Sci-Fi Storm

X² has begun production up north, according to the Victoria Times Colonist, and Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity, Braveheart) is set to star as the chief villian, Stryker, although the latter is being denied over at Coming Attractions. Also announced newcomers: Alan Cumming (Spy Kids) as Nightcrawler; Aaron Stanford (Third Watch) as Pyro; and Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King) as Anne, Stryker’s assistant.

Most of you have seen Armageddon – and probably a few of you like me scoffed at the realism. You’ve probably seen Deep Impact with a somewhat more realistic portrayal. Well, neither hold a candle to Lucifer’s Hammer, probably the most realistic portrayal of any “big rock hits Earth” movie. Read More.

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SCI FI Wire ran a number of articles today revolving around several proposed sequels. The events of Sept. 11th have inspired Devlin and Emmerich to come up with ideas for a sequel to Independence Day (a.k.a. ID4), for which they never intended a sequel; Spielberg, despite saying earlier in the week that he isn’t interested in doing any more sequels, says he’s eager to do a Jurassic Park IV; and Tim Allen is up for doing a Toy Story 3, if a “corporate and business thing” can be worked out…

I’ve finally put the last of the data into my Encyclopedia of Known Space, which indexes the people, places, and things found in Larry Niven’s Known Space universe. Stop by and check it out. Of course, I’ll be back to work on it once the still-planned Ringworld’s Child or Man-Kzin Wars X is published…

Update 6/16: Just got the following in e-mail: “Brian’s Known Space Encyclopedia is absolutely wonderful. I’ve moved it to
my “Favorites” list. Larry Niven”

The 2002 Saturn Awards were just given out – Cinescape is running the details. Quickie recap on the film side: A.I. got Best SF Film and Best Writing for Spielberg, and Haley Joel Osment got Brest Younger Actor; Best Actor went to Tom Cruise for Vanilla Sky, while his ex Nicole Kidman got best actress for The Others; Best Director went to Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which also won Best Fantasy Film and Best Supporting Actor thanks to Ian McKellan. On the TV side: Buffy for Best Network Series; Farscape for Best Syndicated/Cable series; Ben Browder (Farscape) and Yancy Butler (Witchblade) got Best Actor/Actress, and Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville) and Jolene Blalock (Enterprise) for Supporting roles.

dugh daren writes “Revolution Science Fiction has an article covering thier list of the top five cancelled speculative fiction shows. I was pretty happy to see Space: Above and Beyond there!”

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. In a posting on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, a person for the National Captioning Institute was looking for references for spelling to be used in the forthcoming DVDs. JMS has since piped up and announced that it’s for real, and due sometime in the Fall, and will have extra goodies and even some commentaries by JMS (at least two, depending on time). Hopefully WB will make the official announcement soon so we can get pre-orders in.

Just pointing out some of the cool DVD releases coming up: June 11th brings us Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Second Season; on June 25th, Set 7 and Set 8 of Space: 1999 (which completes the series) and Farscape Season 2 Volume 1 (now a two disk set with 4 episodes); on July 2nd we get Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3; and on July 9th a new Farscape: Best of Season 1 collection of 6 episodes. Head on over to the Sci-Fi TV Store to pre-order from Amazon.com, and order other cool videos.

Thank god for TiVo – the season premieres for for Stargate SG-1 (its sixth) and Farscape (its fourth) premiere tonight starting at 9pm on the SCI FI Channel; add in the freshman Jeremiah on Showtime, and its one busy night for the SF fan…

Two items of note today: Variety reported that a remake of Clash of the Titans is being penned by John Glenn and Travis Wright (Red World); and brothers Anthony and Joe Russo
(Welcome to Collinwood) have been named to write the screenplay adpatation of J. Michael Straczynski’s Top Cow comic Rising Stars.