45A 10 July 2001 inclu Flatland proposed 22 ep series
Eastlant Sci-Fi Group - 2000-2001 Season Progress Report 45A.
This is a digest of recent Sci-Fi- and genre-related news as of 10th July 2001.
News & Notes
Group News:
Help! I’ve Created a Monster!
You will have noticed that the monthly newsletter did not appear last week. This is because just as I was putting what I thought were the finishing touches to it, I was deluged with late entries, including a couple of very interesting convention reports.
As a result, I held onto it, and it will come out this week.
Buffy Season 6 Spoilers
The leaks and rumors are already flying thick and fast for next Season, with Buffy leading the pack. I have compiled a list of the more likely ones so far, which is available on request. I do not intend to publish any of these in the newsletter.
TV News:
Lee Says Unit 2 Is Special
Alexondra Lee, who plays cop Kate Benson on UPN's SF series Special Unit 2, said that she's pleased that UPN picked up the midseason show for the fall. "We got lucky, because, boy, there were not a lot of shows that got picked up this year," Lee told fans in an on-line chat. UPN renewed the series, about a squad of monster-hunting Chicago cops, after a six-episode run this year. It will air at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, right after UPN's highly anticipated new Star Trek series, Enterprise.
"I've always considered our show to be a little bit Buffy, a little bit of X-Files and, of course, Men in Black," Lee said. "People like to lump us in the sci-fi category, and after seeing the show, it's not like that at all. It's more like fairy-tale monsters, fantasy, like fairies and werewolves, but there's a twist to everything. It's not just a gnome, it's a shoplifting gnome. It's not just a werewolf, it's a stockbroker werewolf. It's not just a spider, it's a superwoman spider. We have a twisted, dark sense of humor on our show."
Though the show's first episodes were shot in Los Angeles, the production is moving for its second year. "The end of July, we start shooting," Lee said. "We're all moving up to Vancouver, Canada. We were so spoiled. They're hardly doing any series in L.A. anymore, and we did our six right in downtown Los Angeles. ... But they're moving us up to Vancouver, just like they do everybody. It's just so nice to know that I've got such a wonderful group of people to work with because I'm going to a foreign territory now. It's intimidating."
Will He, Won’t he? Will She, Won’t She?
After all the to and fro over whether or not David Duchovny would be prepared to do more X-Files, it seems that Gillian Anderson has taken a leaf out of his book.
In a report that contradicts a British newspaper story last week, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson left open the possibility of staying with the Fox series for a 10th season, should the show be renewed again, the Reuters news service reported. An earlier report in the London Sunday Times quoted Anderson saying the show's next season, its ninth, would be her last. Anderson's contract expires at the end of the ninth season.
Fox's renewal deal for The X-Files also ends at the end of the ninth season, Reuters reported. "She's happy to be going back to do the ninth season, then her contract is up, so the assumption is that will be the end," Anderson's manager, Connie Freiberg, told Reuters. "We don't even know if the show is continuing" beyond a ninth year, Freiberg added. Asked whether Anderson would return to the show for a 10th season if the series gets renewed for another year, Freiberg said, "We can only face that when it happens."
Hopper Stars in Flatland
Dennis Hopper is set to star in Flatland, a proposed 22-episode SF action series that is a combination of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Ruddy Morgan Organization and Shanghai-based Hweilai Studios will produce. Al Ruddy created the series with producing partner Andre Morgan and Steve Feke (Profiler) and will executive produce it with director Stanley Tong and Chinese television producer Ren Nai Chang, the trade paper reported.
The cast includes Bumper Robinson, Phillip Rhys, Francoise Yip, Katherine Kendall and Liam Waite. Flatland is set in Shanghai in 2010 and tells the story of three young Americans (Robinson, Rhys and Yip) who find themselves trapped in Flatland, a fourth-dimensional world controlled by a man known only as Mr. Smith (Hopper). In Flatland, the past and present intersect, the trade paper reported.
Morgan and Ruddy told the Reporter that they are in talks with several major broadcast and cable networks, but declined to give further details. All 22 scripts will be finished this week, and Flatland is set to begin production in Shanghai on high-definition digital video, the format that George Lucas is using for his upcoming Star Wars: Episode II, the trade paper reported.
BBC Buffy Spin-off Confirmed
The British Broadcasting Corp. will make a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer centered on the character of Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), as previously speculated, according to a report in the British Observer newspaper and Variety. It was first reported in May that Buffy creator Joss Whedon was talking with the BBC about the spin-off series, which was being considered in part to accommodate Head's desire to be closer to his family in the United Kingdom.
