New Trailer Reveals X3 Secrets
ox announced that the teaser trailer for its upcoming third X-Men movie, nicknamed X3, will go live on the Internet at Apple.com on Dec. 5, a week before originally planned, and that the trailer will hit theaters on Dec. 14, attached to prints of King Kong. SCI FI Wire, meanwhile, was among journalists on the film's Vancouver, Canada, set on Dec. 1 who got a glimpse of the trailer in the company of star Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), and the trailer reveals several key spoilers about the upcoming movie.
After shooting a scene with Ian McKellen (Magneto), Jackman, dressed in his full Wolverine regalia, invited reporters back to the "dailies" trailer to watch a rough cut of the preview clip with him.
One of the highlights of the trailer is the appearance for the first time of two new characters: Angel (Ben Foster), unfolding his large, feathered wings in a laboratory setting, and the furred, blue-skinned Beast (Kelsey Grammer) at what appears to be a memorial service.
The trailer also confirms speculation that the third film would deal with the Dark Phoenix storyline from the Marvel Comics series: A laboratory sequence appears to show the resurrection of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), who died at the end of X2, as Phoenix.
The trailer hints that X3 will feature even more action and effects than the first two X-Men films. Storm (Halle Berry) is seen taking flight. There is a Danger Room combat sequence (planned for, but cut out of, the second X-Men movie) and a concluding shot that shows the Golden Gate bridge being torn apart, presumably by Magneto.
The trailer begins with a voice-over narration by Dr. Xavier (Patrick Stewart) warning that mankind is at a pivotal moment in history, that there will be a struggle and that great sacrifices will be made. The visuals open with shots of familiar characters, including Wolverine, Storm and Dr. Xavier.
The action quickly ramps up, with Magneto throwing cars around. Magneto also hints at one of the movie's major themes in one of the trailer's only lines of dialogue: "They want to cure us!" he shouts to a group of mutants assembled in a forest. "I say we are the cure!"
In keeping with Xavier's warning of great sacrifice, there is a gathering of heroes at what appears to be a memorial service, though the trailer doesn't make clear whose.
Several characters from previous films make appearances, including Cyclops (James Marsden), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) and Colossus (Daniel Cudmore).
X3 continues to shoot in Vancouver under the direction of Brett Ratner; the movie opens May 26, 2006.
Fans Rally To Save Alias
BC has announced that the current fifth season of its spy series Alias will be its last, but not if fans have anything to say about it. Fans of the Jennifer Garner show have rallied at the Save Alias and Alias Undercover Web sites to campaign to keep the show on the air.
Organizers are first asking fans to mail brown paper bags inscribed "Save Alias" to Stephen McPherson, head of the network's prime-time programming unit, this month. Next month, the fans are asked to write letters. They are also writing to series creator J.J. Abrams to persuade him to find a new home for the show.
Alias has ranked 75th among all prime-time series since moving to a new timeslot this year at 8 p.m. ET/PT Thursdays. The show will be going on hiatus while Garner goes on maternity leave, returning with a countdown to the series finale in May.
Chung Reveals Flux Secrets
eter Chung, the guy who created the MTV animated series Aeon Flux, told SCI FI Wire that the character was originally intended to have ambiguous sexuality—and died at the end of each episode. Chung's series, which first hit MTV in the early 1990s, is the basis of the upcoming live-action movie of the same name, starring Charlize Theron, but wasn't supposed to make much sense, Chung said.
"People were trying to figure out the backstory, the politics and all that, and I was trying to say that science fiction shouldn't be taken in a metaphorical level," Chung said in a phone interview from Korea. In the shorts he originally created for the character, the sexy secret agent was killed off every time. "I was trying to tell fans not to take it literally. They were wondering how she could be alive again in the next episode, thinking she's really a robot, or there's [an] army of clones, or there's a time warp and she goes back into time. I'd say, 'You're missing the point.' I loved killing her off. I hated watching movies and TV series with the same characters over and over, and you knew they wouldn't die. I said, 'To hell with that.' I know it's taboo, but it freed me up morally about what she is able to do. If she dies, she can cross all kinds of moral boundaries."
Chung created Aeon Flux partly out of frustration with the limitations he faced working on the Rugrats children's cartoon. He said that Flux is bisexual and "metal-sexual: She has sex with robots." He added that much of the dialogue is intentionally misleading. Aeon's lover/nemesis Trevor Goodchild often opens the episodes with a voice-over, and Chung warned: "It's not what people say, but what they do. Trevor is putting a spin on things. Don't trust him."
In the recently released three-DVD set Aeon Flux: The Complete Animated Series, Chung included the animated shorts that debuted in 1991 and the half-hour episodic series that ended in 1996. "People who saw the shorts first have seen the half-hour shows, and think they were watered down or we sold out because we were censored or self-censored," he said. "Others liked the half-hour shows more because they had more substance." Chung said censorship was rare, but that he regretted cutting one scene in which Trevor and Aeon kiss over a pile of dead bodies. "We pushed things as far as possible, but that time we couldn't show all the dead bodies and couldn't show the big battle that just took place," he said. It was violence, not sexual imagery, that he was asked to change. "It ended up looking kinky, but I always tried to find substitutes for sexual imagery. You can't show hardcore genital sex—and I'm not sure I would want to, either—so when they asked us to tone down the violence, I was fine with that, and we'd pitch up the sexual elements."
Chung said that he has had little to do with the upcoming Aeon Flux movie, but added that he hopes the movie will encourage interest in an animated feature version of his series. "I kind of suspected this show would be appreciated more later," he said. "When it was actually on, people would say, 'What the hell is this?'"
Flux Creator Wanted Toon Film
eter Chung, creator of the animated Aeon Flux TV series, told SCI FI Wire that he isn't thrilled with the idea of a live-action version of his characters and still hopes to make an animated feature film about his female antihero. The series, which ran on MTV in the 1990s, is the basis of the upcoming live-action movie starring Charlize Theron.
