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December 13, 2004

Browder Joins SG-1

CI FI Channel confirmed that Farscape star Ben Browder will join the cast of SCI FI's original series Stargate SG-1. Browder will join the cast in the show's upcoming ninth season; no information on Browder's role was available. Meanwhile, the show's producer, MGM, is still working on a deal to bring back SG-1 star Richard Dean Anderson (Gen. O'Neill) in some capacity.

SG-1 will air the remaining new eighth-season episodes, starting Jan. 21, 2005, in a new Friday 8 p.m. ET/PT timeslot, followed by the new episodes of Stargate Atlantis at 9 p.m. and the new original series Battlestar Galactica at 10 p.m.

Whedon To Helm Wonder Woman?

in't It Cool News reported a rumor that Joss Whedon, creator of TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is in talks to write and direct a new Wonder Woman movie. Citing an anonymous source, the site reported that Whedon is in final talks with producer Joel Silver and Warner Brothers to adapt the classic DC Comics superheroine for the big screen for a summer 2006 release. The site reported that an announcement was imminent.

The site added that the only obstacle is X-Men 3, which earlier rumors said Whedon was in talks to direct. (Whedon himself has denied that he has ever been approached to helm the third film in the Marvel Comics franchise.) Whedon, an avowed comic-book fan, is currently writing a series of X-Men comics for Marvel.

Whedon is currently finishing up Serenity, the movie version of his canceled Fox TV series Firefly, for Universal Pictures. Serenity is slated for release Sept. 30, 2005. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Driver Eyes Wonder Woman

innie Driver told SCI FI Wire that she'd love to play Wonder Woman, but doubts that it will work out in her favor. "I think you're probably going to see Catherine Zeta-Jones squished into a corset and a pair of shorts quicker than you'd see me," Driver said in an interview while promoting her latest movie, The Phantom of the Opera, which will be released by Warner Brothers, the studio that retains the rights to Wonder Woman. "I might have more currency now, after Phantom, because she is an operatic superhero, in my opinion."

"That's actually going to be my new angle, my new pitch," Driver added, laughing. "I knew there was a reason I came here today, and it was to hone my pitch to Warner Brothers."

Driver pointed to original TV Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter as one of her heroines. "She did it all with a couple of bracelets and a weird lasso, and she had an invisible plane!" Driver said. "Come on, she's heaven, and she was so sexy. Even though I didn't have blue eyes, at a stretch I thought I could possibly grow up to be her, whereas I could never have grown up to be Lindsay Wagner [who played the Bionic Woman]. Do you know what I mean?"

Driver laughed again when it was suggested that perhaps she could convince Debra Winger to reprise her role as Drusilla, better known as Wonder Girl. The future Oscar winner appeared opposite Carter as Wonder Woman's sister in three episodes of the old television series. "Heaven," Driver said. "Heaven. She's maybe my favorite actress."

Lemony Is A Fairy Tale

rad Silberling, director of the fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, told SCI FI Wire that his adaptation of Daniel Handler's series of children's books fits in the tradition of fairy tales. "I had a long conversation with a child psychologist [named Alvin Rosenfeld], and he said the movie is really in that same lineage of kind of fables and fairy tales where you have to go to the extreme in order to give the kids the biggest obstacles to overcome," Silberling said in an interview. "It's a fantasy, because, of course, they always overcome them, and unfortunately in life it doesn't always happen."

In Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire children find themselves orphaned after their parents die in a mysterious fire, and their evil uncle, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), seeks to adopt them only long enough to get his hands on their inheritance. Silberling said that he chose to shoot the film entirely on artificial sets to give Lemony Snicket's world its own reality. "I think you need to go to that place, because otherwise you're neither here nor there," Silberling said. "It's why I wanted to design a fable in terms of the physical look of the film, sort of heightening everything, because otherwise it could have been a contemporary tale of child abuse."

Silberling added that his enormous sets dominated most of the soundstages at Paramount Studios during the production of the film. "[Director] Cameron Crowe told me that, because he was waiting to get some of my stages," Silberling said. "He was like, 'Everyone's calling it Lemony Piggy.' We took up a lot of space there, and we also had to build an indoor tank down in Downey at an old Boeing facility, because four of the sets in the picture are all on water, and for control's sake and, again, to keep this real almost illustrated quality, we knew we had to build it." Lemony Snicket opened Dec. 17.

Kids Say Lemony's OK

rad Silberling, director of the fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, told SCI FI Wire that he consulted young readers of Daniel Handler's original Lemony Snicket books before he began his film adaptation—and the children all favored a much darker take on the material. "I got a group of kids to come together for like a town hall meeting," Silberling said in an interview. "They were mostly readers 10 to 13, [and] I brought them over to our art department and put them on tape, and I did it really as sort of a way to inoculate the movie. I said, 'OK, I'm about to start this film, and I'm going to tell you about some of the choices I'm making.'"

