Science Fiction Weekly, June 26, 2006

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NEWS OF THE WEEK FOR JUN. 26, 2006

Part 1 of 3

Trek's Abrams Eyes Damon?

The Insider http://insider.tv.yahoo.com/insidetrack/malkin/ , the syndicated gossip TV series, reported a rumor that Matt Damon is being eyed to play a young Capt. James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' proposed 11th Star Trek movie.

Citing an anonymous source, the show reported that Abrams (Mission: Impossible III) is so interested in Damon (The Bourne Identity) that he's sought support from the original Kirk, William Shatner. "Shatner gave his blessing," the source reportedly told the show. "J.J. got his approval."

Rumors are circulating that Abrams' Trek movie will be a prequel to the original series, centering on Kirk and Spock's early days at Starfleet. "J.J. wants Damon as Capt. Kirk," the source said. "He really loves the idea."

For their part, Abrams and his Trek producing partner Bryan Burk (who is also an executive producer on Abram's hit ABC series Lost) have declined to comment on speculation about the movie's storyline, saying only that any reports about its narrative have been released prematurely.

Secret Trek Treatment Revealed

In 2004, television producer Bryce Zabel (The Crow: Stairway to Heaven) and fellow producer J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) had an idea to "reboot" Star Trek—an idea that ultimately never came to fruition, though it caught the attention of Trek fans. Since then, the news has emerged that Mission: Impossible III director J.J. Abrams is developing his own take on Star Trek for a proposed 11th film. And Zabel has chosen to post the 14-page treatment he and Straczynski developed on his own blog http://bztv.typepad.com/newsviews/2006/06/spaced_out_star.html so that fans can finally get a look at the Trek that might have been.

The treatment called for a re-imagining of the original series, centering on the three main characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, set on the U.S.S. Enterprise on its first five-year mission. Zabel told SCI FI Wire that the show would reset the mythology to "start a new 'Universe B' which would be free to move in new directions as needed and yet allow us to work with the classic characters that all fans love and cherish. The best of all worlds, if you will."

As for the ship's mission, Zabel said the new mission would be "oriented toward discovering the truth behind an ancient life that appears to have had a hand in creating the numerous humanoid species throughout the universe. That would have been the over-mission, which would have steered the Enterprise into finding its share of new worlds and civilizations just the same."

Zabel wrote on his blog: "We wanted to do what they do in the world of comics, create a separate universe so we could embrace the good stuff, banish the bad, and try some new things. We wanted to use Kirk, Spock and McCoy, but show them off as you'd never seen them before."

So why release the treatment now? "Might as well let the fans who'd heard about it and wanted to see it, see it," Zabel wrote.

Snyder To Helm Watchmen

Zach Snyder has come aboard to develop and direct Watchmen, a movie based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal DC Comics graphic superhero novel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Warner Brothers is financing the long-gestating movie, which Alex Tse is writing and Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin are producing.

Watchmen has a development history almost as epic as the story the comic tells, the trade paper reported. The project has seen such studios as Fox, Universal and Paramount come and go and has seduced and vexed such filmmakers as Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Greengrass and screenwriter David Hayter.

Sources told the trade paper that Snyder impressed Warner with 300, an adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, which he directed and co-wrote. Snyder shot the movie, a Greek epic about the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., on soundstages in Montreal, using partial sets and green screens, similar in technique to Robert Rodriguez's Sin City. Snyder also directed the 2004 hit Dawn of the Dead.

Watchmen is one of the most critically acclaimed series in the genre and is a crime-conspiracy story that provided the first realistic look at the behind-the-heroics lives of superhero archetypes.

Studio Confirms Iron Man Date

Confirming postings by director Jon Favreau, Marvel and Paramount announced that Iron Man is staking out a May 2, 2008, release date, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Favreau alluded to the date in a posting on his Iron Man MySpace.com http://groups.myspace.com/ironmanmovie site.

The Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment film will be an adaptation of the Marvel Comics armored superhero. The project marks the first motion picture to be produced by Marvel under its alliance with the studio.

Iron Man is the first feature film to be produced independently by Marvel Entertainment and also marks the first production under former Marvel Studios chief executive officer Avi Arad's newly launched production company, Avi Arad Productions. The film is expected to be financed through Marvel's $525 million revolving film-financing facility.

Singer: Superman Is Love Story

Bryan Singer, director of the upcoming Superman Returns, told SCI FI Wire that he thought of the movie as a love story. "The whole thing about action and adventure [movies is] it only really works if you care about the people that it's happening to," Singer said in an interview. "And the great thing about science fiction and fantasy is you can tell human stories from a completely unique perspective."

In Superman Returns, the Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) returns from a mysterious five-year absence to discover that his beloved Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) is engaged to another man (James Marsden)—and appears to have a son as well. "The idea [was] I wanted to make a love story," Singer said. "I've never made a chick flick. I wanted to make something that my mother and father will tear up watching. And yet I love science fiction and fantasy. I just love it. So how do I merge these two things so that the teenager in me will want to run out and see it, but at the same time, a grandparent can take the grandkids to see it?"

As for the complications in Superman's love life, Singer said: "It's not simply that Lois Lane has moved on. It's not simply that she's moved on with a guy who's not a bad guy—he's a good guy—but there's a child. And that aspect is exciting to me. And interesting. And it creates a deeper notion. It creates a depth to his relationship with Lois Lane that had not existed before. And I think that was necessary." Superman Returns opens June 28. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Superman's Singer Mum On Sequel

Superman Returns doesn't open until June 28, but the main players have already told SCI FI Wire that they'd be willing to do a sequel if the first one is a hit—provided director Bryan Singer is involved. And he's not saying just yet. Singer may sign on to do a sequel to Superman Returns or he may proceed with another long-gestating SF project, a remake of Logan's Run. Asked about whether he'd do one or the other, he sputtered: "I don't know. There ... I don't know. I don't know." Singer is not signed for a sequel yet, but doing one is not unprecedented: After he did the first X-Men movie, he returned to helm X2, then famously passed on the third installment to helm Superman Returns.

For his part, the new Man of Steel, Brandon Routh, said he's ready for further adventures. "You know, we'll do as many as everybody wants to get together and do," he said, adding that he's signed for three films.

What about Kevin Spacey, who picks up the mantle of Lex Luthor from Gene Hackman? "Well, I think they're probably going to wait and see what happens," he said. "There's certainly discussion about doing a second one, and I would love to do a second one if Bryan is at the helm."

