Smulders Open To Wonder Woman

Cobie Smulders, the brunette Canadian actress who stars in CBS' How I Met Your Mother, told SCI FI Wire that she'd be open to auditioning for the title role in Joss Whedon's proposed Wonder Woman movie. She first broached the idea in the February issue of Esquire magazine, which is on sale now.

"It's funny," Smulders said in an interview at CBS' winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., last week, "when you do like an interview for two hours, and then they take the Wonder Woman quote. ... My boyfriend ... [is] really into comic books, and ... he was the one who kind of said, 'Hey, it would be cool if you could do that.' And I don't know. Who knows? I'll go in for it if it comes up, but it's definitely not, like, in the works or anything."

Smulders said that the idea has come up before. "I think it's just the curse of having brown hair in this industry and being an actress," she said. "I think it's just a general, like, question that everyone's going to pose their clients."

Whedon, creator of TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and director of the feature film Serenity, has been hired to write and possibly direct a Wonder Woman movie, based on the DC Comics franchise. More Of Heroes' Cop To Come

Greg Grunberg, who plays mind-reading cop Matt Parkman on NBC's hit Heroes, told SCI FI Wire that his character will feature heavily in upcoming episodes—and (spoiler ahead!) that a big secret will be revealed about Matt's wife, Janice (Elizabeth Lackey). "She has a huge secret from me. Huge," Grunberg said in an interview at last week's Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif.

"I mean, when I read that, I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'" Grunberg said. "[It's] bigger than [her] having an affair. Yeah, much bigger. ... You'll have to watch. ... It's pretty great. It's pretty great. And it affects everything. ... And she's really happy."

Grunberg, whose character was seen only intermittently in recent episodes, will also show up more with his FBI partner, played by Clea Du Vall. "Usually, I shoot three out of the eight days [of production in a typical episode]," he said. But in the segment currently in production, "I mean, [I'm in] every single scene. ... I'm working every day," he added. "Clea and I are working more and more together, which is great."

What about rumors of romantic sparks between Du Vall's Audrey Hanson and Parkman? "We'll see," Grunberg said coyly. "So far, we haven't [gotten together], but people are constantly asking me that, you know? Which I said earlier was, like, just [attributable] to our chemistry, I think." Heroes returned with new episodes on Jan. 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Patrick Lee, News EditorMore Romance For Heroes' Niki?

Ali Larter, who plays the dual role of Jessica/Niki on NBC's hit Heroes, offered SCI FI Wire a spoiler for the series' upcoming episodes: that her character and Adrian Pasdar's Nathan Petrelli will share some screen time together again. "Me and Adrian had some really great stuff in episode four ['Collision'], and I think that they will be bringing our characters back together," Larter said in an interview at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., last week. "I loved working with him. I think he's an amazing actor."

Larter wouldn't say if Niki and Nathan, a married congressional candidate who has the power to fly, will rekindle their one-night romance. "I don't know," she said, adding: "Actually, I do know, but I can't tell you. He's great. He's a wonderful actor. You know, he's been in the business for such a long time, and he just makes a good environment that's so relaxed for me to work, and I'm really looking forward to working with him in the future."

What about rumors that Larter's Niki or Jessica may not be long for this world? "Everything's possible," Larter said. "Anything's possible." Heroes airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Patrick Lee, News EditorRoberts Joins Heroes Cast

Eric Roberts has joined the cast of NBC's breakout hit Heroes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

On Heroes, Tim Kring's superhero drama for NBC Universal TV Studio, Roberts will play Thompson, a new associate of Claire's father H.R.G. (Jack Coleman), or Horn-Rimmed Glasses.

Roberts is joining another new addition to the Heroes cast: former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston, who made his debut as invisible man Claude in the Jan. 22 episode.

Roberts co-starred on ABC's Less Than Perfect and will next be seen in the miniseries Pandemic.Lady Vies For Worst Film

Several SF&F movies find themselves up for the dubious honor of being nominated for the 27th annual Golden Raspberry awards, "celebrating" the worst in filmmaking, the Reuters news service reported. The Razzies, as they are nicknamed, will be handed out on Feb. 24, a day before the Oscar awards are given.

M. Night Shyamalan's fantasy Lady in the Water and BloodRayne, a bloodless vampire movie, were nominated for worst film of the year. BloodRayne's helmer, Uwe Boll, is hailed on the Internet as one of the world's worst directors.

Five films are competing in a new category, called Worst Excuse for Family Entertainment, including the fantasy films Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause and The Shaggy Dog.

Tim Allen was nominated for worst actor for three films: Santa Clause 3, The Shaggy Dog and Zoom. Kristanna Loken was nominated for worst actress for her starring turn in BloodRayne.Kidman In Crash On Invasion Set

Nicole Kidman was taken to a hospital after the Jaguar she was driving crashed early Jan. 25 during shooting in downtown Los Angeles of her science fiction thriller The Invasion, the Associated Press reported.

Kidman, 39, was examined at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and then released a short time later, the AP reported. Paramedics were called to examine Kidman for injuries before she was taken to the hospital, police told the AP. (TMZ.com captured video of the accident.)

"Nicole Kidman was in the vehicle at the time of the accident and was taken to the hospital for evaluation. She was released shortly thereafter," Warner Brothers said in a statement.

No other actors were involved in the scene at the time of the accident, the studio said.

The Jaguar was being towed by a camera rig that skidded while taking a corner and caused Kidman's car to hit a pole on West Sixth Street, police said. The actress was wearing a seat belt.

Eight people, including Kidman, stuntmen and cameramen, were taken to hospitals for examination and were released. Warner Brothers said two crew members had minor injuries. Production continued after the crash, and Kidman was expected back on set the same day.

Kidman stars as a Washington psychiatrist who unearths the origin of an alien epidemic. The scene involved an escape from zombielike characters on the hood of her car.Developers Admit Halo 2 Problems

In a suprising admission, staff members at game publisher Bungie have gone on record agreeing with some critical assessments of its hit sequel game Halo 2, including perceptions that the game ends too abruptly, the GameSpot Web site reported.

Writer and Bungie.net weekly update author Frank O'Connor admitted that Halo 2's finale was lackluster. "We drove off [a cliff] Thelma & Louise style," he told the British game magazine Edge. "The trick is to avoid ... writing by committee."

Bungie engineer Chris Butcher was blunter in his assessment. "We had about four to five weeks to polish Halo at the end, ... [but] we had none of that for Halo 2," he told the magazine. "We miscalculated. We screwed up. We came down to the wire, and we just lost all of that. So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that. It kills me to think of it."

