Jackson Dropped From The Hobbit

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and his partner, Fran Walsh, won't be tackling a film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit or a second proposed Rings prequel film now that New Line has told them the studio will be seeking another director, Jackson and Walsh told fans on the OneRing.net Web site. Jackson said that New Line producer Mark Ordesky told Jackson's manager, Ken Kamins, that the studio was moving ahead with the project without Jackson and Walsh because the pair declined to agree to do The Hobbit as a condition of settling a lawsuit against New Line to recoup income from the Rings films.

"We have always said that we do not want to discuss The Hobbit with New Line until the lawsuit over New Line's accounting practices is resolved," Jackson and Walsh wrote. But Michael Lynne, co-president of New Line Cinema, insisted that Jackson and Walsh commit to the project before the studio would settle the suit. When Jackson and Walsh declined, "Mark Ordesky called Ken and told him that New Line would no longer be requiring our services on The Hobbit and the LOTR 'prequel,'" Jackson and Walsh wrote. "This was a courtesy call to let us know that the studio was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker for both projects."

Jackson and Walsh added: "Given that New Line are committed to this course of action, we felt at the very least, we owed you, the fans, a straightforward account of events as they have unfolded for us. ... This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of The Hobbit go and move forward with other projects." Those include a film version of Alice Sebold's supernatural novel The Lovely Bones.MGM Weighs In On Hobbit

A day after Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson said he's bowing out of a film based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, MGM is saying the matter is far from closed, Variety reported.

Jackson had told TheOneRing.net that he and partner Fran Walsh were bowing out after New Line, which produced the Rings films and has production rights to The Hobbit, told them the studio was moving ahead with the project without them. Jackson has said he won't discuss The Hobbit until a lawsuit against New Line over Rings accounting practices was settled.

But MGM, which owns the distribution rights to The Hobbit, on Nov. 20 told Variety through a spokesman that "the matter of Peter Jackson directing the Hobbit films is far from closed." New Line had no comment about Jackson's statement.

In his online statement, Jackson said that New Line executive Mark Ordesky, who shepherded the Rings trilogy, argued that New Line is dumping Jackson because the studio has a "limited time option" on the film rights, obtained from Saul Zaentz.Battlestar Moves To Sundays

SCI FI Channel's award-winning series Battlestar Galactica will move to a new timeslot starting Jan. 21, 2007: Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT, following the premiere of the new original series The Dresden Files at 9 p.m.

Battlestar Galactica has been airing episodes of its current third season on Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The current season picks up the story of the ragtag fleet of human survivors as they flee the Cylon menace. Executive-produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the series stars Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, Katee Sackhoff, James Callis, Tricia Helfer and Grace Park. —Patrick Lee, News EditorTakei Is Dad Of Heroes' Hiro

TV Guide reported that Star Trek veteran George Takei has been cast as the father of the Trek-obsessed Hiro in NBC's hit superhero series Heroes. "It was one of those lightning-bolt ideas," series creator Tim Kring told TV Guide.

Takei, who played Mr. Sulu in the original Trek TV show and subsequent films, will play dad to the breakout time-bending character played by Masi Oka. "This is absolutely brilliant!" Oka told the magazine. "I just hope I get to say, 'Dad! Sulu is my hero, not you!'"

The Nov. 27 issue of TV Guide will have details of Takei's appearance. Heroes airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.Fountain Gets New Scene

Darren Aronofsky, writer and director of the SF epic film The Fountain, told SCI FI Wire that he has added a small, key scene to the movie since it debuted to an audience at Comic-Con International in San Diego last July. The film, which received mixed critical reactions at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, now features a scene in which neuroscientist Tommy Creo (Hugh Jackman) utters a defining line: "Death is a disease. There is a cure, and I'll find it."

"Another filmmaker friend of mine said you never finish a film, you abandon a film," Aronofsky said in an interview. "And I think that's very true. ... It's always going through your head."

The Fountain tells three parallel narratives in the past, present and distant future and centers on Creo, who is fighting to find a cure for his ailing wife, Izzi, played by Rachel Weisz. The early cut of the film didn't have the scene, which takes place at a funeral in the snow.

"There's one line that Hugh really wanted," Aronofsky said. "In that [Comic-Con] version, he kind of walks off into the snow. And in this version, there was a line there that we cut out, which is he says, 'Death is a disease. There is cure, ... and I'll find it.' I always loved that line. I loved that performance. But I couldn't cut it in, because I couldn't make it work with [co-star] Ellen [Burstyn]'s performance. And there [were] a few complications. And then, three [or] four months ago in the middle of the night, I kind of was like, 'Oh! That's how it should go.' I called up [editor] Jay [Rabinowitz] and told Jay, and we sketched it out on his laptop. Jay's my editor. And we're like, 'Oh, this works better.' And then Warner Brothers agreed, and they let me change it."

