Housewives, Lost Lead Emmys
esperate Housewives, ABC's hit series, was one of the leaders in the Emmy Award nominations announced on July 14, with 15 nominations, the Reuters news service reported. Desperate Housewives, in which a dead woman narrates the soapy story of her four suburban friends from beyond the grave, garnered ABC's first nomination for a top comedy in 11 years. The series also yielded best-actress nominations for three of its stars : Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman.
Another popular ABC show, the SF thriller Lost, was the most-nominated drama series, gaining recognition in 12 categories, including best drama, the wire service reported.
Nominees for best acress included Jennifer Garner, star of the ABC spy drama Alias, and first-time nominee Patricia Arquette for NBC's psychic series Medium.
The 57th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, presented by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, will be broadcast live on CBS from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sept. 18.
Mignola: Hellboy 2 Is Mythic
ike Mignola, creator of the Hellboy comic franchise, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming sequel to last year's Hellboy movie will deal with folklore and mythology, a counterbalance to the first film's focus on Nazis and monsters. "Wherein the first film was sort of the H.P. Lovecraft kind of monsters and the Nazis and the mad-scientist stuff, this one is geared much more toward the folklore element of the Hellboy [comics], with the kind of fairies and the Old-World stuff," Mignola said in an interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Mignola, who worked with Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro to develop the sequel's story, added: "That really is a big element of the Hellboy stories, and that element was completely not in the first film. So the idea of the second film would be sort of the other half of the Hellboy world." Mignola's comics often reference Russian, Irish and Japanese folklore, among other things. For the film, he said, "I don't know that Russian [mythology will figure in] so much, but certainly that idea of these ancient creatures that have been kind of shoved out of the mainstream and are living underground [will]. It's about that kind of stuff." Also look for the appearance of some characters familiar from the comics, such as the B.P.R.D.'s Johann. But not Roger the Homunculus: "We had tried to work it out, because Guillermo loves that character," Mignola said. "We tried to work out a storyline about Roger, and it just didn't work. So we opted to go the folklore route instead."
Parkes Talks Ring, Snicket Sequels
eteran film producers and studio executives Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald told SCI FI Wire that sequels to both The Ring Two and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events are in the works, but that neither proposed project is a sure thing. "I think we're going to do a less expensive [version], a smaller film," Parkes said of The Ring Three in an interview while the husband-and-wife team promoted their latest project, the upcoming SF film The Island. MacDonald interrupted, saying, "More back to the roots of the original, in a way."
Parkes continued: "The second one made [$76 million domestically], and worldwide it made $175 [million]. But it's only because of the enormity of the first one that it isn't looked upon as an enormous hit, but it's a very successful movie [that warrants continuing the franchise]."
Lemony Snicket grossed $118 million domestically, a relative disappointment taking into account the film's budget, Jim Carrey's star power, the popularity of the books, the major marketing push made on the film's behalf and fan expectations. However, the producers revealed that a follow-up still may come to pass. "Lemony Snicket is a tough call, because, unlike The Ring, you can't do an inexpensive version of it," Parkes said. Added MacDonald: "That is all about budget.
We would love to do it. The studio would love to do it. The books are even more popular [now]. The movie really helped build that franchise, but it's all [about] weighing economics."
Transformers Set To Roll
ransformers will roll into movie theaters on July 4, 2007, according to a statement from DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Hasbro, Inc., and a report on Zap2it.com.
Further, Michael Bay (Armageddon and the upcoming The Island) is now officially on board to direct the film, which will be based on the adventures of the Hasbro/Takara toy line that debuted in 1984 and has already spawned comic books, animated television shows and an animated feature film.
"Under the direction of Michael Bay, and with Steven Spielberg executive-producing, we know that Transformers is going to be the kind of explosive action movie that is perfect for the height of the summer movie season," Zap2it.com quoted DreamWorks' head of distribution, Jim Tharp, as saying. "By staking our claim on the Fourth of July, 2007, we ensure that we not only have the time to make this movie the way it should be made, but also to build excitement and awareness leading up to its release."
DreamWorks will release Transformers domestically, while Paramount will handle it internationally.
Transformers Still Scripting
creenwriting partners Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci told SCI FI Wire that they are writing the screenplay for the upcoming Transformers movie, but that it's not easy turning a toy franchise into a film. "Transformers is very tricky," Kurtzman said in an interview while promoting his latest movie, The Island. "It's a movie franchise based on a toy line, so the first question you have to ask yourself is, 'Well, what's the movie?'"
Kurtzman added: "We sat down with [executive producer] Steven Spielberg and we said, 'Listen, the action scenes in this movie are a given. So what's the movie?' And he said, 'It's the story of a boy and his car. I want to bring back the old Amblin movies.' I went, 'Oh, my God, Back to the Future. Great. We're in.' So we got it. And it's a real challenge, because very much like The Island, very much, I think, like pretty much any movie—and I totally believe it's why War of the Worlds worked so well—the key to making those movies work is to be so invested in the people and to maintain the subjectivity of your humans. If you start Transformers with giant robots sitting in a spaceship flying through space, your movie is dead in the water. So it's all about keeping it at a human level and seeing the amazing things that are going on through the eyes of your characters."
Michael Bay, who directed The Island, has been attached to direct Transformers, but hasn't committed to it. Orci said it's likely that Bay will ultimately helm Transformers, but he added that nothing is set in stone. "We haven't handed him a script yet," Orci said. "He's nice to even say he might based on being friendly to us."
Gruffudd: Four Sequels Possible
oan Gruffudd, who plays Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in the comic-book-based SF movie Fantastic Four, told SCI FI Wire that the first film serves as the origin story, paving the way for sequels and further character development. "This is sort of a prequel in a sense, setting up how we became the Fantastic Four," Gruffudd said in a news conference in New York. "Certainly from my character's point of view he was a bit of a geek, a bit of a dork, living inside of his mind, and then he has a great arc and becomes a leader towards the end."
Gruffudd (TV's Century City) plays a scientist who, with his colleagues, is caught aboard an orbiting space station when a massive cosmic wave overwhelms them, altering their DNA and endowing them with superhuman abilities. The film is based on the venerable Marvel Comics series. (Welsh-born Gruffudd's name is pronounced YO-an Griffith.)
