Galactica Renewed For Season Three
CI FI Channel announced that it has renewed its original series Battlestar Galactica for a third season. Production on the 20-episode order is slated to begin in Vancouver, Canada, in February 2006 for premiere later in the year, the network said.
The entire ensemble cast returns for the new season, including Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. Also returning are executive producer and writer Ronald D. Moore and executive producer David Eick.
Currently in its second season, Galactica is a hit with audiences. The second season resumes with new episodes on Jan. 6, 2006, as part of the winter premiere of SCI FI Friday. Battlestar Galactica is from NBC Universal Television Studio.
How Superman Resurrects Brando
ryan Singer, producer-director of the upcoming Superman Returns, told SCI FI Wire that he used every trick in the book to resurrect the late Marlon Brando and include him in the film as Jor-El. Brando played the role of Superman's father in director Richard Donner's original 1978 Superman movie. He died in July 2004 at the age of 80.
To recreate Brando's version of the character in his new Superman movie, Singer said in an interview that he used "a combination of unused footage, [used] footage and recreated footage. You won't necessarily see Marlon Brando walking around or reanimated in a conventional sense, but you will hear [dialogue] that you have heard before [and] takes that you haven't heard before and a rendering that is completely new."
Singer added that the Brando sequences are being created with "very raw material" culled from a variety of sources and locales. "A lot of the stuff was all over the place," he said. "A lot of the stuff was in vaults in New York [and] in Los Angeles. I got ahold of Brando's London [automated dialogue replacement, or looping,] session. I had very interesting outtakes, which are something to see. So there's a lot of material. It's great [also] to hear ... Dick's [Donner's] voice on the ADR sessions, on the raw material. There are a few really funny moments—we called them 'Brando bloopers'—where you hear Dick and [an uncredited writer] Tom Mankiewicz in the background. It's cool." Superman Returns will open nationwide on June 30, 2006.
Meanwhile, Warner Brothers debuted the teaser trailer for Superman Returns during The WB's Smallville, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Nov. 17, and hit theaters in select screenings of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which opened Nov. 18.
Singer Talks Superman Cameos
ryan Singer told SCI FI Wire he was thrilled that Jack Larson and Noel Neill, who both starred in previous Superman incarnations, both agreed to make brief appearances in Singer's upcoming Superman Returns. Neill played Lois Lane in the 1948 serial that starred Kirk Alyn as Clark Kent/Superman and also in the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman opposite George Reeves as the title superhero. Larson co-starred as Jimmy Olsen in the TV show.
"Jack makes a cameo, which great, " Singer said in an interview. "It was nice. It was really great to have him all the way out here in Australia. He's a good guy. Noel is awesome. Unfortunately they weren't together. They worked at two separate points. But it was great to have them down here. It really inspires everyone to have people from that period here and to hear them tell stories. It was great."
Singer recalled the day that Larson first caught a glimpse of Superman Returns star Brandon Routh in his Superman costume. "I was standing next to Jack, and I was going to introduce him to Brandon," he said. "It was on the roof of the Daily Planet building. I was standing next to him, and he's talking, and he's holding his copy of the script, and as he's doing that he suddenly looks up and he goes, 'Oh, there he is.' I didn't know what he was looking at. Then I looked over, and it was Brandon in his Superman suit, which I'd been seeing every day. It's always something to see, but for Jack it was a moment. I don't think he'd seen someone in a Superman suit since 1951." Superman Returns will take flight on June 30, 2006.
Singer Misses X-Men Movies
irector Bryan Singer told SCI FI Wire that he's saddened not to be directing the upcoming third X-Men movie after launching the franchise with X-Men and its sequel, X2. But the filmmaker, who ceded the X-Men 3 director's chair to Brett Ratner (Red Dragon), was quick to add that he doesn't regret leaving behind the X-Men universe in order to relaunch another comic-book-based film series with his upcoming Superman Returns.
"I love the X-Men universe," Singer said in an interview, speaking candidly about the topic for the first time in a while. "I love the cast. And I love the people I worked with. Fortunately I'm still friends with most all of them. In fact, I wanted to go visit them [during the X-Men 3 shoot]. I wanted to go visit them on a trip back [from shooting Superman Returns in Australia], but I didn't have a chance. They're all great people, and Brett's an old friend."
Singer added: "Of course I miss it. Extremely. But I will also say that what takes an audience several hours to watch in a theater takes six years of my life. To be able to do something different is very satisfying as well. So all is not lost, so to speak."
Singer Believes In The Triangle
ryan Singer, executive producer of the SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Triangle, told SCI FI Wire that he truly believes something strange is going on in the legendary ship- and plane-swallowing part of the ocean called the Bermuda Triangle. In the miniseries, a billionaire (Sam Neill) recruits four experts (Catherine Bell, Bruce Davison, Michael Rodgers and Eric Stoltz) to help him at long last solve the riddles of the Bermuda Triangle.
"Oh, it's definitely an area that's seen a lot more tragedy and disappearances than any other area in the world, unless you put a spike through the Earth and have it come out at the Devil's Sea, on the other side of the planet, which is also an area with a lot of disturbances and problems," Singer (X-Men, the upcoming Superman Returns) said in an interview. "But the Bermuda Triangle is kind of notorious, and it's been made famous primarily by a few key disappearances in the 1940s. But then, when one looks back through history, you find that in this century alone over 1,000 ships and planes disappeared. And we're talking real disappearances. Very often there's no call or warning. They're simply off-radio. And very often it's in clear weather."
Singer added: "Now keep in mind that it's also an area with a lot of illegal trafficking. So for all those known disappearances of large craft, commercial craft, there's also probably countless disappearances of drug-running planes, ill-equipped aircraft, really crappy, un-seaworthy vessels that may have been destined to sink or crash anyway. But they were in the area, too. It's very tricky. There's a lot of stuff going on between the protectorates and the mainland United States." The three-night miniseries The Triangle debuts at 9 p.m. ET/PT Dec. 5 on SCI FI.
