Watchmen director Zack Snyder has posted the first look at the five main cast members in costume on his production blog. The images include The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) and Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman).
The highly anticipated film, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, is set to open on March 6, 2009, exactly a year from the date of Snyder's post.
"Being a fan that follows production blogs, I know that the time a film is in post can often seem like an eternity with interesting bits of information few and far between," Snyder wrote. "So to help pass the time, here is your first look at some of the Watchmen characters."
Butler Voices Watchmen's Freighter
Gerard Butler confirmed to Empire Magazine that he will lend his voice to Tales of the Black Freighter, the comic-within-a-movie that is part of Watchmen, the superhero film being directed by Butler's 300 helmer Zack Snyder.
The Scottish actor had been linked with a role in Watchmen for a long time, but when nothing materialized, it seemed likely that he wouldn't appear in the highly anticipated film, based on the seminal graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
But Snyder hatched plans to film Tales of the Black Freighter, which tells the tale of a castaway's mental and physical deterioration and damnation as he tries to intercept a ghost freighter headed for his hometown, and include it on the Watchmen DVD as an extra. Butler's name surfaced once more.
"I'm going to do the voice of the captain," Butler told the magazine. "They're going to do it in the style of a Japanese anime, and I'm totally stoked. I actually read the script before reading the comic book, and I thought it was awesome. Then I read the comic book, and it's great. The little bits that have been added define it so much more. It's very dark, and there's just something so descriptive and scary. It's this descent into madness but explained in such a sane way that you totally feel it yourself. By the end, my heart was pumping!" Watchmen is slated to open March 6, 2009.
Tamura Offers Heroes Spoiler
Japanese actress Eriko Tamura, who played the 16th-century love interest of Hiro (Masi Oka) on NBC's Heroes last season, offered SCI FI Wire a few spoilers about what's next for her character as the show readies itself for a third season.
Tamura said that her character, Taeko, was supposed to be transported to the present in episodes that were scripted but not finished before the writers' strike commenced last fall. "I am going to be in the present, yes," Tamura said in an interview.
"I actually had a few episodes of the script then," Tamura said, adding: "Suddenly, the strike happened, so we had to stop the shooting."
Tamura added that she expects to return to the show for the upcoming third season, which begins production in May.
"We are not to that point where they think about the storylines yet ... because of the strike," Tamura said.
Taeko appeared last season in episodes in which Hiro, transported to medieval Japan, falls in love with her as he pursues a mission to save Japan. Heroes returns in the fall. --Patrick Lee, News Editor
Empire Is Wire's Most Neglected
SCI FI Wire readers overwhelmingly selected Star Wars: Episode V--The Empire Strikes Back as the movie most neglected for being left off the American Film Institute's list of the 50 best SF movies of all time.
Some 24 percent of the responses for the top 10 most neglected movies went to Empire out of the hundreds of e-mails sent by SCI FI Wire readers.
The SF movie that received the second-highest percentage of votes was James Cameron's Aliens, with 18 percent of the vote.
And Joss Whedon's cult favorite Serenity came in a close third, with 17 percent of the vote.
Overall, readers nominated more than 60 SF movies that should have been included on the AFI's list, but most received only a single vote. Among those that received more than one vote, the top 10 most neglected films were these: Empire, Aliens, Serenity, Terminator, Gattaca, The Fifth Element, The Road Warrior, Metropolis, Stargate and Armageddon.
SCI FI Readers also picked their top 10 favorite films from the AFI's list.
The AFI will pick its 10 best SF movies of all time for a TV special that will air on CBS in June. --Patrick Lee, News Editor
Star Wars Tops Wire Poll
SCI FI Wire readers have spoken, and the Force is with them: Readers picked Star Wars: Episode IV---A New Hope as the top SF movie of all time.
Following a close second was Ridley Scott's 1982 dystopian SF noir movie Blade Runner.
The results were tabulated from hundreds of e-mails readers sent with their picks for the top 10 SF movies of all time, drawn from the American Film Institute's list of the 50 best SF movies.
The original Star Wars movie drew 7.8 percent of the total votes for top pick. Blade Runner received 7.5 percent.
The rest of SCI FI Wire's top 10 SF movies, in descending order: The Matrix, Alien, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet and the original Planet of the Apes.
On Tuesday, SCI FI Wire will publish the list of the top five most neglected films, based on reader e-mails. --Patrick Lee, News Editor
D&D Creator Gygax Dies
Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died March 4 at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis., the Associated Press reported. He was 69.
Gygax had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, his wife, Gail Gygax, told the AP.
Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game, known for its oddly shaped dice, became a hit, particularly among teenage boys and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.
Despite declining health, Gygax hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January.
Funeral arrangements are pending. Besides his wife, Gygax is survived by six children.
Indy Films Drop On New DVDs
All three Indiana Jones movies are coming to DVD in individual special editions and as a new boxed set on May 13, Lucasfilm and Paramount Home Entertainment announced.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade special-edition DVDs will feature new, exclusive bonus features that dig deeper into the making of the films. The three movies were restored and remastered in 2003.
The DVDs will drop days before the fourth installment, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, opens in theaters on May 22. The three films were previously available only as a boxed set.