The children didn't shy away from the movie's darker elements, Silberling said. "[I would say,] 'One thing ... I know you don't want to see is a baby hanging from a cage,'" Silberling said. "And they would scream, 'No! You have to!' I would go through all of the points that I knew would be the most hot-button issues. You know, 'Count Olaf is actually going to slap Klaus? You can't do that in the movie.' 'You have to!' So they were great. You had these kids talking about the danger of whitewashing the story. That said, it doesn't mean that financiers aren't going to still be nervous. But it was the next best thing to sort of creating a shield."

In Lemony Snicket, the orphaned Baudelaire children go to live with the nefarious Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) when their parents die in a mysterious fire. Now, Silberling said he's glad when he hears people say the movie is too dark for children. "What's kind of great is when you hear that, it just further validates Daniel's premise of the books, which is that no one listens to the kids," Silberling said in an interview. "It's always the adults. As we would go through the process, and I would hear these potential fears, I would laugh and say, 'Good. We're on the right track.'" Lemony Snicket opened Dec. 17.

Lemony Stars Got Chummy

mily Browning, co-star of the fantasy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, told SCI FI Wire that Jim Carrey, who plays the villainous Count Olaf, made friends with her in between takes. "I was so excited when I found out that he was doing it, and at the same time terrified, because it's Jim Carrey," the 16-year-old Australian-born actress said in an interview. "I was kind of a little nervous to meet him, but it was easy to talk to him in between takes and just chat. He's a really cool, really, really nice guy."

Browning plays Violet, the oldest of the three Baudelaire orphans who find themselves in the care of Count Olaf when their parents die in a mysterious fire. Browning (Ghost Ship) said that Carrey made the shoot a challenge, because he would often improvise new lines of dialogue for each scene. "It was difficult not to laugh when we were in the middle of a scene, because he does heaps of improv, and you don't know what to expect," Browning said. "You don't know what's coming, so it was really difficult to keep a straight face, especially because he does a different thing in every take."

Browning added that Kara and Shelby Hoffman, the young twins who play the infant, Sunny Baudelaire, ruined takes as well. "It's probably even between [them] and Jim," she said. "When Jim was in a take, we would ruin it because we would just start cracking up the whole time. [But] you can't expect 18-month-olds to be completely professional. ... Sometimes they wouldn't want to be there, and they'd just want their mom, and they'd want to eat their Cheerios and be in their pajamas and whatever, and that was understandable. So they'd cry sometimes, but sometimes they'd kind of go hyperactive and be pulling my hair and things like that, which is kind of difficult when you're meant to be there on a stage finding out your parents just died, and the baby's like spitting on you and doing all this stuff. But I also think if they did have babies that just sat there the whole time and did what they were told, it wouldn't have been as much of an interesting character, because Sunny has to have a bit of spark." Lemony Snicket opened nationwide Dec. 17.

Magneto Spinoff Develops

heldon Turner will write the script for Magneto, a film spinoff based on Ian McKellen's character from 20th Century Fox's hit X-Men series of films, Variety reported. The project marks the second extension of the studio's X-Men comic-book franchise, following a Fox deal with Troy screenwriter David Benioff to write Wolverine, who is played by Hugh Jackman in the films.

The studio is developing the spinoffs as it separately develops X-Men 3, the trade paper reported. Simon Kinberg is writing the third installment. Magneto will likely be produced by the X-Men duo of Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel Studios' Avi Arad.

Episode III Reshoots Scheduled

amuel L. Jackson, who reprises the role of Mace Windu in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, told Now Playing Magazine that he will return to shoot additional scenes in London after the New Year. "I just got a call last week," Jackson told the magazine. "I've got to go back to London in January [for reshoots]. That's what George does," he added, referring to director George Lucas.

As Revenge of the Sith is said to be the darkest of the Star Wars films, Jackson said that an unhappy fate awaits his character. "Dying!" is his response when asked what Windu is up to in Sith. "Yeah, like all of the rest of the Jedi. I can't tell you [the specifics], but yeah, it's an awesome death."

Jackson added, "Well, when [Episode IV] starts, there are only, what, four Jedi left. There's Luke, Obi-Wan, Yoda and Darth Vader, is it? Everybody else has been assassinated, killed, wiped out, something."

Jackson said that Lucas gave him a cool keepsake. "Yes, I did get to keep [my lightsaber]," he said with a smile. "Yes, I have it." Episode III opens May 19, 2005.

Chow In Pirates Sequels?

ong Kong action star Chow Yun-fat is set to play a pirate in the upcoming sequels to last year's hit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the French AFP wire service reported. The wire service cited a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper, which quoted Chow's wife, Jasmin Chan Wui-nin, as saying Chow will play the famous 15th-century Chinese pirate Cheung Po Tsai in the second and third installments.

Chow will team up with members of the original cast, including Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley, the AFP reported. Rolling Stone legend Keith Richards will also play the father of Depp's character, Capt. Jack Sparrow, the wire service reported.

