Kong Gets Supersized
ess than two months before the Dec. 14 release of Universal's remake of King Kong, the studio has agreed to release director Peter Jackson's three-hour cut, which will push the budget to $207 million, Variety reported.
The budget on the great-ape epic went up primarily because of the additional visual-effects work that will be needed. Jackson and Universal had originally contemplated a running time of around two and a half hours, with a budget around $175 million.
Jackson himself will pay for the bulk of the additional $32 million needed to bring in the extended version of Kong. Jackson's three-hour remake will nearly double the length of the 1933 original King Kong, which clocked in at one hour and 40 minutes.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Takei Comes Out Of The Closet
eorge Takei, best known as Capt. Hikaru Sulu in the Star Trek movies, has told the Los Angeles gay/lesbian magazine Frontiers that he is gay. Takei, a Los Angeles-based actor who is also a community activist, made the revelation in an interview published this week.
"It's not really coming out, which suggests opening a door and stepping through," Takei, 68, told the magazine. "It's more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen. And then some doors are open, and light comes in, and there are skylights, and it widens."
Takei said that he has been in a relationship for 18 years with a man he identifies as "Brad," but that this is the first time he's spoken publicly about his homosexuality. He also admitted that he continues to have problems with his family as a result of being gay.
"I've not had a good experience with one sibling," Takei said. "And I won't be specific, because it's still a problem. My mother, initially, had some adjustments to make, but she got to like Brad very much. She got Alzheimer's, and it got very difficult for her, so we moved her in with us. Brad was wonderful. He was a saint. It's very difficult when you're dealing with someone with Alzheimer's. And some of the stages were ... horrific. And Brad helped throughout that. She was with us for the last four years of her life. And I owe so much to him."
Aronofsky To Helm Lost Ep
eature-film director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, The Fountain) will helm an upcoming episode of ABC's hit SF series Lost, Entertainment Weekly reported. Aronofsky's episode will likely air at the beginning of May sweeps, the magazine reported.
"It was one of those fantastic calls out of the blue," Lost executive producer Carlton Cuse told the magazine. "His agents let us know he liked the show, and we jumped at the opportunity. Apparently, he had been watching Lost while up in Montreal shooting The Fountain and got hooked."
Aronofsky is also completing The Fountain, the director's epic time-travel movie starring fiancée Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman. "I think he will be done" by the time he directs Lost, Cuse speculated. "We scheduled it so that [the episode] is coming on the heels of finishing The Fountain. And we will try to put together a story that will be well-suited for Darren's talents and visual imagination." The Fountain is due in theaters next year.
Buffy Movies Straight To DVD?
arti Noxon, executive producer of UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its last seasons, told SCI FI Wire that the popular series' characters may live on in direct-to-DVD movies. "There are serious discussions going on about bringing some of the characters back and making a few movies that will go straight to DVD, but they will certainly be the quality they have always been," Noxon said in an interview. Continued fan interest in a big-budget Buffy film has led creator Joss Whedon to consider a series of movies that would focus on some of the secondary characters, she added.
"Joss is the king of jumping mediums, so it is an obvious step for him to do this," Noxon said. She said that a few of the show's past writers, such as Drew Goddard, have been contacted about turning in script ideas that would center on the minor characters. But Noxon said that she doubts that star Sarah Michelle Gellar would reprise her role as Buffy and added that she thought it might be tough to persuade Alyson Hannigan to return as Willow. Both Gellar and Hannigan have moved on to film roles, and Hannigan is now a regular on the hit CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.
But Noxon said that a film centered on James Marsters' Spike or David Boreanaz's Angel could do very well. (Marsters currently has a recurring role on The WB's Smallville, while Boreanaz is a regular on Fox's Bones.)
At the moment, Noxon said she isn't involved in writing any of the DVD movie scripts, but that she could be in the future. (Noxon is currently a consulting producer on Fox's Prison Break.) "If I get involved it would be for the Buffy-related films, not Angel, because I'm far more plugged into Buffy," she said.
DVD Wraps Up Point Pleasant
arti Noxon, creator of Fox's ill-fated supernatural drama Point Pleasant, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming DVD set of the entire series will include five never-before-seen episodes that will satisfy the show's fans, who were left hanging when Fox pulled the show from its schedule earlier this year. "I appreciate all the fans who have e-mailed me about the series, and some of them already got the last episodes somehow from overseas and told me that they liked the way it all ended," Noxon said in an interview.
Point Pleasant, based in a fictionalized version of the real New Jersey seaside town, centered on a young woman (Elisabeth Harnois) who is rescued at sea and becomes enmeshed in the lives of the townspeople. Eventually, she learns that she may be the daughter of Satan himself. Fox premiered the series in January of this year and pulled it after airing only eight of the 13 produced episodes because of low ratings.
The final five unaired episodes amp up the storyline, and when it looked like the show would be canceled, writers compressed the events of two seasons into one, Noxon said. "We took a beating in the ratings, but then they started to go, and we accelerated the action, and I really wanted her to be fully evil in the second season," Noxon said.
In retrospect, Noxon (formerly executive producer of UPN's Buffy the Vampire Slayer) admitted that the show may have got off to a bad start. "After the first five episodes there was a shift, and we started to get more spooky, and we were taking it away from the soap-opera aspect," she said. "It was getting discombobulated with all the characters. It was The O.C. meets The Omen, but I didn't know [that] the beach and girls in the bikinis had much to do with anything."
Noxon added: "At first we got lambasted by some of the reviews, and somewhat deservingly. We got off to the wrong start. But when it started getting good, the critics were still being snarky about it and didn't give it another chance. By then, Fox didn't want to promote it anymore."
