Shaye: New Line Blacklists Jackson

In the latest comment in the controversy surrounding a proposed movie based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, New Line head Robert Shaye told SCI FI Wire in no uncertain terms that the studio won't work with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson on that film or any other film. Ever. At least not as long as Shaye is in charge.

Shaye's comments marked the first time a New Line executive has commented publicly on the fracas since Jackson announced that he has pulled out of the project and also appears to harden New Line's position against Jackson.

"I do not want to make a movie with somebody who is suing me," Shaye—New Line's chief executive officer—said in an interview on Jan. 5 while promoting The Last Mimzy, a New Line family fantasy that marks his first time in a director's chair since 1990's Book of Love. "It will never happen during my watch."

Jackson had told TheOneRing.net in November 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 Hobbit without them. Jackson has said he won't discuss The Hobbit until a lawsuit against New Line over Rings accounting practices is settled.

As far as Shaye is concerned, Jackson is no longer welcome. "There's a kind of arrogance," Shaye said. "Not that I don't think Peter is a good filmmaker and that he hasn't contributed significantly to filmography and made three very good movies. And I don't even expect him to say 'thank you' for having me make it happen and having New Line make it happen. But to think that I, as a functionary in [a] company that has been around for a long time, but is now owned by a very big conglomerate, would care one bit about trying to cheat the guy, ... he's either had very poor counsel or is completely misinformed and myopic to think that I care whether I give him [anything]."

Shaye, who was also an executive producer on the Rings films, added: "He got a quarter of a billion dollars paid to him so far, justifiably, according to contract, completely right, and this guy, who already has received a quarter of a billion dollars, turns around without wanting to have a discussion with us and sues us and refuses to discuss it unless we just give in to his plan. I don't want to work with that guy anymore. Why would I? So the answer is he will never make any movie with New Line Cinema again while I'm still working for the company."

Shaye said that many of the Rings trilogy actors "suddenly, because, I'm guessing, of Peter's complaint," have declined to participate in celebrating New Line's 40th anniversary. "I'm incredibly offended," he said. "I don't care about Peter Jackson anymore. He wants to have another $100 million or $50 million, whatever he's suing us for. He doesn't want to sit down and talk about it. He thinks that we owe him something after we've paid him over a quarter of a billion dollars. ... Cheers, Peter."

New Line's hardened position against Jackson isn't the end of the story, of course. 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."

In his own 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.Jackson Responds To Shaye

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson released a statement saying that he found "regrettable" comments made by New Line Cinema chief Robert Shaye to SCI FI Wire that Jackson would never work for the studio again under his watch.

In an interview, Shaye—New Line's chief executive officer—told SCI FI Wire, "I do not want to make a movie with somebody who is suing me," referring to Jackson and his legal action concerning accounting practices for Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. "It will never happen during my watch."

Jackson's complete statement follows:

"Our issue with New Line Cinema has only ever been about their refusal to account for financial anomalies that surfaced from a partial audit of The Fellowship of the Ring. Contrary to recent comments made by Bob Shaye, we attempted to discuss the issues raised by the Fellowship audit with New Line for over a year, but the studio was and continues to be completely uncooperative. This has compelled us to file a lawsuit to pursue our contractual rights under the law. Nobody likes taking legal action, but the studio left us with no alternative.

"For over two years, New Line has denied us the ability to audit The Two Towers and The Return of the King, despite repeated requests. Film auditing is a common and straightforward practice within the industry, and we don't understand why New Line Cinema has taken this position.

"In light of these circumstances, I didn't think it was appropriate for me to be involved in New Line Cinema's 40th-anniversary video. I have never discussed this video with any of the cast of The Lord of the Rings. The issues that Bob Shaye has with the cast pre-date this lawsuit by many years.

"Fundamentally, our legal action is about holding New Line to its contractual obligations and promises. It is regrettable that Bob has chosen to make it personal. I have always had the highest respect and affection for Bob and other senior management at New Line and continue to do so." —Patrick Lee, News EditorCritics Name Pan Year's Best

The National Society of Film Critics on Jan. 6 named Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-language fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth the year's best picture, the Reuters news service reported. The vote of confidence, coming weeks before the announcement of the Academy Award nominees, bucks a national trend favoring nominations for more realistic fare, the wire service reported.

Pan's Labyrinth, which is Mexico's candidate for a best-foreign-language-film Oscar nomination, tells the story of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who is enraptured by fairy tales and magic lands and who comes to live in an enchanted forest with her mother in the era of Spanish fascism.

Oscar nominees will be named Jan. 23, and winners will be unveiled at the annual Hollywood gala on Feb. 25.

The National Society of Film Critics also gave an award to Emmanuel Lubezki for best cinematography for the SF epic Children of Men.Cameron's Avatar Is A Go

Fox has officially announced that James Cameron is set to direct Avatar, the epic SF movie that has been the subject of previous reports, with an April start date and new casting.

Cameron has cast Australian Sam Worthington in the lead role of Jake Sully after global screen tests. Zoe Saldana (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) will portray the local woman Jake gets involved with. Both actors have signed on for possible future installments as well, as Cameron and Fox see Avatar as a potential franchise. Other casting will be announced shortly.

Written by Cameron, who has been developing the story for over a decade, Avatar is the story of a wounded ex-marine who is unwillingly sent to settle and exploit a faraway planet. He gets caught up in a battle for survival by the planet's inhabitants.

"For me, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and action, Avatar is a dream project," Cameron said in a statement. "We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The story is both epic and emotional. The two things that make this film even possible are pioneering advances in CG effects and performance capture, as well as my 22-year relationship with Fox, since only with great trust can you operate so close to the cutting edge. I plan to honor that relationship by bringing them a winner. And I have the team to do it, the best team of artists and technicians I've ever been privileged to work with. This one's going to be a grand adventure."

Avatar marks Cameron's first dramatic feature film since his Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic in 1997, it was announced on Jan. 8 by Fox Filmed Entertainment chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman. Cameron will start principal photography on Avatar in April for a summer 2009 release.

Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment team has spent years researching an innovative mix of live-action cinematography and virtual photorealistic production techniques for Avatar, which will feature virtual characters filmed for 3-D release in a new digital 3-D format.

Peter Jackson's visual-effects house Weta Digital (The Lord of the Rings) will transform the environments and characters into 3-D imagery.Shyamalan Readies Own Avatar

M. Night Shyamalan and Paramount are planning their own Avatar, a movie based on the popular Nickelodeon kids' TV series, Variety reported.

The filmmaker has signed a three-picture deal with Paramount's MTV Films and Nick Movies to adapt the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender show for the big screen. He will write, direct and produce the potential kids' franchise. The film version will be live action.

Nick TV's Avatar, which is set in an Asian-influenced fantasy world permeated by martial arts and magic, follows the adventures of the successor to a long line of Avatars who must put aside his irresponsible ways and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.

Created by Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, Avatar debuted on the Nicktoons lineup in February 2005. Aimed at 6- to 11-year-olds, the show has nabbed strong ratings, including some outside this intended demo. It is among the top 10 animated series on all of TV among kids 6-11 and tweens 9-14.

