There’s a new SFX Vampire Special out today, and to mark the occasion here are the results of our reader-voted Top 50 Vampires Poll 2012. This is not a feature from the mag itself, but a web exclusive. You can see what the Special has to offer here.

We last did a vampire poll two years ago, and we thought it was time for an update, because a number of franchises that were still in their infancy (True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Twilight) have come of age since then, generating their own huge fan bases. The US version of Being Human has also been launched and films like Fright Night have hit the cinema. How would all that affect the results? Would Buffy The Vampire Slayer still be a key player? Could Spike retain his top spot? Would Moonlight fans still exist and vote?

You can find answers to all these on the following few pages, but to kick off, we can tell you there are 14 new entries, because here are the 14 that have dropped out of the Top 50.

Dropping out of the Top 50:

Marcus Van Sciver (Blade: The Series)
Kurt Barlow (Salem’s Lot)
Reinhardt (Blade 2)
Richard Gecko (From Dusk Till Dawn)
Countess Bathory (Daughters Of Darkness)
Dracula (BBC Dracula from 1977)
Schreck (Shadow Of The Vampire)
Martin Madahas (Martin)
Lilith Silver (Razor Blade Smile)
Carmilla Karnstein (The Vampire Lovers)
Miriam (The Hunger)
Jesse (Near Dark)
Danny Glick (Salem’s Lot)
Severen (Near Dark)

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50 Marlow (30 Days Of Night)

Previous position: 23 (-27)

Played by: Danny Huston

Marlow has none of the poise or charm of the other vampires on this list and almost none of the personality. He’s a killer: a brutal, inhuman predator, a shark in a trench coat and death comes with him. Look at Danny Huston’s performance in the film version, at the way he doesn’t even react to the gore he’s drenched in. Marlow isn’t just a killer, Marlowe’s an empty eyed feeding machine, a soulless hunger. Marlowe’s the stuff of nightmares.

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49 Santanico Pandemonium (From Dusk Till Dawn)

Previous position: 44 (-5)

Played by: Salma Hayek

Portrayed by sultry Salma Hayek, Santanico Pandemonium is the belly dancing vampire princess/temptress at the Titty Twister bar. This vamp chick’s got skillz: by sensually gyrating her body whilst soaking her almost-naked body with beer, she’s able to hypnotise her prey until she’s ready to start the feeding frenzy. The seductive dance of Santanico may only be marginal, lasting but a mere few minutes, but that scene will keep you spellbound long after you watch this film.

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48 Jerry Dandridge (Fright Night, 1985)

Previous position: 47 (-1)

Played by: Chris Sarandon

The first Jerry Dandridge is one of the coolest, smartest vampires ever committed to film. Calm, measured, charming and relentless he always seems three steps ahead of the hero, Charley Brewster, apparently content to play with him as long as Charley’s no threat. Sarandon brought a lot to the role, including pointing out that most bats were fruit eaters instead of bloodsuckers and suggested Jerry’s fondness for fruit that was later incorporated into the film. This Jerry remains one of the most overlooked modern vampires, but also one of the best.

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If you love all things fangy you’re in for a treat with SFX’s new vampire special! Whether you’re into the latest vampire franchises or retro delights from the past, it’s the magazine for you. It’s on sale from today for two months and packed full of amazing, exclusive, all-new content. Here’s a few of the things you can expect to see inside:

• The 25 Greatest Vampire Films Ever: as voted for by readers of SFX.co.uk. The winner might come as a surprise!

• Brand new interview with Spike himself, James Marsters, plus our unique ideas for the Buffy remake

• A hot debate on whether True Blood is the show it once was, plus new cast interviews and a check on whether it’s as rude as before

• The hottest new vampire flicks coming your way in 2012, including Dracula 3D, Twixt, The Moth Diaries and Livid

• A new exclusive interview with Being Human creator Toby Whithouse, and a fun comparison of the UK and US shows

• Every Vampire Diaries episode reviewed, plus a hilarious Diaries Scriptease

• In-depth looks at retro classics Salem’s Lot, Near Dark, Lifeforce and Captain Kronos

• The world’s biggest Twilight fan, a Myanna Buring interview, and the ultimate battle of the boyfriends

• The greatest vampire films you’ve never seen, including Dracula In The Provinces, Dracula Sucks and The Forsaken

• Vampire Diaries or Bridget Jones – you decide!

Plus LOADS more including Couch Potato, Ultraviolet, Death Valley, Why Transylvania Rocks, DC’s I, Vampire, sexy vampire art

Available in all good newsagents now or buy it here with free delivery.

Let’s end this feud between Star Wars and Star Trek, reckons George, because there’s a bigger threat out there!

"Have you had your nipple pierced?"

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 has crossed the half-billion dollar box office barrier.

The film has now grossed $508 million in globally in just 12 days since the film’s release. Summit’s co-chairmen Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger say in a statement: “We couldn’t be more pleased with the success of this film and a franchise that the fans have continued to support over the past several years. Thank you to all involved with the films from the actors, filmmakers and Stephenie Meyer to the most important group of all, the global fan base that continues to drive a desire for more Edward, Jacob and Bella.” (via Coming Soon)

GENRE-CROSSING OF THE WEEK

Aliens on ice. We’d prefer this on a Sunday night to Dancing On Ice. Hell, we’d prefer Immortals On Ice to Dancing On Ice. But if the aliens could eat Phillip Schoffield, then we’d settle for Dancing On Ice. This has been created by The Old Murder House Theater troupe from Austin, Texas and perhaps the most disturbing thing about it is a grown man with a beard playing Newt.

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MAKEOVER THE WEEK

Futurama goes anime in the season six finale.

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MONSTER OF THE WEEK

We thought the CGI monsters on Grimm were a bit crap this week, until we realised it just a bit of animated promotion for another show.

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GIT WHO ACHIEVES REDEMPTION OF THE WEEK

Three clips of a subplot from “Chuck Versus The Business Trip” showing Casey at his worst and best (or best and worst, depending on what you want out of your Casey-age), as Morgan tries to remember what it’s like to be a geek. Spoilers, obviously… But – great episode.

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HEADBUTT OF THE WEEK

Hitler came off badly when he encountered the Doctor, but getting locked in a cupboard was nothing compared to what Kelly had in store for him.

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PUBLIC INFORMATION FILM OF THE WEEK

William Shatner’s guide to unfriending.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part One has earned a massive $283.5 million worldwide since opening across the globe on Wednesday. It took $139.5 million in North America and another $144 million overseas over the five days in 54 markets.

That makes the film the fifth best opening ever in North America, but a little less than The Twilight Saga: New Moon’s $142.8 (the others are Spider-Man 3 with $151.1 million, The Dark Knight with $158.4 million and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part Two with $169.2 million). However, the $283.5 million worldwide opening (the 10th biggest ever) beat New Moon’s launch of $274.9 million to become the best opening the franchise has yet managed.

But while Summit will be trumpeting these figures, it’s worth noting that audiences for Twilight films have traditionally dwindled quite rapidly. so while the Breaking Dawn will probably end up with a massively profitable tally somewhere around $700 million worldwide, it almost certainly won’t reamin in the top 10 money making movies ever. You won’t hear Summit complaining, though.

Happy Feet Two debuted to a disappointing $22 million in the North American market. The 2006 original earned $42.7 million its first weekend. Possibly all the mums who would have taken their sprogs to see it were watching Twilight. The long term outlook for the film doesn’t look promising, with another three family films opening this week: Arthur Christmas, Hugo and The Muppets.

Immortals dropped to third its second weekend, with $12.3 million in takings in North America, to push its total to $53 million. That’s a hefy decline of 62%. We’re surprised it didn’t drop further.

Bill Condon talks about fan reaction, horror versus melodrama and demon babies

HUMAN CATERPILLAR REMAKE OF THE WEEK

Once Upon A Time prepares to go X-rated.

KNOCKOUT FART OF THE WEEK

Morgan discovers the upgraded Intersect has unfortunate side effects in Chuck.

TWILIGHT SEQUEL OF THE WEEK

And it’s not Breaking Dawn…

MYSTERIOUS BOOK BINDING OF THE WEEK

Peter’s return to the Fringe universe is not just causing all kind of timey-wimey anomalies, but spatial ones as well. Walter’s copy of Cosmology appears to be bound on both sides while Peter’s holding it… but returns to normal once snatched away from him. You may think it’s a mere blooper but we reckon it’s an important piece of the plot arc – you mark our words! (Wonder what kind of effect he has on a Kindle?)

CHEAP BATMAN KNOCK-OFF OF THE WEEK

No this isn’t Sanctuary exploring the dangers of the latest craze to sweep American youth – extreme flashing. It’s Sanctuary returning to what it does best – saving money. Only this show could feature two flying characters as major guest stars of the week… then never actually show them flying. Falling off this ledge is about as near as get.

FANTASY ANIMATION OF THE WEEK

Anyone for an animated reboot of Firefly? We’d certainly be up for it if looked as glorious as this image by Otis Frampton [via Geek Tyrant].

SLIGHTLY LOW-RENT PUBLICITY STUNT OF THE WEEK

Two members of Steps in a Sainsbury’s with a bloke in a Kung Fu Panda outfit. And yet we’re still posting it. A £3.75 marketing budget well spent.

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Release Date: 18 November 2011
12A * 117 mins
Distributor: E1 Films
Director: Bill Condon
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Anna Kendrick

Heard of the “even-number theory”? The fallible rule of thumb that states even-numbered Star Trek movies are superior to their odd-numbered counterparts? We have a similar theory for the Twilight movies. It’s called the “reverso-world even-number theory” (never let it be said SFX plumps for the obvious choice) which states odd numbers good, even numbers bad. The upside of this theory is that Breaking Dawn Part Two is going to be brilliant. Guaranteed. Unfortunately it also means that Breaking Dawn Part One is little more than two hours of tedious cinematic foreplay.

Whereas the first film possessed the infectious, youthful energy of love at first lust, and Eclipse featured action setpieces to rival the year’s best blockbusters, Breaking Dawn Part One errs closer to New Moon in both structure and mind-numbing monotony – it’s essentially one insufferably long pregnancy sequence sandwiched between a sweet wedding and gruesome birth. Mercifully, it isn’t as miserable as New Moon, where every character seems to spend the duration on the verge of suicide – but only just. Breaking Dawn Part One’s fun first half is warm and rewarding for an oft-times chilly series, but then things take a turn for the weird as Bella is impregnated with Edward’s demon seed – a baby that Jacob’s Quilete werewolf tribe take a grave dislike to.

It’s easy to diagnose at least one cause of Breaking Dawn’s tedium – it sufferers from Deathly Hallows syndrome. By splitting the book into two films an excessive amount of time is spent with the characters while failing to advance the plot in any meaningful way. This is fine in a novel, which is pushed forward at a pace dictated by the reader, but when a text is translated to the screen as faithfully as it is here, it results in an unfeasible amount of lingering close-ups and an awful lot of standing around. It doesn’t help that Twilight’s vampires remain largely still unless running about at super speed, and the “crazy-eyed-tramp-stare” is the defining characteristic of most performances in the film.

That said, the three leads have never been better. Robert Pattinson can brood in his sleep, but still has the vague look of a man itching to ditch his tween-idol status. The book’s odd structure means Taylor Lautner’s Jacob is MIA for a significant chunk of Part One, but his unique style of emoting remains oddly compelling – possibly in a car-crash-happening-in-front-of-your-face kind of way, but we’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Kristen Stewart comes off best, giving it her all and almost allowing you to buy into some of the film’s more outlandish twists and turns, even if she’s hobbled by the frequently hokey dialogue and apparent need to have Bella engage in OCD-like levels of bottom-lip-biting and baby-belly-rubbing. Unsung heroes of the saga such as Anna Kendrick, Billy Burke and Michael Sheen also get their brief moments to shine during the wedding scene and a brief mid-credits Part Two teaser.

Watered-down horror

What’s most interesting about Breaking Dawn Part One is that angst and melodrama fight for attention with surprisingly overt female body horror – albeit body horror often incongruously offset by the twee pan-pipe score that runs through most of the film. What greater advert could there be against the dangers of unprotected sex than a foetus that brings Bella to the point of death by literally crushing and consuming her from the inside? Unfortunately scenes many-a-fan have been waiting years to see on the screen – the bed-busting sex, the bloody birth – all feel watered down by the 12A rating. At one point Edward confesses to going all Angelus in his past, before it’s quickly justified by the fact he only took the life of murderers. All too often what horror there is has the edges smoothed off. The film’s most famous scenes are fumbled too – the werewolves talking is daft and almost inaudible, while Jacob’s selfless climactic act is difficult to make sense of if you haven’t read the books, until Edward exposition-dumps a couple of minutes later.