3-D Tron Sequel Due In '11?
Disney plans to release a 3-D sequel to its classic SF movie Tron in spring 2011, Dark Horizons reported. The Digital Disney 3-D movie reportedly will be directed by Joseph Kosinski.
The studio also has Cars 2, National Treasure 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 scheduled for that year, the site reported.
Other reports suggest the fourth Pirates movie may focus on one character to downsize the budget. Other reports talk of a hyper-budget, ultra-fantastical feature, meaning anything from dinosaurs to Jules Verne-esque floating fortresses, the site reported.
Byrne Joins Cage In Knowing
Rose Byrne has landed the lead role opposite Nicolas Cage in the SF thriller film Knowing for Summit Entertainment and Escape Artists, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Byrne (Sunshine) will play the daughter of a woman who buried a 1962 time capsule bearing the dates of the assassinations of historical figures, the hotel fire death of the wife of a professor (Cage) and an imminent world apocalypse. After the professor discovers its contents and alerts her, the initially skeptical Byrne begins remembering strange incidents from her childhood.
Alex Proyas (I, Robot) will direct the screenplay by Ryne Douglas Pearson, with script revisions by Juliet Snowden, Stiles White, Stuart Hazeldine and Proyas.
Production is set to begin March 25 in Melbourne, Australia.
Mori Sees Action In Torchwood
Naoko Mori, who plays Toshiko Sato on the BBC America series Torchwood, told SCI FI Wire that she was glad to see her character getting a little more romance in the second season.
"It's been pointed out to me that even though she's a bit of a geek and kind of this pathetic woman, out of all the characters, she's the one who seems to be getting a lot," Mori said in a phone interview. "In a sense, when you're that kind of person, it's a classic symptom of someone who's been academically driven. The social side and the relationship side tends to go by the wayside, doesn't it? When someone's been academically excellent, if you know what I mean. So in that sense, I think she's a bit of a late bloomer."
While Mori enjoyed seeing her character branch out, it did make for some strange days on the set. The series typically shoots in blocks of two episodes at a time, which means that the actors will often shoot scenes from two different episodes back to back. In the case of the episodes "To the Last Man" and "Adam," both involved intimate scenes in Tosh's apartment, a location set which the production had for a short period of time.
"We shot all those scenes in one day," Mori said. "It was like, in the morning I would be kissing Tommy, and then after lunch I would be having a scene with Adam. And then after that I was back with Tommy. So it kind of made me feel a bit like, 'Huh.' It's always weird to be doing kissing and that sort of physical stuff in front of 80 crew members, and with two different people. Even though it was a closed set, it was kind of an open-plan apartment, so everyone was right there. That was very bizarre. And towards the end of the day we were kind of running out of time, and we were rushing around and they were like, 'Okay, Tommy out, Adam in.' And I was like, 'Can I at least gargle?'"
Mori has also been thrilled with the caliber of guest stars the show has attracted in the second season. She particularly enjoyed working with Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman, who joined the show for a three-episode arc as Dr. Martha Jones.
"She's great," Mori said of Agyeman. "Freema's so lovely. I don't know if you've heard, but we kind of have a reputation for being pretty rowdy on set. We're pretty crazy on set. It's basically like Torchwood, because it's all-consuming. We're in the studio anything from between 10 to 14 hours a day. It's like a little pressure-cooker thing, and we just have such rapport. John is just ridiculous, hilarious. And we get on like a house on fire. I cannot tell you. And she just fit in, like she was always there. And that hopefully shows on screen, that we do get on."
Mori herself made the transition from Doctor Who to Torchwood as well. In the first-season episode "Aliens of London" she played a character called "Dr. Sato," who performed an autopsy on a pig-like alien. She can now confirm that the characters are indeed one and the same and promised that more will be revealed about her earlier appearance, including the reason why it wasn't Owen (Burn Gorman), the character most familiar with alien autopsies.
"Yes, I can now officially clarify that," she said. "Yes. I cleared it with [Doctor Who and Torchwood executive producer Russell T. Davies] and he said yes. Actually, that gets referred to a lot later on in the second season of Torchwood as well. It was, if you like, sort of a nifty infiltration on Torchwood's part. ... You have to keep watching the second series of Torchwood. There's a lot of things that get cleared up. I'm sure that they were bombarded with questions from fans of Doctor Who and Torchwood wondering why it wasn't Owen. "
The second of the three episodes featuring Agyeman, "Dead Man Walking," premieres Saturday, March 8, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on BBC America. --Cindy White
Persia To Film In Morocco
British director Mike Newell will film the action-adventure video-game adaptation Prince of Persia: Sands of Time in Morocco for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney, Variety reported.
Prince of Persia has a script by Jeffrey Nachmanoff (The Day After Tomorrow) and video-game creator Jordan Mechner. The video game spawned six installments and numerous spinoffs, boosting Disney's hopes for a lucrative new franchise.
The choice of Morocco as a shooting location will be a boost for the North African country's film business. Ridley Scott's Body of Lies and Paul Greengrass' untitled Iraq war thriller both recently wrapped significant shoots there.
