Last uploaded: Saturday, January 10, 1998

News from Hollywood

Igniting further speculation... with fans of Marvel Comics' X-Men books, one of our scoopers has heard that actor Ian Buchanan, (who portrayed Richard Tremayne, a secondary character David Lynch's Twin Peaks) is being considered for the role of Professor X. That brings the number of considered actors for Xavier up to two: X-Men director Bryan Singer told Premiere magazine in November that he like to see Patrick Stewart as the headmaster of the school for gifted youngsters...

Rumor has it... Twentieth Century Fox pulled the plug on the film adaptation of Frank Peretti's novel This Present Darkness last week. Our scooper didn't learn of Fox's reasons for doing it, but another one of our scoopers sent us something that may have been a bit of a harbinger a few days before receiving the first scoop:

"Having myself worked on the soon-to-be-released Denzel Washington film, Fallen, which deals with supposed demonic warfare against humanity, I can certainly say that this type of storyline -- that which explores a Biblical genre -- is tremendously marketable, especially in a day and age where Bible scholars, students, casual readers -- even the unbelieving cynics -- are seeing Biblical 'prophecies' (if you will) come to light in modern day politics and world events. This notion that perhaps this one God of the Bible is intricately involved with the course of human events still, here, at the turn of the millenia, is beyond fascinating.

"Having worked in Hollywood for some time now, I am seeing a trend that is realizing that the largely ignored 'Christian' or 'Religious' market is quite profitable. I mean, c'mon! How many tens of millions of people go to church on Sunday! If you market a film such as this to church 'youth groups' across the nation alone, you have made over 150 million dollars! Considering the word-of-mouth that a film such as this will get in the massive Christian world, Hollywood has absolutely nothing to lose, and it may build its reputation in a wary religious market."

I've heard similar fears expressed about the concepts portrayed in This Present Darkness: can a heavily themed Christian book be successfully adapted so that it will appeal to both a Christian and non-Christian audience? I can understand why studio execs get nervous when dealing with this area...look at the controversey Scorsese's The Last Temtation of Christ generated. But why can't studios feel free to make some movies pro-religious and others controversial? Well, when you've greenlighted $60 million and your job is riding on this puppy, you don't want to find your project engaged in a very public debate within the national media. Still, I hope that rumors of the death of This Present Darkness are merely rumors; it'd be cool to see angels and demons duking it out in a small town. I just ask that the angels have really mean looking flaming swords...

Tuing in to this are two other projects: Kevin Smith's Dogma picture is set to roll next month, and according to one of our sources Warner Brothers will be keeping a close eye on the Miramax film. It seems WB wants to see how the public reacts to the touchy prospect of a religious comedy because they own the film rights to a property they'd like to develop as a film but won't commit to -- Good Omens. The book, by fantasy scribe Terry Prachett and award-winning comic book writer Neil Gaiman, sends up Christianity the way The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy did to science fiction, and the result is some funny material. Warners looks at it like the next Men in Black, but they also have cold feet about the project because they're fearful of the possible reaction some Christians might take to seeing an angel and a demon team up to prevent the Apocalypse. Before we get dozens of emails from fans of Good Omens pleading to WB to reconsider, I'd like to ask the Brothers first. C'mon -- it's a funny book, and besides, God's a big enough sport to have a good sense of humor. You need proof? Just look at the platypus.

There's a wild rumor... going about that Disney's considering adding new sequences and FX to their 80's animated dud, The Black Cauldron. Word is the project's hush-hush, but Disney brass are thinking of a Winter '98 release date...also being mentioned is a possible re-release again of the new Star Wars Special Editions between December '98 and March '99. The idea is to build up the hype for the release of Episode One in May '99 by inserting the trailer for the prequel in the coming attractions before the start of the movie. Each movie would be released for one week and they'd run on only 800 or so screens. I have no idea if this is real, not-yet decided on or utter Bantha poo, but I for one hope it's not. The idea of paying to see just a trailer is bad enough, and I think the guys at Lucasfilm are honorable enough that they wouldn't do that just just for the sake of making some extra coin.

Test screening reviews... for the new Bruce Willis/Alec Baldwin movie Mercury Rising and Dan Ackroyd's latest Blues Brothers 2000 are now up. Don't miss 'em.

Patrick Sauriol
Creator, Chief Content Writer & Director
Coming Attractions

Enter the world of Technopolis! Aliens, gangsters and flying roadsters from the 50's Published bi-monthly by Caliber Comics Issue #1 out now, #2 out in mid January! To order, call 1-888-22-COMIC For more info check out the Technopolis website.

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