"I'm looking forward to barking orders at the rest of the cast from now on," Gruffudd joked. "No. Certainly, to see it in the environment of New York City, I think that'll be great, to see Reed Richards walking down a crowded street and stretching his neck to look over the top and hailing a cab from the other side of the street or something like that, the simple things. And [he's] also [interested in] developing that blue costume into real everyday clothes so that they're able to stretch [and] do all these super powers." Fantastic Four is now playing.
Summer 3, Hollow 2 Due
ony is developing three horror and action sequels, though it has not yet been determined whether they'll be released through Columbia Pictures or Screen Gems or go direct to video, Variety reported. The sequels are I Know What You Did Last Summer 3, Hollow Man 2 and Road House 2.
No director has yet been hired for I Know What You Did Last Summer 3, which Michael Weiss is writing. It follows a group of teenagers who believe they accidentally killed a man, only to discover that the would-be victim is now out to kill them.
The new Summer won't be starring the original cast of Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.
Hollow Man 2, to be directed by Claudio Fah, is the sequel to the Columbia Pictures 2000 SF film, which told the story of a group of scientists who discover a way to make people invisible. Joel Soisson wrote the script.
Hounsou Eager For Constantine 2
jimon Hounsou told SCI FI Wire that he's eager to reprise his role as Papa Midnite in a Constantine sequel, but said that at the moment no follow-up is in the works. "I would be very interested," Hounsou said in an interview while promoting his latest film, The Island. "It's a cool character, and I think that the character needs to be a little more defined and developed, and I'm looking forward to that. They haven't talked to me about it. There's no talk about it that I know of yet."
A character in the Hellblazer comic books on which Constantine was based, Papa Midnite is a mysterious crime lord and voodoo master who's as often Constantine's ally as he is his enemy. In the film, directed by Francis Lawrence, Papa Midnite was depicted mostly as an ally to Constantine (Keanu Reeves).
If there's a Constantine sequel, Hounsou said that he'd like to learn more about the character. "Just who he is and how he came about to be who he is in that world," Hounsou said. "How he is able to mingle within that world, and within both sides of that world, without being affected. I think there's so much character development [in the comics] that it would be exciting to see [it] take place [in a big-screen sequel]. I'd love to give some input to that. So it would be exciting."
Hounsou Braves Island Storm
jimon Hounsou, who plays a ruthless mercenary in Michael Bay's upcoming SF action film The Island, told SCI FI Wire that shooting the many stunt sequences was an insane, often dangerous experience. Hounsou plays Laurent, leader of the security force trying to catch or kill escaped clones Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson). That meant Hounsou was on hand for chases by car, by helicopter and on foot. "I fell down and felt like I broke my leg," Hounsou said during an interview, referring to one particular sequence. "And they just kept going around me."
Hounsou (Constantine) added: "I thought I was important enough for the scene, but I guess not. But anyways, they continued shooting until I heard my name: 'Djimon, walk up to the car.' Then I walked up. ... I limped to the car ... and instinctively continued shooting. So it was fun, and it was dangerous, and it was all of that. It was cool." The Island opens on July 22.
Bay Talks Island Pressures
ichael Bay, director of The Rock, Armageddon and the upcoming big-budget, SF action film The Island, told SCI FI Wire that he strives to top himself with each successive project. "Oh, with action, I keep trying to challenge myself," Bay said during a news conference. "On this story, I was trying to challenge myself by doing a much slower build."
The Island follows the plight of two clones, Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson), as they start to question the life they lead at a contained facility. When they discover the truth—that they're clones created to provide spare parts for their "sponsors"—they break out, only to be chased relentlessly by a team of mercenaries led by Laurent (Djimon Hounsou).
"It hurts not being able to do the action in the beginning," Bay said. "I forced myself not to. I drew it out for 30 minutes. I love how the switch happens, and the movie takes off. You think, 'Is the audience going to get bored?' This younger generation wants things to be faster. Hopefully they're going to like the beginning of this movie. It seems like the audiences that have seen it like the innocence and the subtext. I love that when you watch the movie you're thinking, 'There's something wrong, but I can't put my finger on it.'" The Island opens nationwide on July 22.
Star Escaped Island Injury
carlett Johansson, star of Michael Bay's upcoming SF action movie The Island, told SCI FI Wire that she had her share of scares while filming. Johansson and Ewan McGregor play a man and a woman who discover that they are clones and try to escape from a top-secret facility, only to be chased on the ground and in the air, through the desert and across a futuristic Los Angeles. "I almost lost an eye [while shooting a stunt sequence involving a Wasp, a flying motorcycle]," Johansson said during a news conference on July 11. "That was fun."
Johansson added that she also had a "permanently" black-and-blue knee. "That was pretty gross," she said. "The problem is that once we were doing this scene where I had to crawl on the sidewalk. There was so much action going on in the background. We were in the foreground, and in the background it's like a car comes in, the SWAT team gets out, there's an explosion, and things are going on. What happened was I fell to my knees, and in that instance I was like, 'Oh, that hurt so badly!' I had to keep crawling, because the scene is so organized. It takes 20 minutes to put it all back to place. The first [assistant director] is screaming at everybody to get in their places, and you just can't take that time. So you just kind of go through it in agony."
In another action sequence, Johansson and McGregor dangled from a 30-foot-high letter R. Johansson said she wasn't terribly frightened, but noted that co-star McGregor was frightened ... for her. "Ewan was so freaked out that I was going to fall that my knuckles were bleeding from his fingernails," Johansson said. "I'm saying, 'Why are you still holding me? I'm attached to this harness.' And he was like, 'I can't let go. It's my human instinct. You're going to fall!' It was really funny. He hated it up there. It was very sweet. At least [almost] losing my eye came in time for the holiday season, so I didn't have a giant lump for the film. I just had it over the holidays. Lovely." The Island opens nationwide on July 22.
