Kasdan To Adapt Robotech

Veteran screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan has been hired to write Robotech, Warner Brothers' feature-film adaptation of the anime classic, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Akiva Goldsman and Chuck Roven are boarding the project as producers, joining Tobey Maguire and Drew Crevello.

Robotech was a 1980s cartoon series from Harmony Gold USA and Tatsunoko Productions. It was re-edited and re-dialogued to combine three Japanese anime series to give the producers enough episodes to air as a daily syndicated series.

A sprawling SF epic, Robotech takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion centers on a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source, known as "protoculture," and the planet's hope for survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.

Robotech extends Kasdan's return to the fantasy genre that began last year, when he was tapped to pen the Clash of the Titans remake for Warner and Thunder Road. Kasdan wrote the screenplays for Return of the Jedi, The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark before writing The Big Chill and Grand Canyon.Battlestar Finale Updated

SCI FI Channel is unable to confirm a report in the Chicago Tribune that the final part of Battlestar Galactica's last season will expand or that the finale of the series is expected to be three hours long.

The channel will only say that the finale, written by series creator Ronald D. Moore, extends beyond the time allotted for the episode.

The channel is currently exploring how to shoot the extra footage as Moore has envisioned and written it. No premiere date has been announced yet for the start of the second half of the fourth and final season.AFI Names Top Genre Films

The American Film Institute revealed the 10 greatest movies in 10 classic American film genres--including science fiction, fantasy and animation--in a three-hour special television event on CBS June 17. A jury of 1,500 film artists, critics and historians named 2001: A Space Odyssey the top science fiction film, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs the top animated film and The Wizard of Oz the best fantasy film. Each segment of the broadcast featured a different celebrity host, including Sigourney Weaver for science fiction, Jennifer Love Hewitt for animation and Sean Astin for fantasy.

A complete list of the top 10 films in those genres follows.

Top 10 Science Fiction Films
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
3. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
4. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
6. Blade Runner (1982)
7. Alien (1979)
8. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
9. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
10. Back to the Future (1985)

Top 10 Animated Films
1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
2. Pinocchio (1940)
3. Bambi (1942)
4. The Lion King (1994)
5. Fantasia (1940)
6. Toy Story (1995)
7. Beauty and The Beast (1991)
8. Shrek (2001)
9. Cinderella (1950)
10. Finding Nemo (2003)

Top 10 Fantasy Films
1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
3. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
4. King Kong (1933)
5. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
6. Field of Dreams (1989)
7. Harvey (1950)
8. Groundhog Day (1993)
9. The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
10. Big (1988)Iron Man Soars To $300M

Iron Man is poised to become the first film of 2008 to reach the $300 million mark in gross domestic ticket sales, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Through June 17, the Marvel-produced comic-book adaptation had earned an estimated $299.3 million in the U.S. and Canada. With recent daily grosses of at least $680,000, Iron Man is expected to reach the $300 million mark on June 19.

Sony's Spider-Man 3, which grossed $336.5 million domestically to top the 2007 box-office rankings, was the first film to cross the $300 million threshold, managing the feat just 23 days after its May 4 debut. Though Iron Man required 51 days to reach a similar mark, its achievement was much less anticipated before its premiere on May 1.

Last May saw two other $300 million grossers: the Paramount-distributed Shrek the Third from DreamWorks Animation ($322.7 million) and Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($309.4 million).

Among summer 2008's other big openers, Paramount's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is another clear $300 million candidate, with $279.5 million through Tuesday. The fourth film in the Indiana Jones franchise has also grossed $359 million internationally, and opens in the lucrative Japan market this weekend.

Iron Man has grossed $250 million internationally for a worldwide total of more than $550 million. It's set for a September opening in Japan.Bekmambetov Upends Martial Films

Timur Bekmambetov, the Kazakh-born Russian director (Wanted), told reporters that he is working on a new original project that will reinvent the martial-arts film.

"I have a project, I hope it will happen. Soon," Bekmambetov said in a group interview on June 16 in Beverly Hills, Calif., while promoting Wanted. "It depends [on if] the original audience will like my movie Wanted. ... I cannot tell a lot, because it's kind of secret, but there will be a movie with a new type of martial arts."

Bekmambetov gained notice for his Russian-language supernatural action films Night Watch and Day Watch and is looking to the upcoming release of his first English-language movie, the SF action thriller Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy.

Looking ahead, Bekmambetov said that he envisions an as-yet-untitled movie that will take martial arts to a new level. "We know ... throws. We know punches. We know Star Wars [lightsabers]," he said. "And it'll be another way of martial arts."

One movie that Bekmambetov won't be directing is Twilight Watch (otherwise known as Dusk Watch), the third chapter in the Night Watch trilogy. "You already saw this movie," he said. "It's called Wanted. ... For now, I don't see how I can make another movie [that's the] same. Because it's very consistent with this Night Watch and Day Watch. ... There's a continuity of creative ideas and everything. And for me it became Dusk Watch." Wanted, based on a comic series by Mark Millar, opens June 27. --Patrick Lee, News EditorWanted's McAvoy Faced Danger

James McAvoy, who stars as a dweeb-turned-assassin in the upcoming SF action movie Wanted, told SCI FI Wire that he found himself doing some of his own sometimes perilous stunts.

"Actually, the most enjoyable stunt--but it was probably also the most dangerous stunt--was, there's a car going on, like, 30 miles an hour, and I'm chasing someone who's getting away from me, so I hop a ride on the car," the Scottish actor (Atonement) said in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., this week. "So I jump on the car as it's moving, and it hits the brakes, obviously, because you would, and I go flying off the front, and a truck smashes into the side. And that was all real: There [were] no wires."

McAvoy was wearing pads, but there weren't any cushioned mats on the street, either, he said. He was surprised that director Timur Bekmambetov allowed him to do that one stunt. "I've said this a few times: They wouldn't let me jump through a pane of sugar glass [breakaway movie glass made out of sugar]--which would, you know, ... might scratch me a little, but at the very most it would just scratch me--but they let me do this thing on the car. And I couldn't quite rationalize what their decision-making process was based on. Or what the insurance people were thinking. But I didn't argue with them. I was just very chuffed to get to do something like that."

In the movie, based on Mark Millar and J.G. Jones' comic-book series, McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, a depressed office worker who is recruited by Fox (Angelina Jolie) into a shadowy organization of assassins called the Fraternity, led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

McAvoy, who is best known for dramatic roles, had to undergo weapons and fight training for Wanted and found himself doing many of his own stunts, including jumping over an elevated train.

"I was very excited and pleased, and then, at the same time, just very worried about that whole thing," McAvoy said. "But it was good. It worked well in the end. And I never broke anything making this film. ... I was really lucky. I never broke anything. I sprained a couple of things, had a couple of strains, tweaks, but nothing desperate. A lot of bruising."