Like her co-star Routh, Kate Bosworth (Lois Lane) said she'd love another chance to play in Metropolis. "Oh, I can't wait," she said. As for what she'd like to do in a follow-up, she said: "It's funny, because one of my huge fears is I hate flying, right? So that was a pretty full-on experience for me, living out that nightmare [in the first film]. ... I had a dream about this, actually, I remember. I had a dream—this was before I saw the film— ... that I was watching the film, and I saw my character just jump off a building. And I remember watching and going, 'I never did that. Wow, they must have just added that in! That's crazy' in the dream. So maybe [I'd like to do] that. Maybe it'd be fun to just do a full-on—obviously not really jump off a building—but have some kind of fun, big fall."

If Singer signs on, his longtime writing collaborators Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty said they would also sign on. "If there is a sequel with Bryan involved, we will do it," Dougherty said. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Superman's Routh Pumped Up

Brandon Routh, who plays the title role in Bryan Singer's upcoming Superman Returns, told SCI FI Wire that he trained hard to get in shape enough to wear the Man of Steel's blue, red and yellow tights. "Well, I did a lot of things," the 6-foot-3 Routh said in an interview. "I lifted weights, obviously. I did this rope yoga, which is a mix between karate and yoga, that my first trainer, Gudni Gunnarsson, created." Much of his training was also intended to increase his stamina for the long hours he would need to hang in harnesses for the film's visual effects, depicting Superman in flight.

"We got my body in shape to be in shape," Routh said. "And, I mean, I was in shape. I was an athlete before that [training]. I did certain things [swimming and soccer in high school], but never to this extent. So that by the time we got to Australia, two months into my training, we started hitting the weights really hard and building more and more mass, and I ended up putting on 22 pounds for the film. Which was fantastic, to see my body change in five months' time. I had a little extra time when we went into Sydney, because we didn't start filming Superman right away."

At points during his training, Routh may have put on too much muscle. "There were a couple of times when we got a little overzealous with the workout, and I started to get a little bit [too big and] had to back back down," he said. "Because you start to lift a lot, and you go, 'OK, well, how much more could we do?' But I had to maintain a limit."

Even with all the training, Routh said: "The worst thing, as always, is probably just going to be the physical aspect of being in the harness and the flight [effects], making flight happen. Some days it was great. Some days it was fun. Some days it wasn't fun. Depending on how early in the morning I was up and in the harness. If had to work out at 4 a.m. ... ." Superman Returns opens June 28. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Superman To Change Direction

Bryan Singer, director of the upcoming Superman Returns, acknowledged in an interview with SCI FI Wire that the superhero sequel takes the longstanding franchise's mythology in a new direction at the end.

Without discussing spoilers for the movie, Singer said he also hoped the change would affect the DC Comics franchise. "I hope it has some effect, because I think it's interesting," Singer said in an interview. "It was the biggest challenge for me, and yet for me it was very necessary, because I wanted to create an obstacle that was so great that even Superman couldn't penetrate it or avoid it."

In Superman Returns, the Man of Steel (Brandon Routh) returns to Earth from a mysterious five-year absence to discover that many things have changed. The changes will also play out in any sequels to Superman Returns, Singer said.

Singer came up with the story for Superman Returns with his longtime collaborators Dan Harris and Michael Dougherty (X2). They acknowledge that the change may upset fans. "It changes a part of Superman, I think," Dougherty said. "Everyone might be up in arms about certain changes that were made." But he added that the character and his mythology have been morphing for decades, ever since the character first appeared in Action Comics number one in 1938. "When he made his way to radio, ... the Daily Planet didn't exist," he said. "It was a newspaper named the Daily Star. Jimmy Olsen got introduced in the radio series. So did the Kents. So as Superman has made his way into various forms of media, changes are made: to the costume, to the characters and to the situations. ... But it's done slowly and gradually and done in the right way."

Harris agreed. "I was going to say that, every time a big or important change is made to something, we take it seriously enough to know that it's going to be part of the story," he said. Superman Returns opens June 28. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Marsden Talks Superman, X3

James Marsden, who reteams with his X-Men director Bryan Singer in Superman Returns, told SCI FI Wire that Singer was too focused during the shoot for them to talk about X-Men: The Last Stand, the third installment in the comic franchise, in which Marsden reprises the role of Scott Summers/Cyclops. Singer, who helmed the first two X-Men movies with Marsden, left the franchise to direct Superman Returns, in which Marsden plays Richard White, the fiance of Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth).

Singer "was just intensely focused on Superman," Marsden said in an interview. "He didn't have time to think about X3. We went to dinner a few times, and I never brought it up, really. But if it was brought up, what surfaced was, in my eyes, this sadness. What he told me was the one, ... not regret, ... but the one thing he missed about not being a part of X-Men 3 was the cast. The cast of X-Men was something really very unique and very special. The bond that was created over the last six or seven years with that cast was really something that's not common in the business. You always get to know the people you're working with, but for whatever reason that cast really bonded to the point where you'd work five- or six-day weeks sometimes, and on your one day off you'd get together and go to Ian McKellen's house, where he'd cook you dinner and sit at the piano and sing show tunes. So it was a great group of people, a very talented group of people, and I think Bryan missed that."

Singer has said he reluctantly left the X-Men franchise when the opportunity to direct Superman Returns came up. The third X-Men movie was instead directed by Brett Ratner. When Singer moved over to Superman, he also recruited Marsden for the role of Richard White, the nephew of legendary Daily Planet editor Perry White (Frank Langella) and a rival (with Brandon Routh's Superman/Clark Kent) for the affections of Lois.

As for X-Men, Marsden said: "[Singer] has amazing adoration for what he's created, for the X-Men fans and the X-Men universe, so I think it was a really hard thing for him to give up. Having said that, he knows what he's doing. He knows he empowered his own destiny. So he was very happy to be helming Superman. And when he talked about X-Men 3 he didn't sit around and go, 'What'd they shoot? What's the script like?' He said, 'Brett [Ratner is] a good friend of mine, and I think he'll make a good movie.' He wanted the movie to be good. So it was like you'd see 30 seconds of 'That could have been fun. OK, back to my movie.'" Superman Returns opens nationwide on June 28. —Ian Spelling

Enchanted's No Xanadu

James Marsden, who co-stars in the upcoming fantasy film Enchanted, told SCI FI Wire that the movie blends live action, animation and music, but no one will mistake it for Xanadu, the campy 1980 musical that also mixed live action, animation and music—but which wound up on many worst-ever-film lists. Enchanted begins as an animated fairy tale with a princess in waiting (Amy Adams), who subsequently finds herself in a live-action, modern-day New York City, pursued by a smitten prince (Marsden) eager to save her.

"I'll promise you it won't be [Xanadu]," Marsden said in an interview while promoting his upcoming film Superman Returns. "No. It's easy to compare [Enchanted] to that, because it's the only other movie that mixed those ... things, other than, like, Roger Rabbit, where the [live action and animation] co-exist on the screen at the same time. In this film, you're either in the real world or the animated world. There's never, on screen, a live-action character acting with an animated character. So it's one or the other. It's just that these characters come from that animated fairy-tale, storybook-cottage land, and they're thrust into this new world—or new to them—which is present-day New York. But they're wearing the same costumes, and they're still trying to communicate through singing, but now they're real."