Paramount confirmed the pact with Shyamalan just hours after Fox Filmed Entertainment announced it is green-lighting James Cameron's Avatar, which has nothing to do with the Airbender project.Shatner Leaks Trek XI Details

William Shatner revealed to SCI FI Wire that the upcoming 11th Star Trek movie will indeed, as rumored, deal with the early years of Capt. James T. Kirk and Spock—and that he will definitely appear in the movie if director J.J. Abrams can find a place to use him. Shatner, who originated the role of Kirk in the original Trek series and several subsequent films, said in an interview that he was invited to meet with Abrams (Mission: Impossible III), who is also co-writing the movie.

"I met with J.J., and they told me they would like me to be part of their film, but they have to write the role," Shatner said in an interview.

As for the many rumors concerning the sequel's story, Shatner said that Abrams will explore Kirk and Spock during their Starfleet Academy years. "Yes, we know the story is based on young Kirk," Shatner said. Up until now, everyone connected with the film has maintained strict silence about the storyline, though rumors have run rampant that they concern Kirk and Spock's first missions.

As for Shatner's place in that storyline? "They need to figure out how to put the dead captain in with the young captain," he said. "It's a very complex, technical problem of how to write the character in, and I'm not sure how they will solve it." It sounds as if Shatner may play an older version of Kirk.

Coincidentally, the Starfleet storyline is one Shatner is already working on for his latest Trek-based novels. "I'm writing with Gar and Judy Reeves-Stevens two books on the academy, with the young Kirk and the young Spock," Shatner revealed. "We've submitted the first book to the publishers, and I think it will be out in the beginning of 2008. It's got a working title of The Academy, but I don't think that will stick."

Meanwhile, Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that a draft of the Trek XI script is done and will be trimmed sometime soon. The sequel will be targeted, "on the one hand, for people who love Star Trek, the fix that they will get will be really satisfying," Abrams told the magazine. "For people who've never seen it or know it vaguely, I think they will enjoy it equally, because the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek. I would actually prefer [that] people don't know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind." —Tara DiLullo BennettPotter V Has More Isaacs

Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter film franchise, told SCI FI Wire that he'll have a lot more to do in the upcoming fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, including (spoiler!) a wand-to-wand fight with Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). "I had virtually nothing to do in number four," Isaacs said in an interview at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., where he was promoting his upcoming BBC America miniseries The State Within. "In fact, when there's nothing to do like that, and they say, 'Do you want to come in for a couple of weeks?' you go, 'Well, I'm busy. Oh, God. All right.' Because the thought that somebody else might wear my wig is just too painful. But I have a little bit more to do in this."

Isaacs' character is the sinister father of Harry Potter's rival at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Draco Malfoy. In the fifth book, the elder Malfoy is revealed as a Death Eater, one of the followers of the evil Lord Voldemort.

Isaacs said that the fifth film will include a harrowing showdown between his character and Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. "I get to have a wand battle with Gary Oldman, possibly my favorite actor in the universe," Isaacs said. "We get to play around like two 10-year-olds. And with kind of unlimited sci-fi imagination. It's fun. We just go, 'Well, how about if I ... .' And anything you finish that sentence with, they go, 'Yeah, OK. You can do that.' So it was magnificent."

The character does not appear in the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but Isaacs said he recently had an opportunity to meet author J.K. Rowling and appealed to her to include him in the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due this year, possibly July. "I fell to my knees and begged," he joked. "It didn't do any good. I'm sure she doesn't need plot ideas from me. But I made my point. We'll see. Like everybody else, I'm holding my breath to July to see what's in there. I just want to bust out of prison, that's all. I don't want to stay in Azkaban most of my life." Order of the Phoenix opens July 13. —Cindy WhiteLoken Feels No Pain In Jane

Kristanna Loken, who stars in the upcoming SCI FI Channel original series Painkiller Jane, told SCI FI Wire that she got excited after reading the comic book on which it is based: so much so that she also signed on as executive producer. "I read the comic and fell in love with the depth of the comic-book character," Loken said in an interview at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 12. "It just had so many different levels: the pain and the healing and the kind of eternal question of 'why is this happening to me?' is a very human statement. So then I read [executive producer] Gil's [Grant] wonderful first episode and wanted to come up and work also as a co-exec."

In the series, Loken plays a DEA agent who is recruited by a covert government organization tasked with capturing "Neuros"—genetically enhanced individuals who possess superhuman powers of the mind. During the course of her first investigation with the team, Jane inexplicably discovers that she too possesses extraordinary abilities: She is impervious to injury, but not pain. She develops miraculous regenerative powers, healing from every injury and finding herself stronger than she had been before. As she continues to work with the government to hunt Neuros, Jane tries to uncover the cause of her own transformation and what, if any, connection she shares with the very people she is pursuing.

In her dual role as co-executive-producer, Loken also oversees a lot of the day-to-day creative issues while she's on set. "It's been double duty," she said. "It really has been a whole extra job, because lots of questions come to me, and I'm really one of the creative producers on set all the time. So a lot of story points come up or set design things or [whatever]. I don't know, ... you just try to stay present and do as much as you can."

Loken, who also starred in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, is no stranger to action roles, nor to SCI FI Channel, having appeared in last year's miniseries Dark Kingdom. She said that she has always been attracted to films that exploit her strong physique. "I think it's just a physical awareness," she said." A lot of people seem to be kind of disconnected from their bodies. I mean, I just have the physique. It just lends itself, so I think it was something I wanted to embrace. ... If you find something you're good at and maybe not many people can do it, then by God, go for it."

Still, Loken has found that shooting a regular weekly action series is a far different experience from the action films she's done. "It's grueling," she said. "We've started our fourth [episode]. The wonderful thing is you have more time to make an [arc] of a character and explore the character, which is a luxury you don't have with film. It is grueling, though. It's a grueling schedule, for sure." Painkiller Jane premieres in April on SCI FI. —Cindy WhiteCumming Headlines Tin Man

SCI FI Channel has cast Tony Award winner Alan Cumming in its upcoming six-hour original miniseries tentatively titled Tin Man, an SF fantasy reimagining of The Wizard of Oz. The miniseries, from RHI Entertainment, is slated to begin production in Vancouver, B.C., this spring and premiere in December.

Cumming will play Glitch, one of a motley assortment of characters trapped in the Outer Zone, or O.Z. SCI FI made the announcement at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 12.

SCI FI described Tin Man as "a sometimes psychedelic, often twisted and always outrageous take" on L. Frank Baum's classic fantasy tale. In it, a young woman is plucked from her humdrum life and thrust into the Outer Zone, a fantastical realm filled with wonder and oppressed by dark magic.

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 quiet and powerful wolverine-like creature longing for inner courage; and Cain, a heroic former police officer (known in the O.Z. as a tin man) seeking vengeance for his scarred heart.

Tin Man will be executive-produced by Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. Co-writers Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle (The Pretender) will also executive-produce.Flash Blasts Off Again

SCI FI Channel has green-lighted production on Flash Gordon, a series based on the popular comic-strip franchise, the channel announced Jan. 12 at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif.

Production on the 22 one-hour episodes begins in Canada early this year. The series, produced by Reunion Pictures, is slated to debut on SCI FI in July, with a broadcast syndication window to follow.

The series will be produced under an agreement between King Features Syndicate, which owns the rights to Flash Gordon, and Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. (The Legend of Earthsea).