Prince of Persia will also film in London's Pinewood Shepperton studios. The project is currently in preproduction. The Moroccan section of the shoot is expected to start in mid-June.
Doctor Who Game Coming
Eidos has confirmed that it is preparing to announce a release date for a video game based on the long-running BBC series Doctor Who, according to gamer site videogaming247. Details on the game are still under wraps, but it is known that the company has the rights to the franchise and has been developing a game for the PC, PS2 and DS platforms.
A source told the site that work has started on the title and an announcement of a potential release date is forthcoming. Nothing else is known of the game thus far, the site said.
Wyle Returns For Librarian 3
Noah Wyle is set to return as Flynn Carsen in the third installment of TNT's Librarian franchise, The Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice, producer Electric Entertainment announced. Bob Newhart and Jane Curtin will also reprise their roles, with Bruce Davison (X-Men) and Stana Katic (Feast of Love) joining the cast.
Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation), who directed the second Librarian installment, The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines, will once again take the helm. Electric Entertainment's Dean Devlin, Kearie Peak and Marc Roskin are executive-producing. Wyle and Electric's Phil Goldfarb are producing, with the company's Rachel Olschan co-producing. The project began shooting in New Orleans this week.
The Librarian: The Curse Of The Judas Chalice opens with a restless Flynn attempting to assimilate back into his career as a librarian at the New York Metropolitan Library after many adventures abroad. Led to New Orleans by strange dreams, he finds himself in the midst of uncovering a conspiracy that involves the notorious vampire Prince Vlad Dracul. Once again, Flynn must overcome his fears and protect one of the world's most sacred artifacts, the Judas Chalice, or face the consequences of it falling into the wrong hands.
Newhart returns as Judson, who once having been a librarian, now serves as head of the library. Curtin comes back as Charlene, the extremely serious-minded, no-nonsense personnel director for the library.
Katic plays Simone Renoir, a gorgeous young New Orleans jazz-club singer, who uses her hypnotic performances to charm an off-guard Flynn. Turned into a vampire by the infamous Vlad Dracul 400 years ago, Simone has been on a lifelong hunt to find the man who condemned her soul to walk the night forever. She teams up with Flynn to outwit those hoping to find the chalice and use it for their evil agenda.
Davison plays Professor Lazlo, an elderly, crippled man who is a brilliant professor at the University of Bucharest. Seemingly harmless, he is taken hostage by the villainous Kubichek, who wants Lazlo to lead him to the Judas Chalice.
TNT's Librarian franchise of movies has proven successful for the network. The first installment, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, ranked as ad-supported cable's number-one movie of 2004. The second installment, The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines, ranks as ad-supported cable's number-one original movie sequel of all time and placed among the top five movie telecasts of 2006.
Culton Books Hotel Transylvania
Jill Culton (Open Season) has been tapped to direct Sony Pictures Animation's Hotel Transylvania, Variety reported.
The story centers on Simon Van Helsing, the youngest in a long line of monster hunters. The last thing Van Helsing wants to do is fall in love with Dracula's daughter, Mavis. Upon discovering that they are natural enemies, the doomed couple attempts to bring peace between monsters and humans. In the end, each family will have some new blood.
Hotel Transylvania will follow Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs as Sony Pictures Animation's next project. Writers have not yet been set. Michelle Murdocca is producing and Amy Jupiter co-producing.
Hunters, Truth Set Records
SCI FI Channel's reality series Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth premiered on March 5 with series-high ratings records, the network announced.
The season-four premiere of Ghost Hunters at 9 p.m. delivered a 1.9 household rating, 2.7 million total viewers, 1.61 million adults 18-49 and 1.7 million adults 25-54, its highest rating of a regular-series episode to date.
In the 10 p.m. hour, Destination Truth kicked off its second season with its best-ever telecast, delivering a 1.4 household rating, 1.03 million adults 25-54, 970,000 adults 18-49 and 1.7 million total viewers. Additionally:
• SCI FI was the number-one cable network in the 9 p.m. time period for both adults 18-49 and adults 25-54, and demonstrated its appeal across genders by ranking number one in cable in the 9-10 p.m. time period for women 25-54, women 18-49, men 25-54 and men 18-49.
• Compared to the fall premiere of the most recent slate of new Ghost Hunters episodes on Sept. 26, 2007, this is an increase of 36 percent in household ratings, 49 percent in adults 25-54, 30 percent in adults 18-49 and 33 percent in total viewers.
• Compared to the Destination Truth season-one premiere on June 6, 2007, last night's episode demonstrated an increase of 27 percent in household ratings, 34 percent in adults 25-54, 15 percent in adults 18-49 and 18 percent in total viewers.
Next week, Jason, Grant and the Ghost Hunters team attempt to debunk a myriad of alleged ghostly sightings at the Burlington County Prison Museum (formerly the Burlington County Jail), a national landmark located in Mount Holly, N.J. Then, at 10 p.m., Josh Gates travels to East Africa to investigate mysterious haunted ruins in search of ghosts, and to Mongolia to locate a monster-sized sandworm that has locals in a panic.
