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08-20-2006, 04:54 AM
NEWS OF THE WEEK FOR AUG. 14, 2006
Part 1 of 2
SCI FI Gets Who Season Two
SCI FI Channel and BBC Worldwide Americas announced a major licensing agreement for SCI FI to air the second season of the hit British SF series Doctor Who http://www.scifi.com/doctorwho/ in the United States. The series will return to SCI FI on Sept. 29, kicking off with a two-hour premiere that will include the "Christmas Invasion" special in which David Tennant is introduced as the 10th Time Lord.
Billie Piper returns as the Doctor's feisty young companion, Rose Tyler, and together they will travel through time and space battling new and returning aliens and monsters.
Chris Regina, vice president of programming, SCI FI Channel, said in a statement: "Our audience has clearly embraced Doctor Who, and it has delivered a significant increase in viewers in the time period. We are looking forward to keeping the momentum going with David Tennant as the new Doctor."
Executive producer and lead writer Russell T Davies said in a separate statement: "We were delighted by the first season's success in the U.S. and can promise new thrills, new laughs, new heartbreak and some terrifying new aliens in season two."
Executive-produced by Davies and Julie Gardner, the second season of Doctor Who was the most popular program on Saturday nights when it aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom to critical acclaim.
New TMNT Gets Back To Roots
Kevin Munroe, writer and director of the upcoming animated film TMNT (for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) http://scifipedia.scifi.com/index.php/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles , and Thomas Gray, producer and head of Imagi Animation Studios, told SCI FI Wire that the latest incarnation of the popular franchise tries to correct the mistakes learned from the mid-'90s animatronic and live-action films. As before, the new version of TMNT centers on four humanoid turtles named Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo
"[TMNT creator] Peter Laird wanted to get back to the original comic book," Gray said in a group interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego last month. "We had botched badly [film] number two, and I suffered personally from that with Peter. We were racing to get the second film out because we didn't know how long the series would last, so from the day we opened the film, one year later we were on the screen again. We didn't take our time and do a very good story. Director Michael Pressman did a great job, but the story was weak. I think it really hurt the series, and Peter felt we betrayed the vision he and [co-creator] Kevin [Eastman] had."
For the upcoming new animated version, from Hong Kong-based Imagi Animation Studios, Gray said: "I think [Peter] wanted to make sure this time around that we didn't just want to show up and shoot something and get it out in CG. Bringing [director] Kevin [Munroe] on, he really had to go worship at the shrine in Northampton. Peter doesn't travel, and Kevin had to prove to Peter that he was worthy to carry the Turtles in his vision. Kevin was very patient, and I think they both came up with and got the story fans really want to see. It's 15 years later, and we are in a different world. I think the elements of less 'cowabunga' and more reality is where we are going. Plus it's a more complicated story. Kevin wrote it, and it's his ideas, and I think he did a terrific job."
Director Munroe added: "It is a bigger story and a more serious story, but at the same time you can't deny what made the Turtles what they are. It's that magic mix of action and character-based comedy." Revealing some tidbits about how this Ninja Turtle adventure is different, Munroe said, "The threat that our villain poses is unleashing an army of monsters into New York City. It's about world domination, and it doesn't feel like it takes place on three soundstages that we could afford to build in live action. It seems like with everything that has been done before, and it's mostly for budgetary reasons, it feels like if you make the right, wrong turn, you can stumble upon the Turtle lair. I really want to make it feel like you have to really know where this thing is; you go into the belly of the city to find where the lair is. We actually follow Mikey down, and we see all the architecture change from modern concrete to the brick and rusted pipes, and the color gets sucked out the deeper he goes."
In the earlier films, well-known actors like Corey Feldman voiced the Turtles, but Munroe said he made a different choice for this film. "I will say the four Turtles follow the Superman model in that there are just four insanely talented voice actors, and there is no celebrity behind it at all," he said. "It was my intent at the beginning, and it was Tom's. When you hear Leonardo, you hear Leonardo, not Tom Cruise as Leonardo." TMNT hits theaters March 7, 2007.
Galactica Recap Special Due
SCI FI Channel and its sister NBC Universal networks will air a one-hour recap special of the original series Battlestar Galactica http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ in advance of the show's October third-season premiere. Battlestar Galactica: The Story So Far will incorporate footage from the original SCI FI miniseries and the previous two seasons of the Peabody Award-winning series. The special will be narrated from the point of view of Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), the resistance leader on Cylon-occupied New Caprica. The special will also appear on SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse http://www.scifi.com/pulse/ broadband network.
The special will be broadcast as follows: Aug. 13 at 10 p.m. on NBC West Coast, Aug. 28 Free On Demand via SCI FI's cable affiliates, Sept. 15 at 12 a.m. on USA Network, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. on Universal HD, Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. on USA, Sept. 22 at 8 p.m. on Universal HD, Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. on Sleuth, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. on Bravo, Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. on Bravo, Sept. 30 at 4 p.m. on Universal HD, throughout the month of September on SCI FI Pulse and Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. on SCI FI.
Throughout September, The Story So Far will also be made available for download via iTunes and XBox Live and will be distributed at Best Buy as a bonus DVD with the Battlestar Galactica season 2.5 DVD set and other genre titles from Universal Home Video. The DVD will also be distributed to visitors to the Universal Studios theme parks, and snippets of the special will be available on YouTube.com, Google Video and other video portal sites.
Anthrax Rocks Galactica Set
Scott Ian, the guitar player for the thrash metal rock band Anthrax, and his mates paid a surprise visit on Aug. 3 to the Vancouver, B.C., set of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica, of which he is a huge fan. "Everyone was so cool to us!" Ian—who made the visit with Anthrax bass player Frank Bello, agent Mike Monterulo and Anthrax.com http://www.anthrax.com/ webmaster Brent Thompson—said in an interview. "Not that I expected people to be crabby. I just thought it would be more businesslike. Everyone from the driver that picked us up to Edward James Olmos [Adm. Adama] were so cool. Unbelievable hospitality."
