Sci-Fi Storm

According to report on Sci-Fi Wire, The Time Machine may not make its intended Christmas Day debut. Seems that director Simon Wells – granson of author H.G. Wells and director of Casper 2 and The Prince of Egypt – burned out on overwork trying to get it done and dropped out. Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt) has picked up the slack.

The new Doctor Who audio drama, “Death Comes to Time”, debuted today on the BBC. The new drama also features the return of Sylvester McCoy as the 7th Doctor and Sophie Aldred (“Ace”), and includes Stephen Fry as a mysterious Time Lord whom the doctor enlists to help against an alien warlord, played by John Sessions. Jacqueline Pearce, who played Servalan on Blake’s 7, also appears. The audio can be found here.

Poul Anderson’s Genesis (hardcover/
paperback) won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel fo the Year, and Ian McDonald took home the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best Short Story for “Tendeleo’s Story”…

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There are news reports all over the Net about Gillian Anderson and the X-Files. It is well known that her current contract ends with the 9th season. Early reports were that she wouldn’t renew, and it would probably be the end of the X-Files altogether, since Chris Carter has also said he won’t return. Now her manager is doing a 180, and saying she is at least open to the idea of more, if is gets renewed…can the series survive without either of its major stars?

dugh writes “there is a story on scifi.com about a new dune miniseries being written. it is an interview with the script writer and can be found here.” I was about to post on this, but he beat me to it. we knew about the sequel series, but now there is an interview to go with it, and the fact that it will be a combo of Children of Dune and Dune Messiah…

The Hollywood Reporter says that Dennis Hopper (Apocalypse Now) will star as Mr. Smith, the mysterious controller of fourth-dimension world of Flatland, a proposed SF action series. It will also star Bumper Robinson (Behind Enemy Lines, Enemy Mine), Phillip Rhys (Zenon: The Zequel), Francoise Yip (Romeo Must Die), Katherine Kendall (Dark Tides) and Liam Waite (Ghosts of Mars). I haven’t read the book Flatland but it doesn’t appear related…

This is making the rounds on the Web fast…the New York Post had a column reporting that Paramount has given the OK to look at scripts for a fourth installment in the Indiana Jones saga. Of course, they’d want Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford all to work on the film…but they’d all want money off the back end of receipts – leaving virtually nothing for Paramount…especially when it is expected to cost $150 million to produce. Sean Connery has also expressed an interest.

Cinescape Magazine and its corresponding web site have returned after a brief “hiatus”, spurred by the former parent company, Fandom Inc., filing for bankruptcy two months ago. Mania Entertainment has taken over, the web site is up again, and a new issue will be due out in the Fall.