Lost Spinoff Book Coming
BC's hit SF series Lost will spin off a book based on a supposed "found manuscript" by a character who didn't survive the crash of Oceanic flight 815, Variety reported. The character, Gary Troup, figures in upcoming episodes of the series.
Troup's supposed novel will be published by ABC sister company Hyperion Books. Hyperion has commissioned a novel by a "well-known" mystery writer—it's not saying who—that supposedly constitutes the book. In the past, ABC/Hyperion hired best-selling mystery novelist Ridley Pearson to ghost-write The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, a prequel companion book to the 2002 Stephen King miniseries Rose Red.
Troup's book will be marketed as the work of an author who "delivered [it] to Hyperion just days before [he] boarded Oceanic flight 815."
The novel, Bad Twin, is a private-eye procedural involving a wealthy heir's search for his nefarious brother. It will be released this spring in conjunction with the network's related episodes, the trade paper reported.
Evolution Is Sequel And Prequel
en Wiseman, who directed the upcoming sequel film Underworld: Evolution, told SCI FI Wire that he wanted to explore the characters' pasts as well as their present. "Whether the characters have died in the first film or not, there's a lot of stuff that's still being discovered and uncovered about them that's in this film that we always knew we were going to do in the first one," Wiseman said in an interview on the set in Vancouver, B.C., last January. "And there's aspects of this one that carry over."
Underworld: Evolution continues where Underworld left off, with Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman returning to their roles as the vampire Selene and vampire-werewolf hybrid Michael Corvin. It will also look back at the origins of the conflict, through both historical flashbacks and genetic memories, each having a distinctive visual design.
"I didn't want to do the same film over again," Wiseman said. "There's genetic memories in this film that will have the look of the ones in the first film. And then there's other flashbacks, when we go into the medieval era and all that. There's a whole different design for that as well."
Wiseman said that one of the biggest differences in making the sequel has been a concern about meeting the expectations of fans, something he didn't have to worry about on the original. "People know about the franchise now," he said. "Before, it was just any decision that you had on the way certain things should go, or the way the characters should play out. There's a lot of anticipation now that there wasn't before. ... There's pressure on to satisfy what the fans are looking for." Underworld: Evolution opens Jan. 20, 2006.
Jackson Comes At Kong Anew
irector Peter Jackson told SCI FI Wire that his upcoming remake of King Kong fulfills a dream he's had since the age of 12 and differs significantly from a version he tried to get made in the mid-1990s. "It has changed a lot," Jackson said in a news conference beamed by satellite from New Zealand, where he's putting the finishing touches on Kong. "We wrote the film that we were going to make in 1996—we wrote a couple of drafts of that—and ... when the thought of doing it this time around came about a couple of years ago, we went back and looked at our old script, and we didn't like it at all."
Jackson's earlier Kong script was "shallow and flippant and very sort of Hollywood," he said. "We'd subsequently been through the Lord of the Rings experience. ... We had definitely learned some lessons doing Lord of the Rings that we didn't know in 1996, and we have applied those lessons to doing a complete revision of the screenplay. ... The lesson I guess that I'm talking about mainly is ... to make it as real as possible. ... Our 1996 draft ... was written as a very ... Indiana Jones adventure story. Full of gags and full of one-liners. ... And we've sort of abandoned all of that to some degree."
The new version features Jack Black as filmmaker Carl Denham, whom Jackson based on Orson Welles, he said. Jackson added that the choice to set the movie in its original 1930s period "allowed us to ... also comment a little bit on the state of the world back then and the Depression. ... It's a fun thing to come at fantasy through a door of reality."
During the satellite news conference, Jackson brought out props he made when he was a child: a cardboard model of the top of the Empire State Building and an articulated puppet of Kong himself, made from his mother's discarded fur coat. "He's decomposing now," Jackson said fondly. "He's made of a sort of ... a rubber material that my mother gave me, an old fur coat or sort of a fur stole thing that she had, and I built him. He's got wire inside. He was a little stop-motion guy. ... He's my decomposing King Kong, which I made when I was about 12 years old." Jackson's new King Kong, which also stars Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody, opens Dec. 14.
Kong Is Based On Real Apes
eter Jackson, director of the upcoming remake of King Kong, told SCI FI Wire that he and actor Andy Serkis, who provides movement for the computer-generated giant ape, studied real gorillas to give Kong his personality. "There's nothing hugely radical or complex we've done with Kong in the movie, other than try to make him as believable a giant gorilla as ... you could possibly imagine," Jackson said in a news conference beamed by satellite from New Zealand recently. Jackson modeled the giant ape after a male silverback gorilla, and Serkis and he studied real apes to get an insight into Kong's movements and behavior. (Serkis provided the movements for Jackson's computer-generated Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films as well.)
"Andy went to Uganda and went up into the mountains and lived with the apes up there," Jackson said. "And went with the guides to go and study them for a week or two. And he went to the London zoo, and he became, like, a trainee zookeeper for a while. ... He fed the gorillas in Regents Park Zoo and studied them very closely. And we've used a lot of gorilla traits to convey Kong's emotion. We've been very, very careful to try not to humanize them in ways that is a cheat. ... Gorillas don't make eye contact very often. So Kong doesn't look at Ann [Naomi Watts] very much. He does furtive glances and immediately looks away. ... Eye contact with gorillas is a really significant thing that ... doesn't happen very often. And so it doesn't happen very often with Kong."