When it went on sale in November 2004, Halo 2 was a runaway hit and eventually sold about 6.5 million copies worldwide.

Edge reported that Bungie is taking much more care with the final installment in the Halo game trilogy. "I know Halo 3 is going to be so much better," said Butcher, referring to the less-pressured production schedule for the game, which is due out sometime later this year.Asimov's Beefs Up For 30th

Asimov's editor Sheila Williams told SCI FI Wire that the venerable magazine will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year with a special double-sized, all-star issue. "Each of the past editors—George Scithers, Kathleen Moloney, Shawna McCarthy and Gardner Dozois—will contribute a short piece to the editorial, and their essays, along with mine, will be combined with a reprint of Isaac's first editorial for the magazine," Williams said in an interview. "Robert Silverberg contributes a reflections column about the magazine and a short story of his own."

The issue will also feature fiction by Gene Wolfe, Michael Swanwick, Karen Joy Fowler, Nancy Kress, Jack McDevitt, Lisa Goldstein, Liz Williams, Mike Resnick, William Barton, Lucius Shepard and Allen M. Steele, Williams said. "Each of the authors has also contributed a short testimonial to the magazine," she said. "In addition, we have a roll call of the 45 Hugo- and 25 Nebula-award-winning stories that have appeared in Asimov's, a book review and testimonial from Norman Spinrad, and longtime readers and some of our authors have contributed to a letters column about the magazine."

In 1977, Joel Davis, owner of Davis Publications, and SF legend Isaac Asimov co-founded Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, which later shortened its name to Asimov's Science Fiction, Williams said. "Joel already owned Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and he hoped to tap into a similar genre audience with the new magazine," she said. "Isaac had grown up on an abundance of science fiction magazines, but the numbers had dwindled drastically since the '50s. Isaac's first stories had appeared in these magazines. Now he could reach millions through his books, but he wanted to ... give young readers and others a new opportunity to discover short SF on the newsstands and in bookstores."

One of the ways the magazine evolved over the years was the addition of fantasy to its purely science fiction lineup, Williams said. "At the very beginning, George Scithers and Isaac did not intend to publish fantasy in Asimov's," she said. "On the other hand, they did not intend to duplicate Analog. Once the magazine went monthly, George realized it wasn't feasible to restrict the magazine solely to SF, because there wasn't enough publishable material available to do so. In time, he and other editors realized that, in addition to fantasy, they also needed to publish the undefinable tale."

At Asimov's, good storytelling is the first priority, Williams said. "Asimov's has taken on an eclectic personality," she said. "Readers still find that most of the stories in the magazine are science fiction. ... The fantasy is rarely, if ever, 'high fantasy. ' Instead of wizards and elves, one will often find stories that serve up the modern world with a twist."

The double-sized April/May 2007 30th anniversary issue goes on sale March 6. This summer, Tachyon Publications will publish a 30th-anniversary anthology. —John Joseph AdamsComputers Revived The Turtles

Thomas K. Gray, producer for the new Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles movie TMNT, told SCI FI Wire that today's computer technology makes it much easier to bring the popular characters to life. "It's the CG, that's the reason why we're remaking it," Gray said in an interview. "The new version will be completely animated, and the past movies were a mix of live action and [animation]."

TMNT will have some continuity with the previous live-action Turtles films, and it is neither a remake nor an origin story, director Kevin Munroe said. "It's a rebirth story," he added. "They've been on all these adventures and now are worried that the family is falling apart."

Gray said today's computer-animation techniques made the new film feasible. "We can do so much more with the computer," Gray said. "The first live-action film, we made $132 million, then $84 million, then $42 million on the third film. The budgets started off with $11 million, then $16 million, then $21 million. The studio said the next one would cost $30 million to make and would earn about $25 million, so we were going in the wrong direction."

Gray produced the previous films before joining Imagi Animation Studios, based in Hong Kong and Los Angeles. He originally suggested a Turtles film to them in 2004. The franchise retains a strong fan base, aged 7 to 11 and 18 to 25, Gray said. "There are the fans who watch the TV show today and the fans who remember it years and years ago, and it's not a lot in between," he said. TMNT is set for a March 23 release date nationwide. —Mike SzymanskiMako Lives Again In TMNT

Mako, the Oscar-nominated actor who died last July 21, will be heard in his final performance as the voice of Master Splinter, the sensei rat, in the upcoming animated TMNT, based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Director Kevin Munroe told SCI FI Wire that the production uses archived recordings of Mako's voice because the actor died a day after his announced involvement in the project. "We had done a couple of pickup sessions with him," Munroe said in an interview. "We got what we needed, and he is still in it."

Munroe added that he was "devastated" when he heard of Mako's death after a long battle with cancer at the age of 72. Munroe said that he recalls the day he announced Mako's involvement in the movie: July 20 at Comic-Con International in San Diego last year. "It was very sad," he said. "I had just announced at Comic-Con that Mako was doing the voice, and the next day, I found out he had passed. We just listened to his voice in the soundstage last week. He was doing a lullaby, a Japanese song, and his voice just filled the room."

The lullaby was an ad-lib by Mako for a scene in which Splinter tries to calm his teenage turtle charges. "It was very unfortunate that Mako died," producer Thomas K. Gray said. "But his voice still remains, and we had a big library of stuff [that we recorded, which] we used for him."

The Japanese-born Mako was the voice of Uncle Iroh in Avatar: The Last Airbender series, and he voiced characters in the Rugrats films, Duck Dodgers, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! and video games such as Samurai Jack: The Shadow of Aku.

Mako was nominated for an Academy Award for the 1966 movie The Sand Pebbles and co-starred in Highlander III: The Sorcerer, RoboCop 3, Conan the Destroyer, The Green Hornet and Conan the Barbarian. TMNT is set for a March 23 release. —Mike SzymanskiGalactica's Benedict Sells Best

Original Battlestar Galactica star Dirk Benedict is a best-selling author in the United Kingdom, the MediaBistro Web site reported.

Thanks to his appearances on the latest edition of U.K. TV's Celebrity Big Brother, used copies of Benedict's 1987 memoir Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy have jumped to third place on Abebooks.com's U.K. charts. In addition to telling behind-the-scenes tales from Benedict's Hollywood days, the memoir discusses his belief that he staved off prostate cancer through exercise and a macrobiotic diet.Helfer Guests On Supernatural

Tricia Helfer (SCI FI Channel's Battlestar Galactica) will guest-star in the Feb. 22 episode of The CW's Supernatural, the network announced.

