SCI FI To Air Firefly Episodes
CI FI Channel announced that it will air reruns of Fox's canceled SF series Firefly, including three episodes that never aired on Fox. SCI FI will air all 14 hours of the show, from creator Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), starting July 22, in the 7 p.m. ET/PT Friday timeslot. It will be followed by new episodes of Stargate SG-1 at 8, Stargate Atlantis at 9 and Battlestar Galactica at 10.
The channel will air the episodes in their intended order, beginning with Whedon's pilot. (Fox, by contrast, began with the show's third produced hour, "The Train Job," and aired the two-hour pilot at the end of the show's abortive first season.) SCI FI acquired exclusive rights to the show from 20th Century Television, which produced the show for the Fox Broadcasting Co.
Firefly centers on the ragtag crew of the firefly-class transport ship Serenity 500 years in the future, led by renegade Capt. Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a veteran of the losing side in a galactic civil war.
Universal Pictures will release Serenity, a theatrical film based on Firefly, on Sept. 30. Universal and SCI FI are owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Batman's Freeman No Gadget Guy
cademy Award winner Morgan Freeman, who plays Lucius Fox in Batman Begins, told SCI FI Wire that he's the opposite of his character, the man who equips Bruce Wayne and retrofits a military vehicle into the Batmobile. "I'm not a gadget person. I'm not real well versed in technology," Freeman said. "I still can't program a VCR."
But Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) said that he appreciated Batman Begins' realism: All of the the devices used by the Caped Crusader are based on plausible technology. "The toys are perfectly normal, everyday-type stuff," Freeman said. "[They're] prototypes, but it's how you put them to use that makes all the difference. 'What is this?' 'This is a combat suit. This is Kevlar, and it can stop a knife blow and can even stop a bullet if it's not shot straight at you.'"
For his part, Freeman said that he does own some gadgets. "I'm a pilot and I'm a sailor, so I've got my gadgets on the boat," he said. "I got my gadgets on the airplane that make me get from point A to point B. I have my gadget on my hip that people can call me on, or I can e-mail. I have my gadget in my car. If I want to go someplace, and I don't know where I'm going, I can actually program my gadget to tell me where to go. But, no, I'm not a gadget man."
Freeman said that he was overwhelmed to see how the film has turned out to be a real drama, rather than a cartoonish movie. "Batman is a man," he said. "He's not some mutant. There are no super powers, except the inventiveness of his mind and his hard-won ability in hand-to-hand combat. We accept that part. In this movie he says, 'Well, OK, this is how he got all that stuff.' This is where it all came from." Batman Begins opened June 15.
Batman's Bale Faced Icy Danger
atman Begins star Christian Bale told SCI FI Wire that he faced a bit of danger in an early scene, in which his Bruce Wayne character dangles from the edge of a glacier. In the scene, filmed in a remote area of Iceland during a storm, Wayne is trying to save his tutor, Ducard (Liam Neeson), from falling off the edge of an ice floe. The unpredictable nature of ice caused some actual danger for the crew, Bale said.
"It was melting and cracking, because there was a huge glacier behind," Bale recalled in an interview. "So it was moving down, and the pressure was cracking the ice, and it was thawing out at the same time. There were also people being scrambled off of the ice, because we had guys saying, 'No, no, no! This is going to collapse at any second.'"
Because the scene was shot in closeup, the actors could not rely on stunt doubles, but instead had to perform the dramatic scene themselves, Bale said. "Liam and me would look at each other and be like, 'All right, do we carry on or not?'" he said. "I think it added that extra sense of urgency and tension to the scene. It was nice. And that was the very first day of shooting."
Batman Begins, which also stars Katie Holmes, Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy and Gary Oldman, opened June 15.
Batman Has A New Suit
ast and crew of the Batman Begins movie told SCI FI Wire that the new Batsuit represented a major step forward: It not only had to make sense storywise, but it also had to be practical and comfortable for star Christian Bale. "The previous Batman costume you could hardly move in," producer Charles Roven said in an interview. "You couldn't turn your head. The design was that it had to be formidable, and every part of his costume has functionality. He had to be athletic and move around in [it]. This is the first Batman where the cape has been used to the extent that it has in so many different ways. ... The outfit is more fabric-[like]. There are no nipples."
No nipples indeed. Joel Schumacher's Batman movies were lambasted in part because of the nipples designed into the superhero's armored chest. This time around, costume designer Lindy Hemming molded a neoprene undersuit, like a wetsuit, to make the costume flexible. The cowl, the all-important headpiece for Batman, was figured out by director Christopher Nolan, Hemming and sculptor Julian Murray to allow for more movement and still keep a distinctive panther-like silhouette. And the cape had to be impressive and flowing, but not unwieldy.
It still took three people to dress Bale in the impressive black outfit. To make the costume more comfortable, plastic tubes were used to cool off the suit inside.
Bale said that he never took advantage of the cooling system in the suit. "It was a really nice thought of theirs to have these kinds of cooling tubes and things running down the back, but it was just a little bit too [hard to make work]," he said in a separate interview. "I'd have to go over and hook myself up. And I would rather just feel free and walk around. They'd stick hair dryers down the back instead. Yes, it was the most lightweight of all the Batsuits that have been created so far. It had the most mobility as well to it. And it was the most pared-down. We wanted to take it back to the basics and have everything being practical. No nipples or anything like that whatsoever."
The costume wasn't comfortable, but Bale didn't complain. "You get hot," he said. "You sweat, and you get a headache in the cowl. But I'm not going to bitch about it. I'm getting to play Batman!" Batman Begins opened June 15.
Batman Begins Visits New Gotham
atman Begins director Christopher Nolan told SCI FI Wire that the Gotham City he created mixes familiar images of real cities such as New York, Chicago and Hong Kong with obvious nods to the dark futuristic world of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.
