fulltimer56
06-06-2006, 07:34 PM
NEWS OF THE WEEK FOR JUN. 05, 2006
Part 1 of 3
Superman Returns Earlier
Warner Brothers has moved the opening of its upcoming Superman Returns up two days to June 28 from the original June 30, Variety reported. The new premiere date occurs on the Wednesday before the July 4th weekend, giving the potential blockbuster a seven-day weekend to build grosses (the holiday falls on the following Tuesday), the trade paper reported.
WB had been eyeing a June 28 debut, but didn't make it official until it was certain the movie could be completed in time. Also, there were issues involved with the pic's release on IMAX screens.
Warner has a lot riding on the Bryan Singer-directed film. Singer has told SCI FI Wire that the film's production budget was around $200 million.
Original Transformers Hits DVD
Sony BMG Entertainment announced the upcoming release of Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD, which will hit stores in November. The DVD commemorates the anniversary of the animated classic film and is timed to the debut of a Transformers Classics line of action figures.
The new DVD will include special features and behind-the-scenes footage developed with input by and for fans of the franchise, the company said, including interviews, interactive games and collectible packaging.
The Transformers animated film features the voices of Orson Welles, Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Casey Kasem, Robert Stack, John Moschitta, Peter Cullen and Frank Welker.
A new live-action Transformers movie is currently in production under director Michael Bay, with an eye to a 2007 release.
Bay Blogs Transformers
Michael Bay, who is directing the feature-film version of The Transformers, wrote in his online blog ( http://michaelbay.com/blog/newsblog.html ) that filming has commenced in New Mexico, and that things are moving briskly.
"We finished our first week," Bay (The Island) wrote. "One of the best first weeks on a movie I've ever experienced. We shot over 250 set ups. I'm working on the military aspects of the film right now in New Mexico at Holloman Air Force base and the Army's White Sands missile base. The military has been stellar with us. This is the largest military cooperation since Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down."
Coming up: shots involving two CV-22 Osprey aircraft, Bay said. "They fly like aliens dropping out of the sky," he said. "We also shot stealth fighters and low-attack missile runs (50 feet off the deck) A10 Warthogs. They look so deadly and mean. We also shot in an Army tank graveyard that has more tanks in it than all of Iraq. The military cast Josh [Duhamel] and Tyrese [Gibson] are surrounded with [are] top-notch Seal Team members." The Transformers, based on the Hasbro line of toys and its related TV series, is due in 2007.
[b]Omen's Schreiber Cursed?
Liev Schreiber, who stars in the upcoming remake of The Omen, told SCI FI Wire that he had his own encounter with the so-called "Omen curse," which caused him to break a rib during a climactic scene. In the scene, Schreiber's character, Robert Thorn, and a photographer played by David Thewlis are chased through a graveyard by a pair of vicious dogs. "I've always been good with dogs," Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate) said in an interview. "So I said I would do this particular stunt. It's the scene where the dog grabs my arm and shakes it back and forth. And although you have a pad on while the dog is shaking your arm like crazy, this was a very smart dog. He knew that he couldn't get through to my skin, but that he could see the steel fence I was on. So he probably thought, 'If I just wait a little bit until he's off balance, I can pull him towards me and smash his ribs into the fence!' So he got me! And I thought, 'The curse of The Omen!'"
In The Omen, a remake of the 1976 original film, Schreiber plays an American diplomat who begins to realize that the young boy that he and his wife, Kathy (Julia Stiles), have raised may not be all he seems. Stories that a "curse" surrounds productions involving demonic or satanic storylines have circulated since 1973's The Exorcist and Richard Donner's original Omen.