Previous films in the Twilight series have benefited from a level of respectful knowing humour that’s largely absent from the source novels. This film retains that humour, but occasionally goes a little too far. The scene where Bella chooses her baby name, for example, treads a fine line between gentle ribbing and outright mockery of its source material – a line it only just falls on the right side of. The film’s disappointingly light on action too. In fact, it lacks a single well-directed action scene. Unlike Eclipse the werewolf/vampire showdown here is murky, confusing and over quicker than Bella and Edward’s first time in the sack. Bill Condon is a director with pedigree both in horror (Candyman: Farewell To The Flesh) and the history of horror cinema (he directed the brilliant Gods & Monsters about the life of James Whale) but he fails to make much of an impression here.

Eclipse had potential to open up the series to a much broader fanbase, but Breaking Dawn Part One is going to appeal to no-one except the most ardent Twi-hards. All we can do now is hope our theory holds true and we’re not saying the same thing about Part Two in 12 month’s time.

Jordan Farley

Michelle Rosenberg, the scriptwriter on all the Twilight films, believes that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is far less innocent than the previous instalment in the franchise, she revealsin an SFX exclusive interview in the new issue (#216, out on Wednesday).

She tells us, “I was very wary of that first section of Breaking Dawn. It was daunting territory moving from a youth perspective into an adult story. The story in the book is very adult so I kept looking for the romance and the action. But [director] Bill [Condon] kept taking it to the next level and got me excited about it. I was worried but he had such a strong hold on it emotionally and thematically, I just followed his lead.”

She admits to being nervous about writing the film but her collaboration with new director Condon really helped her access the script. “It was funny because this was my fourth [Twilight] movie and I was exhausted. At a certain point I was like, ‘Gee Bill, don’t you want to take a pass at this?’” Rosenberg laughs. “You will never hear a writer volunteer that, but he said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ The reason he didn’t have to and still got what he wanted was that he’s the kind of writer/director that knows how to bring things out in another writer, and knows how to communicate in a writer’s language. It’s not about dictating but it’s about collaborating and bringing out the best ideas.”

As well as talking to Rosenberg we also have interviews in the new issue with the three young stars of the saga: Taylor Lautner (Jacob) tells us about his fears of imprinting, Robert Pattinson (Edward) speaks of his fondness for babies and Kristen Stewart (Bella) opens up about the weirdest of birth scenes.

You can read more in the upcoming issue of SFX out on Wednesday 16 November.

Posted by: Jen Neal

Here’s Bruno Mars singing “It Will Rain” the first single to be released from the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part One soundtrack. The video features a few clips from the film. Read what you like into the lyrics (is it Edward singing to Bella?) but it just sounds like a soppy love song to us.

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part One is released in the UK on 18 November.

The poor guy is never going to be the alpha male in this saga, is he? Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part  One is released in the UK on 18 November.

Garlic, sunlight, crosses, holy water – for a race that have so many weaknesses, vampires are ridiculously hard to kill, as proven by their near ubiquity at the cinema. Dracula alone has 274 entries on IMDb. Though some of these are episodes of TV shows – Doctor Who, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Supernatural are just a few of the shows to have featured Dracula in one form or another – that’s still a lot of films for one vampire. Throw in all the vampire films which don’t feature Dracula himself, and you’re looking at a lot of films.

Feel free to nominate your own films, but there’s a list of 100 suggestions below to help you out.

With 100 films to choose from, picking just one is bound to be difficult, so we’re asking you to vote for up to three from the list below. Voting is open until 5 November. The results will appear in the next SFX Vampires Special in early 2012.

The Twilight publicity machine for Breaking Dawn Part One grinds into action with a sudden spate of Internet-friendly video clips, including the behind-the-scenes shenanigans above and a trio of interviews with… well you can probably guess who, that you can watch after the jump. Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part One is released in the UK on 18 November.

Okay, are you ready for a True Blood/Teen Wolf/Twilight mash-up? Well, sort of… True Blood stars Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, plus former Teen Wolf Michael J Fox, are providing the voices of some clearly Twilight-inspired characters in an upcoming Halloween episode of Disney Channel’s animated series Phineas And Ferb. In the episode “The Curse of Candace”, Phineas And Ferb’s older sister Candace goes to see the latest teen smash movie which looks suspiciously like Twilight. Moyer provides the voice of a vampire, Jared, while Fox is werewolf Michael and the two battle for the attention of Paquin’s Kristen (who doesn’t blink enough to be a real Kristen Stewart parody, if you ask us).

The Hungers Games has started a trend – trailers for trailers! Where will this madness end? The full Twilight: Breaking Dawn trailer debuts next week, and the film on 18 November.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn is released in the UK on Friday 18 November.

@BrianJacobSmith I found a Stargate in Bermuda!!! Possible location for a spin-off?

In theory one of the best things about Twitter is being able to ask your favourite actor/writer/sci-fi journalist (okay, maybe not that one) a question and be in with a good chance of getting an answer. Unfortunately, with the number of followers most celebs have it’s unlikely they’ll even see your question amongst the constant flood of responses filling up their stream, let alone have the time to reply.

It’s also true that with most Twitter Q&As the questions asked and the answers given are the most inane imaginable (typically along the lines of Q: “OMG, when does your new show start? I have to know I’m your biggest fan!” A: “Friday. And thx, I love everyone in the world!” Seriously, has no-one on Twitter heard of Google?) Occasionally, however someone will ask a question that encourages a genuinely fascinating and insightful response. Take Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, who responded to a question about working titles for Pixar’s new Dinosaur movie with a mega-list of Toy Story titles that could have been. Our favourites “Bring Me The Arm Of Buzz Lightyear”, “Some Assembly Required” and (despite apparent cries of casual racism) “Made In Taiwan”.

@leeunkrich ‘Toy Story’ was always just a working title that we never intended to use. Maybe this one will stick, too. yfrog.com/gza26clj

I still have a list of 170 proposed titles. “@cathicks: Do you remember what other titles were considered for Toy Story?”

Wow. I just excavated some more lists of alternate Toy Story titles, taking the total to well over 200.

Spurs & Rockets #RejectedToyStoryTitles

The Cowboy & The Spaceman #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Wind-Up Heroes #RejectedToyStoryTitles

To Infinity and Beyond #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Moving Buddies #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Made in Taiwan #RejectedToyStoryTitles

The New Toy #RejectedToyStoryTitles

@leeunkrich These are randomly picked from a list of HUNDREDS of brainstormed titles. We had an open call to studio employees, out of desperation.

Now for some bottom-of-the-barrel rejected Toy Story titles…

The Favorite #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Some Assembly Required #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Wings & Pullstrings #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Each Sold Separately #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Toyz in the Hood #RejectedToyStoryTitles

For the Love of Peep #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Rex’s First Movie #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Wind the Frog #RejectedToyStoryTitles

Bring Me the Arm of Buzz Lightyear #RejectedToyStoryTitles

@leeunkrich If you thought those were bad, there were hundreds of others. None were better than plain old Toy Story, so that’s the title the world got.

We considered “Bug Story” for “A Bug’s Life”, but knew we’d have to forever use that naming scheme.

The SFX Twitter Stream

@AllCharisma @jarpad and @AllCharisma. Hanging’ onset. First Day. New girl. Making’ friends. yfrog.com/kl5cjhaj

Lk what #Supernatural presented to James and I … Thank u Phil,Eric, Robert, Sera, McG, Cast/Cru yfrog.com/h0h6pgfj

@DAVID_A_SLADE All my Twi friends, know this, Eclipse now a distant haze. Think of it as a fugue state. No memories, and I know nothing of Breaking dawn.

@RealCliveBarker @Purgatori66 Hello,my friends. I want to put on record that the flic out there using the word Hellraiser IS NO F**KIN’ CHILD OF MINE!

I have NOTHING to do with the f**kin’ thing. If they claim its from the mind of Clive Barker,it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.

@eliroth Suspiria!!! #Goblin #ItalianHorrorFest yfrog.us/fvcuqz ……………………………………………………………

@JaneEspenson Russell had me rewrite a lot, but he actually changed very little himself. The schoolmaster story was his addition. I like it. #Torchwood

My rewrites were almost all just Russell saying, get deeper, make me cry, make me love them, make me scared. GREAT NOTES #Torchwood

@Aiannucci Congrats A-Level + GGSE students. You work hard only to have politicians + journalists crap in your face. That’s how Super-villains start

@ZacharyLevi Just finished watching all 10 eps of Game of Thrones. Yep, superb as expected. #latetotheparty #teamstark #wannastranglejoffrey

@simonpegg I preferred him when he was called Zuckass! twitpic.com/6ak1z6

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The awards calendar got a little confusing in the States this weekend as both the Television Critics Association and the Teen Choice Awards battled it out to be the best ceremony with the initials TCA.

In the upmarket Critics awards the only genre show to win recognition was Game Of Thrones, which quite rightfully won “Outstanding New Program”. Other winners included Friday Night Lights and Mad Men. You can see the full list here.

Fantasy predictably did a lot better over at the Teen Choice Awards, but partly because they separate categories into genres. This resulted in the bizarre situation where team Edward beat Team Jacob in the Choice Movie Actor: Drama category – which Twilight: Eclipse’s Robert Pattinson won – but Team Jacob triumphed over Team Edward when Taylor Lautner won Choice Movie Actor: Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part Two won Choice Movie Of The Summer, while its predecessor won Choice Movie.

On the TV side of things, the big genre winner was The Vampire Diaries which nabbed Choice TV Show: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Choice TV Male Scene Stealer (Michael Trevino), Choice TV Female Scene Stealer (Katerina Graham), Choice TV Actor: Sci-Fi/Fantasy (Ian Somerhalder), Choice TV Actress: Sci-Fi/Fantasy (Nina Dobrev).

See the full list here.

Click on the image for a larger version

As any pub quizzer knows, there are some truly bizarre genuine collective nouns out there: a bellowing of bullfinches, a parliament of owls, an aurora of polar bears, a labour of moles, the list goes on. But when someone on our Twitter feed last week pondered, “What do you call a group of Dwarves?” that set us wondering – why don’t SF and fantasy races and groups have their own collective nouns? So we put out a request on our Facebook page, and had an amazing response (and a few emails too – what are you afraid of our Facebook page? We’re very friendly!). Here are some of our favourites, but feel free to add more in the comments section:

A shortage of Dwarves (Dave Repoman Rowson)

A clank of Cybermen (Rad Kerriga)

A Glittering of (sh*t) vampires (Steve R Mainwaring)

A stench of zombies (Simon Mills)

A mince of Elves (Simon Mills)

A carpet of Wookies (Steve R Mainwaring)

A massacre of red shirts (Steve Cooper)

A cancellation of Browncoats (Telekinetic Firetruck)

An excretion of gungans (Stephen Elsden)

A kitchen showroom of toasters (Peter Watkinson)

A pepper of Daleks (Rob Hickling)

A cannon of Whovians (Ian Hayles)

An ego of wizards (Simon Mills)

An imagination of SFX readers (Damien Kelly)

A bemusment of Lost fans (Dean Smith)

An udder of Marvel superhero movies (Jayne Greenacre)

A sound of Silence (Simon Garfunkel*)

(* We think this may be a pseudonym)

The Trek Terrors

Janice Rand
Bad Barnet Rating: 5/5

Poor Ensign Rand. The unfortunate lass had to wander around the Enterprise wearing some kind of wicker basket/chessboard weave on her head that made her look as though her skull had elongated, HR Giger-Alien-style. Okay, so perhaps by the 23rd century women really could change the shape of their skulls to accommodate stylish ‘dos; maybe it was all the rage? But honestly, it must have weighed a ton. Three years of that and the poor woman would’ve had a crushed neck. Let’s hope Starfleet covered wig-related injuries in their pension scheme.

Elaan Of Troyius
Bad Barnet Rating: 4/5

Another Star Trek horror, this time from guest star France Nuyen as the titular Princess Elaan. Lord only knows how she heard a word anybody said to her with those woolly flaps hanging over her ears. On the plus side, however, apparently Captain Kirk had a thing for follicular fakery (can’t imagine why) because they ended up doing the horizontal space tango during the episode. Result!

We do have one question: why hasn’t Lady Gaga ripped off this look yet? It’s so very her…

Here’s the new teaser poster for the firsrt part of Twilight Breaking Dawn. I think they got my dad to take it. He’s one of those people who always cuts off heads and legs, and he’s done a blinder this time. We suspect the cast are all just out of shot at the bottom…

Game Of Thrones US Audience Grows
A few naysayers were bemoaning the fact that HBO’s Game Of Thrones wasn’t getting audiences anywhere near the likes of its channel mate True Blood, ignoring the fact that its viewing figures for the first two weeks (2.2 million) were pretty much in line with what the vampire show was getting when it first aired, before it became a bona fide phenomenon. With its third week, though, Game Of Thrones shows signs that it could follow a similar pattern – the numbers for episode three’s first screening were up to 2.4 million. Looks like decent word of mouth is benefiting the show. Though, let’s be honest, bearded warriors are a harder sell than sexy vampires so we’d be surprised (though delighted) if Thrones emulated Blood to the same extent. But up is good!