Nolan, speaking in an interview, acknowledged that some scenes may resemble the bleak futuristic Los Angeles as depicted in Scott's SF classic film. But he said that the idea was to make Gotham seem dark and dangerous, while still familiar. Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley began designing their vision of Gotham City even as the script was being written.
"It was an unusual process," Nolan said. "But when you take on Batman and all the previous incarnations of the character, whether a film or a TV show or whatever, the look of these things, the design of these things, is very ingrained people's minds. So you have to go to the project with a great deal of confidence that you're able to explain to people what it is you're trying to do. So I thought it very important to discover those things and explore those things in private, before we had to show the studio anything. We needed to have the 'Batman' look designed. We needed to have the look of Gotham designed. We did it in parallel with the screenwriting process. And that worked very well."
Nolan conceived of Gotham as a "New York cubed," and many of the scenes were shot in Chicago streets. The film's major chase scene was shot along the Chicago River in the Loop area on lower Wacker Drive and used a part of the Amstutz highway that was never completed. The Franklin Street Bridge was used for one of the movie's most memorable scenes, when the inmates of Arkham Asylum escape.
Roosevelt Island, just off Manhattan, was the inspiration for the Narrows, the slums of Gotham, as well as some of the walled cities of Kowloon in Hong Kong and the streets of Tokyo, Nolan added.
"I didn't want to be forced into a position sitting there in a big meeting with the studio saying we're going to do an art deco Batman," Nolan said. "We were actually able to figure out more organically what it should be and the things we wanted to get, because we were looking for the textures of today's world. Exaggerated in some ways. A heightened reality, yes. But fundamentally grounded in today's world."
Some of the film's gothic exteriors came from the streets of London, and some of the designs of a claustrophobic city came from photos of walled cities and the comic books of the 1970s. "We looked at the worst slums we could find anywhere in the world and housing projects and created a city that has grown in this almost fungal way," he said.
Nolan added: "I think that Batman, his circumstances, his story, the story of Bruce Wayne coming back, has a lot of noirish elements. It's very related to life in a large city: criminality and the way ... these things impact on people's lives. And it all happens by the framing of Gotham as a great city of the world." Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson, is now playing.
Third Who Season On Tap
ussell T. Davies, the creator of BBC's new Doctor Who TV series, said that a third season has been ordered up, complete with a second Christmas special, the Outpost Gallifrey Web site reported. Davies and BBC executive Jane Tranter added that co-star Billie Piper (Rose) would be in all the episodes of the second season, despite earlier reports to the contrary, but that her participation in the third season was still being discussed, the site reported.
John Barrowman (Capt. Jack) will be returning for the second season, but not in the first block of episodes.
As previously reported, Christopher Eccleseton, who played the title character in the first season, will be replaced with David Tennant in the second season, which kicks off in the United Kingdom in early 2006.
Spielberg Mum On Indy IV
teven Spielberg was coy when asked about the plot for the upcoming fourth installment in the Indiana Jones franchise at the Tokyo debut of his latest film, War of the Worlds, the Associated Press reported. "If I did that, my really good friend and collaborator would have me on a silver platter," Spielberg told the AP, referring to co-producer George Lucas. "I gotta be careful because if I tell you that, he might take over directing Indy 4 himself. And I won't have a job."
At another event, AFI's 33rd life-achievement awards gala honoring Lucas, Spielberg told USA Today that screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (The Terminal, Catch Me if you Can) is close to completion on a final draft of the film, which should be ready by the end of the summer. Variety previously reported that Lucas summoned Nathanson to his Bay Area headquarters to go over the draft, and that he and Spielberg had both given their approval. The AP reported that Spielberg hopes to begin production in 2006, although he already has two other films in the works for that year.
Jackman To Produce Wolverine
ugh Jackman's recently formed Seed Productions has signed a first-look deal with 20th Century Fox, which includes a spinoff film centering on his X-Men character, Wolverine, Variety reported. Jackman and his producing partner, John Palermo, are awaiting a final draft of the script from screenwriter David Benioff (Troy). Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel Comics' Avi Arad will co-executive-produce.
Production on Wolverine won't begin until after the completion of the upcoming third film in the X-Men franchise, the trade paper reported. Of the recent replacement of Matthew Vaughn with Brett Ratner at the helm of X3, Jackman said, "It got to be a roller-coaster ride there, but I wasn't worried because the script is so strong. ... Brett has come in with a lot of enthusiasm and full understanding of the franchise." X3 is still scheduled for release in May of 2006.
Romero Ready With More Dead
eorge A. Romero, who returns after two decades to the genre he created with the upcoming zombie film Land of the Dead, told SCI FI Wire that the movie may mark the beginning of a new round of Dead films. "I mean, if this opens strong, I might be in a situation where I have to do another one of these or will be asked to do another one of these right away," writer/director Romero said in a news conference. "In which case I've sort of left the characters, you know, the truck and those characters, [intact]. I'd want to almost make it chapter two of the same movie, if that happens, and just sort of finish the story."
In Land of the Dead, Romero picks up the story of an America overrun with walking dead, which he last visited in 1985's Day of the Dead, the third movie in a trilogy that began with 1968's Night of the Living Dead. In Land of the Dead, Simon Baker plays Riley, the leader of a group of guns-for-hire who help sustain a walled city, one of the last remaining outposts of living humans. Romero says he has ideas for more films using the same characters, which include a feisty female warrior played by Asia Argento.
"I have an idea of ... how to go with it, and I would think of it in my mind as almost one film," Romero said. "If I had to do it like next year. Unless we get nuked or something and there's something else to talk about."