SCI FI Investigates Bermuda Triangle
CI FI Channel will investigate the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle in a new two-hour SCI FI Declassified investigative special called The Bermuda Triangle: Startling New Secrets, premiering Nov. 27 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The special will be hosted by NBC/MSNBC news anchor Lester Holt and produced by NBC News Productions.
Debuting a week before the Dec. 5 premiere of SCI FI Channel's original miniseries The Triangle, the special will follow new leads and employ the latest tools of modern science in an effort to unravel the decades-old mystery of the Bermuda Triangle and the unexplained disappearance of Flight 19, a squadron of Navy bombers that took off over the Bermuda Triangle in 1945 and was never heard from again. Flight 19's training run will be meticulously recreated using a vintage 1940s Navy Avenger aircraft. To accompany The Bermuda Triangle: Startling New Secrets, SCI FI.COM will offer a minute-by-minute podcast by pilot Rick Siegfried as he retraces the exact flight path.
Over the years many theories have been put forth in an attempt to explain the strange phenomena of the Bermuda Triangle. Magnetic vortices, space-time warps, extraterrestrial activity and an ancient energy source from the lost city of Atlantis have all been proposed as potential causes; The Bermuda Triangle: Startling New Secrets explores them all.
The Triangle premieres Dec. 5 at 9 p.m.
Braga: I'm Done With Trek
ongtime Star Trek producer Brannon Braga told SCI FI Wire that he's done with the franchise, at least for now and for the foreseeable future. "At the moment, yeah," Braga said in an interview. "There will be a lot of fans cheering about that," he added wryly, referring to the often caustic fan criticism directed at him during his 15 years as a writer and producer on Trek series and movies.
Since the end of Star Trek: Enterprise earlier this year after four seasons on the air, there have been no plans announced for either a new Trek film or a TV series for the first time in 18 years. But Braga said that, even if there were, he would likely turn down any chance to be part of it. "At this point, most likely not," Braga said. "Just having come off so many years on the show and having done something different, I just don't think I would be ready now. Nor do I think they would necessarily ask me. But if they came to me today, I would have to be very flattered, but politely decline."
Braga served as co-creator and executive producer of Star Trek: Enterprise. Braga began his tenure with the Trek franchise in 1990 as a writer/producer on The Next Generation. In 1995, he was appointed executive producer of Star Trek: Voyager. Braga wrote more than 150 Trek episodes, including the Next Generation series finale "All Good Things ... ," which earned him the Hugo Award for excellence in science fiction writing. Braga also co-wrote the movies Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact, which became the highest-grossing of the nine Star Trek films. Braga worked closely with the other longtime executive producer of Trek, Rick Berman.
Braga is now an executive producer on CBS' new SF drama Threshold and has left Trek behind. "You know how it is," he said. "You did something for a long time. Star Trek was very good to me. And I certainly did my best to contribute to Star Trek. But there just comes a point where I'm not sure what else I would have to give. I certainly could see the financial value in it, but at this point, creatively, I would not want to be involved in something that I couldn't give to."
Threshold moves to a new timeslot, Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Nov. 22.
U.K. To Remake The Prisoner
he United Kingdom's Sky One is said to be planning a new series inspired by the cult 1960s series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan as a former secret agent trapped in an isolated town, the BBC News Web site reported.
The show will not take place in the famous "Village" setting of the original—shot in the north Wales village of Portmeirion—the industry weekly Broadcast reported. But it is understood the themes of paranoia, conspiracy and identity crisis will remain, the BBC reported.
Damien Timmer, who has been lined up to executive-produce the show for Granada, told Broadcast the new series would take "liberties with the original" and would not retain its arty feel.
The original Prisoner ran for 17 episodes on ITV in 1967. Bill Gallagher, the writer of the BBC's crime drama Conviction, is reported to be writing the new version.
Night Stalker Gets Staked
BC has canceled Night Stalker, the second time the network has given the axe to a series about reporter Carl Kolchak and his pursuit of supernatural phenomena, Variety reported.
ABC halted production on the series, an update of the 1970s series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, effective immediately. The episode originally scheduled for this week will be replaced by a two-hour edition of Primetime Live. The original Kolchak: The Night Stalker lasted one season on ABC (1974-'75).
Six episodes of Night Stalker have aired, while three more episodes are in the can, including the original pilot. The series' ratings in the 9 p.m. Thursday slot, opposite CSI and The Apprentice, were predictably poor, last week dipping to just under 4 million viewers.
BBC Won't Confirm Who Report
he BBC has declined to comment on a report in the tabloid Daily Mirror that Doctor Who star Billie Piper is going to quit before the third season begins, according to the BBC News Web site. The Mirror, citing anonymous sources, reported that Piper, 23, who plays the Doctor's sidekick, Rose Tyler, quit the British TV show to avoid being typecast.
But a BBC spokesman said: "We are not commenting on the third series. We are still working on the second series."
The spokesman added: "Rose has a whole new journey and a fantastic set of adventures to go on with the brand new Doctor, starting in the special on Christmas Day. Viewers will then see them return in a host of scary and exciting stories in a new series next year."
Piper has played Rose in the series since it was revived earlier this year. Leading actor Christopher Eccleston left after the first season and has been replaced by David Tennant for a second run of episodes, which is now being filmed.
