V Pushed Back To 2006
for Vendetta, originally slated to open on Nov. 4, has been pushed back to next March, a Warner Brothers spokesperson told SCI FI Wire. In a statement, Warner said: "We have moved the release date of V For Vendetta to March 17, 2006, to accommodate the movie's post-production schedule."
The spokesperson, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, denied that the delay had anything to do with the movie's subject matter or the current political climate. V for Vendetta has come under scrutiny for the coincidence of its subject matter and the recent terrorist bombings in London.
V for Vendetta, based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, is set in an alternate universe in which the United Kingdom has a fascistic government, and the film centers on a self-styled anarchist terrorist who bombs London, assassinates government officials and models himself on notorious British traitor Guy Fawkes, who is burned in effigy in the U.K. every Nov. 5. In Moore's graphic novel, which was written in the 1980s, a climactic scene deals with a bombing in the London Underground.
At Comic-Con International in San Diego last month, producer Joel Silver told SCI FI Wire that he was unconcerned about the film's themes and called it a controversial movie for controversial times. "I mean, it's a difficult time, but I think that it's a smart movie," Silver said in a news conference. "It's that horrible word: intellectual. I mean, you have to think about the movie. ... It isn't just a teen slasher movie."
The movie is produced by The Matrix creators Larry and Andy Wachowski and stars Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving.
U.K. Churches Split On Da Vinci
ritish churches are divided over whether to allow filming of The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard's movie based on Dan Brown's biblically revisionist best-seller, the Reuters news service reported. Westminster Abbey said no, but Lincoln Cathedral was happy to oblige, and a tiny Scottish chapel was delighted, the wire service reported.
The novel's claim that Jesus Christ fathered a child with Mary Magdalene has drawn strong protests from the Roman Catholic Church, and the movie version has fanned whispers of discontent in the cathedral city of Lincoln, where Tom Hanks and the crew were filming this week.
Lincoln's dean, or head of the cathedral, the Very Rev. Alec Knight, conceded that the novel was "far-fetched and heretical," but defended the decision to allow filming. The cathedral in central England accepted a reported $180,000 to double as Westminster Abbey in the film.
Westminster Abbey, whose Chapter House figures in one of the book's climactic scenes, turned down an approach from producers earlier this year, saying it would be "inappropriate" to allow filming.
Other institutions have been more welcoming. Winchester Cathedral in southern England has given permission for filming to take place later this year, as has Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh.
Jackman Says Dr. No To 007
he Australian newspaper The Age reported that Hugh Jackman has rejected the role of James Bond after months of negotiations with the producers. He would have been the first Aussie to play the role, 36 years after countryman George Lazenby starred in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He would have replaced Pierce Brosnan.
But Jackman found himself unswayed by the job's selective cult status, the newspaper reported. He was first offered the role some months ago, but has turned it down after talking with his wife, actress Deborrah-Lee Furness.
The report said Jackman, 37, rejected the deal because he had a sufficiently high global profile and did not feel the need to throw himself into the strange world of Bond.
Grimm Stars Were Brotherly
att Damon and Heath Ledger, who play the title characters in Terry Gilliam's upcoming supernatural movie The Brothers Grimm, each told SCI FI Wire that despite their obvious differences, they're enough alike that they could easily be brothers.
Damon is 34, born in Massachusetts. Ledger is 26, born in Australia. The real Grimm brothers were born a year apart and came from Germany.
"Oh, wow, we f---g hate each other," Damon said in an interview, tongue in cheek. "No, seriously, we have a lot in common. We have a real similar approach to work and outlook on our careers and how to approach them."
Ledger pointed out that although he and Damon were brought up a world apart from each other, their parents both read them fairy tales from the Grimm collection, including Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella. "As kids, we both had them read to us. That's significant," Ledger said.
In The Brothers Grimm,, Damon and Ledger portray a fictional version of the brothers who collected local legends and fairy tales. The movie pits the real-life brothers against some fictionalized adversaries, including a witch played by Monica Bellucci. The brothers also find themselves pursued by a French police officer, played by Jonathan Pryce, who thinks that they are con artists.
Known for being a practical joker on the set, Damon said he and Ledger had a good time together. "He's got a great sense of humor, but I don't think because he's Australian that it's so unique that the rest of us don't understand it," he said. "We had a lot of laughs while we worked."
