Whedon: No More Firefly
irefly/Serenity creator Joss Whedon told USA Today that he still hopes to tell more stories set in the futuristic universe, but added that there's no chance he'll do another Firefly TV show. "We'll never make Firefly again, because that was a thing that existed and is now gone," Whedon told the newspaper before Christmas. "And Serenity isn't Firefly, and whatever comes next won't be, either. But I would love to tell more stories of this universe and to hang out with these people on and off for the rest of my career."
Serenity, based on the canceled Fox TV show Firefly, hit theaters last September and has pulled in a disappointing $25.4 million domestically since opening Sept. 30, 2005. The movie is now available on DVD. "The best-case scenario is that the DVD is such a spectacular, monster hit that we get to make another movie," Whedon said. "Then we get to make another movie. After three movies, we're all very tired. After Serenity: Revolutions, we feel like we've played it out. And then we make another series."
Whedon is currently writing the script for Wonder Woman, which he is slated to direct once Warner Brothers signs off.
A Future For Futurama?
alks have begun at 20th Century Fox TV to revive the animated TV show Futurama, much in the same way Family Guy found new life after cancellation, Variety reported.
The studio is in early discussions to put Futurama back in production and create a limited number of episodes of the Emmy Award-winning show, although it's too soon to tell where those episodes might end up. A representative for 20th Century Fox TV declined comment to Variety.
The final original episode of Futurama aired on Fox in August 2003. Since then, the show has found new life and fans via DVD releases and repeatedly high-rated airings on the Cartoon Network.
Before Futurama comes back into being, however, Fox first must secure deals with the show's production team, as well as voice stars Billy West (Fry), Katey Sagal (Leela) and John DiMaggio (Bender).
Meanwhile, new Futurama stories have appeared in comics published by co-creator Matt Groening's Bongo Comics imprint.
Fake Narnia News Dupes Sites
everal legitimate news sites picked up a hoax press release saying that representatives of the fictional land of Narnia had walked out of the recent World Trade Organization's talks in Hong Kong, Australia's The Age newspaper reported.
The news release from "the independent state of Narnia" was picked up by the financial news agency AFX and found its way onto top business news Web sites, including Forbes.com.
The news release said that Narnia had walked out of the World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong because it was fed up with being bullied by the United States and Europe. Narnia, of course, is the fictional realm from C.S. Lewis' fantasy book series The Chronicles of Narnia, which was recently adapted into the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
The news release quoted Narnia spokeswoman Susan Aslan; Aslan is the name of the Christ-like lion featured in the books.
The agencies who picked up the phony news have since removed the reports, The Age reported.
Favreau Updates Carter Of Mars
irector Jon Favreau told Empire Online that his upcoming movie version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars is still in development. "The way it stands is that we have artists working on research," Favreau (Zathura) told the site. "We're working on a script, and we should know by the spring whether we're going ahead or if the project goes back on the woodpile. ... It's pretty big. Theoretically it could spin out into a fully fledged franchise, which is, I think, what the holy grail is for the movie studios now."
Burroughs' series of books centers on a Civil War veteran who gets transported to the Red Planet and finds himself caught up in a war involving 15-foot, six-armed green Martians. "It's actually been a bit of a creative wellspring [that] influenced Star Wars a great deal, and Superman can kind of be traced back to it," Favreau said. "Basically any science fiction goes back to the grandfather, which is John Carter."
Favreau added: "This thing has gone through dozens of incarnations, and because of how expansive it is and the fact that there's only one human character and most of the other characters are 15-feet-tall green Martians, there has never been the technology available to bring it to the screen. But now with the technology that exists, I'm pretty confident that we come up with something really cool."
Hugos To Honor Games
he administrators of LA Con IV, the 2006 World Science Fiction Convention, have chosen to present a Hugo Award for the best interactive video game, a special category, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site reported. Only games that were first released in 2005 are eligible for the new award.