But his broken rib notwithstanding, Schreiber said that the rest of the Omen shoot was relatively problem-free, with the possible exception of a week of pickup shots in Italy, which doubled for Jerusalem for scenes near the film's end. "The location they chose was incredibly gorgeous, even though we had freezing cold rain the entire time we were there," he said. "But [director] John Moore adapted in typical John style, and I think it works really well, because there's now a very dark foreboding feel about those Jerusalem scenes. At first we thought, 'We're not going to get those scenes. We've only got three days, and it's raining, and it's freezing cold!' Looking back, it really felt pretty bleak, but that was actually what we were looking for, so bleak was good in this case." The Omen opens on June 6, or 6-6-'06. —Joe Nazarro
Moore: Omen Curse Is Real
John Moore, who directed the upcoming remake of The Omen, told SCI FI Wire that he believes his film suffered the same "curse" that plagued Richard Donner's 1976 original. "Honest to God," Moore said in an interview. "If you were to ask me, I believe there is a curse on The Omen. We had things go wrong on this film that are beyond explanation, such as the day we shot the scene where Thorn [Liev Schreiber] cuts the kid's hair, revealing the 666, and then has a huge fight with Baylock [Mia Farrow]. It was a huge day of filming, with a big stunt for Mia Farrow, so it was a killer day, but we nailed it. That was a Friday, so we were in great spirits. So we went out and had a few beers, and we got a call on Saturday that every single frame of the 13-and-a-half thousand feet of film we shot had been destroyed in the lab."
Moore added: "Now I used to work as an assistant cameraman, with a crew that had done multi-Oscar-winning movies. I had worked with an A-list camera crew from the U.K. And no one had ever heard of this amount of film being damaged. You lose a roll or you get a scratch on a take, but the film was literally torn in half! For 13-and-a-half thousand feet. We lost every single piece of the day's work, on the day that we were revealing the 666? Come on! There were a ton of these stories."
As in the original film, which was directed by Donner, the remake centers on diplomat Robert Thorn and his wife, Kathy (Julia Stiles), who discover that their young son Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) is in fact the Antichrist. And, like the original, which was beset by strange accidents and injuries, the current version suffered from a string of misfortunes.
"We did a little teaser shoot that was going to be online, and when we shot it, everything was fine," Moore recalled. "So we wrapped the day and went home. And when we reviewed the dailies, they were all mute. None of the sound was recorded, and this was despite watching the sound meters operating. But when we played it back, everything was mute."
On another occasion, "We used a remote camera head called a Libra Head on the movie, and the technician that works with it is a very good friend of mine," Moore said. "He was also one of the co-inventors of it, so he knows this thing like it's his baby. Time and time again, it froze up on us as we were doing a take. Not a rehearsal. So you'd rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and as we did do a take, the head would lock up. Now I kid you not, I swear to you, what came up on his laptop computer that comes with the system was 'error number 666.' And Dave just went white. He said, 'John, I wrote this software, and I have never seen "error 666" come up, so I hope we got it all out of the way.' There was a whole series of things like that. Obviously, your sensibility is tweaked up, so you'll see a taxi in front of you with 666 on its plate. But there were some genuine moments where you're like, 'OK, I get it! We're cursed!'" The Omen opens on June 6, or, for the superstitious, 6-6-'06. —Joe Nazarro
SG-1's Shanks Talks Romance
Michael Shanks, who plays Daniel Jackson in SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1 ( http://www.scifi.com/stargate/ ), told SCI FI Wire that the series will play down the potential romance between his character and Claudia Black's Vala as the series kicks off its 10th season this July. Last season, former Farscape star Black played Vala in half a dozen episodes, which came on the heels of an eighth-season guest shot that introduced her wily thief character. In the upcoming season, Black joins the cast as a regular, and Vala, who has been impregnated by the villainous Ori, will give birth to a rapidly maturing child named Adria, who will be played by several actresses, including ex-Firefly star Morena Baccarin.
"In order to justify Vala there in a regular capacity this season, we've had to tone that down a little bit," Shanks said in an interview, referring to the characters' sexual tension. "We're doing a lot of balancing right now. We're trying to find the fun of it, and we're trying to find the push-pull in a more practical, kind of friendship situation. There's an episode where Daniel and Vala go out to dinner to talk about her personal growth, so to speak, and there's all the innuendo and misconception that can happen in that kind of situation."