The change adds another level to the character, who is obsessed with saving his wife and denying her impending death. "It's a slight thing," Aronofsky said. "It's something that people won't know. But, I mean, if I had another eight months to release the film, I'm sure I would be like, 'Well, you know, I'm not really happy with the volume of [this or] that.' ... There's always things you're catching. ... You're just trying to make [everything] really perfect." The Fountain opened Nov. 22. —Patrick Lee, News EditorAronofsky: The Fountain Is SF

Writer/director Darren Aronofsky wants to make one thing clear: His epic film The Fountain is definitely science fiction, he told SCI FI Wire. "I'm glad we're talking about this," Aronofsky said in an interview. "It's a really upsetting thing, because I've met people on the road who go, 'This isn't sci-fi because there aren't ray guns.' They haven't said it that obviously, but that's their point. And the fact that science fiction in movies has been so hijacked by techno-lust and by hardware 'button sci-fi,' as we call it, where everything is, if it's not buttons, it's now holographs."

The Fountain, which stars Hugh Jackman and Aronofksy's real-life fiancee, Oscar winner Rachel Weisz, tells three parallel narratives separated by 500 years, dealing with a man's efforts to save his ailing wife. One narrative takes place in the distant future, in a bubble-shaped spacecraft. But that's not what makes it science fiction, Aronofsky (Pi) said. Unlike his fellow filmmakers, who try to downplay the science-fiction elements of their films, the avowed SF geek is proud of the film's SF heritage.

"Believe me, there were drafts of The Fountain where the guy in space had a little holograph," Aronofsky said. "But where we wanted to push our science fiction [was to] push outer space so far, and push technology so far, [to] remove all trucks from space. No more pimped-out cars in space. Return to an organic singularity, so that outer space suddenly becomes inner space. Because I think that's where technology takes you. ... You can't have those tricks. You have to simplify down to something that is absolute, that is mental and [is] no longer electronic. And I think that's where science fiction is going. And it completely is science fiction." The Fountain opened Nov. 22. —Patrick Lee, News EditorFountain Got Hairy For Jackman

Hugh Jackman, star of Darren Aronofsky's SF epic film The Fountain, told SCI FI Wire that he plays three different characters with distinctive physical characteristics and had to do so in chronological order. "Yeah. Present, conquistador ... and then future," Jackman said in an interview. As a result, the roles had to be done mostly in sequence, "all because of the look. We really had to create very different looks."

The Fountain tells three parallel narratives, separated by 500 years, centering on a man's quest to save the woman he loves. Jackman plays a long-haired, bearded 16th-century Spanish conquistador, a shaggy-maned, clean-shaven modern man and a bald, lean ascetic in the distant future.

"It was a shame, because I was growing the beard," Jackman said, adding: "And then, of course, we had to shoot the present, so I was like given about 10 days to grow a beard [laughs], and I was like, oh no, I can't do that."

For the future sequence, Jackman also had to drop a few pounds. "Yeah," he said. "Well, I dropped quite a lot of weight for the whole thing. But particularly the future, yeah. I was pretty lean. Darren really wanted me to be lean. As lean as I could be. ... And that's OK. I was working so hard I wasn't that hungry."

Jackman altered his physical look in other ways as well. "Physically, I wanted to make a statement with them all," he said. "Like [the contemporary character] Tommy's a bit like a question mark, you know, always hunched over. Always working underground, his lab is underground, that feeling of weight, of always sort of looking down. The conquistador, physically, is very upright, but his head is forward, ... like a race[horse], you know, like the blinkers are on, ... nothing will stop him. Whereas Tom, in the future, is much more zen-like. He's worked out, even though he's still haunted by all this [stuff]. He's still motivated. He's got the same motivations, in a way, but he's worked out how to maintain his body at the optimum level, his healthy optimum level, so he does t'ai chi. He does yoga. He meditates. He's more zenned out." The Fountain, which also stars Rachel Weisz, opened Nov. 22. —Patrick Lee, News EditorDéjà Vu Terrorist Isn't Jesus

Tony Scott, director of the SF thriller Déjà Vu, told SCI FI Wire that the domestic terrorist played by James Caviezel may have reminded audiences too much of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, so they had to look for other references. "I had the research, and I gave it to him, and I pulled and pushed a little bit," said Scott, who is big on doing a lot of research for characters. "He was still playing Timothy McVeigh in terms of accent, and it took me a long time to pull J.C. back, because dialects are very difficult to do, and the general public, now they're savage, and they know when an accent works or doesn't work. So I had to pull J.C. back. ... The danger is that he would become a caricature."

Déjà Vu stars Denzel Washington as a federal agent who travels back in time a few days to save a woman's life and to stop a terrorist attack.