In reality, the Grimm brothers were inseparable most of their lives and worked together and went to school together. Does Damon have a Brothers Grimm dynamic with fellow Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting co-screenwriter Ben Affleck? "No," Damon said with a laugh. "No."
Balky F/X Delayed Brothers Grimm
harles Roven, producer of the upcoming The Brothers Grimm, told SCI FI Wire that he blamed the film's delay on problems with the fantasy movie's many animatronic and robotic trees, wolves and other creatures.
Brothers Grimm, directed by Terry Gilliam, features trees that attack, sinister wolves and other special effects that filmmakers at first accomplished with mechanical effects instead of computer-generated images.
"Sure, I tried to talk them out of it," Roven said in an interview. "Because we tried doing that with Scooby and failed miserably. I was overruled by a lot of people, and I ended up being right."
Roven co-produced both of the live-action Scooby-Doo movies and said that during the first one they tried to use a robotic dog to interact with the actors, but it didn't look realistic at all. "When they were talking about doing the same [in Brothers Grimm], especially with the wolf, I warned that down the line we'll be unhappy, and it was true. The visual effects on the movie were s--ty!"
The scenes were eventually redone with computer graphics. Gilliam went to shoot the film Tideland and then came back with a fresh perspective. "It gave him a four- or five-month break, and that was a positive thing, because he came back to see the effects, and then did a new edit on the film," Roven said.
For his part, Gilliam said that he welcomed the break to come up with the new computer-generated effects. "We were in a situation that there was a lot of head-butting, and there could have been big compromises, but I thought the film would suffer," Gilliam said in a separate interview. "So I went up to do Tideland, and then came back to finish the film, and everyone was much more happy."
In Brothers Grimm, Matt Damon and Heath Ledger portray a fictional version of the Grimm brothers, who collect local legends for a book. They come across some actual magic while traveling around Napoleonic-era Europe. The film also stars Jonathan Pryce, Lena Headey and Peter Stormare and is scheduled for release on Aug. 26.
Batman Hits DVD In October
he Rope of Silicon Web site reported that Batman Begins will hit DVD on Oct. 18. The hit film will be available in three formats: single-disc widescreen and full-screen editions and a two-disc deluxe set with eight documentaries, the site reported.
The documentaries will deal with Batman Begins' production, the batsuit, the Batmobile, the monorail chase, shooting in Iceland, fighting and the incarnations of Batman over the past 20 years. The deluxe set will also contain featurettes on characters and weapons, an interactive comic book, a stills gallery, trailers and a collectible 72-page comic, the site reported.
Gaiman Talks Beowulf Script
eil Gaiman, who is co-writing the screenplay for Robert Zemeckis' upcoming computer-animated movie based on Beowulf, wrote in his online blog that the film will differ from the epic Anglo-Saxon poem. "Books aren't films, and poems aren't films even more than books aren't films," Gaiman wrote. "When Roger Avary and I wrote it originally, we decided that anything that was actually reported as happening in the original poem happened like that, but that anything where we only have someone in the story's word for it what happened might—or might not—have happened like that. But we still didn't try to put everything in the poem onto the screen."
Gaiman (Mirrormask) and Avary are writing the film, which Zemeckis will shoot using the same motion-capture computer animation he employed for The Polar Express. "When Bob Zemeckis bought the script and assumed the director's mantle, he wanted some small changes from the narrative of the poem and one big change, which, because we understood why he wanted them made, we were willing to make," Gaiman said. "And then there was some trimming to do before the film gets shot. (It's not an epic. It's really a story about how the choices we make when we're young can affect us when we're old, and even that's probably saying too much.)"
But, Gaiman added, there will be one thing the same: "Yes, there is still some Old English in it."
Jolie Headlining Beowulf
ngelina Jolie has been set to star in Beowulf, the animated Robert Zemeckis movie based on the Old English epic poem, and the project is close to securing distribution through Paramount and Warner Brothers, Variety reported.
Jolie will play the queen of darkness, who tempts the Viking hero as he makes his way in the quest to become king. She joins Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleeson and Robin Wright Penn in the film, which will be made with the same performance-capture technique Zemeckis used in The Polar Express.
Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman wrote the screenplay, with Zemeckis and his ImageMovers partners Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke producing and Martin Shafer and the writers executive-producing.
