Jackson Already Writing Hobbit

Entertainment Weekly reported that Peter Jackson and his producing/writing partners, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, will join director Guillermo del Toro writing the screenplay for The Hobbit and its sequel.

Sources told EW.com that the writers' deals are all complete and that they have already begun writing. Shooting is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2009, at the earliest, in New Zealand.

The Hobbit, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book, will center on Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins, and his initial discovery of the powerful ring. New Line and MGM plan to release the two films Christmas 2011 and Christmas 2012. Stargate Universe Coming

SCI FI Channel announced that it has given a green light to produce Stargate Universe, the third series in the long-running SF franchise, with production on the MGM Television Entertainment show set to begin in early 2009.

Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, co-creators of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, will serve as executive producers and writers on the new show. (Atlantis ends its five seasons next year but will continue in a two-hour telefilm.)

"SCI FI has enjoyed tremendous success with Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, and we're proud to be the home of the new Stargate Universe," Mark Stern, executive vice president, original programming for SCI FI, said in a statement. "Universe will continue the Stargate legacy of vibrant storylines and compelling adventures, but will re-invent the format in a whole new way."

After unlocking the mystery of the Stargate's ninth chevron, a team of explorers travels to an unmanned starship called the Destiny, launched by the Ancients at the height of their civilization as a grand experiment set in motion but never completed.

What starts as a simple reconnaissance turns into a never-ending mission as the Stargate Universe crew discovers that the ship is unable to return to Earth and that they must now fend for themselves aboard the Destiny.

The crew will travel to the far reaches of the universe, connecting with each of the previously launched Stargates, thus fulfilling the Destiny's original mission.

Stargate Universe will debut as a two-hour movie event on SCI FI. Following its premiere, Universe will assume a regular hourly slot in the summer of 2009. New Watchmen Images Here!

Warner Brothers released four new images from Zack Snyder's upcoming Watchmen movie, including a cool new still of the Owl Ship.

Malin Akerman is the Silk Spectre II and Patrick Wilson is Nite Owl in the first image:



Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the amoral Comedian in the next:



Jackie Earle Haley slips on Rorschach's mask in the third image:



Wilson, as Nite Owl, in the cave where he keeps the Owl Ship:



Watchmen opens March 6, 2009.Potter's Radcliffe Reveals Brain Disorder

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe told the British Daily Mail newspaper that he suffers from a little-known brain disorder that is often associated with clumsiness.

Radcliffe told the paper that he has dyspraxia, a common neurological problem that impairs the organization of movement and often has no obvious cause.

Among other things, the condition means the 19-year-old still has trouble tying his shoelaces.

Radcliffe revealed that he became an actor partly because his dyspraxia meant he was not successful at school.

The newspaper reported that Radcliffe's dyspraxia is at the mild end of the spectrum, but in severe cases it can make it difficult to walk up and down stairs or run, hop, jump or kick a ball. In adults, it can affect a person's ability to perform in stressful or challenging situations and make tasks such as driving difficult.Knight's K.I.T.T. Cave Revealed

SCI FI Wire got an exclusive peek at shooting of NBC's upcoming Knight Rider in its super-high-tech underground lab, the "K.I.T.T. Cave," on Aug. 20.

In reality, the lab--situated in an undisclosed location in an unidentified city--is actually an elaborate set at Santa Clarita Studios, just north of Los Angeles. The set represents K.I.T.T.'s multilevel underground hideout.

In the center of the set, on a rotating metal platform, sits the $75,000 2008 Ford Mustang GT500KR itself. When K.I.T.T.'s ready to go, it revs up and speeds down a tunnel inside a soundstage. "They don't let me drive it very much, but I get to sit in it, and it's pretty comfortable," admitted star Justin Bruening, who plays Mike Tracer, the ex-soldier who is the human companion to the super-intelligent talking car voiced by Val Kilmer. (Tracer acquires the codename "Michael Knight" in the show's first episode.)

Between takes this week, Bruening inadvertently cracked up his co-star, Deanna Russo, who plays his love interest, Sarah Graiman. "We also get to fight, too," she said. "I had to take fight-training lessons, and later on today we're going to fight."

Bruce Davison--who plays Sarah's father, the scientist who helped build K.I.T.T.--confessed that he's really a technophobe. "I'm not into this technical gadgetry at all," he said. "I had to learn a lot, but it has been fun."

This story continues below the image.



The computers in the K.I.T.T. Cave are inspired in part by futurists at Microsoft, executive producer Gary Scott Thompson said. "We met with their technology people to see what they have coming up, and we were surprised that we were actually coming up with ideas that they weren't going to be doing for another 10 or 20 years or so. But we used some of their ideas."

Among the high-tech gadgetry: tables that that can download information from a telephone or computer set on top of them and computers that can manipulate images at the flick of a finger.

"I just move my hands over the computers, and someone in the back is flipping lights and buttons to make it look like I'm doing something," cast member Paul Campbell said. Campbell--who played the ill-fated Billy on Battlestar Galactica--plays Bill Morgan, a comic-relief computer geek. "I'm destined to play characters named Billy in TV-show remakes," he quipped.

The producers promise that the series will be less campy than the original 1980s show, while remaining funny and family-oriented. But there will be lots of eye candy: Thompson said the first episode has more than 700 special effects. "I'm not sure we will be able to keep up that level of fast action, but we're going to sure try," he said.

The show will update the characters and premise first introduced in a television movie/backdoor pilot that aired on NBC in February. Bruening's character has been given a mysterious past involving his experiences in the Iraq War, and he will have disdain for Blackwater personnel in particular.

On the day of SCI FI Wire's visit, the "attack car" version of K.I.T.T. sat outside the studio. It's the armored, battle-ready version of the Mustang into which the regular K.I.T.T. morphs.

"When someone says, 'So your car can talk; so what, so can mine?' then Knight says, 'Yeah, but can your car do this?'" Thompson said. Knight Rider premieres on Sept. 24 and will air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Mike Szymanski



From left, cast members Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Carrie Ruvai, Justin Bruening as Mike Tracer/Michael Knight and Deanna Russo as Sarah Graiman. (NBC Photo: Mitchell Haaseth)Hasselhoff Returns To Knight?

David Hasselhoff--who starred in the original Knight Rider TV series--is making final arrangements for an appearance on the new show--maybe with a surprising car, executive producer Gary Scott Thompson told SCI FI Wire during an exclusive set visit on Aug. 20. That's the first time the show's producers have confirmed that they are considering inviting Hasselhoff onto the new series.

"He may make an appearance later this season," Thompson said in an interview on the show's set in Santa Clarita, Calif. "He is talking to NBC next week, and we are working out everyone's schedule ... I don't want to put him in just for the sake of having him drop by; I want there to be a good reason for him being there and have it be part of the story. I talked to David about a way of doing that, and so far he likes it. It's a cool idea."

Thompson (Las Vegas) added that he has a dream scenario: Teaming Hasselhoff's Michael Knight with Justin Bruening's Mike Tracer, with both K.I.T.T.s: The original Pontiac Trans Am, originally voiced by William Daniels, and the Ford Mustang GT500KR, voiced by Val Kilmer. "I don't know if it will happen," Thompson said. "It's all about timing."

As recently as early summer, Hasselhoff was quoted as saying that he didn't think the recent NBC reboot and update of the series would work without him or his input. (Hasselhoff had a cameo in the two-hour pilot telefilm that aired earlier this year, reprising his original role.)

"Those were old quotes," Thompson said. "He doesn't feel that way anymore. ... I just talked with David the other day over breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel and explained to him in great detail what we had planned for the show, and he said he liked it and gave his approval."

Knight Rider picks up the story from the pilot movie and centers on a high-tech crime-fighting team that operates the intelligent car, called K.I.T.T.

Justin Bruening is reprising his role as Knight's son, Mike Tracer. Thompson, who wasn't involved in the TV movie, said he is planning to make the weekly show even more action-packed and fast-paced.

The cast includes Deanna Russo, Bruce Davison, Yancey Arias, Paul Campbell, Sydney Tamiia Poitier and Smith Cho. It is currently filming the seventh of 13 episodes that are already written, Thompson said.