The characters of Ming, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov will be brought back for a contemporary retelling of the comic-strip story created in 1934 by Alex Raymond. The strip is still distributed internationally by King Features Syndicate.Star Makes Dresden His Own

Paul Blackthorne, who stars as detective Harry Dresden in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original series The Dresden Files, told SCI FI Wire that creating the real-life version of Jim Butcher's best-selling fantasy novel character wasn't as daunting as it seems. "I didn't really think about it, to be honest," Blackthorne said in a conference call with journalists on Jan. 9. "I would go around in circles if I started thinking about that. So I went about creating a character in the same way as I would whether people were aware or not. Obviously, Jim Butcher gave me a considerable push-off in the world and the character that he created. I just took it beyond there with regard to the scripts. When the scripts came in, the character further developed in my mind."

Blackthorne (24) said that he did consult Butcher's books for some initial inspiration. "I read Storm Front," he said. "I had this wonderful research idea of reading every book [in the series]. And then the first script came to me, and I realized I needed to start reading the script, because we were shooting the next week. So I never got around to reading all the books. But I enjoyed Storm Front."

Blackthorne plays Harry Dresden, a Chicago-based private detective with extraordinary abilities who solves mysteries that seem unbreakable. The actor said the role immediately intrigued him when he received the script last year. "I was in England at the time, and I was on a train leaving London," he said. "I started reading the script as the train left, and I had barely left the terminal when I thought to myself, 'Wow, this would be a nice one to play. It would be a lot of fun.' So I'm really pleased to be involved with it." The Dresden Files premieres on SCI FI Channel on Jan. 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Tara DiLullo BennettDresden's Bob Fleshed Out

Producers of SCI FI Channel's upcoming original series The Dresden Files literally put meat on the bones of Bob, the character that will be played by Tony-nominated actor Terrence Mann, when adapting the Jim Butcher novels on which the show is based. (The Dresden Files premieres Jan. 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.)

"The character of Bob in the Jim Butcher books and in the original pilot is a talking skull," said executive producer David Simkins in a conference call with journalists on Jan. 9. "When the pilot was shot, there was a valiant attempt to duplicate, create and augment that talking-skull aspect [for the series]," Simkins said. "Bob's original role was almost like a computer or a font of knowledge for Dresden."

But duplicating that was going to be expensive. And "the relationship between Dresden and Bob wasn't coming across," Simkins said. "We had many discussions about whether we should get rid of the Bob character, and it was decided we actually would make him a [full] character."

In the TV version of The Dresden Files, Bob is now a fully realized human, albeit magically attached to a skull that resides in Harry Dresden's Chicago-based private detective office. Mann plays the character opposite star Paul Blackthorne (24) as Harry Dresden.

Simkins said Mann added a whole new dimension to the character as well. "We looked around and landed on Terrence, and we are extremely pleased," Simkins said. "The odd couple relationship Paul and Terrence have created—and we as writers have been writing towards—is a lot of fun, and there is a lot of room to explore, not just Dresden, but also Bob. Like, how did he get into the skull? What crime did he commit? Was he this terrible sorcerer who transgressed in some way, or was he a victim of circumstance?"

Simkins said that Bob's circumstances and destiny will play a big part in the 12-episode season. "There is an ongoing undercurrent with Bob's character of wanting to be free," Simkins said. "In some upcoming episodes, he's going to make some tragic decisions to try to get himself out of his particular purgatory, which will affect Dresden's story." —Tara DiLullo BennettClooney, Others Develop SCI FI Shows

SCI FI Channel unveiled a new slate of programs in development, which includes shows from executive producers George Clooney, Darren Star and Mark Burnett. SCI FI made the announcement Jan. 12 at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif.

Diamond Age, based on Neal Stephenson's best-selling novel The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, is a six-hour miniseries from Clooney and fellow executive producer Grant Heslov of Smokehouse Productions.

When a prominent member of society concludes that the futuristic civilization in which he lives is stifling creativity, he commissions an interactive book for his daughter that serves as a guide through a surreal alternate world. Stephenson will adapt his novel for the miniseries, the first time the Hugo and Nebula award winner has written for TV.

Also in development:

Avery House, produced by Burnett and Tagline Entertainment's Kelly Kulchak and Ron West and written by Dava Savel. The series deals with a bed and breakfast in which the innermost thoughts of both guests and owners miraculously come to life.

Untitled Darren Star/Mike Werb Project, a 90-minute action show from Sex and the City's Star and writer Werb. The show centers on four convicts who are given new identities and technologically enhanced bodies to join a covert wing of the government on a mission to battle threats from science run amok.

Revolution, from creators Ed Redlich (Without a Trace) and John Bellucci, is about a group of pioneers on a remote space colony who find themselves under siege by their homeland, Earth.

Middletown, from writers Coke Sams and Matt Lindahl, is a two-hour pilot about a small town in Middle America that becomes the final battlefield for Earth when nefarious aliens make the town their Ellis Island.

Johnny Midnight, from writer John Sullivan and executive producer Howard Deutch (The Replacements), is a two-hour pilot about a slacker who discovers that he has powers that can save the world from malevolent forces.

Starcrossed, from executive producers Jane Loughman and John G. Lenic, is a half-hour comedy starring David Hewlett (Stargate Atlantis), who will draw from his own experiences for stories that go behind the scenes of a long-running space opera.

Witch School is a "docusoap" about a school for aspiring conjurers.Bruno Is Beowulf In Grendel

Chris Bruno, who stars in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original movie Grendel, told SCI FI Wire that he never in a million years thought he'd get a chance to play the Viking hero Beowulf. But the actor, best known for his long stint as Sheriff Walt Bannerman on USA Network's The Dead Zone, does precisely that in Grendel, which is based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. It premieres Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

"I've got to tell you, I remember reading Beowulf in high school and enjoying it and thinking it was pretty cool," Bruno said in an interview. "And then I came into town [recently], and they said, 'Hey, you got this movie.' I'm like, 'What movie?' And they said, 'Here, we'll give you the script.' I read the script, and I was like, 'Are you kidding me? I get to play Beowulf? That's nuts, man.' And at the last minute, the night before I left, the director [Nick Lyon] said, 'By the way, can you do a British accent?' I said, 'Well, I did The Importance of Being Earnest off-Broadway 10 years ago. So I can do it; it's just been a long time.' It was interesting, because we had to make those kinds of choices in the beginning. I couldn't see it any other way; it wouldn't have made any sense. Plus, we had Ben Cross and Marina Sirtis [both of whom are British] in the movie."

Bruno joked that the rough-and-tumble, stunt-heavy shoot in Bulgaria led him to calling the film "My Own Private Gladiator." "It was, like, here we are, with a very small budget, with 21 days to shoot, to do a film that's literally an epic film. I haven't seen the finished product yet, but I went in [to record additional dialogue], and the scenes I saw—with us on the ship and the battle scenes and all of that stuff—look really great." —Ian SpellingTruth Is Green-Lighted

SCI FI Channel has given a green light to Destination Truth, a one-hour world-traveling reality series in which viewers follow one man's search for the truth behind unexplained phenomena.

Executive-produced by Neil and Michael Mandt for their Mandt Brothers Productions, the six-episode series will focus on Josh Gates as he visits a different destination each week, investigating notorious, supernatural and mysterious local stories, such as the fire worm of Mongolia and the Chilean Chupacabra. Gates will seek evidence that will either prove or debunk the stories.

Destination Truth is in production and slated to premiere in the second quarter of 2007.

The announcement was made at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 12.NBC U Rolls Out Chiller

In an unexpected move, NBC Universal plans to roll out Chiller, a new digital cable network devoted to horror-themed programming, Variety reported.