Shanks added: "So there's a lot of fun in that. What we're doing is trying to keep the joke alive without killing it. And it's always fun when you work with somebody like Claudia, who's so good at playing with you and playing off you and who just gives you so much all the time. It's been a lot of fun doing that." Stargate SG-1 premieres on July 14 with a season opener entitled "Flesh and Blood." —Ian Spelling
X-Men 3 Debut Smashes Records
X-Men: The Last Stand topped the Memorial Day box office in its premiere, taking in about $120.1 million, the biggest opening ever for the holiday weekend, the Associated Press reported.
Preliminary estimates also gave the latest installment of the comic-book franchise the fourth-best three-day opening ever and the best single Friday in movie history, with a gross of $45.5 million, surpassing expectations and defying mixed reviews.
The film's box office was the second-biggest one-day gross ever after last year's Star Wars: Episode III.
The Da Vinci Code, meanwhile, slipped to second place in its second weekend of release, taking in $43 million, down 56 percent from the previous weekend. After 11 days, Da Vinci has grossed $145.5 million domestically.
The animated film Over the Hedge came in third place with $35.3 million, down 30 percent from last weekend. Its 11-day total was $84.4 million.
Arad Quits Marvel To Produce
Avi Arad, the chairman and chief executive of Marvel Studios, has left the company and will become an independent producer, Marvel announced on May 31. Arad, who was responsible for spinning Marvel properties into hit film franchises such as X-Men and Spider-Man, will head his own company, Avi Arad Productions, working with Marvel.
Arad will remain actively involved in Marvel's upcoming film slate, including Iron Man and Hulk, the first two films anticipated to be financed and produced by Marvel under its new film financing deal.
Arad will also remain attached to produce various licensed productions, including the upcoming Spider-Man 3, scheduled for release next year, and subsequent sequels.
Arad is resigning from his corporate positions as chairman and chief executive officer of Marvel Studios, chief creative officer of Marvel and a Marvel director, but will continue to serve as creative advisor for Marvel through the remainder of 2006.
Michael Helfant, president and chief operating officer of Marvel Studios, and Kevin Feige, Marvel Studio's president of production, will lead Marvel Studios and its continuing development of a growing slate of feature films, television and other entertainment projects.
X-Men 3's Foster Wings It
NEW YORK—Ben Foster, who co-stars as the new mutant Angel in the hit X-Men: The Last Stand, told SCI FI Wire that he loved wearing the character's white feathered wings. "It was really cool," Foster said in an interview here. "You stand differently when you have wings on your back. They were not heavy. They were made of really light [material]. It's weird telling secrets, because when I watch [something], I get really excited, and when I hear how they did it, [it] bums me out. 'Oh, yeah, well, that's foam.'"
Press notes describe the process of applying Angel's wings onto Foster as "grueling." But Foster, whose credits include The Punisher and TV's The Dead Zone, said that "grueling" was too strong. "It wasn't thrilling at four in the morning having strangers glue things to your back in the cold Vancouver air," he said. "But it wasn't grueling. It was unpleasant at first, and it was more unpleasant taking them off, because it's heavy glue and real wings taken off the skin. But once they're on, you feel great. It's maybe a drag [again] at four in the afternoon, [when] you haven't worked, and you can't sit. Angels don't sit, apparently, so they just kind of pose and stand or sleep on couches face-down. So that's kind of a drag, but not grueling." X-Men: The Last Stand topped the weekend box office and is now playing. —Ian Spelling
X-Men Game Bridges Film Gaps
X-Men: The Official Game offers gamers a prelude to the current hit film X-Men: The Last Stand with a story that bridges the events of the last film, X2, and the current movie. The game also sheds light on key elements of the story, answering such questions as "Why is Nightcrawler missing from the new movie?"
Chris Palmisano, the associate producer on X-Men: The Official Game, told SCI FI Wire that the developers used the game as a means to expand on the content of the films while creating a fun game to play. "Between X2 and The Last Stand, a number of very significant changes take place with the characters," Palmisano said in an interview. "[The game] allowed us to create a really interesting movie-game concept. To create the proper plot points, we worked with both Zak Penn, writer of X2 and The Last Stand, and comic legend Chris Claremont. The end result is an exciting story that ties together the movie universe and also adds some comic flair."