If a Land of the Dead sequel happens, it might affect Romero's ability to contribute a short film to Mick Garris' upcoming Masters of Horror anthology series for Showtime, he added. "If that happens, I may not be able to do the Masters of Horror. And I've been so tied up on this thing that I haven't been able to write a script for it. Mick sent me a couple of scripts. A couple of them are pretty nice. So I'm still hoping that I can get a couple of weeks and be able to do that. But I have a couple of other things that we're working on. Again, everything would get trumped if they want to do a sequel to this."
For his part, Baker confirmed that he's got an option to reprise the role of Riley in a Land of the Dead sequel. Land of the Dead opens June 24.
Lohan: Party Days In The Past
indsay Lohan, star of Disney's upcoming Herbie: Fully Loaded, told SCI FI Wire that last year, in which she garnered attention for hard-partying ways, was like her first year away at college, but she added that she's putting all that behind her. "My last year was the year I would've been in college, for my first year, so I kind of experienced going out all the time and hanging out with these people and never really going to clubs and learning about it, through that year," Lohan, who turns 19 on July 2, said in an interview. "And then I kind of got over it really fast. But they continued to say I still do it, so there's really nothing I can do at this point. I just don't want people to think that I'm not focused and I'm not in this for the right reasons. I don't want them to be misunderstood about the kind of person that I am."
In her third remake for Disney, Lohan stars in Herbie: Fully Loaded with Michael Keaton, Matt Dillon, Justin Long and Breckin Meyer. She said she always intended to go to college, but now that her career has taken off, she may not go anytime soon. "I always wanted to go to college, and I wanted to study entertainment law, actually," Lohan said. "But, you know, I'm in a position right now where I feel like this is what I want to do. So to put this aside to start something new could be a lot right now. I wouldn't cancel it out, but first I'd like to get into producing." Herbie: Fully Loaded opens June 22.
Herbie Used 37 VW Bugs
ngela Robinson, director of Herbie: Fully Loaded, told SCI FI Wire that she used 37 vintage Volkswagen beetles to portray the title car, a VW with a mind of its own. "There were 37 '63 VW bugs," Robinson said in an interview. "I have dibs on one. He's on tour right now."
Robinson used actual cars to avoid computer-generated imagery as much as possible in the Disney film, as in the movie's inspiration, 1969's The Love Bug. "The charm and character of him in the original movie was because he was kind of low-fi in a way," she said. "That was just his character. We built four animatronic Herbies so that he could do his expressions and go up on his hydraulics and kind of create a repertoire of emotions. There were four puppeteers controlling him, and we used CG effects for the more spectacular stunts."
Filmmakers nicknamed some of the cars: Junkyard Herbie, Street Racer Herbie and Demolition Derby Herbie. All were given an initial makeover by production designer Daniel Bradford. There was even a casualty: NASCAR Herbie. "They were testing the NASCAR Herbie out on the track one day, and I looked over, and there's just this plume of gray smoke coming out of the car," Robinson said with a laugh. "And they were like, 'We're going to have to go back to the drawing board.'"
Robinson recalls seeing the original Love Bug on TV as a child. "I have a visceral memory of seeing it," she said. "My mom was cooking dinner. I think it was on The Wonderful World of Disney. It was a Sunday night, and I went outside to my parent's car, and I thought it would be alive. I was tremendously disappointed. I was trying to get it to communicate with me." Herbie: Fully Loaded opens June 22.
Photogs Hassled Herbie's Lohan
indsay Lohan, who was slightly injured recently in an auto accident involving a photographer, told SCI FI Wire that paparazzi even hassled her on the set of her upcoming family film Herbie: Fully Loaded, despite security and a full-time guard.
"It was scary," Lohan said. "I'm just happy my little sister wasn't with me, because she loves it. She pokes her head out the window and smiles at them."
While filming Herbie, director Angela Robinson said that a tabloid photographer came on set posing as an extra in a crowd scene. "We had a few incidents," she said. "It was so bizarre. I never encountered anything like that. On some of our larger sets a lot of the scenes had hundreds of extras, so they'd kind of slip in and mill about as extras, I suppose. Once we were towing [Lohan] in Herbie, and we saw this car come in afterwards. I was like, 'Hey, is that ours?' It never occurred to me that it would be paparazzi. We had to chase them down and go after them and stuff."
Robinson said Lohan always sensed when the intruders were around. "She has a tremendous eye for them," Robinson said. "She'd be like, 'Who's that guy?' And he'd whip out a camera and start flashing pictures."
Lohan's on-screen boyfriend, Justin Long, went out with her and friends to clubs. "It was fun, because there was no line, and I got to sit at the cool table with the cool kids," he said. "But it's such a part of Lindsay's life that I think she's so much more in tune with their presence. She would point them out to me sometimes, and I'd say 'What?' 'Over there.' And, sure enough, in the distance, there they were. It was disconcerting."
Long added: "There was a scene where we were driving Herbie down the street, and they shut down the neighborhood. But they find a way of getting in. It's kind of fascinating. They're really nimble, I noticed, those paparazzi. They were running between these buildings and running down the alleys. The car was going 15 or 20 miles an hour, and they ran over all sweating with the long lenses taking pictures. She's so adjusted to it. I was freaked out."
Matt Dillon, who was a teen heartthrob harangued by the press in the 1980s, said the pressure on the set was never as bad as now. "It's a lot harder now," he said. "I think it's worse. I had a little bit of that, and it was always frustrating that people didn't take you seriously. But Lindsay can handle it. I think she could have a really great career in the future, as long as she doesn't get too far off the track." Herbie: Fully Loaded opens June 22.