The cable network will launch March 1 and initially be seen in 12 million homes via a carriage deal with DirecTV. The channel also will be offered on DirecTV's new tier of 100 HD channels slated to roll out later this year, the trade paper reported.

NBC U has already started pitching other cable operators on the channel and is hoping to land carriage agreement on other systems.

Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal's president of cable entertainment, digital content and cross-network strategy, is expected to announce the network on Jan. 12 at the TV Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif. Dan Harrison, senior vice president of emerging networks for NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, will be in charge of the channel.

Chiller will take advantage of NBC U's deep reservoir of horror-related TV shows (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and films (The Shining, Psycho), many of them from the old MCA library. But Gaspin said the cabler also has acquired programming from other companies, including 20th Century Fox TV, Sony, Warner Brothers TV and Lionsgate.

Other programming assets include Twin Peaks, Tales From the Crypt, Freddy's Nightmares and Friday the 13th: The Series.

NBC Universal also owns SCIFI.COM.Arthur Stars Cheated Death

Mia Farrow, who co-stars with Freddie Highmore in the upcoming children's fantasy film Arthur and the Invisibles, told SCI FI Wire that they narrowly escaped tragedy while visiting France, but that the young actor took the harrowing incident in stride.

"He has a professional demeanor, but he can also cut loose," Farrow said of Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) in an interview. "He can. He's an incredible mimic. We had a near-death experience together because our driver—we were going somewhere with my son—fell asleep at the wheel. It was narcolepsy or something, and so we nearly died. And Freddie does the best imitation of the driver falling asleep. Freddie was in the front seat, and you saw all the stages of the guy nodding off. The guy went off, was weaving, then he woke up, and then he just went to sleep in a field."

In Arthur, which Luc Besson wrote and directed based on his children's book Arthur and the Minimoys, Farrow (The Omen) plays the grandmother of Highmore's heroic character.

"We had been visiting Normandy beaches, Omaha Beach and stuff," Farrow recalled. "And [Highmore's] father, who was in another car, drove us back. But what I meant to say was Freddie is really funny. Get him to do his imitation of our near-death experience, and you too will laugh. He won't do it for you, though. He won't. He'd probably hate that I told you!" Arthur and the Invisibles opens Jan. 19. —Ian SpellingArthur Spawns Trilogy

Luc Besson's fantasy film Arthur and the Invisibles is now envisioned as the first in a trilogy of films in the wake of its success in Europe, Variety reported.

Having passed the 65 million-Euro mark, with 5 million admissions in France, Arthur has now officially spawned two sequels, which are in the pipeline: Arthur and the Vengeance of Malthazar for 2009 and Arthur and the War of Two Worlds for 2010. Besson had previously said that Arthur would be his last film as a director.

The films are based on Besson's own children's book franchise.

Arthur stars Freddie Highmore as a boy who enters the world of tiny creatures called Minimoys. Arthur opens in the United States on Jan. 12.Highmore Animated In Arthur

Freddie Highmore, the young star of Luc Besson's upcoming fantasy film Arthur and the Invisibles, told SCI FI Wire that he voiced an animated version of his character in the film's computer-generated sequences. "Voice-over was something I'd never done before, so it was exciting to do," the 14-year-old English actor said in an interview. "But I wasn't involved in any of the actual creation of the animation image. I just did the voice-over afterwards. But I think how they did it was they got actors to play out how the animation characters would move, and then they sort of changed it into animation. That's what I think, but as I say I wasn't involved in that."

In Arthur, which Besson wrote and directed based on his children's book Arthur and the Minimoys, Highmore plays 10-year-old Arthur, who ventures just below ground to the land of the microscopic Minimoys in order to defeat an evil wizard (David Bowie), recover his missing grandfather's cache of rubies and save his family's Connecticut home.

The film mixes live action sequences with fantastical animated ones. Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) never met the rest of the film's famous voice-over actors. Madonna, for example, speaks for Selenia, a gutsy princess who joins forces with Arthur; rock star Bowie does the talking for Lord Maltazard, an evil wizard.

But Highmore did spend plenty of time in the company of the French director Besson (The Fifth Element), who worked with him both on sets for the live-action sequences and in a studio when recording dialogue for the animated sections of the film.

"Luc was great," Highmore said. "He's a really nice guy. He has these two big bull mastiffs on his chateau [in France], and they look like they could be a bit fierce, but actually they're really nice, and they just want a bit of a cuddle. So he is a great guy to work with, because he's so energetic all the time and he had all the ideas. He was coming up with tons of them. And he wrote it and produced and he directed it and operated at the same time, unless there were more fun things to do." Arthur and the Invisibles opens Jan. 12. —Ian SpellingBesson Is Invisibles' Arthur

French filmmaker Luc Besson told SCI FI Wire that in many ways he was the title character in the upcoming fantasy film Arthur and the Invisibles. Written and directed by Besson (The Fifth Element) and based on his children's book Arthur and the Minimoys, the film is set in 1960 and centers on 10-year-old Arthur (Freddie Highmore), who must venture just below ground to the land of the microscopic Minimoys in order to defeat an evil wizard (David Bowie), recover his missing grandfather's cache of rubies and save his family's Connecticut home.

Arthur and the Invisibles is part live action and part animated. Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) plays Arthur in the live-action portions and provides the character's voice in the animated segments. Mia Farrow (The Omen) plays Arthur's grandmother in the live parts, while voice-over actors Bowie, Madonna, Robert De Niro, Snoop Dogg, Jimmy Fallon, Harvey Keitel, Anthony Anderson and Jason Bateman appear in the animated portions.

"I was 10 years old in 1960, so Arthur is me for sure," Besson said in an interview while promoting the film in New York. "My parents were busy all the time, so they sent me to my grandmother with a big smile. 'You see, it's going to be great.' And my grandmother was great, but you feel a little lonely. You're by yourself. There's not TV, Internet, video games, nothing. If you want to play you have to grab two rocks, a piece of wood, and then you have to invent the game."

Besson added: "The funny thing is, I remember clearly that I had a stone that I love. And for two hours the stone is a pirate ship, but the next day it's a spaceship. But I keep the same stone. I don't know why. But I love the stone, so I'd rather change the name of the thing, but I keep my stone. And I had a dog. His name was Socrates. I didn't know it was a philosopher at the time. It sounds like a cheese or something, and my dog was my best friend, for sure. I give him all my secrets. He never betrayed me, never said anything, and he always played a bad part. He was always the bad guy in my stories. It was very strange. I say, 'You do the bad guy, OK?' and he [pants like a dog]. So this part I really give to Arthur. I really remember that quite well and had some good stories during the shoot."

The rest of the story, Besson said, belonged exclusively to Arthur. "I never fly a mosquito," he said. "I never slept in a flower or things like this. It's a real mix of dream and fantasy and actually real [memories]." Arthur and the Invisibles will appear in theaters on Jan. 12. —Ian SpellingArthur Aims For Kids' Hearts

French filmmaker Luc Besson told SCI FI Wire that his latest film, Arthur and the Invisibles, is intended specifically for young kids as an antidote to today's world. Written and directed by Besson and based on his children's book, Arthur and the Minimoys, the film is set in 1960 and centers on 10-year-old Arthur (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Freddie Highmore), who must venture just below ground to the land of the microscopic Minimoys in order to defeat an evil wizard (voiced by David Bowie), recover his missing grandfather's cache of rubies and save his family's Connecticut home.

