X-Files 2 Wraps In Canada

Production wrapped on March 13 in Vancouver, Canada, on the as-yet-untitled X-Files sequel movie, with star David Duchovny telling reporters that the crew staged the unauthorized Web photos of Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) kissing, the Canadian National Post newspaper reported.

"We've had lots of paparazzi," writer-director Chris Carter told a post-wrap news conference. "In Langley [British Columbia] a couple of days ago, a black SUV pulled up on the side of the road and there was a long lens pointed at us."

The next day, pictures of Duchovny and Anderson, locked in a full-on kiss as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, appeared on Internet fan sites.

"We staged that," Duchovny said at the news conference.

Duchovny finished work earlier this week and was catching a plane to Los Angeles. The rest of the crew were to finish by week's end.

The movie is a stand-alone story unconnected to the series' ongoing conspiracy thread, but beyond that they're not saying much. The X-Files movie is slated to open July 25.Letterman To Host Battlestar Cast

Ten stars of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica will make an appearance on CBS' Late Show With David Letterman to present the Top 10 List on March 19.

They include Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Hogan, Aaron Douglas and Lucy Lawless. The show airs at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT.

The fourth season of Battlestar Galactica kicks off on March 28 at 10 p.m. ET/PT with two back-to-back half-hour specials, with the first new episode premiering the following week, April 4, at 10 p.m.Warner To Split Last Potter Film

As expected, Warner Brothers announced on March 13 that the screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's seventh and final Harry Potter book will be released in two parts and that director David Yates will return to helm both installments.

Part one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will open during the holiday season of 2010, with part two to be released in quick succession in summer 2011, Warner said.

Yates is currently finishing up the sixth installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and last year helmed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. At the end of the franchise, Yates will be the only director to have overseen more than two Potter movies.

David Heyman, who first brought the project to Warner Brothers in 1997, will be completing the film franchise as the producer of all of the Harry Potter films. David Barron will also continue as producer. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be adapted by screenwriter Steve Kloves; he will have scripted seven of the eight Potter films.

"We recognized that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is packed with vital plot points that complete the story arcs of all of its beloved characters," Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Brothers Pictures Group, said in a statement. "That said, we feel that the best way to do the book and its many fans justice is to expand the screen adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and release the film in two parts. We could not imagine the final chapter of the film franchise being in better hands than those of David Yates."

Earlier, the Los Angeles Times had reported that the two final films would be released in November 2010 and May 2011.

The newspaper said that the films will be titled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II and that they would be filmed concurrently.

"I think it's the only way you can do it without cutting out a huge portion of the book," star Daniel Radcliffe, 18, told the Times on the set of Half-Blood Prince, which is due in theaters on Nov. 21. "There have been compartmentalized subplots in the other books that have made them easier to cut--although those cuts were still to the horror of some fans--but the seventh book doesn't really have any subplots. It's one driving, pounding story from the word go."

Heyman told the newspaper that Rowling had signed off on the idea. "I went to Jo, and she was cool with it," Heyman said, "and that was quite a relief."Singer Confirms Superman Sequel

Superman Returns director Bryan Singer told Empire Online that he has begun work on a proposed sequel, expected to be called Superman: Man of Steel.

That partly confirms a rumor previously reported by IESB.net that Singer would re-up for the sequel. The other rumor, still unconfirmed, is that Transformers writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman would write the script, taking over the franchise from Superman Returns scribes Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty.

"Yes, I'm just getting back with writers after the strike," Singer told Empire. "We're just in the development phase. I'm starting to develop a sequel ... with the intention of directing it."

Singer is aware of criticism about his earlier effort, which some said lacked enough action. "The first one was a romantic film and a nostalgic film," he said. "I'll be the first person to own up to that without making any apologies for it. I knew it was going to be that from the outset. And now that the characters are established, there's really an opportunity to up the threat levels. ... Clearly there'll be a body count [laughs]. From frame one, it will be unrelenting terror! All those teenage girls who found the movie and mooned over James Marsden or Brandon [Routh]? Well, I'm going to wake them up!"Hulk Trailer Debuts On TV

The first teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk will make its exclusive broadcast debut in a simultaneous block on seven networks on March 12, Marvel announced.

The trailer will air at approximately 9:56 p.m. ET/6:56 p.m. PT on MTV, MTVU, MTV2, VH1, Spike TV, Nick at Nite and CMT.

Following the on-air premiere, the trailer will be immediately posted on MTV.com for an exclusive period.

The trailer will begin showing in theaters across the country on March 14, attached to prints of Rogue Pictures' Doomsday.

The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, hits theaters worldwide on June 13.Doomsday Stars Fatal Femme

Writer/director Neil Marshall told SCI FI Wire that he didn't deliberately set out to follow his feminist horror film The Descent with another film featuring a strong female character, but that's what happened with his post-apocalyptic SF thriller Doomsday.

"I admire strong women," Marshall said in an interview. "I love strong women; I married a strong woman. So it's all part and parcel to the kind of films I make."

Marshall also dismissed the idea that he's some kind of feminist filmmaker. "It was actually pure chance that this film came up next after Descent," he said. "It was not a deliberate choice that I was going to do another film with a strong female role. This idea, actually, I came up with it five years ago. And it was just by chance this was the one that people wanted to make next. So I didn't want to change the character into a guy just to avoid being like The Descent."

In Doomsday, Rhona Mitra stars as Eden Sinclair, the leader of an elite military unit. When a viral outbreak threatens to wipe out humanity, Sinclair and her team must search for a cure to a deadly virus in a quarantined zone that has been cut off from society for three decades.

"Rhona's character in the film is a product of this society that's both isolated and divisive and of the future," Marshall said. "The trick with this character was to make it different from the six girls in Descent and come up with something new. And she has a very strong kind of emotional journey that she goes on, and around that emotional journey there's this hard shell. She's a tough cookie."

Marshall felt Mitra was ideal for the role because she possessed a strength that was emotional as well as physical.

"She needed to have the emotional undercurrent to carry off the dramatic story," Marshall said. "But at the same time, she needed to look like she could convincingly kick you about the head if that was her inclination. And she needed to look brutal and ruthless. And she [has] that kind of cold look about her when she wants to. And that paid off brilliantly with the character. But, at the same time, she connected with the strong, dramatic storyline that drives the whole piece."

Doomsday opens March 14. --Cindy White SF&F TV Shows On The Bubble

The Hollywood Reporter has handicapped the SF&F TV shows currently "on the bubble" for renewal or cancellation.

For starters, the trade paper was confident that Fox would renew Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, in part because the finale's ratings performance last week was solid and because a fourth Terminator movie comes out in 2009, offering promotional opportunities.

NBC's Knight Rider, meanwhile, performed well for NBC as a two-hour movie, and sources told the trade paper that the network is in talks with a show runner, suggesting that a regular series order is likely.

As for CBS' vampire drama Moonlight, the trade paper reported that CBS is playing wait-and-see. The network will watch to see if fans return once the show comes back from its strike-induced hiatus.

CBS' Jericho has only two episodes left in its short second season, and the network is expected to make a decision quickly so that producers can use one of two endings: A series finale or a season-ending cliffhanger. CBS notes that the show gains from DVR viewership and online viewing, but after its performance the past two weeks, most doubt that the show will get another reprieve.

