It's Official: Craig's 007

As expected, English actor Daniel Craig (Layer Cake) was announced as the new James Bond on Oct. 14 in a news conference in London, ending months of speculation over who would take over from Pierce Brosnan as 007, the Reuters news service reported.

The 37-year-old actor swept up the River Thames on a power launch to a news conference, escorted by Royal Marines boats, the news service reported. Craig will become the first blond Bond and told reporters: "I'm kind of speechless at the moment."

The casting of one of cinema's most iconic characters closes the successful four-film run of Irishman Brosnan. Craig will make his debut as the martini-swilling superspy in Casino Royale, the 21st Bond film, which starts shooting in January.

Craig's hiring ends months of speculation about who would replace Brosnan. Candidates included Britons Clive Owen and Jude Law, Australia's Hugh Jackman and TV's Goran Visnjic.

Only five actors have played Bond since the first film, Dr. No, more than 40 years ago. Brosnan, Sean Connery and Roger Moore were well-loved mainstays as the secret agent, while George Lazenby and Timothy Dalton were less successful.Lost Star, Wife, Robbed

Josh Holloway, who plays Sawyer on ABC's hit series Lost, and his wife were robbed at gunpoint in their Honolulu home, the Reuters news service reported. A spokeswoman for Holloway confirmed that he and his wife had been robbed but declined to comment further.

"My family and I are fine and appreciate everyone's concerns and good thoughts," Holloway said in a statement. "We are very grateful for the help of the Honolulu police department and the support of the local community."

Honolulu police declined to identify Holloway, but said that a couple living at his property was awakened at 4:10 a.m. local time on Oct. 12 by a man wearing a gray-and-black shirt and baseball cap holding a handgun.

Local KHON-TV reported that the robber took cash and the keys to a Mercedes Benz later found in the area.

Holloway, 36, is one of the stars of the top-rated Lost, about survivors of a plane crash trying to survive on a mysterious, uncharted Pacific island. The show is shooting its second season on the Hawaiin island of Oahu.Kong Diaries To Be Released

In a novel approach, Universal Pictures will release a DVD documenting the making of its upcoming King Kong movie a day before the film hits theaters, the Reuters news service reported.

A Universal spokeswoman told the wire service that the release of the DVD, King Kong: Peter Jackson's Production Diaries, marks the first time a major studio will ship a DVD featuring a behind-the-scenes look at a film ahead of its theatrical release.

The two-disc set will be released with a companion book on Dec. 13, a day before Peter Jackson's remake of the classic SF movie opens in the United States and elsewhere.

The DVD includes a firsthand account of the film's eight-month production process by Jackson, who also made the billion-dollar-grossing Lord of the Rings movies. The companion book includes conceptual art designs of the film's sets, scenery and other facets of the film's production.

Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Apple To Offer ABC Shows

The Walt Disney Company and Apple Computer announced a plan to offer next-day downloads of episodes from the hit ABC television series Desperate Housewives and Lost, Reuters reported. The move comes in conjunction with the announcement of Apple's new video playing iPod and a new partnership between the two companies.

New episodes will be available commercial-free for $1.99 each the day after they air on the network. An archive of previous episodes will be available immediately. Also available for download will be the new fall drama Night Stalker.

The purchased video can be watched on a computer or taken on the road for viewing on the new iPod's 2.5-inch color screen. The new iPod will be available in a 30 GB model, which holds up to 75 hours of video, or a 60 GB model, which holds 150 hours. Users will be able to download purchased video to up to five computers and transfer it to iPods, but unlike songs, users will not be able to burn the videos onto a CD, the news service said.Whisperer Gets Pickup

CBS has ordered full 22-episode seasons of its new hit supernatural series Ghost Whisperer while commissioning three new scripts for its SF show Threshold, waiting to see some more ratings data before ordering more episodes, Variety reported.

Ghost Whisperer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, has done solid numbers since premiering last month, the trade paper reported. Early promise for Whisperer is particularly encouraging as CBS executives look to broaden the network's comedy and drama brands.Terminator Will Be Back

Creature-effects supervisor John Rosengrant of Stan Winston Studios confirmed to SCI FI Wire that he has met with director Jonathan Mostow recently about the possibility of a new Terminator movie, but nothing is a go yet. "It's too early to figure out what a new Terminator would look like, or anything like that," said Rosengrant, who was the creature-effects supervisor on the upcoming film Doom, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

In the first three Terminator films, Arnold Schwarzenegger, now governor of California, starred as a robot from the future. The original 1984 film was one of the first projects for special-effects designer Stan Winston, whose studio created the effects for such films as Aliens and Jurassic Park, as well as the two Terminator sequels.

Rosengrant said it is too early to figure out what a new robot from the future would look like if the franchise were to continue. "You usually don't do that kind of thing," Rosengrant said about designing a new Terminator. "You see the script and what spark comes from that, [talk] with the director and see what the vision is. It does no good to dream it up unless you write a treatment and try to get out there and sell it yourself."

Mostow, who directed Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, has said he was interested in a fourth Terminator film and commissioned a story written by Terminator 3 screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris. Nick Stahl, who starred as John Connor in the third film, is signed for two more sequels.

"I know Jonathan Mostow said he had a script idea for it, and I did talk to him, and he did say that, but I don't know," Rosengrant said. "I keep hearing that there's going to be a Terminator 4. That's all it's been, just rumblings."Rock Found Doom Shoot Hellish

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who stars in the upcoming video-game adaptation Doom, told SCI FI Wire he was miserable during his months of filming in Prague. "It was an intense shoot, to be very honest with you," Johnson said in an interview. "I was away from home. We were in Prague for four months on a soundstage and never saw the sun. We'd wake up at four and five o'clock in the morning, and there was no sun. We'd get back home at eight o'clock, and there was no sun. You'd come out of the soundstage, and there'd be no sun. So you never saw the sun."