"I've seen clips from it, but I'm not involved in the movie," Chung said in a phone interview from Korea. "I honestly [was] very against it, because I wanted to do an animated movie, and I thought that was the best way to do it. It took me a long while to get adjusted to it, and then eventually I said, 'OK, if it's going to get done, it will get done this way.'" The live-action version opened Dec. 2. The Aeon Flux: Complete Animated Series, including the pilot, the shorts and the entire MTV half-hour episodic series, came out on DVD on Nov. 22 in a three-disc set.
Since the show went off the air in 1996, Chung said he has worked on developing his leather-clad lethal secret agent for the big screen as an animated feature. But it fell out of his hands when it was turned into a live-action project. "I guess we'll see," Chung said about the film. "It's a different casting, a different interpretation of the character. [Theron] is a great actress, and I'd look for someone who looked more like the character, but the character they wrote is a lot more like Charlize. She looks fantastic, but it took me a while to get adjusted to the hair, for example, and I wish the costume would have stayed closer to the way I wrote it."
The studio that produced the Aeon Flux movie, Paramount (which, like MTV, is owned by Viacom), can do what it wants with the character, which Chung sold to them. But the animator said that he is still working on an idea for an animated Flux movie. "There is a good possibility," he said. "I have been working on writing a story for it. I think the studio has expressed an interest in doing that. They're interested in how the [live-action] movie does first and how well the DVDs sell." He added that the name recognition from the film promotion can help the brand and promises that he will continue pushing for an animated version. "It will happen one way or another," Chung said. "I will pursue that."
Kong's Black Aped Welles
ack Black, who stars as obsessive filmmaker Carl Denham in director Peter Jackson's upcoming King Kong remake, told SCI FI Wire that he modeled the character in large part on Orson Welles and even worked in a bit of Jackson. In the film, the larger-than-life Denham will risk anything and anyone in order to make a career-saving movie. Welles, of course, is the legendary maker of Citizen Kane.
"I was playing the director in the movie, and so, of course, my first instinct that I thought was brilliant and no one would know—it'd be my secret—is I'd base it on Peter Jackson," Black said in an interview. "So I'm already heavy, and then he was skinny. 'Wait a second! I got to lose weight.'"
In King Kong, Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic monster movie, Black plays Denham, who takes a cast and crew to a remote island to make a movie, where they stumble upon fantastical creatures and a giant ape.
It wasn't long into the production before Black said that he had to reconsider his decision to ape Jackson. "In the first week, following him around before we started shooting, I realized that Pete is not the guy that I had to be for this movie," Black said. "He's a really sweet guy that you really like, and you trust him and you always feel safe. And Carl Denham is not looking out for anybody but himself. He's very selfish, and he won't think twice about killing half of his crew to get his shot. So I abandoned that [instinct to channel Jackson]. But there might be a couple of Peter Jackson-isms in there." King Kong will thunder into theaters on Dec. 14 and is released by Universal Pictures. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Triangle Cast Wants To Believe?
he cast of SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Triangle expressed to SCI FI Wire varying degress of belief in the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle, on which the show is based. "You know what, there's got to be something going on with all the, ... I've lost track how many people and ships and planes have disappeared there," said Catherine Bell, who plays deep-ocean resource engineer Emily Patterson, in an interview. "It's like, what's going on? There's definitely something going on."
Eric Stoltz, who plays skeptical reporter Howard Thomas, appeared to keep an open mind about the real Triangle, the site of hundreds of supposed mysterious disappearances of planes and ships over the decades. "Do I believe in the Bermuda Triangle?" he said. "I believe that it's a place that actually exists where lots of strange things have happened, certainly. I don't know if I believe it to the extent of certain Web sites. But there are definitely places in this world where there is more to this heaven and earth than is known in your philosophy, Horatio."
The Triangle, a three-night miniseries, centers on a team of experts hired to get to the bottom of the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the south Atlantic Ocean bounded by San Juan, Puerto Rico; Miami; and Bermuda. Michael Rodgers, who plays adventurer and professor Bruce Geller, said he just doesn't know what to believe. "It's hard to say," he said. "It's hard to say right now, because ... for six hours in the script you investigate all these concepts and sort of come up with something that supposedly [has] nothing to do with any of the concepts. You know, so it sort of twists your head and your ideas and concepts about it a little bit."
Lou Diamond Phillips plays Meeno Paloma, a family man and environmentalist who has an unsettling experience with the Triangle. Phillips, like Mulder, sounds like he wants to believe. "I had this endless fascination as a child with the Bermuda Triangle, with Bigfoot, with ... the Loch Ness creature, UFOs and paranormal experiences. And ... I would like to believe that there's more out there than meets the eye. And I also tend to think that as a species we're fairly arrogant ... and think we know everything. We have to remember that at one point we thought that the sun revolved around us and we were the center of the universe. So the fact that there's inexplicable [phenomena] out there amuses me."
Bruce Davison, who plays psychic Stan Lathem, said it doesn't matter, really. "It's a great story," he said. "It's a great haunted house, ... a good place for stories to be created." The Triangle premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Dec. 5.
Triangle Challenged Devlin
ean Devlin—who with Bryan Singer executive-produced SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries The Triangle—told SCI FI Wire that Singer's attention to scientific details helped change his own mind about the reality of the Bermuda Triangle. "I went into this with my standard attitude, which is I don't believe in Santa Claus but I'd love to make a movie about Santa Claus," Devlin said in an interview. "So I didn't go into this thinking that it's all true. I thought it was really fun. And interesting, and you could tell a good story."