The CW's Reaper has reportedly lost its way creatively after a strong pilot, leaving its future in doubt.Continuum More Casual

Former Stargate SG-1 star Ben Browder told SCI FI Wire that Stargate: Continuum, the second of two straight-to-DVD spinoff movies, will be accessible to the casual fan. In that it differs from the first film, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, which wraps up the Ori storyline of SG-1 and ties up the series' various bits of mythology.

"I think Ark of Truth is more tied to the last couple years of the series," Browder said in an interview. "Continuum is more stand-alone. That's probably the most concise way of saying it."

Few details have been released about Continuum, though cast and crew are known to have flown to the arctic for some location shooting.

By contrast, Ark of Truth deals with much of the SG-1 storylines, and writer/director Robert C. Cooper wanted to satisfy the fans, Browder said.

"They were thinking of the fans when they did Ark of Truth, it's so dense with the mythology of the show, and it's wrapping up storylines," Browder said. "The producers of Stargate are very appreciative of their audience, and they're aware of the audience. And Cooper's been with the show from the very beginning. He probably ... knows the audience quite well."

Can a newcomer drop into Stargate late? "Look, you can drop into the third season of something without knowing all the backstory and go, 'Wow, this is really interesting. I like this,'" Browder said. " And, yeah, look, Ark is riddled with Stargate mythology, and there's no question about that. I would imagine a reasonably intelligent, discerning audience member would be able to follow the story, though."

If not, look for Continuum, which is expected to be released in July. Ark of Truth is in stores now. --Mike SzymanskiArk Blew Browder Up

Ben Browder, who plays Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell in the upcoming DVD film Stargate: The Ark of Truth, told SCI FI Wire that the disc includes a special featurette revealing how a climactic stunt involving a fireball was performed.

"I think it may have been more scary for production [than for me]," Browder said in a phone interview. "That's why it was probably my last shot in the movie. ... You'll look at the production schedule and see it's the last shot, and you'll look at it and you'll go, 'Oh, they're worried about this.' That's because if I got fully fried and lost all of my hair or other body parts, they could whack something together for the next movie."

The fireball sequence (spoilers ahead!) occurs late in the movie, when Browder's Mitchell narrowly escapes being blown up. A stuntman performed most of the sequence, but Browder came out of it smoldering a bit, too.

"I probably did some stuff on Farscape which would be marginally more dangerous," Browder said, referring to his earlier SCI FI Channel series. "You know, it's a big old ball of flame, and you have to trust that these guys know what they're doing. And you do trust. ... I [could] feel the heat. I know that, you know, my clothes come up smoking on the backside when you're done with something like that."

The Ark of Truth wraps up the Ori storyline of SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, which ended its 10-year run in 2007.

The DVD also contains behind-the-scenes extras, including one in which Browder says how Mitchell differs from John Crichton, the character he played on Farscape. "People were saying, 'How is this character different?' And I was working on a show real recently and pulled up some Farscape, and Mitchell's very different from Crichton," Browder said. "You know, at least with 15 minutes of viewing time, I can say quite clearly that Mitchell is very different from Crichton. Crichton's much more emotional and sort of off the wall than Mitchell ever even got close to being."

Browder will next be seen as Mitchell in Stargate: Continuum, the next straight-to-DVD film based on SG-1, which is slated to come out later this year. Ark of Truth is in stores now. --Mike SzymanskiBrowder Scales Black Mountain

Ben Browder told SCI FI Wire that he has co-written Black Mountain, a horror movie featuring a monster in the woods. Browder (SCI FI Channel's Stargate SG-1) co-wrote the film with his onetime Farscape producer Andrew Prowse.

"We were just hanging around and started talking about this little character piece, and then this monster comes out," Browder said in an interview while promoting his upcoming straight-to-DVD movie Stargate: The Ark of Truth.

Black Mountain takes place in a small town where an investigator is trying to solve a series of horrific murders. "Yeah, it sort of has a horror/sci-fi critter in it," Browder revealed. "And it's a critter in the woods."

The film features some gruesome murders, Browder added. "It was one of those fun projects that you look at and you go, 'Yeah, let's have a stab at that. Let's just see how badly wrong we can go with this genre,'" he said. "But, so you know, there is a monster in it, and the monster will really show the character for what he is."

The script is currently with MGM, awaiting word on whether it will move forward, Browder said. "That's a script that MGM owns," he added. "They will do what they will do with it."

Browder would also be interested in acting in the movie if it ever gets made, he said. "I do see a part for me," he said. "In my own head I might imagine there's a place for me, but, again, it's a sole property, not something that I'm in the active process of trying to raise the money to produce at the moment. You know, it wasn't written with that in mind anyway. When I write, I don't go, 'Oh, which character am I going to play?' I tend to be more fascinated by the characters which are further away from me or further away from things that I have played--well, might be asked to play--than the characters that might involve me."

Browder's Ark of Truth is now in stores. --Mike SzymanskiArk Makes Stargate Bigger

Ben Browder, who reprises the role of Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell in the upcoming DVD film Stargate: The Ark of Truth, told SCI FI Wire that the movie was shot on 35mm film and will therefore look sharper than SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, on which it is based.

The TV series was shot on high-definition digital video. "I think 35 looks better than HD does," Browder said in a phone interview. "The HD technology is good, but I still don't think it's as good as film, at least not at this juncture. So I think it looks bigger, [and] it looks better."

The movie, which picks up the story from the finale of the decade-long series, also features more camera movement than was possible in the series, which was shot on a short time frame. "[Director] Robert [Cooper] chose to move the camera in ways that we usually didn't move it in the series," Browder said. "A little more time is taken in advance, in preparation and, you know, a fraction more time on set. You're still working at an incredibly rapid pace to shoot a movie like this in 15, 16 days or whatever it is. It's a rapid pace, but it's a little more time than we would normally have per minute than on the series."

Ark ties up the Ori storyline and answers questions left hanging when SG-1 ended last year. It's the first of two planned straight-to-DVD Stargate films, with Stargate: Continuum following in a few months.

Ark reunites SG-1 cast members Browder, Amanda Tapping (Col. Samantha Carter), Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson) and Christopher Judge (Teal'c).

Because of Ark's epic scale, Browder and his castmates didn't have a lot of on-screen interaction, he said. "In order to do everything that needed to be done, we were split up quite a bit, so ... there wasn't a lot of sort of what you'd call 'character scenes,'" he said. "We were split up and talking to each other over the radios quite a bit. [What] I would say is that I think Rob did an excellent job of giving every character something to do and giving everyone a chance to shine."

The Ark of Truth DVD, which features behind-the-scenes interviews and an hourlong recap of the series, is now available. --Mike SzymanskiIt's All Greek To Browder

Ben Browder (Stargate SG-1) told SCI FI Wire that he's developing Going Homer, a miniseries for SCI FI Channel that brings to life characters from Greek and Roman mythology.

"I'm pretty excited to see the big three brought to life: that's Zeus, Poseidon and Hades," Browder said in an interview. "And then, obviously, there's Athena and Aphrodite and Aries. They're all very cool."

Browder is co-writing the miniseries with his former Farscape director Andrew Prowse.

The miniseries follows a modern American 12-year-old boy, named Homer Ulysses Jones, who can see Greek and Roman gods walking among the populace. Homer and his father run away together after a fierce custody battle and head to the home of their ancestors in Ithaca, N.Y.

