10:43 am ET, 18-Mar-98
Hill Takes Over Supernova
Geoffrey Wright is out and Walter Hill is in as director of the SF thriller Supernova, which is scheduled to begin production next month. Variety reported that Wright, the director of such films as Romper Stomper and Metal Skin, left the film due to "creative differences."
Although Hill is filling in for Wright at the last moment, this is not the first time he's been involved in the SF thriller genre. Hill previously served as the producer for Alien, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection, and as executive producer for Aliens. He also comes with plenty of directorial experience, having helmed projects such as 48 Hours and Last Man Standing.
Supernova has been described as Dead Calm set in space. The story is about a deep space rescue ship that answers a distress call from a damaged freighter, only to end up imperiled by a dangerous alien.
10:22 am ET, 17-Mar-98
Disney Predicts Armageddon Smash
Walt Disney has high hopes for its upcoming SF/disaster flick Armageddon, which stars Bruce Willis as the head of an elite team sent to knock a killer asteroid off its collision course with Earth. At a recent luncheon where Disney-based producer Jerry Bruckheimer was honored, Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth predicted Bruckheimer's Armageddon and his upcoming film Enemy of the State would together gross $1 billion worldwide, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
And Roth wasn't the only one opining that Armageddon would be a smash hit at the box office. Bruckheimer himself called the film "the biggest movie I've ever made" and suggested it would be a huge money-earner for Disney.
10:20 am ET, 16-Mar-98
Activision Releases Battlezone Remake
Activision has released the long-awaited remake of the 1980 arcade game Battlezone, and the company hopes the 1998 PC version will be as groundbreaking as its famous predecessor. The original Battlezone was created by Atari and introduced 3-D graphics to the game world, causing a minor sensation among arcade-goers.
Activision says its Battlezone has created an entirely new game genre, which the company calls "the first-person action-strategy game." The premise of the game is that players will command an individual combat unit in battle while simultaneously making real-time strategy decisions, such as directing friendly forces, managing resources and building factories.
The story hearkens back to the 1960s Cold War era between the United States and the Soviet Union, although in this case the two world powers are fighting it out around the galaxy for control of alien technology. The game retails for $49.95, and Activision has also released a free playable game demo on its Web site.
10:30 am ET, 13-Mar-98
X Marks The Top Spot Again
While NBC's The Profiler and The Pretender and CBS's Early Edition had the week of Feb. 23 - March 1 off, Fox's The X-Files was definitely on, earning a 12.6 rating to lead the Sci-Fi Wire Top 20 list of speculative fiction TV shows. That was nearly six points better than the No. 2 finisher, NBC's 3rd Rock from the Sun, and exactly twice the rating of Universal TV's Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which took third for the week.
Fox's other SF show, Millennium, returned to the airwaves after a week off and managed a 5.7 rating, enough to finish in fifth place on the Top 20. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Buffy The Vampire Slayer also performed well, earning a 5.1 and 4.3 rating respectively.
Below is our complete Top 20 list for the week ending March 1, based on the Nielsen Galaxy report. The HH Rating is the average number of households tuned in to a particular show, expressed as a percentage of all television households.
| RANK |
NETWORK/
SYNDICATOR |
PROGRAM |
HH RATING |
| 1 |
Fox |
The X-Files |
12.6 |
| 2 |
NBC |
3rd Rock |
6.8 |
| 3 |
Universal TV |
Hercules |
6.3 |
| 4 |
Universal TV |
Xena |
5.8 |
| 5 |
Fox |
Millennium |
5.7 |
| 6 |
Paramount |
Star Trek: DS9 |
5.1 |
| 7 |
WB |
Buffy |
4.3 |
| 8 |
UPN |
Star Trek: Voyager |
4.3 |
| 9 |
Tribune |
Earth: Final Conflict |
4.0 |
| 10 |
Buena Vista TV |
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids |
2.9 |
| 11 |
MGM |
The Outer Limits |
2.8 |
| 12 |
Tirbune |
Nightman |
2.7 |
| 13 |
UPN |
The Sentinel |
2.5 |
| 14 |
Rysher |
Highlander |
2.4 |
| 15 |
Eyemark |
Psi Factor |
2.2 |
| 16 |
Paramount |
Viper |
2.2 |
| 17 |
Universal TV |
Team Knight Rider |
2.1 |
| 18 |
20th Television |
Tales from the Crypt |
1.9 |
| 19 |
MGM |
Poltergeist: The Legacy |
1.9 |
| 20 |
Rysher |
F/X |
1.8 |
| Source: Nielsen Galaxy 2/23-3/1. Nielsen data subject to qualifications to be supplied upon request. |
10:33 am ET, 12-Mar-98
Straczynski's Crusade Almost Official
When the Babylon 5 production crew finishes shooting the show's fifth and final season later this month, B5 creator and executive producer J. Michael Straczynski will already be at work on his next series, The Babylon Project: Crusade. Crusade is a spin-off series set in the B5 universe, and although Straczynski and Warner Bros. haven't signed the final papers yet, Straczynski has said the two sides have agreed in principle on a deal for the project.
Crusade will tentatively debut on TNT in either fall 1998 or spring 1999, and it begins chronologically about a year after the final events in B5's fifth season. The new series will focus on the attempts by the crew of an Earth/Minbari ship dubbed Excalibur to find a way to save Earth from a devastating plague that will wipe out every human on the planet within five years. Like B5, Crusade will have a five-year story arc, but Straczynski has said it will be "less rigorous" than B5's.