Ghost Hunters kicked off its fourth season as one of cable's hottest shows. Enjoying record-high ratings throughout its run, the series celebrated its best season ever in the fall of 2007, culminating in a record-breaking special on Halloween, Ghost Hunters Live. Its spinoff, Ghost Hunters International, made its series debut this January as the highest-rated reality telecast in the channel's history, cementing the franchise's place as the number-one paranormal destination in cable.
Ghost Hunters is produced in association with Craig Piligian's Pilgrim Films and Television (American Chopper, Dirty Jobs, The Ultimate Fighter). Piligian and Thomas Thayer, along with Rob Katz and Alan David, serve as executive producers.
In the second season of Destination Truth, adventurer and truth seeker Josh Gates once again takes viewers off the map in his search for answers to some the world's most notorious unexplained mysteries. The show will feature even more exotic locales, stunning finds and fascinating eyewitness accounts as Josh brings his humor to brand-new investigations.
This season of Destination Truth is executive-produced by Brad Kuhlman (1000 Places to See Before You Die, Daisy Does America, FM Nation).
Columbia Adopts Animals
Columbia Pictures has bought the disaster script Animals from first-time writer and former criminal lawyer Mike Sobel, Variety reported. Neal Moritz is producing through his Sony-based Original Film shingle. The contemporary-set story chronicles what happens when all the world's animals turn on humans and take back the planet.
Sobel, who was previously practicing law in New York, moved to Los Angeles a year ago to pursue a writing career and penned Animals, his first screenplay. The deal is estimated at mid-six figures. Trevor Engelson and Nick Osbourne will executive-produce the film.
New Trek Movie DVDs Mulled?
TrekMovie.com, citing blogs, reported rumors that Paramount may be mulling new DVD releases of the 10 Star Trek movies.
Based on a post on "Troubles With Tribbles" writer David Gerrold's blog, the site reported that Paramount is planning to re-release all 10 Star Trek movies on DVD with a bonus disc of extra material, including interviews with Gerrold and others who performed as extras on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, such as fan Bjo Trimble and Chris Doohan, son of James "Scotty" Doohan.
The site also passed on a report from Digital Bits, citing anonymous sources, that Paramount may be preparing new high-definition transfers and a good digital scrubbing of the movies to prepare them for a future Blu-ray release.
007 Won't Shoot In Peru
Quantum of Solace, the upcoming 22nd James Bond movie, will no longer film in Cusco, Peru, because of unpredictable weather, according to reports on MI6.com and LivingInPeru.
The unpredictable weather conditions could jeopardize the production, the sites reported.
According to Margarita Morales from Iguana Productions, the Peruvian company that was to assist U.K.-based EON Productions, the production company will not risk filming at the Inca Citadel.
"They aren't going to film anymore because special film conditions, which don't exist anymore, were required. The suspension is mainly due to climatic changes," Morales reportedly said.
Morales denied that the decisions resulted from protests or conflicts taking place in the region.
Southland's Ling Fined
Bai Ling, whom SF fans last saw in Southland Tales, was fined $200 on March 5 after pleading guilty to disturbing the peace in connection with her arrest last month on suspicion of shoplifting at Los Angeles International Airport, the Reuters news service reported.
The 37-year-old actress, who has also appeared in such films as The Crow and Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith, was also ordered by a judge to pay several hundred dollars in fees, including court costs, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office told the news service.
Ling was arrested at the airport on Feb. 13 and booked on suspicion of shoplifting after a gift-shop employee accused her of stealing two magazines and a pack of batteries worth a total of $16.
Amsterdam Has Strong Debut
The premiere of the midseason Fox drama New Amsterdam on Tuesday, March 6, averaged a respectable 13.7 million viewers and a Nielsen rating of 4.6/11 among the coveted 18-49 demographic, Variety reported. The series, about an immortal cop searching for his true love, was helped by a favorable timeslot following the ever-popular American Idol. New Amsterdam moves to its regular timeslot, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, on March 10.
Meanwhile, on CBS, Jericho fell back in the ratings after a slight increase last week, earning 5.9 million viewers and a 1.8/5 rating in the 18-49 demographic. The series has continued to struggle since CBS brought it back from cancelation after fans protested by mailing bags of nuts to the network last year. Jericho airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Norse Myth Makes Its Runemarks
Best-selling writer Joanne Harris--author of Chocolat, the basis for the multiple-Oscar-nominated film--told SCI FI Wire that her latest novel, Runemarks, is set in the world of Norse and Scandinavian myth.
"I've always been fascinated by this kind of mythology," Harris said in an interview. "I've been writing Norse-god stories since I was a child. So when it came to writing a story for my own child, it seemed natural for me to choose something that I would have loved at her age. I wrote it and read it to her, chapter by chapter, and although it wasn't originally meant for publication, it grew so big and so complicated that I just had to give it a try."
The book takes place 500 years after Ragnarok--the final battle between the gods of the Norse pantheon. "The old gods have been defeated, some imprisoned in Netherworld, some still wandering the earth, weakened and scattered," Harris said. "Magic has been outlawed, as a new, powerful religious order takes the stage. Its purpose [is] the complete eradication of the Elder Days--that is, magic, old gods, goblins, faeries, superstitions, legends, stories and dreams."