Jackson added that he avoided making Kong too human. "We've built a ... character arc for Kong, based very much on, again, the reality of just thinking about ... how he would survive on this island ... and then what he would feel if he ... ran into Ann Darrow. ... [At first,] he intends to kill her. We've tried to make him very, very frightening at the beginning of his story. And he's got every intention to kill her, like he's presumably killed all the other native girls that he's taken in years gone by. And it is only curiosity that ... stays his hand. And ... she sees ... that her only hope ... to stay his hand is to make him curious about her. And then there's a really significant moment that happens in the story, where he does intend to kill her, and he attempts to kill her, and he finds that he can't do it. And it's a significant moment for Kong's character, because it sort of disempowers him. ... Once he can't bring himself to kill her in the way that he kills anything, because he's an incredibly brutal creature, he ... feels very disempowered. In many respects it's the beginning of the end for him." King Kong opens Dec. 14.
Wray's Spirit Lives In Kong
eter Jackson, director of the upcoming King Kong remake, told SCI FI Wire that original Kong actress Fay Wray offered current star Naomi Watts valuable insights into the role, but sadly died before she could appear in the remake herself. "Naomi does channel Fay Wray a little bit, because she met Fay as well," Jackson said in a news conference beamed by satellite from New Zealand in September. "We organized a dinner, and Naomi and [Jackson's wife and co-writer] Fran [Walsh] and I met with Fay, and we spent a fantastic evening with her and asked her lots of questions ... about what it was like to act in the '30s. Because, obviously, Ann Darrow, who's the character that we're talking about, ... is an actress in the 1930s, and Naomi was playing this role, and she had an opportunity to talk to Fay Wray."
Watts plays actress Ann Darrow in Jackson's update of the 1933 classic SF movie, in which Wray played the same character. Jackson added that they were less interested in what it was like to have appeared in the original King Kong than they were in Wray's real life as a Depression-era movie actress. "She was in something like 12 or 13 movies in 1933," Jackson said. "She had a husband who sent her out to work all the time, because her husband gambled and spent all the money. ... But she was full of really interesting ... insights into ... what that world was like. ... I just recognize little bits of Fay in Naomi's performance, and I think that's deliberate."
Jackson said that he also approached Wray to make a cameo appearance herself in his King Kong. She refused, at least at first. "My original ... hope was to have Fay saying the last line in the film: 'Beauty killed the beast.' ... It's a line that happens when Kong's body is lying on the street, and there's a crowd gathering around at the end of the movie, and I was just going to cut to an old lady as part of the crowd saying that line, and ... my hope was to have Fay doing that. ... I met her several times, and she was first all saying 'No. No.' ... I was hoping for a slightly more interesting response. ... I met her three or four [more] times, and by the time I met her for the ... last time, which was only about a month before she died, she squeezed my hand, and she smiled, and she says: 'Never say never. Never say never.' ... She was warming up to the idea. And I think she would've probably done it. And we would have just gone to her hotel in New York and ... put up a blue screen and shot a shot of her. It would have been all very simple to do. And we were heading in that direction. But, unfortunately, it wasn't to be."
Wray died on Aug. 8, 2004, at the age of 96. King Kong, which is in post-production, opens Dec. 14.
Zone, Trek Producer Piller Dies
ichael Piller, co-creator of USA Network's The Dead Zone TV show and a veteran Star Trek writer/producer, died in the early morning hours of Nov. 1 after a long fight with cancer, the official Star Trek Web site reported. He was 57.
Piller suffered from an aggressive form of head and neck cancer, the site reported.
In addition to The Dead Zone, which is based on Stephen King's novel and stars Anthony Michael Hall, Piller was creator and co-executive producer of the family TV series Wildfire. But Piller is perhaps best known among SF fans for his contributions to the Star Trek franchise, for which he wrote and/or produced episodes of the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Piller co-created that latter series with Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor. He also wrote the screenplay for the ninth Star Trek movie, Insurrection.
Earlier in his career, Piller served as a staff writer on such shows as Cagney & Lacey, Miami Vice and Simon & Simon. He first joined the Star Trek fold in 1989, during the third season of The Next Generation, when he arrived at Paramount to head up the show's writing staff. He subsequently scripted such acclaimed episodes as the "Best of Both Worlds" two-parter, "Ensign Ro" and "Unification, Part II." An avid baseball fan, Piller worked his appreciation of the game into the Deep Space Nine character of Sisko (Avery Brooks), who kept a ball on his desk throughout the run of the series.
After deciding to scale back his involvement in Trek, Piller became a consultant on Voyager and channeled his energy into such projects as the short-lived UPN series Legend, which starred Trek's John de Lancie (Q) and eventual Stargate SG-1 lead Richard Dean Anderson.
