsman, that's all he is," Ellison said. "He's not a genius. He's not a trendsetter. There isn't one moment of any Spielberg film ... that matches the least moment of a Kurosawa film. Kurosawa was a blinding genius of cinema. His vision was astonishing."
Ellison said that he has little interest in seeing remakes and added: "We live in a society that values less and less the original."
War of the Worlds opens June 29.
Goyer Unsure Of Bat Sequel
avid Goyer, who co-wrote the upcoming Batman Begins movie with director Christopher Nolan, told SCI FI Wire that he's not sure he'll take part in any sequel, even though the movie is being envisioned as the first in a new franchise of Caped Crusader movies. "I have no idea, and I'm not being coy," Goyer said in an interview. "Chris and I have talked about it, but a lot of whether or not I'd come back depends on whether or not Chris comes back. And Chris has not decided."
Goyer added: "[Nolan] just finished the film a few weeks ago, and it really overtook his life. I don't know if I'd come back if he didn't. I know that Chris is going to take some time and decide whether or not he feels he can come back. But part of me is tempted to just do the one and walk away, you know? There will never be another Batman origin story. So, we'll see. A lot of it is up to Chris."
Batman Begins takes the story of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) back to the origins of his transformation into Batman and pits him against such villains as Ra's al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). The movie, the fifth in Warner Brothers' franchise, also introduces the loyal butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), as well as ally Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and romantic interest Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes). Batman Begins opens on June 15.
Goyer Crosses Threshold
avid Goyer, co-creator of CBS' upcoming SF series Threshold, told SCIFI Wire he was thrilled the show was picked up for the network's fall schedule. Goyer directed the pilot and will executive-produce the show with Brannon Braga (Star Trek) and David Heyman (Harry Potter).
"I'm very psyched," Goyer said in an interview while promoting Batman Begins, which he co-wrote. "We've been given a very rare opportunity. It's a very intelligent show, and I really credit CBS with going for it."
Threshold stars Carla Gugino (Sin City), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Charles S. Dutton (Gothika), Peter Dinklage (Elf), Brian Van Holt (House of Wax) and William Mapother (Lost).
"It's sort of nominally about an alien invasion, but it's so different from those kinds of shows that once it comes on the air people will realize how different it is," Goyer said. "I can guarantee you that no one has ever seen alien invasion stories like this before."
Goyer added: "It's very scary. We're really excited. I'm excited about how intelligent it is. It asks a lot of really provocative questions, and it doesn't let the audience off easy. I think people will be surprised by the way that aliens are sort of a MacGuffin, a way to hold a mirror up against society. We're going to be getting into a lot of controversial stuff in the show, and CBS is really letting us go for it. I'm being a little vague, but I have to be, because there are a lot of twists and turns and surprises that will be coming up in the first few episodes and because there's been a little bit of a misdirect in terms of what little bit has been let out about the show." Threshold will air Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Sin 2 Sets January Shoot
irector Robert Rodriguez told SCI FI Wire that he and graphic novelist Frank Miller plan to begin shooting Sin City 2 starting in January 2006, even though a cast and a script are not yet finalized.
"Let's see, Sin City 2 we'll be starting to shoot that in January, which means our preproduction will start in February," Rodriguez joked during interviews for his children's film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. He pointed out that he had no script for the first movie, but instead used Miller's actual graphic novels as storyboards and dialogue when shooting. He said he expected to do the same this time around, because the dialogue in the books is so concise it doesn't need to be rewritten.
"We will shoot A Dame to Kill For next, and maybe something else," Rodriguez said, referring to the second volume of Miller's Sin City series. "And I don't have the cast set, not yet."
Right now, Rodriguez said that he's working on the special DVD edition of the first Sin City, which is scheduled for release just before Christmas. He said the DVD will divide the movie into its three graphic-novel stories, with some extra footage. "You'll be able to see each story separately," he said. "You can watch Yellow Bastard, Big Fat Kill or Hard Goodbye, and there's a lot of behind-the-scenes featurettes being planned." One of his regular inclusions on his DVDs is a recipe, and this time he revealed that it will be Sin City breakfast tacos. "Too many people go to the dark side and go to the store and get store-bought tacos," he said. "This is my grandmothers' recipe with flour tortillas. The DVD will have a lot of cool stuff."
Davis Plays Fantasy Moms
ristin Davis (Sex and the City) tells SCI FI Wire that she has two movies coming up that involve fantasy, green screens and kids. "I had already been playing the mom in The Shaggy Dog, so this was really my second mom part," said Davis during interviews for her second fantasy film, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. "I'm happy and surprised that Disney wants me to play a mom. And it seems to be continuing so I feel very lucky that I've been able to kind of segue."
