World War Z:

How will the movie version of this instant classic book adapt its structure? Writer J. Michael Straczynski explains:

The fictional concept of the book is that its written by someone with the UN, so let’s tell that story. Let’s show the book being written. We follow this guy all over the world as he goes on these interviews, and he has his own personal story as well. You’re cutting between the past and the present, how he got to this point.

It has that international feel to it, and because it goes backward and forward in time, we can cherry-pick our favorite moments in the book. Some of it is crazy in scale. It’s huge. It’s as political as the book was. And it ends with that book being completed.

He sees the book as a Bourne-style thriller, with a massive scale. One planned sequence is set in India, with hundreds of boats trying to escape a tidal wave of zombies. [MTV]

The Book Of Eli:

Ray Stevenson, who costars in this movie with Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman, says he helps Oldman's character to chase Eli (Washington). And it's a surreal post-apocalyptic setting, where at one point you think it's snowing and then you realize it's still ash falling from the skies. (Like in that one Doctor Who episode.) And the survivors are fighting over, not oil or soil, but pure water, which is the most precious commodity. [Sci Fi Wire]

The Spirit:

Here's a new TV spot.

Dollhouse:

Eliza Dushku gave away some plot details for upcoming episodes of Joss Whedon's mindwiped vessels-for-hire show. "Last episode, they surgically implant cameras into my eyeballs and send me into a cult compound as a blind woman. I was playing this tripped-out blind woman. Then I'm playing a 50-something-year-old woman in my own body in this next episode." She also gets to do a six-page Muay Thai fight scene where she kicks a six-foot-five-inch man's ass. Also, the difference between Joss' original pilot and the new version is that the original was more film noir, and the new version is more straight-up action. [Sci Fi Wire]

Also, in episode 10, "Four Engagements," we'll meet Ramirez, a tough-as-nails Latina who's a handler in the Dollhouse. [Whedon.Info]

Battlestar Galactica:

It may be clutching at straws, but one fan scanning the list of props and costumes for auction noticed it said the "final five" robes had been worn by Foster, Anders, Tigh and Tyrol. Whereas in the actual episode, they were worn by extras. So maybe we get another scene of the final five wearing those robes? [TriniRoslin]

Lost:

More about that Dharma shooting we mentioned yesterday that includes the Oceanic Six and Sawyer. An eagle-eyed reader writes to us:

I live on the North Shore, where they shoot Lost. On a hike today near the ocean I saw a scene with Hurley standing around in dark clothes while a blue and white VW bus came buzzing up and stopped by him. An hour later when I was on my way back, I saw that Sawyer (i'm pretty sure) had joined the scene. There were two or three extra blue and white VWs on standby out of scene and the one I saw up close had the Dharma logo on its front.

And here's an ultra-glam new cast portrait for season five. Note the lack of Daniel Dae Kim, the decor blending the island with the city, and the Dharma pop bottles. [The ODI]

Remember that video I mentioned the other day, debunking the myth of the Oceanic Six? It's an extra on the season four DVD, and it seems to hint that the O6 will be under more scrutiny from the public in season five. Here it is. [Doc Arzt]

Torchwood:

Liz May Brice plays Johnson, a mysterious government agent who wants to expose the existence of Torchwood — and aliens — to the public. She has the gunslinging skills of a crack commando and the allure of Lara Croft, apparently. I'm just guessing she ends up joining the team. Just a thought. [SyFyPortal]

Heroes:

D.H. Lawrence will be appearing on Heroes! Well, not exactly. Actually, David H. Lawrence, who plays that puppeteer guy Eric Doyle, will be in a couple of episodes around episode 17. Almost as good as a zombie porno literary writer guy, right? [The ODI]

Here's a sneak peek from Monday's episode.

Smallville:

Alaina Huffman (Black Canary) thinks it's the last season, and we're going to get a "big payoff" in the becoming-Superman department. And there may be more development of the Black Canary-Green Arrow love connection, and more of the Justice League. [OSCK]

Star Wars: Clone Wars:

Here's another pic from Friday's episode, in which "Padawan Ahsoka Tano and Jedi Master Luminara Unduli discuss methods of dealing with their uncooperative prisoner." The comfy chair!! [Warner Bros.]

