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Science Fiction & Fantasy News & Gossip Archives - November 2000 | ||
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Arnold Schwarzennegger spoke to US talk show host Jay Leno about the female terminator in T3. He confirmed that the cyborg villian in the third film "will be female, though they haven't cast the part yet" (although rumours suggest that Carrie Ann-Moss, who played Trinity in The Matrix, is the favourite to play the role). Schwarzenegger also told the New York Post that: "She can disappear, she can mold into someone else, and she is sometimes just energy". Details of the next Star Trek series have been revealed by Ethan Phillips, who plays Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager. He told the TrekWeb fan site that the new series would star three men and two women, and would be set some 100 years before the era of the original series. This seems to support rumours that suggest the series would focus on the birth of the Federation. Bryan Singer, director of X-Men, has confirmed that he is in negotiations to direct the sequel. The entire cast of the original, including Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, has signed on for the sequel. A script has yet to be written, and no start date has been set for the filming of the project. It has been confirmed that Willem Dafoe will be playing the Green Goblin in the upcoming Spider-Man movie. John Malkovich had been previously rumoured to have been taking on the role. The official site for The Mummy sequel, The Mummy Returns, has posted a teaser trailer and lots of stills, while the official site for the Dungeons & Dragons movie has posted a second, much darker trailer. The iFilm website has obtained a memo which is reportedly from Fox studio execs to Lucasfilm. The memo, received from an anonymous source, expresses concern about the level of violence and the sex in Star Wars: Episode II. It would appear the execs are worried about the film getting a PG-13 rating or higher, which would cut out a young audience. Mel Gibson, is reportedly set to do a cameo in the upcoming fourth Mad Max movie in the series. Gibson, who played the Road Warrior in the first three movies, will apparently play an ageing Max remembering the events of the fourth film - allowing them to hand over to a younger actor to play the title role. Britney Spears is apparently set to star in The Lost Girls, the proposed sequel to the cult vampire flick The Lost Boys. According to the SFX Network website, Spears will headline the film which tells the story of a female vampire gang terrorizing the town featured in the first movie. Further to our rumours last week about Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr taking on roles in the live-action movie of Scooby Doo, Matthew Lillard (Scream) is in negotiations to play Shaggy in the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Rumour has it that Julia Roberts is attempting to nab the rights to Bewitched so that she can play the witchy housewife Samantha Stephens on the big screen. The latest Wonder Woman rumour has Kristen Johnston (Third Rock from the Sun) in the title role. Previous rumours have seen everyone from Sandra Bullock to Mariah Carey tipped to play the female superhero. We reported on the possible remake of Conan last week, but it seems that Arnie has put to rest any rumours about him being involved. His response when asked about it at a press conference for his latest film, The Sixth Day, was: "Right now there's too many things on the table to do. From Terminator 3 to Doc Savage, a possible Total Recall number two and maybe a comedy - I [also] want to direct again. I don't know where this [Conan] will happen". According to The Hollywood Reporter, Aussie actor Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) is in final negotiations to play the lead role in the latest film version of H.G. Wells' classic sci-fi novel The Time Machine. The film is to be directed by Simon Wells (H.G.'s grandson) and distributed by DreamWorks SKG sometime during 2001. John Logan, currently working on Star Trek X, wrote the screenplay adaptation. Filming on The Time Machine is expected to begin early next year in New York state. While speaking to British Teletext, director Jay Roach (Austin Powers) has stated that actor Hugh Laurie (Blackadder) is the favourite to play the role of Arthur Dent in a film version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. "Hugh's his [Douglass Adams'] favourite choice," Roach told the service, "Casting for the movie will be international. We would cast Ford Prefect as an American. Zaphod Beeblebrox could be Jim Carrey or Bruce Willis, someone big." However, the development of the film is still uncertain. "The studios see it as an obscure Monty Python in space," says Roach. Disney recently placed the project in turnaround, thinking the humor was too British to appeal to a wide audience. The producers are now looking for foreign investors to help cover the estimated $100 million price tag for the film. Casting has been confirmed for the film version of Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone and the official cast list has been posted to
the official Harry Potter movie website.