Chan said both the movie's producer and director contacted Chow's management company in the United States two months ago, and director Gore Verbinski flew to Hong Kong last week to discuss the screenplay with Chow, the Apple Daily reported.

Flux Star Not Animated

arton Csokas, who co-stars in the upcoming SF movie Aeon Flux, told SCI FI Wire that his character, Trevor Goodchild, differs considerably from the one in the MTV animated series on which the film is based. "It's quite different," the New Zealand-born Csokas said in an interview during a break in filming on the movie's set in Berlin. "There's a human aspect that's been taken on within the film, and [different from] the sort of harder, more simplistic lines of the animated series—which are very good and fine and a law unto themselves. We've journeyed somewhere else within the film."

Csokas, who co-stars with Charlize Theron, plays Goodchild, the leader of a rigid city-state 400 years in the future. "Trevor has more of a human dimension, and within the story, he's a scientist, ... and he saved the world, so to speak, or attempts to, and he has a certain body of information he needs to maintain secrecy about in conjunction with his brother, Oren Goodchild [Jonny Lee Miller], and the journey begins and continues, and Aeon Flux [Theron] is brought into the picture at some point from his perspective, and on they go."

Theron plays Flux, the leader of a rebellion against Goodchild's walled dominion, called Bregna. The two also shared some history. "The relationship with Aeon and Trevor has gone on a very long time, and one person knows a lot more about their history than another, which is an intriguing place to start," Csokas said. "And then when they do meet, Aeon and Trevor, ... a lot of these things are brought to bear both within each of themselves ... [that] determines what goes on within the story." Aeon Flux is currently in post-production, with an eye to a fall 2005 release.

Rossum At Heart Of Phantom's Opera

mmy Rossum, star of the upcoming movie of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, told SCI FI Wire that she thrilled at the prospect of headlining such a huge production, even after working on Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow. "It was a great experience for me to be able to play this kind of character that I could really give a fresh life to," Rossum said in an interview. "It was very different, because I think every film set is different, because of the director and because of the tone of the project. But this was a lot more responsibility for me, because I was 17 going into this, and they normally don't give multimillion-dollar Hollywood musicals to unfamous 16-year-olds."

In the film, the opera-trained Rossum plays and sings the role of Christine, an ingenue in a 19th-century Paris opera house who finds herself torn between a childhood sweetheart and her mysterious mentor, the Phantom. Rossum said she attempted to create a character that would lend believability to the film's more fantastic elements. "What was really important to me was that she would be the one real center amidst all this kind of theatricality and spectacle," Rossum said. "The character had such conflicting emotion, which was great. I wanted her to be the thing the audience would really kind of grab onto and care about, and ultimately that's one of the main reasons they would care about the movie."

Rossum added that she identified with her character's compassion toward the murderous Phantom, who is ostracized from society because of his deformity. "One of my best friends was born with a cranial facial deformity, and she's had 24 operations to try to get herself to look as normal as possible," Rossum said. "It's never been anything that's frightened me or disgusted me in any way. It was something that I really related to the character about. I think that she looks at this man and really sees a very passionate, musical, caring person, somebody that she can very much relate to, somebody who she needs when she's younger and has no mentor and really grows up with him." The Phantom of the Opera opens in theaters Dec. 22.

SCI FI Believes In Ripley's

CI FI Channel has acquired the exclusive cable rights to reruns of the reality series Ripley's Believe It or Not, the network confirmed. SCI FI will begin airing the first of 88 episodes in January, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET/PT, preceding Ghost Hunters.

Dean Cain (Lois & Clark) hosts the series, which TBS originally ordered from Sony Pictures TV and ran from 2000-'03. A different version of Ripley's ran on SCI FI from 1982 to 1986.

Goyer Back In A Flash

lade: Trinity writer/director David Goyer will write, produce and direct a movie based on DC Comics' The Flash, Variety reported. Goyer will make the movie for Warner Brothers, for whom he also wrote the script for the upcoming fifth Batman movie, Batman Begins.

The Flash is still in development and is the first project to be identified under Goyer's recently signed overall production deal with the studio, the trade paper reported.

Created by Gardner Fox and Harry Lampert, the Flash first appeared in DC Comics late in 1939. He's the alter ego of chemistry student Jason Peter "Jay" Garrick, an aspiring athlete whose exposure to heavy water fumes gives him the ability to move at incredible speeds, the trade paper reported.

A version of the venerable DC Comics character recently appeared in an episode of The WB's Smallville.

Earthsea Scores Big Ratings

CI FI Channel's original miniseries Legend of Earthsea averaged a 3.2 rating (3.7 million viewers) in the two nights of its premiere, Dec. 13 and 14, the combined audience making the channel the top network in cable prime time. The channel was the number-one network in cable prime time in household ratings, among adults 18-49 and among viewers aged 25-54 for Earthsea's combined two-night run, the channel reported.