Into this arena comes 14-year-old Maddy Smith. "[She's] a dreamer, a rebel, a teller of tales," Harris said. "And worse, the bearer of a runemark, which signifies her allegiance to the Elder gods and which will soon find her caught in a clash between old gods and new as all Hel prepares to let loose."
As research for the book, Harris studied runic systems. "I used the Icelandic 16-rune system rather than the English one most people are familiar with, which is why some people will find some of them slightly altered," she said. "I also didn't want to invent the language of the Elder Script, so I used the Anglo-Saxon originals for the rune cantrips and odd bits of old Icelandic for the rest of the Elder Tongue -- including some of the goblin words. I've been trying to learn Old Icelandic for about four years, and I've just about got to the point where I can read things in the original (as long as I have a dictionary!)."
Harris is currently working on a sequel, Runelight, as well as a new mainstream mystery novel called Blueeyedboy. --John Joseph Adams
Englund Is Spectacular Vulture
Robert Englund will provide the voice of Vulture, the first villain to face Spider-Man in the upcoming animated CW series The Spectacular Spider-Man, the network announced.
Englund is best known for his role as Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street film franchise. He joins a cast that includes Peter MacNicol as Doc Ock, Lacey Chabert as Gwen Stacy, Vanessa Marshall as Mary Jane Watson and Josh Keaton as Peter Parker.
In the premiere episode, Survival of the Fittest, Peter Parker returns to high school for his junior year and faces his first real challenge in the form of The Enforcers, as well as his first real supervillian, Vulture.
An all-new animated television series debuts Saturday, March 8, with back-to-back episodes airing at 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. ET/PT on Kids' WB! on The CW.
Amsterdam Lives To Die
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who stars as immortal cop John Amsterdam in Fox's New Amsterdam, told SCI FI Wire that his character faces an unusual dilemma. The blessing/curse that allows him to live forever will end only when he meets the woman he's destined to be with, but once he meets her, he'll become mortal and eventually die.
"What he wants is some kind of normalcy, and also to experience what it's like to be with someone and have a relationship that lasts, and to grow old with someone," Coster-Waldau said in a conference call with journalists. "That's a huge dream. I think that's the biggest dream he has, to actually spend his life with one person and have a family and be able to be there for his children when they grow up. All of that has been something he's only been able to watch at a distance."
But the character also yearns for peace. "I don't think he sees [death] as a loss," Coster-Waldau said. "But, of course, I think that's one of the things that would be interesting to examine [if the show continues]: Be careful what you wish for. If this is really what he wants, how will that affect him if he actually does become mortal? It certainly will affect the way he performs his job as a homicide detective, that's for sure."
New Amsterdam, which also stars Zuleikha Robinson, airs on March 6 before moving to its regular timeslot, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, on March 10. --Ian Spelling
Dragonball Bounces To '09
The live-action adaptation of the popular Japanese anime and manga series Dragonball has been delayed until April 3, 2009, 20th Century Fox announced. The film was originally scheduled for release on Aug. 15 of this year, but it would have faced stiff competition at the box office against the studio's own Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which also opens that weekend.
Other films that have also staked out Aug. 15 include Tropic Thunder, a comedy starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr.; The International, a thriller featuring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts; and the teen comedy Wild Child. So far, Dragonball would be the only film opening on the new date.
Dragonball stars Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Jamie Chung, Emmy Rossum and Chow Yun-Fat. It is currently filming in Durango, Mexico.
Hinds, Ludwig Race To Mountain
Ciaran Hinds (There Will Be Blood) and Alexander Ludwig (The Seeker) have joined the cast of Race to Witch Mountain, Disney's reimagining of its 1975 adventure movie Escape to Witch Mountain, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Andy Fickman is on board to direct what is described as an action thriller, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and AnnaSophia Robb. The adaptation, written by Matt Lopez, revolves around a pair of paranormal-powered siblings (Ludwig and Robb) who, with the help of a Las Vegas cab driver (Johnson), go on the run from a diabolical group of men who wish to exploit their abilities. Hinds will play the nefarious leader of the pack.
The studio is eyeing a late March start in Los Angeles.
True Blood Recruits Skarsgard
Alexander Skarsgard has joined the cast of True Blood, Alan Ball's new vampire drama series for HBO, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series, based on the Southern Vampire book series by Charlaine Harris, centers on the love story between a vampire, Bill (Stephen Moyer), and Sookie (Anna Paquin), a waitress who can read people's minds.
Skarsgard will have a regular role on the series as a vampire and Viking who has been alive for more than a thousand years.
The actor recently wrapped the HBO miniseries Generation Kill, an intimate account of the invasion of Iraq from The Wire's David Simon and Ed Burns.
Unborn Adds Acting Quintet
Meagan Good, Carla Gugino, Jane Alexander, Idris Elba and Rhys Coiro are joining Gary Oldman and Odette Yustman in Rogue Pictures' supernatural thriller Unborn, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Platinum Dunes' Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller are producing writer-director David Goyer's tale of a girl (Yustman) tormented by the soul of a boy who died in the Holocaust.
