Thousands of science fiction fans will be heading to Melbourne, Australia in 2010 after it was announced that it would host the 68th World Sci-Fi Convention, known as Aussiecon 4.  The annual convention, the fourth to be held in Australia by the World Science Fiction Society, will run for seven days in September 2010 at the Melbourne  Convention Centre and is expected to attract more than 3000 fans.

“Melbourne was chosen to host this event because of its world-class Melbourne Convention Centre, which has already attracted 34 international conventions, bringing nearly 66,100 delegates to Melbourne and worth more than $350 million to the Victorian economy,” Mr Theophanous said.  Aussiecon 4 is expected to generate $18 million.  Previous Conventions were held in Australia in 1975, 1985 and 1999.

Aussiecon 4 will include panel discussions on a variety of science fiction subjects, such as technology of the future, writing, publishing, and the philosophical and sociological implications of the genre’s works.  It will also include the prestigious Hugo Awards.  The Hugo Awards, given annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award.

Visit the official website for more:  http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/

Official website of the Hugo Awards:  http://www.thehugoawards.org/

Out of nowhere comes True Blood, a modern-day drama where vampires and humans struggle to co-exist in an alternate reality type of setting.  In its HBO debut, 1.4 million viewers tuned in and it seems word travels fast, for when it was subsequently rebroadcast another 2.1 million tuned in.   HBO expect the viewer tally to hit 4 million once additional screening platforms are factored in. 

These incredible viewer numbers, which rival that of Heroes, are well deserved.  The first episode of the series was overall quite brilliant and reeked of being a ‘cult classic’ in the making.   Although the first episode didn’t give away much of an overall story arc, the background story of a type of racism – perhaps a ‘species-ism’, is well conceived. 

The main characters of True Blood seem perfectly cast.  Anna Paquin, who played Rogue in the X-Men movies, is perfect as the telepathic, and possibly telekinetic character of Sookie Stackhouse, who convinces you on one hand that she is a women of immense power and yet at the same time is as feeble as a little girl.  The object of her affections, a vampire by the hilarious name of ‘Bill’ played by Stephen Moyer (88 Minutes), is broodingly acted exceptionally well, to the point where he is literally scary, even though you know he’s really the good guy…or is he?  

The story will follow Sookie as love grows between her and Bill, and the ramifications of which take place two years after ‘vampires came out of the coffin’…..we’ll be looking forward to watching more episodes of this very interesting and unique series.

True Blood Official Website

Occassionally, very occassionally, you sit down to watch an episode of Stargate and are taken completely by surprise – such was the experience delivered by Stargate Atlantis’s seventh episode of the fifth season – ‘Whispers’.  From the very opening Whispers was, well, damn scary.   The Stargate team, or rather, Dr. Beckett and Lt. Col Sheppard and a whole new Stargate Team consisting of only women, stumble onto one of Michael’s laboratories, where genetic experimentation has created a race of creatures left behind because even Michael himself couldn’t control them.  They are held in stasis pods but a local, attempting to find his missing wife, inadvertently releases them…just before dark.

Without going into the detail, Whispers outright succeeded in delivering A-Grade horror sci-fi – in fact, it delivered the equivalent scarey factor usually left to movies like 28 Days Later and Legend with a little The Ring thrown in for good measure; the only exception being that the alien creatures in Whispers also have a few other nifty tricks up their sleeves, like oozing fog from their necks!  Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a lot of speculation that Sony might move forward on a Venom movie, spinning the character off from the popularity of the Spiderman franchise.  Reports now indicate that Sony has hired a couple of screenwriters to put together the screenplay.  Venom was destroyed at the end of Spiderman 3, however a piece of the black alien survived and now it’s looking good for a comeback.

This news comes at the same time as the news that Tobey Maguire and director Sam Raimi will be returning for Spiderman 4 and Spiderman 5 – and it looks like both movies will be produced at the same time to save on costs.  Admittedly Sony has not provided official confirmation of this, but inside information would seem to indicate it’s a done deal.