M:I3 To Shoot Last Week
ormer Alias writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who have written the script for the upcoming third Mission: Impossible movie for star-producer Tom Cruise and director J.J. Abrams, told SCI FI Wire that production on the film is imminent. "We start shooting on Wednesday [July 13]," Kurtzman said. "We're flying from here [New York] to Rome for the first day of shooting."
The new screenplay picks up the story of secret agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) five years after the events of the last movie. But the writers say they won't deal with the real-life world events that have taken place during that time. "You know, we haven't really had to," Kurtzman said during an interview promoting his latest film, The Island. "All you know about Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise is that his parents have died."
Orci, sitting next to Kurtzman, interrupted, "But you mean politics, right?"
Kurtzman added: "We took the same approach that we tended to take with J.J. Abrams on Alias, which is it is all a giant metaphor for what is going on in the world now, but you never use names and you never say countries. The great thing about Mission: Impossible is that the whole franchise was based on fake countries. They were always going off to Gondwanaland or wherever they were, and it was always kind of a metaphor for some kind of current political situation."
The cast includes Cruise, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Monaghan and Keri Russell. Kurtzman and Orci said they have not written a role for Cruise's real-life fiancee, actress Katie Holmes, despite speculation that she might appear in the movie. "No, at this point we haven't," Kurtzman said. "But you never know. She definitely will be on set."
Orci added, "We'll probably see her on Wednesday." Mission: Impossible III is eyeing a 2006 release.
SF, TV Writer Bunch Is Dead
hris Bunch, prolific writer of fantasy and SF books and TV shows and co-author of the eight-volume series Sten, died July 4 in his hometown of Ilwaco, Wash., of a lung ailment. The Los Angeles Times placed his age at 61, but Allan Cole, Bunch's former writing partner, wrote on his Web site that Bunch was 62.
Bunch wrote the Sten series with Cole. The 2,803-page series, which was published between 1982 and 1993, follows Sten, a rebel on the planet Vulcan. It was a worldwide hit, especially in Russia, where it sold more than 10 million copies and was on the Moscow best-seller list for two years, according to Cole's Web site. Bunch and Cole also wrote several fantasy novels, including The Far Kingdoms in 1993, which was part of the Anteros trilogy and was nominated for best novel by the British Fantasy Society, according to the Web site Fantastic Fiction.co.uk.
In recent years, Bunch had written novels on his own, including The Warrior King in 1999, part of the Seer King trilogy. Other Bunch series include Dragonmaster, Last Legion and Shadow Warrior. His current series, Star Risk, will end in August with the fourth novel, The Dog From Hell. His final work, City of Night, is due for release in January.
Bunch also wrote traditional fiction. His second major work, also written with Cole, was A Reckoning for Kings, a classic Vietnam war novel that some critics and scholars have called the "the best Vietnam novel ever," according to Cole's Web site. The Los Angeles Times said it was "an excellent piece of work by two journeyman writers [that] makes one think."
From 1976 to 1993, Bunch and Cole wrote for episodic television and movies of the week. Their credits included Quincy, The Rockford Files, The Incredible Hulk, Hunter and The A-Team.
Bunch is survived by his wife, Karen, of Ilwaco; his mother, Elizabeth Rice Bunch, of Manhattan Beach, Calif.; his sister, Kathryn Cole (Allan Cole's wife), of Boca Raton, Fla.; and his brother, Philip Bunch, of Manhattan Beach.
Author, Publisher Preiss Dies
yron C. Preiss, an author and a publisher who specialized in illustrated books by celebrities, graphic novels and science fiction, died in a traffic accident on July 9 in East Hampton, N.Y., the New York Times reported. He was 52 and lived in Manhattan.
Preiss was the president of Byron Preiss Visual Publications and Ibooks, and was recognized as a pioneer in digital publishing. He was among the first publishers to release CD-ROMs and electronic books, the newspaper reported.
Born in Brooklyn, Preiss graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and earned a master's degree in communications from Stanford University. He produced The Words of Gandhi, an audio book that won a Grammy Award in 1985. He was also the co-author of Dragonworld, a novel published by Bantam Books in 1979, the Times reported.
Preiss published works by celebrity authors including Jane Goodall, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, LeAnn Rimes and Jay Leno. Preiss is survived by his wife, Sandi Mendelson, and two daughters, Karah and Blaire. A memorial to Priess, who also worked heavily in comics, has been posted to the Comicon.com message board.
Star Wars Sale Is Biggest
riginal Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz will put props from his private collection up for sale in an auction July 29 in what is being called the biggest auction of Star Wars items ever, Joe Maddalena, president of the Profiles in History auction house, told SCI FI Wire.
"This is the largest auction of screen-used [Star Wars] memorabilia by a long shot," Maddalena said in an interview. "There's never been an auction like this before."
Among the items offered for sale by Kurtz, who also produced The Empire Strikes Back: Luke Skywalker's lightsaber from the first Star Wars movie and Darth Vader's lightsaber from Empire. "This is the only Luke Skywalker lightsaber for sale," Maddalena said. "George Lucas must have others, but there never will be another one for sale."
"Kurtz wants to get his archive out for people to see, but he needs to raise money to fund the conservation, preservation and exhibition [of his memorabilia]," Maddalena said. "And this [auction] is the only way he can fund the archive." Kurtz will be holding on to hundreds of other items, including never-seen footage and behind-the-scenes photographs.
Kurtz's items are part of a larger auction of Hollywood props and memorabilia, including the original Yoda latex mask, script pages with George Lucas' handwritten notes, Luke Skywalker's orange X-wing flight suit and a Chewbacca mask worn by actor Peter Mayhew.
Non-Star Wars related items include Star Trek costumes worn by Jane Wyatt and Mark Lenard as Amanda and Sarek, an amulet from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a leather jacket worn by Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Finlay Doesn't Short On Troll
F author Charles Coleman Finlay, after 13 short stories, six novelettes and one novella, told SCI FI Wire that it took four years to write his first novel, The Prodigal Troll. He finished the first draft in time to submit it to the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest, and, although he didn't win, he discovered aspects of his writing that needed work, he said in an interview. So he wrote more short stories to improve his skills. One of those short stories, "The Political Officer," was nominated for a Nebula and Hugo in 2002. Another story, "We Come Not to Praise Washington," earned a 2003 Sideways nomination.