The game's three main playable characters are Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman, and each has character-specific combat systems. Nightcrawler can teleport; Iceman can "combat snowboard." "We chose each character for different reasons, but our goal was to have as diverse a roster as we could muster," Palmisano said. "Superhero games often give you a palette of heroes to choose from, but under the hood those are just different skins on the same gameplay."
Other characters from the Marvel Comcis universe will make cameo appearances in the game, including Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Silver Samurai, Colossus, Storm, Professor X, Beast and Multiple Man. The game includes several key scenes to help drive the plot and give fans a chance to play some favorite moments, such as the Oval Office attack scene from X2.
"We wanted to recreate the Oval Office scene from the beginning of the second movie, and we think the results speak for themselves," Palmisano said. "When you play our Nightcrawler, you'll have his full teleportation powers. You'll be able to teleport to objects anytime you like, and in combat, if you keep moving, you'll be nearly untouchable." X-Men: The Official Game is in stores now for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, GameCube and PC. —Casey Lynch
Cage Finds Himself In Next
Nicolas Cage—who is producing and starring in Next, a film adaptation of the Philip K. Dick SF short story "The Golden Man"—told SCI FI Wire that he felt comfortable infusing his character with elements of his own personality—such as an interest in odd phenomena. Cage plays Cris Johnson, a man who can see two minutes into the future. "It occurred to me that Cris Johnson would be somebody that would really be interested in unusual natural phenomena, because he is an unusual natural phenomenon," Cage said in an interview on the film's set in the Port of Los Angeles on June 1. "So he would have an interest in natural history. He would have an interest in bizarre incidents. He would have an interest in the supernatural, science itself, anything that could help explain his condition."
Such an interest just happens to be one of Cage's own. "He's always spouting these little ... smatterings of things he's learned," Cage said. "And so I'm sort of bombarding [co-star] Jessica Biel with all these tidbits of wisdom that Cris Johnson may have." Such as a real-life incident in which fish fell out of the sky? "Yeah, raining fish," Cage said with a smile. "That came out of improv that [director] Lee [Tamahori] was just shooting, and I started talking about raining fish, because I do have the laserdisc at home about an incident that happened, I think it was in Norway, where it did rain fish. And that sounded fascinating to me, so I thought Cris would know about that. Maybe there's a correlation between raining fish and seeing into the future."
In Next, Cage's Johnson finds himself the object of an intense search by the FBI, which wants to recruit him to fight a terrorist threat in Los Angeles. Julianne Moore plays FBI agent Callie Ferris, and Biel plays a woman with whom Johnson becomes involved. Cage signed on to the project because of an interest in Dick's work and a desire to broaden his career—which includes an Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas—into science fiction. But with a Nicolas Cage twist.
"I'm not the sort of fellow who really wants to broadcast my own contributions, but as I said, when I reread the script, there were a lot of changes made, and it occurred to me that I needed to do something to revitalize the character," Cage said. "And ... I'd been thinking a lot about the notion that there are people who may or may not have powers, and what would you do if you were born with powers that could be possibly very terrifying and uncomfortable for others around you? For example, seeing into your future. So it occurred to me, how could I play that part, and what could I do with that part that would seem real and also protect the character from being labeled a freak? So I thought, 'Well, he could hide in plain sight. He could be a magician in Vegas.' And these people, sometimes you see them, and you go, 'How do they do that?' So my thing was, have him use the magic act as a disguise for the reality, which is that he really does have powers. So that was the main thrust of the change that I made. And I'm very excited about it, and I think it's working really well. And I'm blessed to work with Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel, who are both doing a great job. I have to admit it was a bit of an adjustment for everybody, because I just went to screen tests in a [blue velvet] tux with a ruffled shirt, so I could play a magician. So it was like, 'Whoa, what are you doing? What is this? I'm not sure I want to be in this movie.'" Next is currently in production, with an eye to a September 2007 release. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Part 1 of 3
Superman Returns Earlier
Warner Brothers has moved the opening of its upcoming Superman Returns up two days to June 28 from the original June 30, Variety reported. The new premiere date occurs on the Wednesday before the July 4th weekend, giving the potential blockbuster a seven-day weekend to build grosses (the holiday falls on the following Tuesday), the trade paper reported.