Noxon said that she is currently working on a series for ABC and another for Fox while rewriting a film for Sam Raimi, which features a character in a mental institution—an element borrowed from Point Pleasant. "I really liked the storyline with Judy's mom, Meg, and how people thought she was crazy because she was hearing her dead daughter," Noxon said. "I did incorporate some of that into the movie."
The Point Pleasant DVD set includes a featurette with Noxon and most of the cast, which was filmed before the series was canceled. "We didn't do a wrap-up interview, but that's OK," Noxon said. "I think it will be nice to see how people will discover the series on DVD for the first time." Point Pleasant: The Complete Series will be released Oct. 25.
Noxon Helps with Raimi's Curse
riter Marti Noxon told SCI FI Wire that she's now working on rewriting a script idea sparked by director Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan, who co-wrote Spider-Man 3. Tentatively titled The Curse, the story includes doctors, monsters, mental patients and a witch, Noxon said in an interview. The film mixes Evil Dead and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, added Noxon, who served as executive producer of Buffy during its final run on UPN. (Noxon is currently a consulting producer on the Fox drama series Prison Break.)
"I'm so excited about working with Sam, it's a dream come true," Noxon said. "I was nine months pregnant and standing in line for hours when Spider-Man was coming out, and now I'm thrilled about writing for them."
Noxon is reworking Raimi's idea for the comedy/fantasy/horror project with Peter Cornwell, known for writing and directing the animated short Ward 13, about a hospital from hell. "I think they wanted me because they wanted something that had a bit of comedy, and it has a feel that is in the Buffy vein, so I'm honored to be a part of it," Noxon said. "It's a crazy paranoid fantasy and has a strong female character, and there's a vengeful entity." Noxon added with a laugh: "I get brought in when there are ghosts and monsters."
Noxon said the lead character in The Curse reminds her a bit of one of her characters in her ill-fated Fox TV series Point Pleasant, which was just released in its entirety on DVD. The crazy mom in the series wasn't sure if she was crazy or not when seeing things and hearing the voice of her dead daughter. Likewise, in The Curse, a woman in a mental institution sees things that could be delusional. The project will be produced as under Raimi's genre production company Ghost House Pictures. No production date has yet been set.
SG-1, Atlantis Renewed
CI FI Channel announced that it has ordered a 10th season of Stargate SG-1 and a third season of its spinoff series, Stargate Atlantis. Production on both 20-episode seasons is slated to begin in early 2006 for summer premieres on SCI FI.
Heading into a 10th season, Stargate SG-1 becomes the longest-running SF drama in American television history, outlasting The X-Files, The Twilight Zone and every iteration of Star Trek. The first half of SG-1's ninth season has averaged 2.4 million viewers per week.
Stargate Atlantis has averaged more than 2.3 million viewers a week for the first half of its sophomore season.
SG-1 co-creator Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper will return as executive producers on both series.
Stargate SG-1 is produced by Double Secret Productions, in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Sony Pictures Television. Stargate Atlantis is produced by Acme Shark, in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Sony Pictures Television.
Lucas Unveils Star Wars Exhibit
tar Wars creator George Lucas—surrounded by stormtroopers, Wookiees and Darth Vader—appeared in Boston on Oct. 22 to help unveil "Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination," a new museum exhibit that opens this week before traveling to six other cities. Lucas spoke at the gala world premiere of the $5 million exhibit, co-sponsored by Lucasfilm and Boston's Museum of Science, which examines the fantasy technologies in the Star Wars movies, the real science behind them and current research that could make some of these fantasy technologies a reality someday.
"I'm happy that Star Wars can help to educate people about technology in an entertaining way," Lucas told an invitation-only crowd. "Technological innovation and filmmaking have a lot in common; they both begin with imagination and creativity."
"Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination" showcases costumes, models and props used in the six films, including Luke Skywalker's landspeeder from the first movie. Costumes on display included C-3PO and R2-D2, as well as Princess Leia's white dress and Obi-Wan Kenobi's Jedi robes.
The exhibit is the first to mix Star Wars movie paraphernalia with real-world technologies, complemented by video interviews with the filmmakers. Several interactive, hands-on stations let visitors explore the exhibit's major themes: Star Wars' modes of transportation, for example, or the relationship between people and robots. Activities range from building a model mag-lev car to making a robot walk. A full-size replica of the Millennium Falcon's cockpit simulates a jump to light speed and a four-and-a-half minute trip to the edge of the universe.
"Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination" opens at Boston's Museum of Science on Oct. 27 and runs through April 30, 2006. Over the next few years, the exhibit will travel to COSI Columbus in Ohio; the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Ore.; the California Science Center in Los Angeles; the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, Minn.; The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia; and the Fort Worth Museum of Science History in Texas.
Sin City TV Show Develops
arvey and Bob Weinstein's new multimedia entity the Weinstein Co. is in final talks with Barbara Schneeweiss to develop a TV slate that includes a show based on Robert Rodriguez's Sin City movie, Variety reported. Schneeweiss worked with the Weinsteins for years while serving as a television executive at Miramax.
The Sin City TV series would follow 2006's sequel to Rodriguez's 2005 movie, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel series. Miller co-directed the movie with Rodriguez.
Potter's Newell Happy With PG-13
ike Newell, who directed the much-anticipated Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, told SCI FI Wire that he is happy that the fourth installment of the 'Boy-Who-Lived' adventures has been given a PG-13 rating in the United States—a first for a Potter movie. "For me, it's not a kid's movie," Newell said in an interview in London over the weekend. "It's an adventure story and a huge entertainment. It has all the variety that a Bollywood film has."
Goblet of Fire is based on the fourth of J.K. Rowling's best-selling Potter novels, which have gotten progressively more mature in tone and subject matter. Speaking about the movie's darker take on the world according to Hogwarts, Newell said: "One of the challenges was that everything goes back to the book, and so the audience which began with the first one progresses through two and three, and when they get to four [they] see that it's a different kind of animal. It's a much tougher beast than the others. If you don't get a PG-13, in a way, that audience that began with book one and is now aged 14, 15, 16 or 64 will want to know why you are infantilizing the situation."