But it was a section of his novel that Finlay excerpted and rewrote as "A Democracy of Trolls" that introduced the literary world to Maggot, a human boy raised by crude yet democratic trolls. That story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in October/November 2002, which in turn led to another excerpt being published, "Love and the Wayward Troll," in the same magazine in March 2005.
"I realized that I had fixed the problems in the novel," Finlay said. "About that same time, Lou Anders, the editor at Pyr, contacted me, and we sold the book. So the rewards have been great, because I've been able to chart my improvement as a writer. I've learned how to get the book in my head vividly onto the page for the reader."
Said Anders: "I was struck with his ability to be both humorous and poignant in the same breath, and to do something surprisingly new and fresh with an old trope. When I subsequently read in Locus that there was a novel in progress based on characters from the novella, I sought Charlie out immediately and asked him to send it to me, which, fortunately, he did."
Writing a novel, Finlay discovered, is similar to writing a short story, "but raised to a higher level of complexity. Some parts just flow; some parts take more research and thought." He said he finished his short story "Pervert" in a matter of days, but "We Come Not to Praise Washington" took six weeks. "I find it energizing to switch back and forth between short stories and a novel," he said. "If I get stuck on one project, I can go to work on another."
Next up for Finlay is the release of his first collection, Wild Things, in October. He also is at work on another Maggot story, "The Nursemaid's Suitor," which will follow Maggot before he meets the Trolls and receives his name (his birth name is Claye, son of Lord Gruethrist; "Maggot" was given to him by his hostile troll stepfather). "At the same time, I can't help working on more short stories," he said. "I love reading short stories, and I love writing them."
Van Sant Relates To Time
irector Gus Van Sant told SCI FI Wire that his next movie, a big-screen adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger's best-seller, The Time Traveler's Wife, will focus on the central relationship. "Telling the story is very hard, too, but it's the chemistry with a film [that matters most]," Van Sant (Psycho, Finding Forrester) said in an interview. "You can tell with ones that don't work. They're doomed from the start. You can just tell. And that's just interpreting chemistry, which is scary but a challenge."
Time Traveler's Wife is loosely based on the Odyssey and centers on the relationship between a woman and a man with a time-traveling gene that enables him to leapfrog to different periods in her life. "I think it's a really nice book, and it's a departure from what I've been doing recently," Van Sant said while promoting his latest film, the drama Last Days.
Van Sant said that he was intrigued by the central relationship in Niffenegger's novel. "I find the diagram of their relationship is really nice and well done," he said. "And if I can pull it off it'd be really nice, because it's hard to do. It's hard to cast, because, in some ways, I think, a love story is ... it's almost like, when you see the two people on screen, it's already happened. They're there. And that's the hard part, to get there already."
Jeremy Leven (Creator) has adapted the novel into a screenplay; New Line Cinema will finance it, with an eye to a 2006 release.
Jane Beefs Up For Punisher 2
homas Jane, star of 2004's comic-inspired The Punisher, told SCI FI Wire that he's been working out to prepare for the sequel, which begins filming sometime before the end of the year. Jane will again play outlaw vigilante Frank Castle, he said in an interview. "I've been in the gym for seven weeks now," Jane said. "I've already put on 12 pounds of muscle. They want to start going before the end of the year. Ideally I'd like to see the film come out in the fall of 2006, but I don't have any control over that."
Jane said that he was "not at liberty" to say who will be writing and directing the sequel, and he wouldn't confirm that the storyline would take place in an urban setting, possibly New York. "That is the rumor," he said.
Jane's Punisher was only a moderate success at the box office, but the longtime Punisher comic fan said that he feels the franchise still has great potential. (Dolph Lundgren previously played Castle in a poorly received 1989 movie of the same name.)
"I still believe The Punisher has so much material to be mined," Jane said. "There's so much new ground to be broken. I would love to see The Punisher go more in the direction of a film like Taxi Driver. I'd like the audience to be able to visit the mind of this guy. The potential for The Punisher—especially when it comes to the real juicy stuff—should go more in the direction of a gritty, urban street drama like Taxi Driver rather than a glossy, fantasy direction like the X-Men [films]."
Jane Co-Writes Planet Comic
ctor Thomas Jane (The Punisher) told SCI FI Wire that he and comic writer Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) have created Bad Planet, a six-issue comic miniseries about an alien invasion, which Image Comics will release in December. "I've had this idea for a long time," Jane said in an interview. "Toward the end of the Punisher press tour, I ran into [comic artist] Tim Bradstreet. I told him I had this science-fiction idea and that I thought it might make a great comic. Tim suggested that I talk to Steve Niles about it. Now I knew Steve's work, and I was a fan, so I called him up. We got together, and I pitched him the idea. He fell in love with it right away, and we started writing it together."
Bad Planet tells the story of an unidentified object falling to Earth. Half of it lands in South Africa and half in Washington. Arachnid-like aliens emerge and begin to attack humans. Earth's only defense is a lone alien warrior who is on the run from intergalactic keepers and an Earth populace that wants to kill him.
Jane, who says the story is in the tradition of Creepy and Twisted Tales magazines, said that co-writing the comic was literally on-the-job training. "I came in with a treatment, and Steve was able to flesh it out and come up with a couple of new characters," he said. "We threw the story back and forth between us and came up with something we were both excited about. Steve had to send me a couple of scripts just so I would know how comic-book scripts were written. He kind of walked me through the whole process. He'd write a scene, send it to me, then I'd write a scene and send it back to him. We just kind of flipped things back and forth."
Bad Planet will feature art by Bradstreet and Lewis Larosa. Famed cover artist Bernie Wrightson will also reportedly do at least one cover for the series.
Aeon Flux Due In Comics
ark Horse Comics will release the first of four Aeon Flux comics on Aug. 24, linked to the December release of Paramount's movie of the same name, starring Charlize Theron. Timothy Green II does the artwork and Mike Kennedy (Lone Wolf 2100) writes the comic, which will carry a retail price of $2.99, Paramount announced.