Threshold Returns With Twists
rannon Braga, co-creator and executive producer of CBS' SF drama Threshold, told SCI FI Wire to expect dramatic twists in upcoming episodes, including a scary change in a main character. "I will say that in an upcoming episode one of the regulars will completely come unraveled, and it's going to be one of the three: Molly [Carla Gugino], Cavennaugh [Brian Van Holt] and Lucas [Robert Patrick Benedict], who were exposed to that videotape," Braga said in an interview. Will one of them turn to the alien side? "I would say that that is a very strong possibility," he said. "I don't want to give too much away. One of them is going to become unraveled, and one of them is going to turn."
Threshold is currently off the air, but will return in a week, on Nov. 22, in a new 10 p.m. ET/PT Tuesday timeslot. Braga said that the show, which focuses on Dr. Molly Caffrey and her team of experts as they try to contain an alien threat, is wrapping production on its 12th episode and prepping the 13th. CBS has ordered three more scripts, but is awaiting a decision on whether to order nine more produced episodes until it sees how Threshold performs in its new timeslot.
"I would imagine that they'd expect bigger numbers than what we've been getting, considering the timeslot," Braga said. "Though our numbers have been decent, and our demographic has been decent. And we haven't dropped. In fact, we've built slightly week to week. So the indications are good. But I think we would definitely have to gain some new eyeballs."
Braga added: "If we get that back order, there are lots of big twists and turns coming, and big escalating things happening both plotwise and characterwise that we want to do. Molly's going to lose control of Threshold. She's going to ... find herself in a position where she may completely lose control of the entire operation. Ramsey 's [Peter Dinklage] going to be going down a very dark path as he starts turning to his vices more and more. ... And ... we're going to find out more about what these aliens are doing. Unfortunately, right around the time our team starts to figure it out, we figure out that what they plan is infinitely more terrifying than what we've seen so far."
The Nov. 22 episode, "Progeny," deals with alien influence in a fertility clinic and features guest star Elizabeth Berkley (in real life, a close friend of Gugino's). Until Threshold returns to the air, fans can catch up with the show on CBS.com, which is streaming past episodes.
WB Develops Aquaman Series
he WB will develop a prime-time TV series based on the DC Comics superhero Aquaman, with the team behind the network's hit Smallville producing, Variety reported.
Producers Al Gough and Miles Millar (Spider-Man 2) have signed on to create and executive-produce an as-yet-untitled action drama revolving around a twentysomething Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman. The network has made a put pilot commitment to the project, which has already begun casting. Smallville veteran Greg Beeman is aboard to direct the pilot, the trade paper reported.
As with Smallville, Gough and Millar plan to focus on character rather than superhero antics: the show won't be called Aquaman and the word won't even be mentioned, the trade paper reported.
Smallville recently generated great ratings with an episode featuring an appearance by Aquaman, but the new project won't be a spinoff. To underline that point, Alan Ritchson, the actor who played Curry on Smallville, isn't under consideration for the role in the pilot.
Millar told the trade paper that he and Gough are hoping to create "a grounded version of the Aquaman mythology," focusing on an Arthur Curry who "knows what he wants to do with his life, which is protect the oceans."
Lee Rewriting Foreverman
omic writer Stan Lee told SCI FI Wire that he's rewriting the first draft of his new superhero movie Foreverman for Paramount Pictures with Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs. "I'm producing this with Bob Evans for Paramount, and I get to work with a lot of great directors and writers nowadays," Lee said in an interview. "Peter Briggs is coming from England next week. He sent me the first draft, and we will be working on a rewrite together."
Lee declined to divulge any details about Foreverman, saying that he may change substantially during development. But Lee added that he created the new superhero much as he helped create Marvel Comics' Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Daredevil and many other classic heroes. The Foreverman character will be an Everyman kind of guy who fights criminals and tries to save the world, but is plagued with his own personal problems, which he often has more trouble solving.
Lee said he doesn't have much trouble coming up with new sorts of super powers, but often gets asked what kind of super gifts he would want himself. "Immortality" is the usual answer. But after finding himself forgetting people's names, like that of his co-writer Briggs, Lee said he now answers super-memory. "When someone comes over and shakes my hand, I used to say, 'Pleasure to meet you,' and they would tell me we just had lunch the day before," Lee said. "So now I say, 'It's a pleasure to see you,' just in case I forgot that I've seen them before." Foreverman is expected to shoot sometime in 2007.
Four DVD Features More Lee
omic-book creator Stan Lee told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming DVD of this summer's Fantastic Four movie contains an expanded version of his cameo appearance, some of which was improvised. Lee, who co-created Fantastic Four for Marvel Comics, played Willie Lumpkin, the mailman for the superhero team, at their Baxter Building headquarters.
Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffud) greets Lee, whose character was also drawn to resemble Lee in the comics. "My line was simply 'Welcome back to the Baxter, Dr. Richards,'" Lee said in an interview. "But I knew I wanted more screen time, and, as you know, when they do these scenes, they shoot them like 20 times with different angles. So the next time I said, 'Welcome back to the Baxter, Dr. Richards. We missed you.' Then he asked me back, 'How have you been?' And each time it was a bit longer. And he added, 'Good to see you, Lumpy, how are you?' And by the sixth or seventh take we engaged in a whole long dialogue."
Lee added: "The whole place cracked up, because we kept adding on to it more and more. People thought it was the funniest thing. The whole crew applauded, because we created a whole conversation." Some, but not all, of the ad-libbed scene makes it onto the DVD, which is scheduled for a Dec. 2 release.
Lee has made cameo appearances in several movies based on comics that he has taken credit for creating. He played a hot dog vendor in X-Men, a security guard in Hulk and a guy who saves a passerby from falling debris in Spider-Man. "My next goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos," Lee said. "I'm going to try to break his record."
Lee is no longer directly associated with Marvel Comics and has no role in the creation of the movies. But he does appear in many of the extras on the Fantastic Four DVD, which include several featurettes and some behind-the-scenes footage. Along with artist Jack Kirby, Lee assesses the actors who play the Fantastic Four.
