Jackson To Produce The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has settled his differences with New Line Cinema and will executive-produce a two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, the studio announced.

New Line and MGM signed a deal to co-finance and co-distribute The Hobbit and a sequel to the film. New Line will handle distribution in North America, and MGM will distribute internationally, the two studios said. It's unclear whether Jackson will helm the films.

New Line added that it and Jackson have settled all litigation over Jackson's profit participation in the $3 billion-grossing Rings trilogy, without giving details. The settlement apparently brings to an end the acrimonious split between Jackson and New Line.

Jackson and Fran Walsh will executive-produce the films, to be shot simultaneously, and New Line will manage their production.

Preproduction will begin soon, and principal photography is tentatively set for 2009. The release of the first film is slated for 2010 and the sequel in 2011.

Jackson, MGM chairman and chief executive Harry Sloan and New Line co-chairman and co-chief executives Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne jointly made the announcement on Dec. 18.Raimi Helming Hell, Then Hobbit

Spider-Man director Sam Raimi will return to his genre roots to helm Drag Me to Hell, a supernatural thriller he wrote with his brother, Ivan Raimi, Variety reported.

After Drag Me to Hell, Raimi is expected to helm the Hobbit films for New Line and MGM now that Peter Jackson, who will executive-produce the movies, has made it clear he won't direct them, the trade paper reported.

Hell, a morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse, will go into production early next year. It will be financed through Ghost House, a joint venture Raimi and Rob Tapert formed several years ago with Mandate Pictures.

Raimi and Tapert will produce with Grant Curtis, and Josh Donen will executive-produce with Mandate's Nathan Kahane and Joe Drake.

Tapert said the Raimis wrote the script well before the formation of Ghost House. It was originally written under the title The Curse and completed right after the siblings collaborated on 1992's Army of Darkness, which Sam Raimi directed.Clarke Turns 90, Releases Video

Legendary SF author Arthur C. Clarke, who turned 90 on Dec. 16, released a video on YouTube.com with his birthday wishes, which included a call from an extraterrestrial, an end to man's oil habit and peace in his adoptive Sri Lanka, the Reuters news service reported.

In the nine-minute video, Clarke added that he would like to be remembered foremost as a writer and predicted that commercial space travel will one day be commonplace.

"If I may be allowed just three wishes, ... I would like to see some evidence of extraterrestrial life," Clarke said. "I've always believed that we're not alone in the universe, but we're still waiting for E.T. to call us or give us some kind of sign."

Clarke added: "Secondly, I would like to see us kick our current addiction to oil and adopt clean energy sources. Climate change has now added a new sense of urgency. ... We can't allow coal and oil to slowly bake our planet."

Lastly, Clarke wished for peace in Sri Lanka, where he has lived for the past 50 years.

Clarke has written more than 80 books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as 500 short stories and articles. Clarke is also credited with the original idea of using geostationary satellites for communications and once predicted that humans would reach the moon by the year 2000.Writer Reveals Trek Details

Roberto Orci, co-writer of director J.J. Abram's highly anticipated Star Trek movie, told SCI FI Wire that the tightly guarded story for the upcoming franchise reboot depends heavily on the appearance of original series star Leonard Nimoy.

Orci (Transformers) added that the movie will explore Trek history that hasn't been mined before and confirmed that the story will take place before the events of the original series.

"There were many, many elements of the story that we had talked about just theoretically if ever Star Trek were to come back," Orci said in an interview in November. "There was lots of stuff we wanted to do, and that was a blessing. Normally you don't have that much investment and research for a project you get hired to do. If you are a fan of [classic] Star Trek, there is a lot of unexplored history. With the original series, there was so much that could have come before it. It felt like it has been The Next Generation and The Next, Next Generation for so long, it seemed like a fresh thing to go back to the source and to go back to what happened before it."

The crux of the screenplay involves the appearance of Nimoy in his iconic role as Spock. "I think a lot of people were speculating that we must have had multiple ideas [for the script]," Orci said. "The truth is that we took a gigantic gamble in terms of the movie we wanted to do, and it was essential that we had Nimoy. Frankly, I didn't understand any other way to do it. We didn't have a Plan B. I think that would have shown that we didn't have a true, singular vision of what we wanted to do, so it was essential for us to get Nimoy. It was a gigantic gamble, and I can't even believe that J.J. supported that kind of a gamble, but I think he understood it was the way to do it and a way to get the blessing for Star Trek, to show there is continuity for the spirit of what it was before. So when Nimoy said yes, not only as a fan was it a relief--if that didn't work, I don't know where we would be!"

Orci, who previously tackled a beloved franchise with Transformers (which he co-wrote with partner Alex Kurtzman), said that adapting Trek was even harder because of the dedicated fan base watching every move.

"The dangers are that now you are opening up yourself to the fact that the fans know what you know about the characters," Orci said. "They have their own ideas about what should be done and what is right for the franchise. So the goal with this movie is twofold. One is to make sure that the fans--who have been the stewards of the continuity and who are some of the most savvy and intelligent fans of any franchise ever--that they be satisfied with anything that has the name Star Trek on it. But, more importantly, the goal is really to introduce casual fans and people who don't know Star Trek at all to this universe and to connect it to today. ... The goal of Star Trek ... is that if you don't like sci-fi or know Star Trek, this will bring you into the world." Star Trek opens on Christmas Day 2008. --Tara DiLullo BennettHellboy II Open To Third Film

Guillermo del Toro, who directed and co-wrote the upcoming SF sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army, told SCI FI Wire that he and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola fashioned the follow-up so that it lays the groundwork for a possible sequel. But if there isn't a third film, the movie also effectively closes out the story, he added.

"The way Mike and I did approach this was, when we were told, 'Think about something, if you want, for a sequel,' we went away and said, 'Let's talk about it,'" del Toro said in an interview. "Do we want to continue the story? We did the first one saying, 'That's it. It's a self-concluding story.' And I said, 'Let's come up with an arc that makes sense for us for the second and third movie.'"

In the new film, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense team--Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and Johann--jumps to action when the truce is broken between mankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic. A greedy, merciless figure (Blade II's Luke Goss) seizes the opportunity to try to take over the Earth.

"We said, 'This is the story. This is how we end in the third movie,'" del Toro said. "And then I went in and wrote a self-conclusive screenplay [for the second movie]. So if there's never a third one, I'm perfectly at peace." Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens July 11, 2008. --Ian SpellingMadness Tops Del Toro's List

Guillermo del Toro told SCI FI Wire that his long-planned movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness tops the list of projects he hopes to direct once he's done with Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

"If Mountains of Madness could happen, I would do it in a second," del Toro said in an interview while promoting the upcoming ghost story The Orphanage, which he produced. "But there is no one knocking at my door with the budget, saying, 'Let's make it.'"

Del Toro has spent nearly five years developing a film based on Mountains, a novella that Lovecraft published in 1931. The story centers on an expedition in Antarctica that discovers the remains of ancient creatures that were killed by their shapeshifting servants, called shoggoths; the shoggoths are still alive.

"What I love about [it] is that the cosmic-horror aspect of Lovecraft--the fact that we are alone in a universe that does not care about humankind, mankind--has not been explored," del Toro said. "The insignificance of man in the scope of the cosmos, which is at the heart of the horror, which is a Pascalian horror, the horror of the empty spaces, has not been explored in film. Lovecraft does it in every story he does in the Cthulhu cycle, but in this particular instance it's stronger than any of the other [stories]." The Orphanage opens in limited release on Dec. 28; Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens on July 11, 2008. --Ian SpellingHellboy II Images Now Live

Universal Pictures released three new images from its upcoming sequel film Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which have been posted on SCI FI Wire's Photo Gallery page. A new trailer, meanwhile, has gone live on SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

The images show the first look at a new member of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense: Johann, the ectoplasmic agent who is encased in a containment suit. He will be played by James Dodd.