But, Devlin said, Singer (director of the X-Men films and the upcoming Superman Returns) wanted to dig into the mythology behind the reported disappearances in the region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by San Juan, Puerto Rico; Miami; and Bermuda. "I like to go for the ride," Devlin said. "He wants to go for the ride, but he wants to anchor it. And I was really glad he had that, because it forced me to have to justify everything. So all of the science, all of the stories we tell, I have to be able to show Bryan a real story and real science that backed it up. And of course, he's so scientific-minded that he kept coming up with stuff. The whole haloclines thing was his idea. He's very science-minded. And I think that what happens is that it forces us to really look at stuff."
Eventually, Devlin said, he came around. "Well, the more I looked at it, the more I couldn't come up with rational answers," he said. "So I'm not saying that I believe that Atlantis is buried underneath the Bermuda Triangle or that there's a spaceship there, but I am saying that there's more than I can understand and that there's definitely something unique and interesting about this area that's worth looking at. So I have to say that I went in completely cynical, and I came out with an open mind."
The Triangle, which stars Sam Neill, Eric Stoltz, Catherine Bell and Lou Diamond Phillips, premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Dec. 5.
Devlin Wrote, Scrapped ID 4 Sequel
ean Devlin, who produced 1996's Independence Day, told SCI FI Wire that he and partner Roland Emmerich actually wrote the script for a sequel film that was never produced. "The sequel was written right after 9/11," Devlin said in an interview while promoting the upcoming SCI FI Channel original miniseries The Triangle. "It was actually inspired by 9/11. And you know, there's a lot of good stuff in it, but it still didn't feel right. [It] didn't feel like the right thing to do. So at least at the moment, Roland and I have no intention of doing a sequel to Independence Day. I don't know if the studio [Fox] will maintain that they don't have an interest in doing it. They may change their mind. But I think it's not a movie that should have a sequel."
Devlin produced and Emmerich directed the megahit Independence Day, based on their script. After that, Devlin said, "We wrote a sequel, and we thought it was a pretty good script. But when we finished the script, and we looked at it, ... we said, 'Yeah, it's good, but is it right?' And what we meant by that was, the genesis of Independence Day was to not tell an alien-invasion story, but to tell a disaster movie using an alien invasion as the natural disaster. So after that we thought, 'Can we think of a disaster movie that had a good sequel?' And we couldn't think of one. Because ... what makes it so spectacular is it's a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. So while there was a script that we felt worked, we didn't think it was right. And so we actually gave the money back to 20th Century Fox that they paid us to write it. We said, 'Look, we can't take the money, because we don't want to do it.' And we explained our thinking on it, and, I got to say, to their credit, they agreed with us. And so they didn't move forward with the sequel with someone else. Now, I don't know if that'll hold down the line, but at least today they agree with us: that it was never intended to have a sequel, and if we did it, it would just be for the money, and that's not the right reason to do a sequel."
The Triangle, which Devlin executive-produced with Bryan Singer, premieres on SCI FI at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Dec. 5.
Rocker Shaddix Makes Film Debut
acoby Shaddix, lead singer of the band Papa Roach, told SCI FI Wire that he's thrilled to be acting—and dying—for the first time in a spooky horror thriller by up-and-coming writer/director Ryan McKinney. The as-yet-untitled movie tells the story of a young couple that finds a spirit board in the attic and tries to conjure up answers but ends up unleashing horror. "I was not actively looking for a movie, but I really liked the idea of the part [in] a thriller with horror," Shaddix said on the set of the movie, which also stars Lou Diamond Phillips, Megan Ward and Pam Grier. SCI FI Wire was invited to the secretive shoot in Placerville, Calif., just east of Sacramento. "The director told me that he had a part where my wife is going to go psycho and slash my throat, and I said, 'Yeah, let's do it,' because I've always been such a fan of horror movies and great makeup work. I have been since I was a kid."
Shaddix spent the day filming a scene in which he sits on a toilet, gets up and shaves in front of a mirror. His wife, played by Lynda Reynoso (5ive!), comes up behind him and sexily helps him with a straight-edged razor. She then inexplicably slits his throat in a rage. "I'm pretty jazzed about it," the singer said just after he shot the scene leading up to the attack. "I'm ready to have lots of blood and makeup. This is interesting for me, because I feel like I'm a fish out of the water, but I also get a taste of acting. Lynda, who plays my wife Maggie, is a real pro and has done a ton of theater work. She really helped me. She let me loosen up. And this is a really good time in my life, especially to die."
Shaddix won the part because his brother works on the Green Flash Pictures production and suggested him to McKinney. "Jacoby is a natural actor," McKinney said in between takes. "He's good at every take, and he's a lot more meticulous than I ever thought he would be. For example, there was some thought about when he gets up if he should put the [toilet] seat back down—because someone said every guy leaves the seat up—and we determined this guy was more evolved, so he would put the seat down when he's done."
Shaddix's character is Thomas Walker, an artist, and his wife becomes possessed by the demons of the spirit board. The story is based on actual documented incidences of a Ouija board craze in the town of El Cerrito, Calif., in the 1920s.
"The film starts off in the turn of the century, and then my face is [used] to bring the story to modern times," Shaddix said with a smile. He sported a muscle shirt that shows the colorful tattoos covering his arms. "And the story has a moral to it, but I haven't read the whole script. I don't really need to. I'm not in all that much of it. But [the filming] is very convenient, and the set is close to my house, about 10 minutes away."
Narnia Gets McAvoy's Goat
ames McAvoy, who plays the half-human, half-goat Mr. Tumnus in the upcoming fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, told SCI FI Wire that the character's goat-like leg was realized with computer imagery, but he still needed to get around on set as if he had a human torso and a large, single goat leg. In the film, Mr. Tumnus befriends, betrays and then helps Lucy Pevensie (Georgie Henley), a young girl who's stepped through a wardrobe into the mysterious land of Narnia.
