Will Watson Leave Potter?

Is she in or out? Emma Watson, who has played Hermione Granger in the first five Harry Potter movies, may bow out of the sixth, according to a report on the DigitalSpy.co.uk Web site.

Watson has hinted that she may not take part in the final two Harry Potter movies. The 16-year-old is currently filming the fifth film in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but has admitted that the time involved may lead to her having to forgo the final parts.

The actress, who recently aced her early exams, will turn 20 before the seventh film is completed and may not make the commitment to see the franchise through, the site reported. (Watson's co-stars Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry, and Rupert Grint, who plays Ron, have indicated they're in for the long haul.)

"I don't know yet," she said. "Every film is so huge, and it's a long time. I love to perform, but there are many other things I love doing." Order of the Phoenix debuts next July. Ga. Mom Seeks Potter Ban

A suburban Atlanta county that sparked a public outcry when its libraries temporarily eliminated funding for Spanish-language fiction is now being asked to ban Harry Potter books from its schools, the Associated Press reported.

Laura Mallory, a mother of four, told a hearing officer for the Gwinnett County Board of Education that the popular fiction books are an "evil" attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.

But Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny told the AP that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban Macbeth and Cinderella.

In June, the county's library board eliminated the $3,000 that had been set aside to buy Spanish-language fiction in the coming fiscal year. One board member said the move came after some residents objected to using taxpayer dollars to entertain readers who might be illegal immigrants. Days later, the board reversed its decision amid accusations that the move was anti-Hispanic. Lost Fans Cheer Premiere

Thousands of fans swamped Waikiki in Honolulu to get a glimpse of the stars of ABC's Lost at the show's red-carpet third-season premiere, the Associated Press reported.

The entire cast of the show attended the event on Sept. 30 to promote the season premiere, which aired Oct. 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show is filmed in Hawaii.

Before the season's first episode was shown on the big screen, producers asked that the audience keep quiet about it until after it airs on TV.Abrams Talks Lost

J.J. Abrams, co-creator and executive producer of ABC's Lost, told SCI FI Wire that he will be more involved creatively in the third season, co-writing the Oct. 4 season premiere, directing an upcoming episode and laying the groundwork for the full season. "I miss being as actively a part of it as I had been in the first season," Abrams said in a conference call to journalists on Oct. 3. "And so, for me, writing the first episode with [co-creator Damon Lindelof] was just an absolute joy to get to write those characters again and be inside the heads of those characters. And as it goes on, the season, especially with where it goes, I look forward to not just directing an episode down the line, but I feel that we have a structure that's in place for the remainder of the year."

Last season, Abrams stepped back from the show while he directed and produced the feature film Mission: Impossible III. This year, he'll be dividing his time between Lost and two newer shows: What About Brian and Six Degrees, which also air on ABC. He's also working on a script for the upcoming 11th Star Trek film. His various producing obligations kept him from directing the seventh episode of the season, which is just about to begin filming, as initially planned, but Abrams said that he hopes to be able to helm at least one episode this season.

"I was supposed to leave today for Hawaii to begin prep on an episode I was set to direct that I was just dying to do, the story of which is just mind-blowing," Abrams said. "But because of work on some of the other shows, I've been unable to do that. And so I'm going to be directing an episode later in the season. But the thing that I'm so grateful about, and impressed by, is that Damon has managed to maintain a level of drama and gripping storytelling as he has. ... I think that when you get to the end of the season, it's such an exciting and unbelievable conclusion that I would hope maybe—I don't want to step on Jack Bender's shoes, because he's an incredible director-producer for us back in Hawaii—but I'd love to be able to work on the finale with him."

While he's excited to have a more active role in Lost this season, Abrams said that he doesn't want to create the impression that he's "taking the reins back" from Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse, who ran the production in his absence. "The truth is that Damon and Carlton have been doing such a great job," Abrams said. "I'm there when needed. I've been reading the scripts, and, like I said, I worked on the first episode with Damon. ... There isn't anything that I felt the show was missing that I wanted to put back in. It was more, selfishly, I miss kind of getting my hands dirty and working on actually writing scenes and coming up with story." Lost returns in its regular timeslot, Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Cindy WhiteLost Wins, But Down

The Oct. 4 third-season premiere of ABC's Lost helped the network capture its third Wednesday of the television season in key demographics, but ratings declined 25 percent from the second-season premiere a year earlier, Variety reported.

According to preliminary nationals from Nielsen, Lost garnered a 7.5 rating in adults aged 18-49 and a total audience of 18.5 million viewers to lead the 9 o'clock hour in all key categories, despite the year-to-year erosion. The ratings were on par with its season-finale averages of last May.

Meanwhile, CBS held up well, with Jericho at 8 p.m. earning a 3.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 10.8 million viewers overall, down slightly against ABC's Dancing With the Stars.Lost Is Back, With Character

J.J. Abrams, co-creator and executive producer of ABC's Lost, told SCI FI Wire that the show will continue to reveal the backgrounds of the characters in season three, including the origins of the mysterious Others. "It's all about who these people are," Abrams said in a conference call to journalists on Oct. 3. "And you'll discover in season three a whole group of people that will add to the mix. And I think in a pretty thrilling way."

In the Oct. 4 season premiere, which Abrams co-wrote with co-creator and executive producer Damon Lindelof, (spoilers ahead!) viewers got a glimpse of the suburbia-like neighborhood where the Others live on the island, while Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) got an idea of what they're up against as prisoners of the Others. The episode also introduced a new character, Juliet, played by series regular Elizabeth Mitchell. Abrams said that subsequent episodes in the third season will have a few more surprises in store.