"I have kids [of] my own, and I think when you watch the news and you watch the world, every day it's harder to build yourself when you're a kid, because who are you going to trust?" Besson asked rhetorically during an interview in a New York hotel. "The adults right now, they're killing each other in war for money and power, and on the way they destroy the planet. You're 5, 10 years old, you smell all these things. You see the sports guys, who half of them take drugs. The politicians, half of them are in jail because they lie. How are you going to believe that? How are you going to find yourself in the way of being real and to stand up?"

Besson said that Arthur and the Invisibles is a fictional fantasy, but that its points will ring true with children. "And that amaze me, because everyone knows it's fake," he said. "But it doesn't matter. Even if it's done in the fake, if they can learn some truth in it, they're happy. So I was very concerned. When you do a violent film like [his hits La Femme] Nikita or Leon [aka The Professional], honestly, the adults are grown enough to separate the thing and say, 'It's violence, but, yes, I understand' or 'I agree' or 'I don't agree.' So that I care less. The child, I really care. My big concern was, ... at least maybe I don't feel so proud as an adult today, and at least I try in one film to give good things to them, good food to them." Arthur and the Invisibles opens on Jan. 12. —Ian SpellingDead Silence Release Set

Universal Pictures announced a March 23 release date for its supernatural thriller Dead Silence, starring Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg and Bob Gunton. The film, directed by James Wan (Saw), tells the story of newlyweds Jamie (Kwanten) and Lisa Ashen, who have established a new life for themselves far from their hometown of Ravens Fair. When his wife is gruesomely murdered, Jamie reluctantly returns to Ravens Fair for the funeral, where he reunites with his ill father (Gunton) and his father's new young bride (Valletta). Jamie begins to explore the creepy town and encounters the legend of Mary Shaw, a famous murdered ventriloquist whose presence still casts a pall over Ravens Fair.

Universal made the announcement as part of its 2007 preview, which also included more information on the upcoming sequel film Evan Almighty, starring Steve Carell, which opens on June 22. Directed by Tom Shadyac, Evan is the follow-up to Bruce Almighty and brings back Carell in his role as the polished, preening newscaster Evan Baxter, now a congressman and the next one anointed by God to accomplish a holy mission: to build an ark.

Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.ABC Pushes Daisies

ABC has given the green light to Pushing Daisies, a one-hour pilot from Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls creator Bryan Fuller and Oscar-winning producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Daisies, from Warner Brothers TV and Jinks/Cohen Productions, is described as an unconventional detective show/romance/fairy tale centered on a guy who can touch the dead and bring them back to life, but then has to deal with the consequences.

Fuller wrote the script and is executive-producing with Jinks and Cohen.Idolon Mines Future Tech

SF author Mark Budz, whose novel Idolon was just named a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, told SCI FI Wire that the book deals with philm, electronic skin, quantum dots and programmable matter. And, no, we have no idea what any of that is either, but keep reading.

At its heart, the multifaceted story revolves around the death of a young woman. "The identity of the woman is unknown—as is the cause of her death," Budz said in an interview. "But because of the mysterious circumstances, and her apparent involvement in the black market 'philm' and electronic skin industry, the case is investigated as a murder. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that her death might be related to the smuggling of illegal 'philmware' and the development and distribution a dangerous new type of electronic skin."

The science-fictional aspect of the book grew out some material Budz read about artificial atoms, quantum dots and programmable matter, he said. "An artificial atom is a cloud of electrons—confined in what's known as a quantum dot—that behaves like a real atom," Budz said. "If you have a bulk material with lots of quantum dots embedded throughout it, you can change the properties of the material by adding or subtracting electrons from the artificial atoms. This programmable matter was the 'what-if' starting point for the electronic skin that forms the speculative/technological basis for the book. Electronic skin is a very thin membrane of programmable matter that gets applied to a person's biological skin. Once applied, it can display downloaded images and even textures."

The book also arose out of Budz's interest in mass-mediated culture and "signifiers," he said. "Signifiers are representations (objects, images, words) that signify a particular social status, economic level, religious affiliation, political leaning, etc.," Budz said. "People surround themselves with signifiers all the time in an attempt to tell other people who they are and identify themselves with a particular social class, culture, etc. by the way they dress, how they talk, what kind of car they drive or music they listen to. In a mass-mediated world, composed largely of information, these signifiers don't copy reality; they form their own reality. In this reality, or hyperreality, people exist only as the image they project. That's where the idea of people downloading and 'wearing' film, video and online images in order to be part of different shared, consensual communities came from."

Budz said that the most personal parts of the story were the religious aspects. "I was raised Catholic, and from a very early age I was indoctrinated, taught what to think and how to act," he said. "As a social or political force in the world, I think religious institutions are as harmful as they are beneficial or well-intentioned. The idea of someone surreptitiously working to impose a uniform hyperreality that's safe because it's homogenous and based on a particular set of like-minded religious values was my attempt to explore this issue and work through some of my feelings about it."

Budz's 2003 novel Clade was also a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. His fourth novel, Til Human Voices Wake Us, is forthcoming from Bantam. —John Joseph AdamsShaye Previews New Line Slate

Robert Shaye, chief executive officer of New Line Cinema, offered SCI FI Wire a preview of the company's upcoming genre releases, which include the much-anticipated The Golden Compass, a fantasy thriller based on the first of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels. Chris Weitz directs a cast that includes Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green and Dakota Blue Richards; it opens in December.

"The Golden Compass is going to be a terrific movie," Shaye said in an interview while promoting The Last Mimzy, an SF family drama he directed for his studio. "I really think it's exciting. I think Chris Weitz is an enormously talented guy. He's written a great script. He's a wonderful collaborator, and he's a guy I have a lot of respect for intellectually and creatively. I think Nicole Kidman has done a wonderful job. Daniel Craig has done an extraordinary job. The little girl, Dakota Blue, ... everybody has just been fantastic. And I have hopes that it will resonate to some degree. ... I think Lord of the Rings is very sui generis, but I have hopes that [Compass is] going to be a movie that the world will embrace."

Also coming up: Inkheart, a family fantasy based on the novel by Cornelia Funke, which stars Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, Sienna Guillory and young Eliza Bennett as Meggie, a girl whose book-laden house holds the answers to many questions. It wraps production soon. "Inkheart, as well, is a really, really good script," Shaye said. "It's somewhat more simplistic, but I have high hopes for that."

Shayed added: "And we have Number 23 with Jim Carrey, which is a great Twilight Zone-fantasy film, really, really good. It's like the Monkey's Paw kind of thing." The Number 23 is a Joel Schumacher-directed mindbender about a man (Jim Carrey) who becomes obsessed with the number 23. It arrives in theaters on Feb. 23.

The Last Mimzy opens March 23. Munsters' De Carlo Dies

Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in The Ten Commandments but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's The Munsters, has died, the Associated Press reported. She was 84.

De Carlo died of natural causes Jan. 8 at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns told the AP.

De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s.

But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-'66 slapstick horror-movie spoof The Munsters. The series (the name allegedly derived from "fun-monsters") offered a gallery of Universal Pictures grotesques, including Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, in a cobwebbed gothic setting.

Lily, vampire-like in a black gown, presided over the faux scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by 6-foot-5-inch character actor Fred Gwynne (decked out as the Frankenstein monster).

The show lasted only two years, but had a long life in syndication and resulted in two feature movies, Munster Go Home! (1966) and The Munsters' Revenge (1981, for TV).