Sanctuary Struggles On Mondays
On the other hand, it looks like Syfy’s decision to move Sanctuary from its traditional Friday slot to Mondays has been a bad move. The show’s viewing figures have virtually halved from the first half of the season, broadcast last year, to 0.84 million. Ouch. Expect lots of press releases from Syfy about catch-up figures (which you’d assume with a show featuring fan favourite Amanda Tapping would be half-way decent).

Saving Grace Star Joins Total Recall
Bokeem Woodbine, who’s appeared in films such as Ray, The Rock and Devil (and also played death row inmate Leon Cooley in Saving Grace) is in final negotiations to join the cast of the Total Recall remake, reports Variety. He would play Quaid’s best friend in the film, which is being directed by Underworld’s Len Wiseman.

Cast Grows For Sci-Fi RomCom
Adam (The OC) Brody, Rob (Hot Tub Time Machine) Corddry and William (CSI) Petersen (right) are all in negotiations to join the cast of the Steve Carell-starring sci-fi romcom called Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, according to Variety. Production on the film will begin at the end of the May in Los Angeles. We can’t wait.

Hugh Jackman Could Be Going On A Fantastic Voyage
Deadline is reporting that there’s a strong possibility Hugh Jackman could star in the remake of Fantastic Voyage, the SF thriller about a group of scientists who are shrunk and injected into the body of a dying man to save him. If it happens he would be reteaming with his Real Steel director Shawn Levy. Apparently they got on like a house on fire while shooting that movie, and it’ll give him something to do while Fox sorts out what’s happening with The Wolverine.

Men In Black 3 Set Pics
Solaira Sun has posted a number of pics from the set of Men In Black 3, during the shooting of one of the film’s ’60s-based scenes on Coney Island. We get our first glimpse of the film’s villain, Boris (The Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement) as well as a dwarf Jimmi Hendrix impersonator. There isn’t a film that couldn’t be improved by a dwarf Jimmi Hendrix impersonator. Sophie’s Choice was crying out for one.

Vampires Versus Wizards At The MTV Awards
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Twilight: Eclipse are the frontrunners in the nominations for the MTV Movie Awards.

• Best Movie
  Black Swan
  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
  Inception
  The Social Network
  The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
• Best Female Performance
  Emma Stone — Easy A
  Emma Watson — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
  Jennifer Aniston — Just Go With It
  Kristen Stewart — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
  Natalie Portman — Black Swan
• Best Male Performance
  Daniel Radcliffe — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
  Jesse Eisenberg — The Social Network
  Robert Pattinson — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
  Taylor Lautner — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
  Zac Efron — Charlie St. Cloud
• Best Breakout Star
  Andrew Garfield — The Social Network
  Chloë Grace Moretz — Kick-Ass
  Hailee Steinfeld — True Grit
  Jay Chou — The Green Hornet
  Olivia Wilde — TRON: Legacy
  Xavier Samuel — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
• Best Comedic Performance
  Adam Sandler — Just Go With It
  Ashton Kutcher — No Strings Attached
  Emma Stone — Easy A
  Russell Brand — Get Him to the Greek
  Zach Galifianakis — Due Date
• Best Line From a Movie
  Alexys Nycole Sanchez — Grown Ups — “I want to get chocolate wasted.”
  Amanda Bynes and Emma Stone — Easy A — Amanda Bynes: “There is a higher power that will judge you for your indecency.” Emma Stone: “Tom Cruise?”
  Jesse Eisenberg — The Social Network — “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”
  Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield — The Social Network — Justin Timberlake: “…a million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool?” Andrew Garfield: “A billion dollars. And that shut everybody up.”
  Tom Hardy — Inception — “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darling.”
• Best Villain
  Christoph Waltz — The Green Hornet
  Leighton Meester — The Roommate
  Mickey Rourke — Iron Man 2
  Ned Beatty — Toy Story 3
  Tom Felton — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
• Best Fight
  Amy Adams vs. The Sisters — The Fighter
  Chloë Grace Moretz vs. Mark Strong — Kick-Ass
  Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint vs. Death Eaters — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
  Joseph Gordon-Levitt vs. Hallyway Attacker — Inception
  Robert Pattinson vs. Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
• Best Kiss
  Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt — Inception
  Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
  Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
  Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner — The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
  Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis — Black Swan
• Best Jaw-Dropping Moment
  James Franco — 127 Hours, Cuts Off His Arm
  Justin Bieber — Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Performance Spectacular
  Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page — Inception, Paris Café Scene
  Natalie Portman — Black Swan , Mutilation: Pulls The Skin Off Her Finger
  Steve-O — Jackass 3D, Port-A-Potty Bungee Stunt
• Best Scared-As-S— Performance
  Ashley Bell — The Last Exorcism
  Ellen Page — Inception
  Jessica Szohr — Piranha 3D
  Minka Kelly — The Roommate
  Ryan Reynolds — Buried
• Biggest Badass Star
  Alex Pettyfer — I Am Number Four
  Chloë Grace Moretz — Kick-Ass
  Jaden Smith — The Karate Kid
  Joseph Gordon-Levitt — Inception
  Robert Downey Jr. — Iron Man 2

Lee Pace, best know to SFX readers as Ned in Pushing Daisies, has been cast as Thranduil, the Elven King, in director Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. He has just finished filming his role as Garrett in Bill Condon’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. Says Jackson, “Casting these Tolkien stories is very difficult, especially the Elven characters, and Lee has always been our first choice for Thranduil. He’s going to be great. We loved his performance in a movie called The Fall a few years ago, and have been hoping to work with him since. When we were first discussing who would be right for Thranduil, Lee came into mind almost immediately.

Meanwhile, the role of the dwarf Fili, recently left vacant by ex-EastEnders actor Rob Kazinski for personal reasons, has gone to Kiwi actor Dean O’Gorman.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One is released on 18 November, followed by Part Two on 16 November.

Cast Assembles For World War Z
After a few rumours earlier this month that the movie version of Max Brooks’ zombie novel World War Z had hit a stumbling block, it now seems that the project is still moving full steam ahead. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Mireille Enos, best known for appearing in AMC’s television series The Killing, is up for a role in the movie. She would be playing the wife of Brad Pitt’s character. Quantum Of Solace’s Marc Forster is directing the big-budget movie while Pitt is among the producers. J Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) and Matt Carnahan wrote the script. The novel is set 10 years after a global zombie epidemic, and is an oral history told from many perspectives around the world. Pitt is playing a UN worker.

Piranha 3DD Nets A Cast
Dimension Films has announced that Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, Chris Zylka, David Koechner, Meagan Tandy, Paul James Jordan, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Hector Jimenez, Adrian Martinez and Clu Gulager will all be potential fish food in the sequel to Piranha 3D, which began production this week. Director is John Gulager (Feast) and the official plot description reveals, “There’s something in the water . . . again. And this time no one is safe from the flesh eating fish as they sink their razor sharp teeth into the visitors of the best summer attraction, The Big Wet Water Park.”

New Transformers: Dark Of The Moon Image
Get a closer look at the Decepticon Shockwave, courtesy of iTunes Movie Trailers (where there’s a much larger version).

Archangel Still In Development
Months ago it was announced that Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski was developing a sci fi project called Archangel, but since then he seems to have become more interested in another project – Horizons (which is being developed by Universal), not to mention that his name keeps cropping up in connection with a remake of The Black Hole. But it seems Archangel hasn’t been abandoned. Variety reports that Adam Cozad has come aboard to rewrite the screenplay. Cozad wrote the upcoming adaptation of Mark Greaney’s 2009 thriller novel The Gray Man and is one of the credited writers on the upcoming Untitled Jack Ryan Project. The film will be produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, and the original spec script was by newcomer Andrew Will. It deals with a military group assigned to hunt down alien life forms hiding out on Earth. The article doesn’t make it clear whether Kosinski is still actually attached.

Another Earth Trailer
See what you think of this “drama with sci fi elements” that Fox Searchlight acquired to distribution rights for at this year’s Sundance Festival.

More Twilight Novels?
Spoiler warning if you haven’t read the final book: There’s a chance that Stephenie Meyer may return to writing novels set in the Twilight-verse, news that will provoke either rapture and fear depending on your viewpoint, age and possibly sex. Speaking to publishing site Galleycat, (and reported via Blastr) she says although she won’t be writing any more books about Edward and Bella, because “the story’s already been told, and I doubt I’ll ever write another series based on the same characters,” she may have other plans. When asked whether Jacob (the werewolf/shape shifter) and Renesmee (Edward and Bella’s human/vampire hybrid child) could ever have children, she replied: “That is a question I’m reserving the right not to answer, because there is a chance I’ll go back to their story.”

Joss Whedon Asks Fans To Wish Him Some Avengers Luck
Not really news, but any words by Whedon are always worth reporting because they’re always such big fun. Anyway, on the eve of the first day of shooting on The Avengers he left the following message on Whedonesque:

“Hi Pumpkins, joss here.

Tomorrow we start shooting (I THINK I’m legally permitted to say that). Day one. That’s right. We’ll be shooting the pivotal death/betrayal/product placement/setting up the sequel/coming out scene, at the following address:

[Marvel Lawyers rush in, take Joss's keyboard, blowtorch a picture of his family like in "Stormy Monday", drink his milkshake, leave the seat up, fluff his pillows, violently unfluff his pillows, leave]

Went too far. My bad. Anyhoo, it should be a fun day, followed by the eighty thousand other fun days it will take to finish this. I’ll be checking in from time to time, if there’s news or I crave attention (i.e. am awake) . None of it will be Avengers news — I have some very denty pillows to remind of that — but I may have tidbits. (They’re not about Firefly. I should say that up front, if only to protect Sis Mo from the HATORZ.)

Some of you may be saying, Joss! Why this link, here, now, why, huh, howcum? My friend Allyx turned me on to these guys, and I’ll tell you, they’ve gotten me through this intensely pressurized, preply time. I strongly recommend checking out their other vids — I’ve watched them many many times, and I have a very special place for “Teamwork” in my heart. These guys are the guys. And IS there a better movie title than “Eagles Are Turning People Into Horses”? I thought not.

So wish me luck. DO IT! LUCK! NOW! I’m off to finish some Buffy pages, and then figure out what the movie is about already. I’m pretty sure it’s about the Justice League [Marvel Lawyers re-enter, unspeakability occurs] or possibly something else. I’ll get it. I’ve been looking forward to this. For about 46 years.

Catchphrase!”

Release date: 15 April 2011
12A * 99 minutes
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Julie Christie

After working on Twilight, with its wooded setting, angsty lurve encounters and supernatural trappings, you might think Catherine Hardwicke would be ready to move away from teen-centric action. But no, working from David Leslie Johnson’s script, she’s instead embraced the opportunity to create her own world, a medieval fantasy that blends the original, pre-Brothers Grimm legends of Red Riding Hood with a story of forbidden love that’s about as fresh as the 700-year-old fairytale. The result is something that successfully creates a foreboding tone and stylish period setting, but then uses them to bolster a flagging script that piles on the clichés even as the body count rises.

We’re introduced to Daggerhorn, a village that, despite the distinctly Carry On-sounding name, is home to a scared population being tormented by a savage werewolf. Legendary beast hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) is called in, and quickly raises the terror threat level to Change Of Underwear. But as paranoia levels rise along with the body count, young Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is more obsessed with her feelings for orphaned woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), even as her family wants her to marry the wealthy Henry (Max Irons).

With her wide, expressive, anime eyes, Seyfried is an engaging heroine, full of vigour and spirit… which makes it all the more disappointing that the story sets her up so well and then reduces her to a stock fairytale maiden. Likewise the lads (Irons and Fernandez), who form the other two sides of this love triangle: the passion is severely lacking, leading you to wonder just why Valerie would choose either one of them. As for the wolf? It’s a disappointingly shonky CG creation, which isn’t well served once the movie switches from brief flashes to extended shots of the beast.

Oldman is good value as the Van Helsing-style Solomon, though do you wonder why he felt the need to dig up a version of his Dracula accent for a film filled with basic American twangs. Still, it perfectly sums up the muddled feeling of a gothic horror romance that never feels all that romantic nor particularly scary.

James White

The nominations list has been announced for the annual Saturn Awards (they’ve been running since ’72 – you know, when things had to be really sci-fi or fantasy to get a mention in these awards… Dexter? Weeds? Oh well). The awards ceremony will take place in June. And how come no mention of anyone from True Blood in the best supporting characters category? Lafayette? Jessica? Eric? Come on…! Still, some interesting choices here, especially a well deserved and unexpected nod for the music in The Complete Metropolis.