"The beautiful thing about Lost is that there's very little that Lost isn't," he said. "Meaning you tune in every week, and you don't know who you're going to be focusing upon. You certainly don't know where you're going to be in the world and what the situation is going to be in that world. And that's part of the beauty of it. I think that what you could say Lost isn't, obviously, is that it's not a puzzle before it's a character piece. It's not a science fiction series before it's a character drama. ... To some degree, it's almost an anthology, in that every week you don't know where you're going to be and who you're going to see and what's going to happen in those flashbacks."

Abrams speculated that the demise of last year's crop of science-fiction-themed series was due to a lack of focus on character. "I feel like the reason why shows like Threshold or Surface [or] Invasion and those shows, all of which I'm sure had great promise, but they all kind of happened in response to something that I feel like wasn't really about the genre at all," he said. "The genre sort of is secondary. [Lost] is all about what really makes Locke tick. And what has Jin gone through that we don't quite understand in terms of making sense of his behavior, and things like that. The flashbacks are not serving shock value. They're serving character and their history. So to me, the fun of the whole show is that it's all about who the people are."

Lost will air six episodes this fall before taking a hiatus until the spring. When asked if the wait will be frustrating for the audience, Abrams hinted that the show may go out on a cliffhanger. "I wish I could promise that we were not going to make you crazy," he said. Lost airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Cindy WhiteLost Action Figures Coming

Disney and McFarlane Toys will unveil a line of action figures based on ABC's hit SF series Lost in an autograph event at the Toys "R" Us International Flagship store in New York on Nov. 6, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET.

The event will feature an as-yet-unnamed Lost cast member and McFarlane Toys creative force and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, who will autograph purchases of the Lost Series 1 action figures. Tickets for the event will be announced at a later date on Spawn.com.

McFarlane Toys' Lost Series 1 figures will feature six characters from the show's first season: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Locke, Charlie and Shannon. The series of 6-inch action figures will include a detailed prop reproduction central to each character's story. Voice-chip technology will enable the figures to speak with a line from classic Lost episodes.

The third season of Lost kicks off Oct. 4 in the show's regular timeslot, Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.Sackhoff: Starbuck Still Troubled

Katee Sackhoff, who stars as Kara "Starbuck" Thrace on the SCI FI original series Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI Wire that her character will continue to mature and evolve in the upcoming third season, but that her demons will still haunt her. As season three begins, Starbuck is living on the Cylon-occupied human settlement of New Caprica, where she's married to Anders (Michael Trucco) and dealing with her Cylon captor, Leoben (Callum Keith Rennie), who's got a shocking surprise for her.

"[Starbuck] has evolved, and she's starting to maybe believe in herself a little bit more, but she's still just as tormented by her past," Sackhoff said in an interview. "That's something that unless she sits down and deals with it, it's never going to get better. And it is something that continues to hold her back."

Sackhoff added: "So we've seen her try and deal with things in her past and try and face situations head-on now. ... She's definitely becoming more of a stronger person [in one sense], but she's even more messed up than she was in the beginning. I guess every character kind of is. But Kara is a character who constantly gets kicked down when she tries to improve her life. Usually, she's [behind] her own demise or will be, inevitably, I think." Battlestar Galactica launches its third season with a two-hour premiere on Oct. 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingBattlestar's Roslin Lives On

Mary McDonnell, who plays former president Laura Roslin in SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI Wire that she feared the worst last year when it seemed that her breast cancer had reached a critical point. Roslin was saved at the last minute by Baltar (James Callis), who injected her with blood from a human-Cylon infant, but Roslin's long-term prognosis and the political ramifications of Baltar's actions remain to be seen. As season three begins on Oct. 6, the former president is working as a teacher in the human settlement on New Caprica, whose government is led by the current president, Baltar.

"I was very worried that they were writing me out," McDonnell said in a conference call. "As a matter of fact I still think they were, and James Callis convinced them not to, and so he offered this solution of the stem-cell transplant. Actually, no, not really. But it was a very insecure feeling, even though one knew rationally or one believed. ... And so I think there were two things going on in me. One was a little bit of anxiety about the future, and the other one was the commitment to getting as much of the job done as I could before it was curtains."

McDonnell added: "In terms of that and how it plays out in season three, it is really yet to be known, the implications of the way her life was saved, either how it affected her or how it affects certain relationships. But it's underneath the surface, and eventually certain things are said about it. But we'll see how it affects the story, I think, later on." Battlestar Galactica launches its third season with a two-hour premiere in its regular timeslot, Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingBattlestar Builds, Gets Dark

David Eick, co-executive producer of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming third season of the show is quite different from, but still of a piece with, all that preceded it in the miniseries and seasons one and two. For one thing, the humans will be a little darker—and the Cylons not so one-dimensional.

"I would say that season three is taking another big step," Eick said in a conference-call interview. "In the first half, anyway, it's moving more towards the Cylon point of view. It's saying, 'OK, you've seen how the human beings can be darker and perhaps more unforgivable in ways that you don't normally do with protagonists. Let's see how these antagonists whom we've generally assumed nothing but the worst from have their own sympathies, have ways in which they're not exactly perfect, how they are stunted and less evolved on some fundamental fronts than the humans. It's a very interesting and, I think, bold and risky way to go, because the heart of the show has always been about, in a way, how the Cylons and humans are so eerily alike. And I think what we're saying with the first half of season three is 'Not so fast. They're also quite different, and here's how.'"

At the end of last season, the survivors of the human race had built a settlement on New Caprica, only to find themselves occupied by the invading Cylons. The story of the third season picks things up from that cliffhanger. Eick said that the third season builds on what came before.

"I think the miniseries in a very obvious way was about setting things up, but I also think that, more than any other piece of this journey, [it] was about not just what it was, but what it wasn't," Eick said. "Those were the days when the title was very much associated with the 1970s show, not that it still doesn't have that, but a great deal of what we were doing was developed and depicted and illustrated and also, I think, was responded to in the context of how it wasn't like the old show. And so, in many respects, the miniseries was a statement about what it wasn't as much as it was a statement about what it was."

