July 2009 Archives

At last! Ridley Scott has signed on to direct the fifth Alien movie.

It will be a prequel, explaining how the good ship Nostromo ended up on its ill-fated cargo run, during which it answered the distress call from the Alien planet.

It was Scott, of course, who directed the original 1979 movie in the series - still the best.

And there are whispers that his involvement might tempt Sigourney Weaver to reprise her Ripley role. Here's hoping ...

Lost masterminds Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof spilled the beans (well, a few of them anyway) about the final season of Lost during Comic-Con.

But it's the official season poster that contains big clues as to what's going to happen.

Take a look ...

Lined up are all the main characters, dead or alive. Even Charlie, Mr Eko, Michael and Ana-Lucia are in there!

And at the centre is an enigma. John Locke (if it is indeed he) stands with his back to the camera.

From left to right, that's Faraday, Boone, Miles, Michael, Ana Lucia, Charlotte, Shannon, Desmond, Mr Eko, Kate, Jack, Sawyer, Locke, Ben, Sayid, Libby (or is that Penny?), Sun, Jin, Claire, Hurley, Juliet, Charlie, Frank, Richard, Bernard and Rose.

Only Vincent is missing!

Word is that the final series will depict what would have happened had Oceanic 815 not crashed in the first place.

And hitting the reset button means that everyone is alive again.

Presumably Juliet managed to detonate the bomb and stop the electromagnetic surge that brought the plane down.

In a series of short films shown at Comic-Con, we got to see Hurley happily running the Mr Clucks restaurant, an advert boasting Oceanic's 100 percent safety record, and an America's Most Wanted news clip revealing Kate was on the run not for murdering her stepfather but mistakenly killing one of his pals instead.

Cuse and Lindelof admitted that pretty much all the characters would play a part in the finale, and that we'd be seeing old friends we thought departed.

Hell, maybe Charlie will get the band back together ...

Forget making your Twitter avatar green in solidarity with Iranian dissidents.

They have a new protector - in the new season of 24, Jack Bauer will be taking on President Ahmadinejad.

Actor Kiefer Sutherland let slip the premise at San Diego Comic Con, where cast and creators of 24 were doing a Q&A session about the new season of the show, Day 8, which is due to start early in 2010.

"One of us is bound to spill the beans between now and January, so we might as well announce it here," he said.

Ron Moore isn't known for mincing words, but even on that basis his comments relating to the lack of Emmy nods for Galactica in its final season is particularly forthright:

"It's a frakking crime that in the entire run of Battlestar Galactica the entire cast was not recognised for the stunning performances and hard work they put in week in and week out."

Moore was talking at the Comic Con panel for Caprica - the Galactica spin off showcasing the life of Admiral Adama's father, played by Esai Morales who joined proceedings - and the straight to DVD movie Battlestar Galactica: The Plan.

Joined by executive producer David Eick and Caprica showrunner Jane Espenson, Moore unveiled a new trailer for the Olmos-directed Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, which included lots of the iconic moments from the show - from Aaron Doral's suicide bombing in the mini series to Boomer shooting Adama - all shown this time from the cylons' perspective.

Lost star Dominic Monaghan made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con - to reveal he'll be one of the stars of hot new sci-fi show FlashForward.

Monaghan, who played tragic Charlie in the castaway series, turned up with "Am I Dead?" mysteriously written on the back of his hand.

Then, after a dramatic video teaser for the new show, he revealed all.

He may be dead on Lost (and that's not certain) but Monaghan is reborn in FlashForward as Simon, "a game-changer character who f-ks up a lot of things."

That's how his new character was described by show runner David Goyer (Batman Begins, Dark Knight).

Monaghan joins an all-star cast that includes Star Trek's John Cho, Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), Courtney B. Vance (Law & Order) and another British Lostie, Sonya Walger (Penny Widmore).

As we told you last week, their characters all glimpse their lives six months in the future during two minutes of unconsciousness in which the entire population flashes forward.

But will he be back in Lost, as teaser trailers for the final season have hinted?

"When people ask if me I'm coming back to Lost, that's the equivalent of asking Huckleberry Finn if he's coming back to Mark Twain," said Monaghan.

"I'm a fictional character. I have no control over that."

Scottish actor Robert Carlyle was star of the show at the unveiling of the latest Stargate series today, when SG: Universe hit San Diego Comic Con.

Well-known for grittier, non-genre roles, Carlyle is the lead of the latest of the long-running scifi franchise, and joined six other cast members and SG creators Brad Wright and Robert Cooper to showcase the series to fans.

Carlyle gave an insight into why he'd signed for the show, which has already filmed 12 episodes and includes cameos from other Stargate favourites including Richard Dean Anderson and Amanda Tapping:

"Last year I came to LA. The film industry in the UK is struggling, so I was looking for something different. When this came up it was, to use an American phrase, completely out of left field.

With so much going on every day you'd need to have cloned yourself to see it all. However, I am on a one woman campaign to see as much as possible (and also get myself a Star Trek limited edition Comic Con Tribble). Here's the highlights of what happened yesterday...

* Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from Lost) told fans of the show, well, very little about her character's fate following the shocking end of the last season. Having been given strict instructions from the show bosses, she told fans the only thing she could say was that Juliet will have survived 'if Sawyer's plan has worked'. The fact she then spent the afternoon signing merchandise for the remake of V which she is one of the leads in and is being given a big push at the show this weekend may make the more cynical among us worry.

Turn the page for much, much more ...

It's the scariest movie ever made - and here's the terrifying proof!

And here's Sleepless In Seattle as you never imagined it, too ...

While I'm busy penning my essay on how Jaws 4 is one of the finest movies ever made, I though I'd take everyone back to the heady days of 1987.

I don't know about you, but I'm terrified...

It's probably the funniest TV show you've never seen. And for one day only today the cast of The Middleman were reunited after the show's untimely demise to show off the final episode, having been cut down in their prime.

From apes obsessed with Mafia movies to lucha libre wrestles, trout-eating zombies and even the legendary Sensei Ping, the Middleman could outwit every enemy except the TV execs of ABC, which cancelled the show before the final episode was shot. Yet to be bought by a TV channel in the UK, it's been a geek guilty pleasure, available via alternative means.

But at Comic Con this morning fans of the show were given an opportunity to see the episode in its (nearly) full glory, with the cast reunited with creator Javier Grillo-Marxuach for a read through of the end of the arc relating to the sinister Manservant Neville (Mark Sheppard).