Newell added: "These are not children's books. These are kind of adult stories with a very strong moral aim in view. So with [a] PG-13 [rating] the audience can believe in them. Without it, I am not sure they can."
Newell revealed that love is in the air in the fourth movie, which centers on the growing wizard's adventures, and it's not just teenage hormones bubbling up to the surface. "You've never seen Hagrid [Robbie Coltrane], keeper of keys and grounds, in love before, and a very wonderful thing it is too," Newell said. He describes how, "in rehearsals, Hagrid and Madame Maxine [Frances de la Tour] found themselves opposite one another, and it was great to see these two giant people kind of awkward and blushing and retiring with one another. Then, suddenly, she [leaned] forward and picked something out of his beard. We all thought, 'Isn't that wonderful?' And then, 'God help us, she ate it.' ... A tiny moment like that will keep those characters alive." Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which brings back stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, opens Nov. 18.
Watson Has A Ball In Potter IV
mma Watson, who reprises her role as Hermione Grainger in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, told SCI FI Wire that one of her favorite moments was her grand entrance to the Hogwarts Yule Ball. "I really felt like a fairy-tale princess," Watson said in an interview in London over the weekend. "Jany Temime, head of costume, created a truly magical dress which had masses of material, took three months to make and involved loads of fittings. It was just beautiful."
Watson, 15, plays an older Hermione in the fourth movie, which is based on J.K. Rowling's book of the same name. Watson joked that "getting the entrance just right took almost as long as the dress. I didn't know there were so many ways you could walk down stairs until that day. It was hard work. I was given all these directions: 'Keep your head up.' 'Make sure your back is straight.' 'Don't make it too clumpy.' 'Glide smoothly.' By the time we did [the scene], I was an absolute wreck. But hopefully it looks OK."
Director Mike Newell complimented Watson's skill in transforming from frumpy bookworm into graceful swan. "We—as in producer David Heyman and I—tend to look at Hermione as an honorary boy. But, of course, Emma now gets to be a young woman, which is something that I personally am very proud of, because I thought she was wonderful and allowed herself to be very vulnerable."
Watson added: "I loved the ball so much, because I could relate to what she was going through. I so know that frustration where guys can be so insensitive. And then one of the things Mike [Newell] really wanted to play is that Hermione is so insecure about herself, that she's never really had any attention from any guy before. So with Viktor [Stanislav Ianevski] she is quite literally being swept off her feet and getting caught up in this whirlwind with this incredibly famous Quidditch player."
For Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the title role in the film, the evening was an unmitigated disaster. "Harry and Ron are the worst dates in the world, and you just feel so sorry for the girls," he said with a laugh. "This night should be the greatest night in the world, but it's horrible." Speaking from personal experience, he added: "At the end of the night there's that little bit, which is quite true of those sorts of school dance things, where all the ballroom casualties are outside weeping because their night has been so horrible."
Watson agreed. "[The ball] is quite an emotional roller coaster for Hermione," she said. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opens Nov. 18.
Radcliffe Got Daring In Potter IV
aniel Radcliffe, who reprises the title role in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, told SCI FI Wire that he enjoyed being a bit of a daredevil while shooting the movie. During an interview in London this weekend, Radcliffe revealed that his performance "really was the result of a lot of quite hard work done under extremely challenging conditions. There are some scenes in the Black Lake, when Harry has to swim underwater. I trained for about six months beforehand."
In Goblet of Fire, based on the fourth of J.K. Rowling's beloved Potter novels, Radcliffe as Potter undergoes a series of trials in the Triwizard Tournament. For a scene involving an underwater rescue, Radcliffe had to learn to breathe with scuba equipment, beginning in his local swimming pool and moving on to a specially designed water tank at Leavesden Studios outside of London, where the scenes were shot. Radcliffe would descend into the tank with breathing apparatus, then hold his breath for each take.
"[For the scenes] I was sharing someone else's air from their scuba-diving tank," he said. "We both had regulators, and my buddy would say, 'Three, two, one,' and on the 'three' I would blow out all the air in my lungs, and then on 'one,' I'd take in a very big gulp of air. Then it's down to how much action you can do with that amount of breath in your body."
Director Mike Newell had nothing but praise for the plucky 16-year-old. "[Radcliffe] really is a brave boy," Newell said. "He's a rotten swimmer, or he was when this began. He had great trepidation and came to me about the swimming, but there was no way 'round it. He had to spend huge amounts of time underwater, and apart from anything else he was by no means sure that he had the physical resources to do that. Nonetheless, he knuckled down and did what he had to do."
Radcliffe said that he also literally threw himself into the void during a spectacular dragon chase scene in the Triwizard sequence. "That really was scary," he said. "There's a scene where Harry gets knocked off his broom, and I have to fall about 30 feet. Though I was suspended on a wire, and knew we have the best stunt and safety professionals in the business, the first time I had to free-fall was absolutely terrifying."
Scarier than murderous beasts or the watery deep, Radcliffe said that Harry's most daunting challenge was summoning the courage to ask a girl to accompany him to the Yule Ball. "I'd rather face a dragon," Potter says in the film, and Radcliffe heartily agrees: "Any man who says he's never had an awkward moment with a girl is a liar, or he's delusional." Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opens Nov 18.
Da Vinci Suit To Proceed
wo historians are suing the publishers of Dan Brown's best-selling religious thriller The Da Vinci Code in a case that lawyers said was due to start early next year, the Reuters news service reported.
Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent are suing Random House for lifting "the whole architecture" of the research that went into their 1982 non-fiction book The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail, the wire service reported.