The band was in the Canadian city to perform with Rob Zombie. A fan of the show who knew that Galactica filmed locally, Ian called SCI FI to arrange a visit to the show's Vancouver Film Studios set. Sian McArthur in the production office gave them a tour, introduced them to cast and crew and even took photos of Ian http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=10&id=2493 with the cast and sitting in Starbuck's Viper. All told, the rockers spent five hours on set.
"When we were on set watching a scene with all the Cylons inside their base ship, we were just trying to stay out of everyone's way," Ian said. "And then we were escorted to chairs right behind director Michael Rymer and given headsets so we could hear the dialogue! Too much. Our guide for the day, Sian McArthur, was perfect, and Katee Sackhoff [Starbuck] and Aaron Douglas [Tyrol] went above and beyond to make sure we were cool. Sitting in Starbuck's Viper was cool, too."
Why is Ian such a fan? Is it the music? "Because it's the best-written show on television," he said. "It's story-driven, and the perfectly cast characters take it to a whole other level that transcends the sci-fi genre. And the Cylons are frakkin' badass." Battlestar Galactica returns with a new third season in the fall. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Lost Production Resumes
ABC announced that production began Aug. 7 in Hawaii on the upcoming third season of its hit SF series Lost, which returns on Oct. 4 and will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
ABC also offered a new synopsis of what to expect: Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) open the season in captivity as prisoners of the Others. Just who these Others are and what they want are primary questions season three will explore.
Michael Emerson joins the regular cast in his ongoing role as Henry Gale, leader of the Others. Romance looms on the horizon as Jack's interests veer toward a mysterious new woman, whose motives may be questionable. Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) will continue to celebrate their pregnancy, but is the child really Jin's? Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) will band together with some of the other survivors and journey across the island in an attempt to free Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) will attempt to return into the good graces of Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and her baby, Aaron, but can he be trusted to stay clean and sober? The fates of Locke, Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) in the aftermath of the implosion of the hatch are answered. Will Penny Widmore find the island and her long-lost love, Desmond, and can the survivors find a way to interact with the outside world?
Meanwhile, Variety reported that Kiele Sanchez will join the cast as a woman named Nikki, who is possibly a love interest for a new character played by Rodrigo Santoro. In addition, Elizabeth Mitchell joins the cast as Juliet.
Potter VI Set For November '08
While no director has been set and casting has not been confirmed, Warner Brothers has staked out a Nov. 21, 2008—Thanksgiving—release date for its proposed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth installment in the lucrative franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Paramount Pictures, meanwhile, has set a Nov. 8, 2008, release date for DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar sequel. Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith and David Schwimmer are set to reprise their roles as the main characters of the animated franchise.
The November Harry Potter date will mark a return to the Thanksgiving period for the franchise after the fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, premieres next July. Of the four Potter films to date, only the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has been released during the summer.
Star Treks To TV Land
TV Land has acquired the rights to the original Star Trek series, which will join the cable network's regular rotation in November, Zap2It reported. The classic-television network will get an early start on the voyages of the starship Enterprise on Sept. 8, the 40th anniversary of the show's premiere on NBC, when TV Land will show four episodes, including "The Man Trap," the episode that began the series on Sept. 8, 1966.
In addition to the premiere, TV Land will show the fan-favorite episodes "City on the Edge of Forever," "The Trouble With Tribbles" and "Plato's Stepchildren," which featured the first interracial kiss, between Kirk (William Shatner) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), on television.
Star Trek will begin airing regularly on TV Land on Nov. 17.
Trek Sites Sell Scripts
Roddenberry.com http://www.cafepress.com/roddenberry/ and CafePress.com announced a publishing partnership to sell editions of the original scripts for the Star Trek TV franchise and other merchandise to commemorate the franchise's 40th anniversary http://startrek40.blogspot.com/ .
The sites will release limited-edition volumes each month over the next three years of scripts for the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, ST: Deep Space Nine, ST: Voyager, ST: Enterprise and ST: The Animated Series. The first title is the script for the original series pilot episode "The Cage" for $24.99, which will only be available until Sept. 5.
Meanwhile, Planet Xpo, producer of the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Gala Celebration & Conference set for Sept. 8–10 at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, has launched a 40th-anniversary blog. Contributors include Seth Shostak from the SETI Institute; Kris Smith, a personal friend of DeForest Kelley; Martin Cooper, inventor of the cell phone; Pat Hoar from Space Adventures Inc.; and Jeff Greenwald, author of Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth. The final blog entry on the 40th-anniversary date of Sept. 8 will be from legendary SF author Arthur C. Clarke. Voyager cast member Tim Russ will read Clarke's entry at the gala.
Shatner Seeks SF Personality
Original Star Trek star William Shatner http://www.scifi.com/sfw/sites/sfw10350.html is sponsoring an online contest http://shatner.blip.tv/ to find the most talented SF personality in the United States. To enter, contestants must create a short video clip that shows why they are the heir apparent to the original Capt. Kirk and upload it by Sept. 30.
Finalists will be chosen by the public, and the top 10 highest-ranked entrants will be named finalists and given a chance to win William Shatner's Sci-Fi Challenge.
Seven judges will each select an additional finalist (for 17 finalists total), and Shatner himself will pick the winner. The judges include representatives from StarTrek.com, Ain't It Cool News, Planet Magazine, The Slice of Sci-Fi Podcast and VideoDetective.com, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast member Chase Masterson and Patrick Lee, news editor of SCI FI Wire.
The grand-prize winner will receive a large cash award and will be named the official spokesperson for the William Shatner Science Fiction DVD Club http://www.shatnerdvdclub.com/html/ .
Pulse Faithful To Original
Ian Somerhalder, star of the supernatural horror film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that the American movie remains true to the spirit of Kairo, the 2001 Japanese film on which it is based. "It adheres," Somerhalder said in an interview. "It adheres. Like any remake of anything, there are variations. There is creative license taken by the filmmakers. But I think, on the whole, this is a good version of the Japanese film, with good American film tactics mixed in, if you will. We use newer technology and some new elements that were inspired by what [writer/director Kiyoshi] Kurosawa did."