Insiders have also indicated that Spiderman 4 & 5 won’t go down the dark path to capitalize on the popularity of movies such as The Dark Knight, despite a certain darkness in the third movie.  However, it seems fairly obvious that this won’t be the case for Venom and, quite honestly, can’t be the case.  Venom is a dark, brooding alien monster.  Lighten that up and you lose the essence of the character.  Some people, including Todd McFarlane (the creator of the Venom character), feel that an evil villain will never hold as the main character of a movie.  Read the rest of this entry »

James Cameron is credited with having given the world the most successful movie of all time;  Titanic went Oscar crazy and screenings crazy, raking in almost 2 billion dollars at the box office.   Cameron, who is also credited with bringing the world Aliens and Terminator, has now officially entered post-production stage on his new $200 million sci-fi action movie, Avatar – and he says this movie, “makes Titanic look like a picnic.”

Avatar tells a story set in in the distant future when humanity discovers the planet ‘Alpha Centauri B-4′, a world of amazing diversity, beauty, and deadly ammonia-breathing lifeforms that offers priceless treasures and resources.  A wounded ex-marine is thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit B-4 but who, eventually, crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival.

“It’s simultaneously the most vexing and the most rewarding type of production that I’ve done yet,” Cameron says of the project.

Avatar, based on a story written 14 years ago, is set to deliver industry ground-breaking 3-D animations.  In fact, Avatar is perhaps the most eagerly awaited science fiction film of the decade for the fact that it takes place on a completely alien world and the CGI will be realistic.  Said to be 60% CGI and 40% live action, the CGI in this movie will be, from all appearances, virtually indistinguishable from real.  Just take a look at the following demo (yes, the animation looks real as its based on a similar technology to motion capture, but no, she’s not real – she’s CGI): Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower then you’ll no doubt be happy to hear that Lost and Star Trek producer J.J.Abrams has alluded to his involvement in bringing the novel to the big screen.

The Dark Tower is an epic of seven books that took Stephen King more than two decades to write, and amongst fans of fantasy it is, as they say, a classic. Recognising this fact, Abrams has acknowledged that producing a movie version of The Dark Tower will be, in his words, “every bit as daunting an adaptation as the Lord of the Rings trilogy must have been for Peter Jackson, except we’ve got seven books we’re looking at.”

Fans who are pleased with this news may need to take a breathe though, for Abrams has many projects underway and has categorically stated The Dark Tower will have to wait for him to wrap up both Lost and Star Trek.

“The idea of doing that at the same time Carlton and I are bringing “Lost” to a close is simply not viable,” Abrams said.

But the news is enough, for its a fairly sure bet that most fans of Stephen King and anyone else who has read the series has been waiting to hear this for a very long time.

After Zack Snyder’s 300, it’s hard to not await the release of Watchmen with unbridled eagerness. Watchmen, an adaptation of Alan Moore’s pre V for Vendetta graphic novel of the same name, is a $100 million dollar Warner Bros picture that has suffered decades of hurdles in the process of bringing it to the big screen. Even Alan Moore himself wants nothing to do with it, but then, Moore has shown he has no affinity for seeing his graphic novels made into movies at all. If anyone could do Watchmen justice it is Zack Snyder, but Moore won’t even give him the time of day. What can you do? Make it anyway, and that’s what’s happened; early reports from those who have seen it is that its a masterpiece.

Problem is, there’s more roadblocks in the way of its release. It seems 20th Century Fox are claiming they have rights to it, and there’s a battle looming between Fox and Warner over Fox getting their cut. As it stands, the trailer is out and the film is scheduled for release in March, but it seems Fox are going to do everything they can to delay it or, even more ridiculously, stop it’s release altogether. Most people are fairly confident that the latter isn’t going to happen, but nonetheless it is something on Fox’s cards. I’m pretty sure if that happens there’ll be a lot of boycotting of 20th Century Fox to follow suit. Read the rest of this entry »

A seriously talented fan of Star Wars has produced what can only be described as one of the coolest things ever made: a working version of the Landspeeder as used by Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movie. According to creator/owner Daniel Deutsch, the Landspeeder is a fibreglass replica build on an aluminium chassis with an electrical drive system that can make it up to 25 mph. Though its not fast, the speeder can travel several miles on one charge – that’s several miles of cool..no very cool travel. Visit www.reallandspeeder.com to see images and movies of Deutch’s creation.

All we’re waiting for now is for this to get further development to increase its speed and distance and then sign us up.

The Dark Knight has totaled $919 million worldwide to become only the 10^th movie to go past $900 million dollars in revenue.  It is the second best performing movie in international markets, trailing only Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which has amassed $466 million in international markets compared to The Dark Knights $416.7 million.  Expectations are that The Dark Knight will surpass IndiannaJones in the coming weeks.

Read more at Variety:  Dark Knight continues global streak