Herbie To Talk On DVD
erbie, the sentient Volskwagen from Herbie: Fully Loaded, will have a commentary track of his own on the future DVD edition of the Disney movie, director Angela Robinson told SCI FI Wire. She added that even before the movie is released this month, Robinson and the cast have done their DVD commentaries. "It was strange," she said in an interview. "We finished the movie last Wednesday, and the next day we [started on] the DVD. There will be some deleted scenes."
The DVD will feature a subplot that was completely excised from the theatrical release, centering on Lindsay Lohan's character's brother, played by Breckin Meyer. In the subplot, Meyer plays a bad race-car driver who really wanted to be a drummer. "He was hiding his secret and didn't want his father [Michael Keaton] to know, but it just took away too much from the rest of the story and the car," Robinson said.
The DVD will also include more romantic scenes between Lohan as the wannabe racer Maggie and her mechanic boyfriend Kevin, played by Justin Long. "We'll show those romantic scenes," Robinson said. "We found the romance between Kevin and Maggie worked better with less. You can tell in the montage that they had googly eyes for each other. You didn't need it."
Among the other DVD extras are behind-the-scenes featurettes and cast insights—not to mention a cameo by Robinson herself. "You can spot me leaping when Herbie goes up on the fence, and the camera is panning around, and you see someone jumping up in alarm," she said. "That would be me." Herbie: Fully Loaded opens June 22.
Herbie's Lohan Wants A Whip
indsay Lohan, who stars in the upcoming Disney fantasy film Herbie: Fully Loaded, told SCI FI Wire that she finds doing Disney remakes a "nerve-wracking" experience, because she's never sure if the audience who saw the original will like her in the remake.
In 1998 Lohan starred as twins in a remake of the 1961 film The Parent Trap, and in 2003 she starred in Freaky Friday, which originally was made in 1976. On June 22, Lohan revives the lovable Volkswagen of 1968's The Love Bug in Herbie: Fully Loaded.
"Well, Disney gave me my opportunity to follow what I wanted to do in life, which I owe a lot to them, and they've been really good to me," Lohan said. She added: "I felt kind of safe with them. And, you know, it's always nerve-wracking, because you don't know what the people are going to think from the generation that saw the movie originally, and you want to [live] up to the expectations that they'll have of the new one."
Lohan said, "I have to trust Disney in the sense that they keep the elements from the original movie, and then they just update it to how the times are now, which is great. And they keep it young and fun for kids, and they make it appealing to all ages."
What would Lohan like to remake next? Not another Disney project, she said. "There are movies I'd like to remake," she said. "One's very random: Kitten With a Whip," the 1964 crime thriller. That film starred Ann-Margret as a crazed juvenile delinquent who stabs people, starts fires and kidnaps a politician. "I've met Ann-Margret, and I'm a big fan of hers," Lohan said. "I've met her a few times now, which I feel really cool saying. And she's so incredible. She's still so sexy, and she's amazing."
In the meantime, Lohan is promoting her G-rated Herbie: Fully Loaded, which co-stars Michael Keaton, Matt Dillon, Breckin Meyer and Justin Long.
Meyer Tinkers On Robot Chicken
reckin Meyer told SCI FI Wire that he's having a blast working with pal and fellow actor Seth Green on his Cartoon Network stop-action animated show, Robot Chicken. "It's great to watch Seth be all serious and official while we're doing it," Meyer said in an interview. "I mean, we go way back, so I don't take him seriously at all, especially when he gives me directions."
Robot Chicken is a quarter-hour series consisting of brief, animated satiric vignettes, many voiced by well-known actors such as Meyer. Meyer and Green worked together in both Josie and the Pussycats and Can't Hardly Wait, which were co-directed by Meyer's wife, Deborah Kaplan. Green and Meyer were also in Rat Race, where Green discovered Meyer's wry sense of humor. Meyer is joining the writing team of Robot Chicken in its second season. "The show doesn't have a robot or a chicken, but we're having a great time making fun of everything we can make fun of," Meyer said. "We're getting away with a lot."
Robot Chicken spoofs supervillains and washed-up TV personalities and pokes fun at everything from Quentin Tarantino movies to Star Trek. Meyer is a common voice on the show, having appeared in half a dozen episodes. Guest voices have included Macaulay Culkin, Burt Reynolds, Mark Hamill, Scarlett Johannson, Ryan Seacrest, Ashton Kutcher, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard and Ming-Na.
"When you're working with friends, it's a whole different thing," Meyer said. "It's such a blast, and you're comfortable. You don't worry about what the director is going to think. With Seth, he directs all the recording sessions, and he'll say, 'Uh, that's pretty good. Can you do it again and you bring it down a little bit?' And I'm like, 'You can go f--k yourself!' We have fun. It's about kids that have watched way too many movies. Sneaking into way too many movies, that's what it's all about." New episodes of Robot Chicken air Sundays as part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. Meyer will also appear alongside Lindsay Lohan in Herbie: Fully Loaded, which opens June 22.
3-D Adventures Not So Hot
he Robert Rodriguez-directed family film The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D debuted in a disappointing fifth place at the box office with an opening total of $12.5 million for the weekend of June 10, the Associated Press reported. Another family film, Howl's Moving Castle, the latest animated feature from Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away), opened strongly in limited release, taking in $401,000 in 36 theaters for an average $11,139 per screen.
Madagascar, which topped the box office last weekend, slipped to second place with $17.1 million, raising its total domestic gross to $128.4 million. Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith was third in its fourth week with $14.9 million, lifting its total to a stellar $332.1 million. Despite a $51 million opening for the first-place film, the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie vehicle Mr. and Mrs. Smith, overall ticket sales dropped for a 16th consecutive week compared to last year, the trade papers reported.