Hasselhoff is "still a big fan of the show obviously," Thompson said. "He has known Bruce [Davison] for a long time, and when I met with him, he basically gave me his blessing, and I told him everything I wanted to do. And he said 'That's awesome.' I do not want to get the fans' hopes up or anything, but I'm talking to NBC, and he's talking to NBC and it's all a matter of timing." Knight Rider premieres Sept. 24 and will air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Mike SzymanskiFall's Sci-Fi TV Hits--And Misses

The success of Heroes and Lost has spawned a new generation of SF&F TV shows for fall 2008, coming to a flat-screen near you.

What's different for 2008 is the wide variety of shows: From high-tech cars to time-traveling cops to mystical romances, this year has a little something for everyone. Which will be the breakout hits and which will be but distant memories come next fall, when a new bunch of shows will arrive to replace them?

As a service to you, the busy and possibly overwhelmed viewer, SCI FI Wire offers its predictions for the hits and misses of the fall 2008 season, in descending order, based on early buzz and the pilots we've seen so far. You can take these to the bank.

Fringe. Fox. Premieres Sept. 9. Airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

From J.J. Abrams and his Star Trek writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, Fringe centers on FBI special agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), who finds herself drawn into an investigation of a mysterious aircraft disaster in Boston. We love this show. Odds of success: 2 to 1

Knight Rider. NBC. Premieres Sept. 24. Airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

Last spring, NBC aired a TV movie/backdoor pilot to revive the franchise that made David Hasselhoff a star. The network is following up with a full-fledged series about the iconic car known as K.I.T.T. and the humans who run him. Equipped with state-of-the art technology, artificial intelligence and the voice of Val Kilmer, K.I.T.T. is partnered with Justin Bruening as Mike Tracer, the estranged son of Hasselhoff's Michael Knight, who continues his father's legacy by fighting bad guys on the open road. The movie did well enough, so there may be an audience for this show. The new show runner, Las Vegas' Gary Scott Thompson, has revamped the series to amp up the action, and he's added a bunch of new characters. Plus, this is a title with some history--but so was Bionic Woman, so that's no guarantee of ratings success. Odds of success: 5 to 1



Life on Mars. ABC. Premieres Oct. 9. Airs Thursdays at 10 p.m.

The bar was set pretty high for this remake of the hit BBC show, about a modern-day cop who finds himself thrown back to 1973, and ABC failed to meet it with a dismal David E. Kelley-produced pilot. Not to be deterred, the network scrapped that effort and brought on producers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (October Road) to completely retool the show. It's too early to tell for sure if the cast changes and move from L.A. to New York will make a difference, but at least the new show runners seem to have a handle on what made the British show good. O'Mara still has a long way to go to fill John Simm's Cuban heels, but The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli is a nice addition, and Harvey Keitel as Gene Hunt is sheer brilliance. If the new retro promos are any indication, ABC finally seems one of the most important aspects of the show--it's not about just nostalgia for the '70s, but nostalgia for the TV of the '70s. And that timeslot after Grey's Anatomy doesn't hurt either. Odds of success: 6 to 1.

Kings. NBC. Premiere TBD.

Set in the alternate-reality nation of Gilboa, this modern-day biblical tale of David and Goliath follows the rise of David Shepherd (Christopher Egan), an idealistic solder invited to join the court of King Silas Benjamin (Ian McShane) after a heroic battle. Once there, he is disillusioned by the intrigues and deceptions he finds at every turn, yet helplessly taken in by the king's beautiful daughter (Allison Miller). Created by Michael Green, a veteran of Heroes and Smallville, this project has ambition written all over it. That can be a double-edged sword, but whe

n combined with passion and storytelling talent it can click with loyal viewers. The concept may be difficult for a general audience to grasp at first, but if it gets a chance to prove itself, the soap-opera aspect and striking visuals may appeal to more than just a cult audience. Odds of success: 6 to 1 This story continues below the image.



My Own Worst Enemy. NBC. Premieres Oct. 13. Airs Mondays at 10 p.m.

Think The Bourne Identity meets Jekyll and Hyde. Christian Slater stars in as family man Henry Spivey and secret government operative Edward Albright, two very different men who share the same body. This could also be a comeback of sorts for Slater, who gets to stretch here in two very different roles, and he brings considerable charm to both. But it will take some clever writing to keep this interesting premise from wearing thin too early in the season. The premiere may draw a good number of curious viewers, but they'll need a reason to come back the following week. Odds of success: 7 to 1

True Blood. HBO. Premieres Sept. 7. Airs Sundays at 9 p.m.

Yet another vampire show emerges, this one from Six Feet Under producer Alan Ball. This small-town drama, based on novelist Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries, takes place in a world where a Japanese-made synthetic blood substitute allows humans and vampires to co-exist. It's not exactly a peaceful co-existence, and the show uses the metaphor of vampires as outsiders to explore issues of tolerance and the human condition in general. If it sounds familiar, that's because it's been done before. Lots of times. In this case, the protagonist is Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic roadhouse waitress who falls in love with a local 173-year-old vampire (Stephen Moyer). This is HBO (not TV, as the network likes to point out), so the playing field is a bit wider here, but Ball's challenge will be finding new ground to cover within the well-traveled territory of vampire lore. The pilot hinted at this, but the success of the show will depend on how well he's able to do that in future episodes. Odds of success: 12 to 1

The Ex List. CBS. Premiere TBD. Airs Fridays at 9 p.m.

After a psychic at a bachelorette party informs her that she has already met her true love, Bella (Elizabeth Reaser) goes on a quest to reconnect with all of her ex-boyfriends. If she doesn't find "the one" before the year is out, she will be alone forever. The idea comes from a hit Israeli dramedy called Mythological X, but it seems a bit confining for an American show, given the year timeline and the fact that if she actually does find the guy, the show is over. Even more troubling, the audience is supposed to root for Bella, but it's hard when there is little to admire about her. There are two bright spots here, though. The first is its Friday-night lead-in, Ghost Whisperer, which appeals to the same potential demographic. The second is executive producer Diane Ruggiero, a veteran of the underrated Veronica Mars. Still, we predict a tough sell. Odds of success: 15 to 1

Eleventh Hour. CBS. Premieres Sept. 24. Airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

Based on the British miniseries of the same name, this Jerry Bruckheimer-produced drama straddles the line between fact and fiction. Rufus Sewell stars as Dr. Jacob Hood, a specialist in the area of scientific crises and oddities who is called in--you guessed it--at the 11th hour, when all other attempts at investigation have failed. Grindhouse's Marley Shelton plays the FBI agent assigned to protect him. Bruckheimer has a winning track record with the CSI dynasty, but this one may prove to lower his average. Even if the pilot weren't contrived and full of cringe-worthy dialogue,

it would still likely be eclipsed by comparisons with The X-Files and competition from the similar--and far better--Fringe. Odds of success: 25 to 1

(NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Cindy White, with Mike Szymanski and Brian Murphy

Inkheart Fulfills Guillory's Dream

Sienna Guillory, who co-stars in the upcoming fantasy film Inkheart, told SCI FI Wire that the role fulfilled a longstanding ambition to work with Helen Mirren.

Guillory praised the film's "extraordinary ensemble cast" in an interview in Vancouver, Canada, last week, where she is working on the Fox SF pilot Virtuality. "Working with Helen Mirren has always been my dream," she said. "She inspired me to be an actor when I was 6 and I saw her in A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Inkheart is based on the first volume in a trilogy of young-adult fantasy novels by German author and illustrator Cornelia Funke. "It's about the concept that certain people have the gift to read out loud," said Guillory, "and when they read out loud, the things in the book come to life."

Eliza Bennett plays the novel's heroine, young Meggie Folchart, who discovers that her father, Mo (Brendan Fraser), has the power to read fictional characters out of the "Inkworld" into the real world. One of these characters is Capricorn (Andy Serkis), the villain of a novel, also titled Inkheart, who becomes the film's antagonist when he escapes into the real world.

Guillory plays Meggie's mother Resa, who was accidentally read into the Inkworld by her husband, where she became a servant in Capricorn's castle. Mo managed to read Resa back out again, but in the process she lost her voice completely.

Playing a character who's completely mute was a challenge, Guillory said. "[It was] wonderful to get an opportunity to say things physically rather than have to use language," she added.

Mirren plays Meggie's great-aunt Elinor, an obsessive collector of books.