Malkovich Mulls Beowulf
ark Horizons reported that John Malkovich may voice a character in Beowulf, Robert Zemeckis' upcoming computer-animated movie based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem. Malkovich made the comments at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, the site reported.
Malkovich (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) would join Anthony Hopkins and Robin Wright Penn in the movie, which will be shot with the same motion-capture animation technology that Zemeckis used in The Polar Express, the site reported.
Malkovich's role would be that of "a sort of advisor to the King. But I don't have the newest script, which will be on my desk when I am back in France," he told the site. "It's not definitive. But it is very likely."
X-Men 3 Casting Rumored
GN FilmForce reported rumors that Olivia Williams, Bill Duke and Michael Murphy have joined the cast of the third X-Men movie.
Williams (The Sixth Sense) will reportedly play Dr. Moira MacTaggert, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist and former lover of Professor Xavier, who ran a mutant research center on Muir Island in her native Scotland. In the Marvel Comics mythology, MacTaggert was the mother of the mutant Proteus and died after discovering a cure for a new strain of the Legacy virus, the site reported.
Duke (Predator) will portray a politician in the president's cabinet, the site reported.
Murphy will play Warren Worthington Sr., father of Angel (Ben Foster).
Lawless Invades Galactica
ucy Lawless, who will guest-star in an upcoming episode of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI Wire that footage she shot while playing a broadcast reporter actually makes it into the final cut, which airs Sept. 9.
"We were shooting video, and they are using footage that I and my crew actually shot," Lawless said in an Aug. 16 telephone interview from the set of the TV movie Vampire Bats, which she is currently shooting in New Orleans. "It was really exciting, worrying about the camera angle you are getting, and you were truly being your character and fully concerned about shooting the footage. It was like shooting a movie within a movie."
Lawless guest-stars in "Final Cut," the eighth episode of Galactica's current second season, written by Mark Verheiden and directed by Robert Young. In the episode, Lawless plays reporter D'Anna Friel, who gets unlimited access to film aboard Galactica and documents the stress of military life during wartime. The marines, led by Lt. Palladino (Jeremy Guilbaut), get widely criticized when his crew opens fire on civilian protesters, killing four and wounding 12. Then there's a death threat against Col. Tigh (Michael Hogan). Meanwhile, President Roslin (Mary McDonnell) and Cmdr. Adama (Edward James Olmos) offer Fleet News Service full access to the pilots and crew. Along the way, the reporter uncovers some major secrets and faces an ethical dilemma.
Lawless admitted that she wasn't familiar with the Galactica series before she landed the role, but said that she was impressed with the show's universe. "The sets weren't all shiny, like the previous Battlestar Galactica," she said. "They were grungy and all beaten up. It has that post-apocalyptic rawness. It's genius."
The episode also marks the first time in nearly two decades of acting that Lawless was allowed to use her native New Zealand accent. "I've never wanted to use my real voice before," she said. "It never seemed appropriate, and I was resistant to it. But for this role as a reporter, it seemed appropriate."
Lawless Open To Cameo Roles
ucy Lawless told SCI FI Wire that she'd welcome future cameo roles in the upcoming Evil Dead movies or in the third Spider-Man movie, which are being produced by her husband, Rob Tapert, and family friend Sam Raimi, but added that nothing's set yet. The former Xena: Warrior Princess star made a brief cameo appearance in the first Spider-Man film as a punk rocker in a scene shot in New York City. "That was fun," Lawless said in an interview. "I threw on a wig and did it. Who knows if I'll get a chance to do it again?"
Spider-Man director Raimi was one of the executive producers of Xena during its six seasons, as was Lawless' husband, Tapert, who is still Raimi's business partner.
Tapert and Raimi are also producing two upcoming Evil Dead movies, based on their original 1970s films. "Well, who wouldn't want to be in an Evil Dead movie?" Lawless said. Even as a zombie, Lawless said she would make an appearance, but she added that she's not pushing her husband or lobbying her friend Raimi for a role.
"It doesn't even occur to me [to] think like that," Lawless said. "It's more like, 'What are we having for dinner, and where are the kids?' Also, people think that it's so easy, that you should be able to lean on your family and friends for jobs or whatever. Or they should be making things for you, and it just doesn't work like that. And to ensure the health of your relationship, you just stay away from that kind of thinking."