The cast is as follows: It seems that DC comics is getting just as bored with the US election as everybody else. They've given the go ahead for the development of a storyline hich will see Lex Luthor, the villian of Superman, winning the race to be the next President of the USA. For mored details see the DC Comics website. Wizards of the Coast has announced that it has acquired the rights to produce role-playing games, miniatures and other merchandise based on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy series. It will produce a Wheel of Time role-playing game based on the system that drives the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and is expected to be released mid next year. The hardcover core rulebook of the Wheel of Time RPG will contain background information on the geography, organization and history of Jordan's world. According to David Hasselhoff a new Knight Rider movie is on the way. Hasselhoff made the announcement on a US late night talk show. The movie is set in the future and contains the original KITT. The first official movie trailer for Final Fantasy has been released on the official site. John McTiernan (Die Hard) is reported to be in talks to direct Terminator 3. The rumour is that McTiernan will shoot the flick in Canada, where he is currently filming the remake of the old Norman Jewison SF dystopian sports flick, Rollerball. Rumours abound about another sequel in the works for Back to the Future. According to Total Film Magazine, Steven Spielberg's concept for the new film is that Doc's time-traveling, flying train caused the UFO crash at Roswell, but as yet there is no script for the film. The working title is rumoured to be Back to the Beginning Hot on the heels of last week's news that Patrick Stewart has signed up for Star Trek 10, another Next Generation star has said she's ready to sign on as well. Marina Sirtis, who played Counselor Troi in the TV series, told the official Star Trek magazine: "At this point, it's not like I have hundreds and hundreds of choices," Sirtis told the magazine. "I avoided sci-fi as long as I could. I'd rather be working than not working, so if it's sci-fi, then I'll do it!" She added, "I just can't wait for Trek X. I'm really excited about the whole thing... For me, it's not about how big my part is; it's about meeting up with all my buddies again." The executive producer of Earth: Final Conflict and Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, told the Space.com website of plans to partner with comic-book creator Stan Lee to produce an animated series for the Internet. As with her other two projects, the series will be on an idea from the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's archives. According to Space.com, the series will be titled Starship, and will focus on a young human scientist and his alien partner who pilot the ship ECO-1 to deal with intergalactic ecological disasters. The company which owns the rights to the works of L. Ron Hubbard, Author Services, have negotiated a deal with a Japanese based company to produce twenty one-hour episode long animated series based on the novel, Battlefield: Earth, with a budget of $4 million. The deal also involves computer games and a comic book series, with the international release of the series expected to be in 2002. It seems that Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), has "slayed" any possibility of a movie based on the hit show. Co-star Alyson Hannigan (Willow) told the Buzzbox website during a promotional tour of Australia that Gellar doesn't want to appear in a feature-film version of the series. When asked about the possibility of a movie Hannigan said: "I don't think so," Hannigan told the site. "[Buffy creator] Joss [Whedon] really wants to do it, but Sarah was pretty adamant she would never want to do it. I can't imagine it happening." The creators of Star Wars Episode II have placed an ad in Variety magazine to publicly thank the crews at Fox Studios Australia for their dedication in making the movie. The message: "Thanks to our Australian crew and to the whole team at Fox Studios Australia for making Star Wars: Episode II such an easy and fun shoot. We look forward to seeing you all for Episode III." Linda Hamilton has reportedly turned down the chance to reprise her role of Sarah Connor in Terminator 3, according to the Internet Movie Database. She apparently told them: "I was asked. I turned it down. I felt it was more courageous not to do it. I spent nine years trying to get the image of my Terminator character out of people's minds. I'm tired of being ever-earnest and stricken." Both Schwarzenegger and Furlong have both signed on to the project. US entertainment mag, Variety, reported that Warner Bros has nabbed up the rights to Conan the Barbarian and plans to make a another movie based on the character. The director of the original film, John Milius, is reported to be writing & directing the new movie. It is believed that Arnie himself may return in some capacity. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy) might join her real-life boyfriend Freddie Prinze Jr. in Warner Brothers' upcoming live-action Scooby-Doo movie. Gellar and Prinze are reportedly in discussions to play Daphne and Fred in the feature-film version of the animated television series. Previous rumors have suggested that Jennifer Love Hewitt was up for the role of Daphne, while Christina Ricci (Sleepy Hollow) is rumoured to be up for the part of Velma. In another report from The Hollywood Reporter, Julia Roberts is believed to be in negotiations to join Brad Pitt in a fantasy movie from Warner Brothers, Village Roadshow Pictures and Revolution Studios. Titled Replay, and based on a novel of the same name by Ken Grimwood, Pitt is to play a 43-year-old man who dies of a heart attack, only to awake as himself in college, where he has a second chance to correct his life's mistakes. Roberts will play his lost love. Then, in a plot reminiscent of Groundhog Day, Pitt's character will die again on the same date and replay his life again. There's been an abundance of X-Files news this week, as publicity hots up for the start of season eight in the US next week: The Fox TV network has released info on the upcoming episodes:
Read interviews with Gillian Anderson and Mitch Pileggi. Patrick Stewart has signed on to play Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the 10th Star Trek Movie. No news as yet on whether any other cast members of Star Trek: The Next Generation have signed up. Anne Rice has announced that she and her son Christopher Rice will be adapting her book, The Witching Hour, for the screen. She made the announcement while promoting her new Witch series book, Merrick, the first book to blend her Vampire Chronicles series with her Witch series. Author J.K. Rowling revealed the name of the fifth Harry Potter book, while talking to NBC's Today show, as being Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Rowling said: "I kept saying I wouldn't tell anyone, but then this cute boy, about 8, asked me, and I knew it would make him so happy," Rowling told Today. She also said it would be over a year before the book is released. Two more sci fi/fantasy trailers went up on the Internet last week - the Sci-Fi Channel's official site posted a new trailer for the mini-series of Frank Herbert's Dune, which airs in the US in December, and a trailer has been posted for the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie. According to entertainment magazine Variety, MGM is planning to make a sequel to the 1994 Stargate movie. While Stargate was originally conceived as the first movie in a trilogy by creators Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, no word on if that duo will be involved. They had an industry famous falling out after MGM decided to make a TV show based on the film, and have since moved on to several other projects. A spinoff of the TV series Sabrina, the Teenage Witch is apparently in the works, Variety has reported. The 15th episode of the current season, which revolves around a bad witch who's sent off to a school for mischievous witches and warlocks, will act as a pilot for a series described as a cross between Welcome Back Kotter, The Facts of Life and Charmed. Ridley Scott is reported to be in discussions about the possibility of his directing Terminator 3. He's also reportedly involved in a new version of Flash Gordon. |
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