Films:

Best Science Fiction Film

Hereafter (Warner Bros.)
Inception (Warner Bros.)
Iron Man 2 (Paramount/Marvel)
Never Let Me Go (Fox Searchlight)
Splice (Warner Bros.)
Tron: Legacy (Walt Disney Studios)

Best Fantasy Film

Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Studios)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (20th Century Fox)
Clash of the Titans (Warner Bros.)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Warner Bros.)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Universal)
Twilight: Eclipse (Summit Entertainment)

Best Horror/Thriller Film

The American (Focus)
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight)
Kick-Ass (Lionsgate)
Let Me In (Overture/Relativity Media)
Shutter Island (Paramount)
The Wolf Man (Universal)

Best Action/Adventure Film

The Expendables (Lionsgate)
The Green Hornet (Sony)
Red (Summit Entertainment)
Robin Hood (Universal)
Salt (Sony)
True Grit (Paramount)
Unstoppable (20th Century Fox)

Best Actor

Jeff Bridges (Tron: Legacy) (Walt Disney Studios)
George Clooney (The American) (Focus)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Inception) (Warner Bros.)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island) (Paramount)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man 2) (Paramount/Marvel)
Ryan Reynolds (Buried) (Lionsgate)

Best Actress

Cecile De France (Hereafter) (Warner Bros.)
Angelina Jolie (Salt) (Sony)
Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go) (Fox Searchlight)
Ellen Page (Inception) (Warner Bros.)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan) (Fox Searchlight)
Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) (Music Box Films)

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale (The Fighter) (Paramount)
Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go) (Fox Searchlight)
Tom Hardy (Inception) (Warner Bros.)
Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy) (Walt Disney Studios)
John Malkovich (Red) (Summit Entertainment)
Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island) (Paramount)

Best Supporting Actress

Scarlett Johansson (Iron Man 2) (Paramount)
Keira Knightley (Never Let Me Go) (Fox Searchlight)
Mila Kunis (Black Swan) (Fox Searchlight)
Helen Mirren (Red) (Summit Entertainment)
Vanessa Redgrave (Letters to Juliet) (Summit Entertainment)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Performance by a Younger Actor

Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief) (20th Century Fox)
Frankie/George McLaren (Hereafter) (Warner Bros.)
Kodi Smit McPhee (Let Me In) (Overture/Relativity Media)
Chloe Grace Moretz (Let Me In) (Overture/Relativity Media)
Will Poulter (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) (20th Century Fox)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) (Paramount)
Charlie Tahan (Charlie St. Cloud) (Universal)

Best Director

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) (Fox Searchlight)
Clint Eastwood (Hereafter) (Warner Bros.)
Christopher Nolan (Inception) (Warner Bros.)
Matt Reeves (Let Me In) (Overture/Relativity Media)
Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island) (Paramount)
David Yates (Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1) (Warner Bros.)

Best Writing

Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) (Walt Disney Studios/Pixar)
Alex Garland (Never Let Me Go) (Fox Searchlight)
Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John McLaughlin (Black Swan) (Fox Searchlight)
Peter Morgan (Hereafter) (Warner Bros.)
Christopher Nolan (Inception) (Warner Bros.)
Matt Reeves (Let Me In) (Overture/Relativity Media)

Best Music

Daft Punk (Tron: Legacy) (Walt Disney Studios)
Clint Eastwood (Hereafter) (Warner Bros.)
Michael Giacchino (Let Me In) (Overture/Relativity Media)
Gottfried Huppertz (as conducted by Frank Strobel) (The Complete Metropolis) (Kino Lorber)
John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon) (Paramount/DWA)
Hans Zimmer (Inception) (Warner Bros.)

Best Costume

Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Studios)
The Wolf Man (Universal)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (20th Century Fox)
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Warner Bros.)
Tron: Legacy (Walt Disney Studios)
Robin Hood (Universal)

Best Make-Up

Splice (Warner Bros.)
Repo Men (Universal)
Let Me In (Overture/Relativity Media)
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Warner Bros.)
The Wolf Man (Universal)
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Studios)

Best Production Design

How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount/DWA)
Shutter Island (Paramount)
Tron: Legacy (Walt Disney Studios)
The Wolf Man (Universal)
Inception (Warner Bros.)
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Studios)

Best Special Effects

Tron: Legacy (Walt Disney Studios)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (20th Century Fox)
Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Warner Bros.)
Inception (Warner Bros.)
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Studios)
Iron Man 2 (Paramount/Marvel)

Best International Film

The Complete Metropolis (Kino Lorber)
Centurion (Magnolia Pictures)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Music Box Films)
Monsters (Magnolia Pictures)
Mother (Magnolia Pictures)
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Best Animated Film

Despicable Me (Universal)
How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount/DWA)
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (Warner Bros.)
Shrek Forever After (Paramount/DWA)
Tangled (Walt Disney Studios)
Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney Studios/Pixar)

TELEVISION

Best Network Series:

Fringe (Fox)
Lost (ABC)
Smallville (CW)
Supernatural (CW)
V (ABC)
The Vampire Diaries (CW)

Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series:

Breaking Bad (AMC)
The Closer (TNT)
Dexter (Showtime)
Eureka (SyFy)
Leverage (TNT)
Spartacus: Blood and Sand (Starz)
True Blood (HBO)

Best Television Presentation:

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (BBC America)
Kung Fu Panda Holiday Special (NBC)
The Pillars of the Earth (Starz)
Sherlock (PBS)
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (Starz)
The Walking Dead (AMC)

Best Actor in Television:

Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) (AMC)
Matthew Fox (Lost) (ABC)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter) (Showtime)
Timothy Hutton (Leverage) (TNT)
Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead) (AMC)
Stephen Moyer (True Blood) (HBO)

Best Actress in Television:

Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) (AMC)
Erica Durance (Smallville) (CW)
Elizabeth Mitchell (V) (ABC)
Anna Paquin (True Blood) (HBO)
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer) (TNT)
Anna Torv (Fringe) (Fox)

Best Supporting Actor in Television:

Michael Emerson (Lost) (ABC)
John Noble (Fringe) (Fox)
Dean Norris (Breaking Bad) (AMC)
Terry O’Quinn (Lost) (ABC)
Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) (AMC)
Lance Reddick (Fringe) (Fox)
Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) (AMC)

Best Supporting Actress in Television:

Morena Baccarin (V) (ABC)
Gina Bellman (Leverage) (TNT)
Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter) (Showtime)
Laurie Holden (The Walking Dead) (AMC)
Lucy Lawless (Spartacus: Blood and Sand) (Starz)
Beth Riesgraf (Leverage) (TNT)

Best Guest Starring Role in Television:

Richard Dreyfuss (Weeds) (Showtime)
Noah Emmerich (The Walking Dead) (AMC)
Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) (AMC)
Joe Manganiello (True Blood) (HBO)
John Terry (Lost) (ABC)
Seth Gabel (Fringe) (Fox)

Eddie & Bella’s Honeymoon Retreat
To mark Valentine’s Day, Summit released a teaser image yesterday of Isle Esme, the island where Bella and Edward will spend their honeymoon in Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Looks a bit chilly to us. Could it be somewhere in Canada with a load of sand dumped on the shore, perhaps?

Two New TV Trailers For Sucker Punch

Contagion
Laughing Squid and Just Jared have both posted new images from Contagion, the Steven (Traffic) Soderbergh film about a lethal airborne virus, which apparently has slightly SF undertones. The film stars Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet and Jude Law. There are a few more pics where they came from so feel free to click on the links.

The CG Thundercats You Won’t See
A few years back Warners was working on a CGI Thundercats feature film that ultimately never came to fruition. Now there’s a new Thundercats TV ’toon in development, but Flixist.com has managed to uncover some test footage from that abandoned project.

Who Needs Charlie’s Angels? (Mild For Warning For UK Chuck viewers)
We all knew Charlie’s Angels was being remade for US TV, but it looks like Chuck sneaked in there first last night…

Shockwave Has A Bigger Gun Than Megatron
Clearly the best reason for going to see the next Transformers movie will be that Shockwave has “a bigger gun” and is “much more vicious” than Megatron. Director Michael Bay spoke to MTV news about Dark Of The Moon, also enthusing that, “Sentinel Prime is great. He’s great. I can’t tell you anything else, other than he’s great.” He also confirmed that the trilogy will have a sense of what Americans like to call closure: “”It does have an end, yes. Because I am finished doing this.” Every cloud, eh?

Ryan Gosling Could Be On The Run
According to Deadline, Ryan (Drive) Gosling is close to signing up to star in the remake of Logan’s Run, the 1976 movie set in a world where people willingly go to their deaths at the age of 30 (although in the original book it was 21). And it looks like Gosling’s Drive director, Nicolas Winding Refn, will be the man calling the shots. Gosling would play Logan 5, a Sandman who tracks down runners, people who try to avoid going to the Carousel for their euthanasia session… until he discovers the dark secret behind his society.

Two More Cast In Abe Lincoln
Dominic Cooper (who will soon be seen as Howard – father of Tony – Stark in Captain America) and Anthony Mackie have been cast in director Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, based on the book by Pride And Prejudice And Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith. According to Deadline, Mackie will play the role of Will, Lincoln’s best friend who is at centre of the vampire slaying, while Cooper will be Abe Lincoln’s mysteriously ageless mentor Henry.

Stephenie Meyer’s Non-Vampire Book Heading For The Screen
As well as writing about lovesick vampires, Stephenie Meyer has also written a book about a lovesick parasitic alien. No, really. It’s called The Host, and what do you know? Now it’s heading its way to the big screen as well. According to Variety, Susanna (NannyMcPhee Returns) White has been signed up by Chockstone Picture to direct the adaptation, while Andrew (The Truman Show, Gattaca) Niccol is writing the script. If you thought a girl/vampire/werewolf love triangle was weird, wait till you get a load of the girl/parasitic invading alien/freedom fighter three-way love tussle in this one.

Captain America 2?
Latino Review is claiming that work on the script for Captain America 2 is already underway: “Stephen McFeely & Christopher Markus, the screenwriters who penned Captain America The First Avenger, just got hired to write the sequel for Marvel Studios! Obviously the sequel is going to be present day and take place after he Avengers.”

Peter Jackson Surgery Delays Filming Of The Hobbit
According to a press release from The Hobbit’s publicity department, filming on the two movies has been delayed because Peter Jackson has had emergency surgery: “Sir Peter Jackson was admitted to Wellington Hospital on Wednesday night with acute stomach pains. He subsequently underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. Sir Peter is currently resting comfortably and his doctors expect him to make a full recovery. Sir Peter’s surgery is not expected to impact on his directing commitment to The Hobbit beyond a slight delay to the start of filming.” Our best wishes to him on a speedy recovery.

Snow White Casting
Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron have been cast in Universal’s Snow White And The Huntsman, according to Variety. Mortensen will play the Hunter while Theron is the evil queen. Meanwhile, Heat Vision is claiming that Twilight’s Kristen Stewart is in the running for the role of Snow White. The film is a new take on the classic fairy tale which expands the role of the Huntsman who, in the Brothers Grimm version, is ordered to take Snow White into the woods and kill her, but instead lets her go. In this new retelling, he becomes her mentor, teaching Snow White to fight and survive against the evil queen.

Babylon 5 Creator Adapting Harlan Ellison Story For The Screen
Babylon 5 creator J Michael Straczynski has confirmed on Facebook that he has adapted Harlan Ellison’s Repent Harlequin, Said The Ticktockman for the big screen: “Since this has apparently leaked onto several film-oriented websites, I should probably confirm the information and preclude distortion: I have optioned, and adapted into screenplay form, Harlan Ellison’s Repent Harlequin, Said The Ticktockman. It’s out to producers, studios and directors now. We hope to find a director who has always wanted to make this story into a movie. More as, if and when it develops.” The book is about a dystopian future where being late is a crime. Ellison was a creative consultant on Babylon 5.

Black Swan Scripter To Write Post-Apocalyptic Movie
According to Heat Vision, Black Swan co-scripter Mark Heyman is set to write a post-apocalyptic movie called Age Of Rage for Fox Searchlight. Apparently based on a idea by Spider-Man director Marc Webb, it’s set in a future world where everyone over a certain age has died and a group of teens sets about trying to establish a new society (hang on, isn’t this that Australian series, The Tribe?). Heyman is also currently writing the script for Machine Man.

Has The Dark Tower’s Gunslinger Been Cast?
Deadline is reporting that Javier Bardem, who won an Oscar for his role in No Country For Old Men, has been (unofficially) offered the lead role of Roland Deschain – The Gunslinger – in director Ron Howard’s movie-and-TV-show extravaganza The Dark Tower, based on the fantasy book series by Stephen King. Deschain is the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers, and humanity’s last hope to save a civilisation that will fall unless he finds the Dark Tower.

