Slice of SciFi News Briefs

Guess who drops by to visit with Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday, November 5th for a special interview? None other than Captain James T. Kirk — the great William Shatner.

It is starting to look like the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is beginning to back-off of their Thursday strike date, indicating early this morning that they may ask their 1200 members to hold off on their walk-out until next week, giving Federal mediators one more week to hammer out differences between the two parties involved in the talks.

“300″ star Gerard Butler will NOT be Snake Pliskin for the remake of John Carpenter’s original “Escape From New York.” He has walked out of the deal citing creative differences. This makes the second mutiny from the project. Director Brett Ratner left just a few days ago. Also a new script for the remake is now being drafted from “Terminator: Rise of the Machines” screenwriter Jonathan Mostow.

One never knows what is going to drive critics and those who decide which networks get what awards. After the success of such shows as “Eureka” and “Battlestar Galactica” the call word for this new season has been speculative fiction and the schedules for almost every major network and cabler has been SF on one layer or another. ABC was the only network without a boat-load of new SF enteries this season and it seems being different from the trend has gotten the alphabet network some kudos from the Multi-Ethnic Media Coalition. ABC won accolades from the group for being the most diverse in portraying the various ethnic groups in America. We’re not sure what that means really, as it doesn’t speak to actual programming quality, but congrats to ABC for that honor.

James Vanderbilt, the scribe of the serial-killer thriller “Zodiac” has been hired to replace David Koepp as the writer of the screenplay for “Spider Man 4.” So far, there has been no move to bring back Spidey franchise director Sam Raimi or its established stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. All three have indicated they would only return under certain circumstances.

“Diary of the Dead” is the next “Dead” movie coming from veteran zombie moviemaker George Romero and although this latest film isn’t due in theaters until 2008, George is already gearing up for its sequel.

Billy Campbell (”The 4400″) has teamed up with Greg Kinnear, Tea Leoni and Ricky Gervais in the supernatural romantic comedy “Ghost Town,” the new DreamWorks and Spyglass Entertainment film project. (See related article)

Tracy Hickman has produced some pretty awesome videos about the creation of music for the upcoming Dragonlance Movie. In particular, the segment ‘Music of the Lance’ is interesting regarding internet conducting of the Prague Orchestra in real time from a studio in Santa Monica. You can check them out by clicking on the links provided below:

DragonHeart Clip 1

Dragon Heart Clip 2

or you can try out these YouTube Links — HERE and HERE