Before that, Cecil B. DeMille chose De Carlo to play Sephora, wife to Charlton Heston's Moses in The Ten Commandments. The following year she co-starred with Clark Gable and Sidney Poitier in Band of Angels as Gable's upper-class sweetheart who learns of her black forebears.

De Carlo, who was born Peggy Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, B.C., lived in semiretirement near Solvang, north of Santa Barbara. Her son Michael died in 1997, and she suffered a stroke the following year.Armageddon Tackles Faith

Best-selling SF author David Weber told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Off Armageddon Reef, is about a group of humans who set up a colony on a new world after an alien race invades and conquers the Earth. "As a necessary part of the plan to conceal the colony's existence from the [alien] Gbaba, the colonists are forced to renounce the use of high tech," Weber said in an interview. "In order to help them do this, all 8 million colonists have volunteered to have their memories altered during their cryogenic suspension so that they do not remember the advanced technological civilization from which they came."

But the colonists' memories are also reprogrammed, against their will, to believe that the colony expedition's command crew are actually archangels, Weber said. "All 8 million of them believe—absolutely and unshakably—that they were physically created by God in the instant they first opened their eyes on [the colony world] Safehold," he said. "The purpose of this particular bit of reprogramming—aside from the megalomania of the colony administrator and his closest allies—is to set up a situation in which high technology will never re-emerge. In effect, Safehold is supposed to become a sort of stasis chamber, in which humanity will advance to a pre-electric level and then stay there forever. And in order to see to it that this happy state of affairs comes to pass, the command crew creates the Church of God Awaiting, with a theology and a doctrine built around the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng—the 'divinely inspired' set of definitions of acceptable technology intended to restrict Safehold forever to technology which can be powered by wind, water or muscle only."

Weber said that the protagonist, Lt. Cmdr. Nimue Alban, is a young tactical officer who has awakened roughly 800 years after the colony fleet's departure from Earth. "Unlike the colonists, Nimue doesn't awaken from cryogenic sleep," he said. "In fact, she's dead. Her personality, memories and emotions have been downloaded to her PICA (Personality Integrated Cybernetic Avatar)—an android body with many times human strength and toughness originally developed to allow human beings to survive extreme environments and participate in extreme sporting activities without risk to their physical bodies."

But all of that happens in the first 20 or 30 pages, Weber said. "The rest of the book is about Nimue's decision to reconfigure her android body into that of a man named Merlin Athrawes and Merlin's intervention in the Kingdom of Charis, a wealthy, humanistic maritime power which has grown increasingly restive under the church's restrictions and increasingly disgusted with the rampant corruption of the church's leadership," he said. "There are sword fights, naval battles, hard moral decisions and a lot of sacrifices as Merlin and his Charisian allies begin the long, hard task of breaking the 800-year long technological stasis of Safehold while simultaneously launching a Charisian Reformation." —John Joseph AdamsMummy 3 Eyes Cohen To Helm

Rob Cohen (Stealth) is in talks with Universal Pictures to take the reins on a third edition of its Mummy franchise, and franchise stars Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz have had discussions about returning, Variety reported.

Not much has been disclosed about the story of The Mummy 3 by writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (TV's Smallville), but the movie has been in active development for about a year. No deals are in place for Fraser and Weisz to return. Mummy 3 is envisioned as a summer 2008 release.

Stephen Sommers helmed the first two Mummy installments, released in 1999 and 2001; they took in a combined worldwide gross of $849 million.

Sean Daniel, Jim Jacks, Sommers and his Sommers Co. partner Bob Ducsay will produce Mummy 3.

Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Time For NBC's Journeyman

NBC has handed out a cast-contingent pilot order for Kevin Falls' SF drama Journeyman, an epic romantic fantasy about a man who travels back in time to alter and fix the lives of people in trouble, Variety reported. By recalibrating the past, he sometimes affects the future.

Emmy winner Falls (NBC's The West Wing) is the writer/executive producer of the project, from 20th Century Fox TV. The project originally was picked up by NBC in August with a put pilot commitment.

NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.Pirates 2 Is People's Choice

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and its stars Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley led winners during the 33rd annual People's Choice Awards on Jan. 9, the Associated Press reported. The movies Click and Cars were also winners.

Depp, appearing by satellite from London, said he was humbled by the honor.

Jennifer Aniston, Ellen DeGeneres, Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Nickelback, Justin Timberlake, Eva Longoria and Patrick Dempsey were also favorites.

The awards show aired on CBS from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and was hosted by Queen Latifah. Winners were picked by public Internet balloting. Cat Tale Is Dead

Cat Tale, a proposed animated family film that was to feature the voices of Angelina Jolie and Billy Idol, has been scrapped, the producer and director told SCI FI Wire. "Cat Tale is on the shelf," director Kevin Munroe said in an interview. "It's not a slight on what's been done. It worked really well for what it was. It's the timing. It was the decision that tonally it's not what the company wants to do."

Instead, Munroe said, Imagi Animation Studios is choosing to focus on more science fiction and edgy animation, such as Gatchaman and Astro Boy. (Munroe also directed Imagi's upcoming animated TMNT, which updates the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.)

Munroe and producer Thomas K. Gray work for Imagi, which is based in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. The suspension of Cat Tale owes something to the recent failure of animation films with talking animals. "We're several million [dollars] into it, but it was animals with happy talk, and we thought if we put it out there, it will not do anything, so we just said, 'Next!'" Gray said. "We do not want to do happy talking animals anymore. There is just too much out there. Enough already!"

Besides Jolie and Idol, Cat Tale was also going to feature the voices of Sean Astin, R. Lee Ermey, Alan Cumming, Chazz Palminteri, Wayne Knight and Michael Richards in a story about a cat who grows up in Dogtown and seeks out his roots in Catopolis.

While finishing up TMNT for a March 23 release, Munroe is finalizing the script to Gatchaman, about a superhero team. The company is also working on Astro Boy for a 2009 release. "We're in the middle of the script," Munroe said about Gatchaman, which is based on a popular Japanese anime also known as G Force. "It will have a different look and be very top of the bar, storytelling-wise." —Mike SzymanskiLiving Challenged Its Author

Justina Robson, the SF author whose novel Living Next Door to the God of Love was just named a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, told SCI FI Wire that no project has been more consuming, more personal or more difficult for her to write. "I reveled in the challenges," she said in an interview. "However, ... having reached the top of the monster mountain challenge, I viewed the snowy plain beneath with a second of satisfaction, and then realized I hadn't planned anywhere else to go afterwards. But oddly enough, at the end of writing [the book] I was in such a creative mania that I spawned another novel at the same time—Keeping It Real—that proved to be just the place for a little light apres-ski."

Robson said that Living Next Door follows several plotlines, one of which is about an alien entity known as Unity. "[It] exists both as a collective mind, a single consciousness and an unconscious technology all at once, without pausing for breath," she said. "As a natural part of its evolution it creates all manner of beings to continue its voyage of discovery through conscious awareness. One of those things turns out to be a bit of a mistake, containing all the mighty powers of the whole, but retaining an inviolate individuality. Unity cannot be divided. It seeks to reassimilate the lost piece. But the piece has no interest in returning. It finds itself created flesh on a human world and goes through a lifetime of slavery, barbarism and warrior pathways before going through several more incarnations—including superhero—and several more pieces of the universe, ending up as a cross-dressing naked Adonis in a burlesque show."