Scott raved about Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ), saying he wasn't sure the actor was right for the part at first. "I didn't know what I was really looking for, because you know they are terrorists, and you can always go archetypal, and that can tend to be too boring," Scott said in an interview. "I always do my homework and did research and read transcripts on McVeigh after he was caught and [the] B.T.K. [serial] killer and some others, and I honed in on McVeigh. I was searching for an actor, and I had someone else in the back of my mind, and then J.C. came in. I sat with him for two minutes and realized this was him. You see J.C. is Oerstadt [the terrorist character], and he is Jesus."

For his part, Caviezel said that he tried not to be specific to any known terrorist. "I picked up several, probably about 15 different cases, that I watched and read [about], and what I've found, though, is there was a difference between the serial killer and the Unabomber type," Caviezel said. "One is more sexual, and the other is more destiny-oriented. The [serial killer] has sexual power of some type, but both are narcissistic nonetheless."

The best reference was a guy that Scott found living on the bayou outside New Orleans, with whom Caviezel met. "A guy with satin shorts who kept showing me his gun," Scott said. "And he breeds pit bulls and brews crystal meth, and ... that's how J.C. became that character." Déjà Vu also stars Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, Adam Goldberg and Bruce Greenwood. The film opened Nov. 22. —Mike SzymanskiDéjà Vu Defied Katrina Mess

The cast and crew of the SF thriller Déjà Vu decided to move the film's location to New Orleans from the original New York and chose to stay there even after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area, they told SCI FI Wire.

"I knew the city would recover, and I thought, 'Let's go back,'" director Tony Scott said in an interview. "I wanted to incorporate more post-Katrina into the story, and I did. ... We did incorporate Jim [Caviezel]'s character into the Ninth Ward. ... But it's hard getting back there, because people didn't want to go back there because of insurance and all that stuff."

When writers Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii came up with the idea for the film, which involves a terrorist attack, it was originally supposed to take place on a ferry off New York's Long Island. "Then 9/11 happened, and I couldn't work on it for a while," said Marsilii, who co-wrote the script from an idea by Rossio. "You see, I used to work in the World Trade Center, and I saw the second tower fall to the street. I put [the script] away and couldn't deal with it." Three years later, Rossio revived the script, and the writers moved the setting to New Orleans. Then, Hurricane Katrina happened just before filming.

"It was frightening that the town could accommodate us, although we had a lot of assurances from our production people that felt they could," producer Jerry Bruckheimer said. "And [star] Denzel [Washington] in particular wanted to go back down. He took the biggest hit, because we delayed the longest. ... He had to push his other movies back, which means he lost a lot of money. But he was pretty adamant that we go back there. So was Tony."

Washington downplayed his involvement in deciding on New Orleans. "This is Tony Scott's decision," Washington said. "It's his movie. He wanted to make the film in New Orleans, before Katrina. Post-Katrina, he looked at other locations that he didn't feel comfortable about. He felt New Orleans was the place, and I may have said, 'If that's what you feel, then let's do what you want.' You know? It's really the filmmaker's decision, not the actors'. And yes it's a good thing to spend money there and put people to work there, but I think fundamentally it was an artistic decision by the filmmaker. This is what he saw, and this is what he wanted."

Also starring Val Kilmer, Jim Caviezel and Adam Goldberg, Déjà Vu opened Nov. 22. —Mike SzymanskiDéjà Vu Time Travel Explained

Columbia University physicist Brian Greene provided the scientific explanations for the time travel in the SF movie Déjà Vu, the cast and crew told SCI FI Wire. Greene, author of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, acted as a consultant on the film and helped the cast and crew understand wormholes, string theory and parallel universes, which are the basis of the movie's time machine.

Cast member Adam Goldberg said that he used one of Greene's simplified explanations of time in the movie by folding a piece of paper. "I don't have the proclivity for that kind of thinking, and I was an expert and could explain it for maybe two weeks, but it's all out the window," he said. "I spoke to Brian when things were not adding up and I did not understand the theory. Of course, I became more and more immersed in it, but at [a] certain point we were throwing a lot of different theories out there that all were subject to interpretation."

Déjà Vu stars Denzel Washington as a federal agent who must travel a few days back in time to save a woman and prevent a terrorist attack in New Orleans.

Director Tony Scott said that Greene's theories helped the story. "I'm not a big science fiction or time-bending buff," he said. "All those routines, the ones that Adam did, are [Greene's] that we had on videotape: the folding of the paper and the discussion and talk we had ... for the writers. We had it for Adam, ... and so one of my biggest concerns for the movie was that [it's] 40 minutes in that room; it could have been 40 minutes of talking heads. ... I hoped that it brought it to life and that it did work."