Nominations for all categories of the Hugo Awards are now open to all members of the 2005 World Science Fiction Convention and members of the 2006 World Science Fiction Convention by Jan. 31. Ballots must be received by March 10 to be eligible. Winners will be selected by all members of LA Con IV, which takes place in Anaheim, Calif., Aug. 23-27.
Lilly, Others Lost In Globes
vangeline Lilly (Lost), Virginia Madsen, Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man), and Hilary Swank will present at the 63rd annual Golden Globe Awards to be telecast live on NBC Jan. 16 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced.
The awards ceremony will take place at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. The new presenters join the previously announced Jessica Alba, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harrison Ford, Jamie Foxx, Natalie Portman, Emmy Rossum, John Travolta, Emma Thompson and Denzel Washington.
Anthony Hopkins will receive this year's Cecil B. DeMille Award for his outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.
NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Stross Talks Five New Novels
ugo Award-winning SF author Charles Stross (Accelerando, Singularity Sky) told SCI FI Wire that he recently sold three new novels to Tor and two to Ace and added that he might have a new short-story collection out in 2008.
For Tor, Stross will write three more volumes of his Merchant Princes series. He dislikes discussing work that hasn't been written yet, but he did say that he has an overall story arc in mind. "It's almost certainly not going where most readers would expect a series like this to go," Stross said in an interview. "Part of the difficulty with describing Merchant Princes is that it's a large work—if it runs to plan it'll end up being longer than Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle—and deals with huge issues. (If Stephenson's work was about the origins of the modern system of economics and science, Merchant Princes is engaging with themes of globalization, differential development and imperialism.) The first book set up a situation, the second partially resolved it (in storytelling terms), and the third dropped a whole load of dark, recomplicating elements into it; hopefully the true shape of the story will begin to emerge around books four to five and will be a complete surprise to the readers." Stross added: "If there's one thing I hate, it's a predictable series."
For Ace, Stross is signed up for an unspecified near-future SF thriller and a sequel to Iron Sunrise. Those are still in the planning stages, so Stross preferred not to comment on them. But he did say that in 2006, Ace will publish a far-future novel set in the same universe as Accelerando, called Glasshouse.
Out from Ace this month is the trade-paperback edition of The Atrocity Archives, which was previously only available as a hardcover limited edition from Golden Gryphon. Golden Gryphon will publish the sequel, The Jennifer Morgue, in November (with an Ace trade paper edition to follow).
"Fiction can be entertaining or informative (or, ideally, both)," Stross said. "What it mostly informs us about is the human condition. Some fictions deal exclusively with the mundane aspects of day-to-day reality that we're all familiar with, while other fictions try to grapple with the human condition from angles that are not accessible to us in the absence of the unreal, be it magical or material. I just happen to be writing in the latter category this decade. I don't promise to stay out of the mainstream."
Durance Takes Wing In Butterfly
mallville's Lois Lane, Canadian actress Erica Durance, will star in New Line's upcoming direct-to-video sequel to The Butterfly Effect, the Moviehole.net Web site reported.
Durance and an as-yet-unannounced male lead will report to the film's Vancouver, Canada, set from Jan. 9 to Feb. 7, the site reported, citing anonymous sources.
Cinematographer John Leonetti (Star Trek: Insurrection) will make his feature-film directorial debut on the sequel.
A representative at New Line told the site that the sequel is aiming at a 2006 release.
Mellencamp, King Work On Ghost
ocker John Mellencamp spent much of November working on The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a new "play with music" the singer-songwriter is collaborating on with horror novelist Stephen King, Playbill Online reported.
The piece is about "two brothers; they're 19 years old or 20, maybe 18 or 21, who are very competitive and dislike each other immensely," Mellencamp said on his official Web site. "The father takes them to the family vacation place, a cabin that the boys hadn't been to since they were kids. What has happened is that the father had two older brothers who hated each other and killed each other in that cabin. There's a confederacy of ghosts who also live in this house. The older [dead] brothers are there, and they speak to the audience, and they sing to the audience. That's all I want to say, except through this family vacation, many things are learned about the family, and many interesting songs are sung."