In Robert Rodriguez's Sharkboy, which opens June 10, Davis plays a mom married to a character played by David Arquette. Their son (Cayden Boyd) creates a fantasy world that comes to life. Davis said that filming Shaggy Dog, a remake of a classic Disney family film, prepared her for the mom role, but doing Sharkboy prepared her for green-screen acting and performing when there's nothing on the set.
"When we did the green screen for Robert, it was pretty much the first green screen I'd ever done," Davis said. She was able to take that knowledge back to Shaggy Dog when she went back to the Disney shoot with Tim Allen to complete green-screen effects with the title dog. "We shot Shaggy Dog for, like, five months, and we shot Sharkboy in the middle of it. I went back to do the green screen. Shaggy Dog will come out in 2006."
For Sharkboy, Davis also learned how to fly in a rig for a scene when she gets sucked up by a tornado. "I had to learn the flying," she said. "I'd never flown in a rig before. I had never worked with the green screen, and I'd certainly never worked in 3-D. But I was fascinated by the technical aspects of it, and the thing that's wonderful about Robert is that he is really on the forefront of the technical advances, but he sees them as a creative tool to tell stories, rather than that the technology is going to take over the film. So when we got there, he was just really careful to describe everything to us and help us with what we needed to think about. Like, right before I get taken by the tornado, and we have to fight our way through the wind. That was kind of hard! He's like, 'You have to shout over the wind. You have to make grunt noises!' And I'd be like, 'Grunt noises?' " She added: "There was nothing to look at! Nothing, nothing, nothing!"
Straczynski Takes Four
. Michael Straczynski, who takes over writing Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four series, told SCI FI Wire that the story will deal with the government's efforts to remove the children of Reed and Susan Richards from their "dangerous" household. Starting in June with issue number 527, Straczynski will be writing a story that begins when the New York City Child Welfare Department comes to visit the Richards' house, and they think it's for a charity donation.
"No, they say they're there for an investigation," Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) said in an interview at Enigma Con at the University of California, Los Angeles. "They say, 'We know you love your kids, Franklin and Valeria, but it's not a safe environment to raise the kids. You're attacked all the time; police are always being called here.' Then the kids say, 'Oh, yeah, it's been a busy year. I was taken to hell for a while. Blair's possessed. Mom was thrown off the roof.' So, you see, the city welfare department has a valid point of view. Yes, you care for your kids, but is this a safe environment for them? We have to really confront that. How do you deal with that?"
Straczynski said he wanted to mix the cosmic with the family elements, and that's why he always loved Fantastic Four. "Reed, for a guy who's as smart as he is, has a lot of things that aren't resolved," he said. "He's always searching for 'Why are we here? What are we doing? Where are we going?' And after all this time, to not be any closer to finding the answer to these questions bugs him."
Straczynski, who has also written for the Amazing Spider-Man and Supreme Power comic series, added: "I want to ground the book in reality, address the current problems in the world of today."
Opening with the story "Distant Music," Straczynski said, "I'm tending the farm. My job is to not break anything. It's not my character. It's not my universe."
As for the upcoming 20th Century Fox film version of Fantastic Four, Straczynski said that he hasn't read the script and doesn't plan to adjust anything in the book to accommodate the movie. "I know the movie has their origins being portrayed," he said. "I have an echo of that in the book, but that's really about it. It's a whole separate thing." The Fantastic Four movie opens July 8.
Stewart Has Health Scare
atrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation, X-Men) was rushed to the hospital on May 30 after experiencing chest pains on the set of his new television miniseries in Manchester, England, British news services reported. A crew member of the SF miniseries Eleventh Hour took Stewart to the Manchester Royal Infirmary, where he was pronounced healthy after undergoing an electrocardiogram. He returned to the set after three hours.
A spokeswoman for Granada TV, which is producing Eleventh Hour, told news services that Stewart was now "absolutely fine" and back on set working. Stewart has been monitoring his health carefully after undergoing a pre-emptive angioplasty procedure last year to fix a blood-flow problem detected during a routine physical.
Housewives, Lost Top Critics' Noms
esperate Housewives picked up a leading five nominations for the 21st annual Television Critics Association Awards, while fellow ABC series Lost followed closely behind with four nominations, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Housewives was nominated for best new program and best comedy program, along with individual achievement in comedy mentions for stars Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross. Lost, which will be competing against Housewives in the best new program category, also received nods for best drama and individual achievement in drama for star Matthew Fox.
The TCA Awards will be presented July 23 at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., in conjunction with the summer TCA press tour presented by the major broadcast and cable networks.