Piller actually co-wrote "Death Wish," a controversial Voyager episode, with his son, Shawn, who later joined forces with his father to form the production company Piller2 Inc. Together they co-created The Dead Zone, which in 2006 will begin its fifth season on USA Network; USA is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. Their other current show, Wildfire, airs on ABC Family and co-stars Deep Space Nine alumna Nana Visitor. It will begin its second season early next year. Piller is survived by his wife, Sandra, and their children, Shawn and Brent.
Twilight Zone's Bochner Is Dead
loyd Bochner, a veteran character actor best known to SF fans for his starring role in the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man," died Oct. 29 at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., after battling cancer, the Associated Press reported. He was 81.
The Canadian actor was also known to SF fans as Commandant Leiter in episodes of the 1979 TV series Battlestar Galactica. Bochner and his son Hart Bochner also voiced characters in the animated Batman TV series and feature film.
Bochner's career in television and film spanned more than five decades and included character roles in such TV shows as Mission: Impossible and Wild Wild West.
In 1963, Bochner starred as a government cryptographer in The Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man," which TV Guide ranked number 11 in its "100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time."
Bochner is survived by his son Paul of Valley Cottage, N.Y.; his wife, Ruth Bochner, of Santa Monica; son Hart Bochner of Los Angeles; and a daughter, Johanna Courtleigh, of Portland, Ore.
Da Vinci Games In Works
ublisher 2K Games announced a deal with Sony to publish and distribute video games based on the upcoming movie The Da Vinci Code. The film, from director Ron Howard, is based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel.
The Da Vinci Code games are being developed for current consoles by The Collective, a division of Foundation 9 Entertainment and a developer of action titles. The games are due for release in May 2006, timed to the premiere of the movie.
Revolving around secret societies, ancient coverups and vengeance, the gameplay in The Da Vinci Code will feature action-oriented suspense, the company said.
Grint Owns Potter's Ron
upert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, told SCI FI Wire that he's growing proprietary about playing Harry's best friend and confidante, which he does again in the fourth installment of the movies based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling books. "Since the beginning I've always felt like I could sort of relate to Ron in a way," the 17-year-old said in an interview in London last week. Referring to his vibrant red hair, he joked, "We're both ginger. We're both tall, and we both have sort of big families. I've obviously been playing Ron for a long time, so I really know him and wouldn't really like to think of any other actor playing him."
In a big departure from the previous three movies, Ron and Harry have their first differences of opinion in Goblet of Fire. Grint thinks it makes the characters' friendship more believable. "I think it's cool that the characters have grown," he said. "They're more like real teenagers, and Ron in particular is a bit moodier. There are a few arguments with Harry [Daniel Radcliffe] and Hermione [Emma Watson] and such, and I enjoyed doing all that. It was fun."
Grint added that he thoroughly enjoyed portraying Ron as the victim of raging teenage angst. But he revealed that there is one other character he would like to play. "I'd be Hagrid," he said. "He's pretty cool, yeah. I'd probably be him. I don't know why. Maybe 'cause he's tall." Hagrid will again be played by Robbie Coltrane.
Overall, Grint said, "making the Harry Potter films is a really good sort of experience. It's not such a bad job, so definitely, I'll be playing Ron into the foreseeable future."
Potter Scam Targets Fans
n advisory post on Warner Brothers' official Harry Potter Web site message board warns fans to be wary of fake e-mails purporting to seek cast members for a sixth Potter movie. The e-mails, with a subject line "WarnerBros Castsearch," have reportedly been circulating widely, seeking personal information from people interested in nabbing a role in a purported Harry Potter movie.
The e-mails are bogus, Warner said. "This is to advise that Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. does not engage in casting activity through e-mail. These e-mails are fraudulent, and you should not respond to any such e-mail. Feel free to forward any such messages to anti-piracy@warnerbros.com, and we will do our best to investigate the fraudulent activity."
One such e-mail, obtained by SCI FI Wire, purports to come from "WarnerBros Acting Studios" in London. In part it reads: "You have been selected to apply and participate as an 'Act' in the induction, casting and making of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which will be in theaters by July 2007. This selection is organized by writer J.K. Rowling in the bid to create original characters for the casts. We will acknowledge your altruistic effort and appreciate your recognition. Selection of applicants and first shots of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will hold in three locations, which includes Spain, London and Greece." The e-mail then seeks personal information.
The e-mail is clearly false: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has only been announced, but is not yet in preproduction; the next Warner film to be produced in the Potter franchise is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which begins shooting in February for release in June 2007. The fourth film in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, hits theaters on Nov. 18.
Superman Flies To IMAX
uperman Returns, Bryan Singer's upcoming new installment in the superhero film franchise, will premiere simultaneously in conventional theaters and in IMAX giant-screen theaters on June 30, 2006, IMAX and Warner Brothers announced. The fifth Superman movie will be one of five movies to roll out on IMAX and conventional screens next year; others include 3-D versions of the animated films The Ant Bully and Happy Feet.
The 35mm version of Superman Returns will be digitally remastered for its IMAX version.