Browder said the recently settled writers' strike slowed the progress of the project. "Right now, at this moment, I'm ensconced in my household reworking the story," he said. "We're in our second draft, and it is a rather weighty document."

Browder said he's always been interested in science fiction and mythology. "When you start getting into Greek mythology, you see how much of it has formed our civilization," he said. "You can't throw a rock in the United States and not hit something that has classical architecture. And almost all of the mythological creatures in Harry Potter come from that mythology. It is prevalent all over."

There is no cast or production date for the project, and Browder said that he and Prowse haven't quite worked out all the characters yet.

"Will there be a Medusa?" Browder said. "Well, there might be, but I'm not going to divulge what we are doing quite yet."

Browder reprises his role as Col. Cameron Mitchell in the upcoming DVD movie Stargate: Ark of Truth, which drops March 11. --Mike SzymanskiGugino Sweeps Up Witch Role

Carla Gugino will play the lead opposite Dwayne Johnson in Race to Witch Mountain, Disney's reimagining of its 1975 tween SF thriller Escape to Witch Mountain, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Actor-director Garry Marshall also will star.

In Andy Fickman's feature, Gugino will play a discredited astrophysicist and UFO expert who meets up with a Las Vegas cab driver (Johnson). He asks for her extraterrestrial expertise to help a pair of psychic siblings escape the clutches of evil men and save the human race from impending doom.

Marshall plays a government and UFO conspiracy theorist/fringe scientist who helps them in their quest. Alexander Ludwig and AnnaSophia Robb play the siblings.

Gunn Films' Andrew Gunn is producing, and the company's Ann Marie Sanderlin is executive-producing from Mark Bomback's recent script.

Gugino will play Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre in the Zack Snyder superhero movie Watchmen.Paramount Gets Heavy

Paramount Pictures will make an animated film inspired by the '70s SF fantasy magazine Heavy Metal, with director David Fincher spearheading the project, Variety reported.

Heavy Metal will be stamped by the erotic and violent storylines and images that remain the trademark of a magazine that debuted in the United States in 1977. The magazine introduced the works of American artists and writers such as Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison and H.R. Giger.

The film will consist of eight or nine individual animated segments, each of which will be directed by a different helmer.

Fincher will direct one of the segments; Kevin Eastman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), who is now owner and publisher of Heavy Metal, will direct another. So will Tim Miller, whose Blur Studios will handle the animation for what is being conceived as an R-rated, adult-themed feature.

Fincher, Eastman and Miller will produce the film. The studio will lock in the other directors shortly. The magazine previously spawned a 1981 animated feature and 2000 sequel.ABC Gives Cupid Another Shot

ABC has given a green light to producer Rob Thomas to update his 1998 comedy series Cupid, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The original series, from the creator of Veronica Mars, starred Jeremy Piven as a man who thinks he's a god sent to Earth by Zeus to unite 100 romantically challenged couples.

Thomas has described the new Cupid pilot as a "reinvention" of the original show.

Thomas is also talking with The CW and CBS Paramount Network TV about writing a contemporary spinoff of Fox's 1990 hit Beverly Hills, 90210.Ghost Comic Materializes

IDW Publishing will unveil a five-issue monthly comic series based on CBS' hit supernatural series Ghost Whisperer, starting this month.

The comic was written by show writers Carrie Smith and Becca Smith, with art by Elena Casagrande (Star Trek Alien Spotlight: Orions) and tells a story that fits between the series' second and third seasons, IDW said.

In the comic, Melinda Gordon (the character played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) gets more than she bargained for when she comes face to face with Osiris, Egyptian god of the dead, who wants souls for himself.

The comic follows the structure of the show in that a ghost needs to cross over in each issue. The Ghost Whisperer comic carries a suggested retail price of $3.99 per issue.Inquirer Covers Dark London

Best-selling fantasy author Simon R. Green told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, The Unnatural Inquirer, was inspired by a news story he read about a man who claimed to have received a transmission from the future on his television and sold VHS copies of it on eBay.

"Word is, if you bought a copy all you got was a view of some guy in a futuristic outfit baring his backside to the camera and giggling a lot," Green said in an interview. "Technology is wasted on some people. But it got me thinking about other kinds of rogue broadcasts, and I was off and running."

The book takes place in the Nightside, the sick, secret magical heart of London, where all the really wild things live. "You can find anything there, if it doesn't find you first," Green said. "Forbidden knowledge, appalling pleasures and more monsters than you can shake a really big stick at. And a few good people, doing what they can."

The Unnatural Inquirer is the name of the Nightside's appalling gossip and muckraking tabloid. "Someone in the Nightside claims to have received a broadcast from the Afterlife on their television set," Green said. "Naturally, they recorded it and put the DVD up for sale. But when the Unnatural Inquirer won the rights, the man and his DVD vanished. Our hero, John Taylor, is hired by the UI to get the DVD back. And an awful lot of awful people want to get their hands on it first."

This book, which is the eighth in the Nightside series, was a lot of fun to write, Green said. "I got to write about the kind of things a tabloid dealing with supernatural gossip and muckraking might deal with," he said. "Headlines like TRIBUTE PRINCESS DIANA TO TOUR NIGHTSIDE! GIANT APE ADMITS SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING! And at the bottom of the page in very small print; 'Old Ones Fail to Rise Yet Again.'"

Also recently released was the first of Green's new Secret Histories series, The Man With the Golden Torc. The second book, Daemons Are Forever, is due out in June and will be followed by a least one more volume, The Spy Who Haunted Me. --John Joseph AdamsSmith Kids Topline Amulet

Siblings Willow and Jaden Smith, the offspring of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, are attached to star in Warner's adaptation of Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet, Variety reported.

Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road shingle and Will Smith and James Lassiter's Overbrook Entertainment will produce.

The graphic novel centers on a brother and sister who move into their late great-grandfather's home after their father dies. They must use his amulet to rescue their widowed mother from a beast who lures her into an underground world.

Five books are planned in the Scholastic series, with the second installment slated for release this year.

Seven-year-old Willow appeared with her father in I Am Legend and next appears in Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery.

Nine-year-old Jaden appeared with his dad in The Pursuit of Happyness and next appears in Fox's remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Browder Eager For Web Farscape

Farscape star Ben Browder told SCI FI Wire that he looks forward to reprising the role of astronaut John Crichton in a much-talked-about proposed Web revival of his critically acclaimed SF series, which originally aired on SCI FI Channel.

Executive producer Brian Henson and creator Rockne O'Bannon are talking about how to revive Farscape on the Web in a series of 10 webisodes.

"At the moment, that's Rockne and Brian's job, and I'm aware that they're figuring out what they're going to do with it, but I don't know how far along in the process they are," Browder said.

The recently settled writers' strike put a damper on the plans, and Browder said that it's too early to figure out to what extent he would be involved. Browder said that he spoke with Henson about the Web series at last year's Comic-Con International in San Diego.

"They haven't come to me with any specifics yet, and I don't read anything into that," Browder said. "But at Comic-Con, Brian discussed it and said, 'Yeah, we're still figuring it out.' The writers' strike happened immediately after that, ... and a lot of things went on hold, and it will take a little while before a number of things get going again."

Browder was involved in the creation and writing of Farscape early on. "I had the freedom on Farscape, [and] I was in the writing room on a regular basis, virtually all the time when I wasn't on set," Browder said. "And so I had ... as much [input] as I could." --Mike Szymanski McAdams Takes Her Time

Rachel McAdams, who stars in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife, told SCI FI Wire that the film is a "sci-fi romance" that relies more on story than on visual effects.