Fassbender For Ridley Scott’s Prometheus
X-Men: First Class’s Magneto, Michael Fassbender, has been signed up to star opposite Noomi Rapace in Ridley Scott’s not-Alien-at-all-really-no-honest sci fi movie Prometheus, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He will apparently be playing an android. The film, which has just had its release date change,  is now due to be released on 8 June 2012.

More Jesus In True Blood
Kevin Alejandro, who plays Lafayette’s new boyfriend Jesus in True Blood (he first turned up in season three), has told TVLine that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of his character in season four (or “The Season Of The Witch” as everybody is calling it): “All I can tell you — because they’re really tight-lipped over there — is that Lafayette and Jesus are both there and you’ll see a lot of us. You will definitely get to know Jesus better — and he’s a pretty likable guy. There definitely will be more interaction between Jesus and other characters this season, too.”

Toby Whithouse: “My youth was spent watching VHS video tapes hired from the local video shop in Southend where I grew up. Me and my mum would go to the video shop on a Saturday afternoon and get a film for all of us to watch as a family on a Saturday evening and then I would be allowed to get a horror film for Sunday morning. So I was watching stuff like The Evil Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, all the zombie films, all these appalling 18-rated vampire horror films I should never have been allowed to watch as a 12-year-old sitting in a sun-lit living room. That was my horror apprenticeship.”

Hammer Horror

“I remember seeing endless Hammer horror films growing up, but how vampires were dealt with there was a bit camp. It was very tied in with female sexuality, and at the time female sexuality terrified me even more than vampirism so I probably shied away from it and carried on reading Spider-Man. To be fair, female sexuality still terrifies me, as it does every other man. I can say that definitively, there was a meeting. There’s a memo. You terrify us. Women, I am here to tell you, you terrify us.”

Salem’s Lot

“A massive influence on me as a kid was the TV version of Salem’s Lot starring David Soul. My mum was also quite a horror fan so we’d stay up late and watch The Twilight Zone.

“We watched Salem’s Lot in the early ‘80s and it scared the shit out of us, and was very much a formative thing. I did read the book about 15 years later, and that was very good too, but David Soul… The man was terrifying, and it wasn’t just the ’80s hair.”

Ultraviolet

“A show I absolutely loved was Ultraviolet. Ultraviolet was a brilliant piece of television and a massive influence on Being Human. It was a courageous, exciting piece of television, and I wish it had run and run and run even if it would probably have put paid to Being Human. I would love to have written on that show. It was terrific, one of the most underrated shows of the last 20 years. You could see its ‘family tree’ of influences, yet it was totally original, and should have run for a dozen seasons.”

True Blood

“I’m a huge fan of True Blood. It’s brilliant, but very different to Being Human. Theirs is much more of an ensemble show. Theirs is in a way about an official subset of humanity and how this subset will coexist with the rest of humanity. Ours is more about an anonymous pocket of the supernatural who are fighting to preserve humanity.
“I think the irony of Being Human is that our heroes are fighting to defend humanity whereas if humanity were to know about their existence humanity would ostracise them and probably lynch them.”

Twilight

“I’m not a fan of Twilight but then again I’m a 40-year-old heterosexual. If I liked Twilight the producers have gone very wrong somewhere, it’s just not intended for me. Thankfully. Twilight is a franchise, above everything else. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastically successful one and for that it should be admired. But it’s no more about the genre than Justin Bieber is a serious songwriter. The mark of a successful genre piece is if it inspires the reader or viewer to explore the territory further. I could be wrong but I can’t imagine any Twilight fans running out to buy a copy of Let The Right One In, or watch Thirst. They’re more likely to buy a Robert Pattison calendar. And I’m sure tonight, as the makers lie down on a bed of money, they’ll really give a damn what I think.”

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

& Angel

“It’s one of the great myths about me. I have never in my life watched an episode of Buffy or Angel. Not in terms of hating it, I just never got round to it. I’d love to see them. Everyone says they’re great. I’ve not seen Firefly either, I saw the film but never the series. Don’t look at me like that.”

Let The Right One In

“Let The Right One In is the benchmark by which all vampire books and films will be judged. What I loved about it was that it made the subject matter so unsexy. Rather than a troubled soul with cleavage or high cheekbones, the vampire was feral and craven. The approach was utterly realistic and that’s what made it so chilling. The supernatural was reduced to something desperate and domestic. It was an absolute masterpiece.”

This is an exclusive extract from our new special. Read lots more from Toby in the issue itself! And learn more about what you can find in the latest SFX Vampire Special.

Entertainment Weekly (the paper version, not the website version, so click on the link if you like, but there’s nothing to see here, move along) has published a new shot from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One featuring Bella and Edward on their wedding night.

“It’s one of the most anticipated scenes,” says director Bill (Chicago) Condon in the magaziner article. “I spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about it. The anticipation is part of it and you want to play with what people expect and maybe subvert it a little and surprise them.”

Blimey, maybe Bella gets out the whip and handcuffs.

1 Dancing Jar Jar Binks

Watch the lop-eared buffoon have some kind of seizure as the sound of his plastic joints clanking drown out a tinny version of the Cantina Band. The only silver lining is that it does look like somebody’s mercilessly torturing him…

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]]> http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/12/19/10-bits-of-sci-ta-you-won%e2%80%99t-want-in-your-stocking/feed/ 8 http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/12/10/friday-link-a-mania-15/ http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/12/10/friday-link-a-mania-15/#comments Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:01:56 +0000 Dave Golder http://www.sfx.co.uk/?p=42733 Spider-Man’s Flash cast, X-Men: First Class set photos, the most searched-for trailers of the year…

X-Men: First Class Photos
ComicBookMovie has posted a number of set pictures from X-Men: First Class. Taken at Jekyll Island, Georgia, the photos appear to show the set being built. Seen among the not-yet-assembled pieces is what the site speculates is the cockpit of the Blackbird (the X-Men’s personal jet).

Flash… Ah-Ahhhhhhhhhhh!
TheWrap has confirmed that Chris Zylka’s role in Marc Webb’s Spider-Man reboot is that of Peter Parker’s high school nemesis, jock Flash Thompson. Zylka’s most high profile role previously was as recurring character Joey Donner in TV’s 10 Things I Hate About You.

Taylor Lautner Set For Incarceron
Twilight werewolf and cut-off jeans model Taylor Lautner is set to appear in the big screen adaptation of young adult fantasy novel Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, reports Deadline. The film, which is being developed by Fox 2000, is about a 17-year-old named Finn (Lautner) who has lived his whole life in a self-sustaining prison where one generation of inmates gives birth to the next. According to legend, only man who ever escaped Incarceron, but Finn intends to be the second.

The Most Googled Film Trailers Of The Year
According to Google’s annual review of internet users’ search patterns, the most searched-for film trailer of 2010 was Twilight: Eclipse. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 was second (though there’s no data about how many people actually typed the full title into their search engine) with Iron Man 2 third. Lost was the most searched-for TV show. Transformers 3 was the only SF or fantasy franchise to make it into the general entertainment Top 10 (at 10) which was topped by Justin Beiber.

UNEXPECTED GUEST STAR OF THE WEEK

Victor escapes the Dollhouse and doubles as videogame Simon in Misfits.

MOST OUT OF CHARACTER MOMENT OF THE WEEK

Gold old Arthur. Virtuous Arthur. Shining knight of Camelot, moral and true. When he inherits the kingdom he won’t be random and cruel like his father, oh no, and there’ll be more tolerance of magic, won’t there? Well, maybe there’s more of his dad in him than we suspected if this “Give me the cup or I kill the druid boy!” moment is anything to go by. Next thing you know Gwen’ll be discovering a hologram of him killing all the younglings, and his journey to the Dark Side will be complete.

MOST POINTLESS USE OF A TORCH OF THE WEEK

We reckon Sanctuary’s Magnus needs to eat more carrots… Blimey, it looks like there’s a white dwarf parked right outside that massive window. How much more light does she need?

VOMIT-INDUCING MOMENT OF THE WEEK

No Ordinary Family just keeps on giving us more reasons to hate it. Aside from a villain this week who reaches a bedroom using ver… y… slow… tel… e… kin… e… sis… to open some drawers rather than just pulling them open, and amazing flame resistant clothing (with nary a whiff of unstable molecules) it also gave us the “touching” scene… and by touching, we mean we were touching the off-switch. The sculpture on the left is Jim’s handmade anniversary gift to Steph. Literally handmade… he used his super strength to carve it from marble, apparently. It represents how they’re stronger together than they are apart. Ah sweet, Oh yeah, and yuk. Hideous, isn’t it. But it gets worse. Later, Steph and Jim fight side-by-side for the first time. They are, yes, you guessed it, stronger together than they are apart. And just in case we haven’t asphyxiated from acute metaphor-smothering yet, they clasp hands in exactly the same way as they do in the sculpture, and just to ram home the point even more, they crossfade back to the sculpture. Somebody, please, make them stop…

GOTH OF THE WEEK

He’s called Tenebrae (well, that’s what he says). He calls his bedroom his inner sanctum. He stands in front of columns that make it look like he’s wearing a big Dracula collar (though that may just be coincidence). And he totally fails to cop off with Lost Girl’s Kenzi (who can blame her?). His biting response? “Sad now. But we shall meet again… in the eternal void.” That’s probably his name for the launderette.

CRITIC OF THE WEEK
Tim Burton on the first Twilight movie: “I think some things are just a phenomenon and that’s okay.” Oh, while we’re on the subject of Burton, we did chuckle at the Tim’n’Helena at home sketch on the otherwise fairly torpid The Impressions Show, especially the director’s recipe for bolognaise sauce: “And, of course, it’s got Johnny Depp in it.”

MORE AWARDS ON THE NEXT PAGE…

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Are you besotted with Twilight? Or do you know someone who is? And what we mean with besotted is, do you own more pictures of Robert Pattinson than you do of your own family? Or are your Twilight books are so well-thumbed you had to buy new copies? Twice? Or you dress like Bella, no matter whether the occasion is a birthday party or a funeral or a shower.

If so, SFX wants you to get in touch! In an upcoming special we want to dedicate a page or two to the craziest, most devoted, most intense Twilight fans in a feature we’re doing on the all-conquering franchise. If you want to be in with a chance of getting in the mag, please email us at sfx@futurenet.com with the reasons why we should feature you – why you are the biggest fan of them all. Send pictures in too, if you like.

We’ll get in touch with those of you who most impress, and magazine stardom could soon be yours! (And no, we’re not going to take the mick, honest!)

First Glimpse At Mega City One
Bleeding Cool has a few pics of South Africa’s Cape Town Civic Centre doubling up as Mega City One in the new Dredd film (click on the image or link to see more). Not much like the city we know from the comics yet. Presumably they’ll be working some CG wonders.

Are These Alien Prequel Designs?
Scriptflags has posted what its source claims to be concept designs for Ridley Scott’s new Alien prequel move, specifically of the Space Jockey (but there’s no 100% proof that they are).

“The Pandorica Opens” Wins FX Award
Doctor Who’s CG FX team The Mill has won the Digital Effects award at this year’s Royal Television Society Craft and Design Awards for it’s work on the episode “The Pandorica Opens”, reports Gallifrey Base. According to the RTS: “The judges were impressed by some beautifully-integrated effects and by green screen. ‘This is about as good as it gets on TV’ they said.” Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s Sherlock won three awards: best picture enhancement, best tape and film editing in a drama, and best original title music.

First Official Image From Twilight: Breaking Dawn Movie
Posted by director Bill Condon on the film’s official Twitter feed. Um, okay…

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1 Eric Stoltz Back To The Future

Michael J Fox is Marty McFly – it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the guitar-torturing, skateboarding, match-making time traveller. But Eric Stoltz nabbed the role first, spending weeks filming Back To The Future before director Robert Zemeckis deemed his performance a little too serious (and the fact his first choice, Mr Fox, had finally managed to juggle scheduling difficulties with sitcom Family Ties also helped).

Stoltz hasn’t really discussed the firing but he’s hardly doing badly these days: not only is he headlining Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica, in the last fortnight alone he’s directed not just one but two US TV shows. (Oh, and Fringe fans might have spotted a reference to him actually starring in Back To The Future in their alternate Earth. Nice one.)

REASON? “That funny Michael J Fox is free? YOU’RE FIRED!”

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12A * 82 mins * 15 October 2010
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Directors: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer
Cast: Jenn Proske, Matt Lanter, Diedrich Bader, Chris Riggi

From the writer-directors of Date Movie, Meet The Spartans and Disaster Movie comes this spoof on Twilight.

Still reading?

If you are, thanks for sticking around and we’ll tell you a little more – although if you’ve seen Twilight, why bother reading? Becca Crane (likeable newcomer Proske) moves to a new town and starts at an unfriendly school where her eye is taken by a pale youth in a long coat. He’s called Edward Sullen. Although the two are drawn together they just can’t quite get it on. There’s also another boy who fancies Bella, but he has some issues along lycanthropic lines. Etcetera. You get the picture.