Kristen Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) stars in Pulse as Mattie, a college student whose friends begin disappearing when their wireless devices begin to channel supernatural creatures. Somerhalder (TV's Lost) plays Dexter, a computer geek who joins forces with Mattie in a race for survival.
Somerhalder offered details about Pulse's plot. "What if, just by chance, through all the use of our wirelessly beaming information around to each other and communicating with each other, something happened?" he asked rhetorically. "We're doing this more and more. And what is the information transmitted through? Frequencies. What do frequencies do? Well, they have the ability to travel through space and they have the ability—possibly—to be reached by, say, this, quote-unquote, other dimension."
Somerhalder added: "Basically, these souls, ghosts, what have you, are traveling through our telecommunications. I can fax a sheet of paper from someone from L.A. to New York. Based on what scientific evidence we do have on what we call souls, they're pure energy. So is a fax, basically. So who's to say a soul couldn't be transmitted just as easily through a line of telecommunications?"
The idea of the movie, he said, is that someone who gets connected gets infected. "These beings, these souls, are coming through every form of telecommunications and are pretty much getting what they don't have, which is life, and they're sucking it out of the people they come in contact with," Somerhalder said. "They almost manifest into these organic beings, and yet they're still somewhat organic, if that makes any sense in the least." Pulse opened on Aug. 11. —Ian Spelling
Pulse Helmer Talks Tech
Jim Sonzero, the neophyte director of the supernatural film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that the movie appealed to him because of its focus on broadband, wireless technology http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/cell_phones_pdas/ and its dehumanizing effect on people. Originally, "the central theme of the film ... was about artificial intelligence, and it felt like it was dated and hackneyed and that we needed to move to bring it forward," Sonzero said in an interview. "At the time everyone was talking about ultra-wideband and WiFi and how WiFi is expanding, and I saw it as an opportunity to move the script, to move the story, into this technological area. And what was appealing about it to me [was] that the WiFi environment could be a window, a portal, for anything to come through, any malevolent forces, things we don't even know are out there."
Pulse stars Kristen Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) as a college student whose friends begin disappearing when their wireless devices begin to channel supernatural creatures.
"It's kind of a ... pure kind of ... [H.P.] Lovecraft kind of feeling or idea that's the central theme of the whole [thing], and I think that we are in fact slaves to our technology," said Sonzero, whose previous work is mostly in TV commercials. "We can post sound bites on each other's machines. We're texting so we don't have to have conversations." He added: "If you think about how much time the average person who has a computer spends in front of his computer and texting and not really experiencing life, there is something eroding here in our world, in our lifestyles, and it's being erased." Pulse, which is based on the Japanese horror film Kairo, opened Aug. 11. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Pulse Star Mixed On Romania
Christina Milian, the singer/songwriter-turned-actress who co-stars in the supernatural horror film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that she had a mixed experience filming in Bucharest, Romania. "I don't want to put it down, because you can't blame people for being the way they are sometimes," Milian said in an interview. "I did meet some very nice people, I will say that. And then ... some people ... were disrespectful, but you deal with it. You know you're going to be there two months, and this is their home, so you keep going on about your business."
Milian plays Isabell, a college student, opposite Kristen Bell. They find that some of their friends and acquaintances begin disappearing after electronic devices such as computers and cell phones begin channeling what appear to be supernatural creatures. The movie derived some of its bleak look from the poverty-stricken area where they shot.
Milian, who is a dark-skinned Cuban-American, said that she encountered some racial discrimination. "Yeah, we did have some bad experiences," she said. "Or not nice. They weren't nice. I mean racism that was just direct, in your face. ... I couldn't believe it. I've never experienced that in my life. It's like you can't even say anything. What am I going to say? I'm not going to change your mind overnight, and there's 50 people around you that feel the same way." She added: "And 70,000 wild dogs that are running around everywhere, just wild dogs, and they're just everywhere. So it was different. But I'm just happy I've gotten home safe. That was my whole thing: 'Please let me get home.' Those two months felt like two years." Pulse, which is based on the Japanese horror film Kairo, opened Aug. 11. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Cell Phones Kill In Pulse
Kristen Bell, who stars in the supernatural horror film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that the film stands as a metaphor for the intrusion of technology into modern lives. "I thought it was smarter than a lot of the other [horror films] I read," Bell said in an interview. "I thought the fact that it was actually using something very real and very tangible to all of us, because everyone's always hooked to their cell phone or grabbing some sort of PDA or something, as opposed to just dealing with 'The murderer's out there somewhere' or 'The ghost is in the closet.' You know what I mean? It was a much different plot line than I was used to hearing, and I, like, I think it's fun to be different."
In Pulse, which is based on the Japanese film Kairo, Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) plays a college student whose friends and acquaintances begin disappearing after encounters with electronic devices that seem to channel supernatural creatures. The movie dramatizes the alienating effect of cell phones and computers. "All of these things that are supposed to bring us closer together, like text messaging and e-mail and such, is actually pulling us further apart, because we're all becoming more reclusive, and you end up sitting on the Internet, ... and you're like, 'Oh, it's 4 a.m. What have I been doing for the last 9 hours?'" Bell said. "The idea of writing a letter has now become ancient, and that's only happened in, like, the last five years. I feel like we've come farther in the last five years than we have in the last 50."
Bell's character, Mattie Webber, "is a college student who's very independent and very driven and also very guarded," she said. "I think ... she's tough, but I think she has a lot of walls put up. ... The movie starts off with her boyfriend committing suicide. ... He must have been the only one that she was really vulnerable with, which is why ... she absolutely has to find out why he left her, why he did it. And that's sort of what drives her throughout the whole movie." Pulse opened Aug. 11. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Giamatti Mulls PKD Biopic
Paul Giamatti is in negotiations to star as SF author Philip K. Dick in an untitled biographical movie that his newly launched production company Touchy Feely Films is producing with Anonymous Content, Variety reported.