Dark Horse will offer fans a sneak peek of the comic at Comic-Con International, which runs in San Diego from July 14-17. Peter Chung, who created the original MTV animated series on which both film and comic are based, will greet fans and sign autographs at the publisher's booth on July 16, prior to a panel on the movie.
The Aeon Flux comic will lay the foundation for events in the feature film, with all of the action and SF concepts of the original MTV animated series, the studio announced.
In the movie, Theron plays the title character, an operative 400 years in the future, who is at war with the totalitarian regime governing what appears to be a perfect society.
Kimberlin's SF Light On The S
ade Kimberlin, whose SF novel Electronic Echoes of the Mind has just been released, told SCI FI Wire that he knows his books aren't for those who enjoy true science in their science fiction. Kimberlin, who counts Monty Python as one of his influences, writes on his Web site: "I could have been a sci-fi author. I just had a little trouble with the science part!"
In an interview, Kimberlin said: "I have no formal science training beyond taking a physics class in high school. My works are light science fiction, intended to be humorous, so the science isn't always realistic. Two actual physicists read the manuscript for Echoes, and both of them found it very amusing. Unfortunately, they weren't laughing at the witty dialogue or charming characters, but at the fact that I thought Mars' moon, Phobos, has enough gravity to maintain a space station. The drive engine in my character's spaceship is called a Chernobyl drive. Basically, someone looking for hard-core, technical science fiction will find my work sadly lacking."
The novel follows Jake Turner, who calls himself "the best damn pilot in the solar system" and whose life is being ruined by an evil corporation that Turner alleges killed his ex-girlfriend and inserted her memories into his computer, among other perceived atrocities. Asked about what the title means, Kimberlin said: "The title refers to the protagonist's dead ex-girlfriend. She was a computer scientist who developed a way to digitally record her memories and personality into software, a sort of digital echo, if you will, of her mind. There is contention among the characters as to whether this amounts to a transfer of her consciousness into an artificial intelligence or not. Either way, having your dead ex-girlfriend running your computer and interfering in your life isn't a pleasant experience."
Asked whether he was trying to comment on today's world, Kimberlin added: "Echoes is a parable of the dehumanization of post-modern society brought about by the ongoing technological revolution and its impact on interpersonal relationships. OK, not really. I wrote the book out of a sheer desire to entertain."
And yet Kimberlin has serious opinions. Why, he asks, are so many SF novels parts of series? "Most of the serialization of the literary world is driven by profit," he said. "Readers (and publishers) like series because they are guaranteed 'more of the same.' They like to follow the continuing adventures of characters they already know. If you liked the last one, you know you are probably going to like the next. From a publishing standpoint, if the last one sold well, the next one probably will, too. ... People are more likely to put those resources into something with a proven track record. This trend can stifle creativity somewhat, and it's unfortunate."
Nevertheless, Kimberlin's next project is a sequel to Electronic Echoes of the Mind. He hopes to finish it by fall, "assuming that I'm not eaten by velociraptors first."
Rhysling Winners Named
he 2005 Rhysling Awards for achievement in speculative poetry were presented July 9 at Readercon in Burlington, Mass., according to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. Winners were announced in two categories: short poem (up to 49 lines long) and long poem (50 lines and over).
Short Poem Category—Winner: No Ruined Lunar City by Greg Beatty; Second Place: The Clockmaker's Wife by Mikal Trimm; Third Place: Rich & Strange by Ann K. Schwader.
Long Poem Category—Winner: Soul Searching by Tim Pratt; Second Place: Making Monsters by Tim Pratt; Third Place: The Night Watchman Dreams His Rounds at the REM Sleep Factory by Mike Allen.
The Science Fiction Poetry Association Grand Master Award was presented to Robert Frazier.
The nominees for each year's Rhysling Awards are selected by the membership of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. The Rhysling Awards are put to a final vote by the membership of the SFPA using reprints of all the nominated works presented in The Rhysling Anthology, the site reported.
Campbell, Sturgeon Awarded
he winner of the John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of 2004 is Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan, according to a report on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. The winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short science fiction in 2004 is "Sergeant Chip" by Bradley Denton.
The juried award results were announced July 8 at the University of Kansas. Denton was present to receive his award. Morgan was not.
The awards were preceded by a banquet and the showing of a videotape of a James Gunn interview with the late Theodore Sturgeon, the site reported.
The Iron Man Returns
ilm historian Tom Mes told SCI FI Wire that he believes that the current re-release of the 1989 Japanese SF movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man on DVD (Tartan Asia Extreme) will cement cyberpunk director Shinya Tsukamoto's reputation as the father of modern Japanese cinema.
"Tetsuo was the first Japanese film in a long time to make a genuine impact outside Japan," said Mes, whose book on Tsukamoto, The Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto, was recently published. "It put Japanese cinema back on the map and found a new, younger audience. Tetsuo also did very well in Japan upon its release. It's essentially a homemade movie, but it had a three-year theatrical run in Japan and showed the industry that there was huge potential in independent and amateur filmmaking."
Shot in black and white, Tetsuo: The Iron Man tells the surreal story of a young man who, through the process of self-mutilation and horrific transformation, becomes a creature more metal than flesh. The story plays out in a techno-fetishist's fantasy world, where over-the-top violence, bizarre sexual imagery and disturbing black humor are the order of the day.
"Tetsuo was Tsukamoto's first film, and to a lot of people, it is still the film that defines him," Mes said. "It's a mixture of David Cronenberg, Ridley Scott in his Alien-Blade Runner period, a David Lynch taste for the dark and surreal and Japanese monster movies. Since making that movie, he has moved further and further away from science fiction, but, at the same time, Tetsuo contains all the seeds of his later work. Tetsuo is a more instinctive film, but all the themes and preoccupations that keep popping up in his later work are all largely present in it."
Mes, who also recommends Tokyo Fist, Bullet Ballet and Vital as high points in Tsukamoto's long film resume, feels that Tetsuo is still with the director. "He has never let go of the Tetsuo concept and themes," he said. "The Tetsuo concept is something that Tsukamoto sees as being an important element of what he's all about."