McAvoy also enjoyed a scene in which Jolie's Fox beats McAvoy's Wesley with a set of brass knuckles. "I love nothing more than taking a hit in [a] film," he said. "I've done it a few times now, but never so sustained as in this job. Every day I'd be getting punched. I don't know what it is: I think it might be watching Indiana Jones movies when I was a kid. Nobody took a hit better than Harrison Ford. He almost looks more heroic being punched than he does hitting someone, you know what I mean? They make a real virtue of it in the fourth one. ... I love being the person getting beaten up, I love being covered in the blood, I love doing that old gag of the blood flying out of your mouth and stuff in slow motion. I love all that. [Jolie's] a good puncher, and, hopefully, I'm a good seller of punches." Wanted opens June 27. --Patrick Lee, News EditorWanted's McAvoy Bulked Up

James McAvoy, the Scottish actor who bulked up to play an assassin in Timur Bekmambetov's SF action movie Wanted, told SCI FI Wire that it took him months to achieve his chiseled body. (Women in a preview screening audibly gasped when McAvoy removes his shirt in one scene.)

"I'm not still like that," McAvoy confessed in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., on June 16. "I've lost a lot of weight, I'm glad to say. It took me a couple of months to get into shape for this film, and it took me, like, a couple of weeks for it to all disappear. I'm not joking, I lost 90 percent of the weight really quickly."

In the movie, based on Mark Millar and J.G. Jones' comic-book series, McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, a depressed office worker who is recruited by Fox (Angelina Jolie) into a shadowy organization of assassins called the Fraternity, led by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). In the film, Wesley starts out as pasty and anxiety-ridden, but morphs into a killer with superhuman abilities.

"I had to eat like a Trojan to keep the weight on, because you're doing 12-13 hour days, and you're doing a lot of stunts during the day anyway, and you're doing a lot of fighting during the day, so it's like [a] workout," McAvoy said. "And then you've got your workout at night. So I was just eating enough for, like, four people. And then, of course, when I stopped doing all of that, I stopped eating all of that, I stopped going to the gym, it dropped. It just disappeared in weeks. I was so disappointed."

McAvoy--known for such dramatic roles as those in Atonement and The Last King of Scotland--acknowledged that he is not the first person who comes to mind as the lead in a superhero story.

"I think this film's a good example of one of those superhero-stroke-action-hero movies that requires that the lead actor is not an alpha male, that requires that the lead actor is unlikely," he said. "Like your Spider-Mans and even Edward Norton in [The Incredible] Hulk and stuff like that. But what, I think, is good about this film is that by casting somebody like me, you get more than just the guy taking his glasses off or changing his hairstyle and he suddenly becomes the tough guy all of a sudden. I think that not only the character is unlikely but the casting of me is unlikely, so that hopefully the audience will watch the film and go, 'There's no way! There's just no way he's going to do the stuff.'" Wanted, which is being released by Universal Pictures, opens June 27. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Patrick Lee, News EditorWanted Had Its Perks

Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian director of the upcoming SF action movie Wanted, told reporters that helming his first English-language Hollywood movie carried obvious advantages.

"Yeah, there's no Angelina Jolie in Russia," Bekmambetov said in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., on June 16. "And Morgan Freeman. And everybody speaks Russian. ... Of course, I had the best dream crew, the best people in the industry."

Wanted, based on Mark Millar and J.G. Jones' comic-book series, stars James McAvoy as a shlubby office worker who is reluctantly inducted into a fraternity of superpowered assassins, mentored by the lethal Fox (Jolie) and the enigmatic Sloan (Freeman).

Bekmambetov, a Kazakhstan-born filmmaker, gained fame for his visually arresting Russian-language films Night Watch and Day Watch and said that he had as much freedom to shape Wanted as he had when making his Russian movies.

"It was a collaboration," Bekmambetov said. "I was surprised, because, of course, we know all these myths about how bad studio people [are] and how they're torturing creative people. It's bulls--t. It's not true. With me, I mean. Maybe somewhere, I don't know. Maybe I was lucky, or it's a dream. We are here, and nothing [bad] happened."

Wanted features Bekmambetov's dynamic action sequences, including a chase involving a red Viper and a candy truck and a climactic scene involving a horde of exploding rats--not the usual Hollywood fare.

The director credits his studio and producers as being "very, very brave people. You saw [the] movie," he said. "I don't know, I cannot imagine in Moscow producers who decide to make this kind of movie and spend so much money to do it. And release it right in the time of WALL*E and other big and very, like, kind of predictable summer movies around us. Because it's really very brave. ... It was very interesting to work with them."

Wanted is being released by Universal Pictures and opens June 27. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Patrick Lee, News EditorMcAvoy Denies Hobbit Rumors

James McAvoy denied to SCI FI Wire that he has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit, Internet rumors notwithstanding, though he did not rule it out.

"It's just Internet conversation," the Scottish actor said in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., on June 16 while promoting his new film Wanted. "It's nothing true, I'm afraid. I've not been contacted by anybody to do with The Hobbit."

McAvoy repeated denials he has made to TheOneRing.net, among other sites, in response to the rumor reported in the British Daily Express newspaper. But he added that he'd consider the role.

"I'd be interested in reading the script if ... when they write it," McAvoy said. "But that's a long way away, I think. But beyond that, you can't make any decisions." --Patrick Lee, News EditorNew Smallville Villains Cast

Sam Witwer (Battlestar Galactica) and Cassidy Freeman will join the cast of The CW's Smallville in its upcoming eighth season, which kicks off in the fall, the network announced. (Spoilers ahead!)

Witwer will play Davis Bloome, a charismatic Metropolis paramedic, who is forced to confront a burgeoning darkness inside of him that just might be a harbinger of doom. (Fans are speculating that Bloome will be the show's version of Doomsday, the invincible villain who caused Superman's death in the DC comics.)

Freeman will play Tess Mercer, Lex Luthor's handpicked successor who harbors her own brand of ruthlessness. Michael Rosenbaum, who played Luthor in the show's previous seven seasons, won't be returning as a series regular.

Witwer played Alex "Crashdown" Quartararo on SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica. Freeman previously appeared in the feature film Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee.

Smallville will air Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.Universal Develops Archive

Universal Pictures is developing David Auburn's time-travel thriller pitch The Archive as a feature film, Variety reported.

The Proof playwright will write the script as a directing vehicle for James Mangold. Scott Stuber will produce with Cathy Konrad.

Auburn adapted his 2001 play into the screen version of Proof and also wrote the time-travel romance The Lake House for Warner Brothers. Carradine Joins Eureka

Ever Carradine will be a recurring guest star on SCI FI Channel's original series Eureka, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Carradine will play Lexi, the free-spirited sister of Sheriff Carter (Colin Ferguson).