Even though the film brought to life one of his favorite video games, becoming the character Sarge weighed heavily on Johnson's psyche. "Every day, there we were being chased," he said. "We're chasing. There's death. There's my men getting their heads ripped off, and just death and dying all day. So it was an intense shoot. And the corridor, they did a great job set-wise in that it was dark and eerie. It was everything that Doom should be, and we lived it every day. So it was intense."

Keeping sane through the entire shoot as the lead character was a challenge for Johnson. "I called my agent and I said, 'First of all, I'm miserable,'" he said. "You're away from home, and your family isn't there. I did find great places to eat, and I'm kind of like a cow, in that if I'm watered and fed I can work. You can work me all day, and I'm good to go. But I called my agent and I said, 'Please, just give me a satellite. That's all I need so that I can just watch anything other than CNN international.' That was the only thing on, and it was driving me crazy. But they got me my satellite, and that was it. It was a tough shoot though, and intense. We worked six-day weeks a lot, and French hours, where there is no lunch break. The guys just keep walking around with food, and you sort of pick at it, and that was it. I was able to find a good gym. I got up every morning and trained and ate well, and that was it."

Doom also stars Rosamund Pike and Karl Urban. It opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Rock Meets Doom's BFG

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who stars in the upcoming film Doom, told SCI FI Wire that one of the biggest moments for him to film was when he came face to face with the Bio-Force Gun, or BFG, from the Doom game on which the film is based. His years of playing the game didn't prepare him for the time when he first saw the monster gun suspended in the air in a sealed-off weapons room—just as it is in the video game.

"It's not eloquently written or anything like that, but it's [a significant moment when] you pick up that gun," Johnson said in an interview. "Like I told [director] Andrzej [Bartkowiak], 'There are a few things you could say.' I mean, you might say, 'Oh, s---.' I mean, that's what you'd say."

Not surprisingly, that's what his character Sarge says when he first sees the weapon in the climax of the film. Even though it was a movie prop, the BFG was pretty heavy. Johnson said visual-effects supervisor Jon Farhat purposely made it that way for the sake of realism. "The real one was heavy, the real one that I was using, and that was good because you can tell when I pick it up the first time I fire it," he said. "I sort of take a step like that. That one was really, really heavy. The prop master had made it that [way]. The one that I had to run with wasn't as heavy because you obviously have to move with it, but it's a heavy sucker. It had a kick to it, too. I mean, you'd press it and it would come back."

Did he take any souvenirs of Doom home? Johnson slyly smiled and said: "Both of [the BFG guns] are sitting at my house now. It's fun. So much fun."

Doom also stars Rosamund Pike and Karl Urban. It opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com.No Guns For Doom Girl

Rosamund Pike, who plays Dr. Samantha Grimm in Doom, told SCI FI Wire that her character never touches a gun in the film, on purpose. "She's dressed in white and she doesn't shoot a gun," Pike said in an interview. "I guess it's to prove that she can get through all the carnage without being armed."

The movie co-stars Karl Urban as Samantha's brother, John, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Sarge. Pike said she's a bit disappointed that she doesn't get to do some of the high-action shooting and stunts that her counterparts do in the video-game-turned-movie. "I was all prepared for it after being a Bond girl," said Pike, who played Miranda Frost in Die Another Day. "The stunt coordinator gave me an extra gun and I was practicing how to fall down, roll over and come up firing. I got really good at it, but I didn't get the chance to use my skills."

The actress said she didn't know about the game Doom and still has never watched it being played. She said she was concerned about the violent nature of the movie at first, but liked the idea that director Andrze Bartowiak said they weren't going to scale back the violence. "I thought for a long time about what I am saying about being in it," Pike said. "I wondered if it showed that I support violence, but it's so unreal, the explosions and the fire. It's more about the action. I'm against people thinking that it's real. The violence is such a fantasy."

At one point, Sam's brother hands her something in the film that looks like a little gun, but it's not. "He gives me a radio to help me. That's it, a radio!" she said.

When and if there's a Doom sequel, Pike said she hopes to play the character again. "Maybe then she will become a bionic woman of sorts and they'll give her a gun," she said. "Maybe she'll come back and be a little less uptight."

Doom opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com.Rock Risked Danger For Doom

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson told SCI FI Wire that although his cousin was his stunt double, he did most of his own stunts in the upcoming action film Doom. "Well, I love that stuff. I'm one of those guys that likes that, and I come from that world, and so I pretty much did everything," the former professional wrestler said in an interview. "I have a great stunt double, thanks to my cousin, and when it comes to, like, the dangerous stuff, [he does it]."

Johnson's cousin is Tanoai Reed, who has doubled for him in The Scorpion King, Walking Tall, The Rundown and Be Cool. "He was thrown into the wall here and there," Johnson said. "But I think that it's important today, and the audiences are savvy, and we all understand that money doesn't grow on trees. So when I watch a movie, I want to see my guy. That's who I want to see. So if I can do it, I do it. It's funny. I just adopted this saying. I told Andrzej [Bartkowiak, the director] too. I said, 'Look, if I can't do it, it just simply can't be done.' Then I was like, 'Where's my stunt double?'"