Lee Powers Up LightSpeed
omic-book creator Stan Lee told SCI FI Wire that he is speeding up progress on his new superhero creation LightSpeed for the SCI FI Channel. "I decided to do something for the SCI FI Channel to put them on the map," Lee said, with tongue in cheek. "I will be working on a few movies for them, but it looks like LightSpeed will be the first."
Lee, who co-created some of Marvel Comics' most iconic superheroes, came up with the story for the TV movie. LightSpeed stars Jason Connery as Daniel Leight, a government agent who discovers he has super powers after his legs are crushed in a building collapse and he is exposed to a near-lethal dose of radiation. Leight continues to pursue his nemesis, Python, but with the ability to run at the speed of light. (Connery, the son of Sean Connery, also recently completed a UFO thriller movie called Night Skies, which is based on true events and is scheduled for a late October 2006 release.)
Lee Majors, Daniel Goddard and Nicole Eggert also star in Stan Lee's LightSpeed, which is directed by Don Fauntleroy. "I didn't have a sense of the cast or the directors for any of the shows, and they don't ask me for them until the last minute," Lee said. "But I have seen some of the dailies of this guy, and he looks great. I like him. We also have a great villain called Python, and I can't wait to see it. ... He looks like the kind of villain [that Lee's longtime Marvel illustrator] Jack Kirby could easily have come up with. [LightSpeed is] an average-looking guy who faces extraordinary circumstances."
Morgan Adapting Psycho
creenwriter Chris Morgan (the upcoming Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift) has been tapped by Universal to adapt the superhero comic book The Psycho, Variety reported.
The comic, created by Dan Bereton and James Hudnall, is about a world where individuals attain super powers by taking an unpredictable and potentially lethal drug. The protagonist is a rogue CIA agent who risks insanity and becomes a "psycho" himself in order to rescue his girlfriend and expose a political conspiracy, the trade paper reported.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Emshwiller Talks Lifetime Award
ward-winning fantasy author Carol Emshwiller, who was recently presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wis., told SCI FI Wire that she initially felt a bit odd about receiving the award. "I felt odd about [it], because I really didn't get into what you'd call full-time writing until after my husband [legendary SF artist Ed 'Emsh' Emshwiller] died, and that was only 15 years ago," Emshwiller said in an interview. "But then I thought—and I wish I'd thought to say something like it when I [accepted] the award—this is, or should be, typical of a mother-of-three's career. [It's] nice that later on we mothers can settle down and get to work."
Emshwiller said that she's drawn to writing speculative fiction for two reasons. "One of the things I love to do is to make the usual seem strange," she said. "That's how I walk around all day: thinking 'What a peculiar world.' And there are lots of things of that nature [that] you just can't [express] any other way than [through] SF." The other reason is more prosaic. "I used to send to literary magazines, and it always took at least a year to get an answer," Emshwiller said. "And [my stories were] mostly rejected. That didn't bother me so much when I was younger, but now I'm too old to wait around like that."
A new collection of Emshwiller's stories, I Live With You, was recently published, and another collection is in the works. Meanwhile, Emshwiller is working on a novel. But even though she's been writing long enough to be given a lifetime achievement award, she said that she still suffers occasionally from a lack of confidence in her writing. "I'm far along in a novel, but unlike my other novels, I'm not happy with it," she said. "I'm always full of doubts as I'm working, but [with] this [one], more so. It may be beyond the point of no return, though."
Emshwiller's first published story, the non-genre "The Victim," appeared in Smashing Detective volume four, number two, in September 1955. This was followed later that year by her first genre publication, "This Thing Called Love," in Future Science Fiction number 28. Emshwiller won the World Fantasy Award in 1991 for her collection The Start of the End of It All and Other Stories. In 2002, she won the Nebula Award for her short story "Creature" and the Philip K. Dick Award for her novel The Mount.
Anders Turns To Anthologies
ditor Lou Anders told SCI FI Wire that, in addition to his duties as editorial director of Pyr, he has two new anthology projects on the horizon. "The anthologies that have meant the most to me are ones that have attempted to shed some light on or contribute directly to aspects of the evolving history of the genre," Anders said in an interview.
FutureShocks, due in January, is a companion volume to Anders' well-regarded 2003 anthology Live Without a Net. "The theme [of Live Without a Net] was to invite writers to select one of the familiar tropes of cyberfiction and to replace it with an analogous technology (or magic) that accomplished the same task in a different way," Anders said. "The theme of FutureShocks, by contrast, is one of new fears arising out of sociological, technological, environmental or biological change. There was no such thing as nuclear phobia prior to the invention of the nuclear bomb, obviously. So what new fears will arrive tomorrow that it is impossible to fear today?"
Meanwhile, Fast Forward, due in 2007, is an unthemed anthology that emulates the editorial work of Damon Knight and Frederik Pohl. "The idea here is to do an all-original ... all-SF ... series anthology in the tradition of [Pohl's] Star SF and [Knight's] Orbit," Anders said. "There has been a lot of talk lately decrying the death of science fiction, its loss of ground to fantasy, and also the dwindling of the short story market. I thought that, rather than just throw in with one side or the other of the debate, I'd try and actually do something positive about it by actually producing a book of core SF short fiction."
Anders added: "Titles are especially important for anthologies in that they help define a common identity for what is in reality a collection of very different tales crafted in varying styles by diverse authors. In this case, Fast Forward is an attempt to make a very concise but powerful statement about what SF is, as opposed to fantasy, horror, slipstream, what have you. Science fiction is the genre that looks at the implications of technology on society, which in this age of exponential technological growth makes it the most relevant branch of literature going."