Marsden added that it was daunting to play the prince, "because, as you know, the way Disney draws these characters, they're, like, perfect," he said. "You're not allowed to have a day where you have a pimple or have your hair out of place or perspiration on your face. But that's sort of the fun when they get into this world, where they discover those types of things." Enchanted, which also stars Susan Sarandon, Patrick Dempsey and Idina Menzel, will be released on Nov. 2, 2007. —Ian Spelling

Isaacs Ready For Potter V

Jason Isaacs, who plays the villainous Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, told syndicated columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith http://www.dailynews.com/celebrities/ci_3964105 that he's getting ready to shoot his role in the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is already in production.

"They started in February, but they go until the end of the year, because they broke for some of the young actors to take their summer exams," Isaacs told the columnists, according to a report in the Los Angeles Daily News. "My bit is in September and October. It's a big blue-screen battle for a lot of it, so that will be a laugh."

Isaacs added: "We always have to sign these incredible confidentiality clauses where we offer up our children's eyeballs if we ever break them. I've never quite understood, since they're the most popular books on the planet, but anyway, I think I'm involved in the big battle."

Isaacs admitted, "I torture myself by always trying to be interesting and human on screen, but every now and again it's great to be in Harry Potter and just rip it up and be as singularly evil and unpleasant as possible."

Futurama Has A Future

Comedy Central has resurrected the former Fox animated SF series Futurama, ordering 13 episodes to debut in 2008, Variety reported. The deal builds on the cable network's acquisition of the 72-episode library last fall.

Discussions about a revival of the half-hour show began in earnest earlier this year between Futurama producer 20th Century Fox Television and series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. A sticking point, which has been resolved, had been bringing back the cast, who hadn't worked on new episodes for the show since it left the air in August 2003.

Voice actors Billy West, Katey Sagal and John DiMaggio are on board for the new episodes, which will continue the story of Fry (West), a pizza delivery boy who was accidentally frozen for 1,000 years and who wakes up in the future.

Who Gets New Companion?

London actress Freema Agyeman (the U.K. soap opera Crossroads) is rumored to be in line to replace Billie Piper as the companion to David Tennant's Doctor Who in the show's expected third season, the British Sun tabloid newspaper reported.

Freema, 26, will reportedly appear in the final two episodes of the show's second season on BBC1, which is currently airing in the United Kingdom. She will play a character named Adeola, who joins the Doctor and his sidekick, Rose Tyler (Piper), in a battle against the Cybermen, the Sun reported.

The Sun, citing anonymous "insiders," added that Agyeman will join the Doctor full-time in the third season (called a "series" in the United Kingdom) after her appearance in the second-season finale episodes "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday."

The first season of Doctor Who just completed its run in America on SCI FI Channel.

New Trilogy Revives Half-Life

Crowbar-happy gamers have plenty to be excited about with the newest installment of the hit Half-Life series, Half-Life 2: Episode One, the first chapter in a new trilogy that picks up right where the original Half-Life 2 ended. Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of game developer Valve, told SCI FI Wire that "rather than doing Half-Life 3 as a monolithic product, we wanted to try to break it into three pieces."

Newell added: "I supposed a more accurate title for the trilogy would be Half-Life 3: Episodes One, Two and Three. The primary story told over the three episodes is about the G-man. After creating you in Half-Life 1 and using you for his somewhat mysterious purposes in Half-Life 2, [he] is now losing control of you. Each episode will focus on a specific area of gameplay, with Episode One's focus being on having a realistic companion in the world with you."

That companion is Alyx, who will accompany the player and allows for a variety of multilayered combat in which Gordon Freeman, the main protagonist in the Half-Life series, and Alyx must make quick decisions and work as a team. Starting with the Combine tower being blown up, the story in Episode One resolves some of the open issues of Half-Life 2 and sets up the three-part adventure that will take players beyond City 17.

Most of the new content is level-based play that is faster-paced and more claustrophobic then Half Life 2. "Essentially, you are playing a single-player cooperative game," Newell said. "For example, at one point you are in a pitch-black area where you have a flashlight and Alyx has the serious weaponry. The two of you work to take out a horde of zombies (she can't see them unless you illuminate them)." There are more physics puzzles, as well as the thick storytelling that works in combination with the level design to create many a tense moment for players. The plot also takes its first major twist since the initial Black Mesa incident, with hints about the G-man and a new perspective on the Votigans.

Half-Life 2: Episode One and its sequels, Episodes Two and Three, will be stand-alone products. They will offer up to six hours of new single-player gaming. Half-Life 2: Episode One is now available for the PC in stores and online at Steamhttp://www.steampowered.com/ , Valve's Web store. —Casey Lynch

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Part 2 of 3

Murphy Voicing Tinker Bell

Disney announced that Brittany Murphy will provide the voice for the animated pixie Tinker Bell in an upcoming computer-animated film, which will be released straight to DVD in the fall of 2007. In Tinker Bell, Disney will bring to life the tale of Pixie Hollow and Tink's new fairy friends, voiced by other Hollywood stars. The movie will be released globally by DisneyToon Studios and Walt Disney Home Entertainment.

"I've had the good fortune of playing many interesting characters, but none as magical as Tinker Bell," Murphy said in a statement. "To give Tinker Bell a voice for the first time in history is such an honor." (Tinker Bell has spoken in other, non-Disney productions, but this marks a first for her appearance as the animated character in a Disney production.)

Arad Will Re-Do Hulk

Avi Arad, an independent producer for Marvel Comics, plans a "do-over" of the Hulk movie, he told iF Magazine http://www.ifmagazine.com/ . "It’s a 'do-over.' I loved the Hulk movie. It was just a different approach, and it wasn't exactly the comic," Arad told the magazine. "We want to be much closer to the comic. It's what we would rather do."

Although Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk film didn't perform as expected, Arad said, "A lot of people are looking forward to the comic-book version of the Hulk. That's the one we are making, and I think it will be incredibly satisfying. It will be big and awesome and a big ride."

Arad also confirmed that a Thor movie is in the script-writing phase and that the Black Panther film project is awaiting an OK from a specific actor. Nick Fury and Ant Man are other projects Marvel wants to bring to the big screen.

A TV series based on Blade is debuting this summer, with 13 episodes on Spike TV. Arad said he's excited about other cartoon shows: "We've got a new Fantastic Four cartoon," Arad added, "We've got a new Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon; it's going to be based on the comics. We're going to do another Sony Spider-Man cartoon. We are probably going to do an Iron Man cartoon after the movie."