The only main stunt Reed performed was one in which Johnson's character, Sarge, gets knocked into a wall. "I have to tell you right now, it's where I get thrown into the wall," Johnson said. "He did that. And that's really about it, honestly. It's funny, because this movie was cake for him in that I basically did everything. That's cool. But other than that, [it] wasn't much. He got thrown into the wall. The only time that he did work you'll see is when the coverage was kind of on Karl, and he would do some blocking and some punching stuff. But that was only when I needed a break, and certainly nothing like he's done in the past. He's really done some incredible stunts. He's an award-winning stuntman."

Doom also stars Rosamund Pike and Karl Urban. It opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com.Quake Following Doom To Film

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, told SCI FI Wire that a movie based on their Quake series was discussed long before a Doom film was in the works. As the Doom movie was bounced around between Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures, the game creators began pursuing an idea to make Quake into a film as well. "There has been talk about a Quake movie," Hollenshead said in an interview. "We would be interested in pursuing that. We had a good experience with Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] and John [Wells, the producers] and the cast [Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Rosmund Pike and others], as well as Universal."

The trick with turning the Quake games into a film is that the games include very different environments. "The challenge for Quake is what to draw from for the movie," Hollenshead said. "Quake 2 and 3 are very different, and Quake 4 is kind of a prequel to 2. So for a movie, we will probably draw from the Quake 2 and Quake 4 universe—an alien race from another planet that has attacked the Earth. That sort of thing."

Will it matter if the Doom film does well or not? "It won't make much difference to us, we see everything independently," Hollenshead said. "But in the ranks of Hollywood, if they see the Doom movie as successful, it will raise the interest level and they would want other game movies and come to us."

Doom opens Oct. 21 and is being released by Universal Pictures, a division of NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.com.Rock: Southland Is Bleak

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who just finished filming Southland Tales, told SCI FI Wire he doesn't necessarily share the pessimistic view of the future written by the film's director, Richard Kelly. "It's true, it's only a few years from now, set in 2008," The Rock said in an interview. "It's not one of those $150 million [films like] War of the Worlds, and it's one of those special movies that moves people and inspires them."

Johnson described the film, from the writer and director of Donnie Darko, as both an SF thriller and a musical comedy which takes a bleak look at Los Angeles and the future of the entertainment industry. The former professional wrestler said Kelly is keeping the story under wraps, but revealed some details about his character. Johnson plays Boxer Santaros, a film star who is kidnapped, has amnesia and tries to figure out his identity. He ends up foreseeing the end of the world.

"I feel I can come in and do well with, and work with, good directors like Richard Kelly, who just did Southland Tales with me," Johnson said. "I play a paranoid schizophrenic. I have Sarah Michelle Gellar as my girlfriend. Mandy Moore as my wife. There's a lot going on. I hear voices and that stuff."

The large cast also includes Seann William Scott, Kevin Smith, Bai Ling, Jon Lovitz, Justin Timberlake, Miranda Richardson, John Larroquette and many others. Southland Tales is due for release next year.Human Evolves Into A Game

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson told SCI FI Wire the previously announced film Species Human may become a video game rather than a movie. The story about an interplanetary zoo with many different creatures would have featured the former professional wrestler as the perfect specimen for mankind. The plan was to do the story as a film for Universal Pictures, but Johnson said for the first time that the idea may be scuttled.

"What's probably going to happen with that is that we'll probably turn that into a video game," he said during interviews for his upcoming game-turned-movie Doom. "Conceptually, it's a cool idea, and a cool idea for a video game, and I love video games. That's one of those things where the script was written and written and written, and if it doesn't come in right, no one feels great about it. That was with [producer] Kevin Misher, who did The Scorpion King and The Rundown and The Interpreter, and that'd be with Universal."

Although Misher has had trouble with the story, Johnson admired his desire to get it right before going forward. "I appreciate they are thinking about it," he said. "It's like, 'We're not going to make a movie just to make it. It's got to be right.' So we've talked about it, and we've talked to gaming companies, and we're probably going to turn it into a game."

Johnson said he likes the idea, but isn't thrilled with the script at the moment. "Well, the concept is great," the actor said. "We're in a zoo. We all got transported to a zoo in space and I represent the human race. The idea is great, and there are all these other species that are there, anything that your mind can imagine. My mind is not that imaginative, but for those who are, it's really, really cool in the sci-fi genre. Unless someone comes up and just nails it, and I'm being candid, it's going to be a video game."Spy Hunter III Segues To Film

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson told SCI FI Wire he just finished the filming necessary for the upcoming video game Spy Hunter III, and he's gearing up for the big-screen version of it for next year. Johnson is a self-proclaimed fan of video games. "Oh yeah, man, I love it," the former professional wrestler said in an interview for Doom, his recent video-game-to-movie project. "I have an Xbox and PS2. I had the Xbox in my trailer during the movie."

Johnson is signed on to do a film version of Spy Hunter, helmed by director John Woo (who is also directing He-Man). "Right now I'm concentrating on Spy Hunter," Johnson said. "I just did the motion capture for Spy Hunter III, the video game, which was cool because that allows you to get out of the car now. It's really cool."

As for the film version, Johnson is raring to go. "We're waiting, but that's going to be with Universal and this is one of those projects where we've had eight writers on Spy Hunter, and great writers, too," he said. "[There are] millions of dollars being spent, but it's one of those things where you don't want to rush it. You just don't want to make any type of movie. It's such a special movie, conceptually, and it's so cool with the cool. And you're the hunter of spies."