The Dec. 13 premiere of Legend Of Earthsea's part one earned a 3.0 household rating (3.44 million viewers) and was the highest-rated entertainment program on cable that Monday night. It ranked third overall among viewers aged 18-49 and 25-54.

The Dec. 14 premiere of Earthsea's finale was the number-one program on cable in both ratings and delivery among viewers aged 18-49 and 25-54. Part two delivered a 3.4 household rating (3.92 million), a 13 percent increase in ratings and a 14 percent increase in viewers from Monday's installment.

Legend of Earthsea delivered an aggregate audience of 7.35 million in its two-part premiere. The aggregate for all seven telecasts of Legend of Earthsea on Dec. 13 and 14 topped out at 13.2 million viewers.

Rossellini Dug Earthsea

sabella Rossellini, who co-stars in the upcoming SCI FI Channel original miniseries Legend of Earthsea, told SCI FI Wire that she's not an avid SF&F fan, but appreciates well-done film and television productions. "I love to watch them, but I mostly watch them because of [her two children], although I did go see Harry Potter by myself, because my son had already seen it two or three times and didn't want to go back," Rossellini said in an interview. "They are fantastic, spectacular films."

Based on Ursula K. Le Guin's award-winning series of fantasy novels, Legend of Earthsea stars Shawn Ashmore, Kristin Kreuk, Danny Glover and Rossellini in a story about a reckless youth, Ged (Ashmore), who discovers that he has magical powers, but who accidentally unleashes a dark power that threatens the world. Rossellini plays Thar, the high priestess of Atuan.

"Also, I think part of the reason why I did [Legend of Earthsea] is there is a common culture you have with your children that you share," Rossellini said. "Some of it you teach them. You make sure they see Fantasia or other things that I've grown up, that I shared that culture with my parents, and now I'm sharing the culture of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Earthsea with them, and it's great."

Rossellini cited her relationship with Legend of Earthsea executive producer Robert Halmi as another factor in her decision to join the miniseries' cast. Legend of Earthsea marks her seventh production—after Merlin, The Odyssey and others—with Halmi. "So Robert Halmi called me on the phone," the actress said. "I was just about to leave. What was I doing? I was here [in New York] doing theater, and I was just about to do Alias, and he said, 'I'll send you this big script. You have to read it and you have to tell me yes or no.' I just said, 'No, don't bother. I don't have time to give you an answer in three days, so I'll give you an answer right now on the phone: Yes.'" The four-hour Legend of Earthsea premieres Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Kreuk Has Faith In Earthsea

ristin Kreuk, who stars in SCI FI Channel's upcoming original miniseries Legend of Earthsea, told SCI FI Wire that she plays a priestess who ascends quickly to the top of her order. "She's an actual priestess," Kreuk said in an interview. "A young priestess who ends up becoming named the next high priestess, which is sort of like your mother [superior]. But she's really young and quite shocked by this news, because there's somebody else in the order who probably she thinks should have gotten that high priestess position. But Mother Thar, who is played by Isabella [Rossellini], believes in her, and so she is training to become high priestess."

Kreuk (Smallville) co-stars with Shawn Ashmore (X-Men), Rossellini and Danny Glover in the four-hour miniseries, which is based on the beloved Earthsea books by SF author Ursula K. Le Guin. Kreuk's character, Tenar, is an orphan girl who finds herself at the center of major events in her order and her world. "She's strong," Kreuk said. "She has her beliefs, and she sticks by them, and she's willing to fight for them. But she's a little different from a lot of the other priestesses in the sense that she's a little more laid back. She can relax a bit more and laugh, and she gets affected by things a bit more. But she is still a product of being raised in an environment where it is all about your faith. So she's still very self-contained, but incredibly strong." Legend of Earthsea premieres Dec. 13 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Le Guin Blasts SCI FI's Earthsea

rsula K. Le Guin, the best-selling SF writer and author of the beloved Earthsea series, has gone on the record blasting SCI FI Channel's recent adaptation of her books, Legend of Earthsea, which premiered earlier this week to record ratings. In commentaries on Slate.com and elsewhere, Le Guin has called the four-hour miniseries "A Whitewashed Earthsea" and said that "SCI FI Channel wrecked my books."

Among other things, Le Guin complains that the miniseries, produced by Robert Halmi Sr. and directed by Robert Lieberman, changed the races of key characters and misinterpreted themes and events in her books. "The books, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, which were published more than 30 years ago, are about two young people finding out what their power, their freedom and their responsibilities are," Le Guin writes in Slate. "I don't know what the film is about. It's full of scenes from the story, arranged differently, in an entirely different plot, so that they make no sense."

Le Guin sold the rights to her books to the producers, and the deal gave her a "consultant" credit on the project. But she says she had virtually no input into the final product, which was adapted for the screen by screenwriter Gavin Scott (The Mists of Avalon).

Le Guin earlier took issue with comments by Lieberman in SCI FI Magazine, in which he attempted to interpret Le Guin's intentions in the books. Le Guin wrote on her official Web site that Lieberman put words into her mouth that missed the point of her books.