Depp Wants More Pirates

Johnny Depp said he's looking forward to capping his teeth gold again and reprising the role of Captain Jack Sparrow for future Pirates of the Caribbean movies, according to Newsweek. "He's a blast to play. I'll be in a deep, dark depression saying goodbye to him," Depp told the magazine. "I'll keep the costume and just prance around the house, entertain the kids. Maybe Pirates 4, 5 and 6. If they had a good script, why not? I mean, at a certain point, the madness must stop, but for the moment, I can't say that he's done."

The second and third parts of Pirates were filmed back to back, and the first box-office hit, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003, earned five Academy Award nominations, including Depp's first best-actor nomination for playing Sparrow.

The next installment, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, is scheduled for release on July 7, along with original cast members Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley, as well as Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards as the father of Depp's character.

Sex's Ryder Reunites With Waters

Daniel Waters, writer and director of the upcoming surreal comedy Sex and Death 101, told SCI FI Wire that he crafted the role of serial killer Death Nell specifically for Winona Ryder, with whom he first worked in 1989's Heathers. "Yeah, I just thought it was a great idea with her from the beginning," Waters said in an interview on the film's set at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles. "Not everyone agreed with me, but, I mean, she's definitely the delicate, broken-down version of the role. ... I think that whatever's been going on in her past ties in with this role very interestingly."

In Sex and Death 101, Ryder's character stalks Roderick Blank (Simon Baker), a man who in turn is trying to track down the women named on a list of all the people he will ever have sex with. Ryder's character is supposed to freak the audience out, Waters said. "Winona's been gone for a while, and people are like, 'Well, what's going on with her?'" he said. "And it's much like the character, too."

But Waters said Ryder is "still the exact same person that I remember working with. She's a little too into Heathers, though. It's crazy. It's like being cornered by a really obsessed fan, only, 'You're the star of the movie!' So it's kind of like, I keep asking her to ask, 'What was it like working with Winona?' 'Well, you know, you are Winona Ryder, right? I just want to make sure that it's clear.' [She'll say,] 'God, what a great film.' I'm like, 'Really? Are you allowed to say that out loud? OK. All right, that's good, I guess.'"

Waters described Sex and Death 101 as a dark satire—so dark that it originally included jokes about 9/11. "The way that the script originally ended is Winona Ryder's character talks about her backstory, and it was her abusive husband screaming at her on the phone at his job, and he was a trader at the World Trade Center, and, like, the plane comes and blows it up," he said. "So she thinks like September 11th was like this great cataclysmic cleansing experience, and after that she decides to become a serial killer."

Fortunately, that joke didn't make it into production, he said. "It certainly did not," he said, adding: "Note to all writers out there: Always put a September 11th third act, so you have something to change to make the producers happy. Like, 'OK, I guess I'll change the September 11th third act, but you have to let me have the attempted necrophilia scene.'" Sex and Death 101 is in production. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Baker Draws A Blank In Sex

Simon Baker, who stars in writer/director Daniel Waters' upcoming surreal comedy film Sex and Death 101, told SCI FI Wire that Waters gave him DVDs of foreign films from Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut and others to give him idea of the offbeat movie's tone. "Yeah, there were a lot of strange movies," the Australian-born Baker (Land of the Dead) said in an interview on the film's set at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles last week.

Among the films he had to watch: Buñuel's 1972 French-language comedy The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Truffaut's 1968 Stolen Kisses. "A couple of Fellini films," Baker added. "Dan did this cool thing when I first signed on to the film. He sat down and he gave me [these movies]. I said, 'Look, any kind of reference stuff that you want to look at as far as tonally with the film—performance, tone and stuff— ... tell me.' Because I think [tone is] the biggest problem with a lot of films."

In Sex and Death 101, Baker plays a successful man named Roderick Blank, who receives a mysterious e-mail on the eve of his wedding with a list of all the women he has slept with—and all the women he will ever sleep with.

"The basis [of the movie] is kind of a bit real, but then it has a sci-fi element to it, and then it's got ... a little broad ... fantasy aspect to it, and [it] goes all over the place," Baker said. "But it has to merge in a real place. ... So [Dan] gave me all these references and all these DVDs, and on the backs he put these cards, ... what the references were, why he wanted to look at this, the tone of that or the performance in the third act: 'This character in the third act reminds me of Blank, because he's a blank. He's a blank slate.' And the whole idea here is that the character is kind of blank. It's like he's sort of empty without this list, this desire, this thing. It cleans him right out, in a sense. He's not rooted into who he really is." Sex and Death 101, which also stars Winona Ryder, is currently in production. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Baker Ready For More Dead

Simon Baker, who starred in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, told SCI FI Wire that he's eager to do another one of the legendary director's zombie movies, though none is currently in the works. "Yeah, I love George," Baker said in an interview on the set of his new film, Sex and Death 101, at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on June 15. "I love that movie."

The 2005 Land of the Dead, the latest installment in Romero's zombie series, ended with the hint that more stories were to come. "I know the idea of it was always—and I think that most of George's films do this—the whole idea is the main curse is never solved," Baker said. "It's about the different periods of time in history with the plague, with this plague that doesn't go away."

In Land of the Dead, the Australian-born Baker (TV's The Guardian) played Riley, the reluctant leader of a band of human survivors of a worldwide plague that has turned the dead into walking, flesh-eating corpses. But Baker said that the movie worked also as an allegory of the current political situation. "I just love the socio-political sort of [ideas]," he said. "You know, the allegory of his films. It's funny, because so many people—all my highbrow friends—[said], 'God you did a zombie movie? And now you're doing like a sex comedy? Aren't you scared to do these movies?' And I sort of feel that ... I've got plenty of time to settle into the rocking chair and safe, comfy parts. Drink the same beer every day [laughs]. I like the thrill of it. and George was like a trip to me. He's such a cool cat."

In Sex and Death 101, written and directed by Daniel Waters (Heathers), Baker plays a man on the eve of his wedding who receives an e-mail with a list of all the women he's slept with—and all the women he will sleep with in the future. It's currently in production. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Waters Talks Sex And Death

Daniel Waters, writer and director of the upcoming surreal black comedy Sex and Death 101, told SCI FI Wire that he made the film in part because there aren't enough good American movies about sex anymore."I just find that there are so few movies about sex in general," Waters said in an interview on the film's set at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on June 15. "It seems like there's either the pretentious, boring, Eyes Wide Shut kind of thing, or the dorky ... movies written by people who don't really know what sex is, like American Pie or something like that. ... But the thing is if you go back to the '70s, you had movies like Shampoo, Diary of a Mad Housewife, ... they were great movies, and they ... weren't, like, Laemmle Sunset Five [art house] movies, either."