Lawyers on both sides of the case met on Oct. 27 to thrash out technical details and said a trial date had been set for Feb. 27, 2006.
The hugely successful novel is the basis of a major Hollywood movie, which Sony Pictures plans to release in May next year.
Random House said in a statement that a "substantial" part of the claim by Baigent and Leigh had been dropped as a result of this week's discussions, and added in a statement: "Random House is delighted with this result, which reinforces its long-held contention that this is a claim without merit."
Magdalena Movie In Works
cott Mitchell Rosenberg, chairman of Platinum Studios, and Gale Anne Hurd, founder of Valhalla Motion Pictures, announced that they are developing Magdalena, a spiritually themed film based on a Top Cow comic-book character. Kevin Taft, who recently signed a writing deal for New Line Cinema's Alone, has been tapped to pen the script.
Magdalena centers on a young woman named Patience, who discovers that she is part of a lineage of female warriors descended from Mary Magdalene. Patience must accept her destiny in time to save the world from a supernatural evil. The film's present-day action-adventure storyline draws on elements of biblical history, reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, the producers said in an announcement.
Magdalena is one of the few religious-themed comic-book characters to be translated to film. The character has been translated into 26 languages in 55 countries and has appeared in millions of comic books worldwide.
Platinum said that it controls the world's largest independent library of comic-book characters. Hurd most recently produced the upcoming SF movie Aeon Flux for Paramount.
Davison Psyches Out Triangle
ruce Davison, who co-stars as psychic Stan Lathem in the upcoming SCI FI Channel original miniseries The Triangle, told SCI FI Wire that he made first contact with executive producer Bryan Singer about the possibility of partaking in the project. "I called Bryan up because I'd heard about it," Davison (Singer's X-Men) said in an interview. "He said, 'Yeah, come. Let's go.' That was really nice, that that happened."
Davison added: "He's a real decent guy. That's what he does. He's a standup guy. He does that a lot, works with people he's worked with before. I worked with him back on Apt Pupil and then the X-Men movies."
A three-night, six-hour miniseries, The Triangle stars Sam Neill as a billionaire businessman who gathers together a quartet of people to solve once and for all the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. There's a tabloid journalist (Eric Stoltz), a scientist/adventurer (Michael Rodgers), an ocean resource engineer (Catherine Bell) and a psychic (Davison).
Davison and his co-stars shot The Triangle in South Africa over a period of three months. The production, the actor said, was a tough one. "We got very wet," Davison said. "There are an awful lot of special effects. It's got a great cast, and we've got interesting characters to play. We had a blast. But a lot of it is going to depend on all the stuff that was behind the green screen. It is strange. It always really depends on the quality of what's put in there after we do our work."
Davison added: "But when you've got guys like Bryan Singer and [co-executive producer] Dean Devlin involved, they know how to deliver the goods. And they've got the reputation of their good work. I also knew that what we were doing before the special effects got involved would be good, because we had Craig Baxley directing us. I'd worked with Craig on [ABC's] Kingdom Hospital, and he's solid. He can be in the midst of any storm or chaos, and he'll always keep his cool and keep his eye on the performances." The Triangle debuts in December.
Finding The Angles In Triangle
ockne O'Bannon, co-creator and executive producer of SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Triangle, told SCI FI Wire that there's no way to provide a short synopsis. O'Bannon, who also created Farscape, wrote The Triangle and co-executive-produced the six-hour, three-night extravaganza with Bryan Singer (X-Men) and Dean Devlin (Independence Day).
"I don't think there's a TV Guide logline for this," O'Bannon said with a laugh in an interview. "A group of experts [Catherine Bell, Bruce Davison, Michael Rodgers and Eric Stoltz] with very disparate disciplines, but all experts in their fields, come together at the behest of a shipping company run by Sam Neill to try to find the answer to what everyone assumes is the impossible, which is the definitive answer for what's caused the century-after-century disappearances of ships and planes [in the Bermuda Triangle]."
O'Bannon added: "The script comes at it exactly like I came to the project and like I think a lot our audience will come to the miniseries, which is with a real jaundiced eye. How can this group come up with a definitive answer when other people have been looking at this for so many years? What's fun is this group is really smart, but also really cynical. That's night one. And by night two, they're really turned around. They're saying, 'Wait, there is something going on here. There is something to explore, and there is an answer to be found.' And we've got the perfect group together to come together to do this."
O'Bannon added with another laugh: "That's a long logline. I should try to distill it down. Essentially, it's a group of experts [who] come together to try to answer the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle, and they do so. That sounds kind of trite, but this isn't your '70s Michael Crichton-style sci-fi. I'd like to hope it's quite a bit more than that." The Triangle debuts in December.
Caine Joins Men, Prestige
ichael Caine has signed on to two SF&F projects, joining the cast of Children of Men and following that by reteaming with his Batman Begins director, Christopher Nolan, in The Prestige, Variety reported.
Caine will head to London first to join Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Children of Men, the futuristic adaptation of the P.D. James SF novel, scripted by director Alfonso Cuaron and Tim Sexton.
Caine then returns to the United States to join Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in The Prestige, playing a retired magician who teaches tricks to Jackman's character, who has developed a bitter rivalry with another magician (Bale). Jonah Nolan wrote the script from a Christopher Priest novel.
Ejiofor Joins Children Of Men
hiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity) has been set to star in Alfonso Cuarón's upcoming SF movie Children of Men, Variety reported.
Ejiofor joins Clive Owen and Julianne Moore in the futuristic Children of Men as the leader of a radical political faction bent on controlling the future of the human race. Men is based on the P.D. James novel and is being produced for Universal by Strike Entertainment's Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, with Hilary Shor and Tony Smith of Hit and Run Productions.