The new images also show regular cast members Ron Perlman as Hellboy, Selma Blair as Liz Sherman and Doug Jones as Abe Sapien.

The movie, again directed by Guillermo del Toro, opens July 11, 2008. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Producer Talks Cloverfield

Bryan Burk, producer of the mysterious monster movie Cloverfield, told SCI FI Wire that the filmmakers' intention was to make America's answer to Japan's Godzilla and that the movie was inspired by other films.

"It's an entirely original story and monster," Burk, a producing partner with Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams, said in an interview in November. "There's no tie-in to any of our other projects quite yet. We're obviously fans of the great monster movies. I remember when we were starting Lost, and we had references in it to all our favorite things, be it Jaws or Alien, and this feels like this is the same thing. I don't think it feels like any other movie you have seen before, but we were definitely inspired by a lot of our favorite films."

Burk said that Abrams, who is also producing the movie, was inspired by Japan's original fire-breathing monster. "The origins were from when J.J. was doing the press tour for Mission: Impossible III in Japan," Burk said. "It was two years ago, and he was with his son, Henry, and like father, like son, they were at a lot of the toy stores, and they were admiring the Godzilla stuff. J.J. was thinking that America didn't have their Godzilla, so to speak. We have King Kong, but it's a completely different beast, no pun intended, from Godzilla. It started him thinking."

Burk also addressed the rampant rumors about the top-secret project, which began with a cryptic teaser trailer for an untitled movie that appeared without warning alongside last July's Transformers. Since then, the Internet has been ablaze with fan-based Web sites that speculate about the movie's story based partly on clues from official viral-marketing sites such as one for a Japanese drilling company and another for a soft drink called Slusho.

"The viral stuff online was all done in conjunction with the studio," Burk said. "A woman named Amy Powell at Paramount is in charge. She's [a] genius, to say the least. The whole experience in making this movie is very reminiscent [of] how we did Lost. Everyone jumped on board and said, 'We see what this is. Let's do it!' Once the studio said, 'OK, we are going to keep this top secret, and nothing is going to get out,' then it went on to my fellow producers, the cast and the entire crew. Everybody was part of the team, feeling like they were making something special." Cloverfield opens on Jan. 18, 2008. --Tara DiLullo Bennett It Was Always Cloverfield

Bryan Burk, producer for the upcoming SF monster movie Cloverfield, told SCI FI Wire that the title of the movie was never in doubt, though it was kept a secret at first from the public.

"It was called Cloverfield early on, because it's relevant to the movie," Burk said in an interview in November. "From the beginning, we always referred to it as Cloverfield. But we did have a lot of conversations about what to call the movie. Plus there was a long process, for some weird reason, in clearing the name."

When the movie was first teased with a mysterious trailer attached to Transformers in July, the film's title wasn't announced. The word "Cloverfield" became linked with the project on the Internet.

"What really happened is that everything leaked online, and people found out what we were calling it, so basically the fans named the movie," Burk said. "Even people who weren't familiar with the entertainment industry would ask, 'Is that that Cloverfield movie?' So it stuck. We had brief conversations about calling it something else, but the fans named it."

As for other rumored titles? "We were never calling it Monstrous!" Burk said.

Cloverfield, directed by Matt Reeves, takes place in New York and deals with an attack by a mysterious, giant creature. It's shot as if with a handheld video camera by a participant in the action.

The trailer, which showed the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing into a Manhattan street, generated immediate buzz when it screened in theaters and on the Internet. But the buzz can be a mixed blessing, and it has Burk and his filmmaking partners, including producer J.J. Abrams, nervous.

"It's impossible to anticipate anyone's reaction to anything," Burk said. "There's not a person who is making a movie who doesn't hope that it gets a big buzz going. But it's a weird thing where you get a buzz so early. The teaser came out, and we had just started shooting. It was like, 'OK, now we have to make a movie.' But I think people are going to love it." Cloverfield opens on Jan. 18, 2008. --Tara DiLullo BennettAvP R's 'Predalien' Is New

Colin Strause--who directed the upcoming SF sequel film Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem with his brother, Greg--told reporters that it took a bit of back and forth to come up with the final design of the film's new creature, the hybrid "Predalien."

The creature, first glimpsed at the end of the first Alien vs. Predator movie, combines key characteristics of the two iconic SF monsters. "For us, it was keeping the alien teeth, because that's such a distinct feature," Colin Strause said in a group interview at the brothers' visual-effects company, Hydraulx, in Santa Monica, Calif., last week. "And having the dome."

Strause added: "We have a couple shots in the movie where you can actually see the whole skull feature and everything underneath."

The key features borrowed from the Predator were the fanged mandibles. "It was a kind of important design thing," Strause said. "In the battle sequence, I think she looks pretty fearsome. When she has the mandible closed, she looks more Predator, but when they open up, you see the distinct alien teeth and everything."

AvP R--which stars John Ortiz, Steven Pasquale and Reiko Aylesworth--picks up the story almost immediately after the events of 2004's Alien vs. Predator. The Predalien hybrid has caused the Predator ship to crash-land back on Earth, sending an alarm back to the Predator homeworld. As alien facehuggers spread an infestation on present-day Earth, a ruthless Predator "cleaner" is dispatched to eliminate all vestiges of either species on the planet.

The Predalien is an alien that incubated inside a Predator, taking on some characteristics of the host body. (The filmmakers said the creature is actually about 80 percent alien, 20 percent Predator.) It has the alien's exoskeleton, acid blood, scorpion-like tail and inner tongue and striking mouth and the Predator's mandible and a version of its dreadlocks.

"One of the trickier things, too, was [that] it's one thing when you've got, like, all the geeky fans who know everything [watching] the movie," Strause said. "They go, 'Oh, I know that's obviously a warrior alien. I know that's the Predalien.' But the biggest issue we had with the design is [that], because we're going so dark with the movie, and there's a lot of rain and atmosphere and everything, [we asked, 'Is] a normal person watching the movie going to be able to tell the difference?'"

To address that issue, designers lightened the pigmentation of the Predalien so that it would stand out. "We cheated the pigmentation a little bit, [making it] more yellow on her, ... so that if you just see flashes of her, at least a general audience member would be able to track it, but at the same time not watering down the design or anything to make it kind of generic," Strause said.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem opens Christmas Day. --Patrick Lee, News EditorAvP R Pushed Holden

Gina Holden, who appears in the upcoming SF sequel Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, told SCI FI Wire that directors Colin and Greg Strause pushed her in ways she didn't expect.

Holden (SCI FI Channel's Flash Gordon) plays the small but important role of a diner waitress in the small town that becomes a battlefield between aliens and Predators.

"They were so great," Holden said in an interview. "They were so fun to work with. They know exactly what they want. I really loved the direction that they gave me. They pushed me to limits I didn't know I could go to. They're young, they're hip and I think they're so talented."

Holden also appreciated the dynamic between the Strauses. The brothers are making their feature-film directing debut after working as visual-effects supervisors on The Day After Tomorrow, Poseidon, 300 and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

"They're so close, and they sort of finish each other's sentences," Holden said. "They'd [go] back and forth [and] come up and talk to me, and they pushed me so hard. Whether they know it or not, for me it was just awesome. It was this big action movie, and they had all this energy and would say, 'Let's just do this. Let's kick butt.' And it was great. I loved being in the ring with them." AvP R opens on Christmas Day. --Ian SpellingAvP R Is Earthbound But Dark

Colin Strause--who directed the upcoming SF sequel Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem with his brother, Greg--told reporters that the film takes place on present-day Earth, but that they wanted to preserve the look and feel of earlier Alien films.