Eick added: "The first season was about investigating the foibles and dark side and really the Achilles' heel of humanity more than how are we going to outrun the Cylons. In that first season we really got into the depths of how the so-called good guys really aren't so good and really don't have all the answers and are not mouthpieces for morality by any stretch. And I think just that alone was its own statement, because in this genre, certainly, and in drama in general, certainly in TV, there's a tendency to expect that your protagonists are the good guys, that they do have the answers, and that in the end they're going to do the right thing. I think the first season was making a statement that that's not always the case."

The second season, Eick said, was all about strange bedfellows and switching roles. "The people who were at each other's throats in season one were suddenly getting each other's back and vice versa," he said. "It was about Gaius Baltar [James Callis] moving into a completely new realm. [He's] not a man who's after power at all. He's really just out for himself and finds himself, ironically, in a scenario where the only way he really can ensure, in his mind, self-preservation is to move to this place that he never dreamed he'd be in. And, conversely, [season two ] demonstrated the ways in which Sharon [Grace Park], of all the characters, becomes the most sympathetic and the one to whom we relate to the most." Battlestar Galactica launched into its third season with a two-hour premiere on Oct. 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingHeroes Flies High For NBC

NBC's superhero drama Heroes, which came in with low expectations and no high-profile names attached, is shaping up as a hit for the peacock network, Variety reported.

Heroes, whose second episode this week earned a 5.5 rating in adults aged 18-49 and nearly 13 million viewers overall, saw its viewership decline just 7 percent from its strong series premiere, beating its broadcast rivals in most demographics, the trade paper reported.

No other first-year drama this fall has rated higher in the 18-49 demographic with its second episode than did Heroes. Of all NBC dramas to premiere in the past three seasons, only Medium rated higher in week two.

Heroes stars Ali Larter and an ensemble cast who portray ordinary people who discover they have unusual powers. NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Heroes Gets Full Pickup

NBC has given a full-season order for its hit superhero series Heroes, the network announced. Heroes is averaging a 5.7 rating among adults aged 18-49 and 13.5 million viewers overall, making it the number-one new series this fall in adults 18-49, tied with ABC's Brothers & Sisters, NBC said.

"Heroes has delivered exceptional ratings since its premiere, and we're even more impressed with the quality of the upcoming episodes," Kevin Reilly, president, NBC Entertainment, said in a statement. "We have complete confidence in creator-executive producer Tim Kring. The best is yet to come over the course of a full season with this newest drama sensation." Heroes airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Lucas: 3-D Clone Wars Due

Star Wars creator George Lucas told the Associated Press that he's making a 3-D computer-animated version of his hit animated Clone Wars TV series, which could air as early as next year, although he hasn't sold the show to a network yet.

The series would be set during the time when the Republic is fighting a civil war against separatists led by Count Dooku.

"It basically has all the main characters," such as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Lucas told the AP. But the stars who played them in the movies won't voice them for the TV show. "There's nobody famous," Lucas said.

The show is planned as a continuation of the Emmy-winning 2-D animated Clone Wars, which aired in 25 episodes on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005.Nolan: Knight Will Have Dent

Christopher Nolan, who will direct the Batman sequel The Dark Knight, confirmed to IGN.com that the character of district attorney Harvey Dent, who becomes the villainous "Two Face," will appear in the movie. "I don't want to go into too many specifics. Yes, he is" in the film, Nolan told the site after a screening of Nolan's first movie, Following, at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. No one has been cast yet, he added.

As for the status of the sequel, Nolan said, "I haven't finished the script yet. I'm supposed to be doing it right now. ... It's a pretty direct continuation of where the last film left off, and the last scene of Batman Begins suggests a strong direction we wanted to take the story in. It absolutely carries on with a lot of the thematic concerns and hopefully takes it someplace new." The final scene of the previous movie shows Batman (Christian Bale) examining a playing card with an image of the Joker.

Nolan also talked briefly about his plans to adapt the classic British TV series The Prisoner. "The Prisoner is something I've been interested in for quite a long time, and I think I've figured out the take on how we'd approach it," he said. "The relevance of it today. David and Janet Peoples are terrific, who you know wrote Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys, ... all kinds of great movies. They're working on the script right now. I wouldn't want to speak for them. I'm very excited to see what they've come up with."Lucas: Indy 4 Still Developing

George Lucas told Variety that the much-delayed Indiana Jones 4 is still in development, but not exactly on the horizon. "Steve [Spielberg] and I are still working away, trying to come up with something we're happy with," Lucas told the trade paper in an interview at the Oct. 4 groundbreaking ceremony for the renamed School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. (Lucas gave the school, his alma mater, $175 million.) "Hopefully in a short time we will come to an agreement. Or something," Lucas added, without a great deal of enthusiasm.

Lucas added: "Right now we're doing television, which looks great. I'm very, very happy with it," he said of his animation division. "And out of doing the animation, we're getting the skill set and the people and putting the studio in place so we can do a feature. But it's probably going to be another year before we have the people and the systems in place to do a feature film." Lucas expects to serve as executive producer on two feature films, as well as TV shows, including a live-action Star Wars series.Transformers Shoots In Detroit

Michael Bay's Transformers movie is shooting in downtown Detroit, on many of the same streets where the action director shot his last SF opus, The Island, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Transformers—based on the 1980s toy line, comics and animated TV series—is shooting on Fort Street between Washington and Griswold and Shelby between Congress and Lafayette this week, the newspaper reported. The movie will also shoot in the abandoned Michigan Central Depot. The same locations were used in 2005's The Island.

In August, SCI FI Wire visited the set of Transformers in downtown Los Angeles. Transformers is also shooting in various cities, including Chicago and Washington. It is slated to open on July 4, 2007.Pan Mirrors Devil's Backbone

Guillermo del Toro, writer and director of the upcoming fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth, told SCI FI Wire that the Spanish-language movie is a companion piece to his critically acclaimed 2001 film The Devil's Backbone. Both films share roughly the same historical milieu—during and after the Spanish Civil War—and mix fantastical elements with brutal realism. But the films also differ importantly.