In the episode entitled "Road Kill," Helfer will play Molly, a young woman who is being chased by an evil-looking farmer on a dark highway, attracting the attention of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). In their quest to find Molly's husband, the Winchester brothers confess to Molly that the farmer haunts the highway the same day every year to claim a new victim, and, unfortunately, he's set his sights on her.

The episode airs in Supernatural's regular Thursday timeslot at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Braugher, Holden Join Mist

Andre Braugher and Laurie Holden are joining Thomas Jane in The Mist, Dimension Films' adaptation of the Stephen King supernatural story, which is being helmed by Frank Darabont, who also produces, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The script, written by Darabont, is set after a strange storm blows through a Maine town and its citizens are attacked by deadly creatures. A group of townfolk barricade themselves in a supermarket and struggle for survival.

Holden (The Majestic, The X-Files), is the female lead as one of the people trapped by the phenomenon. Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street) plays Jane's neighbor, a high-powered attorney who has a weekend house in Maine. Shooting is slated to begin in mid- to late February in Shreveport, La.Blood Star Was Wolflike

Katja von Garnier, director of the werewolf romance Blood and Chocolate, told SCI FI Wire that she cast lead actor Olivier Martinez because he had a lupine quality in his auditions. "Olivier walks and looks like a wolf," she said in an interview. "He has the look in his eyes. He has a very strong spirit, and he brought a lot of that spirit to the film. His character is hunted by men, and he totally got that."

Martinez portrays the leader of a werewolf pack in Romania. But when told of von Garnier's comments, he demurred. "I take that as a compliment," he said. "Honestly, it's difficult for me to picture it myself. The only way that I can see myself is through the eyes of others, as an actor especially, but Katja said that and she told me that [on the set]. I cannot explain it."

To make the movie, von Garnier used 25 real wolves. Martinez related immediately, he said. "I have a natural feeling for wolves," he said, adding: "We are part animal. We're bred on this Earth, and we decided because we're human beings and we have a great capacity for intelligence and adaptation with civilization to put ourselves above animals. Now when we say that someone is an animal that's very bad. That's quite contrary when you see that we're the baddest by far, but we don't picture ourselves like that, because we have a superiority complex with our breed, and I try to work with humility. So I don't think that I'm more important than a wolf on the Earth. We are all important."

Blood and Chocolate is based on the best-selling novel by Annette Curtis Klause and also stars Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Bryan Dick and Tom Harper. It opened Jan. 26. —Mike SzymanskiBlood Saved The Wolves

Real Romanian wolves were used in the filming of the werewolf romance film Blood and Chocolate, and after production, many of the cast and crew received "adoption papers" for the wild animals, who were subsequently moved to a nature reserve in Wyoming. "I got this gift certificate that I adopted a wolf at the end of the shoot, but there's no continuing communication with it," star Agnes Bruckner (Venom) said with a laugh. She plays a reluctant werewolf who falls in love with a human (King Arthur's Hugh Dancy). "I hope my wolf is all right."

The producers of the movie, which was shot in Romania, sponsored a wolf adoption for each of the cast and major crew members. The animals are not protected under Romanian law.

Olivier Martinez plays the leader of a werewolf pack, to whom Bruckner's character is betrothed. Martinez said in an interview that his adoption certificate was one of the more unusual presents he has ever received after wrapping a film. "It was a wolf adopted in my name, so there is a wolf running around in America called 'Olivier,'" Martinez said. "In Romania, the wolves are not protected. They don't care about them, because there are plenty. In America you have to take care of them, because they will go extinct."

Blood and Chocolate is based on the best-selling novel by Annette Curtis Klause and is directed by Katja von Garnier. The film also stars Bryan Dick and Tom Harper. It opened Jan. 26. —Mike SzymanskiBlood's Wolves Are Smooth

Katja von Garnier, director of the werewolf romance Blood and Chocolate, told SCI FI Wire that she agreed to helm the movie only if it featured a smooth werewolf transformation. "It was so important to me that the transformation look smooth and that it seem beautiful and natural," said von Garnier, a German director who previously made Bandits. "I also wanted to work with wolves; that was a motivating factor."

Blood and Chocolate, based on the best-selling novel by Annette Curtis Klause, centers on a clan of werewolves that meets once a month to hunt a human and run free in the woods. As the people run, they leap into the air and transform into large wolves. Unlike previous films in the genre, the movie doesn't require its actors to wear prosthetics or fake hair during the transformation scenes, nor are the werewolves man-beast hybrids. "I didn't want that," the director said. "I wanted this to be a werewolf version of Romeo and Juliet."

Von Garnier worked closely with her cinematographer and art director, as well as a Romanian wolf wrangler, to get the scenes right while filming in Bucharest, Romania. Stunt coordinators Gary Powell and Franklin Henson used the French discipline of parkour, or "free running"—most recently on view in the James Bond movie Casino Royale—as part of the transformation scenes.

"We had a wolf camp [for the actors] to learn how to run and jump," von Garnier said. "The actors also had to feel comfortable with the wolves." Real wolves were used on the set, but always kept at a distance.

Blood and Chocolate stars Olivier Martinez, Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Bryan Dick and Tom Harper and opened Jan. 26. —Mike Szymanski300 To Be Released In IMAX

Warner Brothers announced that it will release its upcoming epic film 300 simultaneously in IMAX and conventional theaters on March 9. The film will be digitally remastered for The IMAX Experience.

Directed by Zack Snyder and based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is the first feature film to open in IMAX theaters this year.

The film 300 tells the story of the ancient battle of Thermopylae, in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army.Raines Is Chandler Homage

Graham Yost, creator and executive producer of the upcoming NBC drama Raines, told SCI FI Wire that the series is heavily influenced by the work of classic noir novelist Raymond Chandler, particularly The Long Goodbye. "My love of Los Angeles does come from the fact that I grew up in Toronto and visited L.A. occasionally, but really got to know it through Chandler," Yost said at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif. "And, truly, doing Raines was my sort of [chance] to actually write something that had at least a flavor of Chandler and has a character who is self-aware about that. He loves Chandler, too, and that's part of his story."

