SoSF News Briefs For Week Ending June 1, 2007

Microsoft will release its highly anticipated “Halo 3″ on September 25, 2007 giving the software development company an exclusive window for gamer and press attention before releases of other popular competitors such as “Grand Theft Auto IV,” according to Variety.

Amazon is looking to take a bite out of iTunes as the e-tailer’s digital music downloading site debuts later in the year. Amazon’s MP3 format downloads will be compatible with any digital audio player, won’t get bogged down by restrictive rights management software and has a boat-load of selections from EMI Music and 1200 other music labels. Debut date and cost of service remains Amazon’s secret at this time.

CBS will now include the younger set in their new reality programming that takes “The Lord of the Flies” concept and brings it to reality TV. The network that created such reality hit-makers as “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” will call the new reality show “Kid’s Nation” and it will lurk in on kids 8 to 15 years of age and watch as they build their own society with little to no adult supervision. The kids, numbering approximately 40, will be observed in an isolated ghost town setting for 40 days to see what kind of infrastructure and society they can idealize. “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” honcho Tom Format will run the show.

The new film company Fox Walden Films will turn out four new films between now and October of next year. We have briefly discussed two of these films in the past, either on our show or here on the Website. The first is “The Dark Is Rising,” which stars “Doctor Who” and “Heroes” actor Christopher Eccelston and “Deadwood’s” Ian McShane. It tells the tale of a young man who is the last in a long line of warriors who travel back and forth through time battling the forces of evil. Gregory Smith and Jonathan Jackson also star. Another of the films from Fox Walden will be Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman and Jason Bateman’s “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” coming from writer/director Zack Penn. Story centers around the magical mysteries surrounding a wonderous toy store. “Nim’s Island,” the third film from the newly formed company stars Jodie Foster and Abigal Breslin and tells the story of a young girl’s imagination on a lonely island. The fourth film is the “City of Ember”. It is an adventure fantasy about two teens in a race against time to solve an ancient mystery and save their city. The first film on the docket will be “The Dark Is Rising” on September 6th and the last is “City of Ember” on October 10, 2008. The other two will be spaced in between — Magorium on November 16, 2007 and “Nim’s Island” set for April 25, 2008.

Nickelodeon Movies, a division of Paramount Pictures, has set “2012″ as a new film for director Tom Dey. It tells the story of a family on vacation in December 2012 as the Mayan calendar is coming to a close and the effect on them and humanity of the end of the world prophesies attached to the date of December 21, 2012.

First is was a go, then it got derailed, but now it is back on track. “Terror Train” (a remake of the 1980 horror film) begins filming in Bulgaria this summer. The film centers on some American college athletes who find themselves on a terrifying train bound for Eastern Europe.

A young lad discovers that he is a decendent of a Greek god and has a destiny to stop the ongoing battles between mythological deities that has been raging for eons. That is the premise behind the new Christopher Columbus directed film “The Lightening Thief”. It will be based on the Riordan bestselling book series called “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”. It is currently in the pre-production stage.

20th Century Fox has bought the screen rights to film the fantasy novel “The Seems”. The first of this multi-book series is called “The Seems: The Glitch in Sleep” and will be published in the fall of 2007. The setting is a parallel world where everything that human beings take for granted is actually manufactured and designed. But, a glitch happens that requires a young man to find, repair and restore order to the universe.