Sex and Death 101 stars Simon Baker (Land of the Dead) as Roderick Blank, a successful entrepreneur who, on the eve of his wedding, gets an anonymous e-mail with a list of all the women he's had sex with—and all the women he will ever have sex with. As he tries to find out who the names on the list are, he finds himself pursued by a female serial killer named Death Nell (Winona Ryder, who starred in Waters' early film Heathers).

Ironically, Waters said, "there's been more movies ... and TV shows about serial killers than there has been serial killing. But sex, you know, as far as actual times it happens and actual movies that are about it and take it seriously as people do in real life, [those] are pretty nonexistent, you know? ... Not that I want to make the great serious movie about sex. But I think that the only way to do it is through humor, and kind of intelligent humor. I mean, I call this movie 'If Philip K. Dick and Philip Roth did a book together, it would be like this.' And I will leave you on that one." Sex and Death 101, which also stars Julie Bowen and Dash Mihok, is currently in production under Cary Brokaw's Avenue Pictures. Also producing are Sandbar principals Lizzie Friedman and Greg Little. —Patrick Lee, News Editor

Helix Aims For Danger

SF author William Sanders told SCI FI Wire that his recently launched speculative fiction e-zine Helix http://www.helixsf.com/ will publish short stories that are too dangerous to print in other SF magazines. "One prominent SF editor had told [Adam-Troy Castro] that he'd be lynched if he published [his short story]," Sanders (The Wild Blue and the Gray) said in an interview. "[So my friends and I] thought it was a really neat idea to start a magazine that would publish the stories nobody else wanted to touch."

The result is Helix, whose editorial staff includes lauded writers Lawrence Watt-Evans (the Legends of Ethshar series) and John Barnes (Encounter With Tiber). The premiere issue contains short fiction from Richard Bowes (From the Files of the Time Rangers) and Castro (Tangled Strings), as well as from Grammy-Award-winning singer/songwriter-turned-SF-author Janis Ian ("At Seventeen"). Sanders himself has won two Sidewise awards for alternate history.

Because Helix is a quarterly magazine, Sanders decided to make it an invitation-only publication. "I couldn't accept more than a tiny number of [submissions], and, indeed, I'd have to bounce a lot of very good stories, which would be a drag for me as well as the writers," he said, adding: "I'm just trying to treat the writers fairly."

Sanders chooses his authors by their reputation. "Mainly I choose people whose published work has impressed me with its excellence, especially if they've been known for edgy work," he said.

So how did he choose the name Helix? "When [the staff] took a vote, that was what we settled on," he said. "Actually, we were going to call it Legends, because that's what we’ve always called ourselves: legends in our own minds. But then we found out there always already a Legends Web zine." —Carol Pinchefsky

Marvel's Quesada Starts Blog

Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada has started his own blog http://www.marvel.com/blogs/joe%20quesada on Marvel.com, Cup of Blog, where he will post about everything from what he eats for breakfast to what superhero he would like to see dead next, Marvel announced.

Quesada joins other Marvel.com bloggers such as executive editor Tom Brevoort (Civil War, New Avengers) and the X-bloggers Nick Lowe and Sean Ryan.

Hill: Horror Takes Time

Horror writer Joe Hill http://www.joehillfiction.com/ , who just won two Bram Stoker Awards, told SCI FI Wire that the earliest stories in his award-winning collection 20th Century Ghosts existed in first draft almost 10 years ago. " many of the stories, probably over half of them, were written in the two years immediately preceding the collection's publication," Hill said in an interview. "Bernard Malamud used to say it takes 10 years of work before you know if you're cut out to be a writer, and that sounds about right to me."

Hill said learning to be a writer is partially a matter of developing your craft and partially a matter of finding your own voice. But mostly, he said, it's a question of figuring out what it is you desperately want to write about. "It can take almost that long to learn your particular subjects, to figure out what it is you write about uniquely," he said. "Over the years I wrote lots of stories—some good, some bad, some published, most not—and 20th Century Ghosts is a kind of map, which tracks how I found my way to the subjects that matter to me: masks and ghosts, the way young boys struggle to form their own identity, the possibility of escaping into your own imagination from otherwise unbearable situations."

Hill's other Stoker win was for his short story "Best New Horror." "[It] ... was one of the last stories to go in my collection," he said. "I had this book full of weird tales, and I was close to sending it out to publishers, and I had this urge to explain myself. 'Best New Horror' was the perfect machine for mounting a defense of surreal, dark fantasy. The protagonist acts as my mouthpiece, and he gives all my reasons for why I think literature needs stories of the supernatural and the fantastic. And then, for his efforts, I sent my hero off to get chainsawed by a pack of inbred hillbillies."

Hill said that he's immensely flattered that people seem to be enjoying the stories as much as they are. "The best thing that could come out of this is, hopefully, Pete Crowther will manage to sell out his run at PS Publishing http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/ , and then he can do this again with some other writers. That'd be a good story: Small press takes a chance on new fantasy writer, doesn't go broke."

Heart-Shaped Box, Hill's first novel, is due out in February 2007 from William Morrow, he said. "The book is about a man who buys a ghost on the Internet and what happens to him after UPS delivers it," he said. "The hero is a burned-out, morally exhausted rock star with the unlikely stage name of Judas Coyne, and he's spent a lifetime running from metaphorical ghosts: the ghost of who he used to be, the ghosts of his dead bandmates, the ghost of a wronged lover who killed herself. So there are a lot of restless spirits circling around Jude, ... which he has to try and lay to rest." —John Joseph Adams

[b]Zombie Reveals Halloween Details

Rob Zombie, who will direct a proposed new version of the classic horror film Halloween, told the HalloweenMovies.com Web site http://www.halloweenmovies.com/h9_lobby.html that his film will be more of a prequel to John Carpenter's original movie, starting in 1978.

"I am basically making a prequel and a semi-remake of the first film, all in one," Zombie (The Devil's Rejects) told fans on the site. "So, really, in theory there will be more original content than remake content. That's why I don't like the word 'remake.'"

Zombie added: "I think this aspect of the story is very important in order to bring new life to the character of Michael Myers. The film begins in 1978. ... I wouldn't even go near this project if I didn't feel like [I] had a fresh, worthwhile approach to the material."

Zombie, whose films are characterized by high levels of gore, was asked whether he would take the same approach in Halloween. "I plan to focus on character, mood and terror," he said. As for Michael Myers' famous look? "I want to keep the mask classic," he added.

Empires Matchmaking Service Here

Age of Empires gamers can meet up through a new matchmaking service being offered through GameSpy Arcade. The service will help players buddy up on Age of Empires, Age of Empires: Rise of Rome, Age of Empires II and Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. Sean Flinn, senior product manager of competition and community at IGN Entertainment, told SCI FI Wire, "GameSpy Arcade provides lobbies where these players can congregate [and] find opponents, be they friends or new acquaintances, [as well as] create game sessions and launch into the game together."