Ejiofor played the sinister Alliance Operative in Joss Whedon's SF movie Serenity, which was also distributed by Universal. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Moonface Debuts Masters Of Horror
oonface, a deformed and demented serial killer, is arriving just in time for Halloween in the first episode of Showtime's anthology series Masters of Horror, executive producer Andrew Deane told SCI FI Wire. The one-hour mini-movie "Incident on and off a Mountain Road" is directed by Phantasm's Don Coscarelli and is based on the short story by Joe Lansdale. The script by Coscarelli and Stephen Romano pits a young woman against the sadistic murder in a fight for her life.
Coscarelli is one of 13 well-known horror directors who were enticed by Showtime with the offer of total creative freedom, despite the 10-day shooting schedule and a limited budget. The series' 13 mini-movies are "definitely stand-alone, separate one-hour films," Deane said in an interview. "Week to week, film to film, filmmaker to filmmaker, each week is an entirely ... separate, unique film. Story, subject, tonally, direction: Everything is very unique. It's really a John Carpenter film, a Tobe Hooper film, a [Joe Dante] film. ... We're able to cover a large spectrum of what horror is."
Upcoming mini-films will include Carpenter's "Cigarette Burns," about a man who is searching for a rare print of a film that may just drive people insane; Dario Argento's "Jenifer," starring Steven Weber in the tale of a modern-day Lolita who destroys the bodies and souls of men; and Mick Garris' "Chocolate," about a young man who finds his body inhabited by the perfect woman.
Masters of Horror premieres on Showtime Oct. 28 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Connery Headlines LightSpeed
ason Connery will play the lead in Stan Lee's LightSpeed, an original TV film for the SCI FI Channel, the network announced. LightSpeed is based on a new character created by comics legend Lee and is directed by Don Fauntleroy. Jeff Franklin is executive producer. The film also stars Lee Majors, Nicole Eggert and Daniel Goddard. Production has just wrapped in Utah.
Connery, the son of Sean Connery, plays Daniel Leight, a government agent who discovers that he has the super power to run at the speed of light after his legs are crushed in a building collapse and he is exposed to a near-lethal dose of radiation. Leight pursues his nemesis, Python, with the moniker LightSpeed. No air date was announced for LightSpeed.
Zathura Boys Clash Over Games
he two young actors who play brothers in Zathura told SCI FI Wire that they drastically disagree about which games are more fun to play. Jonah Bobo, 7, who plays the younger son, Danny, said he loves video games and electronic games of any kind. Josh Hutcherson, 11, who plays the older brother, said he much prefers board games, as depicted in the movie.
"I would much prefer playing board games, moving pieces around," said Hutcherson, who was also in The Polar Express, another film based—like Zathura—on a book by Chris Van Allsburg. "I don't really relate to the video games. I'd rather play Candyland."
In Zathura, the boys discover a board game that sends their house into outer space. It is a follow-up to Jumanji, another film about a magical board game, which was also based on a Van Allsburg book.
In Zathura, "We really wanted to design a very cool game, like it was from the 1950s, a tin toy," director Jon Favreau said in a separate interview.
Unlike Hutcherson, Bobo said that he'll play any electronic game and wants to play more advanced ones as he gets older. He may get to Doom someday. "I think they're more exciting, that's all," Bobo said.
Zathura opens Nov. 11 and also stars Tim Robbins, Kristen Stewart and Dax Shepard.
Underworld 2 Free Of Marital Strife
ate Beckinsale, who stars as the vampire death-dealer Selene in the upcoming sequel film Underworld: Evolution, told SCI FI Wire that she didn't have any trouble working with husband and director Len Wiseman, whom she met on the first film. "I'm not [as] scared of him now as I was," Beckinsale said in an interview on the set in Vancouver, B.C., last January.
"That's a shame," Wiseman said in the same interview after Beckinsale admitted her lack of fear. "Actually, there's no intimidation factor, unfortunately. To be honest, it's fantastic, because there's a lot of stuff that you're kind of nervous about that you can't really discuss with your actress. ... It's more comfortable, and you can have discussions about certain things where you're not nervous about how they're going to take your comment."
Beckinsale added that the two of them are actually enjoying the benefits of working together, which means spending less time apart. "We get to be in the same country," she said. "It's quite difficult conducting a relationship in this business, where you're separated for months and months. And so [the fact] that we were both able to work and were able to actually sleep in the same bed is a miraculous treat. So that's really fun. We haven't had any big fights or anything like that, so the crew still likes us." Underworld: Evolution, also starring Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy and Derek Jacobi, opens Jan. 20, 2006.
Investors Sue Over Incredibles
hareholders have sued Pixar Animation Studios Inc. in two proposed class actions that claim the company misled investors with inflated projections for DVD sales of its hit title The Incredibles, the Reuters news service reported.
A Pixar spokesman described the lawsuits to Reuters as "completely baseless" and said the company intends to defend itself vigorously against them.
Both lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California and purport to represent those who held Pixar shares between Jan. 18 and June 30, the day the company revised its earnings forecast downward to 10 cents per share from 15 cents to account for more potential DVD returns from retailers.
Rice Turns To Christ
nne Rice, the original Queen of the Damned, told Newsweek that longtime fans of her Vampire Chronicles books may be surprised by her next book: Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised that from now on I would write only for the Lord," Rice told the magazine in its Oct. 31 edition.
Out of Egypt is the first of four project volumes. "I was ready to do violence to my career," Rice writes in the afterword. But she sees a continuity with her old books, whose compulsive, conscience-stricken evildoers reflect her long spiritual unease. "I mean, I was in despair," Rice told Newsweek. In that afterword she calls Christ "the ultimate supernatural hero ... the ultimate immortal of them all."