Academics Examine Superheroes
bout 200 academics converged in Australia for an academic conference on superheroes entitled "Holy Men in Tights," sponsored by the University of Melbourne June 9-12. "The superhero has been a persistent theme in American popular culture since the 1930s," keynote speaker Henry Jenkins III, professor and head of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in an interview. "During this time, these characters have continued to be re-framed and re-invented, reflecting shifting notions of what constitutes a hero. The surprise is not that academics are studying superheroes; the real question is why it has taken so long for serious research on this topic to emerge."
The conference featured the presentation of papers covering themes of gender identity, mythology and ethics. An example: Russell Blackford's paper, "Anthropomorphic Superbeings and Future Societies," attempted to "ground a conception of ethical and political philosophy in an Aristotelian account of what it means to be human." John Lenarcic of RMIT University (formerly the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), meanwhile, presented a paper on "Computer Ethics through Superhero Comics." "It was interesting to see the take on comics as metaphors to explain the human condition," Lenarcic said.
The conference concluded with a costume ball. "Who says you can't mix work and fun?" Jenkins asked.
Van Belkom Bit Into Wolf
anadian SF and fantasy author Edo van Belkom, whose novel Wolf Pack has been nominated for the Prix Aurora Award, told SCI FI Wire that it was a dream to write. "I've always wanted to write a YA [young adult] book, and after I did my two YA horror anthologies [Be Afraid! and Be VERY Afraid!, the latter of which won him an Aurora for editing] for Tundra books, they were kind enough to allow me the chance to try a full-length young adult novel with Wolf Pack," he said in an interview. "I hope the book entertains young readers, and I think the way it's written and the story itself is a real alternative to other YA material out there."
Wolf Pack follows a pack of wolves that are part canine and part human. After the pack is found by a forest ranger and his wife in the aftermath of a devastating forest fire, the young wolves try to fit into the human world, but have great difficulties during adolescence. One wolf is kidnapped, forcing the others to draw on both their human and canine sides to do what it takes and rescue her.
Beside his editing Aurora, van Belkom previously won in 1999 for his short story "Hockey's Night in Canada." He has yet to take home the prize in the top category, though he's been nominated three previous times, for Death Drives a Semi (collection), Martyrs and Teeth. His next chance will come during the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association's Westercon 58 in Calgary July 1-4. "I've been a bridesmaid many more than just three times, probably closer to 23 now, so it's always frustrating to place second, but that just makes a win so much sweeter," he said.
Next up for van Belkom is the sequel to is nominated work, Lone Wolf. It will be released in October.
Amendola Soldiers On In SG-1
ony Amendola, who plays Master Bra'tac on SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1, told SCI FI Wire that he's thrilled the show is coming back for a ninth season. "Season nine, go figure," Amendola said in an interview. "I'm completely shocked."
Amendola has played the Jaffa elder, a recurring character, since season one. "These shows are supposed to have a seven-year arc," he said. "They start. They spread. They're enjoyed by people. And by around the fifth year the audience starts narrowing again, and then they're complete. Stargate is unusual, because it started on Showtime, then went into syndication, and then it just exploded on SCI FI. And, really, it hasn't narrowed yet. The numbers are still there. And with the cast changes, it's almost become like Law and Order, which just keeps going."
Amendola, a veteran character actor, added that his character, a mentor to Teal'c (Christopher Judge), will appear several times during year nine. "Last season, primarily, our enemy had been destroyed," he said. "The war essentially ended. And now it's a question of how do you make the peace? And how do you make the peace when you've be warring with each other, as factions, for thousands of years and only came together to defeat a common enemy? Now that the enemy is gone, how do you maintain the peace? How do you create a governance? It's very timely. I've already gone up to Vancouver and done two episodes, and the scripts were excellent. And I'll be going up again in August to do some more work." Stargate SG-1 returns July 15 and will air Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, followed by Stargate Atlantis at 9 and Battlestar Galactica at 10.
Cameron Readies 3-D SF Films
irector James Cameron has said his next film, starting in December, will be Battle Angel, a 3-D movie based on the Japanese manga, but it may also be a parallel project tentatively titled Project 880, sources at Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment told The Hollywood Reporter. Both films would be shot in 3-D with custom-designed high-definition cameras. Cameron also plans to use a photo-real version of the performance capture technology used by Robert Zemeckis on The Polar Express, the trade paper reported.
Battle Angel is based on Yukito Kishiro's 12 popular Japanese graphic novels about a nymphette who morphs into an action heroine. As for Project 880, Lightstorm would not reveal a final title or storyline.
Aldiss Honored With OBE
ritish SF author Brian W. Aldiss, whose short story provided the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence, was honored June 11 with the Order of the British Empire as part of the Queen's Birthday Honours, according to a report on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. Aldiss was honored as a writer and for his services to literature.
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is awarded mainly to civilians and service personnel for public service or other distinctions.
Since the publication of "Criminal Record" in Science Fantasy in 1954, Aldiss has written more than 40 novels and 300 short stories, as well as poetry and critical works, the site reported. A resident of the United Kingdom, Aldiss has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, British Science Fiction Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He was honored as SFWA Grand Master in 1999, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Sunburst Short List Announced
short list has been published for the 2005 Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, according to a report on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Web site. The juried award is presented annually and consists of a cash prize of $1,000 and a hand-crafted medallion. The award will be presented Oct. 5 as part of the Harbourfront Reading Series in Toronto. The complete short list follows.
Sunburst Award: The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Memory Artists by Jeffrey Moore, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, Air by Geoff Ryman, The Logogryph by Thomas Wharton
Lost Eden Is Not The End
erri Perkins, product manager at Funcom, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming release of Lost Eden will not mark the end of the line for the popular Anarchy Online series of video games.
