The party included a whole Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy-style screen full of explanations of common terms in the series, but nobody got a good picture of that.

Colfer talked to us about how he'd been incredibly reluctant to take over the Hitchhiker's series, but finally acquiesced after Adams' widow and daughter both asked him to do it. He has absolutely no plans to do any more Hitchhiker's books, and this isn't the first volume in a whole new series of adventures for Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox and company — just a one-off. But Colfer does feel there's a lack of fun, silly space opera in the world right now, and he'd love to see more of it. He hinted he may try and write some more in that genre at some point. He's also hoping his book will introduce Adams' original books to the readers who follow him from the Artemis Fowl novels.

The party also included black hand towels with (what else) "Don't Panic" written on them, suitable for framing, or using to dry your hands.

There was a "Tweet to the Galaxy" interface, which allowed you to Twitter and have your tweets sent out into space. I'm still not entirely sure how this was supposed to work, but you can try it out for yourself here. So far, no aliens have responded to people's tweets about three A.M. hookups or dental hygiene, although that doesn't mean they're not reading.

Here's Colfer, tweeting actual Vogon poetry out to the presumably horrified galactic community. And in the background, you can see the bar, where they were serving actual Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters. Which, we have to admit, didn't cause any feelings of gold bricks with lemon slices smashing into our head. We asked the bartender what's in a real-life Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, and basically it's vodka, lemonade and a bit of seltzer. Zaphod would have been sad.

According to Variety, Derrickson will direct Hyperion Cantos, which combines the first two novels in the Hyperion series. The script will be written by Trevor Sands, who also recently completed work on the proposed movie version of The Six Million Dollar Man, which doesn't sound too promising, but I'm willing to be convinced.

Scott Derrickson to direct 'Hyperion' [Variety]

Hyperion:
Space-war novelist Dan Simmons has been hoping for a Hyperion movie for ages. Speculation has run rampant on the internet with both Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio supposedly attached to the project. Simmons himself has said that, "yes there is a Hyperion movie in the works. It has been optioned by a top-notch studio, is slated to be directed by a top-name director, and already has the involvement of a top-flight movie star. Screenwriters have been attached to the project and a first draft screenplay is expected soon." The top notch production company was announced to be Warner Brothers with Graham King producing and the release date is set for 2010. Hopefully this will be the last we see of Hyperion on Development Purgatory, and we'll be watching tree-impaling Shrike in no time.

Count Zero, or Zen Differential:
The sequel to William Gibson's Neuromancer, Count Zero was optioned during the height of the Matrix craze. The movie Zen Differential was supposed to be based on CZ and made by Michael Mann. Alas this movie's script never even got a draft.

Logan's Run:
This movie's never ending saga has truly earned its place in purgatory. There was talk of remaking it (supposedly closer to the book) as early as 1994. That faded in and out of possibility until 2004, when Bryan Singer was brought on, and everything seemed good to go. Some pre-production work was done and a draft was written, but then Singer decided to "take a vacation" from film making after Superman Returns, and dropped the project cold. Joel Silver and WB stayed hopeful, and a low-budget proposal by rookie director Joseph Korinski caught their eye. Some are hopeful we'll see Logan's Run as early as 2010, written by Children of Men scriptwriter Tim Sexton with Korinski directing, supposedly under the watchful eye of David Fincher. All I can say is: we'll see.

The Forever War
Alas the Chicago public TV miniseries adaptation adaptation of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War never saw the light of day, neither did the Sci-Fi channel movie (truth be told, I'd rather see the PBS version). Get crackin' people — we want to see the epic battle of humanity versus Tauran aliens. So does Haldeman, apparently, Sci Fi bought the rights to his novel and then never called him back.

King Of Elves:
This movie has been promised to the scifi masses for ages. Disney vows to have this Phillip K. Dick adaptation out in 2012 as their 50th computer animated feature. It's at the end of a very long Disney to-do list, so there's no telling how many times the green-leafy elves will be pushed to the back burner. That being said we are hopefully optimistic about this feature — it seems to be moving forward, but very, very slowly. Also apparently Disney decided to move the elves' location from Colorado to the Mississippi Delta.

Vurt:
Author Jeff Noon wrote a draft of a screenplay for his novel around 2002. It got optioned by Pathe films, with K-Pax director Iain Softley attached. Noon wrote a second draft of the screenplay, but by the time he finished in 2004, the option ran out and got dropped by Pathe, though Softley promised to look for a new producer. The last that was heard about the movie was in 2005 when Noon told readers of his website "don't hold your breath." No! We need our hallucinogenic feathers and our alternate reality ASAP!

With additional writing and reporting by Andrew Hudson.

Apparently, by simplifying the hell out of stories whose main appeal has always been their rich complexity. According to Hollywood Reporter:

Sands won over the execs by taking a selective approach to the two novels' multiple points of view in a way that managed to coherently and unconfusingly tell the story.

Sounds like Sands is all about science fiction, which is a good sign. But putting both Hyperion novels together into one film? Hard to imagine. All I can say is they'd better get some damn good designers to work on this one because Hyperion needs to look awesome. Give me good lightning trees and a cool-looking WorldWeb singularity network, and I might just pay the cost of admission.

Warner Bros Nabs Hyperion Cantos [Hollywood Reporter via IESB]