On Nov. 18, the upcoming fourth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, will also debut simultaneously on 70 IMAX screens as well as in conventional theaters.
Baen Readies Online SF Magazine
F author Eric Flint told SCI FI Wire that he will be editing a new online magazine published by Baen Books called Baen's Astounding Stories. "The emphasis will be on adventure stories—either science fiction or fantasy—although we're open to any sort of story," Flint said in an interview. "But the main criterion for accepting any story will be our assessment that it's oriented toward a popular audience."
The magazine aims to pay well enough so that short fiction will be able to compete with the pay rates for novels. Flint said that he hopes this business model will allow writers to make a living wage off of short fiction—something that hasn't really been possible since the 1950s and '60s.
"We make no bones about the fact that we are oriented toward a popular audience," Flint said. "We want writers, especially popular writers, writing stories with that market in mind. We are, [to be] blunt, not interested in stories that seem to be mainly written to win an award or get good reviews. If that makes me sound like a hopeless lowbrow, so be it."
With that in mind, Baen's Astounding Stories will emphasize stories that are either part of existing serial stories or are set in existing universes that are popular with the mass audience. Flint has already commissioned several stories in this vein, including a new Dune story by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, an Honor Harrington story by David Weber and a Hammer's Slammers story by David Drake. The magazine will also have a special section to introduce new writers and a section of nonfiction.
Baen's Astounding Stories will debut in June 2006, with new issues appearing quarterly thereafter. Stories will be available for purchase individually and as part of an issue. Single issues will be available for purchase for $6, and three-volume packages will be available for $15. Each individual story or article will likely retail for $1 each.
Mitty On Ice?
aramount Pictures' on-again, off-again The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is off again as far as the studio is concerned, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Paramount confirmed to the trade paper that the long-gestating project, which was to have starred Owen Wilson, is on ice.
Sources told the trade paper that the project lost momentum at Paramount after the studio failed to cast a female lead to play opposite Wilson. Scarlett Johansson emerged as the front-runner after screen-testing with Wilson this month, but a deal never closed. Although she is believed to still be interested in the project, Wilson, who had signed on to play the title character in June contingent upon a female lead being cast, recently withdrew from the project.
Sources said that Zach Braff is now the front-runner to play Mitty in the remake of 1947 comedy classic to be directed by Mark Waters and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and John Goldwyn. Paramount denied that the delay in casting a female lead played a role in pushing Wilson off the project.
King's Dark Tower Comics Due
orrormeister Stephen King has joined forces with Marvel Comics to launch a new comic-book series adapted from King's The Dark Tower series of best-selling fantasy novels, Marvel announced. The comic series will mark the first time King has produced original content for an ongoing comic project.
The series will expand the saga of King's epic hero, Roland Deschain, whose quest to save the Dark Tower is captured in seven novels published over the course of 25 years. The comics will feature new stories that delve into the life and times of the young Roland, revealing the trials and conflicts that lead to the burden of destiny he must assume as a man, the last Gunslinger from a world that has moved on. The comics will supplement and define the saga's mythology under King's direction, Marvel said. The series will be illustrated by Eisner Award-winning artist Jae Lee.
The first Dark Tower issue is slated for release in April 2006, with a hard-cover collection of the first six issues due in the holiday season of that year.
Bell Chimes In On Triangle
atherine Bell, star of the SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Triangle, told SCI FI Wire that she got a kick out of her character, ocean resource engineer Emily Patterson. "Emily is a real scientist," Bell said in an interview. "She's a bit of a tough girl. You find her on an oil rig with all of these guys when you first meet her. She's very independent, and she's very scientific."
In The Triangle, a billionaire businessman (Sam Neill) hires a quartet of people to solve the riddles of the Bermuda Triangle. Among the characters: a scientist/adventure (Michael Rodgers), a psychic (Bruce Davison) and a tabloid journalist (Eric Stoltz).
"[Patterson] really doesn't want to be on the ship, doesn't want to be heading into the [Bermuda] Triangle," Bell said. "It's all a bunch of crap to her, this whole Bermuda Triangle thing. Then things start happening to her, and her life gets turned upside down. I think the strongest thing about the script is that the story is fantastic, but the characters are so good as well. It just takes the whole project to another level, which is exciting."
Less exciting, Bell said, were the production challenges. "We were wet and freezing," the actress said. "It was winter in South Africa, and we were wet for three-quarters of the shoot. We were on a cigarette boat, on a fake cigarette boat, on a stage that was being rocked around all over the place. We had water cannons blasting at us, with rain machines on top of that. We had wind machines. We had to hold on to not fall off the submarine or the cigarette boat or whatever it was we were on. I saw [co-executive producer] Dean Devlin on the set one day, and I just looked at him. We had wetsuits on under our clothes, but we were soaking wet. I was taking my boots off and pouring tons of water out of [them]. Dean just looked at me and said, 'You wanted to be an action star.' I was like, 'Yeah, I did. I didn't know it was this hard.'" The Triangle premieres in December.