"The thing we were trying to be careful of is we didn't want to have aliens dancing in front of McDonald's and stuff," Strause said in a group interview at the brothers' Hydraulx visual-effects house in Santa Monica, Calif.

To avoid that, the Strauses decided to set the film in a remote, forested location, where much of the action takes place at night and in the rain. "Seeing an alien in broad daylight or just plain view is going to look stupid no matter what you do," Strause said. "The reason it worked in all the other movies is you were in a dark spaceship, you had flashing [and] blinking lights [and] steam jets. You had all these great elements to cover them up, basically, and if you don't do that, they're going to look like guys in suits."

The second thing the filmmakers did was to stage the elaborate action in specific and unusual locations. "The first big battle takes place in this huge, underground sewer network," Strause said. "The next battle takes place in a power plant. Then you have the big rooftop battle. Then there's a National Guard battle on the street in the rain."

AvP R--which stars John Ortiz, Steven Pasquale and Reiko Aylesworth--picks up the story almost immediately after the events of 2004's Alien vs. Predator. A "Predalien" hybrid has caused the Predator ship to crash-land back on Earth, sending an alarm back to the Predator homeworld. As alien facehuggers spread an infestation on present-day Earth, a ruthless Predator "cleaner" is dispatched to eliminate all vestiges of either species on the planet.

The Strauses sought locations that were earthbound but still reminiscent of the earlier Alien movies. The power plant location has "all the yellow warning beacons and lots of steam and everything, so we're trying to give it that 'space' sort of feel, ... even though it is Earth," Strause said. "Not to make it feel cheesy or anything, just give it a much more gritty kind of environment." Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem opens Christmas Day. --Patrick Lee, News EditorStargate: Ark Debuts In March

Stargate: The Ark of Truth, a feature-length movie that continues the story of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, debuts on DVD March 11 from MGM Home Entertainment.

The film concludes the Ori story arc of seasons nine and 10 of SG-1 and picks up after "Unending," the series finale. The Ark of Truth stars Amanda Tapping, Beau Bridges, Michael Shanks, Ben Browder, Christopher Judge and Claudia Black.

The story centers on SG-1 as it searches for an ancient weapon that could help it defeat the sinister Ori. Traveling to a distant galaxy aboard the Odyssey, the team finds itself fighting two powerful enemies.

The DVD bonus materials will include feature-length audio commentary by writer, director and producer Robert C. Cooper, actor Christopher Judge and director of photography Peter Woeste, as well as the featurette Stargate SG-1: The Road Taken: Prelude to The Ark of Truth. The DVD will carry a suggested retail price of $26.98.Call Was Intense For Sossamon

Shannyn Sossamon, who stars in the upcoming horror film One Missed Call, told SCI FI Wire that there were some intense moments on the set that rivaled the action on the screen.

"I don't know if I turn it on or off so easy," Sossamon said in an interview. "Something like this, the tension level has to be so high that I found it was actually difficult to get everyone to just, like, try to be not as tense as I had to be."

In the film, based on Japanese director Takashi Miike's 2003 film Chakushin Ari, Sossamon plays Beth Raymond, a psychology student who investigates the mysterious deaths of several friends who received voice-mail messages in which they could hear their final words two days in the future.

Some of Sossamon's favorite scenes to film were those that required high levels of tension, particularly one that involved a close encounter with a horrific, ghostly figure. "That was a real woman laying on top of me with beautiful special-effects makeup done," Sossamon said. "Even though it was creepy, that was a really interesting scene to do. That was really amazing. It was intense, because I had her energy as well as a person on me, and it was very strange the way she was caressing my face."

Sossamon added that director Eric Valette was sensitive to the needs of his actors, making sure that the proper mood was established before he filmed those difficult scenes. "It's nice when they quiet sets down, even if it's just, like, 10 seconds before a take," she said. "It's like, 'We need tension in the room. Let's have 10 seconds of silence,' even not while the camera is rolling. The tension has to be so thick without words or anything, which is so hard to do. It's interesting. It's challenging work." One Missed Call opens Jan. 4, 2008. --Cindy WhiteKillswitch Caps Kresnov Trilogy

SF author Joel Shepherd told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Killswitch, concludes his Cassandra Kresnov trilogy.

"I wanted a strong conclusion to the trilogy, and I wanted to build upon the concepts previously introduced," Shepherd said in an interview. "So the action becomes larger in scale."

Cassandra Kresnov ("Sandy") is a an outsider, and Shepherd said he related to that aspect of her character. "She's not entirely sure of where she fits in anything and has no moral certainties save the value of human life and her own desire to do something useful," he said. "I think a lot of that comes straight from me."

Kresnov is an artificial person of technology who blurs the lines between synthetic and organic. "She has all the flexibilities and intelligence and personality of a regular person, but with the super-advanced strength, speed and precision of a machine," Shepherd said. "Her mind, although synthetic, basically mirrors the human brain in function, thus giving her the same unpredictable, free-formed personality and thought processes as the rest of us."

Prior to Crossover--the first book in the trilogy--Kresnov defected from her former masters because she simply didn't like their politics, Shepherd said. "Since then she has struggled to find a place for herself amongst her former enemies ... and overcome the fear and prejudice directed toward her. ... Sandy's struggle is much more a moral one than a simple physical battle against her enemies."

In the final volume, Shepherd wanted Kresnov to confront new and possibly scary implications regarding her own existence. "She always comforted herself in the equation that the more advanced the GI--as androids in [the books] are known--the more lateral thought capability they'll have, and thus the more morality, limiting the potentially terrible uses for such artificial people," Shepherd said. "But in Killswitch, Sandy must confront a GI based upon her own design who is purposely designed to escape this moral restraint. Sandy doesn't want to confront that possibility, but here it is, staring her in the face." --John Joseph AdamsFEARnet Rings In New FEAR

FEARnet, the Web site and video-on-demand service, will ring in the new year with a weeklong "New FEAR's Day" programming event.

The promotion begins Dec. 26 with a weeklong recap of 2007 horror and thriller entertainment, featuring interviews and footage. The promotion culminates with a New Year's Day horror movie marathon featuring 10 cult favorites selected by FEARnet fans.

Fans are also asked to contribute video introductions to their favorite films, and the best entries will air preceding the designated movies.

The service will also sponsor a watch-and-win promotion and a random sweepstakes in which fans can vote for their favorite films to air during the marathon, with a chance to win movie tickets for a year and other prizes.Burns' Walloper Started As Film

Filmmaker Edward Burns told SCI FI Wire that he always envisioned his upcoming Virgin Comics series The Dock Walloper as a film, but hit upon the idea of writing it first as a comic book after seeing feature adaptations of comics such as Sin City and 300.

"I had an idea for a big, epic story about Irish-American gangsters in New York, set against Prohibition," Burns said in an interview while promoting his latest acting project, One Missed Call. "I never wrote the script. I just kind of outlined different takes on it. And it was going to prove to be way too expensive to do as a live-action thriller."

But when Burns saw Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, which was based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, and Zack Snyder's 300, also based on a Miller comic, Burns had another idea. "I was like, 'Maybe there's a way to do it that way, kind of make it slightly more surreal,'" he said. "And I wasn't aware that Road to Perdition was a graphic novel. When somebody told me that Road to Perdition was a graphic novel, I said, 'Oh, maybe that's the way to do it.' Like, we create a graphic novel and use that as the way to convince the studio to spend a lot of money."

Burns (The Brothers McMullen) was introduced to Virgin Comics through his agent, who also represents the recently established company. Together with comic-book writer Jimmy Palmiotti, Burns turned his original film outline into a five-issue series, which will then be consolidated into a single graphic novel. He said that he relied on the help he received from his collaborators, who had a much better understanding of the comic-book format.