Based on Audrey Niffenegger's best-selling novel, the film follows a couple--McAdams and Eric Bana--whose marriage is put to the test as a result of the husband's genetic disorder, which causes him to involuntarily trip through time, often for long periods.

"It's a sci-fi-romance," McAdams said in an interview while promoting her new film, Married Life. "Eric has a little bit more of that to do, but it's not heavy in the special-effects department. It really is more about the relationship between these two. Eric went through a lot physically, but I think most of the time-travel stuff itself will be done in post-[production] and will be minimal so that you can believe these people as people, so that you can believe Eric as a person and as my husband, rather than as this time traveler."

McAdams explained that the cast and filmmakers, led by director Robert Schwentke, were, in fact, "very conscious" of not over-emphasizing the time-travel elements.

"It was more 'What is the human experience? The human version of this?'" she said. "So that people can relate to it." The Time Traveler's Wife is slated for a November release, but that may change because New Line Cinema, which produced the film, is being folded into Warner Brothers. --Ian SpellingFringe Is Almost Done

Joshua Jackson told SCI FI Wire that he has about a week of filming left on his Fox SF pilot Fringe, created by J.J. Abrams.

"We're actually almost finished," Jackson said in an interview earlier this week. "We have about a week and a half left."

The two-hour pilot revolves around a female FBI agent (Anna Tory) who confronts paranormal activity and tries to stop the spread of unexplained phenomena. Jackson plays Peter Bishop, a high-school dropout and misfit with a high IQ, who teams up with Tory's character.

"It's the science side of science fiction, so it takes the physical world that we live in and then sort of goes just past that edge," Jackson said.

But Jackson avoided comparing the proposed series with another Fox show, The X-Files, despite the obvious similarities. "The X-Files are slightly outside the rest of our experience," he said. "Fringe takes the world that we all live in and says, 'All right, so what you know about this cup you don't actually know, because if you look at it from over here, it's something entirely different.' And that will be the thrust of the show: that the physical world that we live in, without the addition of any magic or any supernatural, is far more than we all see it as being."

Jackson was enthusiastic about the pilot, which was written by Abrams' longtime collaborators, Transformers writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. "It's an incredibly, incredibly dense two-hour pilot, the likes of which you don't [see in TV]," he said. "Well, frankly, you don't see it in film either, but you really don't see it in television. It's really, really layered to give you the possibility for just about anything to happen from here on out. So that got me into it."

Jackson added that his character isn't the type normally seen on television. "Usually, if you're smart, you are inert," he said. "And if you are capable, you are a moron. Well, this character is a smart, capable person. He puts the two together, which is unfortunately not often the case. You hire the lunkhead guy to go do the stuff, and the guy with the glasses to go figure the stuff out."

Jackson added that the show will go beyond the expected. "If you can dream it, we can do it on Fringe, because nothing is taboo," he said. "Is there is any semblance of an explanation for any phenomena? It'll be in the show, and that's cool." --Mike Szymanski"Dentmobiles" Promote Dark Knight

As part of a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight, Warner Brothers will be dispatching "Dentmobiles," campaign buses ostensibly supporting Gotham City's Harvey Dent for district attorney, to various cities throughout March.

An e-mail to "supporters" explains: "Dent's challenge to Gotham to show their desire for change has been met with a citywide explosion of activism, with thousands of supporters organizing rallies, meetups, petition drives and posting signs and placards in every neighborhood."

Fans of the Batman comics and film franchise know that Dent is the Gotham district attorney who eventually becomes the villainous crime boss Two-Face.

In the upcoming The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan, Dent is played by Aaron Eckhart. The Dark Knight, which also features the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, opens July 18. Shutter Links East, West

Joshua Jackson, who stars in the upcoming ghost story Shutter, told SCI FI Wire that he uncovered remarkably different cultural attitudes about spirits between the West and Asia while preparing for the film. Shutter, which centers on Americans visiting Tokyo, is a remake of a Thai film.

"In Thailand, they have the same basic cultural assumptions that the rest of the characters in the movie have, so when this supernatural stuff starts kicking up, whether they believe or don't believe, they have a cultural understanding of it," Jackson said in an interview. "[Our characters are] the exact reverse of that, because we're Westerners. When the supernatural starts happening to us, it's on their terms, and we need to be brought into their mythology rather than having a shared mythology. The [religious] aspects make a totally, totally different underpinning for the Japanese than it is for any Westerners."

Jackson (the upcoming Fox SF series Fringe) and Rachael Taylor (Transformers) play an American couple on a trip to Japan who find themselves haunted by an image of a dead girl in photographs.

In Western ghost stories, the spirits do things to people. In Asian stories, the ghosts simply seem to linger among and co-exist with the living, Jackson said. "In Western culture, there's a corollary between the Greek and Roman attachment to the dead," he said. "With modern Japanese, there's a Shinto attachment to the dead. Our attachment to the dead is very specific, and they base theirs much more about honor and almost a karmic idea of the things that you do in life being carried forward."

Jackson added that his research showed him that the Japanese believe that one's energy or soul becomes trapped. "And your family needs to cleanse your honor," he said. "In some way, you need to be reconciled with that before you can transit over to the other side. So that was the major difference: ... The characters are learning the mythology of the place." Shutter opens March 21. --Mike SzymanskiHulk Trailer Debuts Online

The first teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk has debuted online and is linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

The trailer will begin showing in theaters across the country on March 14, attached to prints of Rogue Pictures' Doomsday.

The Incredible Hulk, starring Edward Norton, hits theaters worldwide on June 13.Teen Examines Truancy

Teenage SF author Isamu Fukui told SCI FI Wire that his first novel, Truancy, was written entirely during the summer vacation between his freshman and sophomore years of high school.

"Driven by the knowledge that I was working with a time limit, I actually managed to finish the whole thing in one month, at a rate of one chapter per day," Fukui, 18, said in an interview. "I would wake up, revise the chapter I'd written the day before, write a new one and repeat. I actually worked so furiously on it that I drove myself to sickness once--that was the only day I took a break."

The book tells the story of the Truancy, a student rebellion fighting against the government of an isolated city that rules through strict education. "At first, the story would appear to be a typical case of liberty versus oppression, but as the plot progresses things become more complicated, and the main characters' fates become intertwined in unexpected ways," Fukui said. "It's very much about a clash of ideals, student empowerment and the consequences of an endlessly escalating conflict."

When Fukui was in seventh and eighth grade, he had a particularly difficult time dealing with school. "Up until that point I had always viewed my writing as a means of escaping my problems, but as things got worse I began considering writing as a tool of empowerment," he said. "When things failed to improve dramatically in ninth grade, I decided to sit down and try something I'd never done before: write a story set in a realistic world, inspired by my experiences rather than by my fantasies."

One of the reasons Fukui chose to write Truancy when he did is because it's difficult to write about student life when you're not actually living it. "If I'd waited until I graduated, the book might never have been written," he said. "But at the same time I don't think that it should be considered unnatural for a teenager to write a book--I believe that young people are capable of much more than most schools think they are." --John Joseph AdamsABC News Predicts The Future

ABC's World News With Charles Gibson and its companion Webcast will feature a look at the future in "What's Next?" on March 13 and 14, the network announced.