Good (The Love Guru) will play the girl's best friend, and Gugino (Spy Kids) has been cast as her mother. Alexander will play a Holocaust survivor whose brother's spirit is returning. Elba (American Gangster) will play a priest who helps a rabbi (Oldman) perform exorcisms. Coiro (HBO's Entourage) is the college professor of Yustman's character, and Cam Gigandet will play her boyfriend.
Principal photography begins March 5 in Chicago.
Yiddish Inspired By Phrasebook
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, whose novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a finalist for this year's Nebula Award, told SCI FI Wire that he was inspired to write the novel by a phrasebook for travelers called Say It in Yiddish, originally published in 1958.
"The book lays out with numerical precision and a straight face the contours of a modern-day Yiddish-speaking land with all the requisites of a contemporary nation--except, of course, for actual existence," Chabon said in an interview. "I just found it really entrancing and reverie-inducing to imagine this place, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I wanted to visit it, write about it, set a novel there."
The noir-ish detective novel is set in an alternate-reality timeline where millions of European Jewish refugees have created a Yiddish-speaking district in and around Sitka, Alaska, Chabon said. "There was an actual proposal, and a bill introduced into Congress, to permit Jewish refugees to settle in Alaska," he said. "It was the King-Havenner Bill of 1940. Obviously, it failed--never made it out of committee."
In order to make the bill pass in the book's timeline, Chabon had someone meet an untimely demise. "I arranged to have one of [the bill's] leading opponents run over by a convenient taxicab (relevantly driven by a gentleman not unfamiliar, perhaps, to fans of SF great Jack Williamson)," he said.
Chabon added: "That was my jonbar," referring to a concept derived from Williamson's The Legion in Time called the "Jonbar Hinge"--the event in a time-travel story which, if changed, leads to a different future.
As research for the novel, Chabon had to travel to Alaska and spend time in and around Sitka, he said. "And I had to study Yiddish," he said. "But the biggest challenge for me was trying to rein in my habitual writing style to conform more nearly to the lean, mean, hard-boiled model. ... I also reread the complete works of Chandler and Hammett and made the great discovery of Ross MacDonald, who was in some ways the greatest hard-boiled writer of all."
Sony's Columbia Pictures recently acquired screen rights to The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen are attached to write the screenplay and direct. --John Joseph Adams
Trek Comic Continues Series
A new comic-book series from IDW publishing will pick up where the original Star Trek television series ended, with a chronicle of the Starship Enterprise's untold fourth year, the company said in a press release. Star Trek Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment will be co-written by D.C. Fontana, who started her career as assistant to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and went on to write some of the series' most celebrated episodes.
Joining Fontana for her first-ever foray into comic-book storytelling will be veteran Star Trek artist Gordon Purcell, whose work has appeared in more than 50 issues of Star Trek, dating back to the 1980s. Purcell will be joined by longtime collaborator Terry Pallot on inks, with Derek Chester, a veteran of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek video games, collaborating with Fontana on the story and script. Fan-favorite illustrators the Sharp Brothers will provide covers for the entire five-part series.
The Enterprise Experiment represents the second series of IDW's Star Trek: Year Four, which reveals the untold fourth year of the U.S.S. Enterprise's five-year mission, depicted for just three seasons on the original Star Trek series. The new series will include a sequel to Fontana's episode "The Enterprise Incident," in which Kirk famously posed as a Romulan to capture a new state-of-the-art cloaking device. In this all-new story, Federation efforts to fully adapt the cloaking device to Starfleet ships leads to an experiment gone awry, trapping Kirk and Spock on an Enterprise out of phase with space itself. At the same time, Romulan forces close in on the starship, intent on claiming revenge for their stolen technology. Later chapters in the series will provide a sequel to the first two issues, as the Klingon Empire suddenly enters the fray with its own agenda.
The first monthly issue of Star Trek Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment goes on sale in April, with a retail price of $3.99.
Amsterdam Took Rocky Road
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, star of the upcoming Fox supernatural series New Amsterdam, acknowledged to SCI FI Wire that it's been an incredibly bumpy road to the show's March 4 debut but added that he thinks it may all work out for the best.
Fox initially ordered 13 episodes of the series, about an immortal New York City cop (Coster-Waldau), then reworked the pilot before bumping the series to midseason and eventually reducing its episode order. Now, however, thanks to the writers' strike, Fox is launching New Amsterdam as a high-profile new series and providing a valuable showcase for it by running the first two episodes immediately after its biggest ratings juggernaut, American Idol.
"To be honest, when we were pushed from fall to spring, I was quite relieved, because we'd just started production on the show, and it was nice, I felt anyway, to not have to focus on a premiere three weeks into production but to just be able to get the time to do the show," Coster-Waldau said during a conference call with reporters. "Of course there's a lot of speculation. Being from Denmark, I had friends calling me from Denmark, saying, 'Are you coming home now? What's happening?' And I'd say, 'I'm on set. I can't talk right now.'"
Coster-Waldau said the speculation never bothered him. He concentrated on the job at hand. Just days after the show completed filming, the strike commenced. "I knew things would change all the time. It's the name of the game," he said. "It's not just television. It's in movies. You see people juggle the movies around all the time as well. Maybe ask the programmer or whoever's in charge, because I've not wanted to think too much about that."