The authorized biopic also is being produced by the Philip K. Dick estate through its Electric Shepherd Productions. Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) will write the screenplay.
Dick, who died in 1982, penned more than four dozen books and numerous short stories, with at least seven being adapted for the big screen, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly, which is currently in theaters.
The nontraditional biopic will interweave the prolific author's life with his fiction and incorporate elements of his last unfinished novel, The Owl in Daylight.
Producers are Giamatti plus Anonymous Content's Steve Golin and Lenny Bekerman. Giamatti can now been seen in M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, provides one of the voices in The Ant Bully and will soon be seen in The Illusionist.
Illusionist's Norton Really Conjured
Edward Norton, who plays a turn-of-the-20th-century magician in the film The Illusionist, learned magic so well that his co-stars were amazed at his tricks, co-star Jessica Biel told SCI FI Wire. "Ed really learned the tricks," Biel said in an interview. "He would do this sleight-of-hand trick. He would roll this ball on his hand and slowly roll it over his finger and back again. It was very cool. He was very good at the magic."
Norton plays Eisenheim, a magician who's so good that audiences think he has supernatural powers. He falls in love with a duchess (Biel) while being closely watched by a police inspector played by Paul Giamatti. Director Neil Burger said Norton learned from a few of the best magicians working today, adding that the actor was worried that he couldn't do the illusions himself.
"He learned the tricks," Burger said in a separate interview. "He learned ... sleight of hand and worked with Ricky Jay and immersed himself in the tradition and the history. Everything you see, Edward did himself. As in all his roles, his ability to completely transform himself, to fully inhabit the character, is impressive. In this case, you absolutely believe that he has these sleight-of-hand skills but, more importantly, that he could possess supernatural powers or that he could bring down an empire. He's completely convincing."
British magician James Freedman, who is part of the exclusive Magic Circle of world-class magicians, came to the set in Prague to help Norton make The Illusionist authentic. Freedman served as a magic consultant and helped Norton and co-star Aaron Johnson, who plays the young Eisenheim. "We had a lot of people who helped us make sure the methods and the tricks were historically accurate," Burger said.
The film's illusions, such as an orange tree that grows from a pit and bears fruit in a matter of minutes, are based on actual illusions performed onstage at the turn of the 20th century, such as those of Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, referred to as the Father of Modern Magic.
Burger adapted the film from Steven Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist." The Illusionist opens in limited release on Aug. 18. —Mike Szymanski
Illusionist Conjures With History
Neil Burger, director of the supernatural period drama The Illusionist, told SCI FI Wire that his film bases one of its characters on the historical crown prince of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire at the turn of the 20th century. Burger expanded Steven Millhauser's 20-page short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" by creating a love triangle among a magician (Edward Norton), Duchess Sophie (Jessica Biel) and Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). In the film, Leopold is conspiring to overthrow his father and take over as emperor.
Norton, Sewell and Biel did research about the real-life Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who was rumored to have wanted to overthrow his conservative father, Franz Josef. "The real prince was frustrated because it could have been a while before his father handed over the crown to him, and he was powerless," Burger said.
Burger added: "It's accurate as much as it could be. Look, there was no Crown Prince Leopold. He's based on Crown Prince Rudolf, who was in a similar situation. His father as emperor got in when he was 18 [and] was still around and actually [lived] on for another 30 years. And the real character and this one were left in limbo, and the crown prince wanted to bring them into the modern world, but they were completely powerless, and that would drive them insane. Rudolf and his mistress at the time killed themselves in mysterious circumstances, which is not in the film."
Biel said she found the history fascinating. "I loved the books about that time period, and it helped set the mood for me," she said.
The Illusionist opens nationwide on Aug. 18 and includes the recreation of actual magic performances done on stage about that time. —Mike Szymanski
Christensen Teleports To Jumper
Star Wars' Hayden Christensen will star in Jumper, Regency Enterprises' big-budget SF thriller being directed by Doug Liman, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Regency has partnered with 20th Century Fox to finance the production, which sources told the trade paper is budgeted in the $100 million range.
Christensen's casting jump-starts the production, which was to have begun shooting earlier this summer but had been running idle. Tom Sturridge was to have played the lead role of David, which now will be played by Christensen, since a decision was made to go with a more prominent actor. Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Bell and Teresa Palmer remain with the production.
The movie, which Regency and Fox hope to turn into a trilogy, will now shoot at month's end in Toronto, Rome and Tokyo.
Based on the Steven Gould novel, Jumper follows a young man from a broken home who discovers that he has the ability to teleport. In his quest for the man he believes is responsible for the death of his mother, the kid draws the attention of the National Security Agency and another kid with the same abilities.
Christensen will play the young man who can teleport. Jackson plays an NSA agent, while Bell is the jumper who shows Christensen the ropes.
Lucas Foster and Simon Kinberg are producing along with Jay Sanders. Ralph Vicinanza and Vince Gerardis executive-produce. David Goyer (Batman Begins) wrote the original script, which was rewritten by Kinberg (Mr. and Mrs. Smith).
Nolan Near Prisoner Deal
Universal Pictures is near a deal for Batman Begins helmer Christopher Nolan to direct a feature-film version of the classic TV series The Prisoner, Variety reported.
Janet and David Peoples are set to write the script. Scott Stuber, Mary Parent, Barry Mendel and Emma Thomas will produce.
The British TV series lasted 17 episodes in 1967. Patrick McGoohan played a government agent who resigns and is kidnapped and placed in a mysterious town known as the Village. He's given a new identity—Number Six—and interacts with a staff trying to get him to reveal why he resigned.
The plan is for Nolan to direct a contemporized transformation after he completes The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel that begins production early next year at Warner Brothers.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.