Washington and co-star Jim Caviezel confessed that they couldn't wrap their minds around some of the real-life concepts in the film. For his part, producer Jerry Bruckheimer said he understood a little. "I sort of understand it," he said. "I understand the branching theory. I understand the parallel-universe theory. I understand it's fairly simple. We're in this room right now, and there's another universe going on where we're in this room talking about something totally different. How do you jump between the two? The branching is pretty simple: We're on a river. Significant event happens in that river, which creates the tributary, and you forget about the river you were just on. So all knowledge of that is gone. So that's what the physicists tell us. And I understand when you look in a mirror, you're looking in the past because it takes X amount of time for the light to hit your eye." Déjà Vu opened Nov. 22. —Mike SzymanskiSCI FI Green-Lights Tin Man

SCI FI Channel has given a green light to Tin Man, a wild SF reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, as its next six-hour original miniseries. Written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle (The Pretender), Tin Man (working title) is slated to begin shooting in Vancouver, B.C., in early 2007, with an eye to a December 2007 premiere. Casting is currently underway. SCI FI is re-teaming with RHI Entertainment (Legend of Earthsea) to produce Tin Man.

The miniseries is a sometimes psychedelic, often twisted and always bizarre take on The Wizard of Oz. It centers on DG, a young woman plucked from her humdrum life and thrust into The Outer Zone (the O.Z.), a fantastical realm filled with wonder, but oppressed by dark magic. DG discovers her true identity, battles evil winged monkey-bats and attempts to fulfill her destiny. Her perilous journey begins on the fabled Old Road that leads to a wizard known as the Mystic Man. Along the way, she is joined by "Glitch," an odd man missing half his brain; "Raw," a quietly powerful wolverine-like creature longing for inner courage; and "Cain," a heroic former policeman (known in the O.Z. as a "Tin Man"), who is seeking vengeance for his scarred heart. Ultimately, DG's destiny leads her to a showdown with the wicked sorceress Azkadellia, whose ties to DG are closer than anyone could have imagined.

Tin Man will be executive-produced by RHI's Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. Mitchell and Van Sickle will also serve as executive producers.Men's Caine Channels Lennon

Audiences will see two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine as they've never seen him before in director Alfonso Cuarón's upcoming SF movie Children of Men: as a futuristic hippie modeled on former Beatle John Lennon, Cuarón told SCI FI Wire. Cuarón said that Caine told him he wanted the character to appear as if Lennon had lived two decades into the future.

"When he made the costume fitting, he said, 'I want to play this like John Lennon,' because he was friends with Lennon," Cuarón said. "And he told me [Lennon] talked a bit nasally. And if you see his performance, he has that nasal kind of way. And so we're doing all these makeup fittings and he ... goes to look at himself in [the] mirror, and he becomes this other character. At that moment his wife walks into the room and goes next to him and says, 'Have you seen my husband?' She didn't recognize him at that moment."

Children of Men, based on the novel by P.D. James, is set in a dystopian future London in a world where humans have stopped reproducing. Clive Owen stars as a reluctant hero who helps renegade activist Julianne Moore save a young girl (Clare-Hope Ashitey), who turns up pregnant. They seek refuge with Caine's character, Jasper the hippie.

Cuarón said the role—a long-haired guy who lives in the hills and grows flavored marijuana—is the grittiest yet for the now-knighted Sir Michael. "You've never seen Michael Caine farting before," Cuarón said. "Here you see Michael Caine farting and smoking joints. That is so alien to what he is. It's just that he is such an amazing actor."

Cuarón said that he envisioned Caine in the role from the moment he began working on the script, while directing the third Harry Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban. "We always called the Jasper character the 'Michael Caine character' from [the] beginning," the director said. "I wrote this right after Y tu mamá también, and I did not do that film right away because I went to do Harry Potter, but I always had Michael in mind." The movie opens on Christmas Day. —Mike SzymanskiMen's Owen Focuses On F/X

Clive Owen, who stars in the upcoming SF film Children of Men, told SCI FI Wire he's slowly getting used to the blue-screen special effects in such movies. Owen, who was nominated for an Oscar for Closer, said he still gets distracted by the technical aspects of films such as Children and his earlier genre movie, King Arthur, but that he nevertheless enjoys the process. "Yeah, I'm hugely aware of it," he said in an interview. "It's part of it. It's one of the elements of making movies that I actually really enjoy. I love the collaboration of doing shots like those in Children of Men, because there is something about filmmaking that if it was just about putting great directors, great scripts and great actors together, and you're guaranteed a great film, that would be one thing, but that's not the case."

Children of Men, based on the novel by P.D. James, is set in a dystopian future London in a world where humans have stopped reproducing. Owen plays a doctor, Theodore Faron, who becomes caught up in the story when a pregnant woman is discovered.