WB had been eyeing a June 28 debut, but didn't make it official until it was certain the movie could be completed in time. Also, there were issues involved with the pic's release on IMAX screens.
Warner has a lot riding on the Bryan Singer-directed film. Singer has told SCI FI Wire that the film's production budget was around $200 million.
Original Transformers Hits DVD
Sony BMG Entertainment announced the upcoming release of Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD, which will hit stores in November. The DVD commemorates the anniversary of the animated classic film and is timed to the debut of a Transformers Classics line of action figures.
The new DVD will include special features and behind-the-scenes footage developed with input by and for fans of the franchise, the company said, including interviews, interactive games and collectible packaging.
The Transformers animated film features the voices of Orson Welles, Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Casey Kasem, Robert Stack, John Moschitta, Peter Cullen and Frank Welker.
A new live-action Transformers movie is currently in production under director Michael Bay, with an eye to a 2007 release.
Bay Blogs Transformers
Michael Bay, who is directing the feature-film version of The Transformers, wrote in his online blog ( http://michaelbay.com/blog/newsblog.html ) that filming has commenced in New Mexico, and that things are moving briskly.
"We finished our first week," Bay (The Island) wrote. "One of the best first weeks on a movie I've ever experienced. We shot over 250 set ups. I'm working on the military aspects of the film right now in New Mexico at Holloman Air Force base and the Army's White Sands missile base. The military has been stellar with us. This is the largest military cooperation since Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down."
Coming up: shots involving two CV-22 Osprey aircraft, Bay said. "They fly like aliens dropping out of the sky," he said. "We also shot stealth fighters and low-attack missile runs (50 feet off the deck) A10 Warthogs. They look so deadly and mean. We also shot in an Army tank graveyard that has more tanks in it than all of Iraq. The military cast Josh [Duhamel] and Tyrese [Gibson] are surrounded with [are] top-notch Seal Team members." The Transformers, based on the Hasbro line of toys and its related TV series, is due in 2007.
[b]Omen's Schreiber Cursed?
Liev Schreiber, who stars in the upcoming remake of The Omen, told SCI FI Wire that he had his own encounter with the so-called "Omen curse," which caused him to break a rib during a climactic scene. In the scene, Schreiber's character, Robert Thorn, and a photographer played by David Thewlis are chased through a graveyard by a pair of vicious dogs. "I've always been good with dogs," Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate) said in an interview. "So I said I would do this particular stunt. It's the scene where the dog grabs my arm and shakes it back and forth. And although you have a pad on while the dog is shaking your arm like crazy, this was a very smart dog. He knew that he couldn't get through to my skin, but that he could see the steel fence I was on. So he probably thought, 'If I just wait a little bit until he's off balance, I can pull him towards me and smash his ribs into the fence!' So he got me! And I thought, 'The curse of The Omen!'"
In The Omen, a remake of the 1976 original film, Schreiber plays an American diplomat who begins to realize that the young boy that he and his wife, Kathy (Julia Stiles), have raised may not be all he seems. Stories that a "curse" surrounds productions involving demonic or satanic storylines have circulated since 1973's The Exorcist and Richard Donner's original Omen.
