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Newsbites: The sci-fi and fantasy edition!

Christianity Today March 11, 2009

1. Dark City (1998) director Alex Proyas says there has been talk lately of making a sequel to that film – and if he does make it, he would like the supernatural hero of the first film to become the villain of the second film: “He should turn nasty because he’s got unlimited power. That’s something I’d like to explore.” That certainly fits with some of the changes that Proyas made to the “director’s cut” last year. – MTV Movies Blog

2. Matt Damon is attached to star in The Adjustment Bureau, a sci-fi action romance about “a charismatic congressman who . . . meets a beautiful ballet dancer, only to find strange circumstances keeping their sparks from catching fire.” The film is “loosely based” on a Philip K. Dick story. – Variety, Hollywood Reporter

3. Director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti, who last worked together on the Oscar-nominated Sideways (2004), are teaming up again for Downsizing, a “social satire” about “a man low on money who decides he can have a much nicer life if he undergoes a process to shrink himself.” The film will also star Reese Witherspoon, who worked with Payne on Election (1999). – Variety

4. The latest name being bandied about as a possible director for Eclipse, the third movie in the Twilight series, is that of Juan Antonio Bayona, director of the spooky Spanish ghost story The Orphanage (2007). – Hollywood Reporter

5. Casting is already under way for the live-action Star Wars TV series that will take place between the two big-screen trilogies. Hmmm, will George Lucas cobble a few episodes together for the big screen, as he did with the animated Clone Wars? – MTV Movies Blog

6. Morena Baccarin, of Firefly and Stargate fame, will play the leader of the alien invasion in the remake of V. – Hollywood Reporter

7. Fox is developing Last Man, a “futuristic action film” about “a group of young, inexperienced American soldiers” who battle an alien race on a distant planet. Um, why do the soldiers have to be American? – Variety

8. Former New Line executive Mark Ordesky is one of the producers now attached to a “science fiction film” adaptation of Chariots of the Gods, the Erich von D?niken book which argued that the ancient world was visited – and to some degree shaped – by extra-terrestrials. The book was previously turned into a documentary in 1970, and its basic premise was also reflected in last year’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. – Variety

9. Vin Diesel says writer-director David Twohy is “finishing up” the script for a third film in the Chronicles of Riddick series (2000-2004). – GameSpot

10. Brett Ratner hasn’t decided whether to direct the new Conan the Barbarian movie yet, but he says the script is “very cool, contemporary. It’s not an homage. It’s not a remake, really. It’s going back to the original source material – the mythology of the characters.” – MTV Splash Page

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