The series of reports will examine gadgets that promise to revolutionize everyday existence, new life-saving medicines and other issues.

The series is a special collaboration with Time magazine, which will have its own report in an edition that hits newsstands on March 14.

In part one, Dan Harris will examine what a typical day will be like in the future. In part two, Erin Hayes explores the new world of personalized medicine made possible by a revolution in DNA. World News airs at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT. Shutter Stars Not Spooked

Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor, who star in the upcoming supernatural horror film Shutter, told SCI FI Wire that they remain skeptical about the spirit photography that is the basis of the film.

Both stars spent hours studying photographs that supposedly capture spiritual images in the background, some of which were used in the movie.

"I am a skeptic," Jackson said in an interview at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, which legend says is haunted by the ghost of Howard Hughes. "I'm just as distrustful of absolute belief as I am of absolute disbelief, so I'm a skeptic with the caveat that I think it's completely within the realm of possibility."

Jackson (the upcoming Fox SF series Fringe) and Taylor (Transformers) play an American couple on a trip to Japan who find themselves haunted by an image of a dead girl in photographs.

Jackson said he isn't sure if he's experienced anything supernatural in real life. "Either your mind is playing tricks on you, or you're perceiving something differently," he said. "But that's just a personal belief thing, the way I absorb information. So I can just as easily see why someone would say, 'Well, I haven't changed; the world has, so something is not right here.'"

For her part, Australian native Taylor said she started out as a skeptic. "I was skeptical about spirit photography, especially because I had very little understanding of what it was before I shot the movie," she said. "In terms of the world of the supernatural, I wasn't categorically a nonbeliever, but I wasn't categorically a believer either. I sort of sat somewhere in the middle of not being sure. Then I started doing research on spirit photography, and it's fascinating. It is a true phenomenon, and there are pictures that have these inexplicable images in them. It's fascinating to me. You can't explain them as a white mark or a watermark or a technical problem. They are just these funny images."

Taylor recalls shooting Shutter in some frightening locations in Japan. "We shot in some pretty spooky locations at 3 o'clock in the morning, up in an abandoned road," she said. "We shot in an old abandoned hospital that was still semi-functioning. It had construction going on in a part of the corridor. I would be endlessly getting lost to go to my green room. It was an old spooky hospital, and it was raining outside. Then we shot in this old abandoned Japanese house. There were some really spooky locations."

Shutter is a remake of a Thai movie by Masayuki Ochiai, who also directed the remake. It opens March 21. --Mike SzymanskiDoomsday Challenged Marshall

Neil Marshall, writer and director of the upcoming post-apocalyptic SF film Doomsday, told SCI FI Wire that the film is bigger in scale than anything he's directed before. But that's just how he intended it.

"It was a great challenge," Marshall said in an interview. "And it was one that I really, really enjoyed doing. The bigger, the better, to be honest. I'd never done anything quite like that before, and I was daunted by it when I first went in. But by the end of filming I just couldn't get enough."

In Doomsday, the northern portion of Great Britain is quarantined behind a massive wall following a deadly viral outbreak. The survivors living behind the wall are cut off from the world and left to fend for themselves for three decades, until a new outbreak requires the outside world to come looking for a cure.

Marshall's previous films--Dog Soldiers and The Descent--were both set in the present day and featured small casts in relatively contained spaces. By contrast, Doomsday involved large numbers of costumed extras and locations dressed to look like a post-apocalyptic society that has returned to tribalism.

"The big-scale action stuff was just brilliant," Marshall said. "And the more logistically complicated, the better, as far as I was concerned. I loved working with the stunt guys. I loved working with the camera guys. I loved the special-effects crew, and just putting together these logistically massive sequences. I don't know, I just got a real kick out of it."

One sequence was particularly epic. "We did this huge sequence, it was inside this huge auditorium, and we had a thousand extras, we had this whole musical stage number," Marshall said. "Big, fat guys in kilts doing the cancan, pole dancers, human sacrifice, this whole thing with fire and props and all kinds of craziness. ... It's halfway between Moulin Rouge and The Wicker Man, like some weird combination. I got my wife in the movie. She makes a cameo appearance in that scene. It was just great. It was this huge scene, which I thought was going to be a nightmare, and it wasn't. It was a pleasure."

Marshall added that he looked at the challenges of the film as a positive rather than a negative. "It's such a difficult thing to say, because I love making films so much," he said. "There's always challenges, but it's overcoming the challenges that's the issue. Every day is a challenge. Trying to meet the schedule is a challenge. Trying to keep it within the budget is a challenge, but you do it. And I enjoy that challenge."

Doomsday opens March 14. --Cindy White Petersen To Helm Uprising

Wolfgang Petersen (Poseidon) has signed on to direct the SF thriller Uprising for Columbia Pictures, Variety reported.

Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher (Gladiator) are producing through their Sony-based Red Wagon production company.

The story revolves around the resistance efforts of some citizens after Earth has been occupied by a powerful alien race. Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond) is writing the screenplay.

Petersen previously teamed with the studio on Das Boot, In the Line of Fire and Air Force One.Raimi Producing Monster Zoo

Paramount Pictures has acquired feature rights to Monster Zoo, a graphic novel by Douglas TenNapel that will be published in the spring by Image, Variety reported.

Buckaroo Entertainment's Sam Raimi and Josh Donen will produce with Ellen Goldsmith Vein. Vein is from the Gotham Group. Raimi, who is prepping the Universal supernatural thriller Drag Me to Hell, has committed only to produce at this point.

TenNapel, whose past graphic creations include Earthworm Jim and Cat Scratch, tells the story of a young boy who discovers his local zoo contains critters much more frightening than the ordinary collection.

(Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Killer Tomatoes Remake In Works

Producer M. Dal Walton III announced that he has closed a deal with Killer Tomato Entertainment to produce a remake of the 1978 cult horror spoof film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!

Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, creators of the Ask a Ninja humor Web site, will adapt the original film, and Nichols will make his feature-film directorial debut.

The original Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! spawned three sequels, including one starring George Clooney, as well as a Saturday morning animated series.
Rosemary Remake Confirmed

The Hollywood Reporter confirmed a report that first appeared on ShockTillYouDrop.com that Paramount is in negotiations with Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes to remake the classic horror film Rosemary's Baby.

Partners Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller will produce the remake.

Baby was a best-selling novel by playwright-author Ira Levin (The Boys From Brazil, The Stepford Wives). The book was adapted in 1968 into a movie directed by Roman Polanski, which starred Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her role.

The story follows a young couple who move into a gothic New York apartment, where they are befriended by their elderly neighbors. After the woman becomes mysteriously pregnant, she discovers that the neighbors actually are part of a coven of witches and that her husband has allowed her to be impregnated by the devil in exchange for a successful career. No screenwriter is yet on board. Thunder Updates Juvenile Novel

Multiple-award-winning SF author John Varley told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Rolling Thunder, is the third in a series of novels intended to re-create the type of adventure novel Robert A. Heinlein wrote in the 1950s: the "juvenile" novels, but updated for the new millennium.

Rolling Thunder is the story of a girl named Podkayne. "While serving in the Martian navy she is posted to Jupiter's moon Europa as a USO-type singer/performer," Varley said in an interview. "She visits a station where the mysterious Europan life forms are being studied and witnesses events that change her life and hold dire consequences for humanity."