No timetable has been announced for The Ghost Brothers of Darkland County.
EverQuest Ro Due In February
ony Online Entertainment announced EverQuest Prophecy of Ro, a new expansion for the venerable PC massively multiplayer online role-playing game. EverQuest Prophecy of Ro is scheduled to be available at retail and for digital download from Sony Online Entertainment in February for the suggested price of $29.99.
The expansion, the 11th in the franchise, will give players the opportunity to interact with and transform the online world of Norrath with more than 30 new missions.
The expansion gives players spheres of influence, which can be used to thwart enemies or aid allies. The second new feature is a trap system that will let players deceive opponents with player-set traps. And for the first time in EverQuest, players will be able to destroy objects in the world: Doors can be bashed in, walls can be toppled and towers can be destroyed, leading to a new level of interactivity within the game and opening up a new realm of design.
Doom Hits DVD Unrated
oom, last year's SF movie based on the hit video-game series, hits DVD and UMD in an "unrated extended edition" on Feb. 7, Universal Studios Home Entertainment announced.
The unrated extended version Doom DVD features exclusive extras, including a behind-the-scenes look at the movie's first-person-shooter sequence, and restores the full five-minute-long sequence, which was shortened for the film's theatrical release.
The DVD also includes a featurette entitled Game On!, described as a beginner's tour of locations, weapons, creatures and strategies of a first-person-shooter game.
Other featurettes look at the cast's military training for the movie, star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's makeup regimen, the film's various monsters and the worldwide phenomenon of the Doom video-game franchise.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Fantasy Reuniting M: I III Stars
eri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who co-star with Tom Cruise in the upcoming sequel film Mission: Impossible III, may reunite on Kirsten Sheridan's upcoming fantasy romance movie August Rush, Production Weekly reported.
Set in New York's Central Park, August Rush follows two young musical prodigies who become lovers and share one night together before parting for 10 years. That coupling results in a child, August, and a musical journey that brings a family together.
The movie will also star Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Freddie Highmore as the young boy and Robin Williams as a wizard. Shooting is slated to begin Feb. 13 in New York.
SF Movies Due On Blu-ray Disc
he movie studios announced the release of several SF&F movie titles on the upcoming new high-definition Blu-ray Disc technology, which holds up to five times as much information as current DVDs, the ComingSoon.net Web site reported.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (with MGM Home Entertainment) announced 20 initial titles, including The Fifth Element, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Desperado, House of Flying Daggers, A Knight's Tale, Kung Fu Hustle, Resident Evil Apocalypse, RoboCop, Stealth and Species. Starting this summer, Sony will begin adding bonus BD Java games and other features to new film releases, including Underworld: Evolution, which will be released the same time as the DVD. Also being readied for summer release is the complete television series of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate Atlantis in high definition.
Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment will release Aeon Flux, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Tomb Raider, Sleepy Hollow and The Manchurian Candidate. Paramount will continue its rollout of Blu-ray titles throughout 2006 and beyond, including Mission: Impossible: III alongside the first two installments in the spy movie franchise. These titles will also be available for HD DVD, the format competing with Blu-ray, which the studio supports as well.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment's initial titles include Fantastic Four, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Kiss of the Dragon and Ice Age, along with others that will bring Fox's total number of first-wave releases to 20 titles.
Lionsgate will add to the mix 10 titles, including The Punisher, T2: Judgment Day, Total Recall and Dune.
Gugino Mulls Museum Night
arla Gugino is in final negotiations to star opposite Ben Stiller in the fantasy movie Night at the Museum for 20th Century Fox, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Shawn Levy is directing the live-action/computer-animated comedy, which centers on a goodhearted but bumbling security guard (Stiller) who works at a natural history museum where he accidentally trips an ancient curse that causes the animals and insects on display to come to life.