Wahlberg Cops To Silence
onnie Wahlberg, who plays a detective in the upcoming ghost movie Silence, told SCI FI Wire that the character will differ from the cop he plays in the current horror movie Saw II. "Sure, the same guys are involved, but give me some credit [as an actor]," he said in an interview. "I'm not going to make the same choices. I'm not going to be the same person. Silence is a supernatural psychological thriller. It's very different from Saw II."
Silence is being written by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the guys who co-wrote the first Saw film. But Wahlberg said the resemblance between his two characters is only superficial. "Yeah, both of the characters are detectives, but in Silence I'll be much less intense," he said. "He's a lot more quirky."
In Silence, Wahlberg's detective character has a bit of TV's Columbo in him. "He's thoughtful, a bit off-beat, you might say," he said. "But he's not hung up on the fact that his son is trapped by this lunatic. I enjoyed spending the better part of a year with these guys working on these two movies. They're smart and creative guys. I hope that you'll see me in these two roles and won't even notice that they were both detectives and they are both me. I hope they're that much different."
Silence centers on a man who is blamed for the murder of his wife, but who insists that a ventriloquist's dummy is to blame. To clear his name, he consults the ghost of an abused ventriloquist. The film is supposed to harken back to classic British Hammer horror films, Wahlberg said. The Lions Gate film is wrapped and is scheduled for release in early 2006.
iPod Videos Sell Well
pple Computer Inc., maker of the iPod music player, has sold more than 1 million videos—including episodes of ABC's hit Lost—for the devices since adding the programs less than three weeks ago, the St. Petersburg Times reported.
Top downloads from the company's iTunes online service include music videos from Michael Jackson and Kanye West, Pixar's For the Birds and episodes of ABC's Desperate Housewives, Apple said.
The sales demonstrate demand for the video service and dispel concern that people wouldn't want to watch programs on the iPod's 2 1/2-inch color screen. The videos, priced at $1.99 each, can also be played on computers running iTunes software.
Day Of The Dead Dawns
teve Miner has been set to direct Day of the Dead, the Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films remake of George Romero's 1985 zombie film, Variety reported. Final Destination co-writer Jeffrey Reddick is writing the script, the trade paper reported.
Miner takes the job after directing such horror movies as Halloween H2O and Lake Placid.
Romero wrote and directed the original, which follows a group of scientists and military personnel holed up in an underground bunker because the world above is overrun with zombies.
Clarion Workshop Director Named
he Clarion Foundation named Elizabeth Zernechel as the new director of the Clarion Writers' Workshop at Michigan State University. Zernechel, an assistant professor in the theater department at MSU, will assume her duties immediately and will oversee this summer's workshop.
Clarion is now administered by the not-for-profit Clarion Foundation, which was recently awarded tax-exempt status. The board of directors of the Clarion Foundation came together this summer to revitalize the workshop. The board is made up of past Clarion teachers, alumni and friends and includes chair Kate Wilhelm, vice chair James Patrick Kelly, treasurer Nancy Etchemendy and secretary Leslie What and Walter Jon Williams, Karen Joy Fowler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kelly Link and Cory Doctorow.
The board recently named the slate of instructors for the 2006 Clarion workshop, which will run from June 26 to Aug. 4. Teachers include Samuel R. Delany, Gardner Dozois, Nancy Kress, Joe and Gay Haldeman and, for the traditional anchor team, Kelly Link and Holly Black. The workshop will return to the Owen Graduate Center Residence Hall on the MSU campus, where it was held from 1990-2003.
Now in its 39th year, Clarion is a highly regarded workshop for writers of science fiction and fantasy. The application deadline for the 2006 workshop is April 1, 2006. Application information is available online.
Real Pirates Ship Sets Sail
isney is paying a handsome booty to sponsor a yacht christened The Black Pearl—named for the title ship in the studio's first Pirates of the Caribbean movie—as the U.S. entry in the Volvo Ocean Race, a 31,250-mile, nine-leg sea race around the globe, E! Online reported.
Disney coughed up an estimated $15 million-$18 million for the right to turn the 70-foot yacht into a floating billboard for the two upcoming Pirates sequels, which will reunite star Johnny Depp with costars Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.
The Black Pearl, emblazoned with a skull-and-crossed-scabbards logo, sets sail Nov. 12 in Vigo, Spain. The eight-month race is due to finish in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 17, three weeks before the first sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, hits theaters on July 7. The premiere date is echoed in the boat's number: 7706. The third Pirates movie will arrive in summer 2007.
Donald Evans, vice president of marketing and promotions for Buena Vista International, Disney's international distribution arm, told E! that race officials dreamed up the idea and approached the studio, which quickly signed on.
New Turtledove On Its Way
uthor Harry Turtledove, who has made a career out of alternative history, told SCI FI Wire that he has two new books coming out in November—End of the Beginning and Every Inch a King—and a third, Bridge of the Separator, the following month. "I write 350 days a year, four hours a day," Turtledove said in an interview. "I sleep in chunks, and I tend to do a lot of work in the wee small hours."
End of the Beginning, a sequel to Days of Infamy, concludes an alternative history series about the Japanese following up on their initial invasion of Pearl Harbor. Every Inch a King is a fantasy based on a historical fact: A German acrobat disguised himself as the king of Albania for five days. Turtledove said he's aware just how far-fetched the story is. "Could I make that up?" he asked. But, he said, "fiction has to be plausible. History just has to happen."