Settle Previews Celestine Prophecy
atthew Settle told SCI FI Wire that he has high hopes for the upcoming big-screen adaptation of James Redfield's novel The Celestine Prophecy, in which he stars. Settle plays John Woodson, a man who treks to Peru in search of an ancient and mysterious manuscript. "It's like Luke Skywalker's journey to discover the Force, only there are no lightsabers and X-wing fighters," Settle (Into the West) said in an interview. "We have a great cast. It's Thomas Kretschmann [Resident Evil: Apocalypse], Jurgen Prochnow, Hector Elizondo. I haven't seen the film yet, but I know it was a great experience making it. It's shot beautifully, and hopefully the message will give people hope."
Asked if he'd described The Celestine Prophecy as an SF&F film, Settle replied: "I'd like to leave it up to the audience. I think some people will take it as such. I know that when people read the book it was definitely a fantasy for them to start to apply the insights into their lives, and a lot of people felt like it changed their lives. I'm sure that there are some people out there that it's very real for them, like a religion almost. If anything, for the average person, like myself, it'll just help you restore a little wonder, like you don't have the answers, but if you pay attention to the coincidences in your life you'll realize there are no coincidences and that maybe you do have an ultimate purpose in your life, that if you have a faith, a trust and a god force, and if you try to project the highest form of energy, which is love, then you increase everyone's energy and thereby you can exist at a higher level of existence, where you're in a natural flow and you're not fighting life." The Celestine Prophecy will be released later this year.
Lucas OKs Indy IV Script
eorge Lucas has approved screenwriter Jeff Nathanson's script for a fourth Indiana Jones movie, as has director Steven Spielberg, Variety reported. That leaves only star Harrison Ford to give the OK, but Ford still hasn't read the draft, the trade paper reported.
The trade paper reported that Lucas recently summoned Nathanson to his Bay Area headquarters now that Lucas is finished with his Star Wars saga. Spielberg previously worked with Nathanson on Catch Me If You Can and Terminal.
Even if Ford approves the script, a 2006 start may be problematic, as Spielberg has booked at least two films for that year.
How To Sell An Isle-Free Island
f you had a movie called The Island that had nothing to do with an island, how would you sell it? That was the dilemma confronting producers Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes in dealing with Michael Bay's upcoming SF action film.
"Our marketing department was very concerned about the title," MacDonald said in a news conference last week. "We all liked the title, but it was a marketing challenge."
The Island centers on a group of clones who live in a controlled society and believe that their only chance to live in the open is to win a lottery whose prize is a trip to an idyllic island. But the reality is that there is no island, and two clones, played by Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, try to escape a grim fate.
"It was much debated over at what point it would be revealed," Parkes said. "The amount of information being revealed in the ad campaigns for the movie will essentially give away the plot, but keep a few surprises."
Initial ads will say that you have been chosen to go to the island. Later, characters will be established. Eventually, the marketing will reveal the film's basic storyline and key spoilers.
"The next message gets a little bit farther, and you find out there are people on the outside who want you for parts," Parkes said. Revealing such plot points is important, because "if you don't give that away, then it's just another action movie," Parkes said.
The producers and writers considered other titles, but always came back to The Island. Writer Alex Kurtzman joked that the marketing department came up with titles, too. "The worst one was I Think I'm a Clone Now." The Island opens July 22.
More Galactica Deaths Coming?
ill more characters die in the upcoming second season of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica? That's what series creator and executive producer Ronald D. Moore told SCI FI Wire in an interview at EnigmaCon at the University of California, Los Angeles, on May 28.
"Yes, there are a couple of familiar faces that will go down for the count," Moore said cryptically, without identifying the doomed characters. He added: "I would say the events of the end of last season [mark] the beginning of this season."
Among other things, Moore said: "Adama's [Edward James Olmos] shot. There's people stranded on Kobol. Kara's [Katee Sackhoff] back on Caprica. Those storylines continue; all those continue. I would say we don't wrap up season one until episode seven. Adama is not back on his feet any time soon. Commander Tigh [Michael Hogan] is in charge of Galactica. Laura [Roslyn, played by Mary McDonnell,] is in jail. There's a meteor crisis that follows the cliffhanger, and Tigh kind of steers them through that crisis successfully. But, you know, Tigh, he's probably the guy you don't want in charge."
Moore said that cast and crew are in the process of shooting the sixth episode of the second season in Vancouver, B.C. "We have scripts for the first 10 episodes," he added. "The 11th should be in this week, and we have the stories for the first 14."