Villains Ready For Beta
ity of Villains, the much-anticipated follow-up to the City of Heroes massively multiplayer online role-playing game, will be available for beta testing and a two-day head start over other players through a pre-order box now in stores. The PC game will launch commercially later this year.
City of Villains, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft North America, is the stand-alone sequel to City of Heroes, the companies announced.
Customers who pre-order City of Villains will also receive an exclusive in-game Arachnos costume piece, a limited-edition "Lord Recluse versus Statesman" poster and a CD-ROM that includes City of Villains videos, art, wallpapers, screenshots, a Rogue Isles map, a City of Heroes comic book and other extras.
In City of Villains, players will be able to take on villainous personas, customizing villain costumes and building bases for their super-power groups. Both the villain costume creator and the base creator will offer the same type of nearly limitless customization options that made the City of Heroes costume creator so acclaimed.
In addition to a variety of technological advances and a huge set of criminal missions and events within the Rogue Isles, City of Villains will also include player-versus-player action and the ability to fight against player-controlled heroes from the City of Heroes game within special designated PvP zones.
Gray Area Rights Optioned
enderspink has optioned the rights to the supernatural graphic novel The Gray Area by writer Glen Brunswick and comic artist John Romita Jr., according to The Hollywood Reporter. First published last year by Image Comics, Gray Area is a thriller that follows a corrupt cop who, after being killed, goes to an afterlife known as the Gray Area, where he has to prove he's not that bad, the trade paper reported.
Brunswick recently was tapped to write a script adaptation to the Wildstorm/DC comic Ex Machina for New Line. Benderspink and Brunswick are attached as producers on Ex Machina.
Romita has spent the better part of his career as one of the most popular illustrators for Marvel Comics and is credited with producing definitive stints on such comics as The Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, The Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man and The Punisher. Gray Area is his first creator-owned work and the first time in 27 years he had done work outside of Marvel, the trade paper reported.
Hauser Gives Cave A Rave
ole Hauser, who stars in the long-delayed horror thriller The Cave, told SCI FI Wire that he's seen the movie and thinks it will surprise people. "I think that for that kind of film, a genre film, it's an A, in my opinion," Hauser said in an interview.
Hauser (Pitch Black) stars in The Cave as Jack, leader of a team of cave divers, who are called upon to explore a mysterious cave system located a mile beneath a Romanian abbey. The group, which also includes Piper Perabo, Eddie Cibrian, Lena Headey, Daniel Dae Kim and Morris Chestnut, is promptly besieged by vicious creatures that can swim and fly.
"It looks big," Hauser said. "We spent a good amount of money on the film, and it shows. You can see it in the CGI and the music, and the sets look phenomenal. It's always hard when you're doing a movie like this, because you're on a stage for most of it, and you start looking at stuff and thinking, 'God, that looks so fake' and 'The walls don't look real' and 'This looks stupid.' But with The Cave, when you watch it, it looks real. It looks like we're in the middle of a mountain."
Hauser went on to credit first-time feature director Bruce Hunt for making it all work. Hunt was a second-unit director on Dark City and The Matrix and a third-unit director on The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. "Bruce is a very visual guy and a good director," Hauser said. "He learned a lot on this movie. He'd never done anything that was this big. I know that he was very appreciative of all the [stunt training] that we'd done before we actually got over to Romania, because it helped him settle into his first major picture. He's got a great future ahead of him." The Cave opens on Aug. 26.
No Nepotism In Heaven?
he producers of Just Like Heaven insist to SCI FI Wire that they had no idea that the actress they cast as Reese Witherspoon's older sister was in fact director Mark Waters' wife. Dina Waters (The Haunted Mansion) auditioned anonymously for husband-and-wife producing team Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes, and they liked her.
"She reminded me of a young Teri Garr, and I was really surprised to find out she was Mark's wife," Parkes said in an interview.
"She read that really difficult scene when she is being confronted [by Mark Ruffalo's character] and told her sister is communicating to him, and she chases him out with a knife," MacDonald said. "She made me cry. It's a tough scene for an actor to do."
Although the producers know that spouses can work very well together, director Waters thought it would be best to remove himself from that casting decision. Waters said that he didn't want to influence their pick.
"I just thought it would be better to go that way, and they liked Dina," Waters said in a separate interview. (He also worked with his wife in Freaky Friday.)