"It was very easy once we figured out what that proper stance and walk would be, but the real challenge came in kind of finding that," McAvoy (SCI FI's Children of Dune) said in an interview. "[Director] Andrew [Adamson] always maintained that it should be a certain way, but when I got to New Zealand the special-effects guys had different ideas and wanted to explore it a bit more. So we spent two weeks in a motion-capture studio, fooling around, walking in stilettos and stepping around in [all] sorts of contraptions. I had baked-beans cans on my feet and sneakers with spring-loaded high-heeled things. None of it worked. But Andrew's initial idea did, which was very simple: Stand on the tiptoes and bend your knees, and that's what we did."
McAvoy went on to note that he took some time to study goats and how they moved, but added that he didn't obsess over that aspect of his performance. "I did that a little bit, but it was more important for me to find the heart and soul of the guy before I even began thinking about that stuff," the British actor said. "That stuff could be subtle. The makeup did so much of that. For me to start twitching and kind of doing all of that rubbish, it would have been too much, I think." The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is based on C.S. Lewis' classic fantasy books, opens Dec. 9.
Swinton Switches Witches In Narnia
ilda Swinton, who plays the White Witch in the upcoming fantasy film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, told SCI FI Wire that her character bears no resemblance to her other recent supernatural being: the archangel Gabriel in this year's Constantine. "They're kind of bookends," Swinton said in an interview. "I actually decided to do these films around about the same time, and the decisions were related in a way. I love the fact that at the beginning of this year I played the righteous right hand of God, and on the other end of the year I played the epitome of all evil."
Based on the novel by C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe tells the story of the Pevensie siblings (Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley and Anna Popplewell), who use a wardrobe to leap from World War II-era London to the magical world of Narnia, a land they're apparently prophesied to rule. Standing in their way is Jadis, the White Witch, who will stop at nothing to prevent the prophecy from being realized.
"I think that [Jadis and Gabriel] are very different in the sense that the archangel is righteous, is absolutely determined that God needs souls, and [the more souls] the better," Swinton said. "The archangel is the illustration of the idea that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But he's also very warm, demonically warm. The White Witch is very cold. I was interested in the idea that it's possible for people to get completely carried away with the idea of doubtless righteousness. We all know this now. It's really a possibility. I would say, actually, that's the one similarity between them, is that they're doubtless. That's why both of them are involved with or encounter evil, because that's what's truly evil, is the idea of being absolutely, unswayably doubtless. Of course, the White Witch is not interested in being righteous at all. She's just bad." The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens on Dec. 9.
Lewis Kin Had Narnia Input
ndrew Adamson, co-writer and director of the upcoming big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis' fantasy tale The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, told SCI FI Wire that for the most part he welcomed the involvement of Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson, as the film evolved. Gresham is credited as a co-producer on the film, which represents Adamson's first live-action feature after helming the animated hits Shrek and Shrek 2.
"He was available to us the whole time and came on set a number of times throughout the process," Adamson said of Gresham during an interview. "I generally found it to be very helpful, because he knew Jack [Lewis]. He knew what he was intending. He'd talked to him over the years. So the way I got to use Doug the most was when I was working on the script. I'd say, 'Look, I'm thinking about changing this' or 'I'm thinking about changing this wording. Does that take away [from] what you think Jack intended in the book?' And usually he could answer pretty emphatically, because he'd discussed it enough with C.S. Lewis."
Adamson added: "The only obstacle—I wouldn't even call it an obstacle—the only thing we debated significantly was the sexism of Father Christmas' words, because he says to Susan [Anna Popplewell]—I think it is in the book—'I do not intend for you to use these weapons, because battles are ugly when women fight.' That was a very opposite message to the message that I think I put into the Shrek films of empowerment to girls. It was like saying, 'Yeah, you take your little weapons and go off and play, but the boys will take care of things.' I don't think he was expressing his own beliefs so much as wanting to stay true to C.S. Lewis' beliefs, and he felt like C.S. Lewis had put that in there for a reason. The way I got around that was I basically said to him, 'Yes, but he wrote that before he met your mother.' And if you actually read his later books in the Narnia Chronicles, there are stronger female characters in the later books." The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens on Dec. 9.
Adamson Hands Over Shrek Reins
ndrew Adamson, who co-wrote and directed Shrek and Shrek 2, told SCI FI Wire that will help write and executive-produce the upcoming third installment in the hit computer-animated series but will hand over the directing job to other helmers. "I'm seeing Mike Myers tomorrow," Adamson (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) said in an interview, referring to the star of the Shrek films. "[Shrek 3 is] a story that I came up with at the end of Shrek 2. This time I was prepared, and I wasn't prepared after the first one. I really wasn't."
Adamson added: "It's a story that I'm [emotionally] attached to, and I'm working very closely with Aron Warner, who was the producer of the first two films and is back for the third, and with the directors, Raman Hui and Chris Miller, who were both on the last two films as well [in different capacities]."
In Shrek 3, Adamson revealed, Far, Far Away has been saved, but Fiona's (Cameron Diaz) father, the king (John Cleese), is ailing, and Shrek (Myers) is thrust into the position of having to be king of Far, Far Away. Reluctant to assume the crown, the ogre goes looking for an alternate king. "So it kind of plays with Arthurian legend, and at the same time that Shrek is learning about responsibility he's also dealing with another responsibility that will be coming his way now that he's married and has started to settle down," Adamson said. "It's pretty easy to see where we're going with that."
Adamson added: "I think I'll be listed as an executive producer and probably get a 'Story By' credit. I'm really trying not to get too involved in the writing this time. The writing is something I love. It's the time when anything is possible, but to me it's also the darkest time, the hardest part. It's the time when you only have yourself to blame for your own limitations. I find that once I get into writing it sucks me into all sorts of pits of despair." Shrek 3 will be released in 2007.
