SFFWorld News – 10/13/08

 
SFFWorld News – 10/13/08

1) New SF novelist Hannu Rajaniemi has signed a three-book deal with Gollancz in the U.K. The first book, Rajaniemi’s debut, as yet untitled, is tentatively scheduled for release in 2010.

2) Awhile back came the news that Kenneth Johnson, who wrote, co-produced and directed the famous 1980’s television sci-fi mini-series V, was attempting to get a new sequel off the ground, called V: The Second Generation. That project appears to have been put on hold, and instead the ABC Network in the States will put together their own new adaptation of the mini-series, produced by Warner Brothers TV and Scott Peters, who did the original mini-series, the second mini-series and the television spin-off series. The original V concept was an allegory of the Holocaust and Nazi Germany, about an invasion and take-over of Earth by disguised lizard aliens who planned to use humans for food. The new adaptation keeps the invasion but drops the Holocaust theme and changes it to Homeland Security issues. The giant space ships hovering over Earth, however, will make a reappearance. Warner Brothers’ video-game division will also develop new game adaptations of the mini-series.

3) Overture Films will produce and distribute The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero movie of the same name. Breck Eisner will direct from a script by Ray Wright and Scott Kosar. Romero will serve as executive producer. The Crazies is about a small Kansas town that is beset by a virus that causes insanity and death after a mysterious toxin contaminates the local water supply.

4) Casting News:  William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is getting the all-star film treatment in a new version from director-producer Julie Taymor. The film will star Helen Mirren as Prospera (a distaff version of lead character Prospero.) The cast also includes Alfred Molina, Jeremy Irons, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Brand and Djimon Hounsou as the tortured Caliban. Taymor has directed two versions of the play on the stage and is filming the movie in Hawaii this fall.

5) Additional Casting News: Dominic Monaghan and Freddy Rodriguez will star in Fortuna, a SF horror thriller set in a 2100 Earth where a collapsed world economy and climate crises have eliminated the middle classes, leaving only the very rich and the teeming poor. To avoid revolt, the rich offer a mysterious game, Fortuna, that allows one in a thousand of the poor to become a member of the rich, but the game is actually a way of reducing poverty through deadlier means. Monaghan and Rodriguez will play desperate men who risk playing the game, even though none of the contestants are ever seen again. Writer-director Barthelemy Grossmann will also star.
 
6) More Casting News: Tim Burton’s Disney adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s legendary Alice in Wonderland is attracting quite a cast. In addition to long-time partner Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as the title character, Alice will have Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, two sisters fighting over their kingdom.

7) Even More Casting News: Roland Emmerich’s newest apocalyptic epic 2012 decided to get a jump on things by casting actor Danny Glover as the U.S. President. The film follows the idea that the predictions of Mayan cosmology about the end of the world turn out to be true. Also in the cast are John Cusack, Woody Harrleson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, and Thandie Newton. The movie is scheduled for release in summer 2009.

8) Yet Further Apocalypse Casting News: Jude Law, starring in the SF thriller Repossession Mambo, is joined by Alice Braga, Forest Whitaker, Carice van Houten, The RZA and Liev Schreiber. The movie, from first-time director Miguel Sapochnik, deals with a future Earth in which people can buy artificial organs on credit. If they fail to pay on time, however, the organs may be repossessed and the person dies. Law plays a repo man who is forced to go on the run from attempts to claim his own artificial organs.

9) A Whole Lot of Casting News: Wes Anderson is doing an animated film version of Roald Dahl’s children’s story The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film stars the voices of George Clooney, who plays Mr. Fox who steals food from local farmers to feed his children and wife, voiced by Cate Blanchett. The farmers set out to stop him, and their efforts cause trouble for other animals, such as Mr. Badger, voiced by Anderson favorite Bill Murray. The film uses several different types of animation, including stop-motion, and will be released in Fall 2009.