Turtledove did not invent the genre of alternative history, but has become a reputed master of the genre. His books ask: "What if the South had won the Civil War?" "What if World War II were interrupted by an alien invasion?" "What if the Roman Empire never fell?"
Turtledove said that his interest in history is not only professional, but also scholastic. "I have a doctorate in Byzantine history," he said. "Would you like some fries with that?" Initially Turtledove chose science as a career, but "I flunked out of Caltech at the end of my freshman year, because I couldn't do calculus."
But Turtledove found that the research skills needed for university work applied to writing as well. When reading several first-person accounts of historical events, he said, "you have to figure out how to approach the documents. When you're an historian, you look at what your source says and ask, 'How likely is this to be true?' You [develop] a good notion of what's true and what's bulls--t."
On the advice of his doctor, Turtledove began to take an interest in his health, dropping 50 pounds. "When you hit middle age, middle age hits back," he said.
Threshold To Stream On Web
BS started streaming three episodes of its SF series Threshold on the network's official Web site, beginning Nov. 2, the network announced. The streams mark the first time CBS has offered episodes of scripted series programming on the Internet via free video streaming. The episodes will stream commercial-free.
The initial offering will be the third episode, "Blood of the Children," and will be available for three days. On Nov. 4, CBS aired "Revelations" on television, then will make the episode available for streaming on the Web site from Nov. 9 to 11. On Nov. 11, the episode "Progeny" airs on TV, then hits the Web Nov. 16-18.
CBS also provided the following brief synopses of the upcoming episodes:
"Revelations": Molly (Carla Gugino) and Cavennaugh (Brian Van Holt) encounter some bizarre happenings when they head to the hometown of a missing Big Horn crew member to investigate the disappearance of a Threshold field agent.
"Progeny": When three women from completely different walks of life show signs of being infected, Molly and the Red Team discover a chilling connection among all of them and must then locate the common cause. Elizabeth Berkley (Showgirls) guest stars.
Marley Won't Rest On Laurels
F author Louise Marley told SCI FI Wire she won't rest on her laurels after nabbing an Endeavour Award nomination, honoring SF and fantasy by Pacific Northwest writers, for her 2004 book The Child Goddess. Marley has a new young-adult novel coming out in which she returns to her Nevya world, followed by a foray into pure fantasy under the pseudonym "Toby Bishop."
Her new book, The Singer in the Snow, was released Oct. 20 and is not related to her Singers of Nevya trilogy except for taking place in the same world, an ice planet where inhabitants have no technology and where warmth and light are provided by Singers who focus their power on music. Other than a shorter length, Marley doesn't find writing young-adult books any different from writing adult SF. "I'm told these days that young-adult fiction covers the same issues and themes as adult fiction, sometimes with surprising bluntness," Marley said in an interview. "It's not much of an issue for me as I rarely write much sex and only judicious amounts of violence."
Her first foray into pure fantasy, Airs Beneath the Moon, is part of the Horsemistress Saga and will be released either in time for the holidays or in January 2006. The book carries the byline "Toby Bishop," a reference to a family name, which she's using at her editor's suggestion, Marley said.
In Airs, Larkyn Hamley is a farm girl thrust into an aristocratic world, struggling to become a horsemistress under open opposition. Her horse is a crossbred colt that has attracted the Duke's particular attention. "It's something new for me to write a book in which there is real magic, even though in Airs the magic is subtle and considered by some of the characters to be a matter of faith rather than veracity," Marley said. "It's the story of a land where winged horses are the most precious resource. Only girls and women can ride them, and this creates conflict with their ruler, the Duke, who believes it would be better for the Duchy if men could also fly the winged horses."
The Endeavour Award winner will be announced at OryCon 27, which takes place Nov. 4-6 in Portland, Ore.
Simmons Finds Funny In Habeas
ark fantasy author Wm. Mark Simmons told SCI FI Wire that his current book, Habeas Corpses, interweaves dark humor into a tightly plotted story about a man who becomes half-vampire after a blood transfusion. The book, which hit stores on Nov. 1, is the latest in a series centering on Chris Cséjthe, who faces Nazis, werewolves, zombies and his gradual transformation into a full vampire.
"I like the challenge" of mixing humor with action, Simmons said in an interview. "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. I like to try for that balance, which keeps the characters and the story believable and still delivers more than the rare smirk. It's like walking a tightrope, trying to make your readers laugh and still keep them totally invested in what's happening on the page."
Unlike many professional writers, Simmons said that he maintains a full-time job, as general manager and program director for an National Public Radio-affiliated station in Louisiana. He also hosts a classical music program.
Simmons said that he considered quitting radio for writing, but added: "I would have to seriously increase [my] output. But I finally acquired an agent and have been giving serious considerations to making some sacrifices." What kind of sacrifices? "The neighbors who live behind us have these little yappy dogs that they leave out all night ... ."