Part 1 of 2
SCI FI Gets Who Season Two
SCI FI Channel and BBC Worldwide Americas announced a major licensing agreement for SCI FI to air the second season of the hit British SF series Doctor Who http://www.scifi.com/doctorwho/ in the United States. The series will return to SCI FI on Sept. 29, kicking off with a two-hour premiere that will include the "Christmas Invasion" special in which David Tennant is introduced as the 10th Time Lord.
Billie Piper returns as the Doctor's feisty young companion, Rose Tyler, and together they will travel through time and space battling new and returning aliens and monsters.
Chris Regina, vice president of programming, SCI FI Channel, said in a statement: "Our audience has clearly embraced Doctor Who, and it has delivered a significant increase in viewers in the time period. We are looking forward to keeping the momentum going with David Tennant as the new Doctor."
Executive producer and lead writer Russell T Davies said in a separate statement: "We were delighted by the first season's success in the U.S. and can promise new thrills, new laughs, new heartbreak and some terrifying new aliens in season two."
Executive-produced by Davies and Julie Gardner, the second season of Doctor Who was the most popular program on Saturday nights when it aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom to critical acclaim.
New TMNT Gets Back To Roots
Kevin Munroe, writer and director of the upcoming animated film TMNT (for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) http://scifipedia.scifi.com/index.php/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles , and Thomas Gray, producer and head of Imagi Animation Studios, told SCI FI Wire that the latest incarnation of the popular franchise tries to correct the mistakes learned from the mid-'90s animatronic and live-action films. As before, the new version of TMNT centers on four humanoid turtles named Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo
"[TMNT creator] Peter Laird wanted to get back to the original comic book," Gray said in a group interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego last month. "We had botched badly [film] number two, and I suffered personally from that with Peter. We were racing to get the second film out because we didn't know how long the series would last, so from the day we opened the film, one year later we were on the screen again. We didn't take our time and do a very good story. Director Michael Pressman did a great job, but the story was weak. I think it really hurt the series, and Peter felt we betrayed the vision he and [co-creator] Kevin [Eastman] had."
For the upcoming new animated version, from Hong Kong-based Imagi Animation Studios, Gray said: "I think [Peter] wanted to make sure this time around that we didn't just want to show up and shoot something and get it out in CG. Bringing [director] Kevin [Munroe] on, he really had to go worship at the shrine in Northampton. Peter doesn't travel, and Kevin had to prove to Peter that he was worthy to carry the Turtles in his vision. Kevin was very patient, and I think they both came up with and got the story fans really want to see. It's 15 years later, and we are in a different world. I think the elements of less 'cowabunga' and more reality is where we are going. Plus it's a more complicated story. Kevin wrote it, and it's his ideas, and I think he did a terrific job."
Director Munroe added: "It is a bigger story and a more serious story, but at the same time you can't deny what made the Turtles what they are. It's that magic mix of action and character-based comedy." Revealing some tidbits about how this Ninja Turtle adventure is different, Munroe said, "The threat that our villain poses is unleashing an army of monsters into New York City. It's about world domination, and it doesn't feel like it takes place on three soundstages that we could afford to build in live action. It seems like with everything that has been done before, and it's mostly for budgetary reasons, it feels like if you make the right, wrong turn, you can stumble upon the Turtle lair. I really want to make it feel like you have to really know where this thing is; you go into the belly of the city to find where the lair is. We actually follow Mikey down, and we see all the architecture change from modern concrete to the brick and rusted pipes, and the color gets sucked out the deeper he goes."
In the earlier films, well-known actors like Corey Feldman voiced the Turtles, but Munroe said he made a different choice for this film. "I will say the four Turtles follow the Superman model in that there are just four insanely talented voice actors, and there is no celebrity behind it at all," he said. "It was my intent at the beginning, and it was Tom's. When you hear Leonardo, you hear Leonardo, not Tom Cruise as Leonardo." TMNT hits theaters March 7, 2007.
Galactica Recap Special Due
SCI FI Channel and its sister NBC Universal networks will air a one-hour recap special of the original series Battlestar Galactica http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ in advance of the show's October third-season premiere. Battlestar Galactica: The Story So Far will incorporate footage from the original SCI FI miniseries and the previous two seasons of the Peabody Award-winning series. The special will be narrated from the point of view of Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), the resistance leader on Cylon-occupied New Caprica. The special will also appear on SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse http://www.scifi.com/pulse/ broadband network.
The special will be broadcast as follows: Aug. 13 at 10 p.m. on NBC West Coast, Aug. 28 Free On Demand via SCI FI's cable affiliates, Sept. 15 at 12 a.m. on USA Network, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. on Universal HD, Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. on USA, Sept. 22 at 8 p.m. on Universal HD, Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. on Sleuth, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. on Bravo, Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. on Bravo, Sept. 30 at 4 p.m. on Universal HD, throughout the month of September on SCI FI Pulse and Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. on SCI FI.
Throughout September, The Story So Far will also be made available for download via iTunes and XBox Live and will be distributed at Best Buy as a bonus DVD with the Battlestar Galactica season 2.5 DVD set and other genre titles from Universal Home Video. The DVD will also be distributed to visitors to the Universal Studios theme parks, and snippets of the special will be available on YouTube.com, Google Video and other video portal sites.
Anthrax Rocks Galactica Set
Scott Ian, the guitar player for the thrash metal rock band Anthrax, and his mates paid a surprise visit on Aug. 3 to the Vancouver, B.C., set of SCI FI Channel's original series Battlestar Galactica, of which he is a huge fan. "Everyone was so cool to us!" Ian—who made the visit with Anthrax bass player Frank Bello, agent Mike Monterulo and Anthrax.com http://www.anthrax.com/ webmaster Brent Thompson—said in an interview. "Not that I expected people to be crabby. I just thought it would be more businesslike. Everyone from the driver that picked us up to Edward James Olmos [Adm. Adama] were so cool. Unbelievable hospitality."