Museum is set to begin shooting next month in Vancouver, Canada, and is slated for a holiday release this year.
Gugino most recently appeared in the film Sin City and on CBS' critically praised but short-lived SF drama Threshold. Her upcoming credits include Sebastian Gutierrez's supernatural thriller Rise.
Producers Open Secret Drawer
ndependent producers Daniel Alter and Howard Sun are developing The Secret Drawer Society, a supernatural movie from writer Sharon Scott, Variety reported.
Drawer is based on the practice at East Coast inns of guests' leaving behind letters, often accounts of encounters with ghosts, for future occupants. Scott's script follows two sisters and their friends who seek to unravel the mysteries surrounding a hidden treasure, the trade paper reported.
Scott is a Disney animation veteran and former independent comic-book publisher. Alter and Sun are working with her to develop the script into a line of comic books and a children's animated series, with the goal of creating awareness prior to release of the live-action film.
2 NBC Stations Pulls Daniel
wo NBC affiliates pre-empted the Jan. 6 premiere of the network's religious-themed series The Book of Daniel, which has been the focus of complaints from a religious group. KARK-TV of Little Rock, Ark., told TV Guide Online that it ordered the pre-emption after "careful consideration" of viewer feedback. But WTWO-TV in Terre Haute, Ind., said the decision has little to do with the series itself, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
WTWO-TV said it would pre-empt Daniel to protest what the station views as the network's strong-arm approach to affiliates, as well inconsistent federal oversight of indecent content, the trade paper reported.
Daniel, a comic drama centering on a drug-addicted Episcopalian priest (Aidan Quinn) and his troubled family, has drawn complaints from at least one self-styled conservative watchdog group, the American Family Association, for what it argues is an unflattering portrayal of Christianity.
Others stations have been flooded with e-mails and calls from viewers objecting to the series, at the AFA's urging. NBC has said it stands by the series.
NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. Book of Daniel premieres at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Wind Chill Begins To Blow
shton Holmes and Emily Blunt have been cast as the leads in Revolution Studios' supernatural horror movie Wind Chill, from producers George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, their Section Eight production company and Blue Print Pictures, Variety reported.
Greg Jacobs is directing a script by Joe Gangemi and Steven Katz.
Wind Chill centers on two college students who share a ride home for the holidays, but break down on a deserted stretch of road, where they are menaced by the ghosts of those who died there.
Rings Con To Screen Outtakes
he official The Lord of the Rings convention will screen outtakes from Peter Jackson's epic Rings films during its run in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 20-22, according to Creation, which is sponsoring the for-profit event.
The convention will also feature appearances by Rings stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Miranda Otto and John Noble.
Ghost In The Shell Due As Novel
H Press announced the publication of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex—The Lost Memory, a novel based on the anime TV series. DH Press is an imprint of Dark Horse Comics.
The Stand Alone Complex TV show and novels are based on the mythos of Shirow Masamune's manga classics Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2 Man-Machine Interface.
The new novel focuses on Section 9, which faces a new nemesis in "The Awakened," a group of terrorists who seem to have the ability to take over the minds and bodies of almost anyone and use them to commit crimes against the state. Maj. Motoko Kusanagi is able to hack into one of the pawns' cyberbrains to find out who the ringleader is. What she discovers will take her and the operatives of Section 9 on a journey deep into the heart of cyberspace.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex—The Lost Memory is written by Junichi Fujisaku. It goes on sale April 12, with a suggested retail price of $8.95.
Fantasy XI Xbox 360 Beta Starts
he GameSpot Web site reported that Square Enix will give Xbox 360 owners a sneak peek at its upcoming Final Fantasy XI massively multiplayer online role-playing game during a beta testing period.