The game follows the story of a former F-15 pilot, Alec Sects (portrayed by Johnson), who becomes part of the International Espionage Services, a quasi-governmental agency nicknamed Spy Hunters. They have an experimental car called a G-6155 Interceptor, with all kinds of weapons and the ability to transform into a boat or motorcycle.

Screenwriters taking a crack at the movie have included Mark Swift and Damian Shannon (who co-wrote Freddy vs. Jason), Zak Penn (Fantastic Four), Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (who co-wrote 2 Fast 2 Furious and Catch that Kid) and now Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl). "We all believe that Stuart Beattie will come through," Johnson said. "He wrote Pirates of the Caribbean and Collateral, and so we're waiting."

Johnson said the final draft of the script rewrite will get to him soon. "Fingers are crossed, but it should be in in about a week."NBC Meets The Haunteds

NBC Universal Television Studio has optioned rights to the supernatural graphic novel Meet the Haunteds from Platinum Studios to develop into a half-hour scripted comedy for NBC, which has signed a script deal for the project, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The single-camera project will center on an upper-middle-class white family who moves into a restored house in a gentrified neighborhood that's haunted by a black family from the early 1970s, the trade paper reported.

Executive producers Chris Conti, who is working under his overall producing deal with NBC Uni TV, and Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, chairman of Platinum Studios, came up with the idea after scouring Platinum's library, which includes more than 3,000 comic-book characters and more than 1,000 stories.

Rosenberg, who was responsible for bringing Men in Black to Sony while he was head of Malibu Comics, described the project as a "supernatural culture clash."

NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Harden Gets Invisible Role

Marcia Gay Harden (Bad News Bears) has joined the cast of David Goyer's upcoming supernatural film Invisible for Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment, Variety reported. She joins Justin Chatwin, Margarita Levieva and Chris Marquette in the film, to be released next year.

Goyer (Batman Begins) is directing the film, based on a Swedish supernatural thriller about a young man (Chatwin) who is attacked and left for dead, then finds himself in limbo, invisible to the living and racing against time to find his body before he truly perishes. The only person who may be able to save him is his attacker, a troubled girl (Levieva) on the run from the law. Mick Davis wrote the original screenplay in English before it was translated to Swedish. Christine Roum revised the script for Spyglass, the trade paper reported.Salem Hosts Harry Potter 101

Nearly a thousand Harry Potter fans gathered over the weekend for The Witching Hour, a symposium in Salem, Mass., devoted to the scholarly study of J.K. Rowlings books and characters, the Associated Press reported. In hotel ballrooms, professors from real-world universities led panel discussions with titles such as "Bucolic Bullionism: Economics in the Wizarding World," "Christianity and Harry Potter" and "Introduction to Spell Writing," the news service reported. Attendees even engaged in a game of Quidditch, despite rain showers and a lack of flying broomsticks.

The five-day event was organized by a Texas-based Harry Potter fan group called HP Education Fanon, Inc. The location was chosen because it is the only American city mentioned in the novels. In the fourth installment, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry encounters members of the "Salem Witches' Institute" at the Quidditch World Cup. A representative for the Salem tourism office said that the city has never had a group so big, though enthusiasts flock there every Halloween.

Prominent authors and professors gave lectures on everything from science to the philosophy as related to the world of Harry Potter. Also among those in attendance was actor Chris Rankin of New Zealand, who played a recurring role as Percy Weasley in three Potter films. "I'm also a fan of the books, long before I got into the movie," Rankin said.

One of Saturday's most popular events was a speech delivered by Henry Jenkins, a professor of literature and comparative media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Converge Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Jenkins said that the novels could become fodder for serious academic study. "What's exciting about this is the total fusion of fan and academic discussions," Jenkins said. "That's a breaking down of the walls that hasn't occurred in many other places."Wallace & Gromit Up In Smoke

Aardman Animations, the British studio where the weekend's top-grossing film, Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was created, suffered a fire on Oct. 10, which gutted its warehouse and destroyed a priceless archive of props, sets and models, the Associated Press reported. "Today was supposed to be a day of celebration, with the news that Wallace and Gromit had gone in at number one at the U.S. box office, but instead our whole history has been wiped out," Aardman spokesman Arthur Sheriff told the news service. "It's turned out to be a terrible day."

The Avon Fire and Rescue service in Bristol, England, where the facility was located, said the roof and three interior walls of the Victorian warehouse collapsed in the blaze, which broke out at about 5:30 a.m., local time. The cause of the fire is being investigated.

Sheriff said the warehouse contained sets, props and models from all the company's past productions, from the children's cartoon character "Morph" through the Oscar-winning, anthropomorphic "Creature Comforts" series to the Wallace & Gromit short films, the news service reported. Aardman said the sets and props from Curse of the Were-Rabbit were not caught in the blaze.

Wallace and Gromit's creator, Nick Park, took the loss in stride after witnessing the devastating effects of this weekend's earthquake in South Asia. "Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal," he said.

Aardman was founded in 1972 and has produced all of Park's films, two of which which earned him Academy Awards for best animated short. The studio also produced the hit stop-motion-animated film Chicken Run, directed by Park and Peter Lord.Winston Reinvents Skinwalkers

John Rosengrant of Stan Winston Studios told SCI FI Wire that the latest effort for the makeup master—the werewolf film Skinwalkers—won't focus much on the transformation of guy-into-wolf because it's been done to death. "It's not about the transformation, we're trying to scale it back," Rosengrant said in an interview for the upcoming film Doom. "We're taking it back to the actor on this one, and do it more organically and realistically—we hope anyway. It's going to be about the performance."