She will appear in at least four of eight episodes of the upcoming summer season, which debuts July 29. Carradine most recently appeared on ABC's Women's Murder Club.Hall: Dead Movie Mulled

Anthony Michael Hall, who played psychic Johnny Smith on USA Network's The Dead Zone, told SCI FI Wire that there's talk about a movie and that he'd be open to one, but added that he wasn't particularly optimistic about the possibility. Hall starred for six seasons on the show.

"There's talk about it," Hall said during an interview to promote the just-released DVD set The Dead Zone: The Final Season. "I don't think we had the size of a cult following that, let's say, The X-Files did. You look at Sex and the City or The X-Files, these movies were done long after the shows pumped out their last episodes."

Interestingly, The Dead Zone had a previous incarnation as a 1983 feature film, which starred Christopher Walken as Smith. Some shots of the Dead Zone TV pilot appear to have been borrowed from that film, though the TV show introduced new characters and departed greatly from the movie's premise. Both TV show and movie were based on Stephen King's book of the same name.

In any case, Hall said that he remains grateful for his chance to do the show. "I would certainly be open to the potential for [a reunion feature]," he said. "I would never turn my back on what [the show's late producer] Michael Piller did for me. He gave me this incredible opportunity. When I look back at [my] career, I view him and John Hughes as almost guardian angels of my career."

Piller handpicked Hall to play Smith after watching him play Bill Gates in the cable-television movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. "He and his son, Shawn, were great partners, along with [co-executive producer] Lloyd Segan," Hall said. "These guys, we made it a family affair. ... So I was grateful for the experience, and I would certainly entertain it if they wanted to pursue a film. Am I optimistic about it? Not really, but I certainly wouldn't turn my back on the opportunity." (USA Network is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Ian SpellingOwen Is Inseparable At Fox

Viva Laughlin star Lloyd Owen has been tapped as the lead in Fox's one-hour SF pilot Inseparable, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The project is under consideration for midseason, the trade paper reported.

Inseparable, from ABC Studios and writer/executive producer Shaun Cassidy (American Gothic), is a modern-day Jekyll-and-Hyde tale about a partially paralyzed forensic psychiatrist (Owen) with a split personality, whose alter ego is a charismatic criminal.

Owen is the second Brit cast in the role, after Toby Stephens.

Cassidy originally developed Inseparable in 2003 for CBS and Universal; it was picked up by Fox before the writers' strike. Back then, the network asked for a revised draft, which Cassidy couldn't complete before the work stoppage began in November.

In an effort to get a head start upon conclusion of the strike, Fox brass in January gave their blessing for casting to begin on Inseparable but delayed an official pilot order until they read Cassidy's new draft. Stephens was cast as the lead in February.

This is the second contemporary Jekyll-and-Hyde split-personality drama in the works at the broadcast networks for next season. In April, NBC gave a straight-to-series order to My Own Worst Enemy, a one-hour drama from writer Jason Smilovic, which stars Christian Slater as a middle-class suburban dad whose alter ego is a super spy. Enemy is slated to air in the Monday 10 p.m. slot in the fall.Neverland Heads For Stage

The Weinstein Co. has developed an ambitious slate of new stage projects, likely to kick off with a musical version of Finding Neverland in 2010, followed by a stage incarnation of Pink Floyd's album The Wall, Variety reported.

Finding Neverland, based on the 2004 Miramax movie about the backstory behind J.M. Barrie's creation of Peter Pan, has a book by Allan Knee, the British writer from whose play the movie was adapted. The score is by the Grey Gardens duo of composer Scott Frankel and lyricist Michael Korie.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters is aboard with playwright and screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) to adapt The Wall from the cult album, which was the basis for a 1982 Alan Parker film. Angel Reimagines Hell

Fantasy author Alan Campbell told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Iron Angel, is a sequel to his first novel, Scar Night, the idea for which originated many years ago in Budapest, where he was working and writing in his spare time.

"After returning home I started a career in the [video-game] industry, and I didn't return to the concept for about a decade," Campbell, who worked on games such as Grand Theft Auto, said in an interview. "In Iron Angel, I wanted to expand the story beyond the confines of [the city of] Deepgate. Scar Night was one battle in a war. Iron Angel explores that war, dragging the surviving characters into a global conflict."

The book is a journey through a war that began in hell and has now spilled out into the world of the living, Campbell said. "Events in Scar Night have left [Deepgate] vulnerable to attack from a new enemy," he said. "The story begins when young angel Dill and former assassin Rachel Hael, who had fled Deepgate, are captured ... and returned to Deepgate's temple to be tempered."

Part of the novel takes place in hell in a realm known as the Maze. "[There,] everything physical that exists is a manifestation of a soul's consciousness and its expectations as to what the environment around it should be," Campbell said. "The dead are crammed into apartments or houses, which are really extensions of their own psyches. So Dill is his own apartment, and his immediate surroundings change subtly to reflect his emotions--the color of the wallpaper, the size of the windows. It rains indoors when someone persuades Dill that it is raining. His furniture bleeds when it is damaged, and Dill feels that pain acutely."

Campbell's foundation for hell was that the dead are the bricks and mortar of their own prisons. "What they believe determines how the Maze appears," he said. "But, of course, hell is overcrowded. There is a constant battle of will among neighbors. ... Houses can grow and shrink, fight each other for space or meld together and crawl away as a result of mass hysteria."

The antagonist of the book, King Menoa, exploits this odd metaphysical loophole. "[It's] a way to take control of hell by using persuasion," Campbell said. "By dominating the wills of others, he can mold the dead into anything he pleases and ultimately use them for his own purposes." --John Joseph AdamsMummy's Fraser Glad To Return

Brendan Fraser, who reprises the role of adventurer Rick O'Connell in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, told SCI FI Wire that he was thrilled to return to the franchise after seven years away.

"I missed playing Rick," Fraser said in an interview. "He's a lot of fun, and he gets in a lot of trouble, and then out of it somehow. He gets bashed up along the way, but always gets back up. It's like a running joke of the reluctant hero that always has to dispatch the undead--'What did I do to deserve this?!'" the actor said with a laugh.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor takes place in 1946 as the O'Connell clan comes together to fight a new mummy threat from the East. Alex O'Connell (now played by Luke Ford) accidentally awakens the evil mummy Emperor Han of China (Jet Li) and the terra cotta army of Xi'an. With their previous undead expertise, Rick and Evelyn O'Connell (Maria Bello, stepping in for Rachel Weisz) race to China to save the day. "I get the tar knocked out of me by Jet Li," Fraser said about what his character faces in the sequel. "So I trained. I went to this Krav Maga [Israeli martial arts] training center with [trainer] Junior Merkle. It's all about finishing moves, scary stuff. It toughened me up a bit. And I worked with different weapons. ... I wanted to get my hands on them so I don't look like a guy with a prop."