The band was in the Canadian city to perform with Rob Zombie. A fan of the show who knew that Galactica filmed locally, Ian called SCI FI to arrange a visit to the show's Vancouver Film Studios set. Sian McArthur in the production office gave them a tour, introduced them to cast and crew and even took photos of Ian http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=10&id=2493 with the cast and sitting in Starbuck's Viper. All told, the rockers spent five hours on set.
"When we were on set watching a scene with all the Cylons inside their base ship, we were just trying to stay out of everyone's way," Ian said. "And then we were escorted to chairs right behind director Michael Rymer and given headsets so we could hear the dialogue! Too much. Our guide for the day, Sian McArthur, was perfect, and Katee Sackhoff [Starbuck] and Aaron Douglas [Tyrol] went above and beyond to make sure we were cool. Sitting in Starbuck's Viper was cool, too."
Why is Ian such a fan? Is it the music? "Because it's the best-written show on television," he said. "It's story-driven, and the perfectly cast characters take it to a whole other level that transcends the sci-fi genre. And the Cylons are frakkin' badass." Battlestar Galactica returns with a new third season in the fall. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Lost Production Resumes
ABC announced that production began Aug. 7 in Hawaii on the upcoming third season of its hit SF series Lost, which returns on Oct. 4 and will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
ABC also offered a new synopsis of what to expect: Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) open the season in captivity as prisoners of the Others. Just who these Others are and what they want are primary questions season three will explore.
Michael Emerson joins the regular cast in his ongoing role as Henry Gale, leader of the Others. Romance looms on the horizon as Jack's interests veer toward a mysterious new woman, whose motives may be questionable. Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) will continue to celebrate their pregnancy, but is the child really Jin's? Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) will band together with some of the other survivors and journey across the island in an attempt to free Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) will attempt to return into the good graces of Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and her baby, Aaron, but can he be trusted to stay clean and sober? The fates of Locke, Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) in the aftermath of the implosion of the hatch are answered. Will Penny Widmore find the island and her long-lost love, Desmond, and can the survivors find a way to interact with the outside world?
Meanwhile, Variety reported that Kiele Sanchez will join the cast as a woman named Nikki, who is possibly a love interest for a new character played by Rodrigo Santoro. In addition, Elizabeth Mitchell joins the cast as Juliet.
Potter VI Set For November '08
While no director has been set and casting has not been confirmed, Warner Brothers has staked out a Nov. 21, 2008—Thanksgiving—release date for its proposed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth installment in the lucrative franchise, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Paramount Pictures, meanwhile, has set a Nov. 8, 2008, release date for DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar sequel. Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith and David Schwimmer are set to reprise their roles as the main characters of the animated franchise.
The November Harry Potter date will mark a return to the Thanksgiving period for the franchise after the fifth installment, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, premieres next July. Of the four Potter films to date, only the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has been released during the summer.
Star Treks To TV Land
TV Land has acquired the rights to the original Star Trek series, which will join the cable network's regular rotation in November, Zap2It reported. The classic-television network will get an early start on the voyages of the starship Enterprise on Sept. 8, the 40th anniversary of the show's premiere on NBC, when TV Land will show four episodes, including "The Man Trap," the episode that began the series on Sept. 8, 1966.
In addition to the premiere, TV Land will show the fan-favorite episodes "City on the Edge of Forever," "The Trouble With Tribbles" and "Plato's Stepchildren," which featured the first interracial kiss, between Kirk (William Shatner) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), on television.
Star Trek will begin airing regularly on TV Land on Nov. 17.
Trek Sites Sell Scripts
Roddenberry.com http://www.cafepress.com/roddenberry/ and CafePress.com announced a publishing partnership to sell editions of the original scripts for the Star Trek TV franchise and other merchandise to commemorate the franchise's 40th anniversary http://startrek40.blogspot.com/ .
The sites will release limited-edition volumes each month over the next three years of scripts for the original series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, ST: Deep Space Nine, ST: Voyager, ST: Enterprise and ST: The Animated Series. The first title is the script for the original series pilot episode "The Cage" for $24.99, which will only be available until Sept. 5.
Meanwhile, Planet Xpo, producer of the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Gala Celebration & Conference set for Sept. 8–10 at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, has launched a 40th-anniversary blog. Contributors include Seth Shostak from the SETI Institute; Kris Smith, a personal friend of DeForest Kelley; Martin Cooper, inventor of the cell phone; Pat Hoar from Space Adventures Inc.; and Jeff Greenwald, author of Future Perfect: How Star Trek Conquered Planet Earth. The final blog entry on the 40th-anniversary date of Sept. 8 will be from legendary SF author Arthur C. Clarke. Voyager cast member Tim Russ will read Clarke's entry at the gala.
Shatner Seeks SF Personality
Original Star Trek star William Shatner http://www.scifi.com/sfw/sites/sfw10350.html is sponsoring an online contest http://shatner.blip.tv/ to find the most talented SF personality in the United States. To enter, contestants must create a short video clip that shows why they are the heir apparent to the original Capt. Kirk and upload it by Sept. 30.
Finalists will be chosen by the public, and the top 10 highest-ranked entrants will be named finalists and given a chance to win William Shatner's Sci-Fi Challenge.
Seven judges will each select an additional finalist (for 17 finalists total), and Shatner himself will pick the winner. The judges include representatives from StarTrek.com, Ain't It Cool News, Planet Magazine, The Slice of Sci-Fi Podcast and VideoDetective.com, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast member Chase Masterson and Patrick Lee, news editor of SCI FI Wire.
The grand-prize winner will receive a large cash award and will be named the official spokesperson for the William Shatner Science Fiction DVD Club http://www.shatnerdvdclub.com/html/ .
Pulse Faithful To Original
Ian Somerhalder, star of the supernatural horror film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that the American movie remains true to the spirit of Kairo, the 2001 Japanese film on which it is based. "It adheres," Somerhalder said in an interview. "It adheres. Like any remake of anything, there are variations. There is creative license taken by the filmmakers. But I think, on the whole, this is a good version of the Japanese film, with good American film tactics mixed in, if you will. We use newer technology and some new elements that were inspired by what [writer/director Kiyoshi] Kurosawa did."