Guillory noted broad thematic connections between Inkheart and Virtuality, the TV pilot from Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore, about the crew of an interstellar spaceship who spend much of their time in virtual reality.

Both stories deal with the intersection of real and imagined worlds. "What attracted me to Inkheart is very similar to the reasons I was attracted to Virtuality," Guillory said. "When you don't have parameters, specifically within a genre which is partly fantasy-driven--when there are no rules--I think all of our decisions are more important, and I think the processes that we go through to make these decisions are more interesting." Inkheart is scheduled for release in January 2009. --John Sullivan

Death's Statham Stayed Hungry

Jason Statham, star of the action remake Death Race, said that he worked hard to get into peak physical condition for the role of Jensen Ames, a former race-car driver sent to a maximum security prison after he's falsely accused of murdering his wife.

"I was the leanest I've ever been," Statham said in a group interview while promoting the film in San Diego last month. "[Director Paul W.S. Anderson] wanted me to sort of change and get prison sort of fit, if you like. And I just had an idea of me being really skinny and ripped. And it's sometimes good to give yourself a little challenge anyway, to give yourself some discipline."

Statham's character in the film is offered a chance at freedom if he agrees to participate in a dangerous auto race held at the prison and broadcast as a televised pay-per-view event. Statham said that he did as much of the driving and stunts as he could in order to give the film a sense of realism.

In one memorable scene, Statham does pull-ups while shirtless, revealing his newly chiseled physique. To get in shape, Statham worked out under the supervision of personal trainer Logan Hood, who also helped the cast of 300 get Spartan fit.

"He's like a machine," Statham said of Hood, an ex-Navy Seal. "He's very knowledgeable and a great motivator. So about 10 weeks with him and a very strict diet and everything just fell away."

The restrictions made for some difficult times during filming, Statham admitted. But he added that it was all worth it in the end.

"I was a very miserable bastard around the set," Statham said. "Take away sugar, and you become a bit of a nasty person, yeah. You know, it's a bit of a sacrifice, but for me it's all part of the job." Death Race also stars Joan Allen and Ian McShane. It opens Aug. 22. --Cindy White

Babylon More Than SF?

Melanie Thierry, the French actress who co-stars opposite Vin Diesel in the upcoming Babylon A.D., told reporters that the ambitious film ventures far beyond its SF-action underpinnings.

"You have the love story," Thierry said in a group interview in New York earlier this week. She added: "It's not only an action movie. It goes beyond that. We have the humanity just so close to the chaos. It's frightening. It's talking about clones. It's talking about global warming. It's about terrorism. It's about the danger of ... science. And I know I'm very afraid about the danger of science. Sometimes it's great and sometimes it goes too far and it's dangerous. It's about religion. So it's about all of that, with the science fiction. It's not really science fiction. To me, it's anticipation."

Babylon A.D.--based on the book Babylon Babies by French author Maurice Georges Dantec--unfolds in the near future, in which a mercenary named Toorop (Diesel) is hired to deliver a young woman, Aurora (Thierry), from Eastern Europe to New York within six days. Aurora is no ordinary woman--her fate may determine the fate of the world--and assorted forces want her dead or captured.

Thierry said she enjoyed her time on Babylon A.D. and welcomed the opportunity to work on a major Hollywood film. Actually, it's a Hollywood film with a European feel, as Frenchman Mathieu Kassovitz sat in the director's chair, and her co-stars include Gerard Depardieu and Lambert Wilson, who are French, and Charlotte Rampling, who is British but lives and frequently works in France.

"It's always exceptional for a French girl to arrive on this kind of project and to have the opportunity to be on this kind of huge set and action movie, because we're not used to shooting action movies in France," Thierry said. "It's very exciting, and it happens maybe just one time in your life. So I took it, and it was great to have this experience and to work with Vin Diesel, because he’s such a nice guy. I took a lot of pleasure, and it was just a great memory. I spent five months [making Babylon A.D.], and everything was a dream every day on it. It was crazy. It was huge. It was completely mad." Babylon A.D. opens Aug. 29. --Ian Spelling

Death Race Previewed

The cast and crew of Death Race previewed the film in interviews at Comic-Con International in San Diego last month. The movie opens Aug. 29.

Cage Ready To Kick-Ass

Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson and Lyndsy Fonseca are set to star in Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of the violent Mark Millar superhero comic book, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Written by Millar and drawn by John Romita Jr., the Marvel Comics Icon imprint book centers on a high-school dweeb named Dave Lizewski who decides to become a superhero even though he has no athletic ability or coordination. Things change when he eventually runs into real bad guys with real weapons.

Johnson plays the dweeb and title character, while Fonseca plays the object of the teen's infatuation, who believes Dave is gay. Cage is a former cop who wants to bring down a druglord and has trained his daughter (Chloe Moretz) to be a lethal weapon. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is also in the cast.

A fall shoot in London and Toronto is planned.

Quantum Bumped A Week

Columbia Pictures and MGM have pushed back the release of Quantum of Solace, the 22nd James Bond movie, to Nov. 14 from its original Nov. 7, the latest shuffling of film release dates in the wake of Warner Brothers' decision to bump Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to next summer from its original Thanksgiving week opening.

Quantum's studios see the later date as a better opening to lead into Thanksgiving and the Christmas-holiday moviegoing season.

Quantum of Solace brings back Daniel Craig as 007 in a story that picks up immediately after the events of the previous film, Casino Royale.

Story Posits Medieval Enlightenment

SF author Michael F. Flynn--whose story "Quaestiones Super Caelo et Mundo" won one of this year's Sidewise Awards for best works of alternate history--told SCI FI Wire that the story came to him while doing background research for his novel Eifelheim.

"I was intrigued to discover that the Middle Ages had had a love affair with reason, logic and natural philosophy," Flynn said in an interview. "I began to wonder more and more why they hadn't just gone ahead and had the scientific revolution then and there. I mentioned this in passing to [Analog editor] Stan Schmidt one day, and he said to write a story about it "

The story that came about concerns the kick-starting of a scientific revolution 300 years early. Inspired by a previously lost work by philosopher John Philoponus, scholars decide to determine a question of motion by conducting an experiment. "This is Philoponus' experiment of motion on an inclined plane that Galileo would later undertake," Flynn said.

Flynn said an alternate history based on the outcome of a battle is relatively simple, but one based on a long-term social trend is more difficult, since there is no one single event on which things realistically hinge. "I decided to use the rediscovery of Philoponus' work, in which he demonstrated Aristotle wrong on many counts," he said. "Historically, this came late in the Middle Ages, so I decided to let Gerard of Cremona translate it early in the Middle Ages and then let it percolate for a couple of centuries."

To make the story work, Flynn cheated a bit. "[I had] to make a scientific revolution in the span of a single story," he said. "Work that might take a lifetime or two was compressed into a single glorious summer. What I tried to portray was something of the sheer joy of discovery when what was being discovered was something long-familiar to the readers."

Flynn also had to put his mind inside the Aristotelian worldview. "It was interesting to find out how much more right Aristotle had been than we are led to believe, and the degree to which the scientific revolution that was depended on basically incorrect but reasonably approximate simplifications," he said. --John Joseph Adams

Atlantis Movie Green-Lighted

SCI FI Channel announced that it has given a green light to a two-hour movie based on its original series Stargate Atlantis.

SCI FI will air the as-yet-untitled film as a world premiere before its release on DVD by MGM.

Annoucement of the new film follows similar telefilms based on SCI FI's Battlestar Galactica and two straight-to-DVD Stargate SG-1 movies, Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum.

The Atlantis movie will be written by executive producers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, who also serve as the series' show runners.

The movie is set to follow the fifth and final season of Stargate Atlantis in January 2009.

"We're excited to tell Atlantis stories on a bigger canvas," said Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper, co-creators of SG-1 and Atlantis, in a statement. "The successes of the two original Stargate [direct-to-video] movies The Ark of Truth and Continuum have shown us the opportunities that the movie format offers. We have plans for both SG-1 and Atlantis to remain vital as we expand the franchise." Atlantis will air a milestone 100th episode in January 2009.

Diesel Creates Hannibal Toon

Vin Diesel told reporters that it's still his ultimate goal to produce and star in a live-action film based on the life of Hannibal, but that in the meantime he's producing and directing Hannibal the Conqueror, a children's animated series about the third-century B.C. Carthaginian general who rode an elephant across the Alps in order to attack the Roman empire.