Arnett Stars In Demon
rrested Development star Will Arnett will star in New Line's supernatural comedy film Jeff the Demon, with Da Ali G Show's writer-director James Bobin directing, Variety reported.
Jeff the Demon, written by Tom Scharpling and Joe Ventura, centers on a pair of high school losers who find a book that allows them to summon a power from the netherworld. The demon, Jeff, helps them win every battle and right every wrong in their lives, but they quickly find that further problems ensue, the trade paper reported.
Ethshar Finds Internet Success
ugo Award-winning fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans told SCI FI Wire that he put the ninth entry in his Legends of Ethshar series, The Spriggan Mirror, on the Internet, available for free download or for a nominal donation, after his publisher declined to pick it up. The results were surprisingly successful.
Watt-Evans said in an interview that he drew his inspiration from the "Storyteller's Bowl" concept and the Street Performer Protocol.
"Every week from mid-April through October of 2005 I posted [a] chapter," Watt-Evans said. "Anyone who wanted to could donate money or just read it for free. I told readers that each chapter cost $100; if I had that much by the end of the week, the next chapter would go up. If I hadn't received enough contributions, the next chapter would be held back until I did. I also promised that if the novel was finished, everyone who had donated more than $15 would receive a copy of the finished book. To my pleased surprise, I never had to delay a chapter; money came in steadily, in donations ranging from 50 cents to $500, and the novel was completed on schedule. The finished book is still a few months away, but it's coming, and more than 150 readers will be getting their copies sometime in 2006."
Watt-Evans said that he enjoyed the project, but also at times found it difficult to keep up with. "It was exciting, and for the most part a great deal of fun, but it was also sometimes wearing," he said. "I had to make sure I always had a chapter ready to go at the end of the week, no matter what else I was doing."
Why didn't his publisher, Tor, pick up the book? "Tor dropped the series for entirely sound reasons, but I loved Ethshar too much to give it up," he said. "Mainstream publishers aren't generally interested in picking up a dropped series, [so] I looked for some [other] way to make it happen. I knew I had fans who wanted to see more."
Watts-Evans added: "When I created Ethshar more than 20 years ago, I intended it to be something I'd do for the rest of my life. Every time I go back to it after a hiatus, I remember all over again how much fun it is to write. I never intended to stop." Watt-Evans' next traditionally published novel is The Wizard Lord, due out in March 2006 from Tor.
Quantico Investigates SF Terror
ultiple-award-winning SF writer Greg Bear told SCI FI Wire that he expects his new near-future SF novel, Quantico, to have a multi-genre appeal. "I've always thought techno-thrillers to be a branch of SF," Bear said in an interview. "I describe Quantico as near-future SF, using advancements in communications, police technology and biotech set against a dire political backdrop, working from current trends in the Middle East and elsewhere: a modern-day Seven Days in May [the John Frankenheimer film], with elements of [Sidney Lumet's] Fail-Safe. In some respects, this book serves as a prequel to [my own] Queen of Angels. And it rounds out what I'm calling the Life Sciences Quartet—Darwin's Radio, Darwin's Children and Vitals. All describe the impact of new knowledge about biology and genetics on modern society."
Bear wrote Quantico because he wanted to explore some of the very scary SF scenarios that could happen not only in the near future but also right now. "The most startling aspect for any reader will be the incredible power of SIMADs—single individuals, mass destruction—using not nuclear weapons but the sort of tools that will soon be available in high school and university science labs," he said.
Though Quantico is more contemporary than most of Bear's work, there's plenty for the hardcore SF fan to latch onto. "There's unfamiliar technology, over-the-horizon cybernetics, the future of Homeland Security, nasty political shenanigans ... and three young FBI agents learning to survive, with and despite ... high-tech gadgetry, in a world that is very definitely off its rocker," Bear said. Random House, Bear's longtime publisher, declined to publish the novel. Why remains a mystery to Bear, though its incendiary themes are a likely suspect. "Frankly," Bear said, "I think they're a little afraid of it." Instead, Quantico will be released by Bear's British publishers, HarperCollins UK. "[They] are very enthusiastic," Bear said, "and are hoping to market it both to crime and thriller readers and the wide audience that has already embraced Darwin's Radio."
Quantico will be published by HarperCollins UK on Nov. 21, and a new edition of Bear's fantasy collection, Sleepside, has just been released by iBooks.
Adams Gets Enchanted
my Adams has been tapped to play the princess in Enchanted, a Disney romantic fable that will mix live action with computer animation, Variety reported. Kevin Lima (102 Dalmatians) is directing.
Originally scripted by Bill Kelly, Enchanted is about a princess-in-waiting who's banished by an evil queen from the cartoon world of Andalasia to the hardened world of present-day New York. The film turns to live action, and so does the princess. She attempts to navigate the city, find true love and save herself, the trade paper reported.
Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Josephson are producing.
Pac-Man World 3 Ships
amco Hometek announced that its sequel video game Pac-Man World 3 has begun shipping for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PC. The game will also be available for the Nintendo DS and PSP in December.
The game picks up the adventures of the 25-year-old video-game icon, combining contemporary platform gameplay with traditional Pac-Man elements, the company said.
In Pac-Man World 3, the evil genius Erwin has created a machine that can penetrate into the Spectral Realm, the world of the Ghosts, and ultimately devastate the world. At the start of the game, Pac-Man is mysteriously transported out of Pac-Village into a mysterious land, and he soon realizes that it is up to him to uncover Erwin's diabolical plot and save the world from massive catastrophe.
Lost Fan Club Created
BC and Creation Entertainment have announced the launch of The Official Lost Fan Club, aimed at viewers of the hit ABC TV series. For $27.95, members will receive a Lost "Survivors Package" containing an exclusive club DVD, a T-shirt, cast photos, trading cards, posters, bumper stickers, an Oceanic Airlines carry bag, a frequent-flyer card and a boarding pass to the ill-fated Flight 815.