Moore offered additional spoilers for the second season's arc. "Things begin to unravel when [Tigh's] in charge of the fleet. He declares martial law at a certain point. There is an incident where he sends the troops to get supplies, because the ships are withholding supplies from Galactica. He says enough is enough and sends out the troops, and an incident happens, and people get killed. They shoot a bunch of civilians. It's a whole nightmare, and Laura starts an insurrection and the fleet divides. There's a lot of fallout from the events of the last season." Battlestar Galactica returns July 15 and will air Fridays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Da Vinci Denied Abbey Shoot
hurch officials denied makers of the upcoming Da Vinci Code movie permission to shoot inside London's famed Westminster Abbey, denouncing the story as "theologically unsound," the Reuters news service reported. The 940-year-old London abbey, where British monarchs are crowned, figures in the international murder mystery by U.S. author Dan Brown, which is being adapted by director Ron Howard.
The Vatican and Anglican Church have denounced Brown's book as distorting the Christian message, Reuters reported.
Last week officials at Lincoln Cathedral in eastern England said they had agreed to allow their building to be used by the makers of the forthcoming film, which stars Tom Hanks as the book's central character, Robert Langdon. Officials at Paris' Louvre Museum, which also figures prominently in the book, have also agreed to let the movie shoot there.
Promoting Young Adult SF&F
effrey Carver, chairman of the awards rules committee for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, told SCI FI Wire that SF writers, librarians and others contributed to the creation of the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, named in honor of the late author. Carver said that the ball got rolling in part because of a librarian's e-mail asking if there was a Nebula Award for young-adult books. "I had to write back and say, 'Regretfully, no,'" Carver said in an interview. "But it spurred me to contact SFWA president Catherine Asaro, and before long there was an informal YA committee [chaired by Sherwood Smith], talking about various ways in which SFWA might try to promote YA science fiction and fantasy."
According to Carver and Asaro, soon after Asaro became president on July 1, Norton (real name: Alice Mary Norton) contacted her and inquired about contributing the proceeds of the sale of her extensive library toward an award or scholarship to promote and recognize excellence in the young-adult SF and fantasy. "We discussed it over the course of the next year or so, developing ideas for how it would be administered, what role SFWA would play, and so on," Asaro said. "Sherwood Smith, Jane Yolen, Andrew Burt and Ann Crispin were also instrumental in those discussions."
Before Norton died March 17 of congestive heart failure at age 93, she was aware the award was to be named after her. Carver and Asaro said she initially resisted and wanted a different name, but eventually relented. The announcement of the new award coincided with her death. "I talked to her not long before her death, and she said that it meant a lot to her to know that an award for YA science fiction and fantasy had finally come into being," Asaro said.
The Norton Award will honor outstanding SF and fantasy novels written for the young-adult market. Titles are eligible, Carver said, if the publisher designates it as young adult. The first award will be given at the 2006 Nebulas, May 4-7 in Tempe, Ariz.
Jake Sisko Does Rap
irroc Lofton, who grew up playing Jake Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, told SCI FI Wire that he is working on a rap album that will include some mentions of his character and his work for seven years on the series.
"Sure, the Jake Sisko character will have some lines dropped in here and there," Lofton said in an interview at Enigma Con at the University of California, Los Angles, over the weekend. "One beat will use the original Star Trek theme song and have that beat in a hip-hop type of mode."
Lofton said that he's been working on the album ever since he first heard rap music six or seven years ago, about the time he joined the DS9 cast. Now 26, Lofton said he is planning on releasing his album, called Divine Intervention, by September through Infinity World Entertainment.
"For me, it's a natural transformation from poetry to this," Lofton said. "I'm a rap lyricist. Rap is a very powerful tool and either can be used correctly and incorrectly, and I hope I can get my messages out there. I want it to be enjoyable, inspirational and educational."
Not that it'll be squeaky clean: Lofton admitted that the music will feature a few four-letter words sprinkled about. "It's part of life," he said. "Kids in school are cursing, but at younger age than when I was in school. I might emphasize the words for emotion, but not use it in a song because I have nothing else to say."
Lofton added that he'll bring his music to future Star Trek conventions, but said that he's not concerned that his music will be relegated to the same bin as William Shatner's disco album. "Some people have tried and not done so well, but I'm willing to take that risk," Lofton said. "If you don't take that risk you're stifling yourself."
Kruger Takes Carter To Mars
creenwriter Ehren Kruger (The Ring) told Now Playing magazine that his script for the upcoming film version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series will hew closely to the books. "It's a faithful adaptation to the novels, but the novels were written in the teens and '20s, so there's some degree of modernization just to the tone of them," Kruger told the magazine. "But in terms to the story, we are trying to be as faithful as we can, because those novels inspired a lot of the science fiction and fantasy that came later in the century."
Kruger is working with director Kerry Conran (Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow), who will be designing much of the film's otherworldly effects.
The original John Carter books centered on a Civil War veteran who finds himself transplanted to the Red Planet, where he gets caught up in adventures involving a beautiful princess, giant green barbarians and epic battles.