In addition to Chandler's writings, Yost also referenced various film adaptations, especially Robert Altman's 1972 film based on The Long Goodbye. "What Altman did with Long Goodbye was to take Chandler and put it in 1972," he said. "And it felt like a 1972 film, and yet Elliott Gould still was this classic hard-boiled detective. So it was still noir, but it was 1972. And we wanted to do that for 2006, 2007. And I hope we've done it. We've learned more and more about it as we went along."

Jeff Goldblum stars in the series as detective Michael Raines, a homicide investigator who begins seeing and hearing murder victims as he's working on their cases. In a press conference, Goldblum said that he has always been a fan of Chandler's work and spoke with Yost about the noir inspiration as soon as he signed on to the project. "Because of this, I watched The Long Goodbye again," he said. "When we first talked about it, [Graham] even said, 'You know, what we want sort of maybe in tone—we don't want to copy anything—but look at Long Goodbye again. I said, 'I've seen it many times.'"

Goldblum added that he found the character to be one of the most interesting he's every played. "I had one of the best times I've ever had in my whole life," he said. "That's true. This cast, everybody is so great. And meeting with Graham, he was so great, and Frank, I wanted to work with them. I loved the idea. I loved the script and I loved that character. And The Long Goodbye. ... We find out that he pretends not to care and is indifferent, but is wildly romantic and vulnerable and cares deeply and is idealistic, in fact. There was something about this character like that that I kind of fell in love with." Raines premieres March 15 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. —Cindy WhiteMurphy Heads To NowhereLand

Eddie Murphy is in talks to star in NowhereLand, a Paramount Pictures fantasy comedy written by Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson, Variety reported. Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce with Solomon.

The studio has given a green light to the film for a summer start and will secure a director within two weeks. The movie figures to be the next Murphy vehicle after he completes the Fox SF comedy Starship Dave.

Murphy, who grabbed an Oscar nomination for Dreamgirls, will play a successful financial executive who suddenly loses his confidence, but discovers the answers to his problems within the imaginary world created by his daughter.

Solomon drew the idea from his own life after his young son came up with a suggestion that solved a business problem Solomon was puzzling over. Solomon wrote the script with Matheson, his writing partner on Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.WOW: Crusade Breaks Records

Blizzard Entertainment announced that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion of its massively multiplayer online role-playing game, has broken first-day sales records to become the fastest-selling PC game ever in North America and Europe. The title has sold a total of nearly 2.4 million copies worldwide in its first 24 hours of availability, the company said.

The Burning Crusade was simultaneously released in North America, Europe, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia on Jan. 16 and in Australia and New Zealand the following day.

Blizzard supplied more than 4 million game boxes to retailers worldwide, and more than 5,000 stores throughout the world had their doors open at midnight to welcome thousands of expectant players.

Day-one sales totals on both continents were similar, with an estimated 1.2 million copies sold on the first day in North America and an estimated 1.1 million copies sold in Europe within the first 24 hours of launch. By the end of the first day of availability on both continents, a total of more than 1.7 million players had already logged in and upgraded World of Warcraft to play The Burning Crusade.Henstridge Cast In Stone

Natasha Henstridge (Species) has been tapped to star opposite Jonny Lee Miller in ABC's supernatural-tinged drama pilot Eli Stone, playing the fiancee of Miller's lawyer, who might be a prophet, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Touchstone TV and Berlanti Television legal drama previously cast Alias' Victor Garber as the senior partner at Miller's law firm, who is also Henstridge's father.

Sam Jaeger has also been cast in Eli as a rabidly ambitious attorney, Stone's archrival at the firm. Mindscape Gets In The Zone

SF author Andrea Hairston, whose novel Mindscape was recently named as a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, told SCI FI Wire that in the book the Earth has been divided into warring "Zones" by a mysterious Barrier. "[The Barrier] is an epi-dimensional entity that defies physics, chemistry and categorization," Hairston said in an interview. "There are three inhabited Zones—Los Santos, New Ouagadougou and Paradigma—and one uninhabited [Zone]—Wilderness. Each Zone has a culture based on the particular coalition of forces who gained social and political control after the Barrier divided the world. Mindscape is an exploration of the divergent cultures that arise in these Zones."

The plot begins with the assassination of Celestina, the architect of an interzonal treaty, Hairston said. "Elleni, a spiritual outcast capable of negotiating the Barrier, takes up Celestina's mantle and works to bring about world peace," she said. "Elleni gets support from an 'ethnic throwback,' an action-adventure entertainment star and an old shaman. This motley crew seems no match for the Barrier or the startling coalition of power-hungry politicians, ruthless gangsters and fundamentalist spiritual leaders who prefer the balance of power that interzonal war affords. As Elleni and crew struggle to be agents of change and set the world back on its course, they discover resources within themselves and allies in their world that they couldn't have imagined."

The "ethnic throwback" is Lawanda Kitt, a woman who has chosen to speak and write in 20th- and 21st-century black English, Hairston said. "Working for the treaty, she heads off to Los Santos—a particularly violent and impoverished Zone—thinking she will build houses, 'throw down a few roads,' beat back the desert, or 'even do school work, save a mind,'" she said. "However, through the treachery of corrupt leaders, she finds herself in the executive suite, as vice ambassador to Los Santos, overseeing treaty implementation and infractions. Nobody expects an ethnic throwback, talking bad English, to be able to do the necessary treaty work or to be taken seriously. Lawanda herself is terrified that conspirators, including her lover—a strait-laced military man—have set her up to ensure the downfall of Celestina's treaty."

Hairston said that she was in Berlin in the early '90s when she wrote her first notes about the novel. "[This was] after the [Berlin] Wall had come down, but a lot of 'barriers' were still up," she said. "I thought I would write a play using barriers as a central image. ... What struck me ... were the barriers I discovered in myself: Despite living in a complex, contradictory, multicultural society—despite being a theater artist dealing in conflict and struggle, despite growing up in the protest era of the '50s and '60s—I am always emotionally shocked by people who don't agree with me. I am shocked by my own biases, shocked by hidden perspectives that magically inhabit, colonize my sensibility—even against conscious professed desires. Writing Mindscape, I wanted to discover more about myself." —John Joseph AdamsTennant Talks Who Season 3

David Tennant, who plays the iconic role of the Doctor in the revived Doctor Who series, told SCI FI Wire that it was difficult shooting the final scene with fellow cast member Billie Piper, who left the show at the end of the second season. "Of course that scene meant that Billie was leaving the show (although it wasn't the final scene she shot), and that was very sad," Tennant said in an e-mail interview. "She is a great actor and had become a great friend. It's also a beautifully written scene, and even when we ran through the lines together on the makeup bus that morning, we started sniffling. In fact, in the video diaries on the DVD you can see us both have a good old weep about the whole thing."