"Hannibal, now that's my [dream project]," Diesel said in a group interview on Aug. 19 while promoting his latest film, the SF-action epic Babylon A.D. "Oh, Hannibal. Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal, you beast. It's Moby Dick. I'm not going to let it [go]."

Diesel has spoken of making a live-action film about Hannibal for nearly a decade, since he first rose to fame with Pitch Black. Though he's yet to secure financing for what would be a very expensive project, the animated Hannibal the Conqueror will at least fill the void for a while.

"You know my love of animation, you know my love of the [Ralph] Bakshi films and how I was always a fan of that medium," said Diesel, who was the voice of the title character in the animated classic The Iron Giant. "I'm directing an animated Hannibal that will serve as the prequel to the [live-action] film. So it's Hannibal as a boy. So it's like the boy and an elephant. It's for BET, actually, which will be great fun. Great, great voices [including Diesel as Hannibal]." Hannibal the Conqueror will premiere in 2009. --Ian Spelling

Death Finale Was Added Late

Natalie Martinez, who stars in the upcoming action remake Death Race, said that she and fellow cast members Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson reunited to shoot an additional final scene several months after initial production wrapped.

"It was fun because, I don't know, Tyrese, Jason and I are a lot of fun together," Martinez said in a group interview while promoting the film in San Diego last month. "So it's just like, we just make jokes, we laugh a lot of times. But it was definitely a lot of fun to kind of give closure to it."

In the film, Martinez plays Case, a convicted felon recruited to act as a navigator for Jason Statham's character, a former race-car driver who is wrongfully accused of murdering his wife. They are both promised a chance to earn their freedom if they win a race to the death sponsored by the prison in which they are incarcerated.

Case's fate is left up in the air at the end of the film, but test audiences wanted to know more about what happened to her, Martinez said. The studio requested that director Paul W.S. Anderson add on a final scene to make the fates of the characters more clear.

"A lot of people were like, 'Well, what happened? We want to know what happened?'" Martinez said. "So it's like it was kind of fun to bring it back. And I think, too, it worked perfect, because we actually did all come back and meet up. Like, the actual shooting happened after the movie, so it actually was real in a sense that we all came back together again." Death Race opens Aug. 22. --Cindy White

Lost, Heroes Stars Jam

Stars of NBC's Heroes took the stage as the "Band From TV" in the Netflix LIVE! On Location concert and screening series on Aug. 9 at Los Angeles' Autry National Center of the American West.

The ad hoc rock band featured Heroes cast members Greg Grunberg, Hayden Panettiere and Adrian Pasdar, along with Desperate Housewives stars James Denton and Teri Hatcher.

Lost's Jorge Garcia also took up the mic. There are more images here.



Photo by Albert Ortega

Superheroes Power Box Office

Summer films--led by The Dark Knight and Iron Man--are expected to power the season's domestic box office to match last year's record $4.18 billion, despite lower movie attendance, the Reuters news service reported.

Led by the Batman Begins sequel, U.S.-Canadian weekend ticket sales since May 2 are running just ahead of last summer, up 1.2 percent, according to box-office tracking service Media by Numbers.

The number of actual admissions is down nearly 3 percent from a year ago, with the gain in revenues fueled mostly by higher ticket prices.

Comic-book adventures with a twist proved to be the hot ticket of summer 2008, accounting for at least three of the top four films and nearly $1.5 billion in revenues. They include The Dark Knight, Iron Man and Hancock, starring Will Smith.

The summer's number-three movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, grossed $315 million.

The Incredible Hulk was number 10, with $134 million, while Hellboy 2: The Golden Army landed at number 24, with nearly $75 million.

Wonders Inspired By Prague

Young-adult-fantasy author Marie Rutkoski told SCI FI Wire that her novel The Cabinet of Wonders was inspired by Prague's astronomical clock and the legend of its maker.

"[It] is a feat of technology and beauty I've admired too many times to count," Rutkoski said in an interview. "But I'll always remember the first time I saw it, because my Czech cousin David was with me and explained the legend of the clock: that the man who commissioned it had the eyes of the clockmaker gouged out so that he could never build anything like it again."

Years later, Rutkoski thought about the Czech legend, and The Cabinet of Wonders began to take shape, she said. In the book, 12-year-old Petra Kronos is waiting for the day when she, like her father, can move metal with her mind and build extraordinary machines.

"Her father has been commissioned by the young prince of Bohemia to design a clock in the center of faraway Prague, but when it's finished the prince removes and enchants the clockmaker's eyes, deciding to wear them himself," Rutkoski said. "When Petra discovers that the prince has blinded her father, she and her mechanical tin spider run away to Prague, hoping to sneak into the prince's castle and steal her father's eyes back."

In Rutkoski's version of Renaissance Bohemia, magic is rare, inherited and specific. "People are born with only one magical talent, which often involves the ability to influence a material substance (like metal, glass or fire), or it can be purely mental (such as being able to see the future)," she said. "Magic usually manifests itself in the elite upper class. It begins to appear when people are about 14 years old, which is also the age when children become adults."

A lot of research on children in Renaissance society went into the novel, from pediatric manuals to very imaginative pamphlets featuring children with supernatural powers. "These pamphlets were basically the 16th-century equivalent of a 'Bat Boy Found in Cave!' tabloid," Rutkoski said. "Some Renaissance people believed in magic, so whenever I read a yellowed document about prophetic children or a woman who gave birth to 365 mouse-sized babies, I could never tell whether the writer thought it was fact or fiction."

An excerpt of the book is available on Rutkoski's Web site, and a sample of the audiobook is available on the publisher's Web site. --John Joseph Adams

Virtuality Characters Unveiled

SCI FI Wire visited the Vancouver, Canada, set of Virtuality, the SF pilot for Fox from Battlestar Galactica's Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor, and saw more--and less--of the show than we thought. But we got the scoop about the show's central characters.

Television shooting schedules are always changing at the last minute, and Virtuality's was no exception. Once we arrived on the set at Vancouver's Bridge Studios, the producers suddenly realized that all the scenes they were shooting that day contained one key spoiler after another. There were some very nervous people on the set and apparently a couple hushed meetings to try and figure out what to do with us.

Virtuality is a backdoor pilot expected to air on Fox as a two-hour movie sometime in 2009. The show takes place aboard the Phaeton, Earth's first interstellar starship, whose 12-person crew is on a 10-year voyage. To give them a break from the monotony of the journey, the ship allows each crew member to enter a virtual-reality module, or "virt module," where they can escape into a digital fantasy world.

In the end, we managed to watch one scene being shot. And that was a long, slow reaction shot in which not a word was spoken. The shot featured most of the crew looking very pensive and worried about something. But we're not entirely sure what.

The story continues below the image.



Is this the Phaeton? (Image from SciFiCool.com.)

From our interview with star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, it was also pretty clear that his character was having a really bad day. Coster-Waldau, who plays the captain of the starship, was in full makeup that made his entire body look like one solid bruise.

Despite the mysteries, we learned a great deal about the crew of the Phaeton, who are primarily scientists. Six of the crew are married couples, including a gay couple. (And sharp-eyed fans may spot a few science and SF references in the character names.) They are:

--Frank Pike (Coster-Waldau). The mission commander. Ex-military. Coster-Waldau reported that Pike has re-created a Civil War battle in his virt module and reruns it often, trying to solve a particular historical puzzle.

--Roger Fallon (James D'Arcy). Psychiatrist. A gifted therapist and producer of an onboard reality show in which the crew members are obligated to take part, the price of their interstellar voyage. Though those two jobs might sound incompatible, Taylor said that he combines his tasks with aplomb.

--Rika Godard (Sienna Guillory). Botanist, in charge of the hydroponics. Fallon's wife, though Guillory said that her character is having an affair with someone on the ship.

--Manny Rodriguez (Jose Pablo Cantillo). Mathematician and superstring theorist.

--Valentin Orlovsky (Gene Farber). Geologist and Rodriguez's partner.

--Kenji Yamamoto (Nelson Lee). Exobiologist. Married to Alice Thibadeau. Writer/producer Taylor described them as a young couple, very much in love and having something of a second honeymoon on the ship.

--Alice Thibadeau (Joy Bryant). Exobiologist, but with a different specialty from her husband.