"[The] Devil's Backbone ... was a movie that sort of looked at innocence and brutality or innocence in time of war, and I did it back in 2001," del Toro said in an interview last week. "And when it got released in America, it got released in America around Sept. 11th, and I felt that that story needed sort of a complementary piece now, because ... five years later, [everything] has changed so much, and I decided to try and make a movie that took place five years later. ... So Devil's Backbone was 2001. Now, this is 2006, and [while] Devil's Backbone was set in '39, ... Pan's Labyrinth is set in 1944."

Pan's Labyrinth centers on the character of 10-year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a dreamy girl enamored of fairy tales who moves to Navarra in the Spanish countryside with her mother, Carmen (Ariadna Gil), who is pregnant with the child of her new husband, the local Fascist military commander, Capt. Vidal (Sergi Lopez). In Navarra, as Capt. Vidal tries to track down rebels lurking in the woods, Ofelia finds herself drawn into a mysterious maze in the forest, where she makes the acquaintance of supernatural creatures who tell her that her fantastical destiny lies elsewhere.

"The idea was to literally explore how that world and our world have changed so much and make sort of a point about it in like a fable or a parable," del Toro said. "Not make a straight up political film, but use fantasy as a sounding board, like in Devil's Backbone."

But the two films are completely different, del Toro said. "They're similar, but I call them a sister and brother movie," he said. "They are a mirror movie. ... I think that Devil's Backbone, for example, is a very male film. It's a boy's movie. It's very much what it is to be a male child, a kid, a boy, and the brutality of that universe. And for me, Pan's Labyrinth is the cross between a female universe and a masculine force, which is a very brutal sort of paternal structure, ... that is fascism. I think that's one of the big differences. The bad guy in Pan's Labyrinth is a fascist. The bad guy in Devil's Backbone is a proto-fascist. The guy that, if he had the tools, the education and the resources, he may become a fascist, but he's just a bully right there. And this guy in Pan's Labyrinth is a full-blown fascist without any [reservation]."

Pan's Labyrinth, a Spanish-Mexican co-production, has been named Mexico's official entry for the best-foreign-film Oscar. It opens in limited release on Dec. 29 and goes wide in January. —Patrick Lee, News EditorDel Toro Talks The Strain

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro offered SCI FI Wire new details about the proposed television series he's developing, called The Strain. "It's horror," del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) said in an interview last week in Los Angeles. He added: "It would be a really nasty, nasty fantasy. ... My deal is with Fox, and we're in the process of developing the story and seeing if we see eye to eye." Del Toro currently has a development deal with the Fox network.

Del Toro added: "I already wrote the bible and the character arcs for each character and so forth, so I'm doing all the documents on it." But he declined to say much about The Strain. "It's too early on, the very early stages of that."

Del Toro is also trying to develop video games. "I think that that's the where the future of storytelling is going to go to, a hybrid form that encompasses all of the narrative forms that we now know," he said. "TV, video games, movies, all of these into one." Del Toro's fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth is due to open in limited release on Dec. 29 before going wide in January 2007. —Patrick Lee, News EditorGillard Helming War Games 2

TV director Stuart Gillard (Charmed) has been tapped to helm the sequel to the 1983 Matthew Broderick film WarGames, the Production Weekly Web site reported.

Randall M. Badat has penned the sequel, War Games 2: The Dead Game, which is scheduled to begin principal photography mid-November in locations around Montreal.

The storyline follows a teenage hacker whose world gets turned upside after he plays an online terrorist-attack simulator game against a government supercomputer designed to profile potential terrorists. All hell breaks loose when Homeland Security is convinced that he's a terrorist intent on disrupting the fabric of society.Kern Eyes Midnighters Show

Former Charmed executive producer Brad Kern told SCI FI Wire that he's trying to develop a television series based on the Scott Westerfeld young adult novel Midnighters: The Secret Hour. If everything were to come together, Kern would likely serve the production as executive producer.

"The most intriguing part about it is that there's a secret 25th hour that occurs at the stroke of midnight, so when the rest of us are frozen in time, basically, a whole hour exists, and in that frozen hour there are creepy, ghastly, ghostly beings that are trying to do bad things," Kern said in an interview. "There are also a select chosen few people, those who were born at midnight, who can actually live and walk amongst the frozen world. A car frozen on the street is actually going 50 miles an hour. Raindrops are frozen in place. But these Midnighters, as they walk through the rain, they actually carve out a hole because they're walking through it. So they have one hour to exist in this kind of co-existing world."

Kern added: "It's a very intriguing world. It's a very cinematically visual area. At this point I'm not yet convinced that we've figured out how to make it a series. We'd want to up the ages of the characters in the book from all teenagers in high school to probably [young adults] in their middle to late 20s. So there's a lot to work [still to be done], but it's an intriguing idea, and, of course, I adore and thrive in this supernatural realm. So it's something that allows me to be a daddy at home to my two kids and to, part-time, see if I can help Warner Brothers launch this new series." —Ian SpellingDeal Includes Near Dark Remake

Michael Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes, has made a three-year, first-look deal with Rogue Pictures to develop horror films, including a a remake of the 1987 vampire movie Near Dark, Variety reported.

Rogue, the genre arm of Universal-based Focus Features, has made a deal with Platinum's Bay (director of the upcoming Transformers) and partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. The trio will produce horror films budgeted under $25 million and receive as much as 10 percent of the first-dollar gross, one of the richest producer deals in town. Platinum has already completed production on a Rogue remake of The Hitcher, for April release.

The Near Dark remake, about a cowboy wooed into joining a roving band of vampires, will be helmed by Samuel Bayer. Matt Venne is writing the script, and Charles Meeker and Amy Kaufman also produce. Production begins early next year.