To write the book, Rice immersed herself not only in Scripture, but in first-century histories and New Testament scholarship, some of which she found disturbingly skeptical. "Even Hitler scholarship usually allows Hitler a certain amount of power and mystery," she said. She's also taken liberties where they don't explicitly conflict with Scripture. No one reports that the young Jesus studied with the historian Philo of Alexandria, as the novel has it, or that Jesus' family was in Alexandria at all. And she's used legends of the boy Messiah's miracles from the noncanonical Apocrypha: bringing clay birds to life, striking a bully dead and resurrecting him, the magazine reported. Rice already has much of the next volume written, but declines to talk about it. Christ the Lord hits bookstores on Nov. 1.
Lanagan Free To Write Now
ustralian World Fantasy Award nominee Margo Lanagan told SCI FI Wire that her recent writing fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts will free her to focus on writing. The fellowship—paid in two installments of 40,000 Australian dollars (about $30,000 U.S.) each—was created to support excellence in Australian literature by providing financial assistance to writers.
"What it means to me is that I can give up technical writing for the next two years and be a full-time creative writer," Lanagan said in an interview. "Which means that life now moves on to a different juggling act from the one I was performing before: The day-job part goes (yee-hah!), but the human-contact, out-in-the-real-world component will require a bit more work. I'm looking forward to this period immensely!"
Aside from the financial benefit of the fellowship, Lanagan said that receiving it was a huge confidence booster. "This is the most substantial grant the Literature Board gives out, " she said. "To put in the application and claim that your works are 'major' and that you've achieved 'substantial critical recognition' is one thing. To have the board agree makes it seem much more solid and real."
The Australia Council for the Arts isn't the only group of people who think highly of Lanagan's work. Her collection, Black Juice, won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, two Aurealis Awards and two Ditmars and has been nominated for a number of other awards. But the real feather in her cap came this year in the form of two World Fantasy nominations: one for her story "Singing My Sister Down," and one for Black Juice in the best collection category. Lanagan described being nominated for two World Fantasy Awards as "big, breathtakingly big," then went on to say: "I look at the other nominees and just shake my head to see my name there. I feel so new at this! And when I was writing Black Juice, my brain was so far from aiming for anything like this! I had blown so many deadlines on so many books. I was just battling to get something—anything—finished. Short stories [were] all I had room in my life to write. They were all that would fit into my schedule. So I guess I poured everything I had into them. I am just delighted that they have done so well."
Lanagan has now moved on to a new novel project. She said that she finds writing short stories and writing novels extremely different, and she continues to work on short fiction when she can. "Having just finished a novel draft and plunged into a bout of short-story writing, I can tell you that short-story writing is an absolute snap by comparison," she said. "It's like the difference between trying to lift a basket—short stories—and a house—a novel—using hot-air balloons. A short story deals with one single change; the world you create only has to hold together for 20 pages. When it has to stay stable for 200, the battle for internal consistency and interesting action and getting all the levels to operate simultaneously is a big one. Mind you, it has been a while since I completed anything to novel length, and I guess I'm in a bit of a crisis of confidence about it. I returned to short stories with relief, but I might just have got the hang of that novel, and I'm looking forward to the next pass."
Destroy Heads For TV
ox Broadcasting Co. has acquired the rights to develop THQ's best-selling SF video game Destroy All Humans! into a half-hour computer-animated comedy by former King of the Hill writer/co-executive producer Jim Dauterive, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The deal marks the first time a video game will be used as the basis for a prime-time network television program, the trade paper reported.
The script will be developed through 20th Century Fox TV, where Dauterive has an overall deal.
Set in the 1950s, the third-person action game puts players into the bulbous gray head of Crypto 137, an alien who has landed on Earth and is intent on destroying it. The game takes a comic approach and spoofs '50s Hollywood B movies.
Game developer Pandemic's Australian studio created Destroy for THQ. The game, which debuted at last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, has shipped more than 1 million units worldwide since it launched in June.
SoulCalibur III Hits Retailers
amco Hometek Inc. announced the release of SoulCalibur III, the latest installment of the weapon-based fighting series, for the PlayStation 2. The sequel continues the tale of souls and swords with three new characters, a robust character-creation system and a variety of new gameplay modes, the publisher said. The sequel carries a suggested retail price of $49.99.
SoulCalibur III introduces Tira, Zasalamel and Setsuka, new additions to the game's roster of more than 25 returning fighters. They struggle for possession of the legendary swords Soul Calibur and Soul Edge.
Dimension Enters King's '1408'
imension has set helmer Mikael Hafstrom and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura for a horror movie based on Stephen King's short story "1408." The script by Matt Greenberg is being rewritten by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.
The story revolves around a man specializing in debunking paranormal occurrences who meets his match when he checks into the notorious room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel. There he encounters true terror.
The short story appeared in the King audio book Blood and Smoke and later in the King anthology Everything's Eventual, published in 2002.
Alexander and Karaszewski together have scripted such films as The People vs. Larry Flynt and Ed Wood.
Robot Already Optioned
uthor Daniel H. Wilson told SCI FI Wire that his first book, How to Survive a Robot Uprising, has already been optioned for a movie, though it doesn't even hit stores until Nov. 7. "My film agent approached Michael DeLuca Productions," Wilson said in an interview. " It turns out that they love robots. And who doesn't love robots?" A film treatment based on the book has already been written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant (Comedy Central's Reno 911).
Robot Uprising advises readers, with tongue in cheek, how to combat robots run amok and is written with "technical veracity," Wilson said. The 27-year-old Ph.D. candidate in robotics (at Carnegie Mellon University) offers such helpful advice as how to fool speech-recognition programs, how to recognize a rebellious servant robot and how to escape from a smart house.
"Even though the situations are absurd, the book has been vetted by roboticists," Wilson said. He added that he found himself attracted to the field of robotics as an undergraduate in computer science. "Robotics ... is the place where artificial intelligence is most effective. You're not limited to operating inside a computer, and you can apply learning to the real world."