--Jimmy Johnson (Ritchie Coster). Inventor of the matter/antimatter weapons technology used to propel the ship. In a wheelchair because of an accident in his past. Coster described his character as "an agent of chaos." He's vital to the mission's success, which is apparently the only reason anyone puts up with him.

--Julius "Jules" Braun (Erik Jensen). Longtime NASA scientist, designer of the ship and navigator.

--Adin Meyer (Omar Metwally). Ship's doctor. Born in the West

Bank of Israeli and Palestinian parentage.

--Billie Kashmiri (Kerry Bishe). Computer expert. Interfaces with the ship's artificial intelligence, which is named Gene. Or perhaps Jean. Taylor declined to say whether the personality is male or female.

--Sue Parsons (Clea DuVall). Ship's pilot. An ex-fighter pilot and very much into physical activity. Her virt modules are mainly about extreme sports.

And then there's Jimmi Simpson. Perhaps best known for playing "Lyle the Intern" on CBS' Late Night With David Letterman, Simpson plays a character known only as "the green-eyed man." But nobody wanted to admit even that to us, and they didn't let us anywhere near Simpson while he tried on costumes and was briefed on a fight sequence by a pair of stunt performers.

We didn't mind the secrecy all that much, especially as it became clear that Virtuality isn't like other space-based SF shows. Virtuality's starship Phaeton is going to take a decade to get where it's going. It's not going to visit another exotic planet each week. There are no aliens. There's just empty blackness outside and a dozen people crammed into a too-small metal tube trying to fight their fears, get their jobs done and get along with each other.

Ultimately, we got the sense that Virtuality isn't really about the sort of things you can spoil. The show's world is deliberately very small, very claustrophobic. The point of the show is not space adventure or gadgets or cool alien ships: It's more about straight character drama in an SF setting. Virtuality is an ensemble show that's mainly about getting to know the characters aboard Phaeton and seeing how they deal with very intense pressures and unpredictable challenges. Stay tuned. --John Sullivan

Cloning Star Wars: Nine Best Spoofs

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is in theaters, with some critics carping that it is almost a parody of the original live-action films. Which led us to think: Are there better parodies of George Lucas' influential saga out there?

Yes the answer is, as Yoda himself might say. Herewith a list of the top nine Star Wars spoofs from film, television and other media.

1. Clerks, film, available on DVD. Perhaps the most eloquent Star Wars geek on record, director Kevin Smith crafted dialogue about the issue of contract labor on the second Death Star in Star Wars: Episode VI--Return of the Jedi. Collateral damage or deserving collaborators? The debate rages on.

2. Spaceballs, film, available on DVD. Mel Brooks aimed his blaster at the first Star Wars and other SF films. Spaceballs mimics famous scenes and characters in extreme and ridiculous ways, making fun of merchandising and the famous plot twists of the series. (This story continues below the image.)



3. "Stephen Colbert's Green Screen Challenge," featured on The Colbert Report. In 2006, Colbert filmed a segment of himself mimicking the lightsaber moves of disgraced high schooler Ghyslain Raza--the infamous YouTube "Star Wars kid"--then invited his fans to improve it. Creative fans placed Colbert in battles with Darth Maul, opening a door for George W. Bush and dancing in silhouette in an iPod ad parody. Lucasfilm itself eventually contributed an entry in which Colbert destroys all the droids from the opening of Revenge of the Sith. The winner turned Colbert into a video game.

4. Family Guy: Blue Harvest, available on DVD. The Fox animated show has managed to insert a Star Wars joke in almost every episode. But in 2007, it finally went one better, with an hourlong episode dedicated to the movie. A follow-up, based on Star Wars: Episode V--The Empire Strikes Back, is already on track for next season.

5. Troops, short film, available at TheForce.net. Animator Kevin Rubio's short film melds Fox's reality series Cops with Imperial stormtroopers on Tatooine. The film's deadpan accurate take on both franchises raises disturbing questions: What if Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, and not the stormtroopers, had destroyed themselves? Setting a Jawa's head on fire was pretty sweet, too.



6. "Jedi Knights Sex Scandal," Chappelle's Show sketch. Comedian Dave Chappelle's sketch featured a 60 Minutes-style news crew investigating a sex scandal among the Jedi knights. Poor Darth Vader, shown in silhouette to protect his identity, admitted being molested. The piece was a knowing satire of both Lucas and the Catholic Church sex scandals.

7. The Star Wars Gangsta Rap. Internet animated music video, available on Atom.com. The first winner of the Audience Choice Award in the Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, this video used the hip-hop idiom to retell the saga's story, changing up the rap and melody as needed. The animation is adorable, especially in the "Special Edition" enhanced version, and the tune is just catchy. Try not to sing, "I'm your father, I'm your father" in rhythm after you hear this.

8. "Star Wars Auditions," Saturday Night Live sketch, first aired Jan. 11, 1997. Kevin Spacey as Christopher Walken reading for the role of Han Solo. Darrell Hammond as Richard Dreyfuss in C-3PO's gold armor. Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds as Darth Vader and Ana Gasteyer as Barbra Streisand as Princess Leia. 'Nuff said.

9. Robot Chicken: Star Wars. TV special. A collection of Star Wars-themed sketches from the stop-motion-anim

ated show featured Emperor Palpatine mocking Darth Vader after the destruction of the Death Star and Lucas riding a nerd through a convention crowd. And that's really Lucas' voice. --Fred Topel

Babylon's Diesel Finds Inner Cynic

Vin Diesel, star of the upcoming SF action film Babylon A.D., told reporters that several factors figured into his decision to sign on for the project, including a familiarity with writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz and the opportunity to play a cynical, skeptical hero.

Based on the book Babylon Babies by French author Maurice Georges Dantec, Babylon A.D. is set in the near future and stars Diesel (Pitch Black) as Toorop, an idealistic mercenary who's hired to deliver a young woman, Aurora (Melanie Thierry), from a Russian convent to New York within six days. The minute he picks her up, however, they find themselves racing to stay a step ahead of killers on their trail, as Aurora is mankind's best hope for a better future.

"There was something interesting about doing a film that had the trappings of an action film, but helmed by a French auteur," Diesel said during an interview in Manhattan on Aug. 19, referring to Kassovitz, whom he'd first met at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. "That felt unique."

Toorop, meanwhile, is a classic reluctant hero. He trusts no one and goes by the motto "Don't get involved, and always finish the job." But Toorop quickly comes to realize that Aurora is special, forging a bond with her and becoming an ally with her longtime protector, Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh).

"The Toorop character, playing a character that is that skeptical, a character that's a cynic and not trusting, I feel that there is a part of that in all of us," Diesel said. "And to exercise that in the character to its fullest, that felt exciting." Babylon A.D. opens on Aug. 29. --Ian Spelling

Gibson: Death Is A Franchise

Tyrese Gibson, who co-stars in the upcoming action remake Death Race, said that he is confident the film will turn out to be the beginning of a franchise.

"We are really anticipating a sequel," Gibson said in a group interview while promoting the film last month in San Diego. "Me and [director Paul W.S. Anderson] were just riding over here in my truck watching some clips, ... and I was just saying that this film has the formula."

In the film, based on Roger Corman's 1975 B-movie Death Race 2000, Gibson takes on the role of Machine Gun Joe (played by Sylvester Stallone in the original). In this version, he's one of several prisoners who try to win their freedom by competing in a dangerous televised auto race to the death.

Gibson, who previously appeared in the action franchise films The Fast and the Furious and Transformers, said that he had a good feeling about the future prospects for Death Race, even while he was still on the set.

"While we were filming it, man, it just felt like it," Gibson said. "And then, you know, of course, they used to shoot the whole movie, then go do all the editing afterwards. And now the new formula, of course, is to do all the special effects and do all the editing while you're still filming. So while we're on the set still filming, they're sending [Anderson] DVDs, and he's showing us all these edits of all these action sequences that they're doing now. And it was just like, 'Yo!' It just gets everybody more fired up to keep going."

The film's ending does leave room for a return to the world of Death Race, but the details of how it plays out are being kept under wraps.