In response to Le Guin's comments, SCI FI Channel issued this statement: "We respect Ms. Le Guin's right to voice her opinion and we understand her frustrations. However, adapting two major novels down to four hours of television is highly challenging and requires significant reworking. That being said, we stand by the creative decisions we took in the spirit of her wonderful books and which made our miniseries the top entertainment program on cable over two nights, with over 13 million viewers." Earthsea was a ratings hit on SCI FI Channel in its premiere on Dec. 13 and 14.

Le Guin's Darkness Optioned

andra Schulberg's Phobos Entertainment has picked up all media rights to Ursula K. Le Guin's SF novel The Left Hand of Darkness, Variety reported. First published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is set on Winter, a lost planet whose inhabitants defy standard gender roles and even physically change genders. The story follows a human emissary who must bridge a cultural gulf to fulfill his mission to bring the planet back into the galactic fold, the trade paper reported.

Schulberg plans to exploit the property as both a feature film and a video game, the trade paper reported. Schulberg's credits include Quills and Undisputed.

Covenant Heads For Movies

evelstone Entertainment and the Mark Gordon Co. are teaming up to produce a feature-film version of Stephen Donaldson's fantasy book series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Revelstone has optioned the rights to the first six books in the series, which Band of Brothers writer John Orloff will adapt, the trade paper reported. Mark Gordon is producing, with Revelstone's Peter Winther and Randy Simon. Lawrence Inglee will oversee the project on behalf of the Mark Gordon Co., the trade paper reported.

The books revolve around a shunned author (Covenant) who is magically transported to the Land, a mystical world where he discovers he is the incarnation of a great hero. Covenant thinks it's all a dream. But he's the bearer of a magical talisman and is enlisted to help save the Land from Lord Foul and his representatives, the trade paper reported.

Revelstone also has optioned the film rights to Clifford D. Simak's SF novel Way Station. Winther, who helmed the recent TNT movie The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, will direct the film from an adaptation by screenwriter Simon Barry.

Mask 2 Star Praises Helmer

amie Kennedy, star of the upcoming fantasy sequel film Son of the Mask, told SCI FI Wire that director Lawrence Guterman gave him confidence while shooting the film. "Larry is very cool," Kennedy said in an interview. "He's an artist. He's a filmmaker at heart, and he knows how to make it so no shot's ever going to be boring. He just makes it look amazing, from the angles he uses to how the camera discovers what you're doing. He really likes to tell the story with pictures. He made me feel very confident."

In the film, Kennedy plays a reluctant father who discovers that his son is possessed with the powers of the mask of Loki, the Norse god of mischief. Kennedy said that Guterman (Cats & Dogs) successfully juggled the many moods of the material. "Visually it's important to him that the movie look and feel a certain way as much [as] it is funny and has heart," he said. "I mean, he's very good at that. There are certain scenes in the movie where Alan Cumming [Loki] is chasing me, and it's kind of ominous and dark, and Larry lighted it a certain way and shoots with certain filters. The moments with me and my wife are all bright and cheery."

Son of the Mask is a sequel to Jim Carrey's hit 1994 comedy The Mask. But Kennedy said that Guterman didn't allow Carrey's specter to haunt him in directing the sequel's comedic moments. "He never thought of the Jim Carrey thing at all," Kennedy said. "He always had it in his mind that we were going to make a completely different movie. He brings to it a really good sense of humor. He's got a really twisted sense of humor, so he likes to add his own little takes, and he's the most passionate person I think I've ever worked with. I mean, we both put our heart and souls into this movie." Son of the Mask opens Feb. 18, 2005.

Mask 2 Was Physical Challenge

amie Kennedy, star of the upcoming fantasy sequel Son of the Mask, told SCI FI Wire that he did not enjoy the physical training his role required. "I think my least favorite part was the running," Kennedy said in an interview. "I would run with this fake baby a lot, and I had to hold it, and I had to constantly run everywhere and hold these props. Part of the movie was an action movie, so some of it was hard to do."

Kennedy said that the role required a number of different training programs to get him ready for the various action and comedy sequences in the script. "It was like five different courses I had to take," Kennedy said. ""I did boxing training for the whole boxing sequence. I had to do dance with a choreographer for, like, two weeks. Then I had to spend time with the dog so the dog would trust me. He would jump on me all of the time every day, for like an hour we would play. Driving training, so I could drive this special car. I had to do training with drawing with an artist, with a guy to make my pencil look real. It was a lot, but it was well worth it."

In Son of the Mask, the sequel to Jim Carrey's 1994 hit film The Mask, Kennedy plays a cartoonist whose son is born with the magical powers of the Mask. Kennedy said that he focused on enhancing the humor of the material, and the rest of the work fell into place. "There were so many different things going on at one time," he said. "In one scene I do a whole dance number in the Mask, and I'm dancing, and then I have to turn into, like, a bebop, so all of these things had to be coordinated in time. It was hard, but I really tried to always make sure that the humor was in there." Son of the Mask opens Feb. 18, 2005.