But his broken rib notwithstanding, Schreiber said that the rest of the Omen shoot was relatively problem-free, with the possible exception of a week of pickup shots in Italy, which doubled for Jerusalem for scenes near the film's end. "The location they chose was incredibly gorgeous, even though we had freezing cold rain the entire time we were there," he said. "But [director] John Moore adapted in typical John style, and I think it works really well, because there's now a very dark foreboding feel about those Jerusalem scenes. At first we thought, 'We're not going to get those scenes. We've only got three days, and it's raining, and it's freezing cold!' Looking back, it really felt pretty bleak, but that was actually what we were looking for, so bleak was good in this case." The Omen opens on June 6, or 6-6-'06. —Joe Nazarro
Moore: Omen Curse Is Real
John Moore, who directed the upcoming remake of The Omen, told SCI FI Wire that he believes his film suffered the same "curse" that plagued Richard Donner's 1976 original. "Honest to God," Moore said in an interview. "If you were to ask me, I believe there is a curse on The Omen. We had things go wrong on this film that are beyond explanation, such as the day we shot the scene where Thorn [Liev Schreiber] cuts the kid's hair, revealing the 666, and then has a huge fight with Baylock [Mia Farrow]. It was a huge day of filming, with a big stunt for Mia Farrow, so it was a killer day, but we nailed it. That was a Friday, so we were in great spirits. So we went out and had a few beers, and we got a call on Saturday that every single frame of the 13-and-a-half thousand feet of film we shot had been destroyed in the lab."
Moore added: "Now I used to work as an assistant cameraman, with a crew that had done multi-Oscar-winning movies. I had worked with an A-list camera crew from the U.K. And no one had ever heard of this amount of film being damaged. You lose a roll or you get a scratch on a take, but the film was literally torn in half! For 13-and-a-half thousand feet. We lost every single piece of the day's work, on the day that we were revealing the 666? Come on! There were a ton of these stories."
As in the original film, which was directed by Donner, the remake centers on diplomat Robert Thorn and his wife, Kathy (Julia Stiles), who discover that their young son Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) is in fact the Antichrist. And, like the original, which was beset by strange accidents and injuries, the current version suffered from a string of misfortunes.
"We did a little teaser shoot that was going to be online, and when we shot it, everything was fine," Moore recalled. "So we wrapped the day and went home. And when we reviewed the dailies, they were all mute. None of the sound was recorded, and this was despite watching the sound meters operating. But when we played it back, everything was mute."
On another occasion, "We used a remote camera head called a Libra Head on the movie, and the technician that works with it is a very good friend of mine," Moore said. "He was also one of the co-inventors of it, so he knows this thing like it's his baby. Time and time again, it froze up on us as we were doing a take. Not a rehearsal. So you'd rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and as we did do a take, the head would lock up. Now I kid you not, I swear to you, what came up on his laptop computer that comes with the system was 'error number 666.' And Dave just went white. He said, 'John, I wrote this software, and I have never seen "error 666" come up, so I hope we got it all out of the way.' There was a whole series of things like that. Obviously, your sensibility is tweaked up, so you'll see a taxi in front of you with 666 on its plate. But there were some genuine moments where you're like, 'OK, I get it! We're cursed!'" The Omen opens on June 6, or, for the superstitious, 6-6-'06. —Joe Nazarro
SG-1's Shanks Talks Romance
Michael Shanks, who plays Daniel Jackson in SCI FI Channel's original series Stargate SG-1 ( http://www.scifi.com/stargate/ ), told SCI FI Wire that the series will play down the potential romance between his character and Claudia Black's Vala as the series kicks off its 10th season this July. Last season, former Farscape star Black played Vala in half a dozen episodes, which came on the heels of an eighth-season guest shot that introduced her wily thief character. In the upcoming season, Black joins the cast as a regular, and Vala, who has been impregnated by the villainous Ori, will give birth to a rapidly maturing child named Adria, who will be played by several actresses, including ex-Firefly star Morena Baccarin.
"In order to justify Vala there in a regular capacity this season, we've had to tone that down a little bit," Shanks said in an interview, referring to the characters' sexual tension. "We're doing a lot of balancing right now. We're trying to find the fun of it, and we're trying to find the push-pull in a more practical, kind of friendship situation. There's an episode where Daniel and Vala go out to dinner to talk about her personal growth, so to speak, and there's all the innuendo and misconception that can happen in that kind of situation."