Despite the long stretch between the last sequel, The Mummy Returns, and this latest installment, Fraser said he thinks fans will embrace the series again.

"I think it might be better than the first two," Fraser said. "I'm really hopeful. Is it wishful thinking? I think it has a lot more to offer by way of a movie-going experience than the first two. I think, also, it's because seven years have gone by and another generation has come of age, if you will." The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, directed by Rob Cohen, opens Aug. 1. --Tara BennettHall Talks Knight Role

Anthony Michael Hall, who plays a Gotham City newscaster in The Dark Knight, told SCI FI Wire that his appearance was a secret until he began showing up as Mike Engel, anchor of the Gotham Cable News program Gotham Tonight, in Comcast OnDemand videos. The videos are part of Warner Brothers' viral marketing campaign for the Batman sequel film.

"I took a meeting with [director Christopher Nolan and his wife, producer Emma Thomas], and they gave me this part," Hall said in an interview this week. "I actually came in and read for another part initially, and then I got that role of Mike Engel. Because of this Comcast tie-in we did that's online now, I guess everybody knows. I had a non-disclosure agreement with the studio about not talking about it, but essentially it's now public knowledge. [For this] Comcast tie-in they basically created this Gotham City Network for six weeks, as if it's a real CNN. I play Gotham's sort of nighttime news anchor."

The Comcast videos are supplemental footage created specifically for the marketing campaign and will not be seen in The Dark Knight. "If you go to Gothamcablenews.com and click on Gotham Tonight, what they've done is basically create for Mike Engel the equivalent of Anderson [Cooper] 360 or Larry King Live. It's a promotional tool, but everybody is in character. It was done, obviously, as a co-venture/production/marketing tool with Comcast, so we shot it in London while we were doing the film. I knew it would not appear in the film, but obviously I treated it as if it would."

Dark Knight director Nolan did not helm the Gotham Tonight sequences airing online. Instead, Nolan turned over the responsibility to his assistant, Jordan Goldberg.

"Jordan is a good guy," Hall said. "Jordan is also a screenwriter, and it was his task, actually, to write those episodes of this sort of mock-Crossfire or Anderson [Cooper] 360. Jordan did a great job ... and the challenge was to make it look like as real a newsroom as possible, so they had people from Comcast, people from Warner Brothers. It was almost like a commercial shoot; there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen." The Dark Knight opens on July 18. --Ian SpellingSpiderwick DVD Reveals F/X

Freddie Highmore, who plays twins in The Spiderwick Chronicles, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming two-disc "Field Guide" DVD set offers more insights into how the special effects are done than even he knew while filming the movie for four months.

Highmore, who has appeared in his share of fantasy films, said that he is aware of films with many special effects and computer graphics, but was nevertheless suprised.

"It's really a coincidence that I've done so many films in the fantasy genre, but they have all involved many kinds of computer graphics, and this one is different, because it's really quite scary," the 16-year-old British actor said in an interview. "In Spiderwick. you don't really know what is going to happen, and people thought it was scarier than they expected."

The visual effects were key. "These creatures looked real, and it was important that our characters look normal, especially the goblins and trolls, and make the unbelievable believable," Highmore said.

The two-disc DVD set includes featurettes showing how the actors had to imagine where the creatures were, based on where ping pong balls were held in front of them. "It got a bit confusing, remembering if the pink ball is Hogsqueal and the blue one is Mulgarath or what," Highmore said.

In the interviews on the DVD, director Mark Waters talks about how Highmore "likes to play a rebellious kid." "I think that I would like to someday play the bad guy in a horror film. It would be fun to mix it up," Highmore said. "I'm known as the nicer kid, and people see me as playing that kind of role, so one day it would be fun to play a different kind of role and be the bad guy."

At the moment, Highmore is still playing good kids. His next project is voicing the role of Astro Boy in an animated feature-length version of the popular Japanese manga series. The Spiderwick DVD set drops on June 24. --Mike SzymanskiClassic Bond Due On Blu-ray

MGM and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment have announced the debut release of six classic James Bond films on Blu-ray beginning Oct 21. The films include Dr. No, Die Another Day, Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia with Love and Thunderball.

Recently restored and re-mastered for the highest quality picture and sound, the releases will be timed to lead up to the worldwide theatrical premiere of the 22nd James Bond film Quantum of Solace this November.

The James Bond franchise has generated more than $1 billion in global box-office returns. The most recent film, Casino Royale, debuted on Blu-ray in March of 2007 and continues to rank as one of the best-selling Blu-ray releases to date.

Specific worldwide release dates and title configurations will be announced in the coming weeks.ABC's Atlas Gets Show Runners

Nicole Yorkin and Dawn Prestwich, executive producers/show runners of The Riches, have joined ABC's fantasy pilot Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Yorkin and Prestwich will serve as consulting producers on the pilot. Already on board as executive producers are Tom Wheeler, who penned the script, and Emmy winner Thomas Schlamme, who is directing the pilot. If the project goes to series, Yorkin and Prestwich will serve as executive producers and show runners.

Described as Harry Potter meets Pan's Labyrinth, Atlas centers on a young girl (Jodelle Ferland) who finds a magical atlas that reveals a secret world underneath our own. Janel Moloney (The West Wing) and Patrick Breen (Eli Stone) co-star in the pilot.

In addition to The Riches, which recently completed a two-season run on FX, Yorkin and Prestwich have worked on Carnivale, Brotherhood and Judging Amy. The duo won a WGA Award for their CBS drama The Education of Max Bickford.Gone's Kids Are On Their Own

Michael Grant--who, with his wife, K.A. Applegate, is the co-author of the popular Animorphs series of novels--told SCI FI Wire that his new novel Gone has a simple setup: Every single adult in the world simultaneously, instantly and without explanation disappears.

"Only kids are left," Grant said in an interview. "From mid-teens in schoolrooms down to babies in cribs. The kids soon realize that they are trapped behind an impermeable barrier that extends across a 20-mile diameter and encompasses the town of Perdido Beach, the nearby countryside and a slice of the Pacific Ocean. The rules of nature have been rewritten--some kids are mutating at a rapid rate, developing extraordinary abilities, while others remain unchanged. There is chaos, fear and loneliness. The bullies rule. The worst in human nature surfaces, but so does the best."

The premise is more sociological or political than scientific or technological, Grant said. "The question I'm posing is: What happens to a group of 300-plus kids when every form of authority is suddenly and simultaneously removed?" he said. "No parents. No teachers. No cops. No ministers. No doctors. Three-hundred-plus kids, all on their own with no explanations, no escape, no reason for hope. How will they organize? How will they determine who is in charge? Who will care for the tiniest children? Can they survive? Can they maintain emotionally? What will they believe? How will they cope with disease, hunger, death and evil? The adults may be gone, but the guns and drugs and cars are still around, as are the divisions between decent kids and bullies, between the healthy and the sick, the strong and the weak."