On July 8, the Observer reported that the BBC is planning the series, tentatively called The Watcher, to star Head as Rupert Giles. Twentieth Century Fox, which will produce Buffy for UPN in the fall, will also produce the BBC program, the Observer said.
Petulant WB Closes Buffy Board Early
Despite earlier statements that the WB sponsored Buffy websites would stay up as long as the show remained on WB (i.e. through the summer) The WB announced that it has shut down The Bronze, the four-year-old posting and message board for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is moving from The WB to UPN in the fall. The posting board, which ceased operation on July 10, has been the international nexus for Buffy fans, who have used it as a springboard for get-togethers and three annual charity fund-raising parties in Los Angeles.
Buffy executive producer Marti Noxon, one of several writers and producers who dropped by the posting board in the last day, assured fans that a new Bronze would be up and running when Buffy makes its debut on UPN. "This is a sad day, but rest assured, another Bronze-like Buffy board will be up soon," Noxon wrote. "We've been talking to UPN, and they are on it, believe me. They want you guys to continue to have a home to express your Buffy-related ... feelings/etc. ... Thanks for all your incredible passion and enthusiasm for the show. Many, many times--I've felt disconnected or discouraged, and I've come for a little lurk on the board to remind myself that there is actually an AUDIENCE out there--a living, feeling world of people responding to what we do, day in and day out. You guys are the reason we're still on the air, and you guys make us feel proud and honored to do what we do. Seriously--thank you."
Bakula Talks Enterprise
Scott Bakula, who will play Capt. Jonathan Archer in UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, appeared on the ET TV shows Tuesday 10th July, from the set of “Enterprise”. Bakula told ET that the series will try to anticipate the look of the original series. "It's kind of a tricky thing, because we obviously have more technology now at our disposal in terms of the shooting of it, but we had to go back and make it look like it was before," Bakula said. "So this has more of a submarine type of feel to it. You go in the submarines of today, and there are a lot of similarities to their kind of stations and things. So projecting that ahead and still making it seem like it's before Kirk is complicated."
Bakula also confirmed details of Enterprise's uniforms. "They're kind of jumpsuity, but with pockets," Bakula said. "Jonathan Frakes came by and was almost in tears: 'We would've killed to have pockets! And a zipper?' We have those things, so we're feeling pretty cozy in them, but they're not leotards, which is great. Again, that's another idea of bringing it closer to today, as opposed to the futuristic thing."
Bakula also confirmed details of the series' premise, about humankind's first ventures into intergalactic space. "This is 150 years from today; this is 2151, 100 years before Kirk and Spock," he said. "So we are the first. We've just figured out how to use the propulsion system, and we are going out in warp speed for the first time. ... There will be surprises. What's really fun about this is, because it's ahead of Kirk and Spock, there are references to things that, if you've seen the show, you'll get a kick out of. They're kind of inside things that people know what the outcome is, but we're still in the developmental stage of that. So you'll see some things and say, 'Oh, it's the first time they ever did that; it's the first time they thought of that.' There's that kind of fun stuff, which I think will be fun, not only for the people who know the show really well, but also for newcomers." Enterprise debuts in the fall.
Editor’s Note: I saw this segment and I have to say that the bridge set was impressive. They managed to make it look modern from the viewpoint of the viewer in the 90s, without making it look as if technology had gone backwards by the 23rd century. Nicely done.
Movie News:
Raider To Change For DVD
Simon West, director of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, told Empire that the DVD version of the film could differ dramatically from the theatrical release. Among other things, the DVD may restore deleted scenes that featured British humor that was deemed too much for an American audience, West told the magazine.
"I think so," West said. "I've done the DVD version already, and there's extra stuff in that, but not a director's cut. Who knows? Often, like a year or two later, they ask you to do a director's cut. It wouldn't be a three-hour thing, but it might be tonally different in some areas. People are horrified that [the DVD version] is not quite the same as it was in the theater, but I actually quite like the idea of having two or three different versions of the film." Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie and based on the Eidos video-game series of the same name, is currently in theaters.
Axis To Debut In 2002
Axis, Europe's first computer-animated movie, will premiere in the United States in 2002, quickly followed by European and Japanese releases, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The fantasy film is a co-production of Chaman Productions, Vivendi Universal's StudioCanal and TVA International.