Wilson Is The New Mitty
aramount has tapped Owen Wilson to star in its long-in-development The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, to be produced by the father-son team of Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Goldwyn, Variety reported.
Mark Waters (Mean Girls) will direct, from a script by Richard LaGravenese.
Mitty originated as a short story by James Thurber and was turned into a 1947 comedy starring Danny Kaye, produced by Samuel Goldwyn Sr. While the new film retains the concept of a man prone to vivid daydreams, the storyline has changed considerably. In this version, he falls for the daughter of a bank robber. In the '47 film, he was caught up with some crown jewels hidden since World War II, the trade paper reported.
Samuel Goldwyn Jr. has been trying for more than a decade to mount a new version. He had developed the project at New Line, then moved it to Paramount, when John Goldwyn was president of the studio, with Jim Carrey attached to star and Steven Spielberg directing.
At various points, other directors attached included Ron Howard and Chuck Russell. Drafts have been developed by writers such as Russell, Peter Tolan and the team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, the trade paper reported.
Thurman Stars As Super-Ex
ma Thurman and Luke Wilson will star in Super Ex, a romantic comedy Ivan Reitman will direct for Regency Enterprises, Variety reported. Don Payne (The Simpsons) wrote the script, in which Thurman plays a superhero who falls for a regular guy. He's OK with her superhuman abilities, but can't take her neediness. When he dumps her, she uses her powers to turn the guy's life into a nightmare, the trade paper reported. Super Ex will shoot in New York this fall.
Reitman directed Evolution, with David Duchovny and Julianne Moore.
Bean Climbs Silent Hill
ean Bean, co-star of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and the upcoming SF film The Island, told SCI FI Wire that his next project is Silent Hill, a horror movie based on the Konami video game of the same name. "I'm playing the husband, Radha Mitchell [Pitch Black] is playing my wife, and we've got a little daughter [Jodelle Ferland]," Bean said in an interview. "It's about this place called Silent Hill, and our daughter is quite disturbed about this place. She keeps mentioning 'Silent Hill, Silent Hill.'"
Bean added: "She's always trying to get there. She tries to get out of the house, wakes up in the middle of the night. My wife decides it might be a good idea to take her there. We're trying to confront her fears. She gets involved with a very murky, dangerous world, very creepy, which is all in different time levels as well. I'm in the real world, and I'm trying to find passages on different planes. It's quite interesting. I can hear her, but I can't see her. The way it's shot is in constant fog. There's always this fog cobwebbed around the Silent Hill world. The real world's just normal."
Bean said that he's never played the video game and couldn't comment on how the film might compare to the game. "Kids know about it, but I've heard it will live up to the game," Bean said. "I think it will be really good. Christophe Gans is the director. [He's] the guy who did Brotherhood of the Wolf. He's given it a really quirky, bizarre feel, very spooky: a very European kind of genre film." Silent Hill will be released sometime in 2006.
Doctorow Is "Essential"
F author Cory Doctorow, whose novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town has been selected as the first title in the SCIFI.COM/Tor Books "SCI FI Essentials" program, told SCI FI Wire that all of his novels are released as free downloads because he disagrees with what he calls "the proprietary interests" of the industry. Doctorow opposes the costs and process of gaining permissions and rights to his material and wants his work to be available to all, he said in an interview.
This policy usually coincides with the book's date of release, but in the case of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, it was originally intended to come out several months ago. Doctorow OK'd a delay while Tor and SCI FI Channel arranged a co-marketing campaign. Meanwhile, he placed the free download on his Web site. The downloads are governed by a "Creative Commons license," which permits their unlimited noncommercial redistribution.
Speaking by telephone from East Lansing, Mich., where he has been teaching at the Clarion Writers Workshop, Doctorow acknowledged the possibility of losing a sale here and there. But in his mind, the benefits outweigh the dollars, he said. Usually, people sample his work and decide to buy the novel, and they send the download to their friends, who in turn buy their own copies. He said on his Web site that he has had his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom downloaded 500,000 times, and the book has been through five printings.
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a surrealistic story about a plot to provide free Wi-Fi access to Toronto, in which the main character's father is a mountain, his mother is a washing machine, his brothers include a set of Russian nesting dolls and his neighbor is a girl with wings. Doctorow said there is an organization called Wireless Toronto that wants to provide free Wi-Fi to the city.
Doctorow said that his book likely was chosen to be the first SCI FI Essential because he has a prior working relationship with SCIFI.COM. "They're hoping the project will reach people who heavily use the Internet, and my fiction is heavily read on the Internet," he said.
Machina In Motion At New Line
he Great Machine, protagonist of the popular comic book Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris and Tom Feister, is headed to the big screen. New Line Cinema has purchased the rights to the property, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Published by DC Comics' Wildstorm division, Ex Machina is a political intrigue tale that examines what happens when Mitchell Hundred/The Great Machine, a man with super powers that enable him to converse with and command machines, becomes the mayor of New York City. The trade paper added that two separate versions of the script are being readied, one by Vaughan and the other by Glen Brunswick, co-creator of the comic book The Gray Area, who will also serve as a producer on Ex Machina.
Duncan Adores Voice-Over Work
ichael Clarke Duncan told SCI FI Wire that he enjoys doing voice-over work for animated features and video games and added that he recently completed two new projects, the upcoming fantasy film Delgo and the just-released direct-to-DVD film Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone. "I love it, because you go into a room and spend maybe four hours in there, and you can let loose more than you can in front of a camera," the actor said in an interview while promoting his latest live-action film, The Island. "In front of a camera, you can see my emotions. Behind an [animated] character, you don't know what I'm doing. It's easier just to let go and be crazy and be wild, [to] calm it down a little bit or go over the top with it."
Delgo stars Freddie Prinze Jr. as the title character, a teen who must keep his world together when forces from within and afar threaten it. Other familiar names providing voices include Jennifer Love Hewitt, Val Kilmer, Louis Gossett Jr., Eric Idle, Burt Reynolds and the late Anne Bancroft. "I play the Elder Marley," Duncan said. "And he's like Yoda. I take Delgo under my wing and teach him that we have these powers. We're warring against this other group, and I teach him that the warrior way is not always the right way to go, that you have to use your mind, you have to make friends. Delgo is very hotheaded, and he just wants to fight all the time."