The deal will also include a remake of 1987's The Changeling, which Rogue already had on its development roster. Separately, Platinum Dunes is remaking Hitchcock's The Birds for Universal Pictures.

Rogue, Focus and Universal are all owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Trek Auction Starts Big

The bidding began quickly on the first day of Christie's three-day New York auction of more than 1,000 lots of Star Trek memorabilia, with a captain's chair once belonging to Jean-Luc Picard from the bridge of the starship Enterprise-E going for a gavel price of $52,000—far beyond the presale estimate of $9,000, the Associated Press reported.

The auction kicked off on Oct. 5, with everything from costumes and props to blueprints and furniture on sale from the archives of CBS Paramount Television Studios. Bids were accepted on the floor, on the phone and on the Internet. Auction-house employees wore Star Trek costumes, including a pair of pointy Vulcan ears made famous by original star Leonard Nimoy.

The auction is one of several events being held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek.Gears Contest Gears Up

Epic and Microsoft Game Studios are sponsoring a contest for fans to go behind the scenes to play Gears of War on the Xbox 360 and meet its creators before the game hits store shelves in November.

Two winners of the Xbox Live Backstage Pass will be picked in the United States on Oct. 27 to join other winners from around the world at Epic Games in Raleigh, N.C., for a day of fun. The day will feature a tour of the studio, a chance to meet the game's creators and an opportunity to play a multiplayer version of Gears of War prior to its official release. Registration for the contest runs through 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 14. SCI FI Renews Eureka

SCI FI Channel has ordered a 13-episode second season of its hit original series Eureka, which aired its first-season finale on Oct. 3, the network announced. Eureka will begin production on its second season in Vancouver, B.C., this spring and will return to the air in summer 2007.

Eureka stars Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Joe Morton, Jordan Hinson, Ed Quinn, Debrah Farentino and Matt Frewer in a comic drama about a secret small town that happens to be home to the nation's foremost scientific geniuses.

It was SCI FI's highest-rated, most-watched series of 2006, bringing in more than 5 million new viewers to the Channel through last week's episode. SCI FI, Sundance Launch Exposure

SCI FI Channel announced that it will join forces with Sundance Channel to launch Exposure, an eight-week short-film competition to find the best science fiction, horror or fantasy films to post on SCIFI.COM and SundanceChannel.com, with a grand prize of the chance to pitch a project to SCI FI Channel's Pictures Group. Both sites are now accepting submissions from up-and-coming filmmakers of two-to-eight-minute movies in the genre.

The short films will be judged by a committee of SCI FI Channel and Sundance Channel experts, who will review the submissions and post the best ones online each week. Viewers will cast their votes on either Web site to determine a weekly winner, ultimately determining the eight finalists. The eight shorts will be featured in an on-air special, to be broadcast on SCI FI Channel (airdate to be announced) preceding the online voting to determine the grand prize winner. That winner will be awarded a trip to New York to pitch his or her project.

Entries are being accepted now through Nov. 20. Online voting will begin Oct. 23 and will end Dec. 17.

"Exposure is the perfect way to harness the new movement of ordinary people creating extraordinary videos for the Web, and it also lets us harness the most knowledgeable people on the planet—SCI FI Channel and Sundance Channel viewers—to help us find the best filmmakers out there," Craig Engler, senior vice president of SCIFI.COM and SCI FI Magazine, said in a statement. "We couldn't ask for a better partner than Sundance Channel to help make an independent filmmaker's dream become a reality."AvP Sequel Fills Out Cast

Shareeka Epps, John Ortiz and Johnny Lewis have been cast in 20th Century Fox's sequel to Alien vs. Predator, now subtitled Survival of the Fittest, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Epps will play Kendra, a young girl who must protect her little brother. Ortiz will play a recently elected sheriff. Lewis will play Ricky, a troubled kid.

They join a cast that includes Reiko Aylesworth and Steven Pasquale. Written by Shane Salerno (Armageddon) and helmed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause in their feature-directing debut, Survival is the follow-up to the 2004 iconic monster movie in which young predator warriors were tested by fighting alien offspring.

The next installment is set in a tranquil town where the townspeople must join together to battle a predator and an onslaught of aliens. Production begins in the fall, with the studio eyeing a 2007 release.Endymion Is Book Of Books

Matthew Skelton, whose debut novel, Endymion Spring, has hit the best-seller lists, told SCI FI Wire that it is a book about books. "[It's about] the magic of books, the mystery of books and the power of the printed word," Skelton said in an interview. "It tells the story of Blake, a young North American boy, who discovers a mysterious blank volume while waiting for his mother, an overworked academic, in a college library in Oxford, England. He discovers that this volume is a link to one of the most powerful, sought-after books in the world—a book that has its origins in medieval Germany, with the rise of the printing press. The blank book slowly fills with words, words that only he can see, and these tell the story of Endymion Spring, [printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg's] apprentice."

The book began with a dream, Skelton said. "It was 1997, and I was supposed to be working on my Ph.D. in English literature at the University of Oxford," he said. "Only I decided to take a break from the 'Cultural and Publishing Politics of H.G. Wells,' my dissertation, to read Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife. I discovered that I was living just a few streets away from a parallel universe (the ring road in North Oxford, where the cat disappears between trees). The book reminded me of why I was in Oxford, reading for my Ph.D.: Susan Cooper had transformed my life as a boy (in Canada), turning me into a reader. Her series, The Dark Is Rising, started my lifelong obsession with books."

Skelton added: "That night, inspired by Philip Pullman and Susan Cooper, I had a dream in which a young boy was trapped in a college library with a dark, sinister figure. I knew this boy was in trouble and that he needed my help. I woke up convinced that I had dreamt the end of a novel. All I had to do was work my way to the beginning."