Kristen Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) stars in Pulse as Mattie, a college student whose friends begin disappearing when their wireless devices begin to channel supernatural creatures. Somerhalder (TV's Lost) plays Dexter, a computer geek who joins forces with Mattie in a race for survival.
Somerhalder offered details about Pulse's plot. "What if, just by chance, through all the use of our wirelessly beaming information around to each other and communicating with each other, something happened?" he asked rhetorically. "We're doing this more and more. And what is the information transmitted through? Frequencies. What do frequencies do? Well, they have the ability to travel through space and they have the ability—possibly—to be reached by, say, this, quote-unquote, other dimension."
Somerhalder added: "Basically, these souls, ghosts, what have you, are traveling through our telecommunications. I can fax a sheet of paper from someone from L.A. to New York. Based on what scientific evidence we do have on what we call souls, they're pure energy. So is a fax, basically. So who's to say a soul couldn't be transmitted just as easily through a line of telecommunications?"
The idea of the movie, he said, is that someone who gets connected gets infected. "These beings, these souls, are coming through every form of telecommunications and are pretty much getting what they don't have, which is life, and they're sucking it out of the people they come in contact with," Somerhalder said. "They almost manifest into these organic beings, and yet they're still somewhat organic, if that makes any sense in the least." Pulse opened on Aug. 11. —Ian Spelling
Pulse Helmer Talks Tech
Jim Sonzero, the neophyte director of the supernatural film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that the movie appealed to him because of its focus on broadband, wireless technology http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/cell_phones_pdas/ and its dehumanizing effect on people. Originally, "the central theme of the film ... was about artificial intelligence, and it felt like it was dated and hackneyed and that we needed to move to bring it forward," Sonzero said in an interview. "At the time everyone was talking about ultra-wideband and WiFi and how WiFi is expanding, and I saw it as an opportunity to move the script, to move the story, into this technological area. And what was appealing about it to me [was] that the WiFi environment could be a window, a portal, for anything to come through, any malevolent forces, things we don't even know are out there."
Pulse stars Kristen Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) as a college student whose friends begin disappearing when their wireless devices begin to channel supernatural creatures.
"It's kind of a ... pure kind of ... [H.P.] Lovecraft kind of feeling or idea that's the central theme of the whole [thing], and I think that we are in fact slaves to our technology," said Sonzero, whose previous work is mostly in TV commercials. "We can post sound bites on each other's machines. We're texting so we don't have to have conversations." He added: "If you think about how much time the average person who has a computer spends in front of his computer and texting and not really experiencing life, there is something eroding here in our world, in our lifestyles, and it's being erased." Pulse, which is based on the Japanese horror film Kairo, opened Aug. 11. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Pulse Star Mixed On Romania
Christina Milian, the singer/songwriter-turned-actress who co-stars in the supernatural horror film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that she had a mixed experience filming in Bucharest, Romania. "I don't want to put it down, because you can't blame people for being the way they are sometimes," Milian said in an interview. "I did meet some very nice people, I will say that. And then ... some people ... were disrespectful, but you deal with it. You know you're going to be there two months, and this is their home, so you keep going on about your business."
Milian plays Isabell, a college student, opposite Kristen Bell. They find that some of their friends and acquaintances begin disappearing after electronic devices such as computers and cell phones begin channeling what appear to be supernatural creatures. The movie derived some of its bleak look from the poverty-stricken area where they shot.
Milian, who is a dark-skinned Cuban-American, said that she encountered some racial discrimination. "Yeah, we did have some bad experiences," she said. "Or not nice. They weren't nice. I mean racism that was just direct, in your face. ... I couldn't believe it. I've never experienced that in my life. It's like you can't even say anything. What am I going to say? I'm not going to change your mind overnight, and there's 50 people around you that feel the same way." She added: "And 70,000 wild dogs that are running around everywhere, just wild dogs, and they're just everywhere. So it was different. But I'm just happy I've gotten home safe. That was my whole thing: 'Please let me get home.' Those two months felt like two years." Pulse, which is based on the Japanese horror film Kairo, opened Aug. 11. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Cell Phones Kill In Pulse
Kristen Bell, who stars in the supernatural horror film Pulse, told SCI FI Wire that the film stands as a metaphor for the intrusion of technology into modern lives. "I thought it was smarter than a lot of the other [horror films] I read," Bell said in an interview. "I thought the fact that it was actually using something very real and very tangible to all of us, because everyone's always hooked to their cell phone or grabbing some sort of PDA or something, as opposed to just dealing with 'The murderer's out there somewhere' or 'The ghost is in the closet.' You know what I mean? It was a much different plot line than I was used to hearing, and I, like, I think it's fun to be different."
In Pulse, which is based on the Japanese film Kairo, Bell (TV's Veronica Mars) plays a college student whose friends and acquaintances begin disappearing after encounters with electronic devices that seem to channel supernatural creatures. The movie dramatizes the alienating effect of cell phones and computers. "All of these things that are supposed to bring us closer together, like text messaging and e-mail and such, is actually pulling us further apart, because we're all becoming more reclusive, and you end up sitting on the Internet, ... and you're like, 'Oh, it's 4 a.m. What have I been doing for the last 9 hours?'" Bell said. "The idea of writing a letter has now become ancient, and that's only happened in, like, the last five years. I feel like we've come farther in the last five years than we have in the last 50."
Bell's character, Mattie Webber, "is a college student who's very independent and very driven and also very guarded," she said. "I think ... she's tough, but I think she has a lot of walls put up. ... The movie starts off with her boyfriend committing suicide. ... He must have been the only one that she was really vulnerable with, which is why ... she absolutely has to find out why he left her, why he did it. And that's sort of what drives her throughout the whole movie." Pulse opened Aug. 11. —Patrick Lee, News Editor
Giamatti Mulls PKD Biopic
Paul Giamatti is in negotiations to star as SF author Philip K. Dick in an untitled biographical movie that his newly launched production company Touchy Feely Films is producing with Anonymous Content, Variety reported.