Computer imagery was used to create the futuristic world. Owen said that acting becomes more complicated when working with backgrounds that need to be added in later. "We'd have to rehearse for a very, very long time, and it was very painstaking and specific," he said. "But then when we came to shoot it, it had to feel like we were catching it on the run. You have to feel like you're in the thick of it, and it's all about pacing. If you hold a beat a bit too long, it will suddenly feel a bit manipulative, like he's held there until we see the tank just over his right shoulder or whatever. So we worked very, very specifically about what we wanted to see and what we wanted to catch, and [when] we went for it we had to shake that up and keep energy that was much looser than that. They're very adrenalized, those sequences, because they're hugely set. Some of those bigger ones are four- and five-hour resets to try and go again for a take like that. ... I think that, technically, some of this film is pretty staggering."

Owen's next heavily computer-generated role, he said, will probably be Sin City 2. —Mike SzymanskiWin $5M In Lost Room Hunt

SCI FI Channel will promote the Dec. 11 premiere of its miniseries event The Lost Room with an interactive multimedia bounty hunt for objects and clues associated with the program and a chance to win $5 million.

The hunt begins with a tour of a mysterious room that contains objects with obscure, dangerous powers. Players register at the official quest Web site in order to collect complete sets of objects as depicted in the miniseries: a key, an umbrella, a pen and a clock.

All who register for the object hunt are then invited to join the $5 million bounty hunt by creating their own game piece, a sequential set of seven objects. Registrants must watch the original The Lost Room telecast to confirm that their sequence of objects matches the one revealed during a commercial break.

The bearer of the correct sequence of objects must contact the SCI FI Channel within a specified period to claim the $5 million bounty, which will be paid as a 30-year annuity. Other prizes include a Microsoft Zune Digital Player, a Bose home-theater system and an HP iPAQ Pocket PC.

The first object, the key, debuted exclusively on NYPost.com to kick off the quest for clues. The hunt can also be conducted using a mobile phone from participating carriers such as Sprint, Verizon, Nextel, Cingular and AT&T. Media partnerships with companies such as AOL, UGO and The New Yorker magazine will further extend the hunt. Additional clues may be found on sites including Craigslist, MySpace and Yahoo!

In The Lost Room, Peter Krause plays homicide detective Joe Miller, who stumbles upon a seemingly innocuous motel-room key that unlocks a door to a world of unimaginable power. When his daughter vanishes inside the motel room, Miller becomes the focus of a heated police investigation. The cast also includes Elle Fanning, Julianna Margulies, Kevin Pollak, Roger Bart and Margaret Cho. The Lost Room airs Dec. 11, 12 and 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Horror's Wachs Talks 'Pro-Life'

Caitlin Wachs—who stars in the upcoming abortion-themed "Pro-Life" episode of Showtime's Masters of Horror—told SCI FI Wire that making it was at once a grueling experience and a lot of fun. Wachs plays Angelique, a pregnant 15-year-old who goes to a clinic in order to abort her baby. Her religious and protective father (Ron Perlman) and his three sons set about "liberating" her from the clinic by force, while the baby grows grows rapidly until—spoiler ahead!—a spiderlike creature crawls out of her. John Carpenter directs.

"That is me," Wachs said in an interview. "Those are my legs. The camera operator said, 'Wow, I think you're the best screamer we've ever had.' It was kind of funny, actually, because they had these little prosthetic legs that they had connected to little metal poles. So they were like puppets, in a way, like on popsicle sticks. Then they dressed them in this disgusting, sticky blood, and they had them coming out and wrapping around my [body], and I was like, 'Aaah!' Half of that screaming is just me thinking, 'This is so gross.'"

Wachs said that there are some great outtakes from "Pro-Life," which also stars Mark Feuerstein as a doctor and Emmanuelle Vaugier as a nurse. "There's a part where Emmanuelle gets drenched in pus, and there's a fabulous outtake where we all burst into laughter," Wachs said. "It was just so ridiculous. There was also one where Ron Perlman comes walking into the room later on, and the pus is still kind of on the floor, and there was a nice little slide that happened. Nobody fell, thank God, but there was just a little slide happening. And I had to do the labor scene. I know women scream a lot when they're in labor, and I've seen enough movies to understand that, but I was like, 'I can't imagine this strange-shaped monster thing coming out. That's got to hurt.' So I was trying to make my screams that much more intense, and in the middle of screaming and all that, I never could hear John yelling 'Cut!' So I was giving it my all, and finally he said, 'Caitlin, you can stop now.' I was like, 'Oh, OK.'"