Mostly, though, Wilson admitted that he just likes robots. "When I interviewed professors and roboticists, I found out to my surprise they became roboticists because robots are cool," he said. "I thought of them as all very serious, and I never figured they would devote their life to something [just] because it was neat. But that's the way it works."
Wilson is currently working on his sophomore book: Where's My Jetpack?, which takes a serious look at Golden Age SF technology, such as underwater cities, mind-reading devices, space vacations and invisibility. In it, Wilson uses what he calls a "practical-minded approach" to describe the current prototypes of each device, along with their impediments. He discovered he really can have his jetpack, but "you can only fly for 25 seconds, and if you ignore the blinking red light, you're going to die."
Both books grew out of bar conversations, Wilson said. "In the winter months in Pittsburgh, there's not much else to do," he said.
Vaughn Sprinkles Stardust
aramount is in final negotiations with British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) to direct and produce his adaptation of Neil Gaiman's adult fairy tale Stardust, Variety reported. Vaughn penned the script with writing partner Jane Goldman.
Gaiman's novel, first published in 1997 as Stardust: Being a Romance Within the Realms of Faerie, is set in a town in the English countryside where the magical and mortal mix. The story is centered on a young man who promises his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm, where he has to contend with witches, goblins, gnomes, talking animals and evil trees. Stardust won the 1999 Mythopoeic Award for adult novel.
Vaughn produced and made his directorial debut on the gritty gangster thriller Layer Cake, starring Daniel Craig, who went on to be named the next James Bond. Vaughn was attached earlier this year to direct the third X-Men movie, but left the project.
O'Bannon Readies WB's Cult
F television auteur Rockne O'Bannon (Farscape) told SCI FI Wire that he's producing Cult, a series pilot for The WB based on his experience with TV fandom. "We'll be shooting it shortly, and we're casting it now," O'Bannon said in an interview. "It's kind of based on my experiences on Farscape, on my interaction with the fans of Farscape."
O'Bannon added: "The fact is that there's a huge global community that builds up behind certain television shows. Clearly, Lost has that kind of community now. So this is the story of a young man who's 25 years old whose younger brother goes missing under what seems to be very mysterious circumstances."
The elder sibling discovers that his brother was a devoted fan of a television show entitled Cult, and he realizes that there's likely a connection between the show and his brother's disappearance. "So this guy starts to explore and tries to find out what happened to his brother, and to do that he tries to unravel this very creepy, dangerous subculture that's building up around this television show," O'Bannon said. "And the Cult television show within the show is pretty creepy and kind of a Silence of the Lambs/Seven show."
New Phantasm Films Are Dead
on Coscarelli, director of the Phantasm series of horror films, told the Icons of Fright Web site that the rumored new trilogy of Phantasm movies won't happen. Speaking at the NYC Horror Film Festival, Coscarelli told the site that the widely reported rumor that New Line would produce a new Phantasm trilogy was a premature leak, and the deal did not pan out.
Coscarelli said that he still wants to do them, but wants to wait for the right studio that will treat the franchise respectfully. He added that he intends to helm a sequel to his horror-comedy Bubba Ho-Tep.
Dungeon Siege Broken Up
roducer-director Uwe Boll has created a new distribution company, Event Film, which will release the $60 million In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale in two separate parts in wide release on Nov. 3, 2006, and Dec. 1, 2006, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie stars Jason Statham, Ray Liotta and Leelee Sobieski.
Boll told the trade paper that the Dungeon Siege movie, based on the popular video-game series, will be "a huge epic adventure, and to support the exhibitors who can't accept a movie so long, we decided to split the movie in half."
Event Film Distribution will work together with Romar—a venture in which Billy Zane and Jim Schramm are partnered—on both Dungeon Siege and the upcoming vampire movie BloodRayne, based on another video game, which opens Jan. 6, 2006.
Boll said that each Dungeon Siege film will run about 105 minutes and that he plans on releasing a bundled version of the film on DVD in 2007.
Morehouse Bites Into Chick Lit
F author Lyda Morehouse—whose Apocalypse Array won the 2005 Philip K. Dick Award special citation—told SCI FI Wire that she'll be taking a break from science fiction and will turn her hand to supernatural chick lit, under the pseudonym "Tate Hallaway." Or, to be more precise: "[It's] vampire chick lit, actually," Morehouse/Hallaway said in an interview. "It's an entire romance subgenre. Other authors writing it include Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, Lynsay Sands and MaryJanice Davidson."
Chick lit started out as a derogatory term for the kind of women's fiction that is the literary equivalent of Sex in the City. Though many sneer at the assumed vapidity of such novels, fans are enthusiastic, and chick lit has come to appear regularly on the New York Times best-seller list.
When asked about her own shift in genres, Morehouse said: "I've always been a fan of vampire novels, so it seemed like a good fit. [Also], I really enjoy chick lit. It's smart, [like science fiction,] but in a sassier way."
Morehouse's first Tate Hallaway novel, Tall, Dark & Dead, due in May 2006, follows the life of Garnet Lacey, a witch who has sworn to give up magic after she has a run-in with a secret Vatican order dedicated to upholding Exodus 22:18: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." But magic finds her in the form of a hunky vampire named Sebastian Von Traumm, who has secrets of his own. At that point, Morehouse said, "wicked fun ensues. Also, much sex."
Though her Tate Hallaway chick lit novels will occupy her time for the present, Morehouse said that she hopes to return to science fiction someday. "Science fiction is my first love," she said. "I love how smart science fiction can be when done well. Science fiction readers have fairly high expectations, and I love the challenge of writing up to them. Similarly, science fiction readers also are usually willing to entertain any number of crazy ideas about the future a writer might like to explore."
Man Falls To Earth Again
arner Independent Pictures and Cherry Road Films are remaking The Man Who Fell to Earth with scribe Oren Moverman set to adapt, Variety reported.