The 85-minute movie will be previewed at the 28th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, or SIGGRAPH, Aug. 12-17 in Los Angeles. The film features the voices of Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston, Keith David, Greg Proops and Michael McShane. The movie tells the story of Kaena (Dunst), a teen-age girl from a village in a towering tree called Axis, which rises 100 miles above her planet's surface. Kaena embarks on a journey to discover why the tree's sap is disappearing and encounters the Selenites, an alien race, the trade paper reported.
Fall Release Dates For Major Genre Films
The movie studios are already staking out fall dates for their upcoming genre film releases, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The most anticipated releases of the coming season include Warner Brothers' Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on Nov. 16 and New Line's The Fellowship of the Ring, the first Lord of the Rings film, on Dec. 19.
Hearts in Atlantis, Warner Brothers' supernatural movie based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, opens Sept. 28; K-Pax, Universal's film starring Kevin Spacey as a mental patient who claims to be an alien, debuts Oct. 5; and 13 Ghosts, Warner Brothers' remake of the classic William Castle creature feature, materializes Oct. 26.
On Nov. 2, Disney and Pixar unveil the computer-animated Monsters, Inc. and Sony will premiere the Jet Li SF thriller film The One. Around Christmas time, DreamWorks will unwrap its update of H.G. Wells' classic SF novel The Time Machine.
Mulder To Fly As Superman?
Coming Attractions reported several rumors about the proposed new Superman film, to be called either Superman Reborn or Superman Destruction. Paul Attanasio is reportedly in talks to write the script for the film.
CA reported that David Duchovny is under consideration to put on the blue suit, and director Tim Burton may become involved if his upcoming Planet of the Apes movie hits this summer.
Batman producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan are rumored to join longtime X-Files director David Nutter and Dan Hill as executive producers. Apparently Warner Brothers wants to see how well Sony's Spider-Man film does next year before putting the project on a fast track for a Christmas 2003 release.
Editor’s Note: Yeah! Right! And Mitch Pileggi will play Lex Luthor.
Dan Dare Takes Off
Dan Dare Corp.--which is developing an animated TV series based on the British Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future comic series--will also develop a feature film based on the comics, Variety reported. Columbia TriStar International Television picked up the worldwide rights to the Dan Dare Corp.'s 26-part series, which features British stars Robbie Coltrane, Tim Curry and Charles Dance, the trade paper reported. A second series, and the script for the feature, are in development.
The series was funded with British cash through Dan Dare Corp., an independent company headed by producer Colin Frewin, who also holds the rights to the 1950s character described as the "007 of outer space," Variety reported.
Chupacabra Comes To Film
Writer Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez (The Thirteenth Floor) has signed a deal with Revolution Studios to write Bloodlust: Legend of the Chupacabra, a supernatural horror movie, Variety reported. The film is based on the Puerto Rican folklore legend of a goat-sucking creature that stalks the countryside.
William Sherak and Jason Shuman will produce the film under Blue Star Pictures, along with John Hegeman of Distant Corners, the trade paper reported.
Editor’s Note: - Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel. Is anyone scared by a monster that sucks goats? Sounds pretty lame to me.
Darksiders In Development
New Line will develop Darksiders, a vampire feature film based on a spec script by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein (The Flintstones), Variety reported. The film tells the story of a group of vampires who become special operatives for the FBI, the trade paper reported.
Tracie Graham and Alison Rosenzweig will produce. New Line president Toby Emmerich and executive Michele Weiss will steer the project, which is being eyed as a potential franchise, the trade paper reported.
Odds and Ends: Short items not worthy of an article in their own right.
· People magazine reported that Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton donated a kidney in late May to his ailing mother, Erma. Both Burton and his mother are doing well.
· Comics Continuum reported that the trailer for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man film will likely appear on the movie's official Web site before it shows up in theaters on July 11, attached to prints of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
· Annette O'Toole, who played Lana Lang in the 1983 movie Superman III, returns to the superhero franchise by playing Clark Kent's mother, Martha, in The WB's upcoming television series Smallville, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The fall series will focus on Superman's high-school years. Another actress had been slated to play Martha Kent, but the role was recast to accommodate O'Toole, the trade paper reported.
Part B Follows Shortly.
Best wishes,
David Gerhard
Eastlant Sci-Fi Group
Fans Working for Fandom, Not for Profit.
Eastlant Sci-Fi Group - 2000-2001 Season Progress Report 45A.