Mary Poppins Flies On Stage

ritics heaped lavish praise on the London world theater premiere of Mary Poppins on Dec. 16, after it took in nearly $20 million in advance sales, the Reuters news service reported. The show, based on the 1964 Disney musical film, takes to the stage 40 years after Julie Andrews' Oscar-winning performance, the news service reported.

British actress Laura Michelle Kelly (My Fair Lady) took over Andrews' role and won a standing ovation at the Dec. 15 premiere, earning raves from British newspapers.

The show, adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes, is darker than the Disney movie and comes with a warning banning children under the age of 3 from seeing it and saying that it is unsuitable for children under 7, Reuters reported.

Nick Orders New Toons

ickelodeon gave the green light to two new animated series, The X's and Catscratch, and ordered fresh episodes of Danny Phantom and My Life as a Teenage Robot, Variety reported. Nick ordered 13 episodes of The X's, which follows the adventures of an undercover crime-fighting family. Wendie Malick and Patrick Warburton voice the lead characters, the trade paper reported. Carlos Ramos created the show, which will debut next year.

Nick also picked up 13 episodes of Catscratch, about the misadventures of three cats raised as children by a wealthy woman. Doug TenNapel created and executive produces the series. Wayne Knight, Rob Paulsen and Kevin McDonald provide the voices, the trade paper reported.

Danny and Robot air Fridays in Nick's toon block. The network has committed to 20 and 14 more episodes of each, respectively, the trade paper reported.

Crichton Attacks Global Warming

ichael Crichton, whose new SF-tinged novel State of Fear takes on the issue of global warming, told the Associated Press that it took him a while to come to the conclusion that the phenomenon may not be real. "It was very difficult to get my head around the idea that this widely held belief may not be true, and I thought, 'If I'm going to do a book, how would I structure it so that someone could even hear it a little bit?'" Crichton told the AP.

State of Fear centers on a group of eco-terrorists who plot a series of natural disasters to prove that global warming is a threat to humanity. A ragtag band of scientists and lawyers uncovers the scheme. Along the way, Crichton attacks the assumptions behind global warming and even tacks on a five-page message stating his notion that the theory of global warming is speculative at best, as well as a 14-page bibliography of works supporting his views, the AP reported.

"I have a lot of trouble with things that don't seem true to me," Crichton said. "I'm very uncomfortable just accepting. There's something in me that wants to pound the table and say, 'That's not true.'"

Crichton's author's statement is new even for Crichton. In it, he argued that a political agenda, not scientific evidence, is the foundation for predictions that the planet's climate will warm by 4 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. World powers, he said, use global warming to keep citizens in a state of fear, just as they did with the Cold War. But Crichton is noticeably vague about who these powers are, the AP reported. Crichton, who was trained as a physician, considers himself an environmentalist, no matter what. "Why are we not feeding people in this world who are hungry? Why are we not giving clean water to the almost billion people who don't have clean water? The greatest sources of environmental degradation is poverty. Why aren't we cleaning up poverty?" State of Fear is now on sale.

Stars In Talks For Bull

arah Polley and Chris O'Donnell are in talks to star in the fantastical movie Cock & Bull, an adaptation of the novel by British author Will Self, Variety reported. Matt Nix makes his feature-film directorial debut with and wrote the screenplay for the film, a dark comedy about an ordinary middle-class woman who, while in a stifling marriage to an alcoholic husband, transforms into a man, the trade paper reported.

Evan Astrowsky, Mikkel Bondesen and Rachael Horovitz are producing.

NBC Takes Look At Mork

BC is developing Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy, a behind-the-scenes telefilm that looks at the 1978 ABC alien sitcom, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Chris Diamantopoulos has been tapped to play Mork star Robin Williams, who rose to meteoric success with the show. Stanley M. Brooks' Once Upon a Time Films is producing, the trade paper reported.

Comedy writer David Misch, whose first writing job was on Mork & Mindy, wrote the script for the movie, which is executive produced by Matt Dorff (NBC's Growing Up Brady) and former Turner executive Jim Head. Neill Fearnley, who directed ABC's Inside the Osmonds from a script by Dorff, is on board to helm The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy, which is slated to begin production next month, the trade paper reported. NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Selick Crazy For Fox

irector/animator Henry Selick told SCI FI Wire that he's excited about collaborating with director Wes Anderson and screenwriter Noah Baumbach on an upcoming big-screen treatment of Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. "The script is under wraps," Selick said in an interview while promoting The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the Anderson-directed film for which he provided otherworldly sea creatures. "I read the first pages. What excites me most is that Wes and Noah are writing it, that we're getting some seriously gifted storytellers from a different point of view to work out the story."