Goblet, Polar Break IMAX Records
MAX Corp. and Warner Brothers announced that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The IMAX Experience and The Polar Express: An IMAX 3D Experience registered the highest-grossing weekend ever at IMAX theaters, with combined grosses of $3.1 million. The two films each unspooled on 66 screens over the three-day period Nov. 25-27.
In its second weekend in IMAX theaters, Goblet of Fire grossed approximately $1.85 million. The re-release of Polar Express generated about $1.22 million in its opening weekend.
Third Tomb Raider Film In Works?
he Business Online reported a rumor that SCI, the game company that owns the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider franchise, is in talks with Paramount Pictures to license a third movie based on the Croft character.
Citing anonymous "Hollywood sources," the site reported that talks have started between Paramount and SCI for a third Lara Croft film and that star Angelina Jolie has once again expressed an interest in playing the title character.
The next video game, Tomb Raider Legend, will come out at Easter on PlayStation2 and Xbox 360, the site reported.
Romero Talks Land Sequel
and of the Dead director George A. Romero told the Moviehole.net Web site that he's developing a sequel to this year's living-dead movie.
Romero added that Land of the Dead star Simon Baker, an Australian, is advocating that the next sequel in the venerable franchise be shot down under. "Simon Baker says that's where we should shoot it," Romero told the site. "But, yeah, there's some rumbling about doing a sequel."
But don't hold your breath, Romero added. "Most of my zombie movies have been 10 years apart," he said. "In this case, it was 20. I've never had to do one right behind the other. If that happens I think I will probably just continue the same story: Follow the truck, in which case those characters [including Baker] would be back."
Romero also denied rumors that the next sequel would go straight to video. "People have been asking me about that," he said. "I don't know where that came from. My partner and I are trying to promote a direct-to-video series of zombie films, but it has nothing to do with Land of the Dead. I don't think Universal would want to go the direct-to-video route for Land of the Dead 2. It'd be theatrical."
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Wells Not Done With Ile-Rien
F and fantasy author Martha Wells, whose new novel The Gate of Gods completes her Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, told SCI FI Wire that readers need not mourn the end of the series, because she isn't leaving the world just yet. "I'm not exactly saying goodbye at this point, since I'm writing at least a couple more stories centered on two of the main characters for the magazine Black Gate," Wells said in an interview. "I don't feel like I've ever officially said goodbye to any world or characters I've written. I'm always open to revisiting them in short fiction, even if I don't ever do another novel set in that world."
When Wells creates a world, she said that she likes to revisit it at different times. Hence, the first of five Ile-Rien books, The Element of Fire, takes place about 200 years before the second book, The Death of the Necromancer. (These were written before the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy.) "One thing I wanted as a background to the adventure story was a portrait of how the city had changed over time, the things that had changed and the things that had stayed the same and the forces that had effected those changes," she said. "The biggest step for me in creating a culture/world is knowing how real cultures work and function in their environment, so the fantasy world will feel real to the reader."
Wells also said she likes to show the characters dealing with the same issues as real people and still create an entertaining story that takes places in a fantastic world, giving her readers a feeling of escape.
Next for Wells is Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary, in which she writes in someone else's world: The book is based on SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate Atlantis. It's due to be published in February. She added that creating her own world and entering someone else's is "equally difficult."
Resident Evil 4 Called 'Ultraviolent'
esident Evil 4 and God of War were on the list of the top 10 most violent video games as rated by the Family Media Guide, the GameSpot Web site reported.
The ratings, based on the watchdog group's assessment of game content provided by its sister company, PSVratings, were released on Thanksgiving, at the start of the holiday shopping season, the site reported. This year's list included what the group called "some of the most ultraviolent video games ever created."
The top 10 games, in no particular order, also included the non-SF&F games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, NARC, Killer 7, The Warriors, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, Crime Life: Gang Wars, Condemned: Criminal Origins and True Crime: New York City.
SCI FI Wire Correction
n a story that ran in January, SCI FI Wire quoted SF author Karen Traviss, whose book City of Pearl was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, as saying that she's amazed she can't get published in her native England.
Traviss never said that she was amazed that she couldn't get published in England. SCI FI Wire regrets the error.
Gold Circle Scares Up Haunting
old Circle Films is developing A Haunting in Connecticut, a supernatural horror film from writers Tim Metcalfe and Adam Simon, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Gold Circle chief Paul Brooks and Andrew Trapani of Integrated Films & Management will produce, along with Wendy Rhoads under her first-look deal with Gold Circle, the trade paper reported.
The movie will recount the true story of a family forced to relocate near a clinic where their teenage son is being treated for cancer. The family begins experiencing violent, supernatural events that the parents first blame on stress from the illness, but they later discover that their new home is a former mortuary with a dark past.
Activision Scores Spidey 'Til 2017
ctivision announced that it has closed a deal to secure exclusive video-game rights to the Spider-Man film franchise through 2017. Activision signed the agreement with Spider-Man Merchandising L.P., a limited partnership between Marvel Entertainment and Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc., granting the game publisher the right to publish entertainment software products based on subsequent Spider-Man movie sequels or new television series.
Activision will publish a game based on the upcoming third film in the franchise, Spider-Man 3, which is set for release in May 2007. To date, Activision has published games based on Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2.
Dozois Looks Into Far Future
ifteen-time Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozois told SCI FI Wire that even though he stepped down as editor of Asimov's Science Fiction, he's not exactly retired. "I still spend a lot of time each day reading stories: for [The Year's Best Science Fiction] and for other original anthology projects," Dozois said in an interview. "I do miss editing Asimov's, although I don't miss reading the thousand-manuscript-per-month slush pile, which, after 20 years, was wearing me down a bit."
Among Dozois' original anthology projects are two Science Fiction Book Club exclusives: One Million A.D., for which he asked authors to imagine "a time when all of our history and culture will be only a dimly remembered myth," and Escape From Earth, co-edited with Jack Dann, which is a young-adult science fiction anthology that aims to recapture the spirit of the Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton "juvenile novels" of the 1950s and '60s.