Gone is being published as a young-adult novel, but it's not the usual YA fare. "It is very dark for YA," Grant said. "I don't think of myself as a terribly pessimistic person, but I don't see a group of terrified, abandoned kids sitting around and catching up on their homework and teaching themselves to knit while they wait for a rescue that my never come. To put it in SCI FI Channel terms, Gone is much more Battlestar Galactica than it is Star Trek." --John Joseph AdamsIs Jane Jonah Hex?

Film School Rejects has posted a picture which appears to be an image of actor Thomas Jane in the role of DC Comics character Jonah Hex. No official casting announcements for the film have been made yet.

The original 1970s comic-book series about an acerbic gunslinger was created by writer John Albano and artist Tony DeZuniga. A film version of Jonah Hex is currently in development at Warner Brothers, with Akiva Goldsman (Constantine, I Am Legend) attached as producer along with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank).

According to horror fan site ShockTillYouDrop.com, however, the photo is a fake. The site spoke with Neveldine, who had no clue where the photo came from and was sure that it is not legitimate.China Lured Mummy's Cohen

Rob Cohen, the director of Universal's upcoming The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, told SCI FI Wire that the new Asian twist to the franchise was the only reason he signed up to do a sequel.

"I haven't done a sequel to my own movies," Cohen said in an interview. "I'm not going to lightly undertake a sequel to someone else's story, no matter how much I like the work before. But this story took place entirely in China, and my love of Chinese culture and my study of it, ... I had been waiting for a film to make on the subject."

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor takes place in 1946 China, with franchise hero Brendan Fraser returning as adventurer Rick O'Connell, joined by newbies Maria Bello (replacing actress Rachel Weisz as Evelyn) and Luke Ford (as a grown-up Alex O'Connell). The family faces off against their latest mummy threat: Emperor Han (played by Jet Li).

"It is a movie of mine, as you will see from the first frame," Cohen said about his influences on the franchise. "China is a whole different campground. The whole approach is different. The sets are bigger, and they are less digital. There are creatures in it for the first time--like a three-headed monster, Yeti, the temple guardian dogs--and Jet Li is a shapeshifter, so he comes in many forms."

Cohen said that he insisted that the production actually shoot in China last year, which added to the authenticity of the story.

"The mythology is that this emperor was covered in clay and is baked alive, so he is caught as an undead," Cohen said. "Of course, the Jet character is under the clay, which is a CG creation. Then there are the terra-cotta warriors, and then there are the foundation warriors, who were the workers that built the Great Wall. They were buried underneath and come out to fight Jet Li's forces. It's a battle of good and evil in the third act!" The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor opens Aug. 1. --Tara BennettHighmore Completes Arthur Sequels

Freddie Highmore told SCI FI Wire he just completed the final voice work for two more Arthur and the Minimoys films, inspired by the popular children's fantasy books of Luc Besson.

The 16-year-old British actor completed filming two sequels to 2006's Arthur and the Invisibles (as it's known in the U.S.) more than a year ago and had to finish the looping for both films before his voice changed too drastically. Arthur and the Vengeance of the Maltazard is scheduled for release in 2009 and Arthur and the Two Worlds War is expected to come out in 2010.

"We just finished the ADR session the other day," Highmore said in an interview with SCI FI Wire, referring to the automated dialogue replacement or looping procedure he did to voice the animated section of the film. "Half of this is live action, while half of it is 3-D animation. It's going to take a while before it is released."

Highmore, who co-starred in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Spiderwick Chronicles, said it will be hard to talk about making a movie he did so long ago, and he never got to see any of his co-stars. Other voices in the films include David Bowie, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Jewel, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel.

The story follows a 10-year-old boy named Arthur who befriends tiny creatures called Minimoys, who are no larger than a tooth. The first film, with an estimated $86 million budget, took in $113 million worldwide, but did a disappointing $15 million domestically at the box office.

The Spiderwick Chronicles comes out on DVD on June 24. --Mike SzymanskiHall Sums Up The Dead Zone

Anthony Michael Hall, who played psychic Johnny Smith in six seasons of USA Network's The Dead Zone, told SCI FI Wire that he looks back fondly on the show and feels that the last season did a good job of closing it out. The series ended a bit abruptly because production wrapped on the final season before producers knew that the show wouldn't return for a seventh season.

"The last couple of seasons, we just had to address the finales as if they might be the last, but in my gut I felt the [sixth-season] finale would be the last," Hall said during an interview to promote the just-released DVD set The Dead Zone: The Final Season.

"In terms of how the season went, I had a great time," Hall added. "We'd moved to Montreal, so suddenly it was an all-French-speaking crew, but I have to say they worked just as hard as the crew in Vancouver did for [the first] five years, and I thought they brought this sort of European sensibility. I thought the production values were solid."

Storywise, Hall added, he was happy as well, with a few reservations. During the last season, storylines focused less on Walt (Chris Bruno) and Bruce (John L. Adams) and more on Johnny's interactions with former love Sarah (Nicole de Boer) and his longtime nemesis, Greg Stillson (Sean Patrick Flanery).

"One of the decisions, and it was a network decision, [but] they wanted to get back to the original elements, the family issues, the stuff with Johnny and Sarah," Hall said. "We wanted to tie up the stuff with Stillson, so he was a factor. That led to sort of diminishing the other characters a little bit, Walt and ... Bruce. So it was difficult, because we were all a team for five years, and then suddenly the network decided to make some changes because they wanted to get back to the sort of nuts and bolts of the early-season stuff. Overall, I felt good about it. It's always the challenge for the actor to make it come alive."

The Dead Zone concluded with an hour entitled "Denouement." "I thought the episode was good," Hall said. "If it was going to be the last season, that episode spoke to all those character and story issues. In that regard, I felt good about it. I'm grateful. Six seasons is amazing. We did 80 episodes, which is like doing 40 movies about one story. It was a great experience." (USA Network is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.) --Ian SpellingLee Makes Time for Traveler

Spike Lee will co-write and direct Time Traveler, based on a memoir by theoretical physicist Ronald Mallett, Variety reported.

The book, Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, recounts Mallett's rise from poverty to become one of the nation's first African-Americans to earn a Ph.D in theoretical physics. It also lays out the technical specs for what Mallett envisions as a workable time machine. Developing a time machine became an obsession for Mallett from the age of 10, after his father's death. His goal was to travel back in time to save his father.

Lee acquired the rights to the book with his own money and has set up the project through his Forty Acres & A Mule Filmworks banner.

Lee called Time Traveler a "fantastic story on many levels [and] also a father and son saga of loss and love." The subject of time travel seems to have an appeal for the filmmaker, who was at one time attached to the Fox drama Selling Time, about a man who sells a part of his life expectancy for the chance to go back and relive the worst day of his life. Lee is no longer involved in that project.Universal Orders Last Call

Universal has bought the Oni Press graphic novel series The Last Call and set it up with producer Barry Josephson, Variety reported. Written and illustrated by Vasilis Lolos, The Last Call centers on two teens on a joyride who get hit by an interdimensional soul carrier in the form of a train and end up on a quest to solve a mystery that will allow them to return to their regular lives. The series was first released in 2007.