Selick added, "The book itself is pretty slender, and that's going to represent pretty much the second act, a bunch of wily foxes and animals that steal one too many chickens, and these three different farmers are out to eradicate them. It's very clever. It's Roald Dahl, and he has a wonderful way of mixing terrifying elements with humor. The book by itself, for me, wouldn't have been a reason to do the film. But it is for Wes, and he's sketched it out a little bit, what he'll do in the first and third act."

A director himself (A Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach), Selick said that he also appreciated Anderson's commitment to handmade films. "For example, for Life Aquatic he built this cross section of a giant ship, and it's one of the coolest shots I've ever seen in filmmaking," Selick said. "It could've been a miniature. People could've been composited in, and it would've looked pretty seamless, but it would've had a different feeling. So Wes Anderson is the primary reason I'm excited about the Fox film, and also how we work together. It's a really nice collaborative situation." Selick is also attached to direct a feature based on Neil Gaiman's Coraline, but The Fantastic Mr. Fox looks likely to gel first. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is in limited release.

Weitz Quits Dark Materials

iting the "technical challenges of making such an epic," director Chris Weitz has dropped out of New Line Cinema's adaptation of the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, Variety reported. The studio has launched a search to find his replacement.

Weitz emphasized that his exit was not tied to creative differences, the trade paper reported. New Line plans to move forward with the script he penned for the film.

The His Dark Materials trilogy comprises The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass and revolves around a young girl who encounters otherworldly characters in parallel universes.

The film adaptation became the subject of some controversy when Weitz announced that the movie would remove anti-religious overtones in the books, The Times of London reported. Weitz said that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film, and the "Authority," the weak God figure, will become "any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual," the newspaper reported.

Dylan Dog Develops

latinum Studios announced that it will produce the computer-animated thriller film Dylan Dog: The Fourth Kingdom with Relativity Management, based on the Italian comic-book series Dylan Dog. The film is scheduled to start production in March 2005 at The Shop in Vancouver, B.C., Platinum said.

Dylan Dog: The Fourth Kingdom tells the story of Dylan Dog, an investigator of nightmares, who must stop a supernatural serial killer intent on becoming a new deity and ruler of "The Fourth Kingdom," a new afterlife. Ian Pearson, co-founder of The Shop, will direct, based on a script he co-wrote with longtime creative partner Gavin Blair.

The original comic was created by Tiziano Sclavi and has sold more than 80 million copies worldwide since its debut in 1985.

Hellraiser Heads For TV

roducers are adapting Clive Barker's Hellraiser film series into an hourlong TV show, Variety reported. Panacea Entertainment, Park Avenue Entertainment and Blueprint Entertainment are behind the project; Larry Kuppin, whose New World Entertainment hatched the first two Hellraiser films, will executive produce with Eric Gardner, the trade paper reported.

In the series, a tabloid journalist stumbles onto a plot between the ghoulish Pinhead and a software magnate that would have dire consequences for mankind, the trade paper reported.

Dimension Films continues to own the movie franchise rights, but Gardner has represented the property since Kuppin reacquired the New World film library from Ronald Perelman in 1991. A show runner will be named shortly to script a pilot episode, the trade paper reported.

Atari Classics Due For DS

tari will release Retro Atari Classics, a collection of old-school arcade video games, for the Nintendo DS, the company announced. The game will be available in March 2005 and will feature 10 classic Atari titles with fresh graphics provided by world-renowned graffiti artists. The game will also take advantage of all Nintendo DS innovations, including dual-screen gameplay, touch-screen controls and wireless play.

Retro Atari Classics will include Pong, Missile Command, Asteroids, Breakout, Centipede, Tempest, Warlords, Gravitar, Lunar Lander and Sprint. Each title will be playable in its original form as well as in the "tagged" mode, featuring new looks from graffiti artists REAS, Delta and Obey Giant.

Selick To Direct Coraline

enry Selick told SCI FI Wire that he'll write and direct a big-screen adaptation of Coraline, based on the children's fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman. Selick, an animator and director who specializes in stop-motion animation, is best known for The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone. "Neil Gaiman approached me to ask if I'd like to get on board the project before it was published," Selick said in an interview while promoting his latest film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the upcoming Wes Anderson live-action film for which he created a variety of exotic sea creatures. "That was three and a half years ago."

Selick added, "I saw the galleys and took it to Bill Mechanic, the producer, and convinced them both to give me a crack at writing it. It took a year and a half for me to actually get a draft that worked."

Selick described Coraline as an Alice in Wonderland-esque story. "A little girl discovers a passageway in her house where [there's] kind of a mirror of her own life where her other mother and other father live. And it's a fantastic world that's been created for her. You think it's about making a choice between her normal boring life or this other world where this other version of her mother, this much better version, [lives]. Everything is set up to please her, but really it's more of a spider's-web trap for children. It's very scary and dark and fun."