Wachs, a 17-year-old who counts among her genre credits Inspector Gadget 2 and the Disney Channel movie Phantom of the Megaplex, said that she signed on to the show because of several factors, chief among them the script. Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan are credited with penning the teleplay. "I read the script, and I just thought it was really cool," she said. "It kind of deals with some really heavy issues: teen pregnancy, abortion. So there's a lot of controversial things in there. Plus, of course, it's Masters of Horror, so that added a little to it. And then I heard John Carpenter was doing it. Actually, the day I found out I got it, I had rented, just by chance, Starman, because I'm obsessed with Jeff Bridges. So now I'm a big fan of John Carpenter. And when I found out that Ron Perlman was playing the dad, I was very excited because I loved him in The City of Lost Children, and I saw Hellboy three times in [the] theater. So I was excited."

Wachs added: "But my main reason, really, was I thought it was such a cool script, and I thought it would be fun to portray a character. Although she's 15, she's kind of, I thought, similar to Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, just going through this bizarre pregnancy. Also, there's the added element in it [of Angelique's] being so young and alone and confused." The "Pro-Life" episode of Masters of Horror aired on Nov. 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime. —Ian SpellingPotter V Game In Development

Electronic Arts and Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment announced the development of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a video game tied to the July 2007 release of the film of the same name. Based on the fifth Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the first in the franchise being developed for next-generation game consoles.

The game will be closely tied to both the movie and the book. Players will be able to explore the many key locations within Hogwarts in minute detail, each one a visual match to its film equivalent, while taking part in the adventures outlined in the narrative of the book.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry returns for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts and discovers that much of the wizarding community is in denial about the teenager's recent encounter with the evil Lord Voldemort. Fearing that Hogwarts' venerable headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, is lying about Voldemort's return in order to undermine his power and take his job, the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, appoints a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to keep watch over Dumbledore and the Hogwarts students: Professor Dolores Umbridge.

Meanwhile, Harry, Hermione and Ron take matters into their own hands and meet secretly with a small group of students who name themselves "Dumbledore's Army." Harry teaches them how to defend themselves against the dark arts, preparing the courageous young wizards for the extraordinary battle that lies ahead.

Gamers will be able to play multiple characters, including Harry Potter, Dumbledore and Sirius Black. Under development by EA's UK Studio, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is scheduled for release for the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance and Windows PC.Hamilton Bares All In Candy

Best-selling fantasy author Laurell K. Hamilton told SCI FI Wire that her first short-story collection, Strange Candy, features stories that are all personal. "Writing is like murder: No matter how careful you are, there's always a little piece of yourself left on the body," Hamilton said in an interview.

The stories in Strange Candy are a mix of reprints and originals, including the first appearance of a new story set in Hamilton's best-selling Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, she said. "'Those Who Seek Forgiveness' was the first time Anita Blake ever stepped onto paper," Hamilton said. "I was lost on the shores of the western sea when I wrote the story. I was as far from home as I could get in this country and not drowned. But the cemetery in the story is based on the one my mother is buried in. It was a place I knew very well as a child. My grandmother, who raised me, spent my childhood mourning my mother's loss. We visited the cemetery a lot."

Another original story is "Here Be Dragons." "It is the only science fiction piece I've ever finished, but it is also a horror story, make no mistake about that," Hamilton said. "This story disturbed more editors than any I've written. One editor said it made her feel unclean. How cool is that? It was like being 14 again and having my creative-writing teacher tell me that my story had frightened her. I still remember the pleasure of that moment, that I, [a] painfully shy, small-town girl, had frightened an adult. I guess I've always liked to push people's boundaries, make them think beyond where they feel safe."

The book contains almost every piece of short fiction Hamilton has written, she said. "There are a few that may be hiding in boxes somewhere, lost unless they are found," Hamilton said. "But you have my short stories. You have my dreams, my nightmares, what moves me, what makes me laugh, what irritates me, intrigues me, what makes me angry or makes me love. It's all there in the stories, and yet, ... yet, I'm not there at all. They are fiction, and they are not fact, not my fact. As I said ... writing is like murder: My DNA is everywhere, but I'm not there. I'm buried deep in the next story, the next character, the next mystery."

Mistral's Kiss, the fifth book in Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series, comes out Dec. 15, and the 15th Anita Blake book, The Harlequin, will be published in June 2007. The first comic book featuring Anita Blake, Guilty Pleasures, was recently published and sold out in one day, but will be reissued on Nov. 22, as the second comic book hits the stands, Hamilton said. —John Joseph AdamsWachs Mirrors Worth's Bloody Mary

Young actress Caitlin Wachs told SCI FI Wire that she plays the title role in an independent supernatural horror film, Mary Worth, based on the urban legend of Bloody Mary, but is uncertain whether the movie was ever finished. The film is set in the present and in the 17th century, she said in an interview. "[There's] that thing kids do, [where] you go in the bathroom and you light a candle and you get your finger wet and you make a big X on the mirror and you say, 'Bloody Mary, I killed your son,'" Wachs said. "Or in some places they say, 'Mary Worth, Mary Worth, Mary Worth,' and apparently this girl is supposed to appear in the mirror. She'll make you bleed or something else will happen."