Evan Spiliotopoulos, who most recently wrote the script for Richard Kelly's upcoming SF thriller The Box, is adapting the series for the screen.

The Last Call is the fourth Oni Press work to be developed at Universal. The studio is currently developing an adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim comic series, which Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is set to direct later this year. The upcoming feature-film version of Oni's Whiteout, starring Kate Beckinsale and Alex O'Loughlin, is currently in post-production and is scheduled for release in September. Universal is also developing the Oni comics Leading Man and Resurrection for the big screen. Houses Questions Reality

SF author Jamil Nasir told SCI FI Wire that his new novel The Houses of Time ponders what we actually know about how the world works, as opposed to what we guess or believe blindly.

"Science seems to me the best mode of gaining knowledge that has yet been invented, but I also think that science is still in its early stages," Nasir said in an interview. "This offers a tremendous field of play to a science fiction writer. There are so many questions that science has uncovered and so many titillating hints as to what the answers might be, so many weird experimental results that don't make sense and lots of brilliant people proposing the most amazing interpretations."

There are also a large number of unassailable facts that have not yet been incorporated into our worldview, particularly in quantum theory, Nasir said. "As just one example, what if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory is true? What would it be like to experience that reality (making the assumption that you could), given our particular human perceptual and cognitive and information-processing faculties?" he asked. "What would the journey from our everyday consciousness to that wider world be like? In The Houses of Time, I have tried to make use of the relevant science to make such a journey seem plausible and real to the reader."

The novel follows David Grant, a successful lawyer and playboy, who realizes one day that he has reached middle age and starts wondering if there is any more to life than what meets the eye. "Almost at random, he takes a correspondence course in lucid dreaming," Nasir said. "In these dreams, he falls in love with a beautiful girl. A few months later he meets what seems to be the very same girl when he is wide awake."

Grant falls head over heels for her, but their romance turns out to be a little strange. "She never tells him where she lives; she makes him play a weird and painful video game that she has invented; she takes him to meet her wealthy mother, who asks him a series of very odd questions; finally, she persuades him to get a particular brain 'treatment'--and then disappears," Nasir said. "He searches desperately for her while bizarre mental symptoms appear in both his waking and sleeping life. When he finally finds her, he discovers that what she really wants from him is far beyond anything he could have imagined." --John Joseph AdamsVisions Poll Results Announced

SCI FI Channel's Visions for Tomorrow campaign has announced the results of an online poll to determine the top 10 things to read, watch and do to save the world. The poll asked readers to vote on which science-fiction films, television series and literary works resonate most with them and which positive courses of action they inspire. More than 20,000 votes were cast in each of the four categories.

Topping the lists were Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner, Joss Whedon's television series Firefly and George Orwell's novel 1984.

Reading was identified as the number-one world-changing course of action. To encourage people to read, SCI FI has partnered with Booksfree.com, the largest online paperback and audiobook rental service. A special 20 percent discount will be given to members who sign up for the service from SCI FI's Visions for Tomorrow Web site.

A complete list of the results follows.

Top 10 Films to Watch
1. Blade Runner
2. The Matrix
3. The Terminator
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. Jurassic Park
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
7. The Day After Tomorrow
8. The Day the Earth Stood Still
9. Children of Men
10. Armageddon


Top 10 Television Series to Watch
1. Firefly
2. Battlestar Galactica (2004)
3. The X-Files
4. Heroes
5. Stargate: SG-1
6. Doctor Who
7. Star Trek: The Next Generation
8. Babylon 5
9. Star Trek
10. Buffy The Vampire Slayer


Top 10 Books to Read
1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
5. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
6. The Stand by Stephen King
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Top 10 Things to Do
1. Read.
2. Recycle.
3. Register to vote. Cast your ballot in November.
4. Eat healthier.
5. Be kind.
6. Empower children and yourself through education.
7. Protect wildlife.
8. Conserve energy by switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
9. Plant a tree and print less paper.
10. Give blood.
Common Talks T4 Rumors

Rapper-turned-actor Common told SCI FI Wire that he's about to begin shooting his role in McG's Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins in Albuquerque, N.M.

"I play Barnes, who's part of the resistance," Common said in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., to promote his upcoming SF action movie Wanted. "I'm a freedom fighter alongside John Connor [Christian Bale]. And I'm just about to start filming it soon. Like, I've been out there for a second, and then I came back, but I'm about to film some more."

Common plays a member of Connor's resistance movement in Terminator Salvation, which is set after the nuclear holocaust of Judgment Day; Connor's people are fighting the machines of Skynet.

Common confessed ignorance about reported spoilers about the film's supposed end.

"I haven't read the spoilers," Common said. "I actually don't know ... the end of the movie, to be honest. They been keeping everything, like, really hush and closed. So anybody that even says they got the end, I almost don't know ... if the writer has revealed the end yet, you know?" Terminator Salvation, which also stars Anton Yelchin and Sam Worthington, is currently in production with an eye to a May 22, 2009, release. --Patrick Lee, News EditorCommon: No JLA News

Rapper-turned-actor Common told reporters that he has heard nothing about the on-again, off-again proposed Justice League movie, in which he was to play the Green Lantern.

"I don't know what's happening with Justice League, to be honest," Common said during interviews on June 16 in Beverly Hills, Calif., to promote his upcoming SF action movie Wanted. "I don't know if they are doing the film. If they do do it, I would love to be a part of it. ... It seems like a really good project to be a part of. I haven't heard anything."

Justice League was set to begin production in Australia under director George Miller, but was delayed by last year's writers' strike and a decision to pull production out of Oz when the film failed to win tax incentives. Several actors were at one time connected with the film, but the ongoing delays have thrown into question whether any of them will remain. Common was at one point linked to the role of John Stewart/Green Lantern.

"I love Green Lantern, man," Common said. "Anybody that, like, his superpowers [are] in his mind. ... He can create things with his mind as long as he has the ring, that's, like, ... me [laughs]." --Patrick Lee, News EditorWiseman Gears Up For War

Len Wiseman has signed on to direct New Line's Gears of War, based on the hit video game from Microsoft Game Studios and Epic Games, Variety reported.

Wiseman featured the game in his recent film Live Free or Die Hard, causing speculation that he would be directing the feature adaptation of Gears of War, but the trade paper reports that he only began talks with New Line a few months ago.

Wiseman will develop the story with Chris Morgan (Wanted), who is writing a new draft of the film based on a previous script by Stuart Beattie. The two are also collaborating on the SF action thriller Shell Game for Lakeshore Entertainment and Columbia Pictures. Wiseman is also producing the third installment of Screen Gems' Underworld franchise, after having helmed the first two films.