Dina Waters said that she immediately connected with Heaven star Reese Witherspoon. "Reese is the most type-A mom on earth, so we had a lot in common," Dina said.
Just Like Heaven centers on a young woman (Witherspoon) who finds herself in a netherworld where she can only appear to the man who is renting her apartment (Ruffalo). Donal Logue, Ben Shenkman and Jon Heder also appear in Just Like Heaven, which opens Sept. 16.
Chesley Awards Winners Named
he winners of the 20th annual Chesley Awards, presented to individual artists for achievements in SF art during the year, were presented Aug. 5 at Interaction, the World Science Fiction Convention, in Glasgow, Scotland. Named in honor of astronomical artist Chesley Bonestell after his death in 1986, the awards are sponsored by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. A list of winners follows.
Award for Artistic Achievement: Omar Rayyan
Best Cover Illustrations, Hardback Books (three-way tie): Rick Berry, Tony DiTerlizzi and Donato Giancola
Best Cover Illustration, Paperback Books: John Picacio
Best Cover Illustration, Magazine: Omar Rayyan
Best Interior Illustration: Charles Vess
Best Color Work, Unpublished: Marc Fishman
Best Monochrome Work, Unpublished: Robert Elneskog
Best Three-Dimensional Art: Lawrence Northey
Best Gaming-Related Illustration: Mark Zug
Best Product Illustration: Dean Morrissey
Award for Best Art Director: Irene Gallo
Award for Contribution to ASFA: Kat Angeli
Machinima Film Fest Coming
he Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, an organization that provides advocacy, education and community for Machinima (filmmaking using real-time 3-D game technology/virtual reality), announced the 2005 Machinima Film Festival and called for entries for the 2005 Machinima Awards. Sponsored by NVIDIA and the Independent Film Channel, the third annual festival will take place Nov. 12 at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.
The one-day event will include screenings of Machinima films, workshops hosted by Machinima filmmakers, special presentations, talks with award-winning independent filmmakers and seminars about Machinima production techniques. The event will also act as host to the 2005 Machinima Awards, where some of the best Machinima filmmakers will be recognized for excellence in a variety of categories.
Geist Finally Materializes
fter several delays, Geist, the first-person shooter and adventure hybrid from Florida-based n-Space, has finally made it to retail for the GameCube, the GameSpot Web site reported. The game, which was first announced at the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo and originally planned for a holiday 2004 release, has shipped to stores with a suggested retail price of $49.99.
Geist puts players into the lab coat of John Raimi, a civilian scientist, who is sent along with a special forces squad to investigate illegal experiments at the Volks research facility, the site reported. Things quickly go awry, and after being subjected to one such illegal experiment, Raimi's spiritual essence is torn from his body.
Terminator 2 Suit Can Proceed
federal appeals court panel ruled on Aug. 15 that an Australian couple can proceed with a lawsuit that alleges their idea for a shape-shifting creature was wrongly used in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Filia and Constantinos Kourtis claim that they came up with the character in 1987 for a movie called The Minotaur. The couple hired a writer, William Green, to craft a screenplay, and they allege that the screenplay was shared with James Cameron, who directed and co-wrote Terminator 2.
The SF film, which starred Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before he entered politics, was released in 1991 and featured a character that can transform its appearance, the trade paper reported.
Green, who alleged that he owned the copyright to the screenplay, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cameron and others after the film was released, but the suit was ultimately dismissed.
The Kourtises later challenged Green's ownership of the script in an Australian court and prevailed in 1998, the trade paper reported. The couple then filed their own lawsuit against Cameron, alleging that he used their shape-changing concept without providing payment or attribution.
A district court granted Cameron's motion to dismiss the couple's lawsuit, concluding that the earlier decision in Green's lawsuit precluded them from litigating the copyright infringement issue again. The couple appealed, and a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a 17-page ruling that they were not a party to the earlier case and should have their day in court, the trade paper reported.
Appear In A King Novel For A Fee
tephen King, John Grisham and 14 other authors will sell the right to have a character in a book named after the buyer in an upcoming auction to raise money for the First Amendment Project, a California-based nonprofit group that promotes freedom of information and expression, the Reuters news service reported.
Details of exactly what each author is offering will be posted on eBay, and the auctions will take place between Sept. 1 and 25, the group said.