"They helped me take a three-act structure and turn it into sort of a five-act structure, because they're going to do five issues of this series," Burns said. "And each issue there are certain expectations ... that each comic book needs. There are cliffhangers and [rules about] when characters are introduced. So they further helped me kind of break that outline down."

Burns added that the format allowed him to do things differently from film. "They said, 'Well, we're making a comic book. It doesn't cost anything to make this story bigger and more hyper-realistic. Maybe we should play with the lead character. Like, is there any kind of superhuman or exaggerated strength he might have?'" Burns said. "So there's a great scene in On the Waterfront, where Eva Marie Saint's father explains to her that his right arm is longer than his left arm from swinging that hook. So I thought, maybe this Dock Walloper, his right hand is twice the size of his left hand. We didn't really come up with the reason, but he is a guy who grew up fighting on the docks."

Once the graphic novel comes out in March, Burns plans to use it as a proof of concept to show the major studios his vision for a film adaptation.

"We'll take that with the outline of the screenplay to the studios and see if we can get it optioned and make a big, massive, ass-kicking Prohibition-era superhero gangster movie," he said. --Cindy WhiteHamm Joins Reeves In Earth

Golden Globe nominee Jon Hamm (AMC's Mad Men) will star opposite Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly in the SF remake The Day the Earth Stood Still for Fox, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Hamm will play Dr. Granier, a NASA official who recruits Helen (Connelly) for the scientific team investigating an alien's arrival on Earth. Reeves plays Klaatu, the alien who has a simple message: Live in peace or be destroyed.

Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) will direct the update of Robert Wise's 1951 classic from a screenplay by David Scarpa.

Principal photography began Dec. 12 in Vancouver, Canada. Hamm started shooting on Dec. 18, the studio told the trade paper.

Hamm is up for a Golden Globe as lead actor in a drama for his role on Mad Men. Call's Burns Got Schooled

Edward Burns, who stars in the upcoming horror film One Missed Call, told SCI FI Wire that he refrained from offering the film's director, Eric Valette, any advice, despite being a director himself.

"The first film that I acted in that wasn't one of my own was Saving Private Ryan," Burns said in an interview while promoting the film. "So I wasn't going to show up on the set of that movie and start offering suggestions to [Steven] Spielberg. It ended up being such a great learning experience for me, not only as a filmmaker but as an actor, that every film after, I kind of just use it as a way to go to school on the filmmaker."

One Missed Call, a remake of Japanese director Takashi Miike's 2003 film Chakushin Ari, centers on psychology student Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon), whose friends begin receiving bizarre voice-mail messages in which they can hear themselves dying two days in the future. When the time of the message arrives, the prophecy is fulfilled. Burns plays police detective Jack Andrews, the one person who believes Beth's story because of a personal connection to one of the victims.

Burns--whose directorial debut, The Brothers McMullen, won the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995--said that he was particularly interested in learning about how Valette conveyed the tension in the film's more frightening sequences.

"I've never directed anything with any real suspense in it, so that's kind of what I was doing on this film," he said. "I was like, 'Oh, how is he going to build this scene?' If we're to suspect that something is creeping behind that door, I'd always kind of keep an eye on his shot selection. And then when I saw the cut of the film that I saw, it's like, 'Oh, OK. So that one worked, when I jumped out of my seat, there, the way he built it. And that one didn't work as much.' And trying to think back to why."

There were also times during the production when Burns didn't imagine himself in the director's chair at all. During those times, he thought more about making his co-star laugh than about whether the director was getting his shot.

"I discovered early on that it's very easy to get [Sossamon] to laugh," Burns said. "So it was just kind of fun to toy with her when she would have to do a little bit of, like, real tough screaming work and have to really be terrified. I don't know that Eric always appreciated it." One Missed Call opens Jan. 4, 2008. --Cindy WhitePeters: 4400 Is Canceled

Scott Peters, creator of USA Network's The 4400, announced on the show's official forum that the series has been canceled.

"It's with great sadness that I pass along to you the information I've just received: The 4400 has been canceled," Peters wrote on Dec. 18. "We've had a great time bringing you this story and submersing you in the lives of all these incredible characters. Thank you especially to the folks on the board here whose tireless devotion to the show is nothing short of remarkable."

Cast member Jacqueline McKenzie posted her own reaction to the news on her MySpace.com page. "I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone here for writing those petitions!" she said, referring to a fan campaign to save the show. "I know I speak for all the cast: We really appreciate the support and dedication of our fans! Thank you!"

Peters, who is also an executive producer, said that he broke the news to cast member Joel Gretsch. "We had a great talk about what we all accomplished and how much we'll miss our family that is our crew and our cast ... and our fans," Peters wrote. "But at least we got to go out with a bang! I had an awesome time directing the last episode. I think I got to make almost every single cast member cry (on camera). How much fun was that?"

Peters helmed the final episode of the series, "The Great Leap Forward," which aired on Sept. 16, 2007. The show ran for four seasons on USA. (USA Network is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)USA Cancels Dead Zone

USA Network has officially canceled The Dead Zone, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Dead Zone ran for six seasons. It was based on characters from Stephen King's book and was created by the late Michael Piller and his son, Shawn. Its premiere set a record for a series debut on basic cable, with 6.4 million viewers.

The Dead Zone starred Anthony Michael Hall and Nicole de Boer. (USA Network is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Tennant Leaving Who?

Catherine Tate, who will co-star with David Tennant in the upcoming fourth season of the BBC's Doctor Who, suggested that it may be Tennant's last as the immortal Time Lord, the BBC reported.

Speaking on Radio 2's Jonathan Ross program, Tate said: "I think it's maybe David's last [season]."

The BBC declined to comment on Tennant's future as the show's star.

Tate, who first appeared in the 2006 Christmas special, is set to return as the Doctor's assistant, Donna, for the entire run of the fourth season.

She will also be joined for several episodes by the Doctor's former companion, Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman.

When pressed on whether Tennant would return to play the Time Lord in special Doctor Who shows in the future, Tate replied: "Possibly."

Tate said that the upcoming season would be her last. Vatican Condemns Compass

The Vatican condemned the film The Golden Compass, which some have called anti-Christian, saying it promotes a cold and hopeless world without God, the Reuters news service reported.

In a long editorial, the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano also slammed Philip Pullman, the best-selling author of the book on which the family fantasy movie is based.

"In Pullman's world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events," the editorial said.

It was the Vatican's most stinging broadside against an author and a film since it roundly condemned The Da Vinci Code in 2005 and 2006, the news service reported.

In the fantasy world of Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials, the Church and its governing body, the Magisterium, are linked to cruel experiments on children aimed at discovering the nature of sin and attempts to suppress facts that would undermine the Church's legitimacy and power.

In the film version, all references to the Church have been stripped out, with director Chris Weitz keen to avoid offending religious movie fans.

Still, some Catholic groups in the United States have called for a boycott, fearing that even a diluted version of the book might draw people to read the trilogy.

The filmmakers and star Nicole Kidman have said previously that they do not consider the movie to be anti-church or anti-religion.Blood Looks At Women's Role

Horror author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro told SCI FI Wire that Borne in Blood--the latest entry in her long-running series about the "humane" vampire, the Count Saint-Germain--is about the competition between women dealing with the real world and those having to deal with their fantasies.

"Borne in Blood is concerned with the demands imposed by expectations having to do with long-established cultural expectations and folklore being brought to bear on day-to-day experiences," Yarbro said in an interview.

That post-Napoleonic Europe should be trapped in expectations shaped by folklore on one hand and new social models on the other has been discussed in all manner of history texts, Yarbro said. "But what this meant to individual persons, particularly women, is not often touched on, and so I read letters and journals of women of the period to try to get a sense of what their realities were like in terms of real experience," she said.