Selick credited The Incredibles with paving the way for Coraline to become a reality. "I think animation can be many things," he said. "I think the mold is definitely getting broken. I think The Incredibles has knocked out one of the walls for the types of stories that can be told. The acting level of some of these scenes in The Incredibles certainly equals [that in] some live-action films." Selick wasn't sure when Coraline will go into production, as he may collaborate first with Wes Anderson on The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Ringers Hits Slamdance

ingers: Lord of the Fans, a documentary about the fans of the Lord of the Rings books and movies, will premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 21, 2005. Dominic Monaghan, who played the hobbit Merry Brandybuck in the Rings film trilogy, narrates the documentary.

Ringers is executive produced by Tom DeSanto (X-Men) and directed by first-time writer/director Carlene Cordova. The feature-length documentary explores how The Lord of the Rings has influenced Western popular culture for the past 50 years.

ABC Series Nab Globe Nods

BC's Desperate Housewives led the field of Golden Globe contenders for television awards, with nominations for best comedy series and for four of the show's co-stars, the Reuters news service reported. The network's hit series Lost and Alias also came in for multiple nominations.

Desperate Housewives garnered five Golden Globe nominations, including best actress nominations for three of its leads—Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher and Felicity Huffman—and a best supporting actress nod for co-star Nicolette Sheridan. The Globes are handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Warner Delays Matrix Online

arner Brothers Interactive Entertainment announced that it will delay the release of The Matrix Online, a massively multiplayer online game co-published with Sega of America, to spring 2005 from its original January launch date. In the meantime, the game will expand its beta program while the overall game experience is being enhanced, the company said.

"We are committed to quality games and making this the best possible experience for players," said Jason Hall, senior vice president of WBIE, in a statement. "Since this is our first MMOG, we are taking measured steps to ensure it will be polished and are investing additional resources into our community-oriented initiatives."

The Matrix Online is designed to allow tens of thousands of players to "jack into the Matrix world" to take an active role in continuing the saga of the Matrix movie trilogy, the company said. Monolith Productions developed the game in conjunction with Matrix creators the Wachowski brothers.

Briefly Noted

Jim Carrey, in England to promote Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, had to evacuate his hotel on Dec. 16 because of a fire, wire services reported. "I think it's a good sign," the unharmed Carrey reportedly said. "The movie's all about fire and disaster, ... and suddenly, my house [away from home] is burning down."

Academy Award-winning director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, The Polar Express) has been selected by the Visual Effects Society's board of directors to be presented with the organization's highest honor, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The British satellite TV network Sky One has purchased all U.K. rights to NBC's canceled computer-animated series Father of the Pride, which will premiere next year, Variety reported. NBC is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Warner Brothers and Imax Corp. signed a deal for an Imax release of Tim Burton's upcoming fantasy film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to coincide with its regular, theatrical release on July 15, 2005, Variety reported.

Warner Home Video and DC Comics will release Justice League Unlimited: Saving the World, a DVD set featuring three episodes of the animated JLA TV series, on Feb. 15, 2005, with a suggested retail price of $14.97.

Finding Neverland received seven Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, including best picture, Variety reported. Other best-picture nominees included Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.

Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings) has joined the cast of the SF thriller film The Island for DreamWorks and director Michael Bay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Bean will take on the part of Merick, the chief antagonist in the film, which also stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.

Disney has posted behind-the-scenes footage from the production of its film adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which is set for release in December 2005.

Lord of the Rings star Liv Tyler gave birth to a baby boy on Dec. 14 in New York, People magazine reported. The baby, weighing 8 lbs., was born at 4:11 a.m. Both Tyler's father, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, and Liv's husband, Royston Langdon, lead singer of Spacehog, were reportedly at the hospital.

A concert featuring music from the Final Fantasy video-game series will take the stage at the Rosemont Theatre in Rosemont, Ill., on Feb. 19, 2005, performed by the Chicagoland Pops Orchestra and the CPO Festival Choir.

The new Sony Playstation Portable sold 171,963 units, or 85 percent of the total 200,000 units shipped, on its launch date Dec. 12 in Tokyo, the independent sales tracking company Media Create reported, according to the GameSpot Web site.

Warner Brothers has posted new trailers for its upcoming comic-book adaptation Batman Begins for Quicktime (high, medium and low), Windows Media Player (high, medium and low) and RealPlayer (high, medium and low). The movie opens June 17, 2005.

Warner Brothers has posted new trailers for its upcoming fantasy film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for Quicktime (high, medium and low), Windows Media Player (high, medium and low) and RealPlayer (high, medium and low). The movie opens July 15, 2005.

Sony has posted new trailers (for Windows Media Player high and low and for RealPlayer high and low) for the upcoming sequel film XXX: State of the Union, which opens April 29, 2005.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spider-Man 2 and The Incredibles were among the top 10 movies of 2004 as chosen by the American Film Institute.

Finding Neverland scored five nominations for the 2005 Golden Globe Awards, including best motion picture, drama, Variety reported. On the TV side, ABC's Desperate Housewives earned five nominations, including best television comedy.

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