The horror film Skinwalkers, starring Jason Behr (Roswell), is being directed by Jason X director James Isaac, and is scheduled for release next year. Winston is producing the project, along with Cronenberg, who worked with Isaac on eXistenZ, Naked Lunch and The Fly.

Rosengrant, who was the creature supervisor for Doom, said he's flying to Canada next week to begin the werewolf film. "Skinwalkers is starting to shoot soon, and we're trying to make the werewolf look different," he said.

Rosengrant admitted their job is tough to make it look more realistic because "the werewolf transformation has been overplayed," he said. "We've seen all the long-snouted ones, and the great efforts by Rob Bottin [The Howling] and Rick Baker [Cursed, Wolf, An American Werewolf in London], so we're trying to show him get through in a different way."

Skinwalkers will also star Elias Koteas, Lyriq Bent, Sarah Carter and Kim Coates.Uwe Boll Talks Video Games

Uwe Boll, director of Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King, told SCI FI Wire that he found his particular niche directing video-game adaptations through the necessities of private financing. "Say a guy from Spain comes and says, 'I have $5 million a year to buy movies,'" Boll said in an interview on the set in Vancouver, B.C. "He goes for the most commercial product, to save his a--. He's not going to take the risk on an art house movie if he gets House of the Dead. He'll say, 'Everybody likes zombie movies.' I can sell it."

Boll said that he's always been an maverick, even in his native Germany, where he got his start working outside the German subsidy system. "After 1996 I decided I have to do English-language movies," he said. "Genre movies are not big in Germany. But in Hollywood, I'm the totally wrong guy to go the agent, manager course, schmoozing and drinking coffee for five years to get to make a movie. I'm not good at this. It was much easier for me to start raising private money."

Boll finances his films through his company, Boll KG. Although his first video-game adaptation, House of the Dead, was roundly thrashed by critics and fans, it got worldwide distribution, and Boll claims it ultimately earned twice its budget.

Dungeon Siege is Boll's fourth film based on a video game. Alone in the Dark, starring Christian Slater and Tara Reid, was released earlier this year. Bloodrayne is to be released in January, while Dungeon Siege is set for a fall 2006 release. Boll has three more films in development—Far Cry, Hunter: the Reckoning and Fear Effect—and is busy negotiating for additional properties, he said.Vaugier Plays In House Of The Dead

Emmanuelle Vaugier told SCI FI Wire that she's completed production on House of the Dead 2: Dead Aim, a follow-up to Uwe Boll's much-derided House of the Dead, which was based on the video game of the same name. "That was fun," Vaugier said in an interview while promoting her latest film, Saw II. "We had a good time on that one. [Actor-turned-director] Mike Hurst directed it, and Andy Hurst, his brother, did the second unit."

Vaugier, whose many genre credits include parts on TV's Smallville, Andromeda and the straight-to-video movie Wishmaster 3, added: "I play a special ops officer, and Ed Quinn [Starship Troopers 2] plays my partner. We're partnered up after not having worked together for a while. Something's happened, and there are zombies on the loose, and so we've got to go kill them. And that's pretty much it. That's the story in a nutshell. There's a lot more involved than just that, obviously. We are hoping that it's going to be much better than the first one. That won't be hard. We're trying to erase the first one from people's memories." House of the Dead 2 will be released in 2006.Vaugier Previews Painkiller Jane

Emmanuelle Vaugier, who stars in the SCI FI Channel's upcoming two-hour pilot Painkiller Jane, told SCI FI Wire that she viewed her character, Jane Browning, and her alter ego, Painkiller Jane, as variations on the same character. The pilot, based on the Event Comics series, will premiere Dec. 10 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Painkiller Jane centers on the title heroine, a young Marine officer who gains rapid self-healing powers after being exposed to a biochemical weapon. "They're slightly different, yet the same," Vaugier (Smallville) said in an interview. "Jane doesn't become a different person, necessarily, but things happen in her life that change her perspective on life in general, on who she is, and she starts to question a lot of things. So in her transformation into Painkiller Jane, she becomes a little more hardened and a little more skeptical of the world around her. I didn't treat them as two entirely different characters, but there definitely is a shift that happens."

Vaugier added that she hopes Painkiller Jane will become a weekly series on SCI FI, as she's eager to see how the character might develop. "The possibilities are really never-ending," she said. "I think it'd be something fun to do as a series. It would be physically challenging and, I hope, challenging as an actress as well, depending on what they have me do and where the storyline goes. But it's definitely something I'd love to see, and I'd love to see where the arc of the character would lead us."Constantine 2 Lives Sans Reeves

Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced the supernatural thriller Constantine, told SCI FI Wire that he is definitely interested in doing a sequel, but was not aware that star Keanu Reeves has said he wouldn't be a part of it. "I love that character," di Bonaventura said during an interview while promoting his latest film, Doom. "I'd love to do another. [I'd love to] call Warner Brothers and push on it."

When told that Reeves told SCI FI Wire he probably wouldn't agree to a sequel, di Bonaventura looked over at his Doom co-producer, John Wells. "We hadn't heard that," di Bonaventura said.

The movie, based on the DC Vertigo comic book Hellblazer, made $229 million domestically, and cost $100 million to make. At the time of the film's release, Reeves said that he thought the Constantine character was one of the most well-rounded parts he's ever played on film. But in a recent interview at the Toronto Film Festival, he said that he thought the producers were disappointed with the box-office performance of the movie.