The book begins shortly after Napoleon's final defeat. "European infrastructure is a mess, and the winter of 1817 is severe," Yarbro said. "Many soldiers, unable to find work in a struggling economy, have taken to outlawry. There are more widows and orphans as well. But there is also a new interest in scientific inquiry, which is both welcome and dreaded. Most of the action in the book stems from personal motivation more than social, but the social climate definitely shapes the personal experiences."

In addition to the diaries, journals and letters Yarbro read for research, she also studied several histories of Napoleon, several dozen historical maps and a guide to inns, hotels and taverns for travelers of the period in order to get the details right, she said. "[Plus] three books on scientific experiments and theories of the time, and the help of one of my consulted experts, which means many questions asked over lunch," Yarbro said.

Borne in Blood is the 20th book in the series. Number 21, Saint-Germain: Memoirs, is a short-story collection from Elder Signs Press. The next novel in the series, A Dangerous Climate, will be published in December of next year. --John Joseph AdamsOrphanage Helmer Declines Remake

Juan Antonio Bayona, the director of the Spanish supernatural horror film The Orphanage, told SCI FI Wire that he was offered the chance to helm an American English-language remake, but turned it down.

Producer Guillermo del Toro made the offer, Bayona said in an interview. "He's a very generous man, he offered me, I was the first person being offered the movie, to direct the movie," Bayona said. "But, you know, for me it was too much. I need to do something different now."

Del Toro (the director of Hellboy) produced and presented The Orphanage, which is called El Orfanato in Spain. It is that country's candidate for the foreign-language Oscar and deals with Laura (Belin Rueda), a woman who returns to her old orphanage with a new husband and an adopted son of her own. When the son disappears, Laura begins to wonder if spirits of her old orphanage friends have come back to haunt her. Sergio G. Sanchez wrote the screenplay.

Del Toro will produce the U.S. remake as well, which Bayona said will reimagine the story for an American audience.

Bayona isn't concerned about changes to the story. "One play can be done a thousand times, and nobody complains about that," he said. "[It's] not an insult; quite the opposite, I think. What do you call it? It's a compliment. I suspect the reasons for doing it have more to do with money than anything else. But, no, but it's great."

In fact, Bayona said, "Actually, I just hope that the remake will be very different and not try to do the same thing. ... If I had done the film, it would have been different. If some other director had done the film, it would have been different. So it's wonderful to just get somebody else to take a shot at it."

The original version of The Orphanage, which was a huge hit in its native Spain, will open in the United States on Dec. 28. --Patrick Lee, News EditorMoonlight Star Wants Backstories

Shannyn Sossamon, who plays a 300-year-old vampire in CBS' Moonlight, told SCI FI Wire that she would like the show to feature fewer procedural elements and more backstory on the characters when--that is, if--it returns to the air when the writers' strike ends.

"I think there are too many procedural elements in the show," Sossamon said in an interview while promoting her latest film, One Missed Call. "I don't think any of the audience members are sitting at home going, 'Gosh, I wonder what case Mick St. John's going to have this week? I'm so curious.' No, you care about the other stuff."

In Moonlight, Sossamon plays Coraline, the former wife of private investigator and fellow vampire Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin). Though she apparently died in a fire, she reappears in Mick's life as a mortal woman after possibly finding a cure for vampirism. Sossamon revealed that the mystery of how her character became mortal will be explained before the season is over.

"[I'd like to see them] kind of go back into different time periods more," Sossamon added. "Go back into the history. I love the drama of the vampire world. I love the aesthetic of it, and so to be more [of] that than the procedural element of the show."

CBS gave the series an additional four-episode order in October, but only 12 scripts were written before the strike began on Nov. 5. The final episode, "The Mortal Cure," will air on Jan. 11.

Sossamon said that she is still waiting for word on whether the show will even be brought back once the strike is over. "I'm playing it by the day," she said. "[CBS president] Nina Tasser hasn't given us any more information. ... CBS is the only network that hasn't said what they're going to do, with their green-lighting or whatever it's called, picking [it] up." Moonlight will return with the first of the two remaining original episodes on Jan. 4, 2008, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. --Cindy WhiteChow Joins Dragonball

Chow Yun-Fat is the latest to join 20th Century Fox's live-action adaptation of Dragonball, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Chow will play Master Roshi. He rounds out a cast that includes Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Emmy Rossum and Jamie Chung.

Dragonball, based on the Japanese manga, is shooting in Mexico City and Los Angeles.

The film, directed by James Wong, follows Goku (Chatwin), a warrior alien who protects the Earth from an endless stream of rogues bent on dominating the universe and controlling mystical objects known as Dragon Balls. Stephen Chow is producing.

Master Roshi is Goku's mentor, helping him achieve the highest state of fighting and spiritual powers.Third Young Indy Set Is Lighter

David Schneider, a veteran journalist who shot supplementary features for the DVDs of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming third volume is lighter in tone in both its episodes and accompanying documentaries.

"Volume three really sort of takes a different direction from the grim and heavy activities of World War I [which are the focus of volume two]," Schneider said in an interview. "It is able to branch out into a number of entertainment-related stories that show up."

To accompany the episodes of the George-Lucas-produced TV series, Schneider prepared documentaries about the real history and people behind them. These include films about jazz and Louis Armstrong and Broadway and the Algonquin Roundtable, Schneider said.

"Indy [Sean Patrick Flanery] goes to Hollywood in the very last episode, and there's a wonderful film about Erich von Stroheim, who's really quite a character [and is played in 'The Hollywood Follies' by Dana Gladstone]," Schneider added.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones originally aired as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in the early 1990s.

The first volume of DVDs came out in October, and a second volume dropped this week. The third volume will include such episodes as "Masks of Evil," "The Mystery of the Blues" (with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones at age 50) and "Winds of Change." It arrives in stores in spring 2008. --Ian SpellingKnight Star Hurt In Filming

Justin Bruening, the star of NBC's upcoming TV movie/pilot Knight Rider, injured himself while filming a scene on Dec. 14 and required hospitalization, TV Guide reported.

Bruening injured his knee while filming a fight scene, a spokesperson for NBC told Access Hollywood. He was taken to the hospital and was treated and released.

Knight Rider, due in February, is a sequel to the 1980s TV series that starred David Hasselhoff. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Light Will Shine For Time

Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson--who has been chosen to finish writing A Memory of Light, the 12th and final installment in the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga--told SCI FI Wire that the final volume will be worth the wait.

"It is awesome," Sanderson said in an interview, based on his initial reading of Jordan's outline for the book, which was uncompleted at the time of Jordan's death in September. "To gush a little, it is everything we have been waiting for. The notes are amazing."

Sanderson couldn't describe the plot of the book because of a nondisclosure agreement, but he said that everything that has been promised will be delivered. "This really is the last book," he said. "And it is time for the final confrontations."

Harriet Popham Rigney, Jordan's widow and editor, chose Sanderson to finish the book, and she had final say in the matter, Sanderson said. Being selected is a great honor, he added. "To be perfectly honest, I can't fill [Jordan's] shoes," he said. "Nobody can."

Sanderson added: "Someone showed her the piece I had done on Mr. Jordan's death, and she asked for my books from [my publisher,] Tor. She read some of my work, called [Tor publisher] Tom Doherty, and they discussed it. I don't know what was said--I do know that Tom himself took another hard look at my books--but the result was an unexpected (on my side) call from Harriet to talk about this."

Jordan died Sept. 15 after being diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare blood disease. Although the book is unfinished, Jordan left behind extensive notes and an outline. "He wrote some parts [of the book] almost to completion, while others are only described in a paragraph or two to cover a whole 20-page scene," Sanderson said. "The state of the notes, however, is excellent due to the tireless work of Mr. Jordan's assistants and family."

Sanderson hasn't seen all of the notes yet, but he has seen Jordan's extended outline for the book. "I have a lot of material to sift through," Sanderson said. "But, because of the extensive outline, I feel much more confident. Still daunted, of course, but I really think that we--Harriet, Mr. Jordan's staff and I--can do this."