King said he was offering the chance to name a character in a novel called CELL, to be published in 2006 or 2007. "Buyer should be aware that CELL is a violent piece of work, which comes complete with zombies set in motion by bad cell phone signals that destroy the human brain," King said on his official Web site. "Like cheap whiskey, it's very nasty and extremely satisfying."
The authors participating in the auction include Dorothy Allison, Michael Chabon, Dave Eggers, Karen Joy Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Andrew Sean Greer, Grisham, King, Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Z.Z. Packer, Nora Roberts, Lemony Snicket, Peter Straub, Amy Tan and Ayelet Waldman.
The First Amendment Project provides legal representation in freedom of expression cases.
Zoom Lawsuit Dropped
ox and Marvel have withdrawn a lawsuit filed in June against Sony and Revolution that claimed the upcoming Tim Allen comedy Zoom is confusingly similar to X-Men and that the film was purposely scheduled to open two weeks before next May's third X-Men movie in order to build on the parallels, Variety reported.
Meanwhile, Revolution has shifted the release date of Zoom from May 13 to early August 2006 (the studio could not yet confirm the exact day). Revolution partner Tom Sherak told the trade paper that the move was prompted by Warner Brothers' The Poseidon Adventure, whose release date recently was moved from May 5 to the original Zoom date of May 13.
Sony and Revolution did make some minor changes to the Zoom script in direct response to the suit, per recommendations from lawyer Bert Fields, the trade paper reported. For example, a character's name was changed and the location of the film's research lab was shifted.
Some of the changes were made to ensure a PG rather than a PG-13 rating. Both X-Men pics were rated PG-13, the trade paper reported.
A Fox representative declined to comment to Variety, except to say the parties have settled amicably. Revolution similarly declined to comment on the suit.
Ackles Sour On Devour
ensen Ackles told SCI FI Wire that Devour, a horror film he made in 2004 that was recently released on DVD, didn't come out as well as he'd hoped. Ackles, best known for his role as Jason Teague on Smallville and soon to be seen on the upcoming WB series Supernatural, plays Jake, a college student swept up in an online game entitled The Pathway, which links him directly to Satan, who uses Jake to do his bidding.
"That's a little Screen Gems horror flick that David Winkler, son of famous director Irwin Winkler, directed and basically rewrote while we were shooting it, which is always a tricky situation," Ackles said in an interview. "I think that if I had known it was going to be a complete rewrite during shooting, it may have been something I would have thought about a little longer."
Ackles, who co-stars with Dominique Swain and Shannyn Sossamon in Devour, added: "When I read the script and I met with David and I met with Danny Bigel, the producer, they were real excited about me. I read the script, and I was like, 'Yeah.' It's a very popular genre right now, and they already [had] the girls attached, Shannyn Sossamon and Dominique Swain, whose work I knew very well. So I thought, 'Hey, let's do it. Let's make a movie.' And we did the best we could, given the circumstances. It probably wasn't as great as we'd hoped, but you can't win them all."
Paul Organizes Tsunami Aid
ighlander star Adrian Paul launched AdrianPaulPeace.org, a Web site dedicated to furthering the actor's longtime goal of protecting, educating and aiding children, organizers announced.
Paul's efforts grew in part out of his aid work to help victims of the South Asian tsunami, and his original PEACE organization has been reorganized with a new international mission to help children and families who were affected.
AdrianPaulPeace.org will raise funds and serve as a conduit to organize assistance that will directly benefit the residents of the island of Koh Phi Phi off the southeast coast of Thailand. (Paul's brother, Andrew, lives on the island and was affected by the tsunami.)
Harlin Helming Covenant
creen Gems and Lakeshore have set Renny Harlin to direct the supernatural thriller film The Covenant, Variety reported. J.S. Cardone's script follows a mysterious stranger at an exclusive prep school.
Sebastian Stan, Steven Strait, Toby Hemingway and Chace Crawford star; production begins in Montreal Oct. 4.
Desperate's Longoria Injured
esperate Housewives star Eva Longoria was injured Aug. 17 during taping of the hit ABC comedy in Pasadena, Calif., and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, officials told The Hollywood Reporter.
Longoria was "bumped on the head by something" while shooting on location and was taken to a hospital where she was treated and released, a spokesperson for the show told the trade paper.