This is a digest of recent Sci-Fi- and genre-related news as of 10th July 2001.
News & Notes
Group News:
Help! I’ve Created a Monster!
You will have noticed that the monthly newsletter did not appear last week. This is because just as I was putting what I thought were the finishing touches to it, I was deluged with late entries, including a couple of very interesting convention reports.
As a result, I held onto it, and it will come out this week.
Buffy Season 6 Spoilers
The leaks and rumors are already flying thick and fast for next Season, with Buffy leading the pack. I have compiled a list of the more likely ones so far, which is available on request. I do not intend to publish any of these in the newsletter.
TV News:
Lee Says Unit 2 Is Special
Alexondra Lee, who plays cop Kate Benson on UPN's SF series Special Unit 2, said that she's pleased that UPN picked up the midseason show for the fall. "We got lucky, because, boy, there were not a lot of shows that got picked up this year," Lee told fans in an on-line chat. UPN renewed the series, about a squad of monster-hunting Chicago cops, after a six-episode run this year. It will air at 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, right after UPN's highly anticipated new Star Trek series, Enterprise.
"I've always considered our show to be a little bit Buffy, a little bit of X-Files and, of course, Men in Black," Lee said. "People like to lump us in the sci-fi category, and after seeing the show, it's not like that at all. It's more like fairy-tale monsters, fantasy, like fairies and werewolves, but there's a twist to everything. It's not just a gnome, it's a shoplifting gnome. It's not just a werewolf, it's a stockbroker werewolf. It's not just a spider, it's a superwoman spider. We have a twisted, dark sense of humor on our show."
Though the show's first episodes were shot in Los Angeles, the production is moving for its second year. "The end of July, we start shooting," Lee said. "We're all moving up to Vancouver, Canada. We were so spoiled. They're hardly doing any series in L.A. anymore, and we did our six right in downtown Los Angeles. ... But they're moving us up to Vancouver, just like they do everybody. It's just so nice to know that I've got such a wonderful group of people to work with because I'm going to a foreign territory now. It's intimidating."
Will He, Won’t he? Will She, Won’t She?
After all the to and fro over whether or not David Duchovny would be prepared to do more X-Files, it seems that Gillian Anderson has taken a leaf out of his book.
In a report that contradicts a British newspaper story last week, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson left open the possibility of staying with the Fox series for a 10th season, should the show be renewed again, the Reuters news service reported. An earlier report in the London Sunday Times quoted Anderson saying the show's next season, its ninth, would be her last. Anderson's contract expires at the end of the ninth season.
Fox's renewal deal for The X-Files also ends at the end of the ninth season, Reuters reported. "She's happy to be going back to do the ninth season, then her contract is up, so the assumption is that will be the end," Anderson's manager, Connie Freiberg, told Reuters. "We don't even know if the show is continuing" beyond a ninth year, Freiberg added. Asked whether Anderson would return to the show for a 10th season if the series gets renewed for another year, Freiberg said, "We can only face that when it happens."
Hopper Stars in Flatland
Dennis Hopper is set to star in Flatland, a proposed 22-episode SF action series that is a combination of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Ruddy Morgan Organization and Shanghai-based Hweilai Studios will produce. Al Ruddy created the series with producing partner Andre Morgan and Steve Feke (Profiler) and will executive produce it with director Stanley Tong and Chinese television producer Ren Nai Chang, the trade paper reported.
The cast includes Bumper Robinson, Phillip Rhys, Francoise Yip, Katherine Kendall and Liam Waite. Flatland is set in Shanghai in 2010 and tells the story of three young Americans (Robinson, Rhys and Yip) who find themselves trapped in Flatland, a fourth-dimensional world controlled by a man known only as Mr. Smith (Hopper). In Flatland, the past and present intersect, the trade paper reported.
Morgan and Ruddy told the Reporter that they are in talks with several major broadcast and cable networks, but declined to give further details. All 22 scripts will be finished this week, and Flatland is set to begin production in Shanghai on high-definition digital video, the format that George Lucas is using for his upcoming Star Wars: Episode II, the trade paper reported.
BBC Buffy Spin-off Confirmed
The British Broadcasting Corp. will make a spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer centered on the character of Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), as previously speculated, according to a report in the British Observer newspaper and Variety. It was first reported in May that Buffy creator Joss Whedon was talking with the BBC about the spin-off series, which was being considered in part to accommodate Head's desire to be closer to his family in the United Kingdom.