Sanderson will be working closely with Rigney, he said. "She has been involved in this project from the start, and Tom Doherty calls her one of the best editors he knows," Sanderson said. "I wouldn't think of writing this book without a lot of input from her." --John Joseph AdamsCompass' Richards To Chat

Fans of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass are invited to visit the official Web site of publisher Scholastic on Dec. 19 to take part in a chat with Dakota Blue Richards, star of the current movie based on the first of Pullman's His Dark Materials books.

In the chat, which commences at 6:30 p.m. ET, Richards, 13, will discuss her role in The Golden Compass.

Before the chat, fans can submit a question to Richards by voting in an online poll.

The site will also host a Golden Compass sweepstakes, which offers fans a chance to win an iPod nano, a set of tie-in books and other prizes.

The Golden Compass is now in theaters.Ruins Alters Book, Setting

Carter Smith, director of the upcoming movie based on Scott B. Smith's horror novel The Ruins, told SCI FI Wire that he's made several changes to the novel, including altering the setting to an ancient Mayan pyramid instead of a simple hill with an archaeological site.

"When I read the book I had never really thought that much about it being, you know, ruins," Smith said in an interview on Dec. 17 in Hollywood, where he was editing the movie. "I kind of thought, 'OK, there's a hill with a hole, and there's a dig.' But then, you know, reading the script, and when I really started to think about it, I was doing some research and read that 10 percent of the Mayan ruins in the world have been uncovered, and that the other 90 percent are still unexcavated and just completely overgrown. And I just thought that would actually make it a lot more interesting for when they go down into the ruins. If it actually had some architecture and had some scope to it, rather than just being a dark hole."

Smith (no relation to Scott B. Smith) also screened some footage from the movie, including an introduction of some of the characters in their Mexican hotel, their arrival at the pyramid in the middle of the Yucatan jungle and a violent encounter with some local Mayans. Smith also screened a graphic sequence involving the amputation of a character's legs, which highlighted the film's realism and tense character interactions, as well as its unabashed physical horror. (Australia's Gold Coast stands in for Mexico in the movie.)

The movie, like the book, centers on a group of friends who become entangled in a struggle for survival after visiting a remote archaeological dig in Mexico, where they discover something deadly living among the ruins. The film stars Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, Laura Ramsey and Joe Anderson. Carter Smith directed from a script by Scott B. Smith, who adapted his own book.

Carter Smith added that he and Scott felt free to change some of the details of the book, while remaining true to its spirit. "The things that happen, like, you know, happen to different people, different characters," Carter Smith said. He added: "Sort of switching the things that happened to the other characters and the timing of it a little bit." The film also compresses events into a couple of days, rather than weeks. The Ruins opens April 11, 2008. --Patrick Lee, News EditorShatner Trek Cameo Possible?

Roberto Orci, co-writer of director J.J. Abrams' highly anticipated Star Trek movie, told SCI FI Wire that there's still a possibility that original star William Shatner may appear in the movie, though that's less of a possibility than before. The film is currently in production.

"There are two things," Orci said in an interview in November. "One, from our point of view, we are still hoping to find a way. Secondly, one of the difficulties that was brought up and discussed with Shatner when we all met him and pitched him ideas is that Trek fans are sticklers for their canon. [And,] unfortunately, Shatner's Capt. Kirk was killed in Star Trek VII [1994's Generations]."

There was no such problem bringing back Shatner's co-star, Leonard Nimoy, as an older Spock, joining a cast of new actors to inhabit the roles of the Star Trek crew. But Kirk's death complicates the matter of bringing Shatner back, said Orci, who wrote the screenplay for Star Trek with his Transformers partner Alex Kurtzman.

"The difficulty there is not just ignoring that or explaining it in an unsatisfactory way merely to get him back in," Orci said. "So that is the struggle: the rigors of canon and not phoning it in just to have a cameo." Still, it could happen, he said. "From my point of view, it's a very long shoot, and things change. It's just whether we can figure it out." Another possible problem: The ongoing writers' strike prohibits members of the Writers Guild of America--which includes Orci, Kurtzman and Abrams--from making any changes to the script until the strike is settled.

For his part, Shatner has not been shy in expressing his disappointment at not being cast in Star Trek. "How could you not put one of the founding figures into a movie that was being resurrected?" he told TV's Extra last month. "That doesn't make good business sense to me!"

In any case, Orci had nothing but praise for Chris Pine, the actor who will play the young version of Kirk.

"Chris Pine has two things which are very difficult to find simultaneously," Orci said. "He has the maverick nature of an extremely motivated, cocky guy who doesn't play by the rules, who is intelligent enough and can command sufficient respect to be an astronaut. Remember, these people are all astronauts!"

But Pine conveys the intelligence of a starship captain, Orci added. "It's difficult to find a good-looking guy who you would believe can fill the old Kirk shoes of getting into a fistfight while also having a Ph.D. in astrophysics," he said. "That's a tough one, because you need that, as he has to face the intelligence of Mr. Spock [played in his younger years by Zachary Quinto]. Chris has a great sense of humor but is also able to get serious on a dime, to step in and out of leadership while being fun." Star Trek is slated for release on Christmas Day 2008. (Read more about Star Trek in the current issue of SCI FI Magazine.) --Tara DiLullo BennettRacer's Ricci Keeps Up With Boys

Christina Ricci, who stars in the Wachowski brothers' upcoming live-action Speed Racer movie, told SCI FI Wire that her character, Trixie, has just as much action as the male characters in the film.

"That's another example of a great role model character for girls, because she's smart, she's funny and she does all the things the boys do," Ricci said in an interview while promoting her latest film, Penelope. "She kung-fu fights. She drives a car. She races, and she flies a helicopter. But she has a specific outfit that she wears when she flies the helicopter, and her lipstick always matches something she's wearing. She gets to be everything. She's celebrated as a girl and a woman, but she's also not treated any differently than the male characters are. So it was so much fun in that respect. I like being dressed up, and I like doing stunts."

In the movie, which is based on the long-running Japanese animated TV series, Trixie is the girlfriend of the title character, played by Emile Hirsch. When he turns down an offer to race for a corrupt corporation, she supports him in his struggle to fulfill his family legacy and become the greatest driver the sport has ever seen. The film also stars John Goodman as Pops Racer, Susan Sarandon as Mom Racer and Matthew Fox as Racer X.

Speed Racer, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski (the Matrix trilogy), was shot primarily against a green-screen backdrop, with computer-generated backgrounds added in post-production.

"That made it hilarious," Ricci said. "We'd walk on set, and there would be half a helicopter, and then the rest of the thing was just green. And it's an ensemble piece, so there's a lot of other actors to look at and just say, 'What the hell is that? What scene are we shooting?' So it just made it funny. We would just walk around and be like, 'All right, so the mountain's over there, and what is that? Oh, that's the edge of the cliff. OK, well, I shouldn't be over there.' It was just funny. It made it all really hilarious. And then, towards the end of the day, the green would start to make you feel like you were tripping, so that was also, at times, enjoyable."

Ricci has seen only a few minutes of the finished film so far but was impressed with what she'd been shown.

"The brothers showed us 15 minutes, and it's just amazing," Ricci said. "It looks like nothing you've ever seen before. All the driving stuff is really exciting and thrilling. And then it has this emotional element that's actually really quite moving. A lot of guys were crying at the end of the 15 minutes, because there's this real guy sad thing. But also every character in it is a very specific, funny character. Mom is always going to have her apron on, and Sparky is going to always be Chaplin-esque and funny, and Mr. Royalton will always be evil. It's just fun. Everything about the movie makes it feel like an event movie, so that's exciting." Speed Racer opens on May 9, 2008. --Cindy White Young Indy Extras Took Years

David Schneider, a veteran journalist who shot supplementary features for the DVDs of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, told SCI FI Wire that he spent years researching and shooting them. Schneider produced the treasure trove of historical documentaries that are included in the three-volume DVD collection, the second of which is subtitled The War Years and arrives on DVD Dec. 18.