In the recent special The Runaway Bride, which aired on Christmas Day in the United Kingdom, the Doctor did not take on a new companion, but he won't be on his own for long. Freema Agyeman will join the show in the third season on the BBC as medical student Martha Jones. "The Doctor and Martha have a very different relationship to the Doctor and Rose," Tennant said. "The Doctor doesn't really think he needs a new traveling companion at the moment, but Martha makes herself indispensable."

Tennant said that he understands what it's like to take over for a popular Doctor Who cast member; he replaced former Doctor Christopher Eccleston in the second season of the show. But he let Agyeman find her own way of dealing with the pressure. "Oh, she doesn't need any advice, and I wouldn't be pompous enough to offer it," he said. "Freema hit the ground running and has inhabited Martha Jones from day one without a hint of trepidation or nervousness. I found myself quite envious of her confidence. She is going to be brilliant."

But don't expect the Doctor to get over Rose so quickly. "As with any big relationship, it takes time for the scars to heal," Tennant said. "Perhaps the Doctor feels like he's dealt with it, but Martha might disagree." The second season of Doctor Who was released on DVD on Jan. 16. The third season will begin airing in Great Britain on the BBC this spring. —Cindy WhiteBlackthorne Is Special

Paul Blackthorne, star of the SCI FI Channel's original series The Dresden Files, has completed work on Special, an independent film with SF overtones. He co-stars with Michael Rapaport (Deep Blue Sea), who plays a man who think he's a superhero after he has a psychotic reaction to a new medication. Blackthorne plays the boss at the company that produces the medication.

"It's a good little film," Blackthorne said in an interview. "Rapaport is hysterical and tragic at the same time. It's a film that's kind of fairly hard to quantify, really. I remember reading it and thinking, 'Well, I don't know what genre this is, but it's good.'"

Special, written and directed by Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore, screened at last winter's Sundance Film Festival and was pursued by several distributors. Fabrication Films ultimately won the right to release it in the United States and will do so this spring.

"The filmmakers did a terrific job on it," Blackthorne said. "It's a classic little indie filmmaking venture, and off we went to Sundance and did all that stuff. It's got its deal. The drugs, these little forms of happiness that supposedly come in packets of little white pills, are really what it's all about. Michael takes the pills, and they create the illusion in his mind that he is of another world, shall we say. I'm the head of the pharmaceutical company whose drugs he's taking that are giving him a few issues and, shall we say, embarrassing my character."

Blackthorne added: "I wouldn't say I'm the good guy. I'm rather antagonistic. I'd say I'm a person forced into doing some fairly nasty things as a result of his behavior." Special also stars Josh Peck (Ice Age) and Alexandra Holden (Wishcraft and the upcoming Dark Reel). The Dresden Files airs on SCI FI Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Ian SpellingGarber Is Set In Stone

Victor Garber (Alias) has been tapped to star opposite Jonny Lee Miller in ABC's drama pilot Eli Stone, a high-concept legal drama about Eli Stone (Miller), a brilliant attorney at the top law firm in San Francisco who finds out he might be a prophet, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Eli is produced by Touchstone Television and the studio-based Berlanti Television.

Garber will play the senior partner at the firm, the most respected attorney in town, who happens to be the father of Stone's fiancee.

Casting for the role had been going on for several months, and ABC and Touchstone TV are said to have jumped at the opportunity to recruit Garber when he became available after the November cancellation of his Fox/Warner Brothers TV freshman drama Justice.

For five seasons, Garber starred as Jack Bristow on ABC's spy drama Alias, a role that earned him three Emmy nominations.King Arthur Returns In Eagle

Best-selling author Jack Whyte told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, The Eagle, is the culmination of an Arthurian story he set out to tell 30 years ago. "I discovered that I had come up with an explanation, sans magic or mysticism, of how the sword got into the stone and how the kid Arthur was able to pull it out so convincingly," Whyte said in an interview. "I thought then that I had a short(ish) story that might, conceivably, fill a single book. Had anyone told me I was facing a nine-book cycle of novels, I might never have started to write in the first place. But nobody said a word, and so I set out, rushing where angels fear to tread, and jumped headlong into the series."

The Eagle tells the story of the reign of Arthur Pendragon through the eyes of his closest friend and confidant, Clothar, the Frankish warrior whom the world will eventually come to know as Lancelot of the Lake. Whyte said that he initially objected to the series being categorized as fantasy. "In my eyes it was historical fiction, the historical background—particularly in the first two novels—as authentic and accurate as decades of research could ensure," he said. "That discomfiture was primarily because of my age and my own personal beliefs: The truth is that most of my contemporaries—the people whom I thought of originally as 'my audience' and for whom I set out to write—simply wouldn't be caught dead in the fantasy/sci-fi section of a bookstore. ... However, I changed my mind on that, accepting that in the absence of empirical evidence that Arthur had actually lived, then anything about him and his legend must, ipso facto, be fantasy."

Clothar is central to the story. "Clothar, a Frankish knight raised on the shores of Lake Geneva and sent to Britain as a messenger to the new king by Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, befriends the monarch and wins the trust of Arthur's wife, Gwinnifer, and his revered advisor, Merlyn Britannicus," Whyte said. "Through Clothar's eyes we witness the beginnings of the Order of Knighthood; the establishment of the ideals of what will grow to become chivalry; the growth, consolidation and unification of western Britain under Arthur's rule; and the looming threat of the Anglo-Saxon invasions."

One challenge in writing the series that Whyte didn't anticipate was that it placed Arthur's reign around the middle of the fifth century, which would mean that Lancelot could not have been part of it. "But how could I deal with the Arthurian legend, lacking a Lancelot?" Whyte said. "By removing him from the story, one destroys much of the enduring appeal of the tale, for without Lancelot, Guinevere lacks real significance. And so I had to start digging in other directions."

Whyte's current project is a trilogy of historical novels about the Knights Templar, he said. The first novel, Knights of the Black and White, was published last August. —John Joseph AdamsPan Leads SF Oscar Field

Director Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-language fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth earned six Oscar nominations, the most of any SF&F movie, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Jan. 23 in Los Angeles. Pan was nominated for best foreign-language film of the year and best original screenplay, as well as for art direction, cinematography, makeup and original score.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest got four technical nominations, including best art direction, sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects.