Longoria is expected to return to work on schedule, the spokesperson said.
The entertainment show Access Hollywood reported that Longoria was injured when a pole fell on her.
Dead Game Rises
and of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green, a new first-person shooter video game based on this summer's hit George A. Romero zombie movie, is under development at Brainbox Games for release in October for the Xbox and PC, the GameSpot Web site reported.
Road to Fiddler's Green will act as a prequel to the film. At the outset, players are dumped in the middle of a harsh wasteland with nothing but an army of the undead standing between them and Fiddler's Green, the last stronghold of humanity, the site reported.
Built using the Unreal engine, Road to Fiddler's Green lets gamers cleanse the land of the zombie scourge with a variety of melee and ranged weapons, including baseball bats, fire axes, shovels, sniper rifles and M16s. The game also features a multiplayer mode that lets players work with or against other humans to save or doom the race, the site reported.
Road to Fiddler's Green will not feature the voices of film stars Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo or the rest of the Land of the Dead cast.t the box office, grossing just $55 million worldwide to date, the trade paper reported.
Mythopoeic Awards Winners Named
inners were announced for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, given to the fantasy works published during 2004 that best exemplify "the spirit of the Inklings," the literary circle of J.R.R. Tolkien. The winners of this year's awards were announced at the Tolkien 2005 conference (incorporating Mythcon XXXVI) in Birmingham, England, on Aug. 14. The awards are sponsored by the Mythopoeic Society. A full list of winners follows.
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, Adult Literature: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, Children's Literature: A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies: War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien by Janet Brennan Croft
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies: Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography by Stephen Thomas Knight
Lions Gate Handles The Truth
ions Gate is gearing up The Truth Machine, optioning James Halperin's SF thriller book and setting it up with Ithaka Entertainment's Andrew Weiner and Braxton Pope, along with Fritz Manger and Bill McDonald, Variety reported.
Ron Shusett (co-creator of the Alien franchise) and George Lee Marshall (Dark Side) will adapt the novel, the trade paper reported.
The Truth Machine examines what the world would be like after the construction of a perfect lie detector, with the character who invented the machine committing a crime and then submitting to his own creation.
Shusett and Marshall first partnered in 1995 and have penned a half-dozen feature scripts and TV pilots together. Shusett co-wrote the story to Alien vs. Predator, co-wrote the screenplay and produced Total Recall and was executive producer of Minority Report.
Underworld Evolution Site Lives
new Web site has gone live for the upcoming vampire sequel film Underworld Evolution, notable for being the first site created with Macromedia's Flash Professional 8 tool, Sony announced.
Sony has partnered with Macromedia, which is rolling out Flash 8, an authoring tool for designers and developers to create interactive content for sites, interactive presentations and mobile devices.
Underworld Evolution, directed by Len Wiseman and starring Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman, opens Jan. 20, 2006.
Disney Relights Aladdin's Lamp
alt Disney Pictures has bought a pitch for a modern-day Aladdin story from writer Bill Kelly for Adam Shankman's Offspring Entertainment, Variety reported. Shankman (The Pacifier) is tentatively slated to direct, pending completion of the script, the trade paper reported.
He will produce along with Offspring's Jennifer Gibgot. Sunil Perkash, who developed the story with Kelly, also is producing and will share story credit. Kelly is on tap to write the script.
The movie will be a live action retelling of the story in a contemporary setting. Otherwise, the studio is keeping details under wraps.
Kelly is already writing another contemporary, fairy-tale-inspired movie for Disney: Enchanted, a mix of live-action and animation, to be helmed by Kevin Lima (Tarzan).
Craig Joins Kidman's Invasion
aniel Craig will star opposite Nicole Kidman in Invasion, an SF thriller produced by Joel Silver for Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow, Variety reported. Shooting begins next month, with German helmer Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) making his English-language studio directing debut, the trade paper reported.
Craig (Layer Cake) will play a doctor who helps Kidman's character figure out how to save her 10-year-old son from being overtaken by aliens. The boy's fate could hold the key to stopping the entire human race from being decimated, the trade paper reported.
Invasion was originally viewed as a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but David Kajganich's script was different enough that the studio now views it as an original.