Previously, gamers could meet through the Microsoft Gaming Zone and through the game's own internal matchmaking lobbies. But because there's no dedicated server running the game perpetually, players couldn't simply log on and join a game in progress.

"Because games like Age of Empires are peer-to-peer games, they require one of the players to host the game session on their own machine and often require that all players involved in a game session launch simultaneously," Flinn said. "Thus, having a place to find other players is critical to playing online, as is the technology to facilitate the simultaneous game launch."

GameSpy Arcade also features buddy lists, instant messaging and live chat lobbies. There are also patch alerts when game updates are released and an integrated Web browser for surfing enthusiast sites related to players' favorite games. For premium members there is also a voice chat feature, which can be extended into peer-to-peer game sessions.

GameSpy also offers a detailed ladder system for the Age of Empires titles. Hosted by GameSpy Arena http://arena.gamespy.com/ , the game ladders require participants to challenge higher-ranked players and defeat them in order to move up the rankings. GameSpy Arcade http://www.gamespyarcade.com/download/ is free to download and use. Its core features are all available to every user. GameSpy Arcade provides matchmaking services for more than 600 PC games and game demos, including the Battlefield franchise, Medal of Honor, the Total War franchise and the Call of Duty franchise. The full list can be viewed on the Web http://www.gamespyarcade.com/games/ . —Casey Lynch

Krrish To Save India

India will release its first superhero movie, Krrish http://www.krrishthemovie.com/ , across the country on June 23, the Reuters news service reported. The movie—about a homegrown superhero who not only tackles villains and saves the world, but also sings and dances—is being heavily promoted with television ads, billboards and countless merchandising spinoffs.

The $10 million film, a costly production by Bollywood standards, is a sequel to the 2003 blockbuster Koi ... Mil Gaya (I Found Someone), considered Hindi cinema's first major science fiction film.

In it, an E.T.-like alien comes to Earth and is saved by Rohit, a kind but dimwitted youth. Before returning home, the alien transforms the nervous, cocooned Rohit into a powerful hero who avenges his tormentors and wins the girl.

Krrish tells the story of Rohit's son, Krishna (Hrithik Roshan), who is born with all his father's super powers and more, but is unaware of them until he follows his lady love, a television reporter, to Singapore from his pastoral idyll in India, the wire service reported. The film is directed by Rakesh Roshan, who is also Hrithik Roshan's father.

'Imago' Imagines The Macabre

Horror author Laird Barron http://www.lairdbarron.com/ , who was just nominated for two International Horror Guild Awards, told SCI FI Wire that his nominated story "The Imago Sequence" is about a small-time enforcer who investigates the origin of a series of macabre photographs and discovers secrets not meant for the eyes of man.

"The novella emerged from a nightmare I experienced concerning a slab of mysterious, slate-like rock," Barron said in an interview. "In the dream, as I observed the whorls and striations of various composite minerals, a malign pattern coalesced, a prehistoric signal that had lain dormant until sentient life achieved an advanced degree of intellectual facility. This pattern precipitated an electrochemical reaction in certain human brains that would greatly speed and horrifically distort the evolutionary process. Perhaps the most unpleasant aspect of this pattern was the fact that it simply existed as a force of the cold, uncaring universe, rather than as an element of some sinister eldritch plot."

Barron said that he wrote the novella over the course of five or six months. "The central thesis remained intact, while the delivery method and motivations of individuals associated with the phenomenon emerged and sort of took on lives of their own," he added. "'The Imago Sequence' lies at the heart of a story cycle that contains several published works and a number I'm in the process of creating."

The action in Barron's other nominated story, "Proboscis," occurs in and around the Mima Mounds, an obscure geological anomaly in rural western Washington, he said. "The plot features a failed actor returning from a Canadian road trip in the company of two rather scary bounty hunters," he said. "Weird and ominous events unfold, fueling the actor's growing paranoia [that] the group is being stalked by some unearthly menace. The story seed originated from my excursions to the Mima Mounds and a newspaper article concerning American bounty hunters arrested in Mexico following a botched raid. I conceived the piece in very stark, cinematic terms; I hoped to create an explicit, almost claustrophobic narrative about a really unpleasant day in the protagonist's life, while keeping the true peril of the situation fundamentally oblique."

Barron undertakes a lot of research for the majority of his stories, he said. "'The Imago Sequence' proved a particularly neat case, because I had occasion to investigate a variety of esoteric topics, such as the cultivation, preparation and effects of various mind-altering drugs; hypnosis; quantum mechanics; sex addiction; and trepanation, 99 percent of which never makes it into the text but sort of bubbles just under the surface nonetheless," he said.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/ , which is the original publisher of Barron's two nominated stories, recently published Barron's novella "Hallucigenia," which is the latest story in the Imago cycle, he said. "Proboscis" will appear in three best-of-the-year anthologies, and "The Imago Sequence" is scheduled for reprint in Year's Best Fantasy 6. —John Joseph Adams

[fulltimer56]

Part 3 of 3

Olguin Climbs The Clock Tower

Chilean helmer Jorge Olguin is directing the Mayhem Project's supernatural horror movie Clock Tower, based on the Japanese video-game franchise, Variety reported. Production is slated to begin this fall.

Written by Jake Wade Wall (When a Stranger Calls), the movie concerns a young woman who receives a disturbing phone call from her estranged mother warning her not to come home. When she investigates, she uncovers a terrible supernatural truth from her past.

Mayhem Project chairman/chief executive officer Anthony Mosawi and president of production Brad Luff are producing. Tim Kwok executive-produces. Mayhem executive Jennifer Rogers is supervising for Mayhem.

Launched in 1997 by the Japanese video-game studio Capcom, the Clock Tower franchise has become one of the best-selling video games of all time.

Spooky House Haunts TV

Pinnacle Entertainment bought the TV rights to the family magical Halloween film Spooky House, starring Ben Kingsley (Thunderbirds), Simon Baker (I, Robot) and Mercedes Ruehl (Big), Variety reported.

The company already purchased the TV rights to 400 titles of Roger Corman's films, including Death Race 2000, and plans to air the films on basic cable, pay TV and TV syndication in the United States, according to the trade publication.

Spooky House was released in 2000 and stars Kingsley as a magician, the Great Zamboni, who takes an orphan, played by Matt Weinberg, under his wing. Directed by William Sachs, who directed The Incredible Melting Man, the family film won two awards at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

Medium's Echevarria Signs Deal

Former Star Trek writer/producer Rene Echevarria, who is now executive producer of NBC's Medium, has signed a large two-year, mid-seven-figure overall deal with CBS Paramount Network Television, Variety reported.