On July 8, the Observer reported that the BBC is planning the series, tentatively called The Watcher, to star Head as Rupert Giles. Twentieth Century Fox, which will produce Buffy for UPN in the fall, will also produce the BBC program, the Observer said.
Petulant WB Closes Buffy Board Early
Despite earlier statements that the WB sponsored Buffy websites would stay up as long as the show remained on WB (i.e. through the summer) The WB announced that it has shut down The Bronze, the four-year-old posting and message board for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is moving from The WB to UPN in the fall. The posting board, which ceased operation on July 10, has been the international nexus for Buffy fans, who have used it as a springboard for get-togethers and three annual charity fund-raising parties in Los Angeles.
Buffy executive producer Marti Noxon, one of several writers and producers who dropped by the posting board in the last day, assured fans that a new Bronze would be up and running when Buffy makes its debut on UPN. "This is a sad day, but rest assured, another Bronze-like Buffy board will be up soon," Noxon wrote. "We've been talking to UPN, and they are on it, believe me. They want you guys to continue to have a home to express your Buffy-related ... feelings/etc. ... Thanks for all your incredible passion and enthusiasm for the show. Many, many times--I've felt disconnected or discouraged, and I've come for a little lurk on the board to remind myself that there is actually an AUDIENCE out there--a living, feeling world of people responding to what we do, day in and day out. You guys are the reason we're still on the air, and you guys make us feel proud and honored to do what we do. Seriously--thank you."
Bakula Talks Enterprise
Scott Bakula, who will play Capt. Jonathan Archer in UPN's upcoming Star Trek series, Enterprise, appeared on the ET TV shows Tuesday 10th July, from the set of “Enterprise”. Bakula told ET that the series will try to anticipate the look of the original series. "It's kind of a tricky thing, because we obviously have more technology now at our disposal in terms of the shooting of it, but we had to go back and make it look like it was before," Bakula said. "So this has more of a submarine type of feel to it. You go in the submarines of today, and there are a lot of similarities to their kind of stations and things. So projecting that ahead and still making it seem like it's before Kirk is complicated."
Bakula also confirmed details of Enterprise's uniforms. "They're kind of jumpsuity, but with pockets," Bakula said. "Jonathan Frakes came by and was almost in tears: 'We would've killed to have pockets! And a zipper?' We have those things, so we're feeling pretty cozy in them, but they're not leotards, which is great. Again, that's another idea of bringing it closer to today, as opposed to the futuristic thing."
Bakula also confirmed details of the series' premise, about humankind's first ventures into intergalactic space. "This is 150 years from today; this is 2151, 100 years before Kirk and Spock," he said. "So we are the first. We've just figured out how to use the propulsion system, and we are going out in warp speed for the first time. ... There will be surprises. What's really fun about this is, because it's ahead of Kirk and Spock, there are references to things that, if you've seen the show, you'll get a kick out of. They're kind of inside things that people know what the outcome is, but we're still in the developmental stage of that. So you'll see some things and say, 'Oh, it's the first time they ever did that; it's the first time they thought of that.' There's that kind of fun stuff, which I think will be fun, not only for the people who know the show really well, but also for newcomers." Enterprise debuts in the fall.
Editor’s Note: I saw this segment and I have to say that the bridge set was impressive. They managed to make it look modern from the viewpoint of the viewer in the 90s, without making it look as if technology had gone backwards by the 23rd century. Nicely done.
Movie News:
Raider To Change For DVD
Simon West, director of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, told Empire that the DVD version of the film could differ dramatically from the theatrical release. Among other things, the DVD may restore deleted scenes that featured British humor that was deemed too much for an American audience, West told the magazine.
"I think so," West said. "I've done the DVD version already, and there's extra stuff in that, but not a director's cut. Who knows? Often, like a year or two later, they ask you to do a director's cut. It wouldn't be a three-hour thing, but it might be tonally different in some areas. People are horrified that [the DVD version] is not quite the same as it was in the theater, but I actually quite like the idea of having two or three different versions of the film." Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie and based on the Eidos video-game series of the same name, is currently in theaters.
Axis To Debut In 2002
Axis, Europe's first computer-animated movie, will premiere in the United States in 2002, quickly followed by European and Japanese releases, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The fantasy film is a co-production of Chaman Productions, Vivendi Universal's StudioCanal and TVA International.