Swinton Bewitched By Narnia
ilda Swinton, who plays the evil White Witch in writer-director Andrew Adamson's upcoming big-screen adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, told SCI FI Wire that she knew nothing at all of the C.S. Lewis stories on which the film is based. "I was one of the very few people brought up on these islands who hadn't been given the books along with my mother's milk," the British actress said in an interview while promoting her latest film, Thumbsucker. "So I came to it with a beginner's mind. I still haven't read them all, but I thought it was a good read, and I thought it would make a good film. So I was very happy to do it. When I met with Andrew Adamson I just thought he was the right person for the job."
Swinton (Constantine) said that Adamson took a classical approach to interpreting Lewis' fantasy story, about four children who discover a doorway to a magical world ruled by a stately lion. "I think what he set out to make—and if I'm wrong here then he'll have to forgive me—is a very straightforward, classical children's film, something very, very classical and mythical," Swinton said. "It won't feel modern, I don't think, in the way in which we've come to expect. We expect very CGI-laden films to feel modern, and I think, if anything, this is going to feel refreshingly archaic. And Andrew, of course, is the only person who can do that, because he's Mr. Special Effects.
"So he's trying to give children a fresh palette, where you have real people and real creatures, rather than endless, endless special effects," Swinton added. "Of course there will be special effects in the film, but it's going to be much less special-effects-heavy than so many films we've seen in the last 10 years. And I think that's very good for children's eyes. I think that's good for all of our eyes, actually. So that's what I mean when I say I think it will be classical. I think it will be very simple and straightforward and, not exactly reverent, but enthusiastic. It's certainly going to be a film made by a fan of the book." The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens nationwide on Dec. 9.
Briefly Noted
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Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (HBO's Oz) will join the cast of ABC's Lost as a new character called Emeka, joining Michelle Rodriguez as Ana-Lucia and one new female character, USA Today reported.
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The latest video blog for Bryan Singer's Superman Returns features footage of the still-in-production movie that was screened to great acclaim at this year's Comic-Con International.
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The WB has ordered a pilot for Cult, a thriller written on spec by Farscape creator Rockne S. O'Bannon, about a series of mysterious deaths linked to fans of a TV show called Cult, Variety reported.
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Joe Ranft, Pixar Animation Studios' head of story for more than a decade and a cornerstone of the company's creative team, died Aug. 15 when the car he was riding in plunged into the ocean after running off the road in Mendocino County, Calif., according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 45.
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The Los Angeles-based international sales outfit Cinema Management Group has picked up international rights to the independent horror thriller Reeker, written and directed by Dave Payne (Addams Family Reunion), Variety reported.
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Star Wars star Carrie Fisher will guest-star in the Oct. 27 episode of The WB's Smallville, playing Pauline Kahn, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet, whom Chloe (Allison Mack) meets in hopes of landing an internship, TV Guide Online reported.
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IGN FilmForce reported that Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (TV's 24) will play Dr. Kavita Rao in the third X-Men movie, based on a character introduced in Joss Whedon's recent run on Astonishing X-Men as a geneticist who created a serum called Hope to try to rid mutants of their mutations.
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Kenneth Branagh has plucked actors from the opera world—including Joseph Kaiser, Ben Davis, Rene Pape, Lyubov Petrova and newcomer Amy Carson—for his feature adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Oscar-winning animator Nick Park's first feature-length Wallace & Gromit film, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, will receive its North American premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Wizards of the Coast, publisher of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, announced that it will sell limited-edition art pieces from its archives in the fall of 2005.
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Balthazar Getty (Into the West) is joining the cast of ABC's spy series Alias this fall as Thomas Grace, a new agent on the APO team, TV Guide Online reported.
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Batman Begins has passed The Matrix: Reloaded as Imax's highest-grossing digitally remastered 2-D release, taking in about $14.5 million on 72 Imax screens worldwide, Zap2it reported.
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Emperor Motion Pictures will release the $10 million film A Chinese Tall Story, a love story between an alien and a monk, in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand on Dec. 22, Variety reported.
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Coming this month: Wizards of the Coast debuts Legendology, a new online magazine designed to chronicle and expand the iconic worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Hecatomb and more.
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Extra has posted a sneak peek at the trailer for the upcoming fourth Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire.
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The Island, the SF action film that garnered an anemic $34.1 million domestically in four weeks, has taken in a respectable $63 million internationally, Variety reported.
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