Echevarria also co-created USA Network's hit SF drama The 4400 with Scott Peters. He will continue to work on Medium while developing his own projects for the studio. Medium was created by Glenn Gordon Caron and is produced by CBS Paramount Netowrk TV; it begins its third season on NBC this fall.

Echevarria has been with Medium since its first season, having previously worked with Caron on Now and Again. Before that, he spent nearly a decade working on the Star Trek franchise, spending three years on Star Trek: The Next Generation and five seasons on Deep Space Nine.

NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Witch Hunters Conjured

Joe Ballarini will write and Dave Meyers is attached to direct Witch Hunters, an adventure film set in the world of witchcraft and black magic, Variety reported. Arnold and Anne Kopelson are producing through their Kopelson Entertainment company for New Regency.

Ballarini wrote The Legendary McClouds at Paramount and MGM's F+, which he's also directing.

Meyers is a prolific music video director who just started production on New Line's The Hitcher.

Stemple Butters Up Troll Bridge

Fantasy author and professional musician Adam Stemple told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Troll Bridge—part of the Rock & Roll Fairy Tales series he co-authors with his mother, multiple-award-winning fantasy author Jane Yolen—revolves around an odd bit of Minnesota culture.

"Each year in Minnesota, 12 dairy princesses are named, and for as long as anyone can remember, and for no possible reason anyone can think of, the [likenesses] of the 12 dairy princesses have been carved out of butter and showed at the state fair," Stemple said in an interview. "[In the novel,] a new mayor in the small town of Vanderby decides to stop disposing of the in the traditional manner, [and] it has unforeseen consequences. First, the princesses disappear, then the popular boy band the Griffson Brothers are gone, too, taken by Aenmarr the troll into Trollholm to serve as brides and dinner, respectively. And it's up to the unlikely heroes, dairy princess Moira Darr and young guitarist Jakob Griffson, to fight their way out, with only the help of the Fossegrim, a mysterious talking fox, who may be their deliverance or their destruction."

Troll Bridge really came together when Stemple thought of the butter heads, he said. "We had the basics of an idea—boy band gets dragged into Trollholm and has to escape somehow—but we didn't know why," he said, adding: "So we started diving into the old Troll legends. We found the Fossegrim and plopped him into the story. We didn't know where he fit yet, but that was OK, because he was kind of a trickster. We figured he would make his own place. But it was the story of the 12 dancing princesses that struck my eye. There was a reason for the boys to enter Trollholm: to rescue the princesses. But now I had to figure out who the princesses were and why they were taken. Well, the most famous princesses in Minnesota are the dairy princesses. That led me to the butter heads. And once I had the butter heads, the whole plot fell into place."

Stemple said he and Yolen started the Rock & Roll Fairy Tales series to combine his own musical knowledge with his mother's expertise in folklore to create something totally new. "The fairy tales are just a jumping-off point. These aren't retellings," he said. "Troll Bridge takes elements from 'The [Three] Billy Goats Gruff,' 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses' and a variety of Norwegian troll legends."

Stemple added: "Music plays a big part in all the stories in the series. In Pay the Piper, the Pied Piper leads a rock band in the present, and his music is part of the magic he wields. In Troll Bridge, all the protagonists are musicians, though of different sorts, and they must use their different musical skills to extricate themselves from Trollholm. The Fossegrim is also a musician and a talented teacher of musicians from Norwegian legend." Starscape, an imprint of Tor, will publish Troll Bridge in July. The first of Stemple's Rock & Roll Fairy Tales, titled Pay the Piper, just won the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book. —John Joseph Adams

[b]SG-1's Shanks Fans Hold Auction

Fans of Stargate SG-1 http://www.scifi.com/stargate/ star Michael Shanks will auction off memorabilia to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. The Michael Shanks Online Web site http://www.michaelshanks-online.com/ is hosting its second annual auction, beginning June 21, of about 70 items from Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis http://www.scifi.com/atlantis/ , Andromeda, Highlander, Star Trek, Lost, Supernatural and Smallville. The site's first auction raised $5,500 for the MS Society of Canada.

Among the items up for sale this time around: Shanks' college rugby boots; his costume coat from a University of British Columbia production of Love's Labour's Lost; his shooting scripts of SG-1 episodes, including the season 10 premiere "Flesh and Blood," with his handwritten notes; the shooting script for the Andromeda episode "Star-Crossed," signed by Shanks and SG-1/Andromeda co-star Lexa Doig; the script of the SG-1 episode "Watergate," signed by Shanks and his co-stars Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge; Shanks' own SG-1 100th episode commemorative pewter photo holder with a cast photo; and more.

Items were donated by Shanks, Doig, the University of British Columbia, Stargate Props, Ann Wortham, Stargatefan.com and Creation Entertainment.

Bullock Dives Into SF Lake

Sandra Bullock, who re-teams with her Speed co-star Keanu Reeves in the time-travel romance The Lake House, told reporters that she received some tips about how to deal with the time-travel element from SF veteran Reeves (the Matrix movies).

Reeves is an old hand at genre films, having appeared in Johnny Mnemonic, Constantine, The Devil's Advocate, Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Gift and the upcoming A Scanner Darkly. Bullock has appeared in fewer genre films, including Demolition Man and Practical Magic.

"Sure, he helped me," Bullock said at a news conference. "You can't get your mind around life. That's the biggest sci-fi thing there is. So I think that the less you think about it and just react the way that people normally react to a bizarre situation, the easier it is. If you start to overthink it, it gets a little trickier. He did [help], though. He did actually try and help me through some stuff."

Reeves, who sat next to Bullock at the news conference, looked at his co-star, a bit surprised, and said, "I did? Like what?"

"Like life," Bullock replied with a laugh. "No, I mean, I'm a very logical person, and he has a very good way of barreling right into it, whereas I like to dissect and circle around. He kind of dives into it more than I do."

Bullock said that she does believe in the paranormal. "I believe in that stuff, though," she said. "So many times I'll say, 'Hey, did you just see that? Did that just happen?' I believe it. I know there are big things that are happening around us. You just have to choose to see them or not."

The two actors have searched for a project to work on together since Speed catapulted both of them into household-name status in 1994, a dozen years ago. When director Alejandro Agresti (Valentin) approached them with the remake and revamp of the original South Korean SF romance Il Mare, they jumped at the chance. The Lake House is now playing. —Mike Szymanski

Martin Deals New Wild Cards

SF author George R.R. Martin told SCI FI Wire he will be reviving Wild Cards, a series of novels and short stories about an alien virus that either kills its victims or mutates them into deformed "Jokers" or super-powered "Aces." Tor Books will release a new Wild Cards hardcover edition in 2007.