In addition to the primary fictional characters—Blake, Duck and Endymion Spring—the novel features several real historical figures, Skelton said. "Johann Gutenberg, Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer [were] all historical figures involved in the creation of the first printing press in Germany in the mid-1450s," he said. "Fust was Gutenberg's backer, a rich (and, by most accounts, mean) businessman who broke his agreement with Gutenberg just prior to the completion of the first printed Bible. Peter Schoeffer was the young man caught between both figures. [The novel] plays with both fact and fiction and draws on a legend from the 16th century that Fust might have been Faust."

Skelton said that it took him four and a half years to write Endymion Spring, but added that he's already at work on a new novel. "I am now (slowly) working on a book set in the 18th century, a combination of fantasy and history once again," he said. "It's an ambitious adventure with three lovely young characters and two frightening villains." —John Joseph AdamsSix Fill Spiderwick Cast

Mary-Louise Parker, Nick Nolte, Martin Short and Joan Plowright are in negotiations to join the cast of Paramount's big-budget adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles, being directed by Mack Waters, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Izabella Miko and Andrew McCarthy also have boarded the production, which is being made by Nickelodeon Movies, Atmosphere Entertainment MM and the Gotham Group, and is mixing live action with visual effects.

Spiderwick is based on the best-selling books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi and centers on twin brothers Jared and Simon, who, along with their sister Mallory, uncover a world of fairies and other creatures. Freddy Highmore already has been cast as the twins, and Sarah Bolger will play the sister.

Parker would play the kids' mother, worn out by her recent separation from her husband (McCarthy). Nolte and Short will lend their voices for a couple of otherworldly characters: Mulgrath, a shape-shifting evil lord trying to get his hands on the kids, and Thimbletack/Bogart, a small being that can either protect a household or mischievously throw it into disarray.

Plowright will play the kids' aunt, who is deemed crazy because she can see the creatures and is put into an asylum. Miko will be the leader of the elves. Production is under way in Montreal. Devil Is In The Details

Paramount Vantage has purchased the horror script Details from writer Dan Kay, based on a short story by British SF writer China Mieville, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Details revolves around a girl who disappears after having uncovered a demonic force that only she can see and her father, who stops at nothing to bring her back.

Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions will produce the film, with Steven Schneider and Ian Levy serving as executive producers.Trek Auction Webcast Live

History.Com, the Web site of the History Channel, will present a live webcast of 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection, the upcoming official auction of items from the five Star Trek television series and 10 feature films, Oct. 5-7, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2-6 p.m. ET each day, from Christie's auction house in New York.

The multicamera production will capture the live, three-day auction of more than 1,000 lots from CBS Paramount Television's Star Trek franchise, including props, scenery, models and costumes.

The History Channel will also broadcast two new Star Trek documentary specials, which will premiere in the first quarter of 2007.Fox Goes To Church

Fox has given a put pilot commitment to Church of Steve, a religious-themed comedy from writer Chris Henchy and executive producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Produced by Ferrell and McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions and Sony Pictures TV, Church centers on a blue-collar New Jersey man who finds out he is a descendant of Jesus.

In addition to writing, Henchy is executive-producing with Ferrell and McKay.Freak Channels South Park

H. Jon Benjamin, executive producer of Comedy Central's new animated series Freak Show, told SCI FI Wire that the show, a spoof of superhero films and TV shows, is basically just a fun-loving romp into the lives of Americans. "It's like Lost," Benjamin said in an interview, with tongue heavily in cheek. "Yeah, we all end up on an island. There will be a plane crash. And we explain Lost. That's basically what the show is, kind of the footnotes for Lost. ... And we also unlock the secrets of the Bible. Yeah, and that's in episode five."

Seriously, though. Benjamin (Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist) said that he came up with the idea for the series with David Cross (Arrested Development). Freak Show follows the adventures of a band of carnival freaks with unique super powers who are called into action occasionally to help the government undertake low-level missions deemed too unimportant for the likes of the Justice Squad's Superduperman and Batlikeman.

The Freak Squad consists of Tuck and Benny, the Siamese Twins, who have the special power of separation; the Bearded Clam, who can project blinding bitch juice; The World's Tallest Nebraskan, who can shrink down to 6 inches; Primi, the premature baby who has the power of pinpoint projectile vomiting; and the Log Cabin Republican, who can transform into Burly Bear. Benjamin and Cross voice several of the characters, along with Cross' Arrested Development castmate Will Arnett, Todd Barry, Janeane Garofalo, Jon Glaser, Kristen Schaal and Brian Stack.

"People have sort of brought up South Park, and it was definitely an influence on the show," Benjamin said. "South Park's certainly the best show [of its kind]. It's very astute, very satirical and very smart and also ridiculously silly. And that's why it's great."

Upcoming episodes of Freak Show will have the squad tangling with an evil dictator over the president's favorite snack and attempting to roll back the odometer of the president's Trans Am so he can sell it. "We wanted to try and make Freak Show as satirical as we could and being at the same time kind of silly," Benjamin said.

When asked where the idea for the twisted series came from, Benjamin joked, "You can just buy ideas online. Two hundred dollars and you own it. Yeah, you just download the idea and then forward it to networks or cable stations."

Actually the idea for Freak Show started with Cross. "It was David's initial idea about wanting to do an animated show," Benjamin said. "I've done a lot of animated shows, so I was the natural choice for him for animation. We were working together on this live show at the time, so we kind of just fell into it. Who knew?" Comedy Central has ordered seven episodes of Freak Squad, which premiered on Oct. 4 at 10:30 p.m. ET. (Lost returns the same day at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.) —Kathie HuddlestonFour 2 Cast Fills Out

Beau Garrett and Andre Braugher have been cast in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which Tim Story is directing for 20th Century Fox, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The duo join a cast that includes returnees Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis, who will reprise their title roles in the sequel to last year's hit Fantastic Four. Shooting is under way in Vancouver, B.C.