Children of Men was the only other SF movie to get a major nomination, for best adapted screenplay (based on the P.D. James novel of the same name). It will also compete for the best cinematography and film-editing Oscars.

The best animated feature film nominees were Cars, Happy Feet and Monster House.

The Prestige got two nods, for best art direction and cinematography.

The following genre films got single nominations: The Illusionist (cinematography), Superman Returns (visual effects) and Click (makeup).

The Oscars will be handed out at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, to be broadcast live on ABC on Feb. 25 from the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles.Supernatural Answers Coming

Eric Kripke, creator and executive producer of The CW's horror series Supernatural, told SCI FI Wire that season two will end with a final episode that will wrap things up and answer a lot of questions, unlike the previous season's cliffhanger finale. Among the questions that will be answered: What's the deal with Sam's destiny? What's the deal with the yellow-eyed demon? And will we see Sam and Dean's dad one last time?

"Everyone has started to accuse me of always giving cliffhangers," Kripke said in an interview at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., last week. "[There was a] big cliffhanger at the end of season one, [a] big cliffhanger going into the hiatus, and I said, 'All right, well, if everyone assumes I'm going to give cliffhangers, I'm going to surprise them at the end of ... season [two] by not giving a cliffhanger, but [rather] giving a huge, climactic resolution that they're not expecting.' So we're doing that this season."

Which is not to say that the finale will resolve all issues for the demon-hunting brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). "The story is by no means over," Kripke said. "There's major issues that still need to be resolved. But we're giving a climactic season finale that we think is going to feel epic and pretty exciting. We think the fans should be pretty stoked to see what's coming."

Kripke said that the remainder of the season will be balanced between stand-alone stories and episodes that further the mythology of the series, leading to a spectacular conclusion in the finale. "Episode 14 will be a huge mythology episode," he said. "And then I think we go back to self-enclosed for actually a little while to get ready for the big finale showdown. And then episodes like we did similar to last year—episodes 20, 21 and 22— ... a major sort of epic storyline to kind of wrap up the season. ... You know where the mythology goes, and you know what endpoints you want to be."

Regular viewers of the show will be rewarded in the end as all the story threads from the season are brought together. "It's always sort of a sleight of hand when you look at all the elements you've created throughout the season, and you bring them all together in a way that's satisfying to the audience," Kripke said. "And for what it's worth, we feel we've done that. We take all the different strands—between the cops that are after them, the roadhouse, Ellen, Sam's destiny—and we feel we found a way to tie them all together in a way that'll be very surprising and shocking to the audience." Supernatural airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT. —Cindy WhiteCursor Written On A Bet

Jim Butcher—author of the fantasy books on which SCI FI Channel's new original series The Dresden Files is based—told SCI FI Wire that his latest novel, Cursor's Fury, is the third in his Codex Alera series, which could fairly be described as Lord of the Rings meets I, Claudius. "I started writing the series on a bet," Butcher said in an interview. "Someone on an e-mail list for aspiring writers got in a big discussion with someone else about how, ... if you had a good enough story idea, it didn't matter what a terrible writer you might be. I took up the opposite argument: that a sufficiently skilled writer could take an awful story idea and create something entertaining out of it. So the guy dropped me a challenge. He'd give me the worst story idea he could think of, and we'd see if I could write something neat out of it. I told him to give me the two worst story ideas."

Butcher was challenged to combine "lost Roman legion" stories and Pokemon, he said. "I started with breaking down the structure of a Roman legion," Butcher said. "Who was in it? What kinds of support personnel did it have? ... Then I did the same thing with Pokemon—which is, itself, something of a literalization of the belief in kami in the Shinto religion. Kami are spirits of the divine that dwell within naturally occurring sites and objects. A giant mountain has a giant spirit dwelling within it, while an aged tree has a smaller spirit, and a little pebble has a tiny little spirit inside. So I thought I'd base a magic system on a similar setup. I called the natural spirits 'furies,' stuck them in a world and then dropped my Roman legion down with them. Give them a couple of thousand years to simmer up a society, and you've got an excellent setting for a story."

Cursor's Fury is primarily about Tavi, a young man who, uniquely among his people, is totally unable to utilize the furies, Butcher said. "Tavi has spent his entire life at an enormous disadvantage and has had to learn to compensate for his lack of furycraft with intelligence, determination and guile," he said. "As a result, he is uniquely well-suited to his position as a Cursor: a servant of the First Lord, one of his special messengers, agents and spies. As the realm totters on the brink of a civil war, Tavi is dispatched to the camp of a newly formed legion, which promises to be a hotbed of intrigue. ... And Tavi, in his cover role as a junior officer, [soon] finds himself in command of a legion of half-trained recruits and troublemaking veterans cast off from respectable legions across the realm." Roc will publish the latest volume in Butcher's Dresden Files series, White Night, in April. —John Joseph AdamsClarke Award Shortlist Named

Organizers announced the shortlist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 2007, named for the legendary SF author and recognizing the best science fiction novel first published in Great Britain during the previous calendar year. The winner receives a commemorative engraved bookend and a cash prize of 2,007 pounds (about $3,965).

This year's winner will be announced on May 2 at an awards ceremony held on the opening night of the Sci-Fi-London Film Festival in London.

The six shortlisted books are End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Nova Swing by M. John Harrison, Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet, Hav by Jan Morris, Gradisil by Adam Roberts and Streaking by Brian Stableford.Freudenthal Helms Upstairs

Thor Freudenthal has been hired to direct They Came From Upstairs, an SF family movie that Barry Josephson is producing via his Josephson Entertainment banner for 20th Century Fox, Variety reported. Principal production is slated to begin in May.

Briton Mark Burton (Madagascar, Wallace & Gromit) wrote the screenplay. The story centers on a group of kids defending their vacation home in Maine from aliens who have invaded from upstairs.

Freudenthal, who directs commercials, also has experience in creature design, something he'll be doing for They Came From Upstairs.Mummy 3 Spoilers Unwrapped

Al Gough, who is co-writing the third installment in the Mummy film franchise with partner Miles Millar, told SCI FI Wire that the sequel will unwrap a new mummy and feature a character who is the grown son of Rick and Evie (played in the previous films by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz). It's aiming to shoot this summer under director Rob Cohen (Stealth) for a 2008 release.