LeBlanc Headlines The Watch
att LeBlanc (NBC's Joey) has set up the SF horror thriller movie The Watch at Dream Entertainment, with Victor Salva (Jeepers Creepers) attached to direct, according to The Hollywood Reporter. LeBlanc will produce with his partner John Goldstone via the duo's Fort Hill Productions.
Based on a original screenplay by John Claflin and Daniel Zelman, the World War II-set Watch revolves around a team of highly specialized soldiers sent to blow up a Nazi fuel depot, only to discover they are being hunted by an evil spirit unleashed by the Nazis' secret occult experiments.
Dick's Next Is Next
raham King's Initial Entertainment Group has bought the international rights to Revolution Studios' upcoming SF movie Next, based on Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man," Variety reported.
King will have a producer credit on the picture, along with Nicolas Cage, Norm Golightly, Todd Garner and Arne Schmidt.
Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) is directing, with Cage and Julianne Moore starring. Gary Goldman adapted the screenplay.
Next tells the story of a man (Cage) with the ability to see future events and affect their outcome. Moore plays a federal agent who pursues him as she tries to prevent a terrorist attack. The film is slated for 2007 release.
Marvel Takes Iron Man Back
fter more than two years of unsuccessful development at New Line, Marvel has taken back film rights to its Iron Man comic series, about an inventor who dons a high-tech suit and becomes a superhero, Variety reported.
The company may raise additional money to produce Iron Man itself as part of its new internal production slate. In such a case, the movie would likely be distributed by Paramount, where Marvel has a distribution deal.
Marvel has raised $525 million from Merrill Lynch to produce up to 10 films. Because Iron Man isn't part of that deal, Marvel would have to get separate funds to produce the movie itself.
Iron Man hit numerous snags at New Line. Late last year, the studio announced that Nick Cassavetes was attached to direct, but it turned out the Notebook helmer never had a deal.
Screenplay drafts by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (creators of The WB's Smallville) and David Hayter (X-Men) didn't get traction, the trade paper reported.
Tom Cruise also reportedly flirted with the starring role last year before signing onto War of the Worlds.
Marvel will now start development from scratch, commissioning a new script and possibly attaching a director before deciding whether to finance the film itself or license it again. Cassavetes remains a candidate to direct.
Dungeon Siege Stays Whole
espite reports last week that he was going to release his upcoming Dungeon Siege movie in two parts, director Uwe Boll told SCI FI Wire that Peter Jackson's decision to release King Kong as a three-hour film persuaded him to keep his movie in one piece. "There were reports that we were going to release it in two parts because it is super long, but then I saw that King Kong is being released as a three-hour film, and we decided it was not going to be a problem to have a longer version," Boll said in an interview. "We will not release it in two parts." Instead, Boll said, the film will run about two hours and 40 minutes.
Speaking after a press conference for his BloodRayne film at the American Film Market in Santa Monica, Calif., on Nov. 2, Boll talked about Dungeon Siege, which is another game-brought-to-film, like the vampire epic BloodRayne, which is scheduled for a Jan. 6, 2006, release. Boll previously adapted the games The House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark for the big screen.
The $60 million In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale wrapped recently in Vancouver, B.C., and stars Jason Statham, Ron Perlman, Ray Liotta, Leelee Sobieski, Burt Reynolds and Kristanna Loken in what Boll described as "an exciting big action adventure." Loken, the blond TX from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, also stars in Boll's BloodRayne and was at the press conference with fellow castmembers Udo Kier, Michael Madsen and Michael Pare. Also in the vampire cast are Ben Kingsley, Meat Loaf, Billy Zane and Geraldine Chaplin.
Boll is releasing Dungeon Siege and BloodRayne through a unique marketing distribution scheme via Romar Entertainment, which allows him to retain the rights to his films. Zane and James Schramm co-own the independent distribution company. "We look forward to getting about 2,500 theaters in January for BloodRayne and maybe even more next year for the next one," Schramm said.
As for Dungeon Siege, the director thought that releasing two 105-minute films could work, but he added: "It was not written as a two-part movie, and it doesn't work as well that way." The longer version will be available on DVD and could be something that could be shown over two nights on television, Boll said. Dungeon Siege is expected to have a late 2006 release.
Chicken Gets 3-D Rollout
isney will screen its computer-animated film Chicken Little in 3-D in select theaters, using a new state-of-the-art technology that the studio said offers the first true three-dimensional digital experience in theaters.
In collaboration with Disney, Dolby Laboratories plans to install its Dolby Digital Cinema systems in about 100 high-profile theaters in 25 top markets that will present the family SF movie in 3-D.
Visual-effects house Industrial Light & Magic is rendering the movie in 3-D so that it can be played on Dolby Digital Cinema servers.
Viewers will see the 3-D with special glasses that offer greater clarity and more comfort than conventional 3-D glasses, Disney said. Chicken Little opens Nov. 4.
Poker Is New Alternate Reality
uthor Sean Stewart told SCI FI Wire that his new game Web site, Last Call Poker, looks like any other poker site. But it's not. "You'll notice quickly that [the players] are ostensibly dead," said Stewart, who created the game with help from fellow writers Walter Jon Williams and Maureen McHugh. "This interactive game [is] plotted just as carefully as any other novel."