The protagonist of the novel is a man named Jalaeka, who is essentially human, but not quite, Robson said. "Unlike a [regular] human, he has all the power of Unity—complete voluntary control of the physical universe around him, mind-reading/control, basically the whole nine yards of ultimate and total power," she said. "He also has the Unity feature of being impressionable to the minds of others: What other people want him to be, he becomes. Need a hero? A lover? An enemy? A patsy? A foil? A demon? A god? In his early life he doesn't understand this and is a victim of the molding process as used by both ordinary humans and Unity proxies. Later he wises up and goes out to find people who can imagine him a better self. He uses them to recreate himself until he has what it takes to defy Unity's demands or die trying. He's much more creative than it is in the end, and he runs the whole course from pathetic to powerful (sometimes several times in a minute as well as across the whole span of story) without losing what's most important to him—his soul."

Last year, Robson's novels Natural History and Silver Screen were named as finalists for the PKD Award, with Natural History earning a special citation as runner-up. —John Joseph AdamsGermany Gets SpongeBob Park

Nickelodeon has signed a deal to set up a theme park in Germany based on its SpongeBob SquarePants animated TV and film series, the Reuters news service reported. "Nickland" will be situated at Movie Park Germany, close to Dortmund in western Germany, and is set to open in April, Nickelodeon and Movie Park Germany said.

One of the first attractions will be a romp through the undersea world of SpongeBob, whose character in the TV show lives in the Pacific Ocean in a pineapple with his pet snail Gary. Nebula Shortlist Is Online

The preliminary ballot for the 2006 Nebula Awards has been posted on the Web site of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. SFWA members may nominate no more than five works in each category. The final ballot will be mailed in early March.

The Nebula Awards are voted on and presented by active members of the SFWA. The awards will be announced at the Nebula Awards banquet, to be held in New York May 11-13.Murphy Attached To Other Side

Brittany Murphy confirmed to SCI FI Wire that she's attached to The Other Side, a long-gestating adventure-fantasy-comedy that would mark the big-screen writing and directing debut of veteran producer and story editor David Michaels. The story centers on a strange and remote island where nothing is as it seems.

"It's very intriguing," Murphy said in an interview while promoting her current project, the upcoming drama The Dead Girl. "It has an awesome cast. Giovanni Ribisi is signed on, and there's Ryan Gosling and Anjelica Huston and all sorts of really neat people."

Murphy, who can be heard singing in the current animated hit Happy Feet, described Michaels as one of the "most exciting, innovative new directors" she's ever met. Michaels was a story editor on such television shows as Knots Landing, Alf and Max Headroom before becoming a television and film producer. According to reports, The Other Side has also attracted the attention of Eddie Izzard, Jim Broadbent, Dave Matthews, Lili Taylor and Jason Lee, among others.

"I love his vision," Murphy said of Michaels. "I really hope that it all comes together. There's something really different about The Other Side. I haven't read anything like it before. It's very otherworldly. You can draw comparisons to things such as Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton. It's a lot of very unique things combined, but it's definitely its own creature. It's hilarity and it's a great message. I hope it gets made. I really hope it does." —Ian SpellingBateman Confirmed In Tonight

Confirming an earlier report, Variety said that Jason Bateman has been cast opposite Will Smith in the long-gestating superhero drama Tonight, He Comes. Charlize Theron remains in talks with Columbia Pictures also to star.

Director Peter Berg is set to shoot the movie this spring for a 2008 release. Akiva Goldsman, Michael Mann, James Lassiter and Smith are producing.

The storyline revolves around a hard-living, middle-aged superhero (Smith) facing an existential crisis and a disillusioned fan base. Bateman plays a public relations executive who revamps the superhero's image after being saved, even as the superhero woos the executive's wife.

The project has been in development for a decade, with Vincent Ngo writing the original script. Ngo's quirky take was ultimately refashioned by Vince Gilligan.Utopia Is Hell In Carnival

Elizabeth Bear, whose novel Carnival was just nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, told SCI FI Wire that the book is about two men of diverse backgrounds who are sent on a diplomatic mission. "[They] are sent from a totalitarian Earth society to a colony world dominated by a libertarian matriarchy ... in an attempt to normalize relations," Bear said in an interview. "In actuality, each of them has not one but two secret agendas—one of which is sanctioned by their government and the other of which is most certainly not—as does the native political officer assigned as their minder. The two men are ex-lovers; their relationship was an enormous scandal almost two decades before, but it's the only thing that makes it possible for the leaders of the Amazon Utopia—or dystopia, if you prefer—to accept them."

The novel's backstory involves a successful eco-terrorist plot that has entirely destroyed the industrialized world, Bear said. "[Basically,] it's a book about what happens 200 years after nanites eat all the white people," she said. "But the actual genesis of this book, as opposed to its influences, is twofold: I grew up in a culture that exposed me to radical feminist and lesbian separatist ideologies, and in some way the book is a reaction to that. And it's also a reaction to some of the extremist and utopian ideologies that I've heard espoused over the years. Everybody's utopia is somebody else's hell, which is, I think, the central theme of the work."

Bear said that Carnival was a difficult novel to write, but it was worth it. "It's certainly the most mature of my books to see print so far," she said. "It presented enormous world-building and research problems—I studied string theory, paleobiology, speculation about fab and utility fog tech, the rhetoric of any number of political groups, current research on the biological basis of gender-linked differences and homosexuality, rain forest ecology, you name it. There's a core of very hard quantum physics under all the social theorizing, and trying to make it all mesh thematically ... wow."

Bear added: "Also, the characters were very hard to write. All three of [the protagonists]—the diplomat, the spy and the political officer—are people who hide everything, from themselves as much as anyone else. It's all masks and masks and masks, layers and layers of lies, and actually ferreting out their true motivations and emotions was like pulling fingernails. I suspect it might have been easier, actually, if I could have pulled fingernails."

Up next for Bear, in May, is New Amsterdam, the first part of which is currently being serialized on Subterranean Press' Web site. "[It's] a mosaic novel set circa an alternate 1900—with forensic sorcerers, vampires, dirigibles and Nikola Tesla," she said. "Also, in summer 2007, is Whiskey and Water, which has Faerie, goth girls, kelpies, bunyips, emo boys, reluctant magicians, Morgan le Fey, Lucifer Morningstar and maybe a dead Elizabethan poet or two." —John Joseph AdamsScooby-Doo Creator Dies

Iwao Takamoto, the animator who designed the cartoon canine Scooby-Doo as well as characters on such shows as The Flintstones and The Jetsons, died Jan. 8 after suffering a massive coronary, a spokesman told the Reuters news service. He was 81.

Takamoto died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for respiratory problems, said Gary Miereanu, a spokesman for Warner Brothers Animation.

Takamoto designed Scooby-Doo, his equally famished and cowardly master Shaggy, and their pals Velma, Daphne and Fred in the late 1960s while working at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. The Great Dane's name was inspired by an improvised line at the end of Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night."

He also designed the snickering dog Muttley, who was featured in a number of productions, and Astro, the family dog on The Jetsons. For The Flintstones, he created the Great Gazoo, a green alien.

Takamoto's death comes exactly three weeks after that of Hanna-Barbera co-founder Joseph Barbera, who was 95; Barbera's business partner, William Hanna, died in 2001.Pirates Leads F/X Nods

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest led the field with six nominations as the Visual Effects Society announced its nominees for the fifth annual VES Awards, Variety reported.