Fan club members will also gain access to an exclusive Web site featuring updated cast and crew interviews, photos, news and games.
Lost Content Due On Phones
ost, ABC's Emmy-winning hit SF series, is spawning a second series for mobile phones in a deal soon to close with a major U.S. carrier, sources told The Hollywood Reporter. About 20 episodes, each several minutes long, are being shot next month in Hawaii to hit phones sometime early next year, the trade paper reported.
The project is not being produced by ABC or Touchstone Television but is under the oversight of Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. The Walt Disney Co. declined comment to the trade paper.
The deal is a fresh example of the broadcast networks' rush to embrace portable media, but this time with original content. Disney might have triggered the trend with its groundbreaking deal to make episodes of Lost and other Disney programming available on the new video iPod.
The mobile episodes will be called Lost Video Diaries and will introduce two characters said to be stranded alongside the cast featured on the prime-time version. (As fans of the series know, not all of the dozens of survivors of the fictional plane crash depicted on the series get screen time.) While the storylines of the pair will be new to Lost viewers, the events depicted in the prime-time version will inform their storylines.
Cornwell To Helm Dionaea
ustralian newcomer Peter Cornwell is in negotiations to direct The Dionaea House, a supernatural horror thriller that David Heyman is producing for Warner Brothers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Written by Eric Heisserer, the story centers on a married man who has grown apart from his old friends. When one of them commits a double murder-suicide, the men feel compelled to investigate, eventually stumbling upon an evil force that perpetuates itself through tract housing, the trade paper reported.
Cornwell would come to the project off the strength of a 14-minute claymation short he wrote, directed and produced titled Ward 13. The short, about a man waking up in an insane asylum and trying to break free while facing all sorts of bad guys, took Cornwell years to make.
Narrows Mixes History, Fantasy
F author Alex Irvine told SCI FI Wire that his new novel, The Narrows, is set in World War II-era Detroit and twists together real history with SF and fantastical elements. "I think that when you set about portraying a time and place with any effort at what you think is accuracy, two things happen," Irvine said in an interview. "One, you try to put something together that a reader is going to enjoy, but two, you make choices about how you portray that time and place, and those choices reflect your feelings about various sociopolitical problems."
In The Narrows, Detroit is "the Arsenal of Democracy," where the automotive industry churns out munitions at a staggering rate. The book includes real elements, such as the race riots of 1943, housing shortages and constant labor unrest. And it mixes in mythology from the city's past, such as the "Nain Rouge," or Red Dwarf, who appears when the city is about to suffer a great catastrophe.
The book's hero is Jared Cleaves, who works in a secret government project known as Building G, which workers call the "Frankenline." With the guidance of a rabbi smuggled out of Eastern Europe, they build "golems"—artificial people crafted from inanimate parts—and send them off to fight in Europe. Nazis both foreign and domestic take an interest.
Irvine, who is not Jewish, said that he enjoyed introducing Jewish elements into the story, given its time and setting. "I got a kick out of putting a kabbalistic magician smack in the middle of the River Rouge plant, since Henry Ford was such a vocal anti-Semite," Irvine said.
Next up for Irvine is a near-future noir called Buyout, as well as several short stories.
House Honors Flight 19
he House of Representatives on Nov. 17 passed a resolution honoring the 14 airmen of Flight 19—the so-called Lost Patrol—who disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle after taking off from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 5, 1945, during a routine training mission, as well as the 13 men aboard a rescue plane that also disappeared.
Rep. Clay Shaw's (R-Fla.) announcement that the House had passed his resolution came at a news conference and screening sponsored by the SCI FI Channel of its upcoming documentary The Bermuda Triangle: Startling New Secrets for members of Congress, congressional staff and the media. The documentary, hosted by NBC/MSNBC news anchor Lester Holt, looks at the disappearance of Flight 19 and the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle. SCI FI executives Bonnie Hammer and Dave Howe were also in attendance, as were Holt and family members of the lost airmen.
The two-hour special premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT Nov. 27; SCI FI's original miniseries The Triangle debuts at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Dec. 5.
Geisha Is Medium's Message
iewers of the Nov. 14 episode of NBC's supernatural drama Medium may have noticed blatant references to the upcoming Sony Pictures movie Memoirs of a Geisha, which figured prominently in the episode's storyline. It's no coincidence: Sony partnered with NBC and the show's producers to work the movie into the episode as part of a deal negotiated during the summer's upfront advertising buy, part of the movie studio's overall media plan with NBC, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
There was no promotional fee involved. Neither NBC nor Paramount Television, which produces the show, were available for comment to the trade paper.
In the episode, Patricia Arquette's character, Allison, finally got a much-needed night on the town with her husband, and the two decided to attend a special advance screening of Geisha. When they arrived at the theater, not only was the film's title bannered on the marquee, but the couple also ran into two friends who had just seen the movie and loved it. To reinforce the film's title, throughout the episode Allison's daughter Bridgette kept asking for the definition of a geisha.
The Medium stunt is part of Sony's effort to find new outlets for its marketing campaigns, the trade paper reported.
NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Medium Raises Serling
od Serling, the late creator of The Twilight Zone, will introduce the Nov. 21 3-D episode of NBC's hit supernatural show Medium, with Serling's appearance created from old footage and voiced by actor Mark Silverman, NBC announced.
The producers of Medium acquired rights to Serling's footage from The Twilight Zone and digitally manipulated the image. The network said that Silverman is the only voice actor recognized by the Serling estate.
Serling will explain how viewers will know when to put on the red-and-blue glasses needed to view the episode's 3-D segments.