Last Call Poker is actually an "alternate reality game," along the lines of the Web-based games such as "The Beast," used to promote the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and "I Love Bees," which was a viral marketing tool for the video game Halo 2. In this case, the game is the story. "The story does not care about the platform," Stewart said. "It comes at you over a Web site and calls your phone, faxes your machine, sends you e-mail. You pass another piece of the story on the billboard, and there's a bit on the radio. All the way that information comes to you now becomes a co-opted channel for another kind of fiction."
Fantasy and reality merge in more ways than one in this game, Stewart said. "One of the characters whose story is told on Last Call Poker is a washed-up child star from an '80s sitcom," he said. "He's played by Todd Bridges, which says great things about his sense of humor." Bridges is the former child star of TV's Diff'rent Strokes, who had run-ins with the law as an adult.
Last Call Poker takes players offline as well—to cemeteries, among other places. "The game is built big so it will reward whatever attention you give to it," Stewart said. The next graveyard games take place in New York on Nov. 5, Atlanta on Nov. 12 and Los Angeles on Nov. 18.
Latecomers can catch up on Last Call Poker's narrative so far. The game will remain live until Nov. 18.
Stewart has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award for his novel Perfect Circle. The World Fantasy Convention took place Nov. 3-6 in Madison, Wis.
A&E OKs Lourdes
&E has given the green light to development of Lourdes, a four-hour miniseries inspired by the mysterious events of Lourdes, France, Variety reported. The Project will be written and executive-produced by Paul Lussier (ABC's Blackout).
Lourdes will follow the true story of a terminally ill surgeon who is healed after taking the waters at Lourdes and later investigates the power of the site. Lussier has access to the Lourdes archives, which contain details of the 68 cases that have been classified as official miracles, in addition to thousands of anecdotal accounts of miraculous healing.
Field Open For BloodRayne
he makers of the vampire game-to-film BloodRayne told SCI FI Wire that the movie opens next January free of the competition it originally faced. The alien-infestation movie Slither and the vampires-versus-werewolves sequel Underworld: Evolution have both moved from their original Jan. 6 release dates, leaving the day to BloodRayne, said Jim Schramm, an executive at distributor Romar Entertainment, in an interview. "The only competition we'll have is nongenre related, and that's a good sign," Schramm said. Romar will distribute BloodRayne to an estimated 2,500 screens in a deal that allows director Uwe Boll to retain the film's rights.
BloodRayne stars Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) and is loosely based on the video game of the same name, which centers on a vampire killing machine. The cast also includes Ben Kingsley, Meat Loaf, Billy Zane, Udo Kier, Michael Madsen and Michael Pare. "The film is a prequel to the game, really," Boll said in a separate interview. "We have taken the story and explained her origin, and we know we have a built-in fan base for this movie."
The guerilla marketing campaign for BloodRayne includes Internet, bus advertising and a painted 77-foot yacht. "It's a quality horror film, and it will benefit from word of mouth, so we're getting the word out now," said Schramm, who acknowledged that early in the year is usually a dumping ground for new releases because the Hollywood industry is always gearing up for the Oscars. "We're out to change that and make January a good time to release movies."
Briefly Noted
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The new trailer for Peter Jackson's upcoming King Kong movie has been linked on SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
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Tony-winning composer-lyricist Marc Shaiman has signed on to write songs for Bob the Musical, a fantasy movie in which a mild-mannered man suddenly hears the "inner song" of people's hearts after being struck in the head, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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C.H.U.D. reported that John Harrison, a writer and assistant director for Night of the Living Dead creator George A. Romero, is working on new projects with Romero that may include a continuation of the Dead films as straight-to-DVD movies.
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Steven Paul's Crystal Sky Pictures has bought the film rights to the long-running Konami vampire video-game franchise Castlevania and has set helmer Paul W.S. Anderson (Alien vs. Predator) to adapt and direct, Variety reported.
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Dark Sword Miniatures reported that fantasy artist Keith Arlin Parkinson died Oct. 26 after a long battle with leukemia.
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The nominees for the 2006 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, recognizing outstanding achievement in French-language speculative literature, have been announced; winners will be named on Nov. 11 in France.
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Michael Helfant has left his post as chief operating officer of Beacon Pictures to join Marvel Studios as Avi Arad's number two, helping with the comic publisher's slate of 10 films it will finance and produce internally, Variety reported.
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A trailer has been linked for the upcoming sequel horror film Final Destination 3 through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
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IGN FilmForce has a report speculating on whether English actor David Suchet (best known as TV's Hercule Poirot) is in the running to play the villainous Le Chiffre in the next James Bond film, Casino Royale, opposite Daniel Craig.
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Zap2It has posted a preview of the upcoming animated movie Monster House, which opens next July.
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Image Entertainment announced the Dec. 27 release of the SF series Nowhere Man, which aired on UPN for one season in 1995, as a DVD set.
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Ghost House Pictures, the genre production company of Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, has launched a new Web site.
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