"I hope none of you leak the surprise at the end," Gibson said. "But ... I felt like the sequel has been set up nicely. And, for me, just in general, I like doing one-offs, films that feel like there's only going to be one. But I'm more excited about franchises. You know what I mean? I love the idea that we're doing something so special that the audience would want to go see another one and another one." Death Race--also starring Jason Statham, Joan Allen and Ian McShane--opens Aug. 22. --Cindy White

Blu-ray Reveals New Nightmare

When director Henry Selick's classic animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas drops on Blu-ray on Aug. 26, fans will get to see some of the movie's details for the first time, Selick told SCI FI Wire. That includes details that were added during production but not visible in earlier releases.

"We tried to add texture to all the characters and backgrounds as if they were an engraving," Selick said in an interview. "For example, you'll see that Jack's stripes on his suit are hand-drawn, and the hills behind also have hand-made textures built into them. Additional details would be things like the leaves that Sallie is stuffed with, the bugs inside Oogie Boogie."

The new format reveals secrets previously hidden from viewers, Selick said. "Look into the shadow areas," he said. "There are hidden details there that have never shown up on previous DVDs but will show up on the Blu-ray."

Perhaps the most anticipated new feature on these discs is an animated version of producer Tim Burton's original poem, narrated by Christopher Lee. The poem was the inspiration for the film and featured a more sinister Jack. Many of these traits were eventually translated to the Oogie Boogie character. "Oogie started out as the size of a pillowcase and not that scary or evil or important," Selick said. "As the story developed I felt the need to grow him in both his scale and his role. Ultimately Danny Elfman's Oogie Boogie song is what truly defined his character as THE villain, and Jack's role was fully defined as a misguided hero."

The characters of Nightmare have become iconic since the film's original 1993 release. Would Selick ever consider a return to Halloweenland? "There [have] been discussions over the years about a possible sequel," he said. "When those discussions came up about seven years ago, it was unsettling that it was suggested this time it would have to be done in CG. I'm glad that did not happen."

Selick added: "As far as coming up ideas for a sequel, you have to admit there are a lot of other great holidays for Jack Skellington to take over." --Jeff Otto

Holmes Brings Love To Stone?

Marc Guggenheim, co-creator and executive producer of ABC's fantasy series Eli Stone, told SCI FI Wire that Katie Holmes will appear as a potential love interest for the title character in the upcoming second season, which will also feature Sigourney Weaver in a possible recurring role.

"We really want to have some huge guest stars this year," Guggenheim said in an interview. "We want to bring in other musical guests as well because of the Dancing with the Stars connection." (The show will air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following the reality series.)

Holmes (Batman Begins) will be introduced in the second episode, "Grace," as a possible love interest for Stone, played by Jonny Lee Miller.

Ken Howard and Roxanne Hart also star in the episode, as parents who are fighting over how to bury their son, a soldier who died in Iraq. "I'm really, really proud of the episode, because it shows the range that the series can cover," Guggenheim said. "Even in a single episode you have this sort of emotional, tear-jerking kind of storyline, but you also have what is basically a romantic comedy between Jonny Lee Miller as Eli and Katie Holmes. It's really kind of special. That episode also introduces a major piece of mythology. It is something that ties back to Eli's dad, and it is something will propel the plot going into the rest of the season."

Holmes will play "a nonprofit do-gooder attorney, cut from the same cloth that Eli is," Guggenheim said. "They have phenomenal onscreen chemistry, I have to say. They really do. Katie sings and dances. She has her own musical number, which is a lot of fun. I'm still waiting to see how the musical number for episode one turns out, but I have to say, so far, Katie has set the bar in terms of the quality of the musical number. It's easily the best one we've had on the show thus far."

Oscar nominee Weaver, meanwhile, will guest-star as a therapist who treats Stone, starting in the second-season premiere, "The Path," which airs Oct. 14.

The show's first season established that Stone experiences visions that just might be prophetic. In the season-one cliffhanger, the character had an operation to remove an aneurysm that may have been causing the visions. "He does live," Guggenheim said with a laugh. "We designed that finale to work as a series finale. God forbid we didn't get renewed. Basically, the premiere takes place in real time--[it] takes place six months after that last episode--and it's sort of designed for two things."

The first is to take advantage of the Dancing With the Stars lead-in, so look for a big musical number, Guggenheim said. The second is to answer whether or not the aneurysm was removed and if Stone's visions are back.

"This year the whole show gets bigger, bigger, bigger," Guggenheim added. "[That's] sort of our mantra for the season. ... You know those construction cranes that have been falling over in New York? How about a massive construction crane accident in episode one, crashing through girders then into the neighboring building? We're going to place one of our cast members in mortal jeopardy." --Kathie Huddleston

Proyas Adapting Heinlein Novella

Dark City director Alex Proyas will write and direct an SF movie based on The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, a Robert A. Heinlein novella, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Phoenix Pictures principals Mike Medavoy, Arnie Messer and Brad Fischer will produce the film, which they describe as a complex psychological thriller with plenty of action as well as some love interest. A title change is likely.

The deal with Proyas (I, Robot) closed several weeks ago, and the project will likely shoot after the Greek-born, Australian-raised Proyas finishes Knowing.

Originally published in 1942, the offbeat tale centers on a man who becomes increasingly disturbed when he realizes he cannot account for his activities during the day or even what he does for a living. He divulges his problem to the husband-and-wife partners of a private detective agency, and their investigation leads to a series of revelations they could never have imagined.

Clone Wars Premiere Images

Star Wars: The Clone Wars held a red-carpet world premiere on Aug. 10 at Hollywood's famed Egyptian Theater, and cast and creators turned out.

From left, Matt Lanter (the voice of Anakin Skywalker), Tom Kane (Yoda) and James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) fraternize with Clone Troopers. (photos by Albert Ortega)



Star Wars creator George Lucas shares the spotlight with his newest creation, the padawan learner Ahsoka Tano.



Star Wars: The Clone Wars is now in theaters.

McAvoy, Blunt Voice Gnomeo

James McAvoy (Wanted) and Emily Blunt are in negotiations to voice the title roles in Gnomeo and Juliet, a computer-animated Shakespeare adaptation about garden gnomes in love, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The movie, from Miramax and Elton John's Rocket Pictures, will feature several classic John songs.

Kate Winslet was originally attached to voice Juliet two years ago and fell out because of scheduling conflicts.

McAvoy and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) will play lovers from rival gardens.

Web's Moore Races To TV

MGM Domestic Television Distribution has acquired an option to develop The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore, a Web-based graphic novel series, as a possible TV show. Factory Publishing produces The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore in association with Triumph Motorcycles; Howard Webster is the series' creator, producer and director.

Ruth Vitale of The Film Collective brought the project to MGM. She was instrumental in developing the television pitch with Webster. She is attached as an executive producer, having worked with Webster for the last four years on Factory Magazine.

The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore is a trilogy of second-generation graphic novels, which live online and are specifically designed for iPod and PC download. Set in a time where the British empire has never ended and America is just one of thousands of virtual worlds hosted on a vast global game network, the show centers on Moore (Colin Salmon), a virtual game character who becomes self-aware. Tagged by the network as a virus, he goes on the run, and as he moves from one artificial game world to the next, his knowledge of the games and the real-world gamers spreads like a virus to the other game characters, freaks, creatures and monsters who live as slaves within the network.

Bear Journeys To End Of Time

SF author Greg Bear told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, City at the End of Time, is his homage to all the great far-future works of SF.

"I've long been inspired by the works of the British visionaries--Arthur C. Clarke, Olaf Stapledon, H.G. Wells and many others," Bear said in an interview. "In particular, I love Clarke's The City and the Stars and Stapledon's Star Maker. One work that has received only marginal attention over the decades since its first publication is William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land, which seems to have influenced Clarke and perhaps even J.R.R. Tolkien. Cross Clarke's Diaspar and Tolkien's Mordor and you have The Night Land!"

City at the End of Time is an epic quite literally beyond human imagination, Bear said. "The end of the universe is one hundred trillion years away--but it's about to change the lives of a trio of strangely talented young people in contemporary Seattle," he said. "All three seek fortune in a way few others can, by traveling laterally across the fifth dimension, a multiverse of alternate realities. They are fate-shifters--and that talent is about to bring them together and involve them in future evil on a cosmic scale."

Fate-shifters are being sought out and destroyed by ancient hunters employed by a nightmarish entity known as the Chalk Princess. "The hunters place ads in newspapers, Web pages, graffiti, on billboards, asking one question: 'Do you dream of a city at the end of time?'" Bear said.