So, is it funny? Well, here’s a selection of jokes to help you decide: a teacher says to Becca, “Why don’t you sit next to that mysterious boy you’re destined to have a fatalistic relationship with and will spawn four books and a movie franchise?”; the “finger food” at a buffet is literally human fingers; a character has writing on her neck which reads “Insert fangs here”; and Iris, Edward’s prescient sister, gives Becca a present of a box of Tampax – Becca says, “But I’m not on my period” – Iris responds, “You will be – it’s coming early this month.”

Then there’s the random references to Vampire Weekend, Lindsay Lohan, Lady Gaga, Stephenie Meyer’s Twitter page and True Blood (one character briefly swigs a bottle of it) that all pop up.

Anxious to see it yet? Listen, we’ll climb off the fence: it’s a movie that will have you pining to watch the real Twilight films. Yes, it’s that bad.

Russell Lewin

Will Rhys Ifans Be The Lizard?
According to The Wrap, Welsh actor Rhys Ifans will be playing Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot movie, though the site is vague as to its sources of the information, so file under rumour for the moment. During the Sam Raimi trio of Spidey movies, Dylan Baker played the one-armed Dr Connors (it’s his experiments into growing back his missing arm using a lizard serum that turn him into the supervillain) and it was expected that he would play the scalier version of the character at some point had Raimi not been ousted from the franchise. The Wrap article also says that despite reports elsewhere Venom will not be in the movie.

Tom Hardy For Nolan’s Next Batman
You know, years back people used to laugh at SFX when we used to rave about Tom Hardy. Back then it was a case of, “Tom who?” and we were forced to mumble, “He played Shinzon in Star Trek Nemesis,” because that was the only role he’d had then that anybody would recognise. It wasn’t the best of recommendations, to be honest, but he was one of the few good things about that movie, and since then his career has goner from strength to strength. And now comes the news he will be reteaming with his Inception director, Christopher Nolan, for a major role in the next Batman movie, if Deadline is to be believed. No news yet on who he’d be playing, but we’re pretty sure it won’t be The Penguin, unless Nolan has some very odd plans for the character. Maybe he’ll be a new take on Robin?

Twilight Covens Cast
Summit Entertainment has released a list of actors who you’ve mostly never heard of (though Lee Pace from Pushing Daisies is one of them) playing  a bunch of secondary vampire characters you probably don’t acre about who no doubt amass about two minutes of screen time between them in the next Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn. You can click here if you really need to know.

Hobbit Decision Imminent (Again)
It seems we get to write that headline about once a week now. They seem to be having meetings to decide when to decide to make a decision about the announcement of the next decision. But according to The New Zealand Herald, a spokesman for director-producer Peter Jackson  has told them, “Warner Brothers are running financial models about the costs of shooting in a variety of countries. We expect a decision is still a week or two away.” This comes after a meeting between between representatives of the country’s Screen Production and Development Assn, New Zealand Actors’ Equity and the Council of Trade Unions about issues that New Zealand actors have over pay in general, not just on The Hobbit, although the fall-out call mean The Hobbit would film elsewhere. Hey, they could come to Cardiff. If it’s good enough for Gallifrey it’s good enough for Middle-earth.

Lots Of Rubbish About Regeneration
You’ve probably encountered on of many stories like this about how the Doctor is immortal now, and all the old rules about 13 regenerations have been overturned. The story is complete bobbins (and fundamentally incorrect) but we won’t spoil it for you by revealing the truth. Just watch the episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures in question, “Death Of The Doctor” (it airs in a couple of weeks)  with an open mind, and then wonder if some people have had a complete irony bypass operation. Oncoming storm in a teacup, if you ask us.

POETRY OF THE WEEK

It seems fitting that in the week we had National Poetry Day, Chuck’s Lester should turn out to be a budding Vogon.  His “free-form no-holds-barred poetry slam” in the Buy More contained such gems as: “The flea-ridden masses infest my house/Do I cry?/Perchance to die?/ No, McFly/This game launch will not be televised.” No wonder the audience turned ugly.

WISHFUL THINKING OF THE WEEK

Apparently there’s no Bono or U2 in Fringe’s alternative universe. Let’s all move there now! (is it any coincidence that Bolivia/Fauxlivia, or whatever you want to call her, mispronounces his name to rhyme with “Oh no”?)

OVER-GENEROUS ASSESSMENT OF THE WEEK

In Haven (US-pace) this week, Duke shows Nathan a bag full of dollar bills. “It’s counterfeit,” says Nathan, glancing at it casually. “It’s good. Really good.” Yeah, so good it takes Nathan about, oh, two seconds to recognise it’s fake. That makes it about as good as Monopoly money, surely?

STRANGEST SYNCHRONISED DREAM OF THE WEEK

Okay, so Allison Dubois in Medium has strange dreams all the time, but that doesn’t explain how she and hubbie Joe appear to be having a simultaneous nocturnal Highland Fling.

NIGHTCLUB OF THE WEEK

Fancy a night out? Fit into one of the following categories: “Vamps, Tramps, Shape-shifters, Were-folk, FangBangers and anyone with a taste for the dark side of The South”? Is your CD collection full of death country, hick-hop, southern rock, cowpunk, hellbilly, electroslash, dedneck and swamp blues? Enjoy live bands, bleeding edge cabaret and fetish/neo-burlesque performances? Then the place to be the swamplands… of Bethnal Green! Because, yes, London now has its very own Fangtasia – well, once a month anyway (which would better for werewolves rather than vampires, surely?). Apparently it’s “a vampire club night in London without the velvety pretensions of yesteryear!” Sorry, Drac, you’re just sooooo passe. Vampires now like albino peacocks feeding on their own colonic irrigation, apparently.

LONELY STAR WARS DEATH OF THE WEEK
Luke Skywalker died alone and unloved, we hear. But not that Luke Skywalker. In a sad cautionary tale about the dangers of changing your name by deed poll, a 43-year-old-man who had decided to call himself after the Star Wars farm boy passed away in Croydon recently. But, according to a story in the local newspaper, (which we spotted via Private Eye), “he did not seem to have any close friends locally” and nobody seemed to know who he really was. The local council passed the case to undertakers the Rowland Brothers, who attempted to find some family or friends, but “the deed poll office are not allowed to give out a person’s former name or personal details.” So poor old Luke had a very lonely funeral, and any relations he might have had presumably believe he’s still alive, somewhere far, far away… Have you lost touch with a Star Wars-loving relative recently?

RETRO TRAILER OF THE WEEK
What if Alfred Hitchcock had directed Inception? Featuring the music from Spellbound, it oddly feels all so, so right…

LEAST IMPRESSIVE CLAIM TO FAME OF THE WEEK

Desperate for her 15 minutes, the hand model whose hands were photographed for the iconic cover of the first Twilight book is trying to get the recognition she feels she deserves… by carrying an apple around with her. Massage therapist Kimbra Hickey, who was paid £190 for the photoshoot, says, “I see people reading the book on the subway, and I say: ‘Those are my hands. I’m a hand model,’” and she produces the apple to prove it. At which point people on the subway get off at the next stop, presumably.

ICKY PHONE ACCESSORY OF THE WEEK
This has just been making us feel ill ever since our Jordan discovered it – a David Cronenberg-style phone charger. See how long you last before feeling queasy…

BEGGING LETTER OF THE WEEK
“Captain Jack Sparrow,
At Meridian on Old Woolwich Road, we are all a bunch of budding young pirates. Normally we’re a right handful but we’re having trouble mutinying against the teachers! We’d love it if you could come and help.
from
Beatrice Delap
aged 9,
a budding pirate”

You know what? It worked. Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 was being filmed just a few minutes away from the school, and Johnny Depp made a surprise visit in full costume for the assembly of a lifetime. He gave a 15-minute performance as Captain Jack, and warned Beatrice that mutinying against her teachers might get her into trouble. And thank god we live in an age when all kids carry camera phones.

POLITICAL PHOTOSHOPPERY OF THE WEEK
Congratulations to Sarah Plane and Jonas Foreman of Guardian Imaging for this biting piece of PhotoShop satire in The Guardian, featuring everyone’s favourite sweeping cuts-meister, jolly George Osborne, Chancellor Of The Exchequer and chief killjoy.

SURPRISE GUEST APPEARANCE OF THE WEEK
During a piece on The Sky At Night this week, we were a mite surprised when one of the astronomers building a giant radio telescope suddenly whipped out a sonic screwdriver and commenced scanning. Apparently the astronomer in question is a big Who fan, and just happened to have his replica sonic handy… (thanks to Russell Parker for bringing this to our attention).

MILDLY AMUSING SKIT THAT COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH FUNNIER OF THE WEEK
It’s a great idea: what if ITV had made Doctor Who in the ’70s as a typically un-PC comedy? And there are a couple of chortlesome moments here, but you can’t help thinking Enfield and Whitehouse are a bit past their best now, sadly. The FX are far too good as well. Where are the thick blue matte lines?

Emma Thompson May Be Men In Black’s Boss
Emma Thompson is is in talks to play Oh, the head of MiB in Men In Black 3, reports Coming Soon (presumably old boss Zed is out of favour after the actor who played him, Rip Torn, was arrested after being falling into paralytic doze in a bank with a loaded gun on his person). Thompson would be joining previously-announced cast members Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Jemaine Clement. The film is scheduled for a May 2012 release.

ComicCon Staying In San Diego… For The Moment
Despite widespread reports that ComicCon was imminently about to up-sticks to Anaheim, the convention committee has announced that the biggest jamboree on the sci-fi and fantasy calender will stay in San Diego until at least 2015.

More Of The Denali Coven Cast in Twilight: Breaking Dawn
A few days back it was announced that Lost’s Maggie Grace would be playing Irina Delani in the final two Twilight movies, and now her two sisters have been cast, along with another member of the Denali coven, says The Hollywood Reporter. MyAnna Buring (The Descent, Lesbian Vampire Killers – she’ll love be reminded of that – and Scooti in Doctor Who’s “The Impossible Planet”) is playing Irina’s sister Tanya, a rival to Bella for the attention of Edward. Casey LaBow will play Kate, who has the ability to produce an electric current that can shock opponents. Mia Maestro will be Carmen, the female head of the Denali Coven.

Sneak Peek Of Destiny’s Bridge Set In Stargate Universe
Blastr has lots of great pics of the new set for the Destiny’s bridge (unseen is season one) that we’ll get to see in season two… Here are just a few. Click on any of them to take you to the page where you can see the whole set.

3D MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Look at that explosion coming right out of the screen at you! James Cameron has clearly been trying out the next generation of 3D technology in secret on the kids in Haven.

INNUENDO OF THE WEEK

Warehouse 13: Archie: “I thought handling some ancient spears would trigger a notion.”
Claudia: “Well I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re handling your ancient spear.”

DECORATION OF THE WEEK

Got any plans for Halloween yet? How about making a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern? This site will show you how in step-by-step detail (though we think using LEDs is cheating – it should be a candle on a turntable, surely?).

ROAD SIGN OF THE WEEK

The state of Oregon has come up with a cunningly copyright-skirting, but quite clearly Twilight-influenced road safety campaign. Surely, though, they run the risk of distracting all teenage girl drivers with sudden thoughts of swoony Edward giving them a back-seat necking?

KITCHEN IMPLEMENT OF THE WEEK

It’s the cutting edge of 23rd century technology for when you want a pizza the action, etc, etc, etc.

DULLEST TEASER POSTER OF THE WEEK

Be still our beating hearts…

MISTARGETED AUDIENCE OF THE WEEK

Okay, this is genius, but it’s also slightly worryingly – Sesame Street doing a True Blood skit, complete with a superb send-up of the title sequence (though we did note that they’ve used contractions – “that’s” instead of “that is”… anal, us?). Now, we can understand things like references to Goodfellas in A Shark’s Tale cos parents have to take their kids to see films like that, so it’s like an extra little in-joke for them to enjoy. But with Sesame Street, don’t you just plonk your kids down in front of the TV, and leave them there while you have sex, or mow the lawn, or turn into Wonder Woman and save the world or something. Then again, it ensures viral coverage on the internet and big publicity. Damn, we’ve been scammed! Oh, and we’d love to see Red Fraggle in a future episode as Jessica.

DOCTOR WHO COSPLAY COSTUME OF THE WEEK EVER

The idea is amazing. The execution is stunning. Although we suspect the Doctor 10 double is standing like that less because he’s trying to look like Tennant and more because if he stood up straight he could get a little prick up the bottom (hah, the gay agenda lives on). It was created by alternatecoppa, whose girlfriend’s Sally Sparrow/Weeping Angel costume is a masterpiece as well.