Fans who just can't get enough of the original B5 will be pleased to know that air dates for the three upcoming B5 telefilms have been set. Straczynski recently announced that the B5 telefilm Thirdspace will air on TNT on July 19, while the next two as-yet-untitled telefilms will be shown on Nov. 23 and Jan. 3, 1999, respectively.
11:35 am ET, 11-Mar-98
Smith Earns Two Blockbuster Awards
Men in Black co-star Will Smith took home two honors during the fourth annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, which were announced Tuesday, March 10, at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. Smith earned the award for Best Actor - Science Fiction for his role in MiB and also won the Best Soundtrack award for his musical contribution to MiB.
Other winners of note to SF fans included Uma Thurman, who earned the Best Actress - Science Fiction award for her role in Batman & Robin; Robin Williams, who was honored with the Best Actor - Family award for his performance in Flubber; Chris O'Donnell, who won the Favorite Supporting Actor - Science Fiction award for his role in Batman & Robin; Winona Ryder, who won the Favorite Actress - Science Fiction award for her role in Alien Resurrection; and SF action star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was honored with the World Artist Award.
Voters cast their ballots at special voting kiosks that were available in Blockbuster Video and Blockbuster Music stores. More than 11 million votes were counted in 32 categories, leading Blockbuster to claim its awards are the "largest publicly voted entertainment awards ever."
8:15 pm ET, 10-Mar-98
The Postman Named Most Boring Film
Kevin Costner's box-office flop The Postman failed to capture the interest of moviegoers last year, and Alan Caruba thinks he knows why: the film was just too boring. Caruba, head of The Boring Institute in Maplewood, N.J., announced on Monday that he had named Costner's rambling, three-hour SF epic the Most Boring Film of 1997.
"Just as life in America keeps getting better and better, Hollywood continues to offer the most awful scenarios of the future with films like The Fifth Element, Gattaca and Costner's The Postman, which delivered hours of tedium," Caruba said. He added that The Postman was "too long, too goofy, too pessimistic to deserve anything but the dustbin."
The Boring Institute also singled out Starship Troopers and Mimic as particularly boring movies of 1997, while The Fifth Element and its star Bruce Willis were "honored" with the top Big Stars/Big Flops award. The Boring Institute was founded in 1984 by Caruba, an internationally recognized media spoof who says the timing of the Institute's awards and that of Academy Awards is "just a pure coincidence."
3:17 pm ET, 10-Mar-98
Algernon Telefilm In The Works
Citadel Entertainment purchased the TV rights to Daniel Keyes' award-winning SF story "Flowers for Algernon," according to The Hollywood Reporter. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will develop a CBS telefilm based on the story, which has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide in book form.
"Algernon" was first published as a short story in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959, and it earned a Hugo Award the next year. The story was later expanded into the 1966 book of the same name, which subsequently earned a Nebula Award. "Algernon" was also adapted into the 1961 TV feature "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon" and the 1968 feature film Charly.
Cliff Robertson, the Oscar-winning star and co-producer of Charly, reportedly fought the Citadel purchase through arbitration but lost. He is at work on a sequel to Charly called Charly II, which is currently in development. Meanwhile, CBS may air its telefilm as early as next season.
3:32 pm ET, 9-Mar-98
Myst Brothers Riven By Departure
Rand and Robyn Miller, the two brothers who created the popular SF&F game Myst and its best-selling sequel Riven, have announced they are going their separate ways, according to numerous published reports. Rand has left the duo's self-made company Cyan to pursue film projects unrelated to the Myst world, while Robyn will stay onboard Cyan to shepherd the Myst franchise.
All reports say the breakup was amicable and that the brothers may work together on future projects if their professional paths cross again. However, although there is talk of a Myst or Riven movie in the works, Rand has said he would not be involved with it.
Back at Cyan, Robyn has said there will not be another sequel in the Myst game series, but the company is working on several related entertainment products, including soundtrack CDs for both of the games. Myst was released in 1993 and quickly became the highest-selling CD-ROM title of all time, an honor it still holds today. Riven was released in October 1997 and sold more than a million copies in its first three months on store shelves.
3:07 pm ET, 9-Mar-98
Showtime Orders More SG-1, Outer Limits
As part of a new deal between the MGM Worldwide Television Group and Showtime Networks Inc., Showtime has ordered an additional 44 episodes of both Stargate SG-1 and The Outer Limits from MGM. The deal doubles the number of SG-1 episodes Showtime had originally asked for, bringing the total to 88, and increases the Outer Limits order from 88 to 112 episodes.
The new agreement extends a 1993 pact between the two companies that gives Showtime the exclusive pay-television rights to a number of MGM, United Artists and Goldwyn Films features, as well as several original TV series created by MGM. Showtime also has the option to pick up 10 additional episodes of The Outer Limits that MGM is producing for syndication.
11:58 am ET, 9-Mar-98
Touchstone Buys Tripods Rights
Touchstone Pictures bought the film rights to John Christopher's popular juvenile SF series The Tripods Trilogy, according to Variety. The series, which includes the books The White Mountains, The City of Gold and The Pool of Fire, is set in the 21st century, years after the alien Tripods have conquered Earth.
The Tripods enslave humanity by means of mind-control devices that are implanted in every person over the age of 15. The three young protagonists of the story set out to discover the secret of the Tripods and save Earth before they themselves can be turned into slaves.
The first Tripod book was published in 1967, and in 1984 part of the series was adapted for TV by the BBC. Christopher, whose real name is Sam Youd, sold his first science fiction story in 1949 and has since published more than 50 novels.