The fate-shifters dream of the last city on Earth--the Kalpa, home of the survivors of a sick and dying universe. "In these dreams, they live lives that parallel their contemporary existence," Bear said. "Their future counterparts are about to engage in a perilous adventure, escaping from the Kalpa to cross a surreal landscape laid waste by monsters from another reality. In the Typhon Chaos, all things are possible--including the Chalk Princess, time travel and an infinity of living hells."

Present and future are on a collision course, Bear said. "Fate-shifters and their dreams are about to merge," he said. "And the existence of all possible worlds--all stories, all reality and all dreams--will depend on the outcome of their journey." --John Joseph Adams

Selick: Coraline Near Wrap

Henry Selick, director of the upcoming 3-D animated Coraline, told SCI FI Wire that he is currently finishing production on the stop-motion movie, which is adapted from Neil Gaiman's Hugo Award-winning graphic novel of the same name.

"We will complete animation on Coraline in about six weeks and plan a February release of 2009," Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) said in an interview.

Dakota Fanning voices the title character, who steps through a door to discover an alternate version of her life and a new set of parents. "It's a dark, perfect, modern fairy tale." Selick said. "[It] concerns itself with a primal thought every child considers: I wish I had other parents. That, and the button eyes."

Gaiman and Selick co-wrote the script for the film and have been working hand in hand to translate the novel faithfully to the screen. "The movie version of Coraline is very faithful to the tone and the spirit of the book," Selick said. "In the translation from book to film there are adjustments to story and character that have to be made. The main thing I always felt was I could not disappoint the readers of the book, and though some details have been changed as well as the order of the sequences, I feel we will be successful."

Early production images from Coraline have surfaced and drawn comparisons to Selick's beloved work on Nightmare. "There is no doubt that [there are] some similarities between the two projects," he admitted. "I also have many of the original Nightmare team members working on Coraline. We've all grown, and the visual aesthetic is ultimately a very different one. You'll see great animation like Nightmare, like a cousin of Nightmare. More like a second cousin. The last thing I'd want to do would be to try to rip off a classic film I directed."

One of the major advances in terms of the animation process is the new stereoscopic dual digital camera, Selick said. "[It] just gives you more of what is there, just a little more sense of the reality of this medium," he said. "It does not live in the computer, nor is it a series of drawings; it's an actual real set [of] puppets." Coraline is currently set for release in February 2009. --Jeff Otto

Allen Is Death's Motherf@#$r

Joan Allen, who stars in the upcoming action remake Death Race, said that she was attracted to the role of a ruthless prison warden because it was unlike any role she'd ever played before.

"As an actor you really hope that you can get a big variety, and it's hard," the Oscar nominee said in a group interview while promoting the film last month in San Diego. "It's a money-driven business. It's more secure to hire actors that you know they can deliver this and they can deliver that. It's harder to take chances, understandably. ... And I love that it's a completely different genre. I love that I'm playing arguably the most evil woman on the planet. And I had a hoot every day at work."

Allen's character is the creator of the title Death Race, a live television event in which prisoners race armored cars with the potential of earning their freedom. She recruits former race-car driver Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) to take over for a famous masked driver named Frankenstein who can no longer compete after a debilitating crash. What he doesn't know, however, is that she doesn't play fair.

Allen said it wasn't as hard to get into the mind of such a sadistic and manipulative character, because she fit within the world of the film.

"Their reality is so different, the place where they're coming from," Allen said. "As the movie sort of explains, prisons have turned into these corporations that are privately owned, and they're geared to make money, and she's a very high-powered sort of CEO in a lot of ways, I think of this person. And she's interested in the bottom line only, and so it's actually very fun to play somebody who's just completely evil."

Audiences may also be surprised to see the normally reserved Allen utter a few lines of uncharacteristic profanity in the film.

"Wasn't it great?" Allen said of one memorable line in the film. "It was the line that my agent and my lawyer kept teasing me about. Every time we'd be on the phone it'd be like, 'Have you said that line yet? We're going to make a reel, and it's going to be the first thing on your reel, that line.'" Death Race opens Aug. 22. --Cindy White

Behind The Scenes Of Coraline

Focus Features has just released new behind-the-scenes featurettes about the making of Coraline, the 3-D stop-motion-animated film from director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas), based on Neil Gaiman's book.

The following images come from the featurettes. In the first, animators adjust the movements of the title character, who is voiced by Dakota Fanning:



In the second, an animator positions Coraline in a detailed miniature set:



Coraline, which also features the voices of Teri Hatcher, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Ian McShane, opens in February 2009.

Cruise Joins Raimi In Sleeper

Tom Cruise and Spider-Man director Sam Raimi are setting up Sleeper, an SF graphic-novel adaptation, at Warner Brothers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Cruise is loosely attached to star in the adaptation of the DC Comics/Wildstorm comic, which Raimi would produce with his Star Road Entertainment partner Josh Donen.

Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, Sleeper--which ran from 2003-'05--centers on an operative whose fusion with an alien artifact makes him impervious to pain and allows him to pass it on to others through skin contact. He is placed undercover in a villainous organization by an intelligence agency and falls for a member of the group, named Miss Misery.

Sleeper is the third project that Cruise has become associated with over the past two weeks.

PS3 BioShock Due In October

2K Games announced that the much-anticipated PlayStation 3 version of BioShock will arrive at North American retailers on Oct. 21 and will go on sale internationally on Oct. 24.

Developed by 2K Marin, 2K Boston, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes, BioShock for the PS3 contains all-new content that augments and extends the experience, the company said.

The game's new features include the "Survivor" difficulty mode, trophy support and new add-on game content. In addition, the challenge rooms will test the mettle of new and seasoned gamers by requiring them to utilize the knowledge and skills they have learned while traversing the halls of Rapture. The first challenge room will be viewable by appointment at Games Convention 2008, which runs Aug. 20-24, and will be available for download shortly after launch.

BioShock is a narrative-driven action game that allows players to journey through Rapture, an Art Deco underwater utopia gone mad. Players find themselves caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically mutated citizens.

Cain Cast In Maneater

Actor-producer Michael Emanuel has cast Dean Cain, Conrad Janis, Stephen Lunsford, Walter Phelan, Maximillian Roeg and Lacy Phillips in his directorial debut, the horror-thriller Maneater, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Emanuel's Canal Street Films is producing, and Eric Lewald is executive-producing.

The movie centers on a former FBI profiler and small-town sheriff investigating mysterious murders and is derived from a Native American legend. Emanuel also wrote the screenplay with John K. Anderson.

Mythopoeic Winners Named

Winners have been announced for this year's Mythopoeic Awards, which celebrate books of fantasy that best exemplify the spirit of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. The announcement came this weekend at Mythcon 39, in New Britain, Conn.

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature: The Orphan's Tales by Catherynne M. Valente

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature: The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies: The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer, appendix by David Bratman

Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies: Shadow-Walkers: Jacob Grimm's Mythology of the Monstrous, T.A. Shippey, ed. --John Joseph Adams

Fangland Inspired By 9/11, TV

Author John Marks, whose novel Fangland is a finalist for this year's World Fantasy Award, told SCI FI Wire that the book was inspired in part by the time he spent in the Balkans in the early 1990s, while he was working as a reporter for US News & World Report.

"I had been posted to Serbia and was writing about the nationalist atmosphere in the capital, Belgrade, when I ran across an ethno-musicologist named Simonida who started talking about vampires," Marks said in an interview. "She told me that the popular image of the vampire--the fanged creature who rises from the dead to suck the blood of the living--had its origins in Serbian folk tales and that she personally knew several vampires. Would I like to meet them? I declined, but her invitation fired my imagination."

In the book, a young American television producer named Evangeline Harker goes on a scouting trip to Transylvania, where she meets an aging mobster named Ion Torgu. "She wants to do a preliminary interview with Torgu to see if he will make a good subject for a segment on her show, known as The Hour," Marks said. "When he turns out to be completely inappropriate for television and far more than just a mobster, her business trip turns into a nightmare. She has to outwit him to survive. Meanwhile, back at the offices of The Hour, her disappearance is the first in a chain of mysterious events that come to panic and terrify a seasoned and cynical staff of journalists."