"I think it's extremely important to generate good new YA SF," Dozois said. "The fantasy genre has maintained a tradition of good YA fantasy throughout the last few decades (just think Harry Potter), and I think it's hurt science fiction as a field that we've neglected it. It means that new readers don't have a place to start, but must jump instead directly into reading adult SF, and I think that it may be too difficult a jump for some of them."
In addition to these two SFBC titles, Dozois has two other collaborative projects forthcoming: an original young-adult fantasy anthology called Wizards, co-edited by Jack Dann, and an original science fiction anthology called The New Space Opera, co-edited by Jonathan Strahan.
Though he's best known as an editor, Dozois is an accomplished writer as well, having been awarded two Nebula Awards for his fiction. "I'm always working on several stories at the same time, in various stages of completion, from ideas tumbling around in my head to rough notes to completed drafts," he said. "My most recent appearance is 'When the Great Days Came' in the December issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and I just sold [them] an alternate-history story called 'Counterfactual.' Next I'm thinking of taking a crack at writing a far-future story myself, inspired by editing One Million A.D."
As to why he's stuck with science fiction all these years, Dozois had this to say: "Science fiction ... generates that famous 'sense of wonder' by giving us the insight that the universe is far larger and stranger than we can possibly imagine and that everything changes, inevitably. Whatever it's like 1 million years from now, it's not going to be like it is today, any more than today is like what it was like a million years ago."
Doctor Who Hits U.S. As DVD
he BBC told SCI FI Wire that it will release the complete first season of the new British SF TV series Doctor Who on DVD in the United States on Feb. 14, 2006, offering Americans their first official look at the hit U.K. show. BBC Video will release Doctor Who: The Complete First Series with all 13 of the first-season episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the immortal Timelord and Billie Piper as his sidekick, Rose, as well as more than four hours of extras. The DVD set will carry a suggested retail price of $99.98.
The BBC is choosing to release the DVD set in advance of any plans to license Doctor Who for broadcast in the United States.
The latest incarnation of the venerable British SF series debuted on the BBC earlier this year, written by Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk), Steven Moffat (Coupling) and Mark Gatiss (League of Gentlemen).
The DVD set, virtually identical to one already available in the United Kingdom, will also feature audio commentary by cast and crew, including Davies, Piper, John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Mark Gatiss and Simon Callow; a new Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix on all episodes; more than five hours of "making of" interviews and behind-the-scenes footage; a BBC interview with Eccleston; and a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming holiday episode The Christmas Invasion, starring David Tennant as the new Doctor, which premieres this month in the United Kingdom.
Pang Brothers In Darkness
latinum Studios and Blue Star Pictures have hired the Pang brothers (Bangkok Dangerous) to direct The Darkness, a supernatural tale based on the comic-book series from Top Cow, Variety reported.
Video-game publisher Majesco, in association with Top Cow and Platinum, is also developing a related game for the new Xbox 360 platform that's scheduled for release in early 2007, the trade paper reported.
The Darkness is about a Mafia hit man who discovers he is heir to a supernatural, dangerous force.
Platinum Studios chair Scott Mitchell Rosenberg will produce. Co-producers are Platinum's Aaron Severson, Jay Burns and Top Cow's Matt Hawkins. Top Cow founder Mark Silvestri, who created The Darkness with Garth Ennis and David Wohl, is executive-producing.
Twins Danny and Oxide Pang, who also directed The Eye, recently finished the Blue Star supernatural horror movie The Messengers for Mandate Pictures and Sony.
Sequel Due To Van Vogt's Null-A
F and fantasy author John C. Wright told SCI FI Wire that the estate of late science fiction Grand Master A.E. van Vogt has granted him permission to write a sequel to van Vogt's Null-A series, which includes the novels The World of Null-A (1945), The Players of Null-A (1956) and Null-A Three (1985). The sequel will be called Null-A Continuum and will continue the story of van Vogt's hero, Gilbert Gosseyn.
Being chosen to be van Vogt's literary successor meant a lot to Wright. "The moral tone, without any hint of moralizing, running through A.E. van Vogt's work is what inspired me, then as now," Wright said in an interview. "The hero prevails by reason of his superior sanity, his ability to adjust his behavior to reality. [Van Vogt] was a Golden Age writer that made the age golden. His tales breathed wonder from every page. The reader is hurried along by a headlong plot, astonished by some sublime (or ridiculous) conception, blinded by atomic super-energies and shining cities of the future, dazed by the complexities of time paradox or layers of hidden identities, and in the midst of all this fury, action and intrigue we find the van Vogt hero. He is usually some lost superhuman who must learn to control his mysterious powers before they destroy him."
The Null-A books focus on one such hero. "[In] the original story, the hero, Gilbert Gosseyn, finds his basic memories are false, implanted in him for some mysterious purpose by an unknown agency," Wright said. "The utopian world of the far future is controlled by the concept of non-Aristotelian logic—abbreviated Null-A—a multi-valued system of speech and thought habits designed to bring man's animal nature into an educated harmony with the nature of reality. Rank in society is determined by the outcome of objective psychological tests umpired by a dispassionate Games Machine."
In Null-A Continuum, Wright said, the story moves from the intergalactic to the cosmic scale. "Gosseyn discovers that [a] shadow figure ... has arisen in the dead galaxy and is murdering the Null-As attempting to bring peace to a wartorn galaxy. ... [In] order to prevent the destruction of the entire structure of space-time, the continuum itself must become a Null-A Continuum."
A first draft of Null-A Continuum is complete and must be submitted to the van Vogt estate for approval. Meanwhile, the first book of Wright's Chronicles of Chaos series was published in early November, and he's in the midst of revising the middle and final volumes of the trilogy.