The 85-minute movie will be previewed at the 28th International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, or SIGGRAPH, Aug. 12-17 in Los Angeles. The film features the voices of Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston, Keith David, Greg Proops and Michael McShane. The movie tells the story of Kaena (Dunst), a teen-age girl from a village in a towering tree called Axis, which rises 100 miles above her planet's surface. Kaena embarks on a journey to discover why the tree's sap is disappearing and encounters the Selenites, an alien race, the trade paper reported.
Fall Release Dates For Major Genre Films
The movie studios are already staking out fall dates for their upcoming genre film releases, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The most anticipated releases of the coming season include Warner Brothers' Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on Nov. 16 and New Line's The Fellowship of the Ring, the first Lord of the Rings film, on Dec. 19.
Hearts in Atlantis, Warner Brothers' supernatural movie based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, opens Sept. 28; K-Pax, Universal's film starring Kevin Spacey as a mental patient who claims to be an alien, debuts Oct. 5; and 13 Ghosts, Warner Brothers' remake of the classic William Castle creature feature, materializes Oct. 26.
On Nov. 2, Disney and Pixar unveil the computer-animated Monsters, Inc. and Sony will premiere the Jet Li SF thriller film The One. Around Christmas time, DreamWorks will unwrap its update of H.G. Wells' classic SF novel The Time Machine.
Mulder To Fly As Superman?
Coming Attractions reported several rumors about the proposed new Superman film, to be called either Superman Reborn or Superman Destruction. Paul Attanasio is reportedly in talks to write the script for the film.
CA reported that David Duchovny is under consideration to put on the blue suit, and director Tim Burton may become involved if his upcoming Planet of the Apes movie hits this summer.
Batman producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael E. Uslan are rumored to join longtime X-Files director David Nutter and Dan Hill as executive producers. Apparently Warner Brothers wants to see how well Sony's Spider-Man film does next year before putting the project on a fast track for a Christmas 2003 release.
Editor’s Note: Yeah! Right! And Mitch Pileggi will play Lex Luthor.
Dan Dare Takes Off
Dan Dare Corp.--which is developing an animated TV series based on the British Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future comic series--will also develop a feature film based on the comics, Variety reported. Columbia TriStar International Television picked up the worldwide rights to the Dan Dare Corp.'s 26-part series, which features British stars Robbie Coltrane, Tim Curry and Charles Dance, the trade paper reported. A second series, and the script for the feature, are in development.
The series was funded with British cash through Dan Dare Corp., an independent company headed by producer Colin Frewin, who also holds the rights to the 1950s character described as the "007 of outer space," Variety reported.
Chupacabra Comes To Film
Writer Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez (The Thirteenth Floor) has signed a deal with Revolution Studios to write Bloodlust: Legend of the Chupacabra, a supernatural horror movie, Variety reported. The film is based on the Puerto Rican folklore legend of a goat-sucking creature that stalks the countryside.
William Sherak and Jason Shuman will produce the film under Blue Star Pictures, along with John Hegeman of Distant Corners, the trade paper reported.
Editor’s Note: - Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel. Is anyone scared by a monster that sucks goats? Sounds pretty lame to me.
Darksiders In Development
New Line will develop Darksiders, a vampire feature film based on a spec script by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein (The Flintstones), Variety reported. The film tells the story of a group of vampires who become special operatives for the FBI, the trade paper reported.
Tracie Graham and Alison Rosenzweig will produce. New Line president Toby Emmerich and executive Michele Weiss will steer the project, which is being eyed as a potential franchise, the trade paper reported.
Odds and Ends: Short items not worthy of an article in their own right.
· People magazine reported that Star Trek: The Next Generation star LeVar Burton donated a kidney in late May to his ailing mother, Erma. Both Burton and his mother are doing well.
· Comics Continuum reported that the trailer for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man film will likely appear on the movie's official Web site before it shows up in theaters on July 11, attached to prints of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
· Annette O'Toole, who played Lana Lang in the 1983 movie Superman III, returns to the superhero franchise by playing Clark Kent's mother, Martha, in The WB's upcoming television series Smallville, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The fall series will focus on Superman's high-school years. Another actress had been slated to play Martha Kent, but the role was recast to accommodate O'Toole, the trade paper reported.
Part B Follows Shortly.
Best wishes,
David Gerhard
Eastlant Sci-Fi Group
Fans Working for Fandom, Not for Profit.
posted by Catherine Jemma at 5:52 AM
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