Gough and Millar, who also created The CW's Smallville, said the sequel will also have a new concept. "Stephen Sommers [who wrote and directed the previous two films] and his partner, Bob Ducsay, ... approached us and said, 'Steve doesn't want to write the third movie. Would you guys be interested?'" Gough said in an interview. "And we were like, 'Well, it's a third.' But then they had a concept for it that we really liked. They had an idea for the movie, which is something we always wanted to do. So we're like, 'Well, if we don't do it, they're going to do it in this movie.'"

Gough said that he and Millar added their own ideas to the script, including a storyline centering on the main characters of Rick and Evie. "We figured out a really good family story with Rick and Evie, and [their son] Alex is now grown up. So it's really interesting." Alex was played as a young boy in 2001's The Mummy Returns by Freddie Boath.

As for whether Fraser and Weisz will reprise their roles in the film, Gough said that he was confident the script is good enough to persuade them to return. "They're in negotiations," he said. "So the plan is to bring them back. I think it'll end up being Brendan and Rachel, ultimately. They're the core of the movie. That's why people love the Mummy movies. And then it's taking that and then expanding it and introducing [a] new character and a new mummy. So we're really excited to get going. We met with Rob Cohen today, and he's really jazzed to do it. So fingers crossed, God willing, we'll be shooting this summer and it'll be out in the summer of '08." —Cindy WhiteStudios Bite Into Teeth

The Weinstein Co. and Lionsgate Films picked up the worldwide rights to Teeth, a horror-comedy movie that had its world premiere this week at the Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Jess Weixler as a pro-abstinence high school student who discovers her genitalia come equipped with the title dentation (a la the mythical vagina dentata).

The unorthodox movie was written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein and has funny yet graphic scenes that are sure to earn an NC-17 rating unless the film is edited. According to BloggingSundance.com, Harvey Weinstein has no plans to cut the film, saying the gruesome scenes in question are "the fun part."

Lionsgate will be handling the U.S. distribution of the film, with The Weinstein Co. dealing with international distribution.Jericho Backstory Unveiled

Lennie James, who plays the mysterious Rob Hawkins on CBS' post-apocalyptic series Jericho, told SCI FI Wire that writers will begin to fill in the details of his character's past when the show returns from hiatus next month. "He's got a storyline that's kind of coming up, [where] he goes someplace where you really didn't expect him to go," James said in an interview at the Television Critics press tour in Pasadena, Calif., last week. "And maybe Hawkins will come back around. And also one of the other things that's happened is that, because of where we've come back, in episode 12, there's an arc that happens for Hawkins and his family that drags us to episode 15 [and then episode] 16."

James said that he didn't want to know the truth about Hawkins at first, but eventually relented in order to play certain scenes. "For the first five episodes of Jericho, I had no idea about my backstory, because I didn't want to know," he said. "I wanted to remain in ignorance. Don't ask me why. It was a really bad idea. But I thought it would make the producers think I was a really deep actor. But after that, I couldn't play the part without knowing it, so I did know his backstory, and I kind of know what's revealed in [episode] 12 and beyond, because that's not even half of it. And so I do have a kind of sense of who he is and what he's up to now, so I wasn't taken by surprise at all."

James described the upcoming revelation as "a doozy," a word the British actor says he only just recently learned. "It was really exciting, because it gives a lot of levels to play," he said. "And that's the enjoyable thing about playing Robert Hawkins: ... that in every situation—if someone says good morning to him—he has to have three conversations with himself before he answers, and that's what I enjoy. And his backstory, his secret, just brings that deeper and deeper and deeper."

There are still things that James is learning about Hawkins that won't be revealed for some time. He said that he looks forward to exploring the role as the series continues. "Back home in England, a season is six episodes," he said. "So this is already the longest I've played a character, ever. And I mean, like, ever. But there's still half the cast I haven't done any scenes with. So that's great, because there's still stuff you're going to find out about yourself."

Jericho will return to CBS with a recap episode on Feb. 14. New episodes begin airing the following week at 8 p.m. ET/PT. —Cindy WhiteLost Gets Back To Basics

Daniel Dae Kim, who plays Jin on ABC's hit SF series Lost, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming second half of the third season will focus on the entire cast, rather than the story of Jack, Kate and Sawyer, which was showcased in the first six episodes of the season. "It's been a season of transition, I think," Kim said in an interview at the Television Critics press tour in Pasadena, Calif., last week. "Because we went from an ensemble show to one that focused on a smaller number of characters. So for a lot of us, it's meant having more free time than we originally thought. But now it's changing again, and we're getting back to the island, and we're finding a rhythm."

Kim is bilingual in real life, but his character is just beginning to learn English, and as his character becomes more fluent in the language, Kim said that he looks forward to interacting more with the other cast members. "It's something that the producers and I have been talking about for a little while," he said. "It just leads to different kinds of interaction with the other characters on the show. I think it would be great to have a change of pace for Jin in that way. ... Part and parcel of speaking English is becoming involved with the main action of the island. Right now, I don't think Jin and Sun are that involved with the mythology of the show. They have a kind of separate subplot that exists independent of what the other characters are doing a lot of the time. And I'm looking forward to seeing how they fit into the big picture."

Another change coming in the latter half of the season is a lighter tone, Kim said. The relationship between Jin and his wife, Sun (Yunjin Kim, who is no relation in real life), will grow even stronger in the next few episodes. "Everyone talks about the island having redemptive qualities," he said. "And I think it was redemptive for their relationship as well. As far as where their relationship goes from here, I'm curious to see myself. I'm sure a baby will change our dynamic. It generally does. ... We've already shot a few things where it's lighter. It's a different kind of feel to a scene with Jin in it. It's a welcome change."

As for the rumor of an impending character death, Kim didn't deny it, but hoped that audiences would be watching the show for reasons other than finding out who will be the next to be killed off. "Our show for some reason has taken on this mystery of who's going to die next," he said "And I'm not sure how that happened or why it's happening. And I'm hoping that it doesn't become the main focus of what the audience is looking for."

Lost returns on Feb. 7 in a new, later timeslot, 10 p.m. ET/PT on Wednesdays. —Cindy WhiteMessengers Unites Pang Brothers

Kristen Stewart, star of the upcoming supernatural thriller film The Messengers, told SCI FI Wire that the directors, twin brothers Danny and Oxide Pang, had an odd way of working, but that they rarely disagreed, though they had their own personalities. The Hong Kong-based filmmakers (The Eye) are making their American movie debut with The Messengers.

"They definitely are very distinct," said Stewart, who plays the troubled daughter of a family that moves into a remote house. "Danny is very soft-spoken, and I could definitely tell them apart from the very first day. But they seem like one entity when they work together."