The authorized biopic also is being produced by the Philip K. Dick estate through its Electric Shepherd Productions. Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) will write the screenplay.
Dick, who died in 1982, penned more than four dozen books and numerous short stories, with at least seven being adapted for the big screen, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly, which is currently in theaters.
The nontraditional biopic will interweave the prolific author's life with his fiction and incorporate elements of his last unfinished novel, The Owl in Daylight.
Producers are Giamatti plus Anonymous Content's Steve Golin and Lenny Bekerman. Giamatti can now been seen in M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, provides one of the voices in The Ant Bully and will soon be seen in The Illusionist.
Illusionist's Norton Really Conjured
Edward Norton, who plays a turn-of-the-20th-century magician in the film The Illusionist, learned magic so well that his co-stars were amazed at his tricks, co-star Jessica Biel told SCI FI Wire. "Ed really learned the tricks," Biel said in an interview. "He would do this sleight-of-hand trick. He would roll this ball on his hand and slowly roll it over his finger and back again. It was very cool. He was very good at the magic."
Norton plays Eisenheim, a magician who's so good that audiences think he has supernatural powers. He falls in love with a duchess (Biel) while being closely watched by a police inspector played by Paul Giamatti. Director Neil Burger said Norton learned from a few of the best magicians working today, adding that the actor was worried that he couldn't do the illusions himself.
"He learned the tricks," Burger said in a separate interview. "He learned ... sleight of hand and worked with Ricky Jay and immersed himself in the tradition and the history. Everything you see, Edward did himself. As in all his roles, his ability to completely transform himself, to fully inhabit the character, is impressive. In this case, you absolutely believe that he has these sleight-of-hand skills but, more importantly, that he could possess supernatural powers or that he could bring down an empire. He's completely convincing."
British magician James Freedman, who is part of the exclusive Magic Circle of world-class magicians, came to the set in Prague to help Norton make The Illusionist authentic. Freedman served as a magic consultant and helped Norton and co-star Aaron Johnson, who plays the young Eisenheim. "We had a lot of people who helped us make sure the methods and the tricks were historically accurate," Burger said.
The film's illusions, such as an orange tree that grows from a pit and bears fruit in a matter of minutes, are based on actual illusions performed onstage at the turn of the 20th century, such as those of Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, referred to as the Father of Modern Magic.
Burger adapted the film from Steven Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist." The Illusionist opens in limited release on Aug. 18. —Mike Szymanski
Illusionist Conjures With History
Neil Burger, director of the supernatural period drama The Illusionist, told SCI FI Wire that his film bases one of its characters on the historical crown prince of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire at the turn of the 20th century. Burger expanded Steven Millhauser's 20-page short story "Eisenheim the Illusionist" by creating a love triangle among a magician (Edward Norton), Duchess Sophie (Jessica Biel) and Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell). In the film, Leopold is conspiring to overthrow his father and take over as emperor.
Norton, Sewell and Biel did research about the real-life Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who was rumored to have wanted to overthrow his conservative father, Franz Josef. "The real prince was frustrated because it could have been a while before his father handed over the crown to him, and he was powerless," Burger said.
Burger added: "It's accurate as much as it could be. Look, there was no Crown Prince Leopold. He's based on Crown Prince Rudolf, who was in a similar situation. His father as emperor got in when he was 18 [and] was still around and actually [lived] on for another 30 years. And the real character and this one were left in limbo, and the crown prince wanted to bring them into the modern world, but they were completely powerless, and that would drive them insane. Rudolf and his mistress at the time killed themselves in mysterious circumstances, which is not in the film."
Biel said she found the history fascinating. "I loved the books about that time period, and it helped set the mood for me," she said.
The Illusionist opens nationwide on Aug. 18 and includes the recreation of actual magic performances done on stage about that time. —Mike Szymanski
Christensen Teleports To Jumper
Star Wars' Hayden Christensen will star in Jumper, Regency Enterprises' big-budget SF thriller being directed by Doug Liman, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Regency has partnered with 20th Century Fox to finance the production, which sources told the trade paper is budgeted in the $100 million range.
Christensen's casting jump-starts the production, which was to have begun shooting earlier this summer but had been running idle. Tom Sturridge was to have played the lead role of David, which now will be played by Christensen, since a decision was made to go with a more prominent actor. Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Bell and Teresa Palmer remain with the production.
The movie, which Regency and Fox hope to turn into a trilogy, will now shoot at month's end in Toronto, Rome and Tokyo.
Based on the Steven Gould novel, Jumper follows a young man from a broken home who discovers that he has the ability to teleport. In his quest for the man he believes is responsible for the death of his mother, the kid draws the attention of the National Security Agency and another kid with the same abilities.
Christensen will play the young man who can teleport. Jackson plays an NSA agent, while Bell is the jumper who shows Christensen the ropes.
Lucas Foster and Simon Kinberg are producing along with Jay Sanders. Ralph Vicinanza and Vince Gerardis executive-produce. David Goyer (Batman Begins) wrote the original script, which was rewritten by Kinberg (Mr. and Mrs. Smith).
Nolan Near Prisoner Deal
Universal Pictures is near a deal for Batman Begins helmer Christopher Nolan to direct a feature-film version of the classic TV series The Prisoner, Variety reported.
Janet and David Peoples are set to write the script. Scott Stuber, Mary Parent, Barry Mendel and Emma Thomas will produce.
The British TV series lasted 17 episodes in 1967. Patrick McGoohan played a government agent who resigns and is kidnapped and placed in a mysterious town known as the Village. He's given a new identity—Number Six—and interacts with a staff trying to get him to reveal why he resigned.
The plan is for Nolan to direct a contemporized transformation after he completes The Dark Knight, the Batman Begins sequel that begins production early next year at Warner Brothers.
Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.