Podkayne is 6 feet 4 inches tall (about average for a Martian girl) and 18 years old. "Serving her mandatory hitch in the Martian navy, she is posted to a recruiting station on an Earth that is much hotter than it is today," Varley said. "She hates the gravity and wants to do nothing but be a singer, which she has trained to do since she was 4. She is cocky and talented and doesn't take any crap from anybody."

Varley learned a lot about Europa and the other moons of Jupiter while writing the book. "I found that Wikipedia is an excellent source for scientific material, no matter what its faults may be in the controversial areas of politics and history," Varley said. "I was able to find facts about moons whose names I'd never even heard of and might not even be published in books yet."

Varley said that Rolling Thunder was his easiest book to write. "The words just spilled onto the page, as fast as I could write them," he said. "I write about people I'd like to know. I really wanted to know Podkayne, and I'm happy that I'll be able to spend some more time with her in the fourth and final book of the series, Dark Lightning."

Varley is currently at work on a post-apocalyptic novel, untitled as yet. "[It's about] what would happen to our civilization if the oil were to run out all at once, rather than over the next few decades, as is actually going to happen," Varley said. "It won't be pretty." --John Joseph AdamsDoomsday Mixes Past, Present

Neil Marshall, writer and director of the upcoming post-apocalyptic SF film Doomsday, told SCI FI Wire that the inspiration for the story came from the combination of two distinct images that have always fascinated him.

"I was born and grew up in Newcastle Upon Tyne in the Northeast of England, and I lived for a few years in Carlisle on the west coast," Marshall said in an interview. "And between [the] two places stretches the remains of Hadrian's wall. It's like the Great Wall of China, but built by the Romans 2,000 years ago, basically to cut off Scotland from the rest of their empire. And I thought, 'What kind of circumstances would exist that would mean that wall would be rebuilt in the future?'"

The film's other inspiration was an image that mixed the present and the past, Marshall added. "I had this image in my head of these futuristic soldiers facing a medieval knight on horseback, a knight in armor," he said. "And it looked like something out of a sort of Terry Gilliam movie. And I was trying to figure out how I could make a story about that image or make that happen without having time travel."

Marshall--whose previous films include Dog Soldiers and The Descent--ultimately came up with the idea of a deadly viral outbreak that is contained behind a massive wall, cutting off the northern portion of Great Britain from the rest of the country.

The survivors in the hot zone are left to fend for themselves for three decades, until the return of the virus forces the authorities to send in a special unit, led by a woman named Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), to retrieve a cure. On the other side of the wall, the team discovers that society has regressed into a savage culture of warring tribes.

"I had this idea that maybe they'd be living in the castles, because Scotland is full of these castles," Marshall said. "They've been around for hundreds of years, [and] they're going to be around for hundreds of years. They're built to last, and it's an ideal place to go and live. Especially if the survivors have formed themselves into tribes, and they're in conflict with each other. A castle would be the ideal place to have as your base. ... I thought they would root through history. They're going to scavenge the landscape and all these museums and things and just take what's best for them. So it does become like a regressive society."

Although Marshall's previous films dealt with strong metaphors, he didn't concentrate on that as much when developing Doomsday.

"Unlike Descent, which I absolutely loaded with metaphor, I wasn't really thinking about it on this one," Marshall said. "I was wanting to tell a strong, emotional story about the lead character, but also tell just a really great, rip-roaring adventure movie and an action movie. ... If there is any kind of metaphor in this movie, it's to do with divisions and physical barriers and stuff that we're seeing in the world today anyway, in Palestine and Mexico, whatever, the building of physical walls, and how you interpret it. Is it to keep people out? To keep people in? That kind of thinking. So I guess there's all those kind of issues in the movie. And certainly Rhona's character in the film is a product of this society that's both isolated and divisive and of the future."

Doomsday opens March 14. --Cindy WhiteLee Loses It In Necrosis

James Kyson Lee (NBC's Heroes) told SCI FI Wire that he stars in the upcoming supernatural horror film Necrosis, playing a character who loses his mind after he and a group of friends become trapped in a snowed-in cabin.

"My character, Jerry, starts experiencing apparitions, if you will," Lee said in an interview while promoting his current project, Shutter. "He's not really sure if what he's seeing is actually happening. You find out that the place we're staying in is part of where the Donner tragedy took place in the 1800s. As we find out more about how that story unfolded, things start to go really bad in the cabin and around the location."

Lee said that Jerry resembles Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining.

"My character carries a similar arc to Nicholson's," Lee said. "It's a man's journey from the beginning to his self-destructing in front of you. For me, it was a really interesting character to play."

Cast and crew shot Necrosis in Lake Tahoe on the California/Nevada border and timed the filming to coincide with the area's snowiest weather. And Mother Nature cooperated.

"When we got up there, they had over 250 inches of snow, and it snowed every night," Lee said. "So they had fresh powder snow in the morning to work with, and that's just something you can't re-create. There were icicles that were 8 feet long. We were just enveloped in all this white, and there's something really serene and beautiful yet isolating and with the potential to be haunting. I think the location was really a character of its own and worked into the film."

Necrosis will be released later this year. --Ian SpellingMarshall's Sacrilege Saddles Up

Rogue Pictures has signed a deal for writer-director Neil Marshall's next film, Sacrilege, an SF horror film to be set in the Old West, Variety reported. Rogue, the genre arm of Focus Features, is releasing Marshall's Doomsday on March 14.

Marshall pitched Sacrilege to Rogue chief Andrew Rona, and Marshall will write and direct it, the trade paper reported.

"It is set during the gold rush, a time remembered for incidents like the Donner party," Marshall told the trade paper. "It is meant to be a pitch-black, gritty, period horror movie."

Marshall declined to disclose much detail about the movie, but it will draw on themes of isolation and paranoia and such influences as John Carpenter's The Thing.

(Focus Features is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Ratner Eyed For Harbinger

Paramount Pictures has acquired rights to turn the Valiant Comics SF series Harbinger into a live-action feature film that will be developed as a potential directing vehicle for Brett Ratner, Variety reported.

Alexandra Milchan will produce with Ratner and Jay Stern. The project may be branded under the MTV Films banner.

Created by Jim Shooter, the Harbinger comic-book series became a hit when published in the 1990s. Harbingers are humans with powers that can be unlocked by "omega" harbingers. Teenage Pete Stanchek finds himself on a collision course with an older omega who used his gifts to become an evil industrialist.

Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand) was looking for an opportunity to start a superhero franchise from scratch. The project will be scripted while Ratner continues work on other directing projects.Shelton Joins Eleventh

Marley Shelton joins Rufus Sewell as the female lead in Jerry Bruckheimer's new CBS SF drama Eleventh Hour, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Based on a limited British series, Eleventh centers on Jacob Hood (Sewell), a special science adviser to the government, who, with his feisty female bodyguard Rachel (Shelton), saves people from the worst abuses of science.

In the original series, the roles were played by Patrick Stewart and Ugly Betty's Ashley Jensen.

The CBS version, which is set in the United States, was written by Mick Davis and will be directed by Danny Cannon.

Shelton most recently starred in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse. Imaginarium Begins Again

Shooting has restarted in Vancouver, Canada, on Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law all replacing the late Heath Ledger in the cast, Variety reported.

The movie went on hiatus after Ledger's death on Jan. 22, when the live-action section of the production had just finished in London and Gilliam was about to embark on several weeks of blue-screen work in Canada.