Shanks added: "So there's a lot of fun in that. What we're doing is trying to keep the joke alive without killing it. And it's always fun when you work with somebody like Claudia, who's so good at playing with you and playing off you and who just gives you so much all the time. It's been a lot of fun doing that." Stargate SG-1 premieres on July 14 with a season opener entitled "Flesh and Blood." —Ian Spelling
X-Men 3 Debut Smashes Records
X-Men: The Last Stand topped the Memorial Day box office in its premiere, taking in about $120.1 million, the biggest opening ever for the holiday weekend, the Associated Press reported.
Preliminary estimates also gave the latest installment of the comic-book franchise the fourth-best three-day opening ever and the best single Friday in movie history, with a gross of $45.5 million, surpassing expectations and defying mixed reviews.
The film's box office was the second-biggest one-day gross ever after last year's Star Wars: Episode III.
The Da Vinci Code, meanwhile, slipped to second place in its second weekend of release, taking in $43 million, down 56 percent from the previous weekend. After 11 days, Da Vinci has grossed $145.5 million domestically.
The animated film Over the Hedge came in third place with $35.3 million, down 30 percent from last weekend. Its 11-day total was $84.4 million.
Arad Quits Marvel To Produce
Avi Arad, the chairman and chief executive of Marvel Studios, has left the company and will become an independent producer, Marvel announced on May 31. Arad, who was responsible for spinning Marvel properties into hit film franchises such as X-Men and Spider-Man, will head his own company, Avi Arad Productions, working with Marvel.
Arad will remain actively involved in Marvel's upcoming film slate, including Iron Man and Hulk, the first two films anticipated to be financed and produced by Marvel under its new film financing deal.
Arad will also remain attached to produce various licensed productions, including the upcoming Spider-Man 3, scheduled for release next year, and subsequent sequels.
Arad is resigning from his corporate positions as chairman and chief executive officer of Marvel Studios, chief creative officer of Marvel and a Marvel director, but will continue to serve as creative advisor for Marvel through the remainder of 2006.
Michael Helfant, president and chief operating officer of Marvel Studios, and Kevin Feige, Marvel Studio's president of production, will lead Marvel Studios and its continuing development of a growing slate of feature films, television and other entertainment projects.
X-Men 3's Foster Wings It
NEW YORK—Ben Foster, who co-stars as the new mutant Angel in the hit X-Men: The Last Stand, told SCI FI Wire that he loved wearing the character's white feathered wings. "It was really cool," Foster said in an interview here. "You stand differently when you have wings on your back. They were not heavy. They were made of really light [material]. It's weird telling secrets, because when I watch [something], I get really excited, and when I hear how they did it, [it] bums me out. 'Oh, yeah, well, that's foam.'"
Press notes describe the process of applying Angel's wings onto Foster as "grueling." But Foster, whose credits include The Punisher and TV's The Dead Zone, said that "grueling" was too strong. "It wasn't thrilling at four in the morning having strangers glue things to your back in the cold Vancouver air," he said. "But it wasn't grueling. It was unpleasant at first, and it was more unpleasant taking them off, because it's heavy glue and real wings taken off the skin. But once they're on, you feel great. It's maybe a drag [again] at four in the afternoon, [when] you haven't worked, and you can't sit. Angels don't sit, apparently, so they just kind of pose and stand or sleep on couches face-down. So that's kind of a drag, but not grueling." X-Men: The Last Stand topped the weekend box office and is now playing. —Ian Spelling
X-Men Game Bridges Film Gaps
X-Men: The Official Game offers gamers a prelude to the current hit film X-Men: The Last Stand with a story that bridges the events of the last film, X2, and the current movie. The game also sheds light on key elements of the story, answering such questions as "Why is Nightcrawler missing from the new movie?"
Chris Palmisano, the associate producer on X-Men: The Official Game, told SCI FI Wire that the developers used the game as a means to expand on the content of the films while creating a fun game to play. "Between X2 and The Last Stand, a number of very significant changes take place with the characters," Palmisano said in an interview. "[The game] allowed us to create a really interesting movie-game concept. To create the proper plot points, we worked with both Zak Penn, writer of X2 and The Last Stand, and comic legend Chris Claremont. The end result is an exciting story that ties together the movie universe and also adds some comic flair."
