Following is an electronic press release published in its entirety as a service to our readers.
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Dragon*Con may only be twenty-two days away, but we are far from done! Just a few of our exciting new guests and performers are:
Look up in the air… it’s a bird… it’s a plane… no! It’s a super hero changing history while boldly going where no one else has gone and breaking world records along the way!
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- James & Oliver Phelps To Attend Dragon*Con (hollywoodnews.com)
FanDominion
Get your geek on.DragonCon: New guests to include Scott Bakula, Stan Lee, Brandon Routh and James and Oliver Phelps
Top 8 Genre Movies: New Trek breaks highest opening record
The eleventh and newest Star Trek film with its all-new cast posted an all new opening record this past weekend. It brought in more than $72.5 million in ticket sales in its debut weekend – more than the next 19 top-grossing films combined. Additionally, compared to other Trek films, after only three days of release, the film is already the fifth-highest money maker for Paramount. With these numbers, odds are we’ll see more Trek in years to come.
In its second weekend, X-Men Origins: Wolverine ticket sales fell more than 68% to $27 million for the No. 2 spot on the Genre Top 10..
the only genre film set to debut next week, the supernatural religious thriller Angels and Demons is the follow-up to the DaVonci Code and is set for wide release.
Following are the Top 10 speculative fiction movies in release in North America for the weekend of May 8-10, 2009.
RANK #. (Overall Rank) Title – Weekend Gross | Total Gross [Budget]
- (1) Star Trek – $72.5 million | $76.5 million [N/A]
- (2) X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $27 million | $129.6 million [$150 million]
- (3) Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – $10.5 million | $30.2 million [N/A]
- (5) 17 Again – $4.4 million | $54.2 million {N/A]
- (8) Monsters vs. Aliens – $3.4 million | $186.9 million [$175 million]
- (20) The Haunting in Connecticut – $0.19 million | $55.3 million [N/A]
- (21) Battle for Terra – $0.18 million | $1.5 million [N/A]
- (25) Crank: High Voltage – $0.12 million | $13.6 million [N/A]
Source: Box Office Mojo – list only includes science fiction, spy fi, fantasy and dark fantasy/horror titles.
Star Trek: new preview – esurance
The site esurance.com has an exclusive preview with footage and interview clips the the director, writers, and actors of the upcoming Star Trek film, located here: http://www.esurance.com/welcome/landing/startrek/welcome.aspx?promoid=StarTrekHP
New Amsterdam star lands lead role in ‘Virtuality’
Fans of sexy red-head Nikolaj Coster-Waldau are rejoicing. The star of the cancelled-too-soon FOX fantasy series, New Amsterdam, will be back on home theatre screens in 2009 starring in a new science fiction show called “Virtuality.”
Coster-Waldau will play “Commander Pike” (a not-so-subtle nod to Star Trek fandom), the highest-ranking officer on an interstellar spaceship named Phaeton.
The premise of the new show follows the crew of the first manned spaceflight on a 10-year journey from Earth to a nearby star system. Being that the trip will take years in cramped quarters, the crew are mostly kept sane by tapping into an on-board computer to allow their minds roam free in computer simulated adventures. And, of course, SOMETHING GOES HORRIBLY WRONG!! (Viola, a science fiction TV series)
The concept was created by TV power producer team Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel).
The concept was developed into a two-hour TV pilot by the writing team of Battlestar Glactica veterans, Michael Taylor and Ronald B. Moore. [Moore also either created or wrote scripts for Carnivale, Roswell and Star Trek: TNG, DS9 and Voyager.]
The director is Peter Berg, who is best known for creating the critically-acclaimed Friday Night Lights on NBC and is currently in pre-production for re-making Dune as a feature film to be released in 2010.
Officially being promoted as a 2-hour science fiction television movie set to air in early 2009, media newspapers are calling Virtuality a “backdoor pilot.” This means is enough people watch it, it could be ordered to full series.
Other actors cast to be in the show include:
- James D’Arcy (Exorcist: The Beginning), the “psych officer” who creates the virtual reality programs the crew engages in.
- Joy Bryant (Spider-Man 2) as “Alice Thibadeau”
- Sienna Guillory (Eragon) as “Rika Goddard”
- Nelson Lee (Blade: The Series) as “Keni Yamaguchi”
- Richie Coster (The Dark Knight) as “Jimmy Johnson”
- Omar Metwally (Rendition) as “Dr. Eyal Meyer”
- Jimmi Simpson (Carnivale, Rose Red) as unknown character
- Kerry Bishé (Sex and the City) as unknown character
Fan Film: Star Trek: TAS/ ‘Common People’
Here is a smashup of William Shatner’s cover of “Common People,” a song by the UK band, Pulp. It has been set music-video fashion to scenes from the 1970′s Star Trek: The Animated Series with very good lip sync matching by YouTube user “KirkSlashSpock.”
Note to fen: This has very, very light K/S fanfic themes and is PG-rated.
DragonConTV: Phaser Eye Surgery
What do you get when you mix Star Trek fandom with sadistic fan film creativity? Hilarity.
Fan Film: Nerd Wars
It was first place at the 2006 Dragon*Con as best spoof fan film. Here the Star Wars fans take on Star Trek fans for ultimate dominance. – and the future of a fan convention.
DragonConTV: Tribbles on a ship
Spoof of Snakes on a Plane.
Move over Sulu, two more Trek alumni join ‘Heroes’
If you were pleasantly surprised that NBC’s Heroes had former Star Trek star George Takei as a member of its cast, get ready for more of where that came from.
Producers of the show have added two more former Trek actors to the roster for the upcoming season – which debuts Monday, September 23 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT).
The biggest of the two coups is Nichelle Nichols (Uhura from the original 1960s Trek), who will be joining the series for at least five or six episodes.
Similarly, Dominic Keating (Malcom on Enterprise) will be playing the role of an Irish mob boss in the upcoming season.
Of course, the Trek crossover includes Zachary Quinto, who plays the evil Sylar in Heroes. He was cast last month as the new Spock for the re-imagined Star Trek, which is set to hit theatres on Christmas Day 2008.
(Via SyFyPortal)
Tom Cruise may join Star Trek as first Enterprise captain
According to a report from IGN, actor Tom Cruise is in talks to join the cast of the latest Star Trek film as Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Enterprise before Captain Kirk.
The new film, which is going by the code name Star Trek XI at Paramount, is being directed by J.J. Abrams, a personal friend of Cruise. The report says Cruise would do the role – a brief cameo, as a favor to Abrams despite his animosity with Paramount.
Last year, Cruise was “fired” from his production deal with Paramount after the star became too controversial for the studio due to his preaching of some of the more bizarre preachings of his Scientology beliefs.