“Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. is currently in negotiations to star in another SF feature film titled “Cowboys & Aliens.” It centers on an Old West battle between the Apache and western settlers. Downey would star as Zeke Jackson, gunslinger and former Union Army officer. The SF happens when an alien spacecraft crashes in the prairie close to the center of the fighting around Silver City, Arizona. Produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, the film will be based on the graphic novel written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley from an original idea by Rosenberg. Downey is also is negotiations to star in an upcoming film about Sherlock Holmes.
Actor Freddie Highmore (” Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) will drop his normal British accent for an American one when he voices “Astro Boy.” The animated film is due out sometime in 2009.
European researchers say they have discovered a batch of three “super-Earths” orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well. The planets are bigger than Earth; one is 4.2 times the mass, one is 6.7 times and the third is 9.4 times. According to the astronomers the three planets are orbiting a star slightly less massive than our own Sun located about 42 light-years away as you look toward the southern Doradus and Pictor constellations.
Everyone at NASA and across the globe let out a big sigh of relief when the Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely back on Earth this Saturday after a large bump and dangling debris was spotted during normal preliminary set-up for re-entry to the planet’s atmosphere. Fortunately it turned out that the bump was just a play of lighting and camera angles and the piece of debris was a clip that anchored a section of the tail and posed no problem for the Shuttle re-entry and landing. Discovery had one of the most dangerous and busiest Shuttle missions to-date with the delivery and installation to the International Space Station (ISS) of the giant 32-ton Kibo laboratory module from Japan. There are only 10 more Shuttle flights schedule to rendevous with the ISS before the entire fleet is decommissioned after 27-years of faithful service that saw only two fatal missions in its nearly 3-decades in use.
“Harry Potter” meets “Pan’s Labyrinth.” That’s the way critics are describing a new ABC fantasy series titled “Captain Cook’s Extraordinary Atlas” starring Janel Moloney (“the West Wing”), Patrick Breen (“Eli Stone,” “Galaxy Quest”), 13-year old Jodelle Ferland (“Case 39”) and 10-year old Nathan Gamble (“The Dark Knight”). The series tells the story of an adventurous young girl and her little brother (Ferland & Gamble) who find a magical atlas that reveals a secret world underneath our own.
Next up for “Incredible Hulk” director Louis Leterrier (“Transporter”) will be an ecological-thriller called “Strays.” It follows a group of young consultants on a business trip to Russia who mysteriously wake up in an abandoned and radioactive city and must fight to survive.
Shares of Sirius and XM rose a bit at the opening of Wall Street on Monday as Sirius Satellite Radio Inc’s planned acquisition of its only competitor, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. inched closer to becoming a reality after a key U.S. regulator expressed support for the 16-month-old deal, driving up both companies’ shares. What does this merger mean for XM listeners of Slice of SciFi. The minute we know — you will know.