"Originally the storyline was designed to go on for four years and encompass four games," Perkins said in an interview. "But about two years into it, we came to the conclusion that this is not going to end in four years. There's still a lot of story left to tell. Because this is a science-fiction universe, there is no set date when everything has to end."
Lost Eden picks up the ongoing battle between The Clan and the evil Omni-Tek 30,000 years in the future on the planet Rubi-Ka, where cooler heads try for a peaceful end to this long-running conflict. Perkins said that Lost Eden will expand gameplay possibilities with level-based battle stations in player-vs.-player battles, as well as the ability to control and become Transformer-like Mechs. The game will also feature advanced experience rewards, special attacks and special attack bonuses.
"One of the new elements in Lost Eden is casual player-vs.-player battles," Perkins said. "Previous games included long, epic battles that could take weeks or months. Lost Eden is a move toward fast gameplay, which gives the casual player something to do."
Perkins said that Anarchy Online's success can be attributed to a large word-of-mouth contingent that has been attracted to the challenging learning curve. To date, players from more than 200 countries regularly log on to play. Which is why Perkins sees no end in sight. "We do have an end to the Anarchy Online story, but there are so many twists and turns along the way that we're still quite a ways from the end," she said. "As it stands now, there is no end in sight." Lost Eden will be released this winter for the PC.
Cast Wooed For Beowulf
olumbia Pictures is negotiating with Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Brendan Gleeson and Robin Wright Penn to star in director Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf, a film based on the classic Anglo-Saxon epic poem, Variety reported. The performance-capture film, about a knight who slays a monster and becomes king, is being financed by Steve Bing's Shangri-La Entertainment, the trade paper reported.
Winstone and his co-stars would be committing to a process that is more like a regular movie than the voice-over work commonly done for 3-D animated films, the trade paper reported. Zemeckis pioneered the technique in his The Polar Express and the recently completed summer 2006 release Monster House. The actors perform their roles, which get processed through a computerized motion capture animation process.
Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman adapted Beowulf, with Zemeckis and his ImageMovers partners Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke producing.
Gypsies Is Bold As Love
ritish SF author Gwyneth Jones's newest novel, Band of Gypsies (or Band of Gypsys in her homeland), is the fourth book in her award-winning Bold as Love saga, and Jones told SCI FI Wire that she's writing the series for her generation, which grew up on rock and roll. "Remember how [Lord of the Rings author J.R.R.] Tolkien came back from the trenches of World War I and said he wanted to write a mythical story for his friends, for those times?" she asked in an interview. "I've always sort of wanted to do the same for my rather less grim but still stirring, highly charged times, my pop culture. And this is it."
The Bold as Love series follows a small group of independent rock stars who take on leadership roles, first in a period of social and political upheaval in England and then globally. It's set in the near future and includes romance, horror, magic and music. The first book, Bold as Love, won the Arthur C. Clarke award for 2001.
"It's about the importance of rock music and the whole phenomenon of the entertainment industry," Jones said. "There's a strand about celebrity culture: My indie stars start out as idealistic young hopefuls with an ambivalent attitude to fame and fortune. Of course, they long to be famous. Of course, they feel fame is shallow, and commercial success means you sold out. Then they become more famous than they could have imagined, but it's not really about the music anymore. And there's a strand about future/present history: bringing fantasy stories into the real and really strange world of today."
In the latest book, Ax Preston returns to England to become Green president, only to object to some of the contract terms. He's certain he can negotiate a better deal. Meanwhile, U.S. President Fred Eiffrich's enemies are about to do something dramatic that will shatter any hope of returning to former realities. Characters Sage Pender and Fiorinda Slater also return.
Jones recently won the Philip K. Dick Award for her novel Life. She next will appear stateside teaching at the SF writers' workshop at Clarion East in East Lansing, Mich., June 26 to July 2.
No Ferrell, But Elf 2 Progresses
ill Ferrell hasn't yet signed to star, but New Line is already making preparations for a sequel to Ferrell's hit fantasy comedy film Elf, Variety reported. The studio has signed Old School and Starsky & Hutch writer Scot Armstrong to start work on Elf 2; he did an uncredited rewrite on the original Elf, which grossed $173 million in its 2003 release, the trade paper reported.
The studio is believed to have an understanding with Ferrell that gives it confidence to continue with the project, though there's no deal with the actor yet and the movie doesn't have a green light, the trade paper reported.
Ghost House Eyes Monkey's Paw
am Raimi's Ghost House Pictures will develop the horror family film Monkey's Paw, based on a pitch from writers Dave Kajganich and Tom McAlister, for Raimi and partner Rob Taper to produce, Variety reported. Paw centers on a father who brings home an artifact rumored to make any wish come true, with strings attached.
Ghost House produced The Grudge and is a partnership among Raimi, Taper and Mandate Pictures. Ghost House is producing Paw with Kustom Entertainment chief Tom Lassally and Kustom's Robyn Meisinger, the trade paper reported.
Felicity's Russell Joins M:I 3
eri Russell has joined the cast of Paramount's Mission: Impossible 3, reuniting the actor with director J.J. Abrams, whose Felicity TV show first brought Russell widespread acclaim, Variety reported. Russell will portray a trainee agent mentored by Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt character in the movie, which is set to begin shooting July 18 in Italy. Russell steps into the role that had been slated for Scarlett Johansson before the film was delayed and scheduling conflicts forced Johansson to drop out.
Paramount officially gave the green light to M:I 3 last week. Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner are producing.
Russell joins a cast that includes Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the trade paper reported.