METAPHOR OF THE WEEK
Chuck producers Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak describing how the show keeps avoiding the axe…

• Schwartz: We do bear a striking resemblance to a cockroach [laughs]. That’s probably not the headline we want.
• Fedak: What’s that even mean?
• Schwartz: They always say cockroaches can survive a nuclear explosion.
• Fedak: Chuck can survive a nuclear explosion!

BOOK TRAILER THAT’S CRYING OUT TO BE BE A MOVIE OF THE WEEK
Quirk Books have made quite a pile lately with their mash-ups of classic literature with fantasy nonsense, such as Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and Android Karenina. We found the joke wears off pretty quickly, to be honest. However, we’re genuinely impressed by their latest book, Night Of The Living Trekkies, which splices together zombies and Star Trek! Now they’ve released a simply awesome trailer for the book, which shows what a brilliant movie it would make. Come on Paramount, option the rights for a direct-to-video movie! We’d buy a feature-length version of this! You can read our review of the book here, by the way.

PHOTOSHOPPED T-SHIRT OF THE WEEK
You may not have heard about it, but The Pope visited Britain recently. Amongst the people attending a protest march was Sir Ian McKellen. Writer/illustrator Greg Stekelman saw the chance for a bit of photoshop fun (before shot on the right, after on the left). Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t realise the t-shirt was fake. Never mind that, we’re saying – why isn’t it a real t-shirt? We should get one printed up for him!

So, here they are – over the next few pages, the results of round two of the Big SFX 200 poll! These are the Top 20s in each individual category as you lot voted for them.

And remember there’s still a round to go. The winners of each round are now going forward into The Ultimate Best SF or Fantasy Character Ever poll, which you can vote for by going here.

VAMPIRES

Welcome to another round in SFX’s 200 Greatest SF and fantasy characters ever poll in celebration of SFX’s 200th edition, coming up in August.

In part one of this poll SFX forumites posted hundreds and hundreds of suggestions for SF and fantasy’s greatest characters. We have now gone through those lists and a) tallied up who was getting the most votes and b) split the nominees into 10 categories.

Now we’re letting you to vote in each of those categories. The latest – and LAST – category is Vampires

• If you want to vote for your favourite HERO click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite HEROINE click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite SUPERHERO click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite MONSTER click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite ROBOTS, ANDROIDS AND AIs click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite ALIEN click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite SAGE BOFFIN OR MENTOR  click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite ANTI-HERO  click here.
• If you want to vote for your favourite VILLAIN  click here.

(Of course, some characters could fit in multiple categories, so we’ve had to make some arbitrary decisions here and there, but we’re running the poll, so live with it!)

We will start revealing the results from 16 August, in the lead up to isue 200 going on sale! Then, finally there will be an ultimate megapoll pitting all the winners of the various individual polls to find out who is the most popular character ever!

PLEASE NOTE: You are voting for the character as a whole, not individual incarnations or representations of that character. The images below are purely to stop the page from looking dull, they are not an indication that you are voting for a particular version of that character

• ComicBookMovie.com reckons it has the scoop on who’s on the shortlist to play the villain (allegedly The Riddler)  in Christopher Nolan’s third Batman movie: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy. You’ll not, no doubt, that are all from Inception… So is this scoop from an inside source or a bit of “two plus two” inspiration?

• Director Bill Condon has cast Pushing Daisies’ Lee Pace as Garrett, a friend of Edward’s (Robert Pattinson) in the two-part Breaking Dawn finale to the big screen Twilight saga, reports Latino Review.

• Comic creator Len Wein tells Movieweb that the only thing standing in the way of a new Swamp Thing movie are lawyers (stand fast, lawyers) and that Akiva (A Beautiful Mind, Fringe, Batman And Robin) Goldsman is itching to write the script.

• We’ll be getting a brief flash of Olivia Wilde in the nude in Cowboys And Aliens, according to ComicBookMovie.com. “We just finished shooting Olivia Wilde naked in front of a bonfire in front of 500 Apache warriors,” says Adam Beach, who plays Harrison Ford’s henchman Nat Colorado in the film. “That was beautiful. You won’t get to see what I saw, but you’ll get a glimpse.” The DVD extras could be interesting.

• The CW network is planning to replace Smallville (which comes to an end after ten seasons in 2011) with another DC Comics-inspired show, according to ComicBookMovies.com… though they haven’t actually acquired any rights yet… or even decided on what property they want to go with. (Go on… go for Bouncing Boy – you know you want to).

• Despite a dip in ratings for season two, Fringe is in no danger, a Fox bigwig tells EW’s Mike Ausiello: “We have no intention of screwing with Fringe because the show has been going great,” assured Fox’s entertainment president Kevin Reilly. “It really came into its own last season. If I have any frustration it’s that I’d like the audience to be bigger because people deserve to see the work.”

• Predators producer Robert Rodriguez is apparently in negotiations over whether or not he’ll be involved with the big screen version of Deadpool, according to Total Film.

• Huzzah! Bungie has announced the completion of sci-fi videogame Halo Reach. The new title –  the sixth set in the Halo universe – will be out on 14 September and is set in 2552, shortly before the events of 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved. You’ll play supersoldier Noble 6 rather than Master Chief. For more information, visit http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=258047.

Has Marvel Chosen Its New Hulk
According to Deadline New York, Marvel could well be announcing its new Hulk for The Avengers at ComicCon next week, and the site’s hot tip is… Mark Ruffalo. Yeah, we thought “Mark who?” too. He’s the kind of actor hyou’ve vaguely heard of, but you’d be hard pressed to recall what you’d seen him in, but looking at IMDB, he’s certainly never been short of work. He’s recently been seen in Shutter Island, The Kids Are All Right and Where The Wild Things Are, and is generally considered to be a pretty darned good actor. Which is probably less important than two other items on Marvel’s checklist: a) is he cheap and b) does he do as he’s told.

Well, What Do You Tink?
Walt Disney Picturesis to produce a live action romantic comedy based on the Peter Pan fairy Tinkerbell called Tink, reports Variety. 30 Rock actress Elizabeth Banks will play the starring role in the film, which will be produced by Adam Shankman, Jennifer Gibgot and Terminator Salvation director (and Chuck executive producer) McG. McG will also write the script along with Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, who developed the idea. The concept apparently plays with the mischievous nature of the Tinkerbell character.

What We Will And Won’t See In Twilight: Breaking Dawn
Well, the answer for a lot of Twihaters will be they won’t see anything in Breaking Dawn because they’ll refuse to watch it. But for those who do intend on witnessing the bizarre events of the final book on screen in the final two-part movie adaptation, scriptwriter Melissa Rosenberg has been dropping hints to PopSugar (Warning: spoilers ahoy): “The childbirth — all the scenes, I feel — should be on screen,” she says clarifying an interview from earlier in the year when she suggested that the films might shy away from some of the book’s more graphic scenes. “I think perhaps what I was referring to was, would we actually see Edward’s teeth through the placenta? I don’t think so. I don’t think we need to see that, and if someone needs to see that, I think they should take a look at that. [Laughs.] I believe it will be implied, but I don’t think we’ll see teeth in the placenta.” Right, that’s us lot on SFX booked in for some therapy – toothy placenta scenes sound like the kind of horror film we love…

Rosenberg also said she looking forward to Bella’s transformation. “I think seeing Bella as a vampire and her adjusting to her powers and embracing them, those are all really fun scenes to write. Particularly when you picture Kristen Stewart playing her, and the way she’s embodied Bella as a sort of awkward, fidgety persona. When she turns into a vampire, all of that goes away.”

True Blood’s Stephen Moyer Thrown From Horse
Stephen Moyer – Vampire Bill in True Blood – injured his knee when he was thrown from a horse while filming season three of True Blood, according to Aces Showbiz. “I had an accident on this season of True Blood. I rode behind a stuntman and the horses didn’t want us there and we were in this forest. I came off and he came off and the horse went back and I landed on this two-foot square piece of concrete and it’s the only piece of concrete in the whole forest – straight on my knee.”

12A * 123 mins * 9 July 2010
Distributor: Summit Entertainment
Director: David Slade
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Xavier Samuel, Anna Kendrick

Twilight film in “not gut-wrenchingly awful” shocker? No, we haven’t been glamoured; we’re as surprised as you.

The story lends itself to a more cinematic, reluctant-boyfriend-friendly narrative, for a start. Following on from New Moon’s seven-year-sulk, Eclipse picks up on the eve of war, with the testy Edward/Bella/Jacob love triangle unspooling alongside the rise of a new-born vamp army. Rachel (franchise newbie Dallas Howard) – still out for blood after the murder of her partner – is the one leading the charge against the Cullens and Jacob’s Quileute werewolf tribe. They form an uneasy alliance to protect Bella, who faces her own life-changing decisions about any future with Edward.

As Harry Potter has already proven, the right director can make all the difference when it comes to invigorating a stalled franchise, and 30 Days Of Night helmer David Slade infuses this third entry with the kind of visceral set-pieces, knowing humour and more measured melodrama that the saga has been sorely lacking. The script’s still saturated with clunking dialogue and cack-handed self-importance that all but Twi-hards will find laughable; but it helps that Bella is less wet blanket, more damp paper towel this time – infinitely more likeable as she takes the wheel of her own life story. She even smiles at least twice.

Slade’s frequently striking cinematography (taking in snow-covered peaks and an ominous Seattle skyline) and a pacier structure make Eclipse much more palatable than previous entries, but devotees will still lap it up for undead-disco-ball Edward’s bumper screentime, bonus shirtless action and the aching teen-romance wish-fulfilment. Though the latest chapter in the angsty tween saga won’t be enough to win over R-Pattz, K-Stew and, um, Abz-Man haters – anyone prepared to jump off the bandwagon might just find themselves enjoying Eclipse more than they expected.

Jordan Farley

MONDAY 5 JULY

• Catch top Brazilian comic book artists Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá at a discussion and Q&A on at the Udderbelly on London’s South Bank. It kicks off at 10pm.
• Chuck returns on Virgin 1 at 9pm, while Being Erica is on E4 at 10pm.
• A busy day down the video shop (or whatever you call them these days) with Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief, Stargate Universe: season one, the last series of Ashes To Ashes, vintage ITV series Chimera out on DVD and the Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition out on Blu-ray.

TUESDAY 6 JULY

• Tuesday’s used to be so packed with sci-fi but now the flag’s just carried by Smallville on E4 at 9pm.

WEDNESDAY 7 JULY

THURSDAY 8 JULY

• Robert Rodriguez attempts to banish the memory of AvP: Requiem with long-awaited sequel Predators.
• Today’s new books include Rhys Thomas’s On The Third Day, Christopher Ransom’s The Haunting Of James Hastings, Christopher Farnsworth’s Blood Oath, Rowena Corey Daniels’s The King’s Bastard and a trio of Eleventh Doctor novels: Gary Russell’s The Glamour Chase, Una McCormack’s The King’s Dragon and Oli Smith’s Nuclear Time.
• Painkiller Jane continues to inflict suffering and misery on Syfy at 10pm.

FRIDAY 9 JULY

• Squeeeee! The latest instalment in the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, gets the nation swooning in cinemas. But are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?

SATURDAY 10 JULY

• How To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse comes to Buxton for a long weekend.
• Fancy a Medium catch up? Go all the way back to the start of season one on CBS drama from 10pm.

SUNDAY 11 JULY

• Football haters rejoice as the World Cup Final brings a month-long celebration of soccer to a close.

Josh Hutcherson Confirms His Spider-Man Audition
Journey To The Center Of The Earth star Josh Hutcherson has confirmed to Coming Soon that he has auditioned for the role of Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the upcoming movie reboot by director Marc Webb, but claims he still doesn’t know if he has got the role yet: “It’s an honor to be considered on the same list with some of these actors that I’m up against. It’s really cool. To be talked about in that kind of role is very awesome.” Latino Review, meanwhile, reckons that Sony has made a decision, and that Hutcherson will be slinging those webs.

Hutcherson also talks about another upcoming film in which he appears, the remake of the ’80s movie Red Dawn. “It’s definitely more modern. It has the same idea about a group of teens fighting against an entire army, which is hard and definitely fictional, but they have the same characters and the same heart that the original had. This time, the Chinese are invading instead of the Russians to modernise it a little bit, so yeah, it’s just a modernized version of the original.” Still sounds about as PC as Roy Chubby Brown gig…

New Sorcerer’s Apprentice Clip
The Jon Turteltaub-directed fantasy, featuring yet another disastrous wig for Nicolas Cage, hits UK cinema screen on 11August.

Latest Twilight Has Massive US Opening
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has already set two new box office records in the US: widest release ever and biggest midnight opening. It earned more than $30 million from about 4,000 theaters at midnight on Tuesday. It probably also broke another record – largest number of boyfriends ever reluctantly dragged along to see a film – but they don’t officially record figures like that.

