And Now for Something Completely Still
John Cleese has joined the cast the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, according to IGN.com . The site reports that he'll be playing physicist Dr. Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize laureate who plays a key part in figuring out the mission and meaning of the arrival of the alien visitor, Klaatu (Canoe Reeves). Shame. At nearly six foot five, he would have made a great Gort.
Big Drop for Cloverfield
Monster movie Cloverfield dropped to fourth place in the North American box office, in its second weekend on release. It was beaten by two new entries – the Kevin Sorbo-starring comedy Meet the Spartans at number one and Rambo at number two – as well as falling behind last week's runner up, 27 Dresses. Cloverfield took just $12.7 million as opposed to $41 million the weekend before. But, hey, it only cost $25 million to make so it's on course for a tidy profit...
Star Trek's Brannon Braga to teach screenwriting
Braga, who has most recently written for 24 but will be famous to SFX readers for his Star Trek work, will be offering an insider's guide to TV writing when he lectures at the Kent State Stark college in America. He is teaching on four days in February and registration costs $255 (plus $30 if you're not already a student there). For more details check out the article at the Ohio Times (thanks to TrekToday ).
Daniel Day-Lewis praises Heath Ledger
The 14th annual Screen Actors Guild awards went ahead yesterday, one of the few events not cancelled because of the writers strike, and Daniel Day-Lewis (picking up an award for best actor in There Will Be Blood) used the occasion to praise Heath Ledger. The Joker actor died last week at an apartment in New York. "I am absolutely certain he would have done many wonderful things in his life," Day-Lewis said of him. Sky news report here .