Gears revolves around a world reeling from an invasion by aliens known as the Locust, and a small team of elite soldiers who fight to retake the planet and save its human inhabitants. The game, first released in 2006, is Microsoft's second-biggest seller after the Halo franchise. It has sold more than 3 million copies since its release. A second Gears game is expected to ship in November.

New Line landed the rights to create a big-screen version of the game last year. It had initially aimed for a summer 2009 release for the film, but further development on the project now will likely delay that plan.Highmore Not Doing Dickens

Young British actor Freddie Highmore told SCI FI Wire that perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about him is that he is still scheduled to act in the movie version of the children's fantasy book Eddie Dickens and the Awful End, which hit the best-seller lists in 2002.

"I'm not doing Eddie Dickens, and people keep asking me about that, but I'm definitely, surely not doing it," Highmore said in a telephone interview from London.

The novel by Philip Ardagh is part of a series of books following young Eddie in Victorian England, whose parents died of a strange worry disease. Reports that Highmore is attached to the project came before he appeared in The Spiderwick Chronicles and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and before he signed on to voice Astro Boy, and at age 16 he's outgrowing the role.

Why do the erroneous reports persist? "It was something I tested for about five years ago to see how the technology would work out," Highmore said.

"I don't know if the project is still going ahead, but I wish them well if they do. It would be a fantastic film," Highmore said. "Good luck to them."

The Spiderwick Chronicles comes out on DVD on June 24. --Mike SzymanskiWizard's Gets Show Runner

Kenneth Biller has joined Sam Raimi's upcoming syndicated series "Wizard's First Rule" as show runner, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The scripted series, an hourlong weekly from Disney-ABC Domestic Television and ABC Studios, is based on Terry Goodkind's book Wizard's First Rule, the first installment in the The Sword of Truth series.

In addition, Mike Sussman is in negotiations to come aboard Wizard's as a supervising producer. Biller and Sussman previously worked together on UPN's 1995-2001 series Star Trek: Voyager, with Biller ultimately serving as show runner and Sussman as a writer.

Wizard's stars Craig Horner as woodsman Richard Cypher, who transforms into a magical leader and joins with a mysterious woman named Kahlan (Bridget Regan) to stop a bloodthirsty, sinister tyrant. The first season of the series, lasting for 22 episodes, has been cleared in more than 95 percent of the country for its fall launch.F/X Maestro Winston Is Dead

Hollywood special-effects maestro Stan Winston--whose company was best known for creating creatures for the Terminator films, Jurassic Park and this year's Iron Man--died June 15 after a long fight against cancer, the Associated Press reported. He was 62.

The Oscar-winning visual effects artist died at his home surrounded by family after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a representative from Stan Winston Studio, the AP reported.

Winston won visual effects Oscars for 1986's Aliens, 1992's Terminator 2: Judgment Day and 1993's Jurassic Park.

Winston is survived by his wife, Karen, a son, daughter, brother and four grandchildren.Shanks Sponsors Online Auction

Michael Shanks Online, the official Web site of actor Michael Shanks, is launching its fourth annual online action, featuring a collection of memorabilia from Stargate SG-1 and other popular SF shows, to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada.

Among the items up for auction are several of Shanks' personal SG-1 scripts signed by the actor, plus scripts and call sheets from his appearances on 24 and Eureka. The auction will also offer signed photos of fellow SG-1 cast members Christopher Judge, Amanda Tapping, Ben Browder, Claudia Black and Beau Bridges. Additionally, there will be DVDs available of the original Stargate film signed by stars Kurt Russell, Mili Avatal, Erick Avari and Alexis Cruz.

Outside the realm of SG-1, items available for bidding include photos, posters, DVDs and action figures signed by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles (Supernatural); Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica); Torri Higginson, Joe Flanigan, Paul McGillion and Rainbow Sun Francks (Stargate Atlantis); and Richard Burgi and Garett Maggart (The Sentinel). The auction will also include items donated by such organizations as the University of British Columbia, Legends Memorabilia, Insight Film Studios, American Cinema International and Creation Entertainment.

In the last three years, the Michael Shanks Online auctions have raised a total of more than $43,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. The first 20 of approximately 200 items went on sale June 16. Additional items will be added each day. Further details are available at Michael Shanks Online.Astro To Have U.S. Accent

British actor Freddie Highmore told SCI FI Wire that he will be using an American accent when he voices the title character in the upcoming animated Astro Boy movie, based on the Japanese manga.

"I'm pretty excited about it--it's pretty big over there in Japan," Highmore said to SCI FI Wire in a telephone interview from London over the weekend. "I think it's their version of Mickey Mouse, and this is their big showing to the world."

Highmore, 16, was hired to voice the animated character by British director David Bowers, who previously wrote and directed Flushed Away. Highmore may be known for his English accent in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland, but he voiced two slightly different American accents as twin brothers in The Spiderwick Chronicles, which comes out on DVD June 24.

"I was very proud of trying to give them slightly different voices," he said of the twins he portrayed. He and the girl who played his sister (Irish actress Sarah Bolger) worked with a voice coach to make their American accents believable in Spiderwick. He plans to do the same thing in Astro Boy, based on the Japanese manga by Osamu Tezuka.

No stranger to animation, Highmore previously voiced the role of the CG character Pantalaimon in The Golden Compass and an animated version of his title character in Arthur and the Invisibles.

Astro Boy is currently in preproduction. Highmore said that he has been fascinated by the interest in the movie since he landed the role. "There are stores and all kinds of things centered around him," he said. "He's really big in parts of the world." --Mike SzymanskiDowney Saddles Up SF Cowboys

Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. is in negotiations to star in DreamWorks/Universal's Cowboys & Aliens, a mix of the SF and western genres, which could serve as a potential 2010 tentpole, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The deal would be Downey's first since propelling Marvel Studios' Iron Man to worldwide box office of $500 million-plus.

Imagine Entertainment partners Brian Grazer and Ron Howard are producing. Platinum Studios chairman and chief executive Scott Mitchell Rosenberg also will produce, along with DreamWorks mainstays Steven Spielberg, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Ervin Rustemagic and Rich Marincic will co-produce.

Cowboys & Aliens derives from a graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley from an original idea by Rosenberg. The story centers on an Old West battle between the Apache and western settlers, including a former Union Army gunslinger named Zeke Jackson (Downey), which is interrupted by a spaceship crashing into the prairie near Silver City, Ariz.

The story draws a parallel between the American imperialist drive to conquer the "savage" Indians with its advanced technology and the aliens' assault on Earthlings, who must join together to survive the invaders' attack. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)Happening Is Fear Itself

M. Night Shyamalan, writer-director of the new SF thriller The Happening, told reporters that it's his belief that fear boils down to one factor: being alone.