After applying, gamers will need to get their hands on the February issue of The Official Xbox Magazine and its demo disc, which includes the beta versions of the original game and both the Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia expansion packs. The beta period will be free of charge to players, and the game can be logged onto using either a premium gold or fee-free silver Xbox Live account, the site reported. When the game goes live in May, Xbox 360 players will be able to join PlayStation 2 and PC players online.
The game was originally released in mid-2002 for the PlayStation 2 in Japan.
Futureshocks Predicts The Present
F writer/editor/publisher Lou Anders, whose new anthology Futureshocks has just been released, told SCI FI Wire he prefers anthologies with original stories over ones with previously published works. "I believe that science fiction, more so than other forms of literature, is an ongoing, evolving dialogue between some of the smartest minds of our time," Anders said in an interview. "Short stories are at the front line of this dialogue, and a work of ... new fiction stands a better chance of being immediately relevant to the field, entering that dialogue and having an impact on the field." As an example, Anders points to Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, which he calls "still the most famous original and influential anthology of all time."
In Futureshocks, Anders asked several writers, including Kevin J. Anderson, Mike Resnick, Harry Turtledove and Alan Dean Foster, to comment on the instability and uncertainty of life in the 21st century. "Our current present certainly presents enough compelling reasons to be pessimistic, and I wanted to take the bull by the horns and address these concerns head-on," Anders said. "It's a look at the 'dark side of tomorrow,' an examination of new fears and new future shocks emerging out of technological, sociological or biological change. And, surprisingly, when you ask a group of writers to explore their dark side, while you get some very disturbing imagery from some, you get quite a bit of comedy from others!"
Unlike his last anthology, Live Without a Net, Futureshocks was "an editor's dream," Anders said. All authors met their deadlines and stuck to their word counts. He didn't have to plead, prod or shift stories around.
Next up for Anders, in addition to his ongoing duties as head of Prometheus Books' Pyr imprint, is a short story, "The Madlands," included in the Chris Roberson-edited Adventure Vol. 1 anthology. He will release his fifth anthology, Fast Forward, through Pyr next year. (Futureshocks is published by Penguin.)
Brandon Awards Recognize Diversity
ictor J. Raymond, chair of the Carl Brandon Society board of directors, told SCI FI Wire that the group will be sponsoring two new speculative fiction awards to recognize people of color. The Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award will be given to a work by a person of color. The Carl Brandon Society Kindred Award will recognize excellence in speculative fiction that deals with issues of race and ethnicity. Recipients of each award will receive a $1,000 cash prize.
The Carl Brandon Society was founded in 1998 at WisCon, the world's foremost feminist science fiction convention. Society founders "were inspired by previous work done to recognize the contributions of women to science fiction and wanted to build a similar awareness around issues of race and ethnicity in speculative fiction," Raymond said in an interview. "With the support and encouragement of the WisCon community, [the society founders] built an informal network of readers and writers of color and friends."
The society is named after the fictional fan of color "Carl Brandon Jr.," a creation of FANAC fanzine editors Terry Carr and Peter Graham. Brandon was used "to explore concepts of race ... during a time when the landscape of speculative fiction was decidedly monotone," the society said in a statement.
The success of the James Tiptree Jr. Award, which honors works that expore gender roles, inspired the society to create its own awards. "The awards are intended to raise the visibility of people of color in speculative fiction, which has been traditionally seen as being a very white genre," Raymond said.
The Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award derives its name from the fact that writers of color "see the world from a myriad of perspectives," Raymond said.
Speculative works by authors of any racial or ethnic background are eligible for the Carl Brandon Society Kindred Award, provided the work deals with issues of race and ethnicity. The name of the award refers to what the Lakota call "mitakuye oyasin": the idea that all humans are related—kindred—no matter the color of their skin.
A jury comprising writers, activists and scholars will determine the winners, who will be announced in May at WisCon 30 in Madison, Wis.