Di Bonaventura, however, insisted that although nothing is being currently planned, he and the other producers have not ruled out a sequel film. "We'd love to see a new Constantine," he said. "We had a good time making that movie. I'd love to do it again. It's just not in the works right now. ... He's such a great character I'd love to do it again."Wolfenstein Does A 360

Todd Hollenshead, head of id Software, told SCI FI Wire that his company's new installment in the Castle Wolfenstein franchise will be developed for the console platform, a significant step toward getting it to the big screen. "I just got back from Amsterdam, where I made a major announcement about the next Wolfenstein on the Xbox 360," Hollenshead said during an interview for the new film Doom, based on the id game. "It's a significant announcement, because it's the first time that any id game has been in primary development for a console as opposed to for the PC. That says a lot for the development of consoles from the hardware standpoint, and what we are going to bring into people's living rooms."

Hollenshead first made the announcement at Microsoft's X05 conference, adding that Activision will be the worldwide distributor of the new Wolfenstein game, which is being developed by Raven Software and id Software. "It's the latest game featuring war-torn Germany, where shooters hunt Nazis and supernatural beings during World War II. The new game promises unmatched exploration, action and espionage."

Hollenshead added: "It's all the cool stuff from Wolfenstein, a kind of Indiana Jones and X-Files world of science fiction. We're doing away with the concepts of levels, where you go from point A to point B. You won't be removed from the environment. Now it's all seamless and it will not even [have] the little loading bar at the bottom of the screen. Nothing will take you out of the world you are in."

He said the Xbox 360 is a good platform to design a game for, and he expects it will please the fans. The new game is expected to be on sale in late November.It's More Pleasant On DVD

The upcoming DVD release of the critically reviled and little-seen Fox series Point Pleasant will include five never-before-seen episodes, Fox Home Entertainment announced. Although 13 episodes were produced, only eight were aired before the show was pulled from the network due to low ratings.

The series, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer executive producer Marti Noxon, centers around a mysterious girl (Elisabeth Harnois) who appears in the quaint coastal town of Point Pleasant after nearly drowning. As she searches for her lost mother and learns of her father's demonic nature, she becomes a lightning rod for the forces of good and evil in the town. Grant Show and Dina Meyers also star. The three-disc DVD set will be released on Oct. 25.Pegg Joins MI: 3

Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg has signed on to join Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 3, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Pegg will play an ally of Cruise's character, Special Agent Ethan Hunt.

Director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) told the news service that he pursued Pegg because of his work in the British zombie comedy. "I've been dying to work with Simon since I saw Shaun of the Dead," he said. "His comedic skill is remarkable; he's able to be hysterically funny while always seeming 100% real, even when he's killing zombies with vinyl records."

Pegg is the latest addition to the large ensemble cast, which also includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell and Maggie Q. The film is produced by Cruise and Paula Wagner through their C/W Productions. It's scheduled for release on May 5.Rifkin Looking For Homo Erectus

Writer/director Adam Rifkin (Small Soldiers) has started casting for his next feature, Homo Erectus, a comedy about a caveman who is ahead of his time, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Described as being in the vein of Woody Allen's Bananas and Sleeper, Homo Erectus centers on Ishbo, a philosophical caveman who yearns for more out of life than sticks, stones and raw meat. The rest of his tribe write off his forward-thinking ideas as the ravings of an idiot, including the cavegirl he loves from afar. Rifkin will also play a role in the film.

Principal photography is scheduled to begin Nov. 7 in Austin, Texas. Burnt Orange Productions, an Austin-based production company affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin, will provide financing, the trade paper reported.Nightmare Games Hit Stores

Two video games based on the cult stop-motion-animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas are now available at retail stores, publisher Buena Vista Games announced. The games—Oogie's Revenge for the PlayStation2 and Xbox systems and The Pumpkin King for the Game Boy Advance format—feature the original characters, music and voice actors from the film.

Oogie's Revenge continues the story from the film, about Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, who discovers the land of Christmas and wants to take over the holiday for himself. In the game, players will help Jack save Halloween Town from the mischievous Oogie Boogie and his henchmen, Lock, Shock and Barrel.

The Pumpkin King takes place before the events in the film and tells the tale of how Jack Skellington first met Oogie Boogie and saved Halloween. Players join Jack and his trusted ghost-dog Zero on a journey to locate the source of unusual bugs that start to invade Halloween Town. Both games are rated E10+ for everyone 10 years and older.Teen Titans Game Ships

Majesco Entertainment announced that it has shipped the Teen Titans video game, based on the DC Comics characters and the Cartoon Network series, for the Game Boy Advance system. Console versions are planned for release in early 2006, the publisher said.

Developed by Artificial Mind & Movement, the game will combine elements from the animated series, as well as the Teen Titans Go! comic. Players will be able to take on the role of any one of the five teen superheroes in the group—Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg or Raven. They can use each character's special abilities to take on more than 30 members of the Hive Academy, including Jinx, Gizmo and Mammoth. The game carries a suggested retail price of $29.99.Paul Continues Relief Efforts

Adrian Paul, star of the television series Highlander, has organized another charity auction, this time to benefit victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as those who continue to struggle after last winter's tsunami in Southeast Asia. Paul raised more than $45,000 for tsunami relief through similar auctions earlier this year.

The auction, which begins Oct. 12, will feature autographed photos and props from Paul's personal collection, along with memorabilia donated by Tom Welling (Smallville), the cast of Charmed, Charisma Carpenter (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Adam Baldwin (Serenity), Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager), Matthew Wood (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith) and more.

"For this auction, I have received an incredible variety of items from a fascinating cross-section of performers," Paul said in a statement. "It comes from a genuine human desire to do something that will make a difference. And now, more than ever, there is a need in the world for those who are able to help others. The bottom line is that children affected by these tragedies need money, and that is something that I can help raise."