"It's all based on versions of that," Shyamalan said during a press conference in New York last week. "Take random things that you're scared of. I'm scared to fly, or you're scared of the new job that you have. It's all related to the feeling of 'I'm going to have emotions, and no one else will have those emotions. I'll be alone in some manner.'"

The Happening stars Mark Wahlberg as Elliot Moore, a Philadelphia science teacher who's just one of millions of people caught up in an unprecedented event that strikes the East Coast and causes people to commit suicide. Moore and his wife (Zooey Deschanel), his friend (John Leguizamo) and the friend's young daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) flee the phenomenon. At one point, several of the characters encounter a bitter and lonely old woman, Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley), who reluctantly provides refuge.

The film dramatizes its characters' fears of being alone. "Fear protects us," Shyamalan said. "'Don't go down that road. You'll be alone. We don't know what's down that road. You'll be alone. Being alone is not good. There's safety in this. He'll protect me. She'll protect me. Together we're safer.' And the person that didn't have that didn't survive, right? And now it's kind of flipped on us and become a limiting factor. Now we're scared to put our kids in the backyard now, because our neighbors might do something. But our neighbors are wonderful people. The assumption is wrong."

Shyamalan argued that fear has overcome reality in today's climate of terror. "It's the same stats that it was when I was a kid running around on a bike, but yet we're so much more scared now, but nothing has changed," he said. "Nothing has changed, except for fear. And the fear builds on itself, because we get more and more isolated--like Mrs. Jones--until your fear has been realized, and you're all alone." The Happening is now playing. --Ian SpellingMiddleman Like A Comic

Matt Keeslar, star of the upcoming ABC Family SF series The Middleman, told SCI FI Wire that viewers can expect to see a "very comic-booky" show, a description that befits the fact that creator-executive producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost, Medium) based it on his own Viper Comic series. He created the comic book years ago when he couldn't get it launched as a television show.

Keeslar (Masters of Horror) plays the "Middleman," an ex-Navy SEAL who now battles evil and takes his job very, very seriously. And by the Middleman's side is his new partner, Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales), a recent art-school graduate who's working as a temp when she's recruited to join the cause and protect Earth from a variety of threats.

"It is very comic-booky," Keeslar said in an interview. "I'll just give you a couple of examples. We have a Peruvian flying pike that, when it injects its venom into a victim, the victim turns into a trout-craving zombie. We have several different aliens from different planets. From one planet they happen to look like people on Earth who have had a lot of plastic surgery. From another planet they're a boy band. From another planet they embody a 14-year-old. And then there are, of course, other more fantasy-type characters, like an ancient terra cotta warrior who comes back to life to find and bring the heir to the Xing Dynasty to the underworld."

Keeslar explained that two elements will play out on a weekly basis. One is the procedural element, "which is that each week there is a different threat to the world or to humanity or to some particular portion of the population, and Wendy and I have to solve the crime, solve the mystery and somehow get rid of the perpetrators of the crime," he said. "That's one half of the show. The other half of the show is really about Wendy, the main character, and how her life, civilian life, butts up against her life as a crime-fighting comic-book hero." The Middleman premieres June 16 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. --Ian SpellingLeterrier Mulls Strays

Director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) is in negotiations to develop and direct Strays, an SF eco-action thriller written by Michael Ross, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In Strays, a group of young consultants on a business trip to Russia mysteriously wake up in an abandoned and radioactive city and fight to survive the deadly obstacles in between them and safety.

Leterrier's other credits include the Jason Statham action movies The Transporter and its sequel, as well as the Jet Li martial-arts movie Unleashed. AMC Conjures Carter

AMC is developing Carter Beats the Devil, a drama about a mysterious magician, as part of its new slate of drama projects, Variety reported.

Carter Beats the Devil, written by Wesley Strick (Mission: Impossible 2), is based on the fanciful novel about 1920s magician Charles Carter and his role in the death of President Warren Harding.

AMC has already been developing several projects and plans to pick up two pilots by fall; Carter and a second drama won't be ready in time to be considered but will be part of AMC's 2009 pilot plans.

Originally developed as a feature film--with Tom Cruise rumored to be attached--Carter eventually made its way to the small screen under executive producers John Baldecchi and Rich Silverman (The Mexican). Carter is based on the book by Glen David Gold, who's serving as a consultant.BRIEFLY NOTED

New featurettes have gone live for Disney/Pixar's upcoming WALL*E, and a trailer has gone up for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, all of which are linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.

Universal has picked up Repeat After Me, a comedy pitch from Dave H. Johnson, about a couple who realize that they are reliving their disastrous wedding day again and again and start to question getting married in the first place, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Cartoon character Tinker Bell, Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. and actress Cameron Diaz were among 25 stars named on June 19 to join the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Reuters news service reported; the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce said the celebrities will each get their star on its Walk of Fame next year, but the dates have not been announced.

Masi Oka spills secrets about NBC's Heroes in the Los Angeles Times.

Ed Limato, the agent for actor Thomas Jane, denied in an e-mail to IGN.com that Jane has been cast in Jonah Hex, a feature film based on the comic of the same name.

The Forbidden Kingdom drops Sept. 9 in a two-disc special edition DVD and Blu-ray disc with featurettes, a blooper reel, deleted scenes, audio commentary and more.

Octagon Global Recruiting, a fictional organization tied to ABC's Lost, sent out a message to those who signed up on its Web site announcing that it will be conducting an "aptitude test" on behalf of the Dharma Initiative (another fictional organization referenced on Lost) at Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 24.

Summit Entertainment has created a new widget tied to the upcoming teen vampire film Twilight, based on the best-selling book by Stephenie Meyer. The widget allows users to send e-cards, view photos, watch videos and get information about the film.

Paramount Home Entertainment will release the horror film The Ruins, based on the best-selling novel by Scott Smith, on DVD and Blu-ray July 8. The DVD is packed with thrilling special features including a never-before-seen ending, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes and more.

Leven Rambin is in talks to come on board Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rambin (All My Children) will play the teenage Becky, a potential love interest for John Connor (Thomas Dekker).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Battlestar Galactica's Paul Campbell has joined NBC's new action series Knight Rider. He'll play the head research tech at Knight Industries.

C.H.U.D. has an interview with Danny McBride talking about Mr. Machine and other upcoming projects.

Janel Moloney and Patrick Breen have been tapped to co-star in ABC's fantasy pilot Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas, with 13-year-old Jodelle Ferland landing the lead in the WBTV-produced project, according to The Hollywood Reporter; Atlas centers on Gwen (Ferland), an adventurous young girl who finds a magical atlas that reveals a secret world underneath ours.

Writer John Sullivan has sold his family fantasy adventure spec script Science Fair to Disney, about a science fair where all of the kids' projects come to life, according to The Hollywood Reporter.