Sci-Fi Storm

SCI FI Wire is chock-full o’movie goodness today. First, Morgan Freeman’s Rendezvous With Rama project is still alive, but waiting on a final script who can “see the science aspect of this”; Halle Berry will purr on-screen as the title character in Catwoman; Columbia has started development on Men in Black III; and John Rogers (The Core) has finished the screenplay for Issac Asimov’s Foundation.

For the first time since switching DSL providers, my DSL line has gone down, naturally after I left for work. So the stores will be offline until I can get back and figure out what happened…Update: Should be fixed now, but it might take a while to see (and you may need to exit your browser). Apparently with a power outage yesterday, when everything came back up my IP changed (damned dynamic IP – never had to worry about that before) and I didn’t have the right logging turned on to detect it…

The SCI FI Channel has announced an auction of Children of Dune memorabilia to benefit Reading is Fundamental. Auction is supposed to have started at 8pm EST today, but nothing is up yet. And don’t forget, the mini-series starts 9pm EST Sunday.

BaronMoritani writes “The Children of Dune miniseries trailer entitled “Inheritance” was pulled by SCIFI.COM due to the preview containing major spoilers including the death of a main character. Luckily, you can still view the trailer by going here: http://groups.msn.com/TheLandsraad/_whatsnew.msnw

The Children of Dune miniseries premieres in the USA on Sunday, March 16, at 9p.m. Eastern standard time.

For more information go here:
www.scifi.com/dune

The information must flow …”

I think he’s had more stuff produced after his death than before. Two Gene Roddenberry kid stories – the only two he ever wrote for kids – have been acquired by Digital Production Solutions to be turned into either 3D animated series or movies. The stories are Starpoint Academy, about an elite academy training cadets to be Astro Rangers, and Gene Roddenberry’s Char, about an intergalactic princess raised as a normal girl on 24th-century Earth.

Pre-orders for Stargate SG-1 Season 3 and all 6 remaining seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are now available from Amazon.com. Also available for pre-order is the latest movie, Star Trek: Nemesis. Head over to the Sci-Fi TV Store for release dates and details.

Slashdot is soliciting questions that will be forwarded to SF author Larry Niven for his answers. For those not familiar with Slashdot Interviews, you can post a question in the comments area, or, if you have moderator points, moderate up the questions you most want answered (you can’t do both so you can’t promote your own question). I’ll post again when the answers are posted.

Updated 3/10: The answers are now online.

tchansen writes “There is a new Children of Dune trailer available at SciFi.Com. This trailer, titled “Sins of the Mother” has a couple of interesting shots, especially Leto fighting.

Children of Dune is an original SciFi Channel movie airing Sunday, March 16, at 9:00 PM EST/PST on the SciFi Channel.”

tchansen writes “The second episode, “Program”, of The Animatrix is now available at The Animatrix Web Site for a free download. The first episode, “The Second Renaissance: Part One”, is also available.

The DVD of The Animatrix will be available for purchase on June 3, 2003. The second Matrix movie, “The Matrix Reloaded”, opens in theaters in the United States on May 15, 2003.”

The SCI FI Channel original movie Riverworld will air March 22nd at 9pm. Riverworld is a mysterious place full of historical figures from Mark Twain (played by Cameron Daddo) to a 21st-century astronaut named Hale (played by Brad Johnson). Also appearing is the late New Zealand actor Kevin Smith (Valdemar), best known as Ares on Xena: Warrior Princess, who passed away last year.