New Amsterdam will premiere on March 4, following American Idol, with episode two airing on March 6, also post-Idol. The show moves to its regular timeslot, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, on March 10. --Ian Spelling
Lohman Goes To Raimi's Hell
Alison Lohman will step into the lead role in Sam Raimi's supernatural thriller Drag Me to Hell, Variety reported.
Oscar nominee Ellen Page (Juno) had been poised to star in the Ghost House Pictures/Mandate Pictures project but stepped aside due to scheduling conflicts.
Universal Pictures will distribute Drag Me to Hell domestically; Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
The film marks Raimi's first helming effort since Spider-Man 3 and centers on the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse.
Shooting in Los Angeles is scheduled to begin March 31, two weeks later than the film's original start date. Raimi penned the screenplay with his brother Ivan.
Lohman recently lent her voice and image to Robert Zemeckis' animated Beowulf.
Rosemary Remake Mulled
Shock Till You Drop reported that Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes company is in talks with Paramount to remake Roman Polanski's 1968 horror film Rosemary's Baby.
Dunes producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form are currently looking for writers to tackle the material, which is based on Ira Levin's novel, the site reported.
The original film centered on a young Manhattan couple, played by John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow, and a pregnancy that turns into something more sinister.
CW Renews Smallville
The CW announced that it is ordering new seasons of its Thursday-night lineup of Smallville and Supernatural.
Smallville was picked up for an eighth season, and Supernatural re-upped for a fourth.
The early pickups were part of The CW's announcement on March 3 that it has picked up several other series.
Smallville and Supernatural will return in the fall.
Crystal Comes To iTunes
The Jim Henson Co. announced that its classic fantasy films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth will be available for purchase and download on the iTunes store beginning this week.
The two movies are the first of the company's films to hit the digital marketplace.
Henson Co. partnered with New Video, a digital aggregator of independent video content, to bring the films to iTunes, where feature movies cost $9.99.
Henson promised that future titles will be made available on iTunes, joining Fraggle Rock and Farscape, which are also currently available.
Demon Is Girl Next Door
Best-selling fantasy author Kim Harrison told SCI FI Wire that her latest novel, The Outlaw Demon Wails, is a girl-next-door kind of a story, if the girl next door can save the good guy, the bad guy and the world all while trying to figure out who murdered her boyfriend.
The Outlaw Demon Wails is the sixth book in Harrison's Hollows series, which started with Dead Witch Walking. "I'm not saying that The Outlaw Demon Wails can't stand on its own, but there are so many story threads closing in this one that it sounds like a soap opera if you're not prepared," she said.
The series began with "The Hollows," a short story Harrison wrote when she was first trying to break into print. "I knew I couldn't match the disquieting oddness of what was making the magazine market at that time, so I developed three of the most unique characters I could think of and put them in a bar," Harrison said. "Rachel, a redheaded witch trying to make it on her own; Ivy, the angst-ridden vampire looking for love and a way out of her reality both; and Jenks, family man and intel specialist trying to feed his 47 kids. They all seemed to hit it off, and so I eventually developed it into what became Dead Witch Walking."
Harrison had no idea the 15-page short would grow into a multi-volume series. "But the more I work with Rachel, the more I find I have to say," she said. "The world keeps gaining in complexity, the characters continue to grow, and Rachel just keeps plugging away, looking for her happy ending, surprising herself and me as she goes."
Next up for Harrison is an anthology of 12 urban-fantasy and romance authors called Hotter Than Hell, coming out in July. She's also working on another anthology scheduled for next summer.
As for new fiction of her own, the next Hollows book, White Witch, Black Curse, is due out next spring. Harrison also has a new young-adult series in the works. "If that comes out under the title I submitted [for] it, the first will be Once Dead, Twice Shy," she said. "There's a short story that introduces the series already out in the anthology Prom Nights From Hell." --John Joseph Adams
NBC Unveils Fear Mongers
NBC announced a list of well-known directors, actors and writers for its upcoming horror anthology series Fear Itself, including John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Darren Bousman (Saw II, III and IV) and Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason).
Other filmmakers who will contribute to the 13-episode series include Brad Anderson (The Machinist), Breck Eisner (the Creature From the Black Lagoon remake), Mary Harron (American Psycho), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator) and Ernest Dickerson (NBC's Heroes).
The upcoming suspense and horror anthology series comes from Lionsgate, in association with Industry Entertainment.
Cast members include Brandon Routh (Superman Returns), Shiri Appleby (Roswell), Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men), Cynthia Watros (Lost), Eric Roberts (Heroes) and John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise), among others.
The show's writers include Joe Gangemi (Wind Chill), Steve Niles (30 Days of Night), Dan Knauf (Supernatural), Lem Dobbs (The Score), Matt Venne (White Noise 2: The Light), Richard Chizmar and Johnathan Schaech (Masters of Horror), Victor Salva (Jeepers Creepers), Mick Garris (Riding the Bullet), Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan (Masters of Horror), Kelly Kennemer (The Music Within) and Max Landis (Masters of Horror).