Garrett will play Frankie Raye, a scientist and love interest to Evans' character. In the comic she eventually gains super powers.

Braugher will play a general with the responsibility to capture the Silver Surfer.Miyazaki Begins New Toon

Hayao Miyazaki (Howl's Moving Castle) has started production in Tokyo on his latest as-yet-untitled animated film, Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli told Variety.

The release is slated for summer 2008, four years after the bow of 2004's Howl, which grossed $170 million in Japan alone.

The international sales company and local distribution entities have yet to be announced, though Toho has handled all of Miyazaki's recent animated features.

Studio Ghibli, which has produced every Miyazaki animated movie since 1985, is releasing only the odd tidbit about the new film, such as the July excursion of Miyazaki and his main staff to scout locations in Kobe, a port on Japan's Inland Sea, and Miyazaki's use of watercolors for his storyboards.

Miyazaki holds the Japanese box-office record for his 2001 Spirited Away, which scored $258 million, won the animated-feature Oscar and took home a slew of other awards, including a Berlin Golden Bear. In 2005, Miyazaki received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival.Vance Inspires Hughes' Majestrum

Science-fantasy author Matthew Hughes told SCI FI Wire that his new far-future novel, Majestrum, takes its inspiration from the work of SF and fantasy author Jack Vance and is set in Earth's penultimate age, an eon before the time of Vance's Dying Earth cycle.

"[The protagonist,] Henghis Hapthorn, has recently discovered ... that the world of rationalism to which he is superbly adapted is about to be completely overturned: The Great Wheel will turn and sympathetic association [magic] will shortly regain the ascendancy as the fundamental operating principle of the cosmos," Hughes said in an interview. "Hapthorn has already had a number of rude shocks. His integrator—think Dr. Watson as an AI—has been transmogrified into a rather cranky wizard's familiar. The intuitive part of our hero's mind—the part that would come to the forefront when magic returns—has been prematurely reified and now shares his consciousness. None of them are getting along terribly well."

Hapthorn is known as "Old Earth's foremost freelance discriminator," Hughes said. "He is intelligent, superbly analytical yet possessed of a strong intuitive sense; the two faculties combine to make him the kind of sleuth that would have caused Sherlock Holmes to change careers and perhaps take up the haberdashery trade," he said. "He has always had complete disdain for the notion that there is any such thing as magic. But through a series of unfortunate encounters with uncooperative reality, he has lately been forced to recognize that rationalism and sympathetic association regularly alternate over the eons and that the cusp of transition to a new age of magic will arrive in his lifetime."

Hughes said that Vance is one of his great influences. "When I wrote my first book, which began as an unplanned entry in a three-day novel contest, I decided to try to follow in [Vance's] footsteps," he said. "He had set many stories in the last age of Earth, when the sun and the planet are nearing their end and wizards and demons are fairly thick on the ground; on impulse, I thought I might create a milieu in the immediately preceding era, the penultimate age. When editors kept asking me to write more in the same setting, I found myself leaning toward the idea of sketching the transitional period between one age and the other. It is still a half-formed idea—I do not have a future history of Old Earth all worked out. I am an intuitive writer, which means I follow where my unconscious leads me, but that seems to be where he's heading."

Next year, Hughes has several other novels due. February brings Wolverine: Lifeblood (written as Hugh Matthews), from Pocket Books; June will see the publication of The Commons (Robert J. Sawyer Books) and Template (PS Publishing); and September brings the next Hapthorn novel, The Spiral Labyrinth. Hughes also has plenty of short fiction forthcoming, including a two-part novella due to appear in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in early 2007. Majestrum is due out later this month. An extended excerpt is available on Hughes's Web site. —John Joseph AdamsDay's Pratt Still Kicks Butt

Victoria Pratt, who plays undercover cop Andrea Battle on ABC's upcoming series Day Break, told SCI FI Wire she's happy to play another strong "kick-ass" female character after starring for three years as Shalimar in the syndicated series Mutant X. "I know I'll never be cast as the waif, the abused and the downtrodden," Pratt said in an interview. "It's just not something that's in me."

Pratt added about Day Break: "Oh, it's a wild show. I think people are calling it the gritty cop show meets Groundhog Day." Day Break is about an undercover cop named Brett Hopper (Taye Diggs) who must live the same day over and over again as he tries to clear his name in the murder of an assistant district attorney, while saving the people he cares about. Pratt plays his partner, Andrea. The cast also includes Adam Baldwin, Moon Bloodgood and Ramon Rodriguez.

Pratt said that she finds an intensity in Diggs' characterization of Hopper. "You know, there's just something where he can be so subtle and so strong," she said. "You want to put your safety in his hands. Taye has that quality about him. It doesn't come from the tone of his voice, although that does help. It's just something about him that makes you want to trust him completely. I think that's really important for that role. ... And, I mean, he's really hot [laughs]!"

Diggs' level of hotness is something the writers must have figured out as well, Pratt said: Diggs' shirt is off within the first few minutes of the series premiere. "Bless their hearts," Pratt said with a laugh. "We [women are] eternally grateful for this fact. But, you know, the poor guy at lunch line, ... he's got to take his shirt off all the time, and, you know, you have to be pretty virtuous with your food when you're taking your shirt off every day." Day Break premieres on Nov. 15 at 9 p.m. PT/ET in Lost's Wednesday timeslot when that series goes on a midseason hiatus. —Kathie HuddlestonExclusive 300 Video Posted

An exclusive SCI FI Wire behind-the-scenes video from the upcoming film 300 has gone live on the SCI FI Pulse broadband video network, featuring creature-shop supervisor Mark Rappaport and makeup supervisor Shaun Smith discussing special makeup to create the fantastical movie's characters.

The movie is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, in which Leonidas, the king of Sparta, led his small army against the advancing Persians; the battle is said to have inspired the creation of the world's first democracy. The film stars Gerard Butler as Leonidas. Directed by Zack Snyder, 300 opens March 2007.Spike Gets A.M.P.E.D.