Cruise On A Cell Phone Mission
om Cruise, in Shanghai, China, to shoot Mission: Impossible III, got a taste of Asian cell phone etiquette when a local reporter took a call in the middle of his press event on the city's historic Bund, the Reuters news service reported.
Such chatter is common in much of Asia, where people routinely talk on their phones in the middle of news briefings and many other public gatherings.
But the American superstar took it all in his stride, borrowing the phone from the surprised reporter to talk to the woman caller.
"Hello. Xie xie. Ni hao. How are you?" said an amused Cruise, dressed in black, exhausting his limited Chinese vocabulary before going on to ask if the woman—the reporter's wife—was at work and about her marital status, the news service reported.
Cruise and his crew were meeting the media after wrapping up two weeks of shooting for Mission: Impossible III.
Mostow To Helm Smith Tonight
ill Smith and director Jonathan Mostow have committed to Tonight, He Comes, a superhero movie from The X-Files writer Vince Gilligan, Variety reported. Columbia Pictures is eyeing a production start in Los Angeles by next summer, the trade paper reported.
Gilligan rewrote Vincent Ngo's script for the movie, in which Smith will play a disaffected and underappreciated superhero in a midlife crisis.
TNT Awakens Nightmares
NT announced that it will air Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, an anthology series of eight one-hour episodes adapted from King's short stories. It will premiere on TNT in the summer of 2006. The network provided a summary of some of the upcoming episodes.
•William H. Macy and Jacqueline McKenzie (The 4400) will star in "Umney's Last Case," about a fictional private eye whose author decides he wants to take the place of his detective creation to escape from the tragedy of his own life.
•Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue) and Steven Weber (The Shining) star in "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band," about a young couple who happen upon a town in which all of the residents share a deadly secret while gearing up for the concert of a lifetime.
•Samantha Mathis (The Mists of Avalon) and Jeremy Sisto (Six Feet Under) headline "The Fifth Quarter," in which Sisto plays a recently released criminal who learns from his dying friend of a map torn into four parts that leads to the location of $1 million taken during a robbery.
•Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers) and Henry Thomas (E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial) star in "The End of the Whole Mess," in which a filmmaker documents his final hour of life and tells the story of his brother's discovery of a chemical that ends all violence, but with catastrophic results.
•Tom Berenger plays a prize-winning author in "The Road Virus Heads North." On a road trip, he stops at a yard sale to buy a painting, which he realizes is slowly changing and may be controlling his fate. Marsha Mason co-stars.
•William Hurt (The Village) headlines "Battleground," playing the killer of a toymaker who receives a package of toy soldiers that aren't the usual playthings.
Nightmares & Dreamscapes comes to TNT from Bill Haber's Ostar Enterprises, with Haber executive-producing. The series is produced by Mike Robe, Jeffrey Hayes and John J. McMahon.
Who Will Hit U.S. TV
urton Cromer—vice president of BBC Direct, which is releasing the first season of the British SF series Doctor Who on DVD—told SCI FI Wire that the BBC made the unusual decision to release the DVD in the United States before the show had found a broadcast outlet there. But he added that the show will find its way onto American TV, one way or another.
"It will be going on television," Cromer said in an interview. "There're lots of discussions going on, and I can't really talk about that. This is a unique situation, really, because there are so many fans of Doctor Who ... already out there, and we were just finding [that] people were getting ... secondhand copies or copies from the U.K. ... We really wanted fans to get the best, most complete version in the United States as [soon as] we possibly could. So we made the decision, and it is unique, to go ahead of the TV broadcast with the DVD and to release the gift set of the DVD basically within two and a half to three months [after] the U.K. [version]."
Since its premiere earlier this year, the updated Doctor Who has been a smash hit in Great Britain, and U.S. fans have been clamoring for a way to see the series legally stateside. There's no downside to a U.S. DVD release, even if the show has yet to be seen on American TV, Cromer added. "The good news for us is that we already have that loyal fan base, but then when the show does broadcast in the U.S., we'll have a whole new fan base, because it's just a new Doctor Who: very exciting, but still the great stories and as great as the old Doctor Who," he said.
Doctor Who is gearing up production of its second season in the United Kingdom, which will appear next year. A special Christmas episode, meanwhile, will air this month. The U.S. DVD will feature the entire first season of Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. It hits stores on Feb. 14, 2006.
Book Of Daniel Opens Jan. 6
BC announced that its new midseason limited drama series The Book of Daniel will premiere with two back-to-back episodes starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Jan. 6. The show, starring Aidan Quinn, will be an hourlong limited series that will run at 10 p.m. on Fridays through Feb. 3, the week prior to the start of NBC's coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
In The Book of Daniel, Quinn plays the Rev. Daniel Webster, an unconventional Episcopalian minister who not only believes in Jesus, but actually sees him and discusses life with him (as played by Garret Dillahunt). Webster struggles to be a good husband, father and minister, while trying to control a nagging addiction to prescription painkillers and an often rocky relationship with the church hierarchy, led by Bishop Beatrice Congreve (Ellen Burstyn) and Roger Paxton, a senior warden of the parish and stalwart churchgoer (Dylan Baker).
The reverend also has loving but challenging relationships with his three children: Peter (Christian Campbell), his 23-year-old gay son; Grace (Alison Pill), his 16-year-old daughter; and Adam (Ivan Shaw), his 16-year-old adopted Chinese son, a high school jock. Keeping Webster grounded is his strong and loving wife Judith (Susanna Thompson), who fights her own fondness for midday martinis.
The Book of Daniel was created by Jack Kenny (Titus), who executive-produces the show with Flody Suarez (The Tick). The show comes from NBC Universal Television Studio and Sony Pictures Television. NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Magee Bites Into Historian
riter David Magee (Finding Neverland) is in talks to write The Historian, a vampire movie that Red Wagon is producing for Columbia Pictures, Variety reported. The movie is an adaptation of Elizabeth Kostova's first novel and centers on a young woman who searches Europe for her missing father, who took on the challenge of locating the grave of Vlad the Impaler, the bloodthirsty feudal lord who inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula. Along the way, she comes across a slew of bloodsuckers who try to stop her.