Kruger is also adapting Annette Curtis Klause's Blood and Chocolate, which he calls "a werewolf story like Interview With a Vampire was a vampire movie. It's a little more gothic in its treatment of the mythology and what the werewolf metaphor has always been about since the days of Lon Chaney. It has a real following, and we've taken a few liberties with the novel. But, hopefully, the fans will be forgiving."
E3: Hollywood's Still Got Game
ideo games based on movies had a visible presence at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles earlier this month, including games based on the upcoming films Aeon Flux, Batman Begins, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Fantastic Four and King Kong.
Majesco's Aeon Flux game, developed by Terminal Reality studios, will feature both the likeness and voice of the film's star, Charlize Theron, in an original scenario. Brendan Goss, the game's producer, said in an interview that the designers looked to the original MTV animated shorts created by artist Peter Chung as much as the upcoming live-action film version. "It's more like if you took one of the short cartoon episodes, that's what one of our missions is like," Goss said. "The movie is doing its own thing based on his stuff, and we're doing our own thing based on the movie." The game will be available for Xbox and PlayStation 2 in October, a month after the film's release.
Electronic Arts previewed games based on two of Warner Brothers' most highly anticipated films. Batman Begins will be released for console systems as well as GameBoy Advance on June 15, the same day the movie opens. The game expands on the universe of the film, which is directed by Christopher Nolan, and features the likenesses of the entire cast. Players will stalk criminals on the streets of Gotham City as both Batman and Bruce Wayne, using fear and intimidation as weapons.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, meanwhile, will closely follow the story in the Warner film, which is based on the fourth book in J.K. Rowling's popular series. Players will be able to play as Harry, Ron or Hermione (all modeled after their big-screen counterparts), and, for the first time in the franchise, gamers will be able to team up with other players in a cooperative mode.
Disney's Chronicles of Narnia game will debut this winter, just prior to the film's release on Dec. 9. Like the film, the game follows the adventures of the four Pevensie children as they journey through the world of Narnia on a quest to help Aslan the lion save the land from the evil White Witch. Angela Adams, marketing manager for Disney Online, told SCI FI Wire that the game's developers worked closely with the producers of the film. "Disney is developing the movie, and in turn they're using the book as a benchmark. And then we're using the movie as our benchmark to create the game," she said. "So our production and development house has worked very closely with the Disney studio." The game will be available for all current console and hand-held platforms.
The upcoming game based on the Marvel Comics adaptation Fantastic Four will also feature the likenesses of the film's five main cast members (Michael Chiklis as The Thing, Ioan Gruffudd as Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman, Chris Evans as the Human Torch and Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom) as well as characters from the comic that don't appear in the film. "We basically pick up and end where the movie begins and ends," said associate producer Neven Dravinski in an interview. "However, because it's an origin story, and it's really about the dynamics of these characters becoming a team and a family, it doesn't really offer a lot of action for us to replicate. So that also gives us the opportunity to split off in the middle section and sort of introduce other Marvel villains that are familiar to the Fantastic Four universe. ... Essentially, it is the movie, but we have this extra added concept with this search for these cosmic-infused particles, these meteors that came down from the cosmic storm. So it gives us an excuse to have the team go search for these things." Activision will release the game on June 27 for current console systems and GameBoy Advance.
Finally, Ubisoft provided an in-depth sneak peek of the game based on Peter Jackson's upcoming version of King Kong in a specially designed theater inspired by film's island setting. Attendees stood in line for as long as an hour in advance for a first look at Kong, whose appearance in the game version is a close likeness to the film. Jackson himself appeared in a pre-recorded introduction to the demo, along with the game's producer, Michel Ancel. Players will start the game as Jack Driscoll, portrayed by Adrian Brody in the film, but will eventually have a chance to play as Kong himself and fight against the prehistoric inhabitants of Skull Island. The game will be available at the end of the year for current console, handheld and PC platforms, with upcoming releases for next-generation systems Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Twohy Returns With Warrior
avid Twohy (The Chronicles of Riddick) will direct his script of The Would-Be Warrior, a fantasy movie for Paramount, Variety reported. "It's a fantasy adventure in the Jumanji vein, involving a modern 15-year-old boy who gets caught in a centuries-old feud between Norse gods," Twohy told the trade paper.
Twohy will also helm The Break, a new version of the long-in-development SF film Alien Prison. That project, which Douglas Wick has developed for years with a number of writers and filmmakers, including Roland Emmerich, had revolved around Earthlings who attempt an escape from the aliens who've snatched them for experimental purposes. In the version Twohy has hashed out with Wick and partner Lucy Fisher, The Break will have a more traditional jailbreak tone, the trade paper reported.