"We started this effort about five years ago, and it was about four and a half solid years of work to get these things done," Schneider, a CBS News veteran, said in an interview. "Young Indy was a television show from the early '90s, and it was then seen as a way to try and get people interested in history, by taking this fictional character of Indiana Jones and putting him into history by having adventures where he would meet with real people, be involved in real events, grapple with themes that were of that time and create this adventure based on history."

But producer George Lucas always wanted to supplement the show with the true history behind it, Schneider said. There wasn't enough space to add much extra material to the VHS releases of Young Indiana Jones, but the advent of DVDs provided Lucas the means to match new educational documentaries to the show's episodes.

The War Years' nine-disc DVD set includes eight feature-length episodes and nearly 30 related documentaries. The episode "Attack of the Hawkmen," starring Marc Warren as Manfred von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron, is paired with a segment about the legendary World War I German fighter pilot. "Demons of Deception," in which Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) ends up in the trenches at Verdun, has a companion documentary entitled "Marshal Petain's Fall From Grace," which looks at the life of disgraced French general Henri Philippe Petain.

"It was as simple as sitting down with George and Rick McCallum, who produced these [episodes], over a couple of afternoons and looking at the casts, ... which characters showed up in each one, what the events were that were going on, what the themes were, and going through them one by one to pick out people that could be good stories," Schneider said. "That, fundamentally, was what this was all about. This was about telling interesting stories. ... Fortunately, the fact that they're true doesn't take anything away from the fact that they're fascinating people who did fascinating things." --Ian SpellingStarTrek.com Cuts Jobs

CBS Interactive has eliminated the jobs of a half-dozen full-time and part-time production staff members who worked at StarTrek.com, which has been the official Star Trek Web site for the past 13 years. The site remains active.

On Dec. 14, a large banner on the site read "FAREWELL!" and a news story said that all jobs "had been eliminated. Effective immediately," and added, "We don't know the ultimate fate of this site."

But by Dec. 17, that had been replaced by the headline "Keep the mission going on StarTrek.com boards," and a CBS Interactive official statement said the site would remain operating.

"CBS Interactive, which oversees StarTrek.com, is reorganizing the way it does business to align the division's workforce with its new vision that focuses on building communities online," the statement said. "CBS Interactive remains absolutely committed to StarTrek.com and to growing the site along with its users by directly tapping into and utilizing the passionate fan base that has supported the site."

The cuts were apparently made as part of a cost-cutting and staff consolidation measure at CBS that resulted in approximately 20 people their losing jobs at CBS.com and CBSNews.com.

Marc Wade, former director of production for StarTrek.com, declined comment; calls to CBS spokesperson Dana McClintock were not returned at press time. --Ian SpellingFreeman Got Wanted

Morgan Freeman, who stars in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of Wanted, told SCI FI Wire that before signing on for the thriller film he knew nothing at all about the Mark Millar and J.G. Jones graphic novel on which the film is based.

"I didn't see it or read it," Freeman said in an interview while promoting his latest film, The Bucket List. "But reading the script, it's like, 'What? I have got to find out how this works.'"

Freeman co-stars in Wanted with Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy. The Oscar-winning actor plays Sloan, leader of a clandestine organization called the Fraternity, which trains assassins that then mete out justice. Jolie plays Fox, one of Sloan's killers, while McAvoy is the group's latest recruit, Wesley, the slacker son of a slain Fraternity assassin.

The film is directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian filmmaker behind the fantasy films Night Watch and Day Watch. "I just had to have that experience," Freeman said of working with Bekmambetov. "He's very quiet, and he has interesting ideas. It was just interesting to do. The highlight, however, for me was Angelina. She was one of my operatives, and I enjoyed her."

Freeman added: "My character, Sloan, I think I have played somebody like him a couple of times before. He's a total control character." Wanted opens on June 27, 2008. --Ian SpellingF/X Master Muren Wins Tesla

The International Press Academy honored Oscar-winning visual-effects specialist Dennis Muren with the Tesla Award for Visionary Technical Achievement on Dec. 17 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The group also honored a number of SF&F movies, games and TV shows.

"I loved working with great masters like Ray Harryhausen, who taught me to create creatures as if they are actors, treat them like actors for the screen," said the 61-year-old F/X master, whose films include Innerspace, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park and the Star Wars films.

The 300 members of the IPA honor special achievement in film, television, DVDs and games.

In other movie awards, The Prestige won best overall DVD; Masters of Horror, season one, won for best DVD extras; and Ratatouille won best youth DVD and best animated feature. 300 took home the award for best visual effects in a film.

Among games, God of War II won best action/adventure game, Medieval II: Total War won outstanding puzzle/strategy game, and Super Paper Mario won outstanding role-playing game.

In the TV category, Pushing Daisies won best comedy TV series, and the baseball fantasy Mitch Albom's For One More Day won best TV motion picture. --Mike SzymanskiVentimiglia Is Game For SF

Milo Ventimiglia told Entertainment Weekly that he will soon co-star with Gerard Butler in a science fiction thriller called Game.

"That's with Gerard Butler and Amber Valletta," the Heroes star told the magazine. "It's written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the same guys who did Pathology, the movie I have coming out in the spring.

Who does Ventimiglia play? "A very interesting futuristic character that's not necessarily in control of himself. ... I think that's mysterious and cryptic enough."Two Toons Vie For F/X Oscar

Beowulf and Ratatouille are two of the rare animated films being allowed to contend for the visual-effects Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

They join 13 other films under contention for three nomination slots, including Evan Almighty, The Golden Compass, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I Am Legend, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Spider-Man 3, Sunshine, 300, Transformers and The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, among others.

The list of 15 films was created by the visual-effects steering committee from a list of 307 eligible films. The committee will next narrow this list to seven films in early January, and these seven will compete in the traditional "bake-off," in which branch members will vote on the final three nominees.

The nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 22, 2008.Lost Finds Thursdays In January

ABC announced that it will bring back Lost for a fourth season on Jan. 31, 2008, in a new timeslot, Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

The season may be abbreviated because of the six-week-old writers' strike; only eight of a planned 16 episodes were completed before the strike shut down production of further scripts.

Lost will be followed at 10 p.m. on Thursdays by the new series Eli Stone, about a lawyer who seeks to find a deeper meaning to life after experiencing a series of odd hallucinations that may indicate a higher calling.Call's Sossamon Avoided Original

Shannyn Sossamon, who stars in the upcoming English-language remake of the Japanese horror movie One Missed Call, told SCI FI Wire that she wasn't allowed to watch the original before shooting.

Speaking during a break in filming on the movie's Atlanta set in the summer of 2006, Sossamon said that director Eric Valette instead asked to watch other movies.

"Eric didn't allow me to see" the 2003 Japanese film, which was directed by Takashi Miike, Sossamon said. "He told me to watch a couple of other films, but he wasn't saying to look for anything in them specifically that would be similar to this. He actually said the opposite. I asked him, 'Is there any one movie that you could say ... ?' And he goes, 'No.' I loved that answer."

One Missed Call centers on a group of friends who start receiving voicemails from the future with audio from the moment of their deaths.

During a visit to the set, SCI FI Wire observed a scene shot in a former school building that doubled as a burnt-out hospital. Sossamon was being dragged across a filthy floor repeatedly, as if being pulled by unseen, invisible arms. A stuntperson was used for the long shots, but Sossamon was more than willing to let herself get tossed around for her close-ups.