Warner Rides With Kropp
arner Brothers has bought the film rights to Rick Yancey's young-adult fantasy novel The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp and set it up with Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road Pictures, Variety reported. David Iserson (Saturday Night Live) is attached to adapt the book for the screen.
The book centers on an awkward 15-year-old who gets plunged into an Arthurian adventure when his uncle convinces him to steal an ancient sword that turns out be Excalibur.
Yancey's book, published by Bloomsbury USA Children's Books, hit the stands in early October.
Robinson Warms To Fifty
F author Kim Stanley Robinson told SCI FI Wire that his latest book is Fifty Degrees Below, an ecological thriller that is the second book of a trilogy dealing with the issue of global warming. "My Mars novels were about global warming, in a way," he said in an interview. "And while writing them, it often occurred to me that we were terraforming Earth already, but by accident and badly, by the massive addition of carbon to the atmosphere."
Describing himself as an "interested non-expert" on the issue, Robinson nevertheless has suggestions for average people on how to deal with the potentially cataclysmic consequences of global warming. "They should vote for and support in many other ways politicians who would enact carbon control, mitigation policies and tax businesses in such a way as to lead our whole technological base toward something more sustainable and carbon-free," Robinson said. "It has to be conceptualized as a total social effort, like that of the Allies in World War II."
Robinson said that he first became interested in the topic while researching a previous book, Antarctica, which took him to the far south. "My Antarctic trip introduced me to many scientists working on global warming questions," he said. His trip was paid for by the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writer’s Program. "It's not a grant per se but rather an agreement to provide transport and housing, clothing and guidance, for whatever your particular project requires," Robinson said. "They essentially gave me carte blanche to travel wherever I wanted for my two months down there, as long as there were scientific teams in the field willing to host me: to feed me, provide tent space, etc."
Most people know Robinson for his novels, but his shorter fiction has received multiple award nominations. "I still like short stories and would write them if I had time, but I've gotten very absorbed by my novels," he said. "Novels ... are bigger and allow me to get deeper into the flow of work in my daily life." Robinson's short stories are collected in Remaking History and The Martians.
Williams Tests Men At War
F author Walter Jon Williams told SCI FI Wire that in his new book, Conventions of War, he wanted to explore how humans behave under pressure and that he considers war the ultimate pressure. "War provides an ultimate test of human character, revealing nobility and meanness, bravery and cowardice, vanity and sacrifice—and sometimes all that at once and in the same person," he said in an interview. "One aspect of war that I was trying to get across is that war tests not just people, but systems. All the courage in the universe won't help you if the system that brings you to the war is broken and dooms you before you start. So my characters spend much of their time grappling with broken social and military systems, trying to repair the elements that are sending them into combat so that they will have a hope of survival."
Conventions of War is the third book in the Dread Empire's Fall series. In it, the Naxid War concludes. The universe has fallen into bloody chaos now that the dread empire of the tyrannical Shaa is no more. The merciless insectoid Naxid hunger for domination. But the far-flung human descendants of Terra have finally tasted liberty, and their warrior heroes will not submit. Separated by light years, Lord Gareth Martinez and the mysterious guerrilla fighter Caroline Sula each pursue a different road to victory. The new order will be far more terrible than the old unless one last, desperate stratagem can hold together a shattered galaxy.
Williams received praise from fellow SF author George R.R. Martin, who is quoted on the book cover saying "interstellar adventure has a new king." "Obviously I am flattered by George's blurb," Williams said. "I don't know whether blurbs sell books or not, but obviously a blurb by a writer of George's stature is not to be sneezed at."
Next up for Williams is an online game at LastCallPoker.com, for which he has done some writing. He also said he's writing short fiction. "I'm not sure what the next big project is going to be," he said. "I have at least four novels I'd like to write, and I haven't made up my mind which one will be next."
Briefly Noted
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Lost actresses Michelle Rodriguez (Ana Lucia) and Cynthia Watros (Libby) were arrested and taken into custody on suspicion of driving their respective cars under the influence of alcohol Nov. 30 in Oahu, Hawaii; both actresses posted bail, and formal charges are expected to be filed on Dec. 29, People magazine reported.
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Alias star Jennifer Garner gave birth Dec. 1 to her first child, a daughter, with actor-husband Ben Affleck, US Weekly magazine reported; E! News reported that the baby's name is Violet.
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Mobile phone giant Nokia announced it will launch Space Alliance, a massively multiplayer online game, in the first quarter of 2006, connecting hundreds of thousands of players through Java-enabled mobile phones and the Nokia SNAP Mobile service.
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Wendie Jo Sperber, who played Michael J. Fox's older sister in all three Back to the Future films, died on Nov. 30 after contracting cancer; the actress, who was also a regular on the sitcom Bosom Buddies opposite Tom Hanks, was 46, the Associated Press reported.
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The new teaser trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest has been linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
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ABC's hit SF series Lost won the award for drama at the seventh annual Family Television Awards, which were handed out Nov. 30 in Beverly Hills, Calif., according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Paramount has quietly canceled all preview screenings of its upcoming SF movie Aeon Flux, starring Charlize Theron, in an unusual move for a high-profile film; Paramount offered no explanation, though studios often fail to preview films if they fear a negative critical reaction.
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Adrian Paul, star of the upcoming sequel film Highlander: The Source, has been posting regular dispatches from the film's set in Vilnius, Lithuania, on his new online blog.
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Fans of Lexa Doig, who plays Dr. Carolyn Lam on SCI FI Channel's Stargate SG-1, have created a new Web site, called LexaFans.com, devoted to the Canadian actress.
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