Duncan voices a dinosaur named Stinktooth in the Dinotopia film. "It was creatively very nice," the actor said. "You grow to just love doing voice-over work. It's so easy, and I have a voice-over agent at William Morris. Every other week he calls me, and he doesn't call me to say, 'I want you to do [an] audition.' He calls me, 'They want you; it's a job.' He always calls me with a job, ever since I've been with him. It's very good. Very lucrative, too." Delgo will be released later this year; Dinotopia is in stores now.
Bean's Been There, Done Dad
ean Bean told SCI FI Wire that the similarities between two of his upcoming projects, the horror films Silent Hill and The Dark, were not lost on him. "[The Dark] is a film that I did with Maria Bello," Bean said while promoting his current project, The Island. "That was in the U.K. I did it last year."
Bean (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) added: "I play [Bello's] husband, and we have a daughter [Sarah Stuckey], ... [laughs] and something happens. I won't tell you what it is, because that's quite a sort of disturbing film. It's very ghostly." The Dark is based on Simon Maginn's first novel, Sheep. In Silent Hill, Bean also plays a father with a wife and a daughter who has issues.
Bean said that it was mere coincidence that Silent Hill, based on a video game, and The Dark are within the same genre and share, at least on paper, something resembling a common premise. "It wasn't intentional," Bean said. "I did [The Dark], then [the Sept. 23 release] Flightplan, then I did The Island, and then I did Silent Hill. I suppose it's a different look and take on it, but it's quite funny that I'm playing a concerned husband searching for my daughter twice in a year." The Dark, which was directed by John Fawcett, whose credits include the film Ginger Snaps and an episode of SCI FI Channel's miniseries Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, will be released later this year.
EVE Online Upgrade Launched
CP announced the launch of EVE Online: Cold War Edition, a massive content upgrade to its massively multiplayer title EVE Online. The upgrade introduces a new beginning player experience and lessens the learning curve for newcomers, the company said.
EVE Online: Cold War Edition puts the fragile peace sustaining the Empire territories at risk, as sovereignties secretly vie for advantage over their foes. Empires will unite to form pacts, and old superhighways will change. The upgrade features new passageways into the deep space regions, a new large-scale gameplay element, where pilots will have agent encounters in space, new environments to explore, and new technologies to discover. The upgrade also adds new Dreadnoughts, Outposts and Freighters and a leadership overhaul.
Ghost Rider Game Develops
ajesco announced that it is developing a video game based on Marvel's Ghost Rider franchise, which is also the basis of an upcoming movie starring Nicolas Cage. The game rises out of the licensing deal finalized earlier this year between Majesco and Marvel Enterprises, Inc. Currently under development by Climax Group, Ghost Rider is scheduled to ship in the summer of 2006, in conjunction with Sony Pictures/Marvel Studios' release of the Ghost Rider movie.
Like the comic and movie, Ghost Rider centers on motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze, who strikes a deal with Mephistopheles for his soul, in exchange for which Johnny must forever ride through the night, avenging evil as the Ghost Rider.
Shimizu Gets Parasyte
apanese director Takashi Shimizu will helm the SF film Parasyte for New Line Cinema, according to Variety. The director made his English-language film debut in 2004 with The Grudge, based on his own Japanese horror hit, Ju-on: The Grudge.
Based on the 12-part manga comic-book series by Hitosi Iwaaki, Parasyte focuses on alien spores that land on Earth and promptly inhabit human bodies. When a young man named Shin isolates his "parasyte" in his left arm he becomes part human and part alien, and soon Shin and his self-thinking alien companion, whom he nicknames "Lefty," must reluctantly co-exist in order to save the planet from an invasion, the trade paper reported.
Shimizu will oversee development of the screenplay. Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, who together scripted the upcoming Aeon Flux, wrote the first draft for a previously unrealized version of Parasyte, and Matt Drake has penned the rewrite.
Spotnitz Previews Night Stalker
he upcoming horror series The Night Stalker will put a fresh, modern spin on the two 1970s Night Stalker television movies and the short-lived series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, that inspired it, according Frank Spotnitz, the X-Files veteran who will executive produce the new show. Spotnitz told Zap2it.com that his take on The Night Stalker, which will star Stuart Townsend (Queen of the Damned) as the put-upon, evil-chasing reporter Carl Kolchak, is to make the central character younger, sexier and more conflicted.
"What the show's really about is good and evil," Spotnitz told the site. "In this show, evil really does have supernatural forces at its command. Good does not. Good has to operate through human beings. So that is interesting to me."
Spotnitz added: "I'm not a religious person, but I do a lot of reading of religious stuff. I do think, whether you're a person of faith or not, it does seem like evil is so much more powerful than good. I believe, if there is a God, God expects good to operate through men and women, that goodness in the world exists through the goodness of what people do. ... Good people have to live by a code. They have conscience and mercy and all those things that get in the way when you're trying to destroy evil. That's what this show is ultimately about. It's interesting, because you don't know if Kolchak really is what he says he is." The Night Stalker will debut this fall on ABC.
Eragon Heads For Film
ox is planning a trilogy of films based on the Eragon fantasy novels by 21-year-old Christopher Paolini, Variety reported. The first film, Eragon, will commence production on Aug. 1, with a cast that includes Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Djimon Hounsou and Ed Speleers as the title character.
The story centers on young Eragon, who one day finds a blue stone he believes he can sell for enough food to last his family through the winter. But the stone is actually an egg, and when a dinosaur hatchling emerges, Eragon is suddenly caught up in a world of destiny, power and magic. Sooner than he thinks, Eragon must become a Dragon Rider and battle the evil King Galbatorix, the trade paper reported.
Veteran visual-effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) will direct, from a script by Peter Buchman (Jurassic Park III), which was subsequently rewritten by the Planet of the Apes team of Larry Konner and Mark Rosenthal. Fox is eyeing a June 16, 2006, release.
NBC Books Daniel
BC has commissioned 13 episodes of The Book of Daniel, a series about an unconventional minister, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The network had originally surprised media observers by not picking up the much-heralded show for its fall 2005-'06 schedule.