Later, director Valette (Malefique) said that he didn't even allow himself to watch Miike's film, called Chakushin ari in Japanese.

"I know the director of the original; I know his work, and I'm a big fan of his movies," Valette said. "But, fortunately, I didn't see the original One Missed Call, and I still haven't seen it so far. [And that is] because I try not to be influenced visually by the original. I try to base my work on the U.S. script and not on the Japanese movie. Maybe when I see the movie later on, I will think, 'Well, this is something I should have stolen.' So it's a gamble." One Missed Call opens Jan. 4, 2008. --Staci Layne WilsonSmith's Legend Sets Records

Will Smith proved himself the champ again as his I Am Legend took the top slot at the Dec. 14 weekend box office with $76.5 million, the biggest December opening ever and a personal best for Smith, the Associated Press reported.

Alvin and the Chipmunks, meanwhile, opened a strong second, with $45 million, the AP reported.

The previous number-one movie, New Line Cinema's fantasy The Golden Compass, nose-dived in its second weekend, coming in third with $9 million, down a dismal 65 percent from its less-than-expected $25.8 million debut a week earlier. The movie, which cost $180 million to produce, has done $90 million so far overseas but has proven a dud domestically, with just $41 million.

I Am Legend smashed Smith's personal debut record, easily exceeding the $52.1 million opening weekends of I, Robot and Men in Black II.

It also bested the $72.6 million premiere of 2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the previous best December opening.

Francis Ford Coppola's first film in 10 years, the SF Youth Without Youth, had a so-so debut of $27,815 in six theaters, averaging $4,636. Rossum Stars In Dragonball

Emmy Rossum has booked the female lead in 20th Century Fox's Dragonball, based on the popular Japanese manga, Variety reported.

Justin Chatwin stars as Goku, a warrior who protects the Earth from a stream of rogues bent on dominating the universe. James Marsters plays the film's villain, Lord Piccolo.

Rossum (The Day After Tomorrow) takes on the role of Bulma, whose father's Dragon Ball is stolen by Piccolo.

The story is based on Akira Toriyama's manga, which has spawned graphic novels, a long-running TV series and more than 25 video games. The movie is shooting in Mexico and Los Angeles.

Final Destination helmer James Wong is directing from a script he penned. Ben Ramsey wrote an earlier draft.Freeman's Rama Close To Reality?

Morgan Freeman told SCI FI Wire that his long-held dream of producing and starring in a big-screen adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's SF novel Rendezvous With Rama is closer than ever to becoming a reality.

"That is going to happen," Freeman said in an interview while promoting his latest film, The Bucket List. "Thank heaven, that is going to happen. We're looking for that to start in the next year."

Rendezvous With Rama, which was published in 1972, follows a group of human explorers who intercept and try to unlock the secrets of an alien spaceship that has approached Earth. Freeman would play the commander of the Endeavor, the deep-space maintenance ship used to rendezvous with the alien craft.

"The story itself is the idea that we can be visited from outer space," Freeman said. "The idea that we're the only living intelligent creatures is ... you can't really believe that. Well, you can, but if you think about it for a while, what if there are other intelligent creatures--and I firmly believe there are--what does that tell us? We're going to imagine that they're going to have to look something like us, and if they don't look like us, what does that tell us about God?"

Freeman has had Rendezvous With Rama on his radar for nearly a decade, but this is the closest it's been to happening. Not only is it listed as "announced" on the Internet Movie Database, but it's also on the Web site of Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment, which classifies it as "in development."

"We have been in close contact with Arthur C. Clarke," Freeman said. "As a matter of fact, I went to Sri Lanka just to have a sit-down with him. I'm very excited about this. When the people at [NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory] learned that we had this project, we got calls from them. 'Any help you need, any help at all. ... '"

Freeman added: "So we've been trying to develop a script. It's a very large project. You have got to develop the script, and you have got to design spaceships. And because Arthur C. Clarke wrote it, and because it's so much real science involved, we can't take too many liberties." --Ian SpellingT2 Skeleton Nets $500K

A metal endoskeleton from Terminator 2: Judgment Day brought in nearly $500,000 on Dec. 14 in an auction of Hollywood memorabilia dominated by props and costumes from Arnold Schwarzenegger's SF franchise, the Associated Press reported.

The T-800 prop used in the 1991 film brought in $488,750, Profiles in History told the AP.

In other bidding, an armored drone went for $109,250, and a full-body Terminator model went for $74,750. Both items were from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Meanwhile, a full-scale Tyrannosaurus rex head from Jurassic Park was the second-priciest item of the day, bringing in $126,500.BRIEFLY NOTED

John Hurt, who is rumored to play Abner Ravenwood in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, talked with Premiere Magazine about his appearance in the much-anticipated sequel.

ABC has posted teasers for the upcoming fourth season of Lost, which returns Jan. 31, 2008.

A new trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army is now live and has been linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

Dwight Little has been set to direct Tekken, a futuristic martial-arts action film based on the best-selling Japanese video game from Namco, Variety reported; production begins Feb. 4, 2008, in Shreveport, La.

C.H.U.D. reported what it said are details about the upcoming fourth Terminator movie, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

The New York Times reported that the deal settling the legal dispute between Lord of the Rings helmer Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema was worth nearly $40 million to Jackson and confirmed that Jackson will not be directing The Hobbit and its sequel.

Lionsgate has created a new official Web site for its upcoming supernatural horror film The Eye, starring Jessica Alba, which opens Feb. 1, 2008.

Ali Larter, one of the stars of NBC's Heroes, is engaged to her boyfriend, actor Hayes MacArthur, the Associated Press reported.

The trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army will debut on the Internet on Dec. 20 on IGN, MySpace, RottenTomatoes and AskMen.

Fox will screen its upcoming Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem at midnight on Christmas Eve at Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre and New York's Regal Union Square Stadium 14; the first 100 fans in line will get T-shirts saying "I Survived Midnight Mass-acre Christmas Eve 2007." The movie opens everywhere Christmas Day.

TrekMovie.com reported that Jennifer Morrison (TV's House) will play (a pregnant) Winona Kirk, the mother of James T. Kirk, in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek movie, and that Rachel Nichols (formerly with Abrams' Alias) will play an Orion woman, possibly a green-skinned slave girl.

The Golden Compass was nearing the $100 million mark at the overseas box office even as the costly family fantasy lost steam in North America, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Flynet has posted what appears to be pirate video of scenes for The X-Files 2 being shot in Vancouver, Canada, featuring stars David Duchovny and Amanda Peet.

Empire Online has confirmed tabloid rumors from last week that actress Gemma Arterton will star opposite Daniel Craig in the upcoming as-yet-untitled 22nd James Bond movie.

Spain's foreign-language Oscar candidate, Juan Antonio Bayona's supernatural horror film The Orphanage, has nabbed 14 nominations for the country's 22nd Goya Awards, including film, actress (Belen Rueda), new director, supporting actress (Geraldine Chaplin) and original screenplay (Sergio Sanchez), Variety reported.

The official production blog for Zack Snyder's upcoming movie version of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' SF graphic novel Watchmen has been updated with an account of Gibbons' visit to the Vancouver, Canada, set recently, as well as with a photo of Gibbons beside Dollar Bill's uniform.

The first trailer for The Dark Knight, the highly anticipated sequel to Batman Begins, has gone live and is linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

Callum Keith Rennie (Battlestar Galactica, Tin Man) and Adam Godley (Around the World in 80 Days) have signed on to co-star in the as-yet-untitled sequel film to The X-Files, now shooting in Vancouver, Canada, Variety reported.

The release date for the upcoming independent fantasy film Penelope has been pushed back a week, to Feb. 29, 2008, from Feb. 22; meanwhile, a new trailer has gone live on the Web and is linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.