Viewers will be able to get the 3-D glasses in this week's TV Guide, which features Medium on its cover. In addition, millions of glasses will be distributed by Sprint street teams in major cities throughout the country and at Universal theme parks in Hollywood, Calif., and Orlando, Fla.
"Still Life" will air at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Nov. 21. NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Robinsons To Go 3-D
alt Disney Pictures said it will release its upcoming computer-animated SF movie Meet the Robinsons in a three-dimensional version, following the success of current 3-D hit Chicken Little, the Reuters news service reported.
The 3-D Chicken Little is being closely watched in Hollywood as an early test of alternative types of movies made for new digital cinema systems. The industry is in a very early, tentative stage of a transition to digital projection from old celluloid filmstrip, the wire service reported.
Disney expects to release the 3-D Robinsons in 750 to 1,000 screens as a digital cinema transition expands.
Robinsons is based on a book by William Joyce in which a young boy travels into the future and meets an eccentric family, the Robinsons, who will change his life.
Burn Critiques Thoreau
F author and columnist James Patrick Kelly, whose new book Burn offers a new take on Henry David Thoreau's classic Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, told SCI FI Wire that he wishes he could have debated Thoreau. "While I respect his insights into nature and spirituality, I don't think his philosophy offers a map to any future I can recognize," Kelly said in an interview. "He is a Luddite, and I am a science fiction writer; we're oil and water, Red Sox and Yankee fans. His views of what counts and mine diverge widely. But although I think Burn can certainly be read as a critique of his vision, the book is also is dedicated to [him]."
Burn follows the creation of a utopian planet renamed Walden and the price its inhabitants pay for trying to maintain a paradise. Kelly said that a key plot point turns on terrorism. The protagonist considers people intent on destroying the planet's ecology terrorists, so he fights them by setting fire to the forests. Later, he comes to realize that these people have a legitimate grievance and that the forests he destroyed are not native to the planet. "One of [SF's] greatest strengths is that it can lead readers to hypotheticals about contemporary issues and perhaps show them how their cultural biases have clouded their views," Kelly said. "In this book, there is no black and white, only shades of gray."
Next up for Kelly is a play about Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, who faced off in a famous duel, which cost Hamilton his life. Although these people were real, Kelly said, "In my fiction, if I base a character on a real person, I usually find that I have deviated from that person's biography by page three." After completing the play, he hopes to finish a novel he had started but put aside to write Burn. And he continues with his online column for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
White Noise 2 Coalesces
old Circle Films is moving forward with White Noise 2: The Light, a sequel to the supernatural horror hit, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rogue Pictures acquired U.S. distribution rights, while Mandate Pictures will handle foreign, the trade paper reported. White Noise, produced by Gold Circle and distributed by Universal Pictures, grossed $57 million when it was released in January.
In the sequel, scripted by Matt Venne, a man's family is murdered, and he is brought back from the brink of death. The man realizes he has changed and can now identify those among the living who are about to die. When he tries to save people, he discovers there is a price to be paid for interfering with the natural order of life and death.
The project is out to directors, with a production start date aim of first-quarter 2006.
Universal and Rogue are both owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Portable Katamari Game Announced
amco Hometek announced that it will launch Me and My Katamari, the first portable version of the Katamari video-game franchise, for the PSP in North America and Europe in 2006. Me and My Katamari, which is a working title, will be the third installment in the Katamari series, which includes Katamari Damacy and We (Love) Katamari, and the first for a handheld gaming device.
In the game, the King of All Cosmos takes the royal family on vacation to a tropical island paradise, where they are given the responsibility of creating new katamari islands for homeless animals. The King calls upon his pint-sized son, the Prince, and all of his cousins for help.
Dragon Quest VIII Hits Stores
quare Enix announced the release of Dragon Quest VIII—Journey of the Cursed King for the PlayStation 2. Dragon Quest VIII is the latest installment in the video-game franchise, which has sold more than 40 million units worldwide, the company said.
Updates for the North American release include voice-overs, a full orchestral soundtrack, a renovated menu system, new battle abilities and improved animations. The game will include a bonus disc with a playable demo of the North American version of Final Fantasy XII.
Journey Goes 3-D
alden Media and New Line have joined forces to co-finance Journey 3-D, a modern take on the Jules Verne classic Journey to the Center of the Earth, Variety reported.
Eric Brevig, who won a Special Achievement Academy Award for his visual-effects work on Total Recall, will make his feature directorial debut. D.V. DeVincentis (High Fidelity) has written the script.
Visual-effects veteran Charlotte Huggins is producing, and production will begin in April.
Journey centers on a teenager and his scientist father who stumble onto a message hidden in an ancient artifact. Their attempt to solve the riddle leads them into a previously unseen world and the creatures that inhabit it, the trade paper reported.
The film will be shot in live action, but the otherworldly landscapes and creatures will be supplied by high-definition, photo-real 3-D technology.
Jane To Headline Mutant
homas Jane (The Punisher) will star in The Mutant Chronicles, a feature-film adaptation of the SF role-playing board game of the same name, Variety reported. Producer Ed Pressman's Pressman & Co. Films company will make the movie.
The movie is set in the 23rd century, in which four giant corporations have pillaged the last of the planet's resources, causing a demonic, marauding army of underworld NecroMutants to wage war against humans for what remains. Jane will play a battle-weary Marine who leads a squad of soldiers against the alien hordes, the trade paper reported.
Simon Hunter will direct Mutant from a screenplay he penned with Ross Jameson. The movie is slated to go before the cameras in the spring.
McGarry's Life Infused Triad
F author Terry McGarry, whose novel Triad has been released after a seven-month delay, told SCI FI Wire that writing is a form of self-induced multiple-personality disorder. "I've certainly drawn on my own life experiences for fiction," she said in an interview. Among other things, McGarry has worked as a bartender in New York and as a street vendor in Ireland and studied swordsmanship through the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts. All of those experiences helped her create the characters.