The decision to use three actors to replace Ledger was made possible because of the fantastical nature of the story, in which characters pass from contemporary London through a magic mirror into parallel worlds of the imagination.

Ledger had completed filming the "realistic" sections, so Depp, Farrell and Law will play physically transformed versions of his character when he passes into the other worlds.

In a statement, producers William Vince, Amy Gilliam and Samuel Hadida said: "Since the format of the story allows for the preservation of his entire performance, at no point will Heath's work be modified or altered through the use of digital technology. Each of the parts played by Johnny, Colin and Jude is representative of the many aspects of the character that Heath was playing."

Gilliam said: "I am grateful to Johnny, Colin and Jude for coming onboard, and to everyone else who has made it possible for us to finish the film."

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus also stars Christopher Plummer, Verne Troyer, Andrew Garfield, Lily Cole and Tom Waits.Marseguro Started As Exercise

SF author Edward Willett told SCI FI Wire that his new novel, Marseguro, began as a writing exercise in a course on writing science fiction conducted by award-winning SF writer Robert J. Sawyer.

"He asked those of us in the class to write the opening sentence or two of a story," Willett said in an interview. "I wrote, 'Emily streaked through the phosphorescent sea, her wake a comet tail of pale green light, her close-cropped turquoise hair surrounded by a glowing pink aurora. The water racing through her gill-slits smelled of blood.'"

The other students liked it, and Willett did, too, so he tried to turn it into a short story. "I couldn't make it work: I had too much background I wanted to cram in there," he said. "The idea just kept growing, [and] 120,000 words later, Marseguro is the result. Those opening two sentences no longer exist in the book, by the way."

In the novel, Marseguro--which means "safe sea" in Portuguese--is a world almost entirely covered by water, where the Selkies--genetically modified humans who can breathe water--have coexisted peacefully with normal humans, called landlings, since being brought there 70 years earlier by the Selkies' creator, Dr. Victor Hansen. "[Hansen] rescued the Selkies from the religious dictatorship on Earth, to whom they are an abomination," Willett said. "Now that dictatorship, the Body Purified, has found Marseguro, with the help of Hansen's own grandson, Richard, and is coming to purify the planet."

Willett is the son of a preacher and grew up in a devout Christian family, so whenever he writes about religion, he brings personal elements to it. "The Body Purified is not a Christian religion: In fact, [it] suppresses all traditional religions," Willett said. "Its God is, really, a monster. (It's not even personified: The Body itself calls God 'It,' not 'He.') But because of my religious background, anytime I write about religion, true belief, heresies, doubt ... it's all personal."

Willett's current project is Terra Insegura, a sequel to Marseguro. --John Joseph AdamsAppleseed DVD Drops

Appleseed: Ex Machina, John Woo's first anime production, drops on DVD and Blu-ray disc on March 11, Warner Home Video announced. An HD DVD version of the movie, directed by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed, Bubblegum Crisis), arrives in stores on April 1.

Based on the popular science fiction manga by Shirow Masamune (Ghost in the Shell), Appleseed: Ex Machina follows partners and lovers Deunan and Briareos, members of ESWAT, the elite forces serving Olympus. The two fighters find their partnership tested in a new way by the arrival of Tereus, who uncannily resembles Briareos before the wartime injuries that led to his becoming a cyborg. Meanwhile, Olympus comes under attack by cyborg terrorists, nanotech zealots and rioting citizens.

The Appleseed: Ex Machina DVD will carry a suggested retail price of $24.98.Wiseman Plays Shell Game

Director Len Wiseman will make Lakeshore Entertainment and Columbia Pictures' SF movie Shell Game his next project, Variety reported.

Set in the future, the action thriller follows a detective who is faced with a moral dilemma as he investigates the dangerous black-market business of immortality.

Justin Bondi and Andrew Ludington wrote the original screenplay, while Wiseman (the Underworld franchise) and Chris Morgan wrote the most recent draft.

Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) is producing Shell Game alongside Lakeshore's Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi and Skip Williamson. J.C. Spink and Chris Bender executive-produce.Jackson Was Skittish About Fringe

Joshua Jackson, who stars in J.J. Abrams' SF pilot Fringe for Fox, told SCI FI Wire that he initially turned the project down because he was reluctant to take on another TV series.

"I turned it down three times," Jackson said in an interview while promoting his upcoming horror movie Shutter. "It took some convincing. I was a bit skittish."

Jackson eventually agreed to join the show mainly because of the writers. The Warner Brothers TV project is co-written by Abrams (Lost, Star Trek) and his frequent collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Transformers). It revolves around a female FBI agent who confronts paranormal activity and tries to stop the spread of unexplained phenomena.

"I was first attracted to the project because J.J. was involved, but it took some more convincing," Jackson said. "But then I met the guys who wrote the Transformers movie [Kurtzman and Orci] and the rest of their team, [and] I didn't mind signing a six-year contract to do television again."

Jackson first gained widespread fame as Pacey on The WB's Dawson's Creek, which ran for six seasons starting in 1998.

Jackson is almost finished filming the two-hour Fringe pilot, in which he plays Peter Bishop, a high-school dropout and misfit with a high IQ. "Usually the geek and the smart guy are in two different characters, but in this case, it's all rolled up into one," he said. Bishop teams up with the FBI agent (played by Anna Tory) and they investigate paranormal events.

"TV is the best thing that an actor can have to [have] a steady job, but who knows what will happen?" said Jackson. "You could sign a six-year contract, and it could all be done after the pilot. I hope it takes off, but we'll see. It sure is a smart and capable team. I like the science fiction of it."

Jackson will next be seen co-starring with Transformers cast member Rachael Taylor in Shutter, a remake of a Thai horror film, which opens March 21. --Mike SzymanskiJourney Writers Made Updates

The co-writers of Journey to Center of the Earth 3D told SCI FI Wire that they drastically updated the classic Jules Verne novel for the big screen.

The husband-and-wife team of Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett talked about the movie (which they co-wrote with Butterfly Effect 2's Michael Weiss) while promoting their upcoming fantasy film Nim's Island.

"We credit the role to Brendan Fraser," Levin said. "We have the whole story updated, and they follow his character through it all."

Flackett added: "Of course, it's an incredible journey, but he's such a good personable character to follow. He really brought the character to life."

Fraser plays a bumbling science professor who makes a major discover while exploring Iceland. He, his nephew and a comely guide embark on an adventure beneath the earth's surface, where they encounter unusual creatures and strange environments.

The writers added several elements to Verne's story to take advantage of the film's 3-D (shot with cameras developed by director James Cameron). "We did go see some of the footage, and the 3-D is totally amazing," Levin said.

Flacket added: "There's a great partnership with the story and the cameras. It's a very new way of filmmaking."

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D also stars Josh Hutcherson (Zathura: A Space Adventure) and is scheduled to be released on July 11. --Mike SzymanskiLong Goes Straight To Hell

Justin Long has signed on to star opposite Alison Lohman in Sam Raimi's supernatural thriller Drag Me to Hell for Ghost House Pictures, Variety reported.

Raimi and his brother Ivan wrote the screenplay, a morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse. Long will play the boyfriend of Lohman's character.

Shooting is set to start March 31 in Los Angeles. Lohman replaced Ellen Page, who dropped out of the project last month due to scheduling conflicts.

Universal is distributing domestically and in select international territories. Mandate International will handle all other foreign territories. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Ant Still Being Written

Director Edgar Wright told Empire Online that his upcoming Ant Man movie is still in the scripting stage.