The auction will be held online at www.adrianpaulpeace.org, the official Web site of Paul's personal charity, the P.E.A.C.E. (Protect, Educate, and Aid Children Everywhere) Fund.Dark Is Rising To Film

John Hodge (Trainspotting) has been hired to adapt the screenplay for The Dark Is Rising, based on the book series by Susan Cooper, Variety reported. Marc Platt (Legally Blonde, the stage musical Wicked) is producing the film along with Alex Schwartz and Evan Turner of Walden Media.

The story centers on a boy whose life is turned upside down when he learns he's the last of a group of immortal warriors who dedicate their lives to fighting the forces of the Dark. First published in 1973, The Dark Is Rising is the second in a series of five books that also includes Over Sea, Under Stone, Greenwitch, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree.Who Earns TV Award Noms

The new Doctor Who series has received three nominations for the National Television Awards in the U.K., the BBC news service reported. Stars Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper were nominated for best actor and actress, while the series will compete in the category of most popular drama.

The winners will be decided by a public vote and announced at a ceremony on Oct. 25. Veteran news anchor Sir Trevor McDonald will host the awards show, to be held at London's Royal Albert Hall.Disney's Twitches Skews Older

Writer Dan Berendsen told SCI FI Wire his new television movie, Twitches, which stars twins Tia and Tamera Mowry (Sister, Sister), is something a little different for the Disney Channel. "It's playing a little bit older than the normal demographic, which is kind of interesting," Berendsen said in an interview. "They're playing 21. It adds a little bit more maturity to it, some of the themes."

Twitches is based on the popular book T*Witches: The Power of Two by Randi Reisfield and H.B. Gilmour. Berendsen and Melissa Gould adapted the script for the Disney Channel, which was directed by Stuart Gillard. The Mowry sisters play twins separated at birth who escape the magical land of Coventry and are taken to Earth to hide from the evil forces of the Darkness. When they turn 21, they find each other and discover that they have magical powers. Unfortunately, they also discover that the Darkness is still determined to kill them.

"I wanted to make the fantasy land of Coventry a place that a kid, a teen, would want to go to, would be able to relate to," Berendsen said. "I didn't want it to look like Sleeping Beauty's castle or like a land where little trolls run around. It's a place of real mystery and intrigue and fantasy. ... Bad things can happen here."

He added: "There's a real sense of danger. I think it's really scary for that genre. I was really happy with that. I can kind of figure out in my head what a line's going to sound like, obviously, but it's not up to me what it looks like. And that's part of collaborating on something. Someone has envisioned it, and created it even better than you could have imagined it."

Berendsen (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) sees Twitches as every kid's fantasy. "On its basic level, it's about two girls discovering that not only do they have a secret twin, they also have magical powers and a whole different family. ... On the other level, it really is about wish fulfillment. It's about all the fantasies that kids have that we all want. Wouldn't it be great to have magical powers? And these girls not only have magical powers, but then we find out they're almost princesses."

According to Berendsen, the film is different than its literary predecessor, but still respects the source material. "It reflects the spirit of the book," he said. "The book is about what I said in the beginning. It's about wish fulfillment. It's about fantasy. It's about discovering there's another you out there. There's this whole wonderful fantasy. And that is all in the book." Twitches premieres Friday, Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the Disney Channel.Fans Gather for D&D Day

Wizards of the Coast is sponsoring a worldwide Dungeons & Dragons game day on Nov. 5 in select hobby and toy stores, the company announced. For a 24-hour period, enthusiasts are invited to participate in campaigns designed especially for the event. More than 25,000 players attended last year's game day, the company said.

Players will receive souvenirs including miniature figurines and campaign cards. They can also earn points by signing up for Wizards of the Coast's D&D Rewards program and the Roleplaying Game Association. Participating retail locations will be announced online in mid-October at the event's official Web site.Quills Honor SF Writers

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling has been named the Book of the Year in the first ever Quill awards, presented by the Quills Literary Foundation at a gala ceremony in New York City on Oct. 11. The foundation, dedicated to the "celebration of the written word," created the awards to inspire reading while promoting literacy, it said in a statement.

Other winners include Marvel 1602: Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove, which won for best graphic novel, and The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore, which was named best science-fiction, fantasy or horror novel.

Winners were chosen by a list of approximately 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians. Eligible works included English-language books which were published in North America between Aug. 1, 2004, and July 31, 2005, and chosen for special notice by retailers. The awards ceremony, hosted by Brian Williams, will be telecast by NBC on Oct. 22. NBC is a division of NBC Universal, which owns SCIFI.com.Dark Rises With Hodge

John Hodge has been tapped to adapt the supernatural film The Dark Is Rising for Walden Media, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is being produced by Marc Platt (Legally Blonde) and marks the first film adaptation of author Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising book series.

Hodge, the Academy Award-nominated writer of Trainspotting, will adapt the story of Will Stanton, a boy whose life is turned upside down when he learns that he is the last of a group of immortal warriors who have dedicated their lives to fighting the forces of the dark. As he uncovers mysterious clues, Stanton discovers that with the dark once again rising, the future of the world rests in his hands, the trade paper reported.Mansion To Haunt Comics

Dan Vado, president of comic publisher Slave Labor Graphics, told SCI FI Wire that its upcoming Haunted Mansion comic book takes its inspiration directly from the Disneyland ride on which it is based. "The book is the ride put together in comic-book form," Vado said in an interview. "Basically what we're trying to do is take all the classic elements of the ride and create a story that kind of fills things in."