Cherry Road and Warner Independent have optioned the rights to Walter Tevis' 1963 SF novel of the same name, as well as the remake rights to Nicolas Roeg's 1977 British film version, which starred David Bowie.
The story centers on an alien who comes to Earth disguised as a businessman to procure water for his parched planet. Along the way, he becomes the head of a powerful international conglomerate and discovers just how greedy mankind is, falling into a metaphysical crisis.
Cherry Road Films produced Richard Kelly's upcoming SF movie Southland Tales for Universal, the follow-up to Kelly's cult hit Donnie Darko. Univ
Ball Raises Southern Vampire
ix Feet Under creator Alan Ball is developing a new HBO series based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire book series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is the first under Ball's two-year deal with HBO to develop new original programming, the trade paper reported. HBO has ordered an hourlong pilot to be written and directed by Ball.
The Southern Vampire series chronicles the intermingling world of humans and monsters in contemporary rural Louisiana, particularly vampires, thanks to a synthetic blood formula that allows them to roam far from their coffins, the trade paper reported.
There is no timetable for shooting the Southern pilot, but Ball believes it will happen sometime next year.
Cameron, Bradbury Honored
ilmmaker James Cameron and legendary SF author Ray Bradbury will be the honorees at the Planetary Society's upcoming 25th anniversary banquet Nov. 12 in Arcadia, Calif.
Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles, will receive the Thomas O. Paine Award for the Advancement of Human Exploration of Mars at the gala, themed "Our Next Age of Exploration," the society announced. The award is named for one of the society's longtime directors, a former NASA administrator at the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Cameron, who has recently shot a series of undersea documentaries, will receive the inaugural Cosmos Award for the public presentation of science.
The Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman in 1980, is the largest space interest group in the world.
Evigan Heads Into Cerberus
reg Evigan, who starred in the TekWar telemovies and subsequent series, told SCI FI Wire that he's returning to the genre with his latest project, the SCI FI original movie Cerberus. "The basic story is that I'm hired to get Attila [the Hun's] sword and bring it back," Evigan said in an interview. "But when I get possession of the sword, I become possessed by the sword, and I'm transformed by it. I don't morph into anything, but my psyche is affected, and I go on a power trip that's reminiscent of Attila."
More specifically, Evigan's character, Cutter, is a hired gun working for a power-mad terrorist (Garret Sato) who plans to use the sword's power to take over the world. Meanwhile, an elite team of special forces commandos, led by Jake Addams (Sebastian Spence of First Wave), turns to antiquities expert Samantha Gaines (Emmanuelle Vaugier of Smallville) to lead them to Attila's tomb and stop Cutter. In the course of things, they find themselves confronted by a giant three-headed dog: the mythical guardian of the underworld that gives the film its title.
"I turn into a mad slasher, really," actor-writer-musician Evigan said. "I'm taking heads off and doing all kinds of things. It was a good character for me, because I get a chance to play a guy who's different from what people are used to seeing me do. He starts off as kind of a mercenary, going after this sword. He's not a bad guy. But once he becomes possessed, there's no doubt about it, there's nothing about this guy you like. I always try do something with a character where, even if he's a bad guy, there's a reason why, and you're a bit sympathetic towards him." Cerberus on SCI FI at 9 p.m. ET/PT Oct. 29.
Briefly Noted
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The "flying" Ford Anglia used in the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has been stolen from South West Film Studios in the southwestern English county of Cornwall, the Reuters news service reported.
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The Shur'tugal fan Web site has posted the first behind-the-scenes look at the making of Eragon, a movie based on Christopher Paolini's best-selling fantasy novel.
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Batman Begins shot to first place in its first week on home video, with sales of nearly 4 million copies in the week ended Oct. 23, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Ralph Zondag has signed on to direct the animated Ollie the Otter for Regency Enterprises, based on the children's book by Kelly Alan Williamson, about a circus sea otter who tires of doing the same old stunts at the behest of his demanding father, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Despite fears among British production workers that the fifth Harry Potter movie would follow James Bond's example and shoot in the Czech Republic, Warner Brothers has decided to shoot Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at Leavesden Studios north of London, like its predecessors, as well as on location around the United Kingdom, Variety reported.
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Commemorating the 25th anniversary of Pac-Man, Namco Hometek announced that it is giving the video-game character a voice in the upcoming video game Pac-Man World 3, slated for release in November for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PSP, Nintendo DS and PC.
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Elizabeth Berkley (Showgirls), a real-life friend of Threshold star Carla Gugino, has landed a big guest role on the Nov. 11 episode of CBS' SF drama, playing a pregnant alien infectee, a show representative told TVGuide.com.
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Summit Entertainment and Mandalay Pictures are launching Countdown, a movie based on Richard Matheson's short story "Death Ship" and the Twilight Zone episode it spawned, about astronauts who land on a mysterious planet and discover their own bodies in the wreckage of a duplicate of their ship, Variety reported.
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Cyan Worlds Inc., developers of the Myst series of video games, has released Myst V: End of Ages Original Soundtrack, featuring 50 minutes of original music from the final chapter of the franchise.
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Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release Godzilla: Final Wars on DVD and for the PSP on Dec. 13, with preorders beginning Nov. 10.
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Paramount has revamped the Web site for its upcoming SF movie Aeon Flux, with several new features.
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ABC has ordered script outlines for America's Next Muppet, a reality-TV parody in which viewers get the chance to pick Kermit and Miss Piggy's next colleague, Variety reported.
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Mike Mitchell has signed on to direct Fred Claus, a Warner Brothers comedy film about the jealous older brother of Santa, who must put his bitterness aside when he is forced to move into Santa's home at the North Pole, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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New trailers for Slither and Underworld: Evolution have been linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
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