Wachs added: "Every version is a little different. Some of them say she's supposed to steal your soul. So our writer-director [Dominick R. Domingo] took that and turned it into a movie, and he says that the reason nobody sees her is because it has to be somebody in her family. So I played Mary Worth, and through flashback we learn that she was a young girl in the puritan age who gets pregnant and doesn't say who the father is. It turns out he's actually the minister of the town, but she won't say who it is. Everyone is quick to say, 'She's a witch! She's a witch!'"

As punishment and in an effort to force her to reveal the father's identity, the locals bind Mary's hands and secure her head in a device that's nailed to a tree. "All the women in town and, I think, the men, too, actually, take this piece of glass, and she has to watch in the mirror as they cut her face with this piece of glass," Wachs said. "The minister can't take this anymore and is possessed by something, and he decides to cut the baby out of her. Of course, then she dies, and her soul goes into this mirror and seeks her revenge against everyone in her family."

Wachs shot most of her scenes for the period portion of Mary Worth, but isn't certain that Domingo was able to do the contemporary part of the film. "We had it all going," she said. "I filmed that scene, being tied to the tree and all of that fun stuff, but we never got to the haunting part, of me on [wires] and all of that. I don't know what's going to happen. It was a very cool story. I really enjoyed it. Maybe it'll surface again, hopefully. We've heard it's completed, and I've heard that the budget's fallen through, so I don't know. I might have to give the producers a call and be like, 'Hey, remember me? What's going on?'" —Ian SpellingNew Line Nabs Nicholas Flamel

New Line Cinema has made a deal for Michael Scott's fantasy series The Immortal Nicholas Flamel, which Mark Burnett will produce, Variety reported. The series is being eyed as a six-picture franchise.

Burnett, the producer of reality shows Survivor and The Apprentice, used his own money to land the book series rights in an auction held in the early fall. The studio and Burnett will set a writer to adapt The Alchemyst, the first title in the series, which will be published by Random House Children's Books next May.

In the book, two teenage twins find themselves on the adventure of a lifetime when legendary alchemist Nicholas Flamel loses a book holding secrets that could spell the doom of humanity if it falls into the wrong hands.Hathaway To Get Smart

Warner Brothers is close to setting Anne Hathaway to star alongside Steve Carell in a film version of the classic TV spy sitcom Get Smart, Variety reported. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry created the 1960s TV series, about a bumbling spy. Peter Segal is directing. Shooting will begin in March. Village Roadshow is co-financing.

Hathaway, who last starred in the summer sleeper The Devil Wears Prada and Brokeback Mountain, will play the role originated on the small screen by Barbara Feldon. Carell will play the Smart role originated by Don Adams.

Get Smart is produced by Mad Chance's Andrew Lazar and Mosaic Media Group's Charles Roven and Alex Gartner. Tom Astle and Matt Ember (Failure to Launch) wrote the most recent draft of the script.Locke Lamora Mixes Fantasy And Cons

Fantasy author Scott Lynch, whose first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, was recently optioned by Warner Brothers, told SCI FI Wire that the novel is a fantasy crime thriller that halfway through becomes a fantasy revenge thriller. "It's a little bit swashbuckling, a little bit organized crime, a little bit of an exploration of what I hope is a fairly detailed cityscape, but it's basically the story of the protagonist [Locke Lamora] and a very close-knit band of companions who are con artists," Lynch said in an interview at the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, Texas, earlier this month. "[This is] in a world where con artistry as we know it ... is either a very new or unprecedented thing. As far as they know they're the first people, at least in their culture, to sort of try to make their criminal living by conning people instead of robbing them at knifepoint or beating them up on highways."

Lynch said that Locke is an extraordinary con man, but that he is a purely average individual in many respects. "Average height, average build, average looks, ... he really only has two or three really exceptional qualities about him," he said. "He is a very, very good planner, ... but it's when his back is against the wall and he is forced to be crazier and looser than he ordinarily would be that he really shines. He has almost superhuman adjustable charisma, you might say. He has the ability to blend into a crowd or to stand [out] as he sees fit. ... He's a social fencer, more or less. He correctly deduces 99.9 percent of the time what the proper move for a given situation to make is. Which is good, because he is absolute crap with actual fighting."

In the second book of Lynch's proposed seven-book Gentleman Bastard sequence, Red Seas Under Red Skies, the surviving characters are fleeing the consequences of their actions, Lynch said. "They have fled far to the west looking for a new life, looking for a new place to settle and a new place to run their crimes—far from where anyone has ever heard of them," he said. "They're looking for virgin ground. And they don't necessarily get it, because there are lingering complications from the first novel: A very, very powerful group of people that they deeply offended takes measures to ensure that their life remains complicated."