Another inspiration for the book was the time Marks spent working as a producer at 60 Minutes--which included the day of Sept. 11, 2001. "[I] can remember having the feeling ... that the world was being remade in smoke and fire before my eyes," he said. "The offices of 60 Minutes were already sort of spooky, filled with the ghosts of television past as well as familiar faces, names and voices of that past lingering into the present, people like Mike Wallace and Morley Safer, who I'd been watching 20 years before as a kid in my parents' living room. The atmosphere at 60 Minutes was heavy with a sense of the past--my own and the show's: almost Gothic. To experience 9/11 in that atmosphere was to feel a deep amplification of the terror that was already onscreen. The book began its life, basically, on that day." --John Joseph Adams

Death Raced Real Cars

Paul W.S. Anderson, who directed the upcoming action remake Death Race, said that his choice to do many of the film's elaborate car stunts without relying on computer-generated effects made for some heart-pounding moments on the set.

"Let me tell you, it's a really difficult way to make films," Anderson said in a group interview while promoting the film last month in San Diego. "You can see why people use a lot of CG, because there's nothing easier than just shooting an empty plate and creating it all in the computer six months later. To put the stunts in this movie on screen, as spectacular as they are--to do it all for real and not kill anybody--was a huge undertaking. And everyone was very excited about the idea of doing that."

Death Race, a loose update of Roger Corman's 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000, is set in the near future in a prison in which the inmates are compelled to take part in a road race to the death, which is streamed on the Internet as a way to make money for the private corporation that runs the penal system.

In making the film, Anderson was inspired by the action films he grew up with in the pre-digital era. "I was heavily influenced by movies made in the '70s and '80s that I grew up watching," he said. "Walter Hill's The Driver, Peckinpah's The Getaway, French Connection, Bullitt, Road Warrior, Death Race 2000. I mean, the list goes on. And in particular Road Warrior, where I remember I borrowed my mother's Mini to drive to the cinema to go and see it, me and my friends. And I remember being so energized when I left the cinema that I just wanted to take that Mini and drive it into the side of a truck. And I don't get that visceral thrill from many action movies nowadays, because it's not real. You know? You can see that it's CG, and it's spectacular, but you don't have that kind of visceral thrill of seeing real things get crunched up and the real sense of danger that can give you. And I wanted to go back to making one of those movies."

One of the most complex action sequences in the film involves a huge armored truck called the Dreadnaught, which menaces the drivers on the race course.

"Nobody had ever done that before, taking a 75-foot truck, driving it at 60 miles an hour [to a] dead stop and seeing what happens," Anderson said. And you know, what's in the film we did [in] one take. We shot it with, like, 15 cameras, and that's the reality. We tested it twice beforehand. Every single time something different happened. And that's the thing when you're dealing with practical effects like that. In a computer, you plot it, and if you don't like it, you change it. But it doesn't look real. You're dealing with reality; it's uncertain."

Adding to the stress on the set was the fact that star Jason Statham wanted to do as much of the driving himself as possible. Though he had prior experience with stunt driving in films such as The Transporter and Crank, the complications presented by his car in this film made it an especially dangerous task.

"Seeing Statham do all his own driving, it was really stressful," Anderson said. "There's some great scenes, like when he does the 180 in the Mustang, you can see the G-force on Statham when he's doing it. I mean, that's because he's really in a car, driving at 60 miles an hour and throwing it into a 180. And you can't fake that. And I think it gives the movie a real sense of reality."

The danger came from the specialized nature of the vehicle: an armor-plated car that didn't handle like a normal car, with reduced visibility because of the armored plating and completely wrapped with cameras and lights, Anderson said. "And the guy can't see where he's going--he's half blind because the light's shining in his eyes--seeing him do these stunts--and not on a normal race track, on a dirt track with, like, metal posts and concrete pillars--I mean, it was dangerous," the director said.

"And my heart was in my mouth every time he went off and did it. But I'm glad we did do it, because we got it on film, and it really improves the movie." Death Race opens Aug. 22. --Cindy White

McShane Unveils Kings' Arc

Ian McShane, who stars in NBC's upcoming drama Kings, described his character as a modern-day King Saul in an updated version of the biblical story of King David's rise to power.

"It goes into the story of King Saul and David and Goliath," McShane said in a group interview last month while promoting his upcoming film, Death Race. "And they're moving through the whole story. [It's] a modern version of that. New York just happens to be the capital of this country called Gilboa. New York is Shiloh, a country they've rebuilt."

Christopher Egan co-stars alongside McShane as David Shepherd, a humble soldier who becomes a national hero when he single-handedly defeats a massive Goliath tank (get it?). King Silas welcomes David into his court, an action which puts him on the road to his destiny.

"I play the king," McShane said. "King Silas in the script. And then this young up-and-coming kid called David--who, I think, 'Hello?'--is trying to take my [throne]. He wants to be king. And it's good to be king. Nobody wants not to be king."

The pilot was directed by Francis Lawrence and produced by Erwin Stoff, who worked with Lawrence on the films Constantine and I Am Legend and is currently producing the upcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

McShane, best known for his role as the saloon-owning and profanity-spewing Al Swearengen in the HBO series Deadwood, said that he hopes the series will be able to keep up the quality of the pilot.

"We'll see if the follow-up scripts are as good as the pilot," he said. "The pilot was excellent." NBC hasn't yet announced a premiere date for Kings. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Cindy White

Writers Close In On Goosebumps

Writing duo Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander are in negotiations to write the live-action big-screen adaptation of the children's horror series Goosebumps for Columbia Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Neal Moritz and his Sony-based Original Film company are producing, as is Scholastic Entertainment's Deborah Forte.

Karaszewski and Alexander are expected to close their deal this week.

The project will mark the first feature-film adaptation of the series and could become a franchise for Columbia, which acquired the rights in May.

BRIEFLY NOTED

Warner Brothers is focused on releasing four films based on DC Comics superheroes in the next three years, including a third Batman film, a new film reintroducing Superman and two movies focusing on other DC characters, The Wall Street Journal reported; movies featuring Green Lantern, Flash, Green Arrow and Wonder Woman are all in active development.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau told the Los Angeles Times that he's begun developing the expected sequel, though there hasn't been an formal announcement yet: "We're working on it now, which hasn't been officially announced. It will be released in 2010."

Snitchseeker.com has posted an account of Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe's appearance in New York to talk about the upcoming films.

Boogeyman writers Juliet Snowden and Stiles White will pen MGM's planned remake of Poltergeist, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Firefly: The Complete Series drops on Blu-ray high-definition disc on Nov. 11 from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in a three-disc set that includes all 14 episodes, a new Firefly Reunion roundtable discussion and a new episode commentary from series creator Joss Whedon and select cast members; the set carries a suggested retail price of $89.98.

Variety columnist Anne Thompson has posted an update on the debate within Warner Brothers about how to proceed with the Superman film franchise.

A judge has denied a Warner Brothers motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox's lawsuit over Warner's right to make a film based on the graphic novel Watchmen, Variety reported; the ruling is potentially a huge victory for Fox, which could wind up as a profit participant in the film.

The Polar Express arrives on DVD and Blu-ray disc on Oct. 28.

A limited collector's-edition DVD of Zack Snyder's 300 drops on Nov. 18, with a bonus disc containing a new documentary, To the Hot Gates: A Legend Retold; a 52-page hardcover art book with a personal message from Snyder; a Lucite display with motion-film image; and six collectible photo cards; the set carries a suggested retail price of $49.92.

Warner Brothers' consumer products division is developing a new version of the classic children's franchise Banana Splits as a multiplatform effort starting Sept. 2, with shorts and music videos airing on Cartoon Network and its Web site, as well as future DVD and CD releases and live performances, Variety reported.

Alcon Entertainment has picked up the feature-film rights to Jerry Carr and Allan Gross' graphic novel series Cryptozoo Crew, as well as scribe Joe Gazzam's adaptation of the project, Variety reported; the film centers on a secret organization charged with protecting the identity of strange and rare animals classified as Cryptids.

Fox-based New Regency has put Voltron: Defender of the Universe, an SF movie based on the animated Japanese TV series, into turnaround, meaning the project is now in limbo, Variety reported.

LatinoReview.com has retracted its report that Punisher: War Zone will be released with a PG-13 rating rather than the previously expected R rating and that director Lexi Alexander was asked to leave the project.