Aidan Quinn (Practical Magic) stars as Rev. Daniel Webster, an Episcopalian minister, who regularly talks to a modern-day incarnation of Jesus. Webster relies on Christ to guide him as he deals with church matters, family issues and his own dependency on prescription painkillers. Co-stars include Susanna Thompson (Star Trek: Voyager) as Webster's wife and Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream) as a bishop with whom Webster frequently clashes.
NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Buscemi Animated About Monster
teve Buscemi told SCI FI Wire that he voices a 75-year-old grouch who is constantly kicking people off his property in the upcoming motion-capture-animated film Monster House. "That was a bizarre way to work, because you act everything out, but on a stage with no, or very little, props or sets," Buscemi said in an interview while promoting his latest live-action project The Island. "You really have to imagine everything."
Buscemi (Armageddon, Monsters, Inc.) had his movements captured by a computer to be used as a basis for computer animation. He wore a suit covered with sensors to give the computer reference points for his movements. "As an actor I get so much from whatever wardrobe I'm wearing," he said. "That helps me define who the character is. And in that [movie] everybody is dressed the same, in these jumpsuits with sensors. You have sensors on your face. So you're really working more from your imagination. I found it very disconcerting."
Monster House follows the adventure of three teens who find out the hard way that their neighbor's home is actually a monster. Other actors in the cast include Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Jason Lee and Kathleen Turner. Buscemi said that he's seen drawings of his character, Nebbercracker, and that it looks nothing like him, except that he's thin and bony.
Buscemi acknowledged that participating in a motion-capture film involved a lot more time and effort than providing a voice for a standard animation feature. But he explained that several elements of the project convinced him to sign on. "I think I was on that for two weeks," he said. "My role is more of a supporting role. It's mainly about the kids in the film. So my character is in it at the beginning, and then I come back in towards the end. I don't know. I was interested in the process and in the technology. It was definitely interesting to me, and it was definitely a challenge. It was also a good job. Just on that level, ... they made it worth my while." Monster House is tentatively scheduled to open on July 26, 2006.
Cohen Defends Reeves As Sinbad
ob Cohen, who will direct Keanu Reeves in the upcoming fantasy film The 8th Voyage of Sinbad, told SCI FI Wire that he believes the Matrix and Constantine star is perfect as the eighth-century hero Sinbad the Sailor, despite reactions to the contrary. Cohen added that Reeves is not too contemporary an actor to play the role, as some critics have said. "One of the things I love about Keanu is I've always found him a guy out of time," Cohen said while promoting his latest movie, the SF film Stealth. "Even in contemporary movies I find him kind of removed, not [like] the surfer-dude kind of thing he did [in the Bill and Ted movies]."
Cohen (Dragonheart) added: "Keanu has a depth that's sort of unknowable. He has an unknowableness, and I think that works really well for a hero who's sort of for the ages. You don't have all your questions answered, and it isn't completely obvious what's going on with him. Some people can say, 'Oh, well, it's vacant.' Or they're still stuck with what he did early in his career, like 'Duuuude' kind of acting. But I have seen him in a different way, that he has achieved an iconhood that is about this sort of drifting in his own universe, no matter what universe the story is in. And I think that's one of the keys to the hero in these mythic sagas. You know what they do, and you suspect you know why, but you're not exactly sure, and I think he has that dimension."
Cohen said that if all goes according to plan, production on The 8th Voyage of Sinbad should commence early next year.
Producer Explains Scanner Delay
ommy Pallotta, producer of Keanu Reeves' A Scanner Darkly, told SCI FI Wire that the opening date of the animated film based on the book by Philip K. Dick and directed by Richard Linklater was pushed back from October of this year to next spring to give the animators a realistic time frame in which to complete the film. "It's so funny, because the studio made up that [original] release date," Pallotta said in an interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego. "They never asked us when it would get done. They had no idea what they were getting from the very get-go. So I read in the trades that Scanner Darkly was going to be released in October of 2005, and I'm going like, 'What? There's no way.' I don't know if it was just sort of like a wish. And they thought, 'OK, if we sort of set this date in, they'll kick it into gear.' But it's a very laborious process."
A Scanner Darkly—which also stars Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr.—features a process similar to that used for Linklater's Waking Life, in which live-action footage is animated over to create a surreal look. Pallotta said that the complicated process essentially means that the film will be made twice. "Yes, we're doing a live-action film," Pallotta said. "We're cutting it. We're locking picture like you would a regular movie. We have to have the stuff, the live actors, and then we start the design process and the animation. So we made this movie for $8 million. That's unheard of in a live-action realm. It's also unheard of in the animation realm."
When Pallotta informed New Line Cinema that the release date would need to be changed, the studio showed confidence in the film by giving the production all the time they needed. "We said if we were to make this date the quality will suffer," he said. "And to [the studio's] credit, they basically said, 'We do not want the quality to suffer. How long do you need?' So we did that, and that was the end of that conversation. So that's really what that was all about. So it's on schedule." A Scanner Darkly is now set to open in March of 2006.
Briefly Noted
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Microsoft and Marvel Enterprises announced on July 14 at Comic-Con International in San Diego that they were joining forces to develop a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for the Xbox 360 console to be introduced in 2008, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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IDT Entertainment (Masters of Horror) announced that it will soon begin work on an anthology series called Masters of Sci-Fi, with production to start in Vancouver, B.C., in March 2006, according to Variety.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel alumna Charisma Carpenter has joined the cast of UPN's Veronica Mars, beginning with the show's second season premiere, playing Kendall Casablancas, a sexy trophy wife and stepmother to brothers Dick (Ryan Hansen) and Cassidy "Beaver" (Kyle Gallner) Casablancas.
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John Pogue has sold Paramount a pitch for a remake of the French horror movie Malefique, about a group of inmates sharing a prison cell who try to use a discovered book of occult spells to escape, Variety reported.
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Hurricane Entertainment announced that four-time Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt (the Star Wars movies) will direct a live-action feature-film adaptation of its SF comic book Chassis, set in the world of rocket-car racing in a retro-futuristic 1949.
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