"It's written, and we're doing a second draft of it," Wright (Shaun of the Dead) told the site. "It's going to be less overtly comedic than anything else I've ever done. It's more of a full-on action-adventure sci-fi film, but with a comedic element, in the same spirit of a lot of escapist fare like that. It's certainly not a superhero spoof or pastiche, and it certainly isn't a sort of Honey I Shrunk the Kids endeavor at all."

Ant Man is based on the Marvel Comics franchise, about a character who can shrink and communicate with insects.

Wright revealed that the film will make use of both incarnations of the character: scientist Hank Pym, as originated by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Scott Lang, the later incarnation of the hero. "Ah, well, it could be Scott Lang, it could be Hank Pym, it could be both," Wright said. "OK, it is both. Now there's an exclusive for you." Wright is co-writing Ant Man with Joe Cornish. Kunis Feels The Payne

Twentieth Century Fox has set Mila Kunis to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in Max Payne, the John Moore-directed action adaptation of the Rockstar video game, Variety reported.

Kunis--best known for a long run on That '70s Show and voicing the androgynous teen Meg Griffin on Fox's Family Guy--will play an assassin who teams up with the title character to avenge her sister's death. Wahlberg plays Payne, a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family, who finds himself in the thick of a conspiracy when he investigates a series of murders.

Beau Thorne wrote the script. Julie Silverman and Scott Faye are producers. Tom Karnowski is executive producer.Clarke Finalists Announced

Finalists have been announced for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award, which recognizes distinguished science fiction published in Great Britain.

The annual award, which is presented by the Serendip Foundation, is named for legendary SF author Clarke, who founded the award with the aim of promoting science fiction in Britain.

The winner will be announced April 30 at the Sci-Fi-London Film Festival.

The nominees are The Red Men by Matthew de Abaitua, The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter, The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod and Black Man (U.S. title: Thirteen) by Richard K. Morgan. --John Joseph AdamsSunderland Revisits Alice

Comic-book writer and artist Bryan Talbot, whose Alice in Sunderland is a finalist for this year's British Science Fiction Association Award, told SCI FI Wire that he wanted to do a graphic novel based on Lewis Carroll or Alice Liddell (the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) for 20 years.

"About nine years ago I moved here to Sunderland [in Great Britain] and found that both [Carroll] and the Liddell family had extensive links to the area," Talbot said in an interview. "Parts of Alice in Wonderland and other Carroll books were even written here."

The book doesn't have a conventional plot, but it does have a rock-solid structure, Talbot said. "The book is constructed as a theatrical variety performance, with each sequence told in a style that suits it," he said. "The twin spines that weave around the other sequences are the story of the life of Lewis Carroll and his supposed muse, Alice Liddell, and the history of the city of Sunderland. Fundamentally, the book is about stories and storytelling. And it's all told in the present tense: past, present and future connected, frozen in a stream of chronon particles."

It also ventures into metafictional territory; the protagonist is Talbot himself. "Or, at least, three different cartoon versions of me: the Plebeian, the Performer and the Pilgrim," Talbot said. "I present the stories, and I'm also the audience. It's a dreamlike fantasy that rotates around myth and reality."

As one might expect in a story in which the author himself appears, parts of the book are autobiographical. "The book is also pretty unique, I think," Talbot said. "It deals with some of my very personal interests and so couldn't have been written and drawn by anyone else. It's the very opposite of a formula novel."

The book is a mix of fantasy and reality, factual documentary and fiction, history and myth. "It ranges from comedy slapstick to serious political polemic, from knights and dragons to serial killers," Talbot said.

Talbot is currently working on a new graphic novel--a steampunk detective thriller called Grandville. Sample pages from the book, displaying the disparate artistic styles, are available on Talbot's official fan site. --John Joseph AdamsWarner Gnaws On Smith's Bone

Warner has scooped up rights to Jeff Smith's comic-book series Bone, described as Bugs Bunny meets The Lord of the Rings, Variety reported.

The comic is likely to be developed as a computer-animated movie for a broad family audience, but it could turn into a live-action film, depending on the director it eventually attracts.

The comic's roots date back to 1991, when Smith began self-publishing it. In 2005, Scholastic, looking for another fantasy hit to follow Harry Potter, began issuing the saga.

The first installment, called "Out From Boneville," starts with three Bone cousins lost and separated in the desert; eventually they reunite on a farmstead run by Gran'Ma Ben and her granddaughter, Thorn. In subsequent installments, the Bone cousins slay dragons, clash with rat creatures and hunt for treasure. BRIEFLY NOTED

George Lucas made a surprise visit to ShoWest in Las Vegas on March 13 to sell theater owners on his upcoming animated feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which Warner Brothers is releasing on Aug. 15, Variety reported.

Producer Michael De Luca told ComingSoon.net that he hopes to meet with Equilibrium director Kurt Wimmer about writing and possibly helming a film adaptation of the Konami video game Metal Gear Solid.

FEARnet, the horror and thriller Web site and video-on-demand service, will host an interactive tournament called "Death March: Tournament of Blood", which kicks off March 16.

Disney has enlisted Forgetting Sarah Marshall actor/writer Jason Segel and director Nick Stoller to create the next Muppet movie for the studio, Variety reported; Segel and Stoller will write the script and Stoller will direct.

Disney's Oscar-nominated musical fantasy film Enchanted drops on DVD on March 18.

Paramount announced that the domestic release date of Iron Man remains May 2, rumors to the contrary notwithstanding; however, the studio will release the comic-book adaptation two days earlier, on April 30, in various international markets.

Paramount Pictures previewed DreamWorks Animation's upcoming animated movie Kung Fu Panda at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas on March 11.

IESB.net reported a rumor that Superman Returns director Bryan Singer has committed to helming a proposed sequel and that Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are considering signing on as well.

Sex and Death 101 reunites Heathers writer/director Daniel Waters with his leading lady, Winona Ryder, in a film about a rogue who discovers a list of all the women he's had sex with--and ever will; it opens in Los Angeles and New York on April 4.

Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek movie, talked with Collider.com about his various film and TV projects.

New international trailers for the Wachowski brothers' upcoming Speed Racer have hit the Web.

The New York Times has posted a detailed new story about Christopher Nolan's upcoming The Dark Knight, with several new images from the upcoming Batman Begins sequel.

USA Today is running a story about Monsters v. Aliens, DreamWorks Animation's upcoming tongue-in-cheek CG movie, which was previewed at ShoWest.

ComingSoon.net reported a rumor that Warner Brothers' upcoming fourth Terminator film, previously titled Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, no longer carries a title; the film, to be directed by McG, is envisioned as the beginning of a three-movie cycle about the war between Skynet and humankind.

Producer Richard Saperstein has optioned the film rights to Clifford Meth's comic-book series Snaked from IDW Publishing, the company behind 30 Days of Night, Variety reported; Snaked is a horror-noir that follows the personal and political exploits of a government employee with supernatural snakelike abilities.

USA Today has published an image of the new poster, by Star Wars artist Drew Struzan, for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which opens May 22.

The teaser trailer for The Incredible Hulk debuted on March 12, Marvel Studios announced.

Anchor Bay Entertainment will release The Dario Argento Box Set, a five-film collection of horror movies from the Italian director, under the Anchor Bay Collection banner on May 27 with a suggested retail price of $49.97.