• Rebecca Mader, who played Charlotte on Lost, will be back for the show's final season. Looks like they're bringing everyone back, though my guess is that it's going to happen in another timeline that runs parallel to the main one.

• Brad Pitt is now attached to a movie based on the video game Dark Void, about a pilot lost in the Bermuda Triangle who wakes in another world.

• Seems like every actress under the sun has been slotted to play the Black Cat in Spider-Man 4. Add another, perhaps more likely contender to the list: Anne Hathaway.

• Will Lost's Richard Alpert play Khan in Star Trek 2? He would be a fantastic choice.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.20.09 - Pitt Fills Dark Void, Campbell Eyed as Khan" »

• Jupiter's moon Io may have 100 times the oxygen previously thought, which means that there may be aquatic life swimming beneath its ice crust. Just like in 2010!

• Yeesh. V continues to slide precipitously in ratings just one week before it goes on hiatus for a couple months. ABC must really want this show dead.

• Famed genre director and producer Roger Corman has received an honorary Oscar. He deserves it: I'd be hard pressed to think of more directors who have given me a greater volume of joy.

• Tim Burton's exhibit at the MoMA has on display some concept art from his canceled Superman Lives project, including this adorable Brainiac drawing.

• Will Julia Stiles of the Bourne Trilogy play The Black Cat in Spider-Man 4? She does look good in black leather.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.19.09 - Corman Gets Oscar, Stiles In Talks for Spider-Man 4" »

• That'll do, pig: Disney lets McG go from the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo prequel.

• io9 lists the dumbest superhero retcons of all time. Hello, Phoenix! And that's one of the less stupid ones.

• SciFi Wire lists ten great scifi oddities from Google's new digital time machine.

• If you've got a few grand to spare, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles will sell you a tour guided by Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.

• A few weeks ago, Joss Whedon made a mock bid for the Terminator franchise. That's never going to happen, but now his brother, Zack Whedon, is doing a Terminator comic series for Dark Horse.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.18.09 - McG Is Off Nemo, Whedon Writes Terminator Comic" »

• Roland Emmerich and his fellow 2012 cast members fess up: this latest flick is really an animated movie.

• Brian Cox is rumored to be in heavy consideration for a role in The Hobbit. He would make an excellent dwarf.

• British scifi maestro Michael Moorcock responds to skepticism about his authorship of an official Doctor Who novel.

• In Altitude, a group of teens board a private plane and end up running into a floating space octopus. Consider me subscribed to the newsletter.

• Gizmodo has finally spotted the R2-D2 in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.17.09 - R2-D2 Spotted in Star Trek, Cox Wanted for Hobbit" »

• Computer and Video Games previews Bioshock 2 -- the upcoming sequel to 2007's sub-aqueous dystopian classic -- and it's sounding surprisingly deep... no pun intended.

• MGM Studios is up for sale, which means that a few million can land you such scifi classics as Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Soylent Green, Westworld and Logan's Run.

• Popular Mechanics does a post-mortem on an effects sequence in Roland Emmerich's 2012.

• Despite the fact that it's not even out yet, James Cameron's Avatar has already won a special effects award.

• Ray Bradbury is pitching a television series... even though he just clarified that Fahrenheit 451 was about the evils of television.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.16.09 - Avatar Wins Effects Award, Bradbury Pitches TV Series" »

• The special effects team of Zack Snyder's execrable (but pretty) 300 has joined the Conan crew. As a huge Robert E. Howard fan, I can only hope the latter movie is exponentially better than the former.

• Whether we like it or not, Ridley Scott is directing a Monopoly movie. But here's an interesting tidbit you might not have heard: It's set in alternate universes.

• As predicted from the exact second that it first came on the air, Fox has sabotaged and canceled Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. If it makes you feel better, Joss promises a significant ending.

• Reacquaint yourself with the artist and designer whose amazing imagination inspired the look of Star Trek.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.13.09 - Fox Cancels Dollhouse, Scott's Monopoly Is SciFi " »

• Although it was rumored strongly that J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof -- the two guys behind Lost -- would adapt Stephen King's The Dark Tower for television, Abrams himself says he's now out of the picture.

• It now looks very, very likely that the Black Cat will play a significant part in Spider-Man 4, and may be played by Rachel McAdams.

• It's long past due, but Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, has finally made his way into the Television Hall of Fame.

• Isaac Asimov was a computer user, and he certainly loved the TRS-80.

• Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame and The Box infamy says he'd love to do a sitcom that takes place in Jabba the Hutt's palace.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.12.09 - Abrams Is Out of Dark Tower, Black Cat Is In Spider-Man" »

• Sam Rockwell says his character in Iron Man 2 is part Lex Luthor, and that he builds War Machine's armor.

• Guillermo del Toro says that in The Hobbit, we will follow Gandalf to the den of the Necromancer (otherwise known as Sauron), and see his epic fight.

• One of science fiction's most beloved board-gaming franchises, Warhammer 40,000 A.D., has finally been optioned by Hollywood. If they throw any sort of big budget at this, the rich mythos will carry the movie through just fine.

• io9 lists the ten best faux fake deaths in science fiction. "You have been, and always shall be, my friend!"

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.11.09 - Rockwell Talks Iron Man 2, Warhammer Gets Option" »

• J.J. Abrams says that despite dire ratings, the attitude in the Fringe writer's room is optimistic, and Fox is being hugely (and uncharacteristically) supportive of their efforts.

• Smallville writer Bryan Q. Miller is taking over the reins writing D.C. Comics' latest Batgirl series.

• It's his first movie in close to 13 years, but James Cameron's Avatar already has a budget approaching half a billion dollars.

• Director Michael Doherty says he'd like another crack at the Jurassic Park franchise... as long as it isn't set on that damn island anymore.

• How will they make a movie out of Hasbro's Battleship? By adding aliens into the mix. That actually sounds to me like a pretty swell picture.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.10.09 - Aliens Join Battleship Flick, Doherty Wants More Jurassic Park" »

• Morena Baccarin says that Anna, her alien invader in V, is not meant to be a stand-in for President Obama.

• On the other hand, the White House press secretary says that he's never even heard of V, and that calling Obama an alien invader is the most flattering slander he's heard all day.

• A fascinating telegram posted over on the Letters of Note blog makes clear that the U.S. Navy was out looking for Martians as early as 1924.

• It appears that Bryan Singer's Battlestar Galactica movie -- set in an entirely different universe than the SciFi Channel reboot -- is now entering pre-production. I love Singer, but I'm extremely skeptical.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.09.09 - Abrams Eyes Micronauts, Singer Begins Battlestar" »