Chicken Scribes Hit Link
hicken Little writers Ron Friedman and Steve Bencich are reteaming with Walt Disney Pictures for the live-action family comedy The Missing Link, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie is described as a monkey spy adventure in the vein of The Bourne Identity.
Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson of ContraFilm are producing, along with Bryan Brucks, who brought the idea to Flynn and ContraFilm creative executive Gitty Daneshvari.
Friedman and Bencich are best known for their animation work, including Disney's Brother Bear. They recently branched out into non-animated fare and sold the live-action pitch The Treehouse to Warner Brothers.
Atkins Buries Himself In Caved In
hristopher Atkins, who stars in SCI FI Channel's original movie Caved In: Prehistoric Terror, told SCI FI Wire that it has lots of action, thrills, special effects and a solid story. Atkins (The Blue Lagoon) co-stars with Colm Meaney (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Angela Featherstone (Soul Survivors) and David Palffy (Stargate SG-1).
"The thing that I thought was very interesting about it, and would lend itself to a really great series, actually, is that it's about an adventure family," Atkins said in an interview. "I play the father, and he's an [adventurer] who takes people on tours, mountain climbing and to extreme adventure places. He's not just a normal, 'Let's go for a hike' type of guy. He's very good at what he does, and he's competitive with others in what he does. But he involves his family, which is pretty cool. The kids and wife [Featherstone] go along and sort of put up with it."
Atkins added: "What happens in the movie is that he's hired to take these people [including Meaney and Palffy] down into these old mine shafts that have basically been sealed off and forgotten for 50 or 100 years. Of course, when they get down there to these mine shafts there's this legend that's attached to them, and we come to find out that the legend is true, that there are these humongous prehistoric rhinoceros beetles."
A relative novice in SF and horror productions, Atkins said that he enjoyed shooting a movie as effects-laden as Caved In. "I was pretty new at that," he said. "Most of the movies I've done before have not involved a lot of effects. But it wasn't too terrible. It was kind of fun and exciting, because I've always wanted to do that. I always thought it would be fun to react to stuff that isn't there, to have people tell you how big something is supposed to be or where something is supposed to be, all this sort of stuff, when you have no idea what any of it is going to look like. That was really kind of fun and a cool challenge. We had a blast doing it." Caved In: Prehistoric Terror premiered Jan. 7 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Briefly Noted
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The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site has posted the preliminary ballot for the 2005 Nebula Awards, to be presented at the 2006 Nebula Weekend, May 4-7 in Tempe, Ariz.
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Rumors of a possible deal between Disney and Pixar, the animation company behind The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, has sent the company's stock soaring, though it's still unclear whether it is simply a renewal of the Disney-Pixar distribution agreement or if Disney would be taking a stake in the firm, Variety reported.
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House of Wax star Paris Hilton is accused of spewing "vicious lies" about an altercation with a romantic rival at a London nightclub and harassing a business promoter in two lawsuits set for court this month, the Associated Press reported.
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Herbie: Fully Loaded star Lindsay Lohan confessed to Vanity Fair magazine that she experimented with drugs and struggled with bulimia.
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The Producers Guild of America nominated Chicken Little, Madagascar, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Robots and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride for best animated film of the year, Variety reported.
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The French Excessif.com Web site has posted a teaser trailer for Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro's next movie, the supernatural fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth.
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Sony has launched an online game to promote its upcoming sequel film Underworld: Evolution, which opens Jan. 20.
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Winners of the Third Annual Wooden Rocket Awards, sponsored by SF Crowsnest and honoring the best science fiction and fantasy Web sites, include Sci Fiction as best online magazine.
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Lost cast member Cynthia Watros is going to plead guilty in her driving-under-the influence case on Jan. 12, but co-star Michelle Rodriguez may opt to go to trial on March 30, the Associated Press reported.
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CountingDown.com has posted a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of the opening rollercoaster disaster from the upcoming supernatural thriller movie Final Destination 3.
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