Wonder Woman:

Here are a few more pics from the WW animated DVD, including Hades and Wondy looking sad. [Warner Bros.]

The movie is based on Max Brooks' novel which is a fictional collection of accounts from survivors after the zombies infested the world and mass panic took over.

Forster told Variety:

"The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like All the President's Men."

The action packed underwater walking zombie extravaganza is being produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B production company. J. Michael Straczynski (Changeling) is penning the screenplay, which is still not finished.

The art is from John Petersen and you can check a lot more of his amazing work at his site.

[Variety]

It used to be that the only time you were bothered by over-zealous silly zombies was on Halloween during the annual Thriller resurgence. Maybe it was Shaun of The Dead that opened the door for the last four-year craze of the undead on stage. I blame Shaun's good humor and fantastic writing of real characters that allowed other people to view zombies (more recently in a fun and friendly way).

But instead of making a better zombie comedy or another lovely gory zombie classic (such as the 2002 new rage spin 28 Days Later) filmmakers unleashed a string of so-so camp or shaky handy cam gimicky undead flicks, each one sadder than the next. Fido, Planet Terror, Zombie Strippers were all great, but their undead hordes leaned harder and harder on the crutch of camp to get through each take.

We need to be forward-thinking with our precious zombie commodities, people. And what has this campification and blatant misuse of zombies brought us? The Broadway zombie. I love Bruce Campbell and wouldn't mind seeing him singing and slaying on stage, but unfortunately he's not in it. And the Bruce-substitute is surrounded by happy dancing undead. Pass. Also passing on Re-Animator: The Musical, Zombie Prom and Z: A Zombie Musical.

Our last hope for a zombie attack we can take seriously is the forthcoming World War Z movie — which is really a post-zombie narrative, since it takes place after the zombie war.

Transformers 2

Tons of spoilers for Transformers 2. The Decepticons will have help this time around from another group of robots: the Constructicons. Who are, like, more constructive. And less deceptive. In the cartoon, the Constructicons are Scrapper, Bonecrusher, Scavenger, Mixmaster, Hook and Long Haul. But the name Bonecrusher was already used for a Decepticon in the first film, so they may have different names in the movie. And the Constructicons can join together to make a really, really giant massive huge robot called Devastator.

Meanwhile, here's a list of human characters that are being cast in the new movie:

• Chuck, Sam (Shia LaBoeuf)'s roommate at Princeton, who's obsessed with conspiracy theories
• A U.S. military leader who's African American and has a sense of humor, plus a British Special Forces leader
• Galloway, a "curt" National Security liaison and presidential advisor
• Professor Colan, Sam's physics professor, who's arrogant enough to compare himself to Einstein and wears leather pants to look cool
• The wife of Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson) from the first film
• Momma Simmons, a tough lady who runs a butcher shop in Brooklyn
• The CEO of Massive Dynamics, who testifies before Congress
• A Texas Congressman who investigates the "Automated Defense Initiative" created by Massive Dynamics
• The FBI Director, who gives a speech assuring the public they're safe from attacks
• A CNN reporter who covers missile strikes and bombings in various cities

Lost:

Lost's Michael Emerson (Ben) and Yunjin Kim (Sun) were seen flying into Heathrow Airport to film some scenes in London, probably for the season finale. Are they going to confront boat-owner Charles Widmore? Or just cruising the seedy end of Wardour Street? [Lyly Ford]

Battlestar Galactica:

On the heels of the detailed description of the Caprica prequel TV movie that came out the other day, a casting call from the series has shown up as well. Here are the major characters, with the new bits of information that came out:

• Daniel Graystone is a spectacularly wealthy computer engineer who doesn't have much time for his wife or daughter, whom he still sees as a "little girl in pink shoes." After her death, he learns that his own child, Zoe, has exceeded his own computer expertise by downloading her personality into an online avatar.
• Zoe, Daniel's daughter, is "16 going on 40," with severe makeup and hair. She not only uploads her consciousness into a holographic avatar, but her DNA as well. The result, Zoe-A, is her "online twin." She's a "closet monotheist" on polytheistic Caprica, and she practices this religion in secret. She plans to leave the planet with her boyfriend, Ben, but then Ben sets off a suicide bomb. Zoe-A is left behind, "a baffled, grieving digital duplicate" of the dead Zoe. Then Zoe-A gets downloaded into a robot body using stolen technology, giving rise to Zoe-R, the first Cylon. (And since Zoe is described as a "series regular," you have to assume Zoe-R looks at least somewhat like the flesh-and-blood Zoe. Which does give rise to the question of how anybody was surprised that the Cylons could look human.)
• Joseph Adams is a Tauron, who's immigrated to Caprica and risen above traditional anti-Tauron prejudices. He's a powerful defense attorney with ties to the Tauron crime underworld. His wife and daughter die in the same suicide bombing that kills Daniel's daughter Zoe, and he bonds with Daniel. He agrees to help Daniel create robot versions of their dead daughters, but then is repelled by the result. He reaches out to his surviving son, Bill, and reveals that their last name is really Adama.
• Amanda, Daniel's wife, is a surgeon who turns to an ex-lover, a Tauron named Tomas Vergis, for comfort after Zoe dies. But actually Amanda feels guilty about having cheated on Daniel and is acting as a "double agent," learning secrets of Vergis' intellectual property from his "blabbing mouth" and taking them home for Daniel to use.
• Sister Clarice Willow is an Athenian High Priestess who runs the Athena Academy, a private religious school where Zoe goes, along with Joseph's daughter Lacy and Zoe's boyfriend Ben. Clarice grew up in a slum and "has seen it all." But she's secretly a monotheist, and has shared her forbidden beliefs with the brightest of her students in private — only to see those beliefs blow up in her students' faces, literally.
• Ben Stark, Zoe's boyfriend, is a fanatical monotheist who's super-intense and seems kind of crazy. He's the one who introduces Zoe and Lacy (Joseph's daughter) to the monotheistic cult. He blows up the train they're on with a suicide bomb. Later, we discover he also has an online avatar, Ben-A, which only Sister Clarice can talk to.
• And then finally there's William Adams aka Adama, who is "Edward James Olmos at nine years old." He's introspective and withdrawn at the best of times, and gets more so after his mom and sister die. He's also barely aware of his father, who's always off working. He's a "stoical Tauron" who learns the basics of his Tauron heritage from his newly close father.

Meanwhile, in an episode of Battlestar Galactica currently filming (maybe episode 12?) Admiral Adama gets blood all over his hands. [Mercury News]

World War Z:

Another review of J. Michael Straczynski's script for the movie adaptation of Max Brooks' World War Z gives quite a bit more detail. The book's author is now a "central character" and has a personal reason for spanning the globe doing interviews about the global zombie war. The interviews include flashbacks and voice-overs. Straczynski smushes together some separate scenes and elements from the book into one crucial scene in the movie, and loses some of the political overtones. And the turning point, the Battle of Yonkers, is truly horrifying and intense in this version. [Geek In The City]

Doctor Who:

Here's a compilation of all the clips from the Doctor Who season opener, which airs on Saturday in the U.K. and in a couple of weeks for Americans. I have to say, the fat people turning into evil babies could be the beginning of an anti-Who backlash. It's actually worse than I had feared. (Note: weird aspect ratio in some scenes is from the source video.)

X-Files 2

Mulder and Scully's baby William "will not go unconsidered" in X-Files 2, says director Chris Carter. [IF Magazine]

World War Z

Ain't It Cool News has a review of J. Michael Straczynski's movie script adapting Max Brooks' book zombie-battle book World War Z. It's a Children of Men-esque look at the ruined post-zombie world, as Gerry takes an assignment to travel around and document what went wrong in the zombie outbreaks. We see how difficult travel has become, including strip-searches and blood tests, and Gerry travels to China to talk to Dr. Tsai about an encounter with zombies at New Dachang. We learn that a mixture of bureaucracy and flawed military strategy made the situation worse. As Gerry interviews more survivors, we realize that people are starting to question whether just having survived is any kind of victory. There's also a brutal subplot about black-market organs. [Ain't It Cool]

Dollhouse

Here's a ton of leaked spoilers/rumors about Joss Whedon's new show Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku: The Dollhouse, home of the amnesiac "dolls" who can be anyone or anything, is in Los Angeles. There are two types of "dolls," Actives