Stewart has worked with directors such as Sean Penn, Mary Stuart Masterson, David Fincher and Jon Favreau, but said that she was never confused working with two directors at the same time. "They never contradicted each other," she said. "They always gave me the same notes, and they never disagreed."

The Messengers is about a family moving into a rural house that is haunted by a family who disappeared in the same house years before. It co-stars Penelope Ann Miller and Dylan McDermott.

Screenwriter Mark Wheaton said separately that the brothers rarely appeared on the set together. "One shoots, and one stays behind and looks at what they shot the day before," said Wheaton, who was brought in to rewrite a script by Todd Farmer. "Oxide, for example, would shoot a day and then go back and watch it. And at night they would both look at what they shot. It was like they were a wheel, always revolving. And it worked so well, because they could find places in the schedule to do pickups if they need to do a reshoot. They wouldn't have to add days that way."

Wheaton said that the brothers were always on the same page about their ideas for the film. "I could be in a meeting with Danny and then ask Oxide the same question a few days later and get exactly the same answer," Wheaton said. "The funniest thing was that they always think that they look exactly alike and that no one can tell them apart, but everyone can." The Messengers opens Feb. 2. —Mike SzymanskiKoepp To Pen Spidey 4

Columbia Pictures has begun negotiating with Spider-Man writer David Koepp to write the script for a fourth installment of the franchise, Variety reported.

Koepp, who most recently wrote the draft of a fourth Indiana Jones movie that got George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford to reteam for Paramount, wrote the original 2002 Spidey film that launched the studio's most lucrative franchise. Alvin Sargent wrote the second and third installments; all the films in the Marvel Comics franchise were directed by Sam Raimi.

Spider-Man 3 opens on May 4, with Thomas Haden Church playing Sandman and Topher Grace as Venom. Laura Ziskin produces with Avi Arad and Grant Curtis.

If a fourth Spider-Man movie is to be made, new deals will have to be struck with stars Tobey Maguire, Kirstin Dunst and James Franco, along with Raimi if he decides to return to direct a fourth film. The studio would release the sequel in 2009 or 2010.Spin Is 'Spy Fi'

SF author Chris Moriarty, whose novel Spin Control was recently named a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, told SCI FI Wire that the book is an attempt to marry classic SF to the classic spy thriller. "Spin Control is 'spy fi,' as someone cleverer than me has called it," Moriarty said in an interview. "Like all spy novels, it's about betrayal. And like all science fiction (all good science fiction, anyway), it's about people getting smacked up the side of the head by the True Nature of the Universe."

Moriarty said that when she was writing Spin Control, the science came first. "I had known for a long time that I wanted to write a book about complexity theory, a field that ties together phenomena as outwardly different as earthquakes, artificial-intelligence design, ant swarms and human politics," she said. "This seemed like a perfect fit for a novel that was in essence a joint homage to Arthur C. Clarke and John Le Carré."

But the story didn't really gain traction until she realized who the main character needed to be, Moriarty said. "In my first novel, Spin State, the bad guys are the Syndicates: a society of clones whose social system is based on ants," she said. "Over the course of writing that book, I got more and more interested in the Syndicates. So when Bantam asked for a sequel to Spin State, I suggested the idea of making a Syndicate clone the main character. They were intrigued, and that was the beginning of Spin Control."

Moriarty added: "[The clone,] Arkady, begins the book as the entomologist on a terraforming team and ends up as a sort of hapless amateur spy caught between the Mossad, the U.N. security services and his own Syndicate spymasters."

One of the other major characters is an artificial intelligence named Cohen, Moriarty said. "[He's] one of the Mossad spies: a 400-year-old artificial intelligence who holds Israeli citizenship as the legal 'ghost' of his long-dead inventor," she said. "Cohen is a charming rogue and the sometime lover of Catherine Li, the main character in Spin State. So many people (myself included) wanted to know more about him that I decided to give him his own novel. Li is back, too, ... but Cohen really gets to take center stage in Spin Control."

Moriarty sees herself as a science writer as much as a science fiction writer, she said. "I do a great deal of research for my books," she said. "The fact is I'm at my happiest when I'm buried in the basement of the engineering library poring over old issues of scientific journals. For me research is a lot more than just getting the facts straight. ... It's a challenge—but a rewarding one—to try to craft explanations that satisfy both expert and newcomer." Next up for Moriarty is Ghost Spin, the third book in the series. —John Joseph AdamsGhost Live Action Mulled

The Japanese animation company Production I.G. has acquired the rights from publisher Kodansha to sell the animated SF film Ghost in the Shell for a live-action remake, Variety reported.

Kodansha published the Ghost in the Shell manga by Masamune Shirow in 1989. Production I.G. then made it into a cult hit animated feature in 1995.

The animation company also produced the Ghost in the Shell feature follow-up Innocence and the animated TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, both of which have been widely distributed beyond Japan.BRIEFLY NOTED

Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has landed the lead in Fox's Lasse Hallstrom-directed supernatural drama pilot New Amsterdam, about John Amsterdam (Coster-Waldau), a man cursed with immortality who works as a homicide detective in New York.

The CW has picked up Reaper, a supernatural comedy-drama pilot about a slacker who becomes a bounty hunter for the devil, Variety reported.

Lifetime has picked up a second season of the psychic-themed series Life Among the Dead, featuring self-styled British psychic Lisa Williams, with new episodes to premiere this summer, Variety reported.

Tim Hill is in negotiations to direct the animated/live-action hybrid movie Alvin and the Chipmunks for Fox 2000 and Fox Animation, based on the 1950s cartoon series about a music group of chipmunks.

Zack Snyder's epic 300, a film adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel about the battle of Thermopylae, will have its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, which kicks off Feb. 8, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

MGM has acquired North American distribution rights to Myriam, Mother of the Christ, the biblical story of Mary, which is slated to premiere around Easter 2008, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Sony has updated its official Web site for the upcoming Spider-Man 3 movie, with several new interactive elements. The movie opens May 4.

NBC is relaunching the Heroes Web site with new interactive features coinciding with a batch of new original episodes, with new content that will deepen the show's mythos, including a real-time, two-screen application that plays out on the PC along with each episode, commentary from cast members set to streamed episodes and mobile content.

Sean Connery told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper that he is considering playing the role of Dr. Henry Jones in the upcoming fourth Indiana Jones movie, a role he first played in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "At the moment there's nothing decided," he said, adding, "I haven't got the script. Everything depends on the script."