Wild Cards has had a varied publishing history: It was originally published in 1987-93 by Bantam Books, then again in 1993-95 by Baen Books and most recently in 2002 by iBooks. The earlier series dealt with the repercussions of the alien virus. The new series, which follows mostly new characters, takes the existence of Jokers and Aces for granted, Martin said in an interview. "All the changes made in the world is history to them, stuff their parents talk about, like FDR and the Kennedy assassination," he said.

Martin is associated with the Wild Cards series, but he actually wrote only some of the works, which he said originated with a superhero role-playing game. Mainly, he served as an editor. Other collaborators included Melinda M. Snodgrass (TV's Odyssey 5 and Star Trek: The Next Generation), Walter Jon Williams (Dread Empire's Fall), Chris Claremont (X-Men comics) and the late Roger Zelazny (Chronicles of Amber).

Many of the original series' writers will return for the new one, and Martin has also brought on new writers. "[These new writers] brought some great characters and concepts to us, and I think they'll be great additions to the Wild Cards crew," he said.

Martin said that he never abandoned Wild Cards, though he has most recently been writing his popular fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. "I've always juggled," he said. "As a writer you don't just do one thing. For 10 years I was [in Hollywood] working on Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, and I'd write and edit Wild Cards on the weekend. You just find time to do it."

Will he now take a break from Ice and Fire in favor of his longtime love? "Oh, no," he said. "I'm working on the fifth book now, and after that there will be at least two more equally large books. That's going to take me another five or six years to finish." —Carol Pinchefsky

[b]Platinum Seeks Comic Ideas

Platinum Studios is inviting aspiring writers and artists to submit their work in the Comic Book Challenge, co-sponsored by San Diego's NBC-TV 7/39. The winner's comic concept will be developed for print, online, film and television projects.

New and unpublished comic book creators can submit their ideas online http://www.comicbookchallenge.com/ through July 5. The top 50 semifinalists will pitch their concepts live at a secret location near NBC studios in San Diego on July 20, the first day of Comic-Con International in that city, to a panel of industry professionals. The panel will include Marc Silvestri, founder and chief executive officer of Top Cow Comics; film producer Gale Anne Hurd; and Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, chairman of Platinum Studios and founder of Malibu Comics.

The top three finalists will appear on NBC-TV 7/39's Streetside San Diego on July 21 to pitch their comic vision to local audiences. Comic fans will vote for the winner at ComicBookChallenge.com http://www.comicbookchallenge.com/ through July 24. The winner's comic-book concept will be published by Platinum Studios and premiere in print in March 2007.

BRIEFLY NOTED

The Weinstein Co. announced that the supernatural thriller Pulse, a remake of the Japanese movie Kairo, has moved to Sept. 8.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment announced that it will release Surface: The Complete Series on DVD on Aug. 15, with every episode of the NBC SF show, at a suggested retail price of $49.98.

Star Trek's William Shatner will be the subject of Comedy Central's next celebrity roast, which will film in Los Angeles in August to be aired on Aug. 20 at 10 p.m. ET, the Zap3it Web site reported.

New Line Cinema is in negotiations to sign Matthew McConaughey to a two-picture deal, with one being a resurrected Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and the other a Southern-fried comedic action movie titled The Grackle, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

SuperheroHype! http://www.superherohype.com/news/ironmannews.php?id=4422 reported that Jon Favreau, the director who is developing an Iron Man movie, told fans on his official MySpace.com http://groups.myspace.com/ironmanmovie site that he's eyeing a May 2008 release for the film (hear Favreau discuss his plans for Iron Man with SCI FI Wire on SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse video feature).

Prolific television producer Aaron Spelling, 83, whose shows included Fantasy Island and Charlie's Angels, suffered a stroke over the weekend and was briefly hospitalized but is now being cared for at home, the Reuters news service reported.

Apple is offering an exclusive sneak peek of Superman Returns in the form of a free download of a two-and-a-half-minute scene from the film on the iTunes Music Store, which can be viewed on a computer or iPod, not to mention the film's original soundtrack, star Brandon Routh's Celebrity Playlist and free podcasts featuring director Bryan Singer's video journals as he chronicles the making of the movie.

IMAX Corp. and Warner Brothers announced that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be simultaneously released to both IMAX and conventional theaters on July 13, 2007.

TV Guide columnist Michael Ausiello reported that Camryn Manheim may join the cast of CBS' Ghost Whisperer as the new best friend of Jennifer Love Hewitt's Melinda Gordon, replacing Aisha Tyler, who is no longer on the show.

Fans of Joss Whedon's Serenity will screen the movie http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com/ in 46 theaters in six countries June 22-30 to raise money for Equality Now, a gender-issues charity.

Author Michael Chabon wrote in his official blog http://www.michaelchabon.com/works/archives/2006/06/emthe_amazing_a.html that news will break July 12 about the proposed film version of his Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, with Natalie Portman "a strong likelihood for the part of Rosa."

Variety has identified the author of Hyperion Books' Bad Twin, the mystery novel supposedly written by Oceanic Flight 815 passenger Gary Troup—a fictional character from ABC's hit series Lost—as thriller author Laurence Shames.

The Da Vinci Code has taken in $678 million worldwide, including foreign ticket sales of $479.1 million, which puts the movie on a trajectory to surpass Forrest Gump as the top-grossing drama after James Cameron's Titanic, Variety reported.

Ain't It Cool News http://aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23646 has posted links to a Warner Brothers video http://raincloud.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/supermanreturns/jor_el/jor_el_large.mov illustrating how F/X house Rhythm & Hues brought the late Marlon Brando back to life to reprise the role of Jor-El in Bryan Singer's upcoming Superman Returns, opening June 28.

Warner Brothers will give away two flat-screen televisions to winners chosen at random from among the first 300 people to take seats in the bleachers at the red-carpet premiere of Superman Returns on June 21 at the Mann Village Theater in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Disneyland will revamp its venerable Pirates of the Caribbean attraction to incorporate elements from the hit movie and its upcoming sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to coincide with the sequel's opening later this summer.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon told WizardUniverse.com http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/000495675.cfm that the long-anticipated TV movies based on Buffy characters Spike and others are "probably not going to happen" and added that "I think money is standing in the way."

SF publisher Jim Baen suffered a serious stroke and has been hospitalized, the Making Light Web site http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007658.html#007658 reported on June 15; Baen Books publishes many long-running series and other works by SF authors.

SF authors William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans have launched Helix http://www.helixsf.com/index.htm , a free online magazine of speculative fiction, which will appear in January, April, July and October.

[SatansProdigy]

Rob Zombie "remaking" Halloween! One of my favorite artists (musical) and my absolute favorite horror film together?!?! I'll keep my hopes low in case it's a complete suck-fest! But I sure liked Devil's Rejects and House of a 1000 Corpses!

[rowand]

Just take it away from Branon Bragga and his "we hate trek, this is just a job" crew. They took a viable property like Star Trek and made it unwatchable.

And I tried!