Lee Tergesen and Tony Curran have been tapped to star in Spike TV's one-hour SF drama pilot A.M.P.E.D., from Fox 21 and co-creators/executive producers Frank Spotnitz and Vince Gilligan (The X-Files), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Steven Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle, who co-created and produced NBC's The Pretender, have come on board the project as show runners and executive producers, while Rob Lieberman (USA Network's The Dead Zone) will direct the pilot and serve as an executive producer.

Also joining the cast are Sarah Brown, Josh Biton, Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Troy Winbush.

A.M.P.E.D. is set in present-day Minneapolis and revolves around a group of police detectives and officers as they deal with a small but growing percentage of the population that is falling prey to strange genetic mutations, causing them to do destructive things to the city and those around them.

Tergesen has been cast in the role of Detective Brian Spicer, described as a sensitive, quick-thinking, fearless and levelheaded homicide cop. Curran portrays Detective Mark Jacocks, a tough cop whose method clashes with Spicer. Production on the pilot is set to begin Monday in Vancouver.Warners Snaps Dragons Up

Warner Brothers Pictures has pre-emptively picked up the rights to Here, There Be Dragons, an upcoming children's novel by James A. Owen, for David Heyman and David Goyer to produce, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The book brings together three strangers—John, Jack and Charles—in London during World War I, where they become entrusted with the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. They end up traveling to the Archipelago of Dreams, fighting the dark forces that threaten two worlds. It is later revealed that the three are future fantasy authors J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, who met in real life at Oxford and enjoyed a competitive friendship. The book is being launched next week by Simon & Schuster, with a massive hardcover printing of 100,000 copies, and is one of the company's big pushes for the year. The plan is to release six more books, one each October.Fox Orders Animals Pilot

Fox has ordered a pilot presentation of an animated show called Animals for its Sunday-night lineup from Saturday Night Live veteran Robert Smigel, Zap2it.com reported.

Smigel and Greg Cohen (King of the Hill) would produce the series, which would mine the animal kingdom for a parody of life in suburban America.

Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison, is producing the pilot, along with 20th Century Fox TV; Sandler and Smigel are friends from the actor's days on SNL, and Smigel has had cameo roles in several of Sandler's movies, including Happy Gilmore and Punch-Drunk Love.SF&F Author Ford Is Dead

World Fantasy Award-winning author John M. Ford was found dead of natural causes at his home in Minneapolis in the early morning hours of Sept. 25. He was 49. Ford was an insulin-dependent diabetic since the age of 11 and suffered from health problems his entire life. He received a kidney transplant in 2000.

Ford was perhaps best known for his 1983 historical fantasy The Dragon Waiting, which won the World Fantasy Award. He is also the author several other books, including two Star Trek novels, The Final Reflection and How Much for Just the Planet?; the SF novel Growing Up Weightless, which won the Philip K. Dick Award; the urban fantasy The Last Hot Time; and the short-story collection Heat of Fusion and Other Stories.

In the late 1970s and '80s, he was a prolific writer of short stories, most of which appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction. He co-authored, along with George H. Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer, On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back.

Starting in the mid-'80s, and throughout the rest of his career, Ford wrote or contributed to many role-playing game books and supplements, mostly for Steve Jackson Games.

Ford was an accomplished poet as well, winning both the World Fantasy Award and the Rhysling Award for his poetry. In recent years, he was an active participant in the Making Light blog, along with Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden and James D. Macdonald.

Ford also wrote song lyrics, illustrated maps for fantasy novels and was passionate about the theater, movies and classic television. He had an affinity for railroads and was an accomplished model builder.

Ford was known to his friends as Mike, though his middle initial actually stood for Milo. He was born in April 1957, grew up in the Chicago area and attended Indiana University, in Bloomington, Ind.

A memorial service will be held Oct. 27 at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis. Ford is survived by his longtime significant other, Elise Matthesen. —John Joseph AdamsBRIEFLY NOTED

Empire Online talked with director Zack Snyder about the progress of his proposed adaptation of Alan Moore's seminal superhero graphic novel Watchmen.

Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies are set to co-produce The Game of Sunken Places, based on a pitch by screenwriter Matt Nix and inspired by the Scholastic Press book by M.T. Anderson, an action-adventure film that follows two boys who discover that the housing development where they live is in fact a gigantic game and that the mysterious developer is a representative of a supernatural race that is testing humanity's worth, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Rapper Chris "Ludacris" Bridges will play an angry elf in Warner Brothers' upcoming fantasy holiday comedy Fred Claus, in which Vince Vaughn plays Santa's loser brother living in New York, who returns home to the North Pole and almost ruins Christmas, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The DVD of X-Men: The Last Stand sold 2.6 million units in its first day, Oct. 3, making it the biggest October DVD debut ever, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

New trailers have gone live for the upcoming Denzel Washington SF thriller Deja Vu and the graphic-novel-based 300, which have been linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain will be featured as one of the Centerpiece Galas at AFI Fest 2006 and will screen Nov. 11 at Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Sept. 28 season premieres of Smallville and Supernatural on the new CW network scored well in key demographics and improved on the shows' ratings when they were paired together earlier this summer on The WB.

Moviefone has posted a first look at the new onesheet for the upcoming comic-book movie Ghost Rider and will debut a new trailer on Oct. 4.

The official Web site has gone live for the upcoming movie The Prestige, starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as two great magicians who became fierce rivals; directed by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins), The Prestige opens Oct. 20.

Fox Chairman Tom Rothman talked Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Alien vs. Predator 2 with IESB.com.

Kirsten Dunst talked with ComingSoon.net about playing Mary Jane Watson again in the upcoming Spider-Man 3.

Slither, the SF horror film starring Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks, hits DVD on Oct. 24.