Forsythe Nails Hammerhead
illiam Forsythe, who stars in the SCI FI Channel original movie Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy, told SCI FI Wire that he was a late addition to the cast, having replaced another actor at the 11th hour. Forsythe, whose credits include TV's John Doe and the SCI FI Channel movie Larva, stars alongside Star Trek veteran Jeffrey Combs in the offbeat adventure. Hammerhead follows a group of people (including Forsythe and Hunter Tylo) trapped on a tropical island and preyed on by a man-shark who has a link with a vengeful scientist (Combs). "Well, this film came together faster than anything else I think I've ever done," Forsythe said in an interview. "I literally got a phone call at something like 10 o'clock in the morning. I was in New York, and I was asleep."
Forsythe added: "My agent said, 'I don't know how to say this, but pack your bag. You may be leaving for Bulgaria today. I'm going to get the script over to you right now.' So it was a very quick, strange thing. I got the script within the hour and read it."
Forsythe said he jumped at the opportunity. "I really like doing SF," he said. "I really like it, and it's only in the past couple of years that I've done it. So I said, 'OK, Bulgaria. Let's go.' That was the quickest decision I've ever made in my life." Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy premiered June 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Cursed DVD Promises Bloodier Cut
atrick Lussier, editor of the Wes Craven werewolf movie Cursed, told SCI FI Wire that the forthcoming DVD promises to show all of the material that was excised in order to win a PG-13 rating for the theatrical release. "Just before the movie was finished, the studio decided they wanted to build a PG-13 cut, so there was a substantial cut-down to get the film down to a PG-13," Lussier said in an interview. "The sequences of gore and tension and mayhem had to be removed. The ending of the PG-13 was really kind of truncated and emasculated, where the ending of the R is very aggressive in terms of what you see and how it works."
Lussier said that putting together a cut from different versions of a basic story proved to be a tough challenge once he began editing the film. "We had to really analyze the material not in the context of the movie that was, but the movie that might be," Lussier said. "You always had to be saying 'OK, this could now work like this' or 'This could now connect to a scene like that.' So that was always an interesting challenge. We were all on the film for a very long time, because of the studio wanting to try various different things. So through that process we had lots of time to experiment and kind of deconstruct the movie in a variety of ways."
Lussier also said that the unrated cut restores more footage from different versions of the film, including extra gore. Production started on one version of the film, then was shut down while the script was radically rewritten and the film was recast before resuming production.
"In the R version, Shannon Elizabeth gets ripped in half, flips over and crawls and dies weakly," he said. He added: "There's probably 15 or 20 minutes from the very original version, from what we always called the 'Skeet Ulrich version,' because he was of course the most absent person from the final version," Lussier said. "The opening scene on the pier was originally a scene with Shannon Elizabeth and Skeet Ulrich, and if you actually look at some of the shots, we just looped it, but she's actually calling for Vince, who is the Skeet Ulrich character, and that scene actually went in the middle of the film." Cursed comes out on DVD June 21.
Moore Mulls Children of Men
ulianne Moore is in negotiations to star opposite Clive Owen in the Alfonso Cuaron-helmed SF movie Children of Men, Variety reported. Strike Entertainment is producing the adaptation of P.D. James' novel for Universal Pictures, with an eye to a September production start.
Children would wrap in time for Moore to move over to another SF movie, Next, in which she will co-star with Nicolas Cage for Revolution Studios.
Children of Men is a dystopian story set in the near future in a world where people have lost the ability to have children, the trade paper reported.
Moore's character is the first woman to become pregnant in nearly 20 years. Owen is enlisted to protect her after the death of the Earth's youngest person, age 18, the trade paper reported.
Next is aiming for either a late 2005 or early 2006 start. Based on a Philip K. Dick story, about a man who can see his own future, Next will be helmed by Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day).
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Wilson Flying To Super Ex
uke Wilson is in negotiations to star in Super Ex for Regency Enterprises, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Ivan Reitman (Evolution) is on board to direct the film, which is being produced by Gavin Polone from a script by Don Payne, an Emmy winner as writer and co-executive producer of The Simpsons, the trade paper reported.
Super Ex centers on a man who finds out that the woman he is dating is a superhero; she decides to use her powers against him after he breaks up with her for being too controlling and neurotic, the trade paper reported.
Warner Gets Absolute Angels
arner Brothers has picked up the teenage horror-comedy spec script Absolute Angels, written by Genevieve Jolliffe and Andrew Zinnes, for Jolliffe to helm in her U.S. directorial debut and first studio deal, Variety reported. The film concerns a lonely goth girl who gets invited to join the high school cheerleading team only to learn the cheerleaders are actually a pack of vampires.
Mosaic's Alex Gartner and Chuck Roven will produce.
Jolliffe, who comes from London, wrote and directed Urban Ghost Story, which was nominated for British Independent Film awards for director and film in 1998.
EverQuest: Darkhollow Coming
ony Online Entertainment announced EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow, a new expansion pack for the hit PC massively multiplayer online role-playing game. EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow is slated to have a suggested retail price of $29.99; no release date was announced.
Darkhollow will feature new lands, a new storyline and fierce new creatures, including Sporali, Clockwork Gnomes and Werewolves. For the first time ever, gamers will have the ability to play as a monster and experience the universe through the eyes of Norrath's most powerful creatures. Players will also be able to use Spirit Shrouds to assume the form of a lower-level creature to join newbie friends in battle.
Ditmar Awards Presented
he 2005 Australian National Science Fiction Achievement Awards, or Ditmar Awards, were presented at Thylacon, the 44th Australian National Science Fiction Convention, on June 11 in Hobart, Tasmania, according to a report on SF writer Jonathan Strahan's Notes From Coode Street Web site. A list of winners follows.
Best Novel: The Crooked Letter by Sean Williams
Best Collected Work: Black Juice by Margo Lanagan
Best Novella/Novelette: "The Last Days of Kali Yuga" by Paul Haines
Best Short Story: "Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan
Best Professional Artwork: Kerri Valkova for the cover to The Black Crusade
Best Professional Achievement: Clarion South committee
Fan Achievement: Conflux convention committee
Fan Artist: Sarah Xu
Fanzine: The Bullsheet, Edwina Harvey and Ted Scribner, eds.