The game's three main playable characters are Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Iceman, and each has character-specific combat systems. Nightcrawler can teleport; Iceman can "combat snowboard." "We chose each character for different reasons, but our goal was to have as diverse a roster as we could muster," Palmisano said. "Superhero games often give you a palette of heroes to choose from, but under the hood those are just different skins on the same gameplay."
Other characters from the Marvel Comcis universe will make cameo appearances in the game, including Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Silver Samurai, Colossus, Storm, Professor X, Beast and Multiple Man. The game includes several key scenes to help drive the plot and give fans a chance to play some favorite moments, such as the Oval Office attack scene from X2.
"We wanted to recreate the Oval Office scene from the beginning of the second movie, and we think the results speak for themselves," Palmisano said. "When you play our Nightcrawler, you'll have his full teleportation powers. You'll be able to teleport to objects anytime you like, and in combat, if you keep moving, you'll be nearly untouchable." X-Men: The Official Game is in stores now for the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, GameCube and PC. —Casey Lynch
Cage Finds Himself In Next
Nicolas Cage—who is producing and starring in Next, a film adaptation of the Philip K. Dick SF short story "The Golden Man"—told SCI FI Wire that he felt comfortable infusing his character with elements of his own personality—such as an interest in odd phenomena. Cage plays Cris Johnson, a man who can see two minutes into the future. "It occurred to me that Cris Johnson would be somebody that would really be interested in unusual natural phenomena, because he is an unusual natural phenomenon," Cage said in an interview on the film's set in the Port of Los Angeles on June 1. "So he would have an interest in natural history. He would have an interest in bizarre incidents. He would have an interest in the supernatural, science itself, anything that could help explain his condition."
Such an interest just happens to be one of Cage's own. "He's always spouting these little ... smatterings of things he's learned," Cage said. "And so I'm sort of bombarding [co-star] Jessica Biel with all these tidbits of wisdom that Cris Johnson may have." Such as a real-life incident in which fish fell out of the sky? "Yeah, raining fish," Cage said with a smile. "That came out of improv that [director] Lee [Tamahori] was just shooting, and I started talking about raining fish, because I do have the laserdisc at home about an incident that happened, I think it was in Norway, where it did rain fish. And that sounded fascinating to me, so I thought Cris would know about that. Maybe there's a correlation between raining fish and seeing into the future."
In Next, Cage's Johnson finds himself the object of an intense search by the FBI, which wants to recruit him to fight a terrorist threat in Los Angeles. Julianne Moore plays FBI agent Callie Ferris, and Biel plays a woman with whom Johnson becomes involved. Cage signed on to the project because of an interest in Dick's work and a desire to broaden his career—which includes an Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas—into science fiction. But with a Nicolas Cage twist.
"I'm not the sort of fellow who really wants to broadcast my own contributions, but as I said, when I reread the script, there were a lot of changes made, and it occurred to me that I needed to do something to revitalize the character," Cage said. "And ... I'd been thinking a lot about the notion that there are people who may or may not have powers, and what would you do if you were born with powers that could be possibly very terrifying and uncomfortable for others around you? For example, seeing into your future. So it occurred to me, how could I play that part, and what could I do with that part that would seem real and also protect the character from being labeled a freak? So I thought, 'Well, he could hide in plain sight. He could be a magician in Vegas.' And these people, sometimes you see them, and you go, 'How do they do that?' So my thing was, have him use the magic act as a disguise for the reality, which is that he really does have powers. So that was the main thrust of the change that I made. And I'm very excited about it, and I think it's working really well. And I'm blessed to work with Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel, who are both doing a great job. I have to admit it was a bit of an adjustment for everybody, because I just went to screen tests in a [blue velvet] tux with a ruffled shirt, so I could play a magician. So it was like, 'Whoa, what are you doing? What is this? I'm not sure I want to be in this movie.'" Next is currently in production, with an eye to a September 2007 release. —Patrick Lee, News Editor