Genre: Science Fiction/Horror.
Studio:
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.
Production Company:
Intrepid Pictures.
Project Phase: In the Can.
Who's In It:
Radha Mitchell; Vin Diesel; Cole Hauser.
Who's Making It:
David Twohy (Director); David Twohy, Jim Wheat (Screenwriters); Tom Engelman (Producer);
Ted Field, Scott Kroopf (Executive Producers); Patrick Tatopoulos (Creature Designer).
Premise: Marooned on a sun-scorched alien world a galaxy away from home, the survivors of a crippled starcraft come to realize that the inhabitants of the planet are noctural, savage beasts. The natives never emerge into sunlight, but every sixty years the sun is eclipsed and night veils the planet...and the lifeforms emerge from their dark slumber to feed.
Night is falling.
Release Date: Unknown.
Comments: Originally called Nightfall (and not to be confused with the Isaac Asimov short story of the same name), Pitch Black is Twohy's follow-up to his 1996 directing debut, The Arrival. Twohy, a veteran screenwriter of a half-dozen mainstream SF films, proved in The Arrival that he can create a lower budget SF film. The question is, can his latest film earn a greater degree of public awareness than his debut? While The Arrival earned a small but very outspoken following of advocates for Twohy's work, it failed to make sizable box office (but, nevertheless, earned enough that a follow-up was filmed, now re-scheduled to appear on pay-per-view cable television.)
The story itself is 'harder'-SF than The Arrival. Twohy's Arrrival showed us that one can make a scientifically faithful SF film and yet still ensure that the film follows a traditional character and story arc. Here's hoping he's learned from his first outing and Pitch Black will be something special for not just the SF fans but a wider audience.
Rumors: Unknown.
Scoop Feedback:
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December 8, 1998... Readers of science fiction literature will know the name Gully Foyle from
Alfred Bester's classic novel The Stars My Destination. In the middle of last week we were contacted by
another 'Gully Foyle', this one bearing not Bester's pyRe element but something even better: ultra-secretive
knowledge of Twohy's Pitch Black, including conceptual art of one of the planet's noctural creatures. Resembling something that may have come from the imagination of science fiction artist Wayne Douglas Barlowe (whose book of alien contact is being turned into the movie Expedition), this image is of one of the planet's beasties. They use a form of biological navigation called echo-location: this allows the animals to form a radar-like picture of their surroundings using sound clicks. The aliens on Darwin IV in Barlowe's Expedition book also used this technique. Two days ago, before we had a chance to post our Pitch Black page, Harry Knowles posted what appears to be the same information our scooper had slipped us. Knowles' posted up two-thirds of a detailed synopsis of the film but stopped just short of revealing who lives and who dies. We're going to post more than Harry did in his article but we're also not going to reveal who survives and the film's ending...sorry amigos. You'll have to see the film.
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"When the spacecraft becomes crippled in space, Carolyn fails to pilot a safe landing on an inhabited planet. She is the only member of the crew to survive. Johns and Riddick, in the relative safety of the passenger compartment, are unharmed. These three characters form an uneasy alliance in the quest to survive. Under their leadership are a handful of other passengers: three CHRISLAM PILGRIMS, whose religion is a combination of Christian and Muslim scripture; AUDREY, a teenage runaway; ZEKE and SHAZZA, husband and wife biologists who study extraterrestrial life forms; and PARIS, effete, self-interested antique dealer whose belongings include an abundance of vintage liquor.
"On the eerie planet, scorched perpetual sunlight, the survivors find a landscape dotted with huge, dry cone-shaped hills and petrified, vine-like croppings. But no life. Then they find and abandoned settlement. Whoever they were, the settlers left in a hurry. Why? Among the belongings left at the camp is a light duty spacecraft that could be their chance for survival.
"Then Riddick, digging a grave for the dead crew members, finds a tunnel full of bones. Zeke investigates the hole and a strange, foreboding clicking that comes from within. Zeke is yanked into the shadows. His anguished screams echo throughout the settlement. When Fry follows his trail in the dark cave, all she finds are Zeke's eviscerated remains. Suddenly, something unseen comes after her. She barely escapes into the daylight, where whatever is lurking in the dark does not follow.
"The creatures which almost got Fry, killed Zeke and the settlers who came before them.
"Fry and Riddick further realize that the planet is not perpetually in light - it's on an orbit that puts it in total darkness every sixty years. The last time darkness fell the settlers were destroyed. And as the suns set now, Riddick warns Fry that she'd better know exactly whom she can trust. Because Johns isn't all he seems to be. And Riddick might be more than she imagines.
"It turns out that Johns is, in fact, a bounty hunter, and he's been hiding a morphine habit. Although he's promised Riddick his freedom, he had no intention of keeping his word. Fry can't trust either one of them. But as dusk begins to fall on this hostile world, dread unites all of the survivors. Whatever is lurking in the dark has been there a long time, hungrily waiting for this moment.
"As night falls, the tree-like vines come alive, turning out to be the spines of hibernating beasts called PLOWHEADS. These huge creatures become easy prey for winged HATCHLINGS, which fly from the spired hills like smoke from a volcano top. And the ominous clicking that preceded Zeke's death begins to build in intensity as grown CARNIVORES emerge. Hiding in the gloaming, they navigate their dark world with clicking echo-location, searching with saber-bladed precision for sustenance after their sixty year fast.
"Fry and other survivors turn to Riddick for help-his enhanced night vision eyes have turned from a shortcoming to an advantage. Johns warns Fry that Riddick will lead them to their deaths, not to the emergency craft. Riddick makes it clear that self-preservation is his only interest. With creatures swooping in on them from the dark, Riddick, Johns and Fry discover that the predators retreat from light. Unfortunately, they haven't got enough torch light to keep them at bay long.
"In the end, Johns, Fry, and Riddick must lead the others through a gauntlet of creatures lining the canyon to the ship that is their salvation..."
The show was filmed earlier this year in Australia and should be released sometime in '99. [A big thank you to 'Gully Foyle' for this and the other scoops. Lotsa work for us now...]
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