Fan Writer: Bruce Gillespie
Best New Talent: Paul Haines
Non-Ditmar awards were also presented. They are listed below.
William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review (tie): Robert Hood, for his review of Weight of Water and Jason Nahrung for "Why are publishers afraid of horror?"
The Peter McNamara Achievement Award: Jonathan Strahan
Lasky's Ga'Hoole Optioned
arner Brothers has acquired film rights to Kathryn Lasky's children's fantasy series Guardians of Ga'Hoole and set it up as a computer-animated film, with Donald De Line producing, Variety reported.
Lasky's seven-book series revolves around a parallel universe featuring a cast of owls and magic transformations. The first book begins with a young barn owl being pushed out of his family's nest by his older brother and then being rescued by agents from a mysterious school for orphaned owls, the trade paper reported. Lasky will write the screenplay and executive-produce.
Lussier Restores Dracula's Luster
atrick Lussier, writer and director of the upcoming straight-to-video sequel Dracula III: Legacy, told SCI FI Wire that he based the story on the lineage of the title character as well as the locations where production took place. "The character of Dracula is so timeless, and in [Bram] Stoker's book you know so little about him, so it's really easy to attach whatever you want to him," Lussier said in an interview. "He can get anything, can have anything, can do anything he wants, and now he's waiting for the challenge. He's [retreated] back to Romania, where we were going to be sent to shoot, so that's why we came up with the story to be set there."
Lussier, who directed Dracula 2000, said that the sequel offered him the opportunity to create new characters and expand his mythology in a modern setting. "When we first started doing Dracula 2000, it was obviously a challenge to try and update it in a way that wasn't overly goofy, although some might argue that we were or were not successful," Lussier said. "In subsequent adventures, we really wanted to expand on some of the original ideas we weren't able to put into that film, [like] Jason Scott Lee's character, a kind of tormented vampire hunter. He was written out [of Dracula 2000] because the studio said he was too cool, but when it came time to do a sequels they really wanted [to use] him as kind of 'where we left off' with the character and trying to figure out a way to get into him."
Lussier added that his version of Dracula plays upon the ambiguity in Stoker's original book and incorporates other interpretations of the character that have developed since his creation "He's this mythic figure that represents immortality, life, death, sex, all of those things. So it's a matter of finding an enigmatic character that can do that and have these kind of magical powers that everybody would like to have," he said. "Either you're trying to be him or you're desperate to kill him because secretly you want to be him. The character is just so enduring for a reason."
Lussier said that he and collaborator Joel Soisson (Hellraiser: Hellseeker) deliberately attempted to play off of Dracula's history to create a thoroughly modern tale of terror. "In the second Dracula, we kind of treated him as a science project, like his name is not even mentioned," Lussier said. "In the third one, it's very much: 'How do you update the character that has been filmed more than any other?' Our heroes have to venture across this landscape to find him, so we really walked into this Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now kind of story, that Drac is basically suffering from the ennui of the age." Dracula III: Legacy will come out on DVD on July 12.
Briefly Noted
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War of the Worlds star Tom Cruise has asked Batman Begins star Katie Holmes to marry him on June 17 and appeared with Holmes at a Paris news conference to announce the engagement, the Reuters news service reported.
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Batman Begins took in $15 million domestically from 3,718 theaters on its June 15 opening day, the Hollywood trade papers reported.
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Japanese director Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) is interested in helming a movie version of Tim Curran's H.P. Lovecraft-inspired book The Hive, Bloody-Disgusting.com reported.
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Players of the massive multiplayer online game City of Heroes have organized an event in which participants are invited to create a character based on the Oompa Loompas from the upcoming fantasy remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
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New clips from the upcoming Bewitched film and the latest full-length trailer for Fantastic Four have been linked through SCI FI Wire's Trailers page.
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Warner Brothers has posted a new Web site for Corpse Bride, Tim Burton's upcoming stop-motion animated fantasy film, which opens Sept. 23.
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The Los Angeles Times reported spoilers for ABC's second season of Lost from a fan convention in L.A. over the weekend.
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Lions Gate Films is reteaming with Cabin Fever producer Lauren Moews on Zev Berman's crime thriller Borderland, a tale of three Texas college seniors whose graduation trip to a Mexican border town turns into a nightmare when they run into an ancient human-sacrifice cult, Variety reported.
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Lane Smith, who played editor Perry White on TV's Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, has died after a long battle with ALS, the Superman Homepage reported.
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A Netherlands-based player who calls himself "King Tuur" was crowned the world champion in Microsoft's "Xbox Live Halo 2" tournament, triumphing over 50,000 Halo 2 players worldwide in Xbox Live's first-ever global competition, the company said.
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New Line is bringing in Jonathan Hensleigh to rewrite and direct Darksiders, a movie that revolves around a group of vampires who become special operatives for the FBI, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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George Lucas said that fan-favorite villain Boba Fett may be included in his live-action Star Wars TV series, which is in the works, USA Today reported.
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Germany's Constantin Film and its genre production company, Paul W.S. Anderson and Jeremy Bolt's Impact Pictures, are preparing for a fourth installment of their successful Resident Evil franchise before the third film in the series has even begun shooting, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning are jetting around the world for a series of premieres for War of the Worlds, starting June 13 in Tokyo, followed by Berlin; Marseilles, France; London; Madrid; and New York.
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Jonathan Hensleigh (The Punisher) has been hired by New Line Cinema to write and direct the supernatural thriller Darksiders, about a band of vampires who become special operatives for the FBI.
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