Fear Itself will premiere in the summer. (NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.)
Page Quits Raimi's Hell
Ellen Page, who was nominated for an Oscar for her breakout role in Juno, has dropped out of Sam Raimi's upcoming supernatural thriller Drag Me to Hell.
Page left because of scheduling conflicts caused by a change in the start date of the production, Ghost House Pictures and Mandate Pictures announced jointly.
The film is directed by Sam Raimi and written by Raimi and his brother Ivan.
"We were racing to start production so that we could accommodate Ellen's schedule," the studios said in a statement. "But like so many other productions trying to start before the potential [Screen Actors Guild] strike date, this one needed more time, and we had to push back the start of production."
Oz Actor Drops Wolverine
Dark Horizons reported that young Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee (Romulus, My Father) has dropped out of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in which he was slated to play young Logan.
Smit-McPhee had to bow out because of a change in shooting dates, the site reported. Instead, he will begin shooting the film version of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road, with Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron.
Ain't It Cool News reported that countryman Troye Mellet, 13, of Perth landed the part of the young version of Hugh Jackman's Logan.
Shooting took place in Sydney's Federal Park last week, where The Daily Telegraph reported that a full-fledged '70s carnival was set up.
SF Hall Of Fame Inducts Serling
The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling was among this year's inductees into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, along with book publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine and authors William Gibson and Richard Powers.
The five will be honored in ceremonies June 21 at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle.
Founded in 1996, the Science Fiction Hall of Fame annually honors science fiction's greatest creators. In recent years, inductees have been divided into the following categories: film, television and media; literature; and art, with a fourth miscellaneous category. Last year's inductees were Blade Runner director Ridley Scott, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, author Gene Wolfe and artist Ed Emshwiller. --John Joseph Adams
Transmitter Seeks New Readers
Dekker Dreyer, president of Illusion, a video-on-demand science fiction network, told SCI FI Wire that the channel has just launched a new online SF anthology called Transmitter.
"[We] wanted to build a bridge for our viewers, some of whom aren't big readers of new science fiction, to cross over from just watching to reading," Dreyer said in an interview. "We hope that Transmitter can be a 'starter anthology' as a new audience gets turned on to [genre short fiction] magazines."
Dreyer said he can't confirm which authors will be appearing in future installments just yet, but added: "We have some cool new people, and in the next few installments you're going to start seeing some established names making appearances."
The idea for Transmitter was inspired by a debate in October of last year in which Warren Ellis, Cory Doctorow and other writers discussed the sinking circulations for print SF magazines. "People were asking the question of 'Why don't anthologies take advantage of "Web 2.0,"' and I was wondering the same thing," Dreyer said. "It wasn't a big stretch for us to take the concept of the online anthology and funnel it through a blog engine."
Transmitter's setup allows readers to share stories through e-mail, view a printer-ready version and submit stories they like to social bookmarking sites. "The real value comes from being able to promote new writers and stories on our television channel and our soon-to-launch vodcast, 'Better Living Through Science Fiction,'" Dreyer said. "We're making this effort because we want to bring in new blood to the industry. I think the entire genre is working toward the same goal, and we applaud everyone else who takes similar steps to make sci-fi literature more accessible."
Illusion's SF video-on-demand network launched last October. It brings together "premiere series, retro series, anime and original programming," with no subscription fees, Dreyer said. It is currently available online as well as via more than 25 cable and satellite affiliates.
The network was founded with the intention of selling science fiction as a lifestyle.
"We wanted to mix some cool programming together with sci/tech news, gadgets and literature," Dreyer said. "We're all big fans of science fiction's Golden Age and think that the present 'is' a sci-fi future, so it's time to start experiencing the sci-fi lifestyle. We want to entertain and educate. We also want to make an outlet where emerging talent can experiment in the genre." --John Joseph Adams
BRIEFLY NOTED
Flynet Online has posted spoilerish photos from the upcoming X-Files film sequel featuring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
IMAX Corp. and Warner Brothers announced that Speed Racer, from the creators of the Matrix trilogy, will be simultaneously released to IMAX and conventional theaters on May 9.
The Genie Chronicles, a fantasy-adventure drama about a female newspaper reporter who discovers a magic lamp with a genie, is among the scripted series in development at cable network TNT, Variety reported.
A one-minute preview of Stargate: The Ark of Truth, the upcoming straight-to-DVD movie that wraps up the Ori story arc of SCI FI Channel's
Stargate SG-1, will air during the March 7 season finale of Stargate Atlantis, which begins at 10 p.m. ET/PT; Ark drops on March 11.
Hip-hop artist Pras Michel of the Fugees has optioned film and TV rights to the comic series Dark Oz, originally published by Caliber Comics, which follows an older Dorothy Gale in a gothic and more macabre setting as she journeys through Oz with the characters known to millions via L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Variety reported.
Hayden Panettiere, one of the stars of NBC's Heroes, will be honored with the Wyler Award at the upcoming 22nd Genesis Awards, presented by the Humane Society of the United States, for drawing worldwide attention to Japanese whale and dolphin hunting.
