Movie & TV News: Espenson Back To Galactica, What Just Happened?, Avatar Delayed, Halloween, Heroes, Mike Fright, Comic Previews

Espenson Back To Galactica
SCI FI Wire spoke to Jane Espenson about writing for the 3rd season of "Battlestar Galactica." About the show she said: "The writing team, they were so bright, helpful and invested. I love them! There was a real sense that they cared about every beat of every story they were telling. Any time I needed help or advice, they were all there, acting as if it was their own name going on it, that level of attention. Wonderful." She also talked about the experience in her blog, Jane in Progress. She added, about working on the episode "Dirty Hands:" "I was in the room for the breaking of the story this time, although the general parameters of it had already been decided: the theme and rough shape of it. I was very excited to jump back in and tackle some main characters who didn't happen to appear in 'The Passage.' I felt more relaxed about improvising. This story was less fully broken, and so it was even more obvious that I could move some stuff around and make some decisions on my own. I guess I felt like I'd learned to swim. It wasn't a story that lent itself to enormous comedy, but it's got its moments, and lots of great emotion. It's one of those stories - - always my faves - - that looks at the underpinnings of the series, at the supporting players in the fleet. The way my Buffy episodes 'Storyteller' and 'Superstar' both moved a tertiary character to center stage, this episode does that with a whole slice of the surviving human population. I'm very pleased about that." "Dirty Hands" is set to air in February 2007. Battlestar Galactica will return with new shows on SCI FI on Sundays at 9 p.m. CST, starting Jan. 21.

What Just Happened?
Robert De Niro will star in Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened?," based Art Linson's memoir about his experiences as a Hollywood producer. De Niro will play Ben, a producer going through two weeks of hell as he attempts to finish a film while trying to retain some simblance of dignity. Shooting starts in early March in Los Angeles.

Avatar Delayed
James Cameron told The Independent the film will "not be released until the summer of 2009." The science fiction tale tells of a paraplegic war veteran brought to the jungle-covered planet Pandora, which is inhabited by the humanoid race the Na'vi. Cameron says: "Avatar is a very ambitious sci-fi movie. It's an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience . . . [and] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling. The film requires me to create an entirely new alien culture and language, and for that I want 'photo-real' CGI characters. Sophisticated enough 'performance-capture' animation technology is only coming on stream now. I've spent the last 14 months doing performance-capture work - the actor performs the character and then we animate it."

Halloween
Rob Zombie posted on his MySpace Halloween page that "actor Malcolm McDowell will be the new Dr. Loomis." Zombie went on to say: "I know Malcolm will kick ass as Dr. Loomis. He is thrilled to be part of Halloween and is ready to make a new classic." At the same time Fangoria is reporting that Danielle Harris is in talks to replace Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, this after playing Jamie Lloyd, the daughter of Laurie Strode and niece of killer Michael Myers, in the fourth and fifth "Halloween" films. Release of the remake is scheduled for August 31st.

Heroes
NBC plans what Advertising Age magazine is calling "a marketing blitz" to prepare the world for the show "Heroes" return on Jan. 22. First, to make sure everyone can be up to speed NBC.com They have posted all the episodes of Heroes, so you can catch up before the show comes back The programs will be streamed with two-minute recaps plus a commercial that viewers will be unable to skip. And to follow up on Sci-Fi's airing of the first 6 episodes of the show as a marathon, the channel will on Wednesday, Dec. 27th, Sci Fi Channel will be showing the last 4 episodes of "Heroes" starting at 6 PM CST . After being off the air since Dec. 4, NBC plans to promote the series' return by giving away 10,000 Heroes T-shirts at Monday's Dallas Cowboys Philadelphia Eagles football game and by putting out a catch-up episode to Netflix's 3 million subscribers. John Miller, NBC marketing executive, says the DVD "is for the people that have heard about [Heroes] but not gotten into it."

Mike Fright: Stand Up!