Dead Man's Chest took nods for visual effects in an effects-driven motion picture and single visual effect of the year, as well as animated character in a live-action motion picture, created environment in a live-action motion picture, miniatures and models in a motion picture and compositing.

The other nominees for visual effects in an effects-driven motion picture were The Fountain and Charlotte's Web. Neither made the list of seven semifinalists that will compete for Oscar nominations.

Casino Royale and Superman Returns, meanwhile, were nominated by the Visual Effects Society for special effects, for work in in-camera practical effects.

Among the nominees for visual effects, which are created in post-production, are Children of Men and The Da Vinci Code.

Children of Men and X-Men: The Last Stand were nominated along with Dead Man's Chest for best single visual effect.

Charlotte's Web took two nominations for top animated character in a live-action film for its title talking spider and for the talking rat Templeton.

In television, SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica joined Prehistoric Park and Smallville with nominations for visual effects in a series.

Nominees in all categories will present their work on Jan. 13 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Voting will take place online between Jan. 22 and Feb. 6. Winners of the VES Awards will be announced Feb. 11 at the Kodak Grand Ballroom in Hollywood. Visual-effects pioneer Dennis Muren will receive the VES lifetime achievement award that night. Grunberg Walks For Epilepsy

Greg Grunberg, one of the stars of NBC's hit SF series Heroes, is the chair of the upcoming National Walk for Epilepsy, which takes place in the National Mall in Washington on March 31 to raise funds to battle the neurological disorder.

Grunberg, who plays telepathic cop Matt Parkman, also runs a charitable organization called "Hollywood Helping Hands," which auctions off pieces of artwork that are finger-painted by celebrities to benefit the Pediatric Epilepsy Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. Grunberg's son has pediatric epilepsy.Night Still Tops

Night at the Museum remained the top film at the box office in its third weekend of release, taking in $24 million during the Jan. 5 weekend, the Associated Press reported. The three-day take raised the film's domestic total to $164.1 million.

Children of Men, meanwhile, expanded from its Christmas debut in a handful of theaters to lead the new wide releases in third place, with $10.3 million.

The animated comedy Happily N'Ever After opened in sixth place, with $6.8 million, the AP reported.Matrix, Potter Due On HD DVD

Warner Home Video announced that it will release the Matrix franchise and all of the Harry Potter films on HD DVD in 2007. The company will also release an HD DVD version of its hit animated film Happy Feet this year.

The new titles are among a full slate of releases for 2007, joining such films as Superman Returns in the high-definition format.

Warner Home Video will continue to release a variety of the most successful titles from its library on HD-DVD and the rival Blu-ray Disc format.

Last year, Warner Home Video released The Forbidden Planet Ultimate Collector's Edition HD DVD.PKD Award Nominees Named

Nominees have been announced for this year's Philip K. Dick Award, which recognizes distinguished science fiction published as paperback originals in the United States. The award, named for the prolific SF author, is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society. The first place winner and any special citations will be announced April 6 at Norwescon 30 in Seattle.

The nominees are Mindscape by Andrea Hairston, Carnival by Elizabeth Bear, Spin Control by Chris Moriarty, Catalyst by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Recursion by Tony Ballantyne, Idolon by Mark Budz and Living Next Door to the God of Love by Justina Robson. —John Joseph AdamsYin Yang Yo! Renewed

Toon Disney has picked up Yin Yang Yo!, the highest-rated animated series on the network's Jetix programming block, for a second season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The network has ordered 26 half-hour episodes for its comedy/action/adventure programming block.

In its second season, Yin Yang Yo! will expand the entire world of the series. The hyperkinetic tween rabbits Yin and Yang will discover they possess more powers; additional mythology of the mystical martial art Woo Foo will be uncovered; some of the old villains will have new motivations; and new villains will be added.

Yin Yang Yo!'s September debut in its regular 7:30 p.m. timeslot was the most-watched original animated series premiere in the history of Jetix. Yin Yang Yo! is produced by Jetix Animation Concepts and Walt Disney Television Animation. Bob Boyle is the creator/executive producer/co-director of the series.BRIEFLY NOTED

The cast of NBC's Heroes—including Ali Larter, Masi Oka, Greg Grunberg, Adrian Pasdar, Hayden Panettiere, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Milo Ventimiglia—have been set as presenters at the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards, which will be telecast live on NBC on Jan. 15 at 8 p.m. PT/ET.

Edward James Olmos (star of SCI FI Channel's Battlestar Galactica) was among five nominees for a Directors Guild of America Award in the movies for television category for directing Time Warner Inc.'s HBO movie Walkout, the Associated Press reported.

Exodus Film Group announced that talk show host Jay Leno and American Pie actress Jennifer Coolidge have joined the voice cast of its computer-animated feature comedy Igor, the Dark Horizons Web site reported.

Casino Royale was one of the best-reviewed films of 2006, according to RottenTomatoes.com, which aggregates reviews online, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

A California appellate panel has ruled that actor Robert Wagner may be the owner of rights in the Charlie's Angels television series, but he is not entitled to profits from the big-screen versions of the popular '70s TV show, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reveals spoilers about upcoming episodes of NBC's Heroes, which returns on Jan. 22.

A new trailer has gone live for the upcoming supernatural thriller Premonition, starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon, and it's linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page. The film opens in March.

The SF&F movies X-Men: The Last Stand, Click, Pan's Labyrinth, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Prestige and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause are among the seven films making the shortlist for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' competition for the best makeup Oscar, Variety reported.

The seventh annual Shriekfest is accepting submissions for its screenplay competition; the 2007 SF&F and horror film festival takes place in September in Los Angeles.

Madonna, who voices a character in the upcoming fantasy film Arthur and the Invisibles, will visit New York on Jan. 11 to screen the film for students of two charter schools supported by Robin Hood, the Knowledge Is Power Program and Achievement First.

Tori Spelling will guest-star on The CW's Smallville in the Jan. 11 episode "Hydro," playing a gossip columnist for the Daily Planet, the network announced.

Starz has bought exclusive pay TV rights to The Illusionist and four other movies produced and distributed by Bob Yari Productions, including Shortcut to Happiness, Alec Baldwin's directing debut, which was filmed in 2001 under the title The Devil and Daniel Webster, Variety reported.

Ron Mitchell, a veteran film and television producer and production manager whose shows included Alien Nation, died Dec. 27 in Depoe Bay, Ore., after a two-year battle with lymphoma, Variety reported; he was 69.

Ghost House Pictures announced that it is producing Boogeyman 2, a sequel to the 2005 supernatural thriller film, with a new installment centering on a young woman with a long-term phobia of the boogeyman, who voluntarily checks herself into a mental health facility with the hope of conquering her overwhelming fears.

A new trailer has gone live for the Pang brothers' upcoming supernatural thriller The Messengers, which opens Feb. 2; it is linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

Luc Besson's Arthur and the Invisibles has been dropped from the list of 16 films competing for this year's animated feature Oscar because animated sequences didn't make up at least 75 percent of the film's running time, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Pan's Labyrinth, in its second weekend of limited release, reported a per-screen average take of $16,524 and has so far taken in $1.8 million, Variety reported.

Fangoria.com reported that Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright will helm one of the faux trailers that are part of the upcoming genre homage film Grindhouse, joining Eli Roth and Rob Zombie; the trailers separate the movie's two halves, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.

Jay Russell, director of the upcoming fantasy film The Waterhorse, has updated his MySpace.com page with reports from the film's New Zealand set.