Another ID4 Looks Likely
wentieth Century Fox and filmmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin are in talks to produce a sequel to the 1996 box-office hit Independence Day, according to Variety's Michael Flemming.
Flemming reports that Emmerich and Devlin have hit upon an idea for a second film that will likely reunite ID4 stars Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum.
More importantly, Fox, Emmerich and Devlin may have found a way to put aside the bad blood that arose when the two filmmakers left Fox and signed a long-term deal with Sony Pictures.
Independence Day, the third highest-grossing film of all time, took in a whopping $814 million at the box office.
Snipes Bites Into Blade Sequel
esley Snipes has agreed to reprise his role as the half-human, half-vampire superhero that he made famous in the 1998 New Line flick Blade.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Snipes will star in an upcoming Blade sequel as well as produce the movie through his company Amen Ra Films.
Blade screenwriter David Goyer will oversee the script for the new film, though there is no word yet on who will direct. The first Blade movie, based on the Marvel comic of the same name, brought in $70 million in domestic ticket sales.
WB Looks For Superman Director
arner Bros. is looking for a director to take the helm of its on-again, off-again film Superman Lives, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Since Tim Burton's highly publicized departure from the project, Warner has reportedly been looking at Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), Simon West (Con Air) and Steve Norrington (Blade) as possible replacements.
By all accounts Nicolas Cage is still attached to star as the Man of Steel, though the oft-rewritten screenplay for the flick is supposedly undergoing more lengthy revisions.
Even if Warner does settle on a new director, it's unclear when the film would begin shooting.
Ramis Gives Up Galaxy Quest
irector Harold Ramis is giving up plans to work on the DreamWorks SF comedy film Galaxy Quest, according to Variety.
The entertainment trade publication speculated that Ramis simply wants to take a break after working on the Robert De Niro/Billy Crystal film Analyze This, which hits theaters on March 5.
Galaxy Quest tells the story of a former TV actor who has to play his role as a space captain for real when he and his cast mates are recruited by aliens to save their endangered race. Although no new director has been lined up for the flick, shooting is expected to begin as scheduled this summer.
Untangling Spider-Man's Web
arvel Comics has managed to cut through some of the legal webs that are entangling the rights to a live-action feature film version of the popular superhero Spider-Man, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The comic book company recently won a summary judgment dismissing claims that MGM has proprietary rights to such a film.
However, Marvel is not in the clear yet. MGM has vowed to appeal the decision and also said that it has other claims of ownership that it intends to put forward. In the meantime, Sony is still pressing claims that it owns the Spidey rights.
THQ Unleashes Sinistar
HQ Inc. said it plans to release the PC game Sinistar Unleashed--a modern-day update of the 1983 hit SF arcade game Sinistar--in June.
Unleashed is being developed by THQ's subsidiary GameFX, which plans to bring Sinistar into the world of 3-D "while retaining the spirit of the original game design."
Like its coin-operated predecessor, Sinistar Unleashed will challenge players to advance through a series of progressively harder levels by blasting asteroids, collecting energy crystals and avoiding the evil being known as Sinistar. The original Sinistar game was notable for introducing both digitized speech and stereo sound into the arcade world, forever immortalizing phrases such as "Beware, I live" and "Run coward."
Space Plans Merril Special
anada's Space: The Imagination Station plans to air What If...A Film About Judith Merril on Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. ET.
As the title suggests, the special tells the story of legendary SF author and editor Judith Merril, who made her debut in 1948 with the short story "That Only A Mother."
"What If...A Film About Judith Merril explores science fiction's Golden Age of the forties and fifties, as seen through the eyes of one of its shining stars," according to a Space press release. "La grande dame of science fiction's literary world for over 50 years, Merril pushed the boundaries of science fiction, a genre once primarily dominated by men."
Tom Corbett Gets A New Rocket
oondock Books announced that it will rerelease the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet novel series for NuvoMedia's Rocket eBook, a portable electronic book reader.
Boondock plans to publish electronic versions of seven Corbett titles, along with 10-15 books from Jerry Ahern's Survivalist series, in February and March.
The Tom Corbett books were originally published by Grosset and Dunlap in the 1950s and were penned by one or more authors using the house name Carey Rockwell. Both the novels and the Tom Corbett TV show of the same era were based on Robert A. Heinlein's best-selling 1948 novel Space Cadet.
SF&F Lambda Nominees Announced
he nominees in the SF&F category for the 11th Lambda Literary Awards have been announced.
The awards, which honor gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender literary excellence, will be presented on April 29. This year's SF&F nominees are:
- Bending the Landscape edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel
- Desmond by Ulysses Dietz
- Falling to Earth by Elizabeth Brownrigg
- Galilee by Clive Barker
- Things Invisible to See by Lawrence Schimel
Briefly Noted
- SF author Anne McCaffrey received the American Library Association's Margaret Edwards Award for lifetime achievement.
- Chris Carter has been nominated for a Director's Guild of America award for his work on the X-Files episode "Triangle."
- In separate deals, ABC has acquired the broadcast TV rights to Meet Joe Black and A Bug's Life.
- Andrew Niccol has been nominated for a Writer's Guild of America Award in the screenwriting category for his work on The Truman Show.
- Famke Janssen (The Faculty) is reportedly in final negotiations to star opposite Geoffrey Rush in Dark Castle Entertainment's remake of The House on Haunted Hill, according to published reports.
- Wizards of the Coast reports that its trading card game Pokemon--based on the Gameboy title of the same name--sold 400,000 copies in less than six weeks.