The first issue of the black-and-white Haunted Mansion is an anthology written by Roman Dirge and Serena Valentino. It sets the stage for an ongoing backstory of the mansion and its owner with intertwining stories of such Haunted Mansion residents as "The Ghost Host," "Madame Leota" and "The Bride," Vado said. "Basically the stories will deal with three basic elements of the Haunted Mansion story," he said. "It will deal with how the ghosts interact with each other, how they got to be where they are and how the Haunted Mansion got to be what it is. The mansion contains 999 ghosts, so that's 999 stories. We could be at this for a while."

The alliance between Disney Publishing and Slave Labor Graphics, which has a reputation for daring material targeted at a decidedly non-Disney audience, would seem an odd one, Vado admitted. "Disney were very open-minded," he said. "They saw the opportunity to get to an age group [teens and older] that they don't normally get to. When we first started sending in material for Haunted Mansion, there was some confusion by Disney about who should be looking at this stuff. But the publishing side got the idea that this was interpretive work and would not necessarily look like the stuff they've already done."

The SLG creators had to keep certain things in mind when designing the comic. "If this was going to have the Disney name on it, obviously it wasn't going to have naked people running around or a lot of blood and guts," Vado said. "And the Disney people did ask us to put a rating on the book's cover. But at no point did they come back at us and say, 'No, you can't do that.'"

Haunted Mansion comics hit retailers in October. As part of its licensing deal with Disney Publishing, Slave Labor Graphics will also publish books based on Tron, Gargoyles and Wonderland, starting next spring.Carver Launches WriteSF.com

SF author Jeffrey A. Carver told SCI FI Wire that he recently launched a free Web site for aspiring writers of science fiction, WriteSF.com. "I've been helped a lot by other [writers] over the course of my career—mostly in ways I'll never be able to repay—and this seemed like a good way to pay forward to the future SF community," Carver said in an interview. "I really could have benefited from something like this when I was a student, learning to write fiction."

WriteSF.com has its origins in a distance-learning television series, Carver said. The show, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, was developed and hosted in 1995 for MCET, the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications, a state-funded agency that produced educational material for school classrooms. "The show was broadcast by satellite into middle-school classrooms scattered around the country, and featured live phone interaction with students, who asked questions of my author-guests and submitted writing of their own to be reviewed on-air."

After the show's run ended, the course was revised and expanded for MathSoft, Inc.'s Studyworks Science software program. But the Studyworks program has since gone out of print, and the rights have reverted back to Carver. "I always wanted to do something more with it," he said. "And I had toyed with the idea of putting it up for free on my own Web site. But the sheer labor of coding it in my spare time seemed too daunting. [But] MathSoft kindly furnished me with the HTML files from their online version, and I just decided one day to start from those files and try to put together an updated version."

The course offers a number of modules, including getting from idea to story, world building, creating human and alien characters, plot and conflict, finishing what you start, rewriting, style and language, workshopping and getting published. "There's probably something in there that any aspiring writer can use," Carver said, "but it really was aimed first and foremost at the young adult writer."

Currently, Carver is busy working on the fourth volume of The Chaos Chronicles, so one might wonder why he took time out of his busy schedule to set up and launch WriteSF.com. "Well, there's the satisfaction of helping young writers," he said. "I have two of them right here at home: two teenaged daughters who are both aspiring writers. Of course, I hope some of the people who use the course will take a look at my books. I make two requests if people find the course helpful. The first is that they tell another aspiring writer about it. The second is that they buy two of my books (new or used): one to read themselves and one to give to a friend."

Between original writing projects and launching WriteSF.com, Carver wrote the forthcoming novelization of SCI FI Channel's original miniseries Battlestar Galactica, due out from Tor Books at the end of the year. "That came at a good pause point in my other work," he said. "And was great fun for me. I've been somewhat bogged down in my writing for a while, and it was refreshing to work on someone else's story and tell it the best way I could. And now my entire family has become [Battlestar Galactica] addicts as a result."Briefly Noted

Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp will be this year's tributee at AFI Fest 2005, Nov. 11 in Hollywood, Calif., which will include a career montage and a series of clips examining Depp's work, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Steven Spielberg has struck a long-term agreement with game publisher Electronic Arts to collaborate on three original games with game makers at EALA, EA's Los Angeles studio, located in Playa Vista, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

TV Guide Online'sAsk Ausiello column features a discussion of Alias star Michael Vartan's apparent departure from the show.

British actor Peter Mayhew, who portrayed the Wookiee Chewbacca in the original three Star Wars films and the last of the recent prequels, will become a U.S. citizen in a ceremony on Oct. 17, the Associated Press reported.

A new fundraising campaign sponsored by UNICEF features Saturday-morning cartoon favorites the Smurfs being blown to smithereens in an effort to raise awareness for the plight of children in war-torn countries, E! Online reported.

A San Francisco performing arts group called CounterPulse is mounting a live stage production of "Once More With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which will run Oct. 20 through 23 and Oct. 30, the Zap2it Web site reported.

A free podcast preview of B-movie star Bruce Campbell's new book, Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way, is now available through the iTunes music store, audio-book publisher Rykodisc announced.

Geoff Ryman's novelAir has been named as the winner of the 2005 Sunburst Award, for an SF novel or book-length collection by a Canadian writer, the organization announced.

The WB has picked up the freshman series Supernatural, starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, for a full season, Variety reported.

In an interview in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, Joss Whedon said that his upcoming film is titled Goners, not Goner, as previously reported.