Fringe Season Three
Entertainment Weekly’s Mike Ausiello has revealed the title of the first episode of Fringe’s third season: “Olivia”. Which, if it’s anything like season two’s “Peter” means we could be in for a treat…

Jeph Loeb Talks Marvel TV
New Marvel TC overlord Jeph Loeb is interviewed by MTV.com about his new “dream job” but, to be honest, he doesn’t reveal much just yet: “There is stuff in the works. We’re working very closely with the networks I mentioned, and when the time is appropriate for us to talk about what we’re developing, we’ll be happy to do that. This is something we want to do very slowly very carefully, and very selectively. It will not be a big, wide range of stuff, and we want to make sure that, much in the same way the feature guys have used top-name talent in order to get the best scripts and the best directors, that’s something we want to do.”

Did you have a good Monday? Here’s just a few of the top stories that floated in front of our news tractor beam today.

NEUROMANCER DIRECTOR
Vincenzo Natali, director of Splice and Cube, has been confirmed as the helmer for William Gibson’s Neuromancer, according to Den Of Geek. Sounds awesome.

STAR WARS LIGHTSABER GAME
Footage of a potential new Star Wars game from Microsoft’s launch conference for Kinect (previously known as Natal), reports Kotaku. Looks good until you notice that the Jedi moves first.

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE TRAILER
A slightly darker and more action packed new trailer for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice over at Den Of Geek. Nicholas Cage playing himself, once again?

HERE COME GREEN LANTERN 2 AND FLASH
Warners gives the go-ahead on treatments for Green Lantern 2 and The Flash, say our chums on Total Film. We just have to hope the first film is good.

RUSH TO BE IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN
JobBlo reports that Geoffrey Rush returns as Captain Barbosa for Pirates Of The Caribbean 4, and no Bloom or Knightley to get in the way.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO TO DO VAN HELSING!
Pajiba breaks the news that Del Toro Productions is developing a new Van Helsing film, with Guillermo writing the treatment himself. Pan’s Labyrinth with a vampire hunter? Seems good to me. Perhaps enough to scrub our memories clean of the last Van Helsing film, eh?

ASSASSIN’S CREED: BROTHERHOOD TRAILER
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood trailer from Ubisoft, showing Ezio in Rome doing what he does best.

TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN TO BE SPLIT IN TWO
It’s been confirmed that those of us who haven’t fallen for the Twilight mania will have to suffer through two more films – another article from JoBlo.

That’s it for now! Today’s news summary brought to you by SFX work experience laddie Andy King. Be nice to him, and come back for more news tomorrow.

Possible Photoshop Trickery Of The Week

We were intrigued to see these two images in the latest batch of stills to be released from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse because there seems to be some kind of Photoshop shenanigans going on. Surely someone has just taken the first pic, moved the two guys apart and pasted Bella in. Or vice versa. Or maybe Jacob and Edward have been replaced by their Madame Tussauds waxworks? Or maybe it’s the worst game of spot the difference ever? Far be it from us to crack some gag about Lautner and Pattinson having one expression between them…

Red Hot Curry Of The Week

Good grief, that must have been one hot vindaloo Vincent had down the cafe. Presumably it wasn’t just his snoring that was keeping Amy awake, but gaseous escapes from other orifices as well. Certainly the Doctor doesn’t know where to look…

Re-evaluation Of The Week

A few sessions in the couch – or some decent psychometric tests on the Jedi entry exams – would have saved a lot of lives. Seems that Anakin was always predisposed to turn the Dark Side, and Obi Wan really should have seen the signs. According to a new study by French psychiatrist Eric Bui at Toulouse University Hospital, the young Padawan was clearly suffering from a borderline personality disorder, displaying six out of the nine borderline-personality-disorder criteria as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The minimum for a diagnosis is five. Skywalker was predisposed to the condition, Bui concludes, because of his separation from his parents at an early age. He later showed impulsiveness, violent outbursts, anger management issues, illusions of invincibility and crises of identity, all of which are borderline red flags, the study says. Dissociative events, such as when Skywalker killed a tribe of Tuskans, triggered his descent to the dark side. “I believe that psychotherapy would have helped Anakin and might have prevented him from turning to the Dark Side,” reckons the psychoanalyst. “Using the Dark Side of the Force could be considered as similar to drug use: it feels really good when you use it, it alters your consciousness and you know you shouldn’t do it.” Yeah, and Freud would no doubt have something to say about his big, glowing lightsaber.

Birthday Cake Of The Week

The Twitterverse’s biggest and most unashamed geek Wil (you don’t always have to mention I was Wesley Crusher) Wheaton received a suitably geeky birthday cake this week, and posted a picture for us all to enjoy. “Holy. Crap,” he Tweeted. “We have been given a TARDIS cake. I hear there is a giant cake inside it.” With a bit of work that could almost be a gag.

Coolest Idea Of The Week

Never really thought of Supernatural’s Sam and Dean Winchester as anime characters, but now that they are going to be animated characters, it just seems so… right. There’s definitely something of Death Note’s L about the animated Sam. You think we’re making this up? No way. Warner’s has teamed up with esteemed anime company Madhouse (who amongst other things gave us the superb anime Highlander) to produce a 22-episode season that will cover the storyline of the live-action version’s first two seasons. It’s being made to go straight to DVD and Blu-ray, with the first volume coming out in January next year. The anime project will not only remake the best episodes from the live-action version, but also depict original episodes not seen in it. Those original episodes will include prologues of the Winchester brothers’ childhood, anime-only enemies, and episodes featuring secondary characters from the live-action version. Blimey, what next? Aardman animation doing a Play-Doh version of Fringe? We hope it’s a success though, and they adapt later seasons, because we need to see an anime Castiel…

Most Unpleasant Bowel Movement Of The Week

This could apply equally well to either a sequence in execrable British horror comedy Zombie Women Of Satan (out on DVD on 21 June), or the movie as a whole… The specific bit that appalled us was a scene where (for no particular good reason, other than  “humour”) a dwarf  takes a dump in the woods. This is carried out with much straining and gurning, over the course of what seems like about five minutes. Let’s put this as simply as we can: DO NOT BUY THIS DVD. If you do, there’s a very real danger they might make a sequel.

Press Release Quote Of The Week

Exciting news arrives in our inbox from Terracotta Distribution: they have acquired Takao Nakano’s Japanese zombie action Big Tits Zombie 3D for distribution in the UK. Well, hurrah! Our favourite bit is the comment that follows, from Terracotta founder Joey Leung: “We are delighted to be handling this title.” Bet they are.

SFX’s second Vampire Special is now on the newsstands, and the popularity of the fanged fiends hasn’t ebbed one  it in the intervening months. If anything, they’re probably becoming even more popular. Anyway, as a way of getting you in the mood to go out and buy the new special (yeah, this is not-so-subliminal advertising) here, for the first time on-line, is the Vampire Top 50, as voted for by SFX readers, that we published in the first special. Despite the usual evidence of fan-power in action in some of the positions, there’s actually an impressive variety of vampires in the voting, from all periods of literary, film and TV history. Enjoy your browsing!

.

50 Dracula

Played by: Gerard Butler
Undead in: Dracula 2000 (2000)

The movie was drivel; produced by Wes Craven, it’s either an attempt to be a Scream-style, post-modern re-invention of Dracula, or simply so bad it’s funny. But Gerard Butler’s cocksure, exquisitely-coiffured, oft-half-naked Dracula set many hearts a-fluttering. He even manages to make sniffing somehow deeply sensual and sexy.

49 Deacon Frost

Played by: Stephen Dorff
Undead in: Blade (1998)

Deacon Frost was like a vampirised hopeful from The Apprentice. You just know if he wasn’t planning on becoming a vampire god, he’d have been conducting dodgy deals from his yatch via his BlackBerry. Not beloved of the vampire elite (well, he did kill off all the bigwigs in the House of Erebus), Frost was seen as an irritating wild card.

48 Marcus Van Sciver

Played by: Neil Jackson
Undead in: Blade: The Series (2006)

Another stockbroker vampire from another chapter of the Blade saga, Van Sciver was by far the most interesting character in the small screen adventures of the Daywalker. Petulant, sadistic, slightly pervy and always immaculately dressed, British-born Van Sciver was determind the House of Chthon would reclaim former glories.

47 Jerry Dandridge

Played by: Chris Sarandon
Undead in: Fright Night (1985)

Dandridge is a 1,000- year-old vampire who wants to settle down in a small US town and suck it dry. Unfortunately, he moves in next door to a pesky kid who just won’t stop trying to kill him. Sarandon is superb as the suburban bloodsucker; ordinary enough to slip under the radar, but charismatic, sexy and devious enough to get what he needs.

46 Kurt Barlow

Played by: Reggie Nalder
Undead in: Salem’s Lot (1979)

Television’s second scariest antiques dealer (after David Dickinson), Kurt Barlow moved his spooky shop to the small town Salem’s Lot with business partner Richard Straker. Their real business, though, was turning everybody into vampires. Barlow, clearly of Nosferatu descent, had such impressive fangs he could barely speak or shut his mouth, though he appeared to be telepathic and even telekinetic.

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According to The Hollywood Reporter Summit still plans to turn the final Twilight novel, Breaking Dawn, into two films, but that could result in the recasting of some of the minor characters. Because the cast was only signed up for four films, it seems their agents are all rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of playing hardball in negotiating big pay rises for a fifth film. But whereas Summit has already settled deals with the leads, it may well simply decide to recast lesser characters such as Alice (Ashley Green) and Emmet (Kelan Lutz). Summit has past form in such matters, having recast the role of Victoria after the first film, replacing Rachelle Lefevre with Bryce Dallas Howard. But if the final two films are shot back to back by director Bill Condon as planned, that’ll mean cast changes halfway through the shoot, and halfway through the story, which might seem a little odd, surely? Oh, and Alice was one of the best things about the second movie – they’d be daft to lose Ashley Green.

Twilight production company Summit has confirmed that the final Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn, will be released in the US on 18 November 2011. That’s makes it the biggest wait between Twilight movies yet. There was an 11 month wait between Twilight and New Moon, an eight month wait between New Moon and Eclipse, and now a 16-month wait between the last two films. How will Twihards survive the Edward drought?

Oscar-winning director Bill Condon will be calling the shots on the final film.

But will it be the final movie? Although Summit has given no indication to the contrary, The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision Blog is still stoking the rumours that the final film will be split into two. “Summit still isn’t saying whether or not its adaptation of the final book, Breaking Dawn, will be one movie or two (probably because it still doesn’t know as they are in talks with the actors on the subject), but it has set a release date for it. Or the first part, whatever the case will be,” states the blog’s article.

Summit has announced that Gods And Monsters director Bill Condon will be calling the shots on the final Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn. And it does seem it will be the final film, scotching rumours that the franchise would do a Harry Potter and spin the last novel out over two films (boyfriends of the world rejoice).

Condon has a bit of a mixed history as a director. Besides writing and directing Dreamgirls, Kinsey and Gods And Monsters, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1999 and winning another Oscar nomination for his screenplay for  Chicago in 2003, he cut his teeth on the horror movie sequel Candyman: Farewell To The Flesh.

Twilight author Stephenie Meyer reckons, “I’m so thrilled that Bill wants to work with us. I think he’s going to be a great fit, and I’m excited to see what he does with the material.”

“I’m very excited to get the chance to bring the climax of this saga to life on-screen. As fans of the series know, this is a one-of-a-kind book – and we’re hoping to create an equally unique cinematic experience,” said Bill Condon.

Whatever else you think about these films, they’re certainly picking some intriguing directors.

Director Catherine (Twilight) Hardwicke’s big screen version of airport novelist James Patterson’s Maximum Ride has been in development Hell for a while now, but it looks like it could have taken a step closer to the green light, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision Blog.

The project, about a group of genetically modified teenagers with wings being pursued by half-human, half-wolf creatures called Erasers, had been in development at Columbia, but is now set to jump studios to Universal, after Columbia failed to move forward with the film. Former Marvel movie boss Avi Arad is set to produce along with his son, Ari Arad, and Steven Paul, and a new script is being prepped by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, whose credits include Iron Man and Cowboys and Aliens.

Universal must clearly be thinking they have a potential new Twilight-style franchise on their hands.

HBO’s new poster to promote True Blood season three gets straight to the point, boasting “VILF” in dirty great letters. A play on on the slang word MILF (which, in case you don’t know, is “Mother I’d Like To F***”), it’s pretty obvious what the replacement “V” stands for. It’s not a new piece of slang. You can find T-shirts on the internet with pictures of Spock next to the word, or even with “Edward is a VILF” on them – though we kinda think the word suits the sexy, sweary True Blood a little but better than the rather chaste Twilight. The poster is one piece of a 12-part weekly advertising series to new season which returns on 13 June. Let’s just hope the new Teen Wolf series doesn’t try the same trick – WILF doesn’t have quite the same ring, and people might think it’s a Doctor Who spin-off.