Enigma Raises Tsunami Relief
lthough attendance fell short of what they expected, organizers of the 20th anniversary of UCLA's Enigma Con on May 28 told SCI FI Wire that they raised more than $4,000 to benefit victims of the South Asian tsunami.
Enigma, which is the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gaming Club of the University of California, Los Angeles, hasn't organized a full-blown convention since 1994, and this was by far the most ambitious. Organizers didn't hit their hoped-for attendance of more than 1,000 visitors over the Memorial Day weekend, but 450 attendees did trek to the campus for a variety of seminars featuring 75 top-notch names in the SF world.
"It's always a pleasure to spend the day with very smart people in very smart seminars," said celebrated SF writer Harlan Ellison, who also celebrated his 71st birthday at the conference. Not taking questions lightly, he sometimes pointed out when members of the audience were making statements rather than asking questions and told fellow panelists when they were rambling.
Panelists include Walter Koenig of the original Star Trek, Brad Dourif (The Lord of the Rings), Connor Trinneer from Star Trek: Enterprise, Cirroc Lofton from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Lana Wood (Plenty O'Toole in Diamonds Are Forever).
Some of the big behind-the-scenes names in attendance included J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5; Marvel Comics editor Len Wein; Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore; Star Trek visual-effects master Ronald B. Moore; Trekkies and Trekkies 2 documentarian Roger Nygard, SF writer Nancy Holder and others.
Enigma Con will continue to auction items on eBay for the Tsunami Relief Fund, which is organized by the Hollywood Artist Alliance.
Martin Finishes Crows. Sort Of.
F author George R.R. Martin said on his Web site that he has completed A Feast for Crows, the fourth installment of his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, but added that it didn't turn out quite as he originally intended. A Feast for Crows is due to be released July 26, according to Amazon.com.
The first three books in the series, A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1999) and A Storm of Swords (2000), are between 700 and 992 pages. A Feast for Crows ran 1,521 pages in manuscript form, Martin said, and several publishers as a result released these novels in as many as three volumes. The U.S. publisher, Bantam, published each as one novel, but Martin said there was difficulty. "And that's why my publishers and I, after much discussion and weighing of alternatives, have decided to split the narrative into two books," Martin said. He added he did not want to make significant edits for fear of compromising the story.
Rather, Martin decided—and he stressed on his site that this was his idea—to turn A Feast for Crows into two separate novels. The first one will retain the title and focus on Westeros, King's Landing, the Riverlands, Dorne and the Iron Islands. The second half will be called A Dance With Dragons and will focus on events in the east and north. Martin reports that book is half-complete.
At first, A Feast for Crows was to be two books—parts one and two—with the first part ending halfway through the original manuscript. Martin shot that down. "We were better off telling all the story for half the characters, rather than half the story for all the characters," he said. "Cutting the novel in half would have produced two half-novels; our approach will produce two novels taking place simultaneously, but set hundreds or even thousands of miles apart, and involving different casts of characters [with some overlap]."
A Song of Ice and Fire imagines a feudal kingdom where dragons once lived, but where magic is now dwindling. The seasons can be long or short, bringing glorious summers or terrible winters that last years at a time. Seven kingdoms are ruled by the one who sits in a massive iron throne, and real and false knights vie for what they want. The series is full of graphic sex, language and violence. Martin won the Ignotius Award (Best Foreign Novel) for A Game of Thrones in 2002. A Clash of Kings was nominated for a Nebula in 1999, and A Storm of Swords won the SF Site's Reader's Choice as the best book of 2000.
Skeleton Scared Hudson
ate Hudson, star of the upcoming supernatural movie The Skeleton Key, told SCI FI Wire that she found much in the film to frighten her. "This movie's based on things that I believe really exist," Hudson said in an interview. "Those to me are the scariest movies. That's why I loved this movie when I read it. It can stretch your imagination or it can heighten what you think can be reality. It's based on voodoo."
Hudson plays a young hospice worker who discovers strange occurrences at an old New Orleans home where she takes care of an ailing septuagenarian (John Hurt). Hudson said that she signed on because the movie differs from her past projects. "I think everything I've ever signed on has always been about the character and script," Hudson said. "This is more like a psychological thriller, I guess. But it always starts with, really, do you enjoy the story? This one was one of those that it was extremely enjoyable [to make]."
Hudson said that shooting in New Orleans provided an appropriately spooky backdrop for the film's supernatural elements. "Definitely strange things happened on set when we were in New Orleans," she said. "Like we'd go shoot, and cameras would go dead. That's what makes it, to me, much more scary is that I believe, especially being in New Orleans and being in the center of all of it, that it exists. It's all around, this whole spirit world." The Skeleton Key opens Aug. 12.