Lynch added: "The plot is pretty multilayered. You've got a vault heist, gambling, internecine warfare, ... a very, very lengthy involvement of pirates and piracy, a sojourn on the sea of brass. Generally, it's a rocking nautical time, or so I like to think." Red Seas Under Red Skies is scheduled to be published in July 2007. —John Joseph AdamsOwen Gunning For Sin City 2

Clive Owen, who played Dwight in Sin City, told SCI FI Wire that he plans on doing Sin City 2, but he has no idea how or when. He also declined to comment on rumors that Angelina Jolie will play his character's love interest in the sequel, which is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel series.

"I honestly don't know what's happening there," Owen said during interviews for his upcoming SF film Children of Men. "Everyone has talked about it. It's been announced a few times that it's happening, but I have no idea what's happening there. I don't know where they're going to do it, who is doing it. I have no idea."

Owen said that he does know that Miller will co-direct the movie, along with Robert Rodriguez, as he did with the first one. Much of the story will come from Miller's second book, A Dame to Kill For. Owen's character, Dwight, figures prominently in the book with his love interest, Ava. "Oh, yeah, I know that [book], but that's been talked about and is floating out there as an idea," Owen said. "But no one has talked to me about it."

Owen laughed when told that Rodriguez had confirmed much of the information himself and said that filming may start next summer. "He [Rodriguez] told me what he was doing, but I have no idea when and what's happening with it," Owen said.

Owen added that he's happy to be involved with the next Sin City when it does happen, no matter who he has to kiss or kill. Children of Men is scheduled to open nationwide on Dec. 25. —Mike SzymanskiMasters Of Horror Tackles Abortion

Caitlin Wachs, who stars as a pregnant teenager in the Masters of Horror episode "Pro-Life," told SCI FI Wire that she's bracing herself for the controversy that may result from the potentially polarizing hour. John Carpenter (Halloween) directed the episode, about 15-year-old Angelique (Wachs), who arrives at a clinic to abort her baby. Matters escalate, not only because Angelique's anti-abortion father (Ron Perlman) and his three sons try to liberate her by force, but also because the child inside her is growing frightfully fast.

"I know there are a few pretty intense scenes," Wachs said in an interview. "I'm kind of bracing myself for anything. I had a lot of fun working on it, and I stand by my work. I don't think it's necessarily the right thing, but I think that women do have the right to choose. Just the fact that it takes place in an abortion clinic can piss off a lot of people. So I'm kind of preparing myself for anything, really. I don't know what's going to happen."

That said, Wachs said that viewers should be able to relate to all of the characters in the piece. "As crazy as Ron Perlman's character really is, I think that he's just a father who's looking out for his daughter," she said. "My character is very religious and has no idea how to react to what's happened to her and the doctors and everything. So there's a lot in there that I think it's not just like, 'OK, girl pregnant with child and is trying to abort it and is freaking out about it.' I think in our pretend world of horror films, it's as close as [possible] to what actually might be going through somebody's head if they were pregnant at 15, minus the monster aspect. I think it's kind of close to that awkward 'What is it going to look like? This is so weird.'" Showtime premiered the "Pro-Life" episode of Masters of Horror on Nov. 24 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingVillain Had An Eye For Casino

Mads Mikkelsen, the Danish actor who plays the villainous money launderer Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, told SCI FI Wire that he was all but blinded by the opaque contact lens he wore to give the character his frightful, scarred visage. "I had this big lens that was covering the whole [left] eye," Mikkelsen said. "It was fine. It didn't hurt at all, but I must have been the most clumsy Bond villain in history. I couldn't see anything. My—what do you call it—depth ... [perception] was gone. I just kept knocking things down."

Mikkelsen plays the bad guy in Casino Royale, a prequel film based on the first of Ian Fleming's 007 novels, opposite Daniel Craig, who makes his debut as superspy James Bond. Le Chiffre has a milky left eye that occasionally drips blood—an effect that wasn't tough to realize, Mikkelsen said.

"It was pretty simple," Mikkelsen said. "It was a physical thing. They just stopped the film, and they placed a little drop [of fake blood] there. And then later, they fixed it up with some CGI. So the blood was not a big part of it." Casino Royale, which was the number-two film of the Nov. 17 weekend, is now playing. —Ian SpellingBRIEFLY NOTED

The full trailer for the upcoming fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, has gone live and is linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

Former The X-Files star Gillian Anderson gave birth to a baby boy, Oscar Griffiths, on Nov. 1 in London, her second child and her first with boyfriend businessman Mark Griffiths, People magazine reported.