"I make an effort to get hands-on experience of what I'm writing about, where possible," McGarry said. "But all of the characters are wholly themselves, not consciously modeled on anyone I know. Or, more accurately, they start out as fragments of me, and then emerge as people in their own right as their stories develop. I sometimes think of writing as a form of self-induced multiple-personality disorder: The subconscious generates them all, and they take on lives and personalities of their own."
Triad completes the Eiden Myr trilogy that began with 2001's Illumination and continued with 2003's The Binder's Road. It was to be released in April, except that it exceeded the projected word count by 25 percent over the previous books. "In fact, the length owed as much to expanded back matter—helpful but not critical stuff like a glossary and list of characters—as the narrative requirements, but it had exceeded its projected word count," McGarry said. "Some larger booksellers have lately expressed a preference for shorter books in the fantasy genre—a move away from the big fat fantasies we've come to love over the past few decades—so this wasn't a particularly good time to be coming in long. The editor and I had to decide whether to adapt Triad to that shift in preference or split it into two or more short volumes. We chose to preserve the novel's single-book form, and Tor generously gave me the time to do a careful edit for length while heroically keeping the book on the 2005 schedule."
McGarry added that fans can access the back matter and deleted scenes on her Web site. "Eiden Myr" is a word she created after editing an article in The New Yorker about traveling manuscript illuminators in the Middle Ages. She devised Eiden Myr as an island in the shape of a human body, a concept she said came from two observations: "That setting is frequently a character in itself, and that landscapes in our own world are frequently named for the body parts they resemble: Little Neck and Great Neck on Long Island, the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, the boot of Italy, and so on."
Next up is a spinoff series set in the outer realms. As for Eiden Myr, McGarry said she expects to return to the world. She already has written several short stories set there.
Spike Unveils Drama Slate
pike TV unveiled its first drama development slate, which features projects from former The X-Files producers Frank Spotnitz and Vince Gilligan and Battlestar Galactica executive producer David Eick, among others.
Spotnitz, whose Night Stalker was just canceled by ABC, will produce Amped with Gilligan. It's a four-hour event series about a mysterious outbreak in present-day Los Angeles that alters citizens with violent and disturbing consequences, the trade paper reported.
Already looking good for a series pickup is Blade, based on the comic-book and film trilogy of the same name, from Batman Begins writer David Goyer and New Line TV. David Simkins (NBC's Book of Daniel) has come aboard as show runner. That project goes into production shortly for a June premiere.
From executive producer Eick and writers Hans Bauer and Craig Mitchell comes The Bridge, about two homicide detectives on either side of the El Paso/Juarez border.
Briefly Noted
-
Superman star Christopher Reeve's wife, Dana, is responding well to cancer treatment, and her tumor is shrinking, various news reports said.
-
The teaser trailer for Bryan Singer's upcoming Superman Returns has gone live and is linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
-
The British ITN.co.uk Web site reported that Doctor Who star Billie Piper called rumors of her departure "rubbish."
-
Starz and Encore will air an exclusive 30-minute Starz Original behind-the-scenes look at The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which will feature nine minutes of the movie, beginning on Nov. 24; the movie opens Dec. 9.
-
Plans to launch the remains of Star Trek actor James Doohan into space next month have been delayed pending more rocket engine tests, the Reuters news service reported.
-
A temporary Web site has gone live for the upcoming 21st James Bond movie, Casino Royale, which will introduce Daniel Craig as 007.
-
A poster for the classic German 1920s SF film Metropolis has been sold for a world-record $690,000 to a private collector from the United States in a London gallery, the Reuters news service reported.
-
Industrial Light & Magic won the U.S. National Medal of Technology, the country's highest honor for innovation, which is administered by the Dept. of Commerce and given annually by the president, Variety reported.
-
TV Guide Online's Ask Ausiello column features an interview with Lost producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse with spoilers for upcoming episodes.
-
Sony has pulled the plug on The 8th Voyage of Sinbad, a fantasy movie that was to have starred Keanu Reeves under director Rob Cohen, and is mulling Jennifer Garner, Lindsay Lohan or Kate Hudson to star in its upcoming TV adaptation I Dream of Jeannie, the Los Angeles Times reported.
-
The Nov. 30 episode of ABC's hit series Lost will be called "What Kate Did" and will reveal the original crime that sent Kate (Evangeline Lilly) on the desperate escape attempt that landed her on the island, ABC announced.
-
The soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, with a score by Patrick Doyle, was released a week early exclusively on the iTunes Web site; the CD hit stores on Nov. 15.
-
Carmen Electra, Leslie Nielsen and Simon Rex have boarded Scary Movie 4 for Dimension Films, which will take on superhero and horror movies, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
-
A new teaser trailer for Darren Aronofsky's upcoming SF epic movie The Fountain has been linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
-
The martial-arts comedy movie Kung Fu Hustle won the best film award at the Nov. 13 Golden Horse awards in Taiwan, the Chinese-language version of the Oscars, Reuters reported.
-
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory co-star AnnaSophia Robb will star in Disney's upcoming fantasy film Bridge to Terabithia, based on Katherine Paterson's award-winning children's book, Variety reported.
-
Darren Grant (Diary of a Mad Black Woman) will direct Fox 2000's comic adaptation Venus Kincaid, about a female African-American government agent who finds herself shrunken down to a teenage girl with all of her special sleuthing skills intact, Variety reported.
-
Wanda Sykes and Rainn Wilson have joined the cast of the Uma Thurman-Luke Wilson superhero comedy film Super Ex (formerly Super Ex-Girlfriend), directed by Ivan Reitman, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Back to the top.