Chekov Treks To The Web
alter Koenig, who played Ensign Chekov in the original Star Trek series, told SCI FI Wire that he is planning on starring in a fan-based Internet short film that will give some finality to the character he's been associated with for nearly 40 years.
"This is a unique opportunity to give some dimension to my character," Koenig said in an interview at Enigma Con at the University of California, Los Angeles, over the weekend. "I was most unhappy ... that there wasn't a whole lot of dimension to the character. It was push buttons and say 'Warp factor five' with as many inflections as possible—and with an accent."
Koenig added that fans have approached him to do an in-depth story about Chekov, and Koenig said he found an actor who looked eerily like himself when he first boarded the Enterprise. "He will play me in my younger days, and I'll play the character as older, of course," Koenig said. "It will be a real gut-wrencher. If I perform properly, it will work."
On board to write the script is D.C. Fontana, who wrote some of Koenig's favorite stories in the original series, including "This Side of Paradise," "Friday's Child" and "Journey to Babel" and also worked on the animated series he voiced in 1973. Koenig said that Paramount Studios is on board, allowing the production to take place as long as it is distributed for free on the Internet. He expects it to be available in January.
"Indeed it is fan-driven, but there are professionals in this business who are fans and willing to work on it," Koenig said. "It is cathartic for me and an opportunity to reveal to the audience and the fans who this man is. I want there to be some justification for all the attention and acclaim that has been bestowed on us over these four decades."
Koenig added: "I'm doing it for fun and a sense of closure. It vindicates something about myself."
Vaughn Quits X-Men 3
hortly before location scouting was to have begun on the third X-Men movie, director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) has quit abruptly, citing family reasons, 20th Century Fox told Variety. In a statement, the studio said the London-based Vaughn had planned to travel between his home and the film's Vancouver, B.C., locations, but "as the shooting schedule evolved, he realized he would have to move to Los Angeles and Vancouver for at least a year. Not wishing to uproot his family for an extended period, Vaughn opted to depart the production."
The studio remains committed to remaining on schedule for a release on May 26, 2006, the trade paper reported.
Star Wars Backs Strikes
s if Star Wars fans didn't have enough opportunities to slip on those Jedi robes and lock lightsabers in battle, now comes news of a new front: the Star Wars Strike Force Bowling League, which starts up in August. About 1,000 bowling alleys in the United States and 100 in the United Kingdom will host the league, Merrell Wreden, vice president of marketing at AMF Bowling, told SCI FI Wire. All 360 of the company's U.S. bowling centers will be participating, he said.
Bowlers who join the league will receive a life-size Darth Vader cutout, posters and a chance to purchase a Star Wars-themed bowling ball. Wreden said that the cost will be about $10 per week per bowler, depending on the center. Wreden said that he expects up to 15,000 bowlers may sign up.
"The only requirement to join is to be a Star Wars fan and a desire to have a lot of fun," Strike Ten/Leading Edge Promotions executive vice president John Harbuck said in a statement on the official StarWars.com Web site.
The Triangle Shoots In Africa
CI FI Channel is starting production on its upcoming six-hour original miniseries The Triangle this week in Cape Town, South Africa. Dean Devlin (Independence Day) and Bryan Singer (X-Men) are executive-producing the three-night miniseries in their first-ever collaboration. Rockne O'Bannon (Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars) wrote the script, based on an original story by Devlin and Singer.
The Triangle centers on a team hand-picked by billionaire Rice Benirall (Jurassic Park's Sam Neill) to investigate the loss of cargo ships in the infamous Bermuda Triangle. The team includes journalist Howard Thomas (Eric Stoltz), ocean resource engineer Emily Patterson (Catherine Bell), scientist/adventurer Bruce Gellar (Michael Rodgers) and psychic Stan Latham (Bruce Davison). When a jetliner disappears over the Bermuda Triangle, bizarre, unexplainable occurrences begin to affect each member of Benirall's team. The Triangle premieres on SCI FI in December.
Milian Feels Pulse
hristina Milian (Be Cool) has been cast opposite Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) in the Japanese horror remake Pulse, Variety reported. The film, based on writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo, will be directed by newcomer Jim Sonzero based on an adaptation by Wes Craven and Ray Wright.
Pulse centers on a group of college students who must stop a destructive force after one of them unwittingly pirates a strange wireless signal that opens a doorway to a terrifying evil. Milian will play Bell's best friend, a street-smart party girl who uses the Internet as a dating tool, the trade paper reported. Ian Somerhalder (Lost), Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks) and Rick Gonzalez (War of the Worlds) also star in the film, set to begin shooting this month in Romania.
East Meets West in Radiant
anadian SF author James Alan Gardner, whose novel Radiant has been nominated for Canada's Prix Aurora Award, told SCI FI Wire he decided to write a book with a clearly Buddhist slant. He didn't want characters from the West, "so I decided to do something different," Gardner said in an interview. The main character is a Buddhist woman named Youn Suu who helps investigate what's happening on a remote planetary colony. Gardner admits that's a common enough plot, "but seeing everything through 'non-Western' eyes made familiar tropes fresh again. Indeed, the differences of East versus West became a crucial element as the book developed. The heroine's life follows a trajectory that just wouldn't work if she were 'Western.' She's not modeled on anyone specific, but she's very much in the mold of the classical Buddhist seeker who goes through many ordeals to achieve enlightenment. Of course, in her case, the enlightenment may be complete delusion, caused by an alien parasite who's eating her, but hey, this is science fiction."
Apparently, this worked, since Gardner received an Aurora nod. He previously won for two short stories, "Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large" in 1991 and "Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream" in 1998. Gardner said this nomination means more to him than the two wins. "Short stories don't take long to write: a week or two at most," he said. "A novel takes the better part of a year. Getting nominated for Radiant is like readers telling me that the year I spent was worthwhile. I certainly don't want to devalue short stories, but I like saying 'I had a good year' better than 'I had a good week.'"
Next up for Gardner is a fantasy trilogy (he called it "my usual smart-ass action/adventure/comedy mystery stuff") that takes place on a large university campus over the course of one 12-hour period. Each book in the trilogy covers four hours, ending at sunrise. Gardner said the books are tentatively called Necessary Evils (which he has completed and sent to his editor), Necessary Cruelties (which he is working on now) and Necessary Sacrifices.
The Prix Aurora Awards were created by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association in 1980 to honor outstanding SF and fantasy works by Canadian authors in both French and English. They will be handed out during Westercon 58, July 1-4, in Calgary, Canada.
Chokachi Drawn In By Force
avid Chokachi, who stars in the upcoming SCI FI Channel movie Crimson Force, told SCI FI Wire that he was surprised to learn that it was the first SCI FI Channel original to go into space. "When I found that out I was like, 'You're kidding me,'" Chokachi said in an interview. "'SCI FI Channel's never been in space before in the original movies?' For an actor it's kind of fun to pretend you're going to Mars. And it was kind of a neat story."
Chokachi, best known to SF&F fans for his role on the TNT series Witchblade, plays the pilot of a mission to Mars in search of an alternate energy source. Chokachi said that he is attracted to stories with a science-fiction bent to them. "If you have imagination, you can go there and you can believe this stuff can happen," he said. "It's a lot of fun as an actor, too. You don't have to sit there and do the same hemming and hawing that a lot of times you get stuck doing. You get to blast Martians with laser guns."
If given the chance, Chokachi said that he wouldn't hesitate to return for a sequel film. "Definitely," he said. "I'd go back to Mars any day." Crimson Force, co-starring C. Thomas Howell and Tony Amendola, premiered, June 4, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Amendola Feels The Force
ony Amendola told SCI FI Wire that his latest film, the upcoming SCI FI original movie Crimson Force, is a timely and allegorical tale. "Primarily, Crimson Force is about the looking towards space and the natural resources of other planets as a way of serving our needs for power sources or energy sources," Amendola said in an interview. "I think that's the argument that applies to the modern world, in a way."
Amendola, a veteran character actor best known to SF&F fans for his long-running recurring role as Bra'tac on Stargate: SG-1, added, "My character lives on a planet that has been scouted out and has been determined to contain amazing resources. Of course, a government-slash-corporate agency [from Earth] comes over and tries to colonize it, tries to find some way to get the resources off of the planet. You don't really know this going in. My character is a priest, and this planet I'm on is at a pivotal point, because they have to decide how to deal with the outside world. Do they take a militaristic approach? Do they remain isolated and hidden? You've also got a strange situation with a priest caste and a warrior caste. My wife in the story is of a different mindset. She's of a warrior class, and the notion of this whole marriage was all about reconciling those two factions and creating a kind of peace. So the arrival of the Earth force sets off a real problem."
Crimson Force also stars C. Thomas Howell and David Chokachi. It debuted on Saturday, June 4, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Briefly Noted
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War of the Worlds director Steven Spielberg was voted the greatest director of all time by readers of the British film magazine Empire.
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Herbie: Fully Loaded star Lindsay Lohan was involved in a car accident but not injured on May 31 in Los Angeles while attempting to flee a car driven by a photographer, who was detained on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and released on $35,000 bail, The Insider reported.
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George Lucas will receive the American Film Institute's 33rd Life Achievement Award on June 9 at a gala event, which will be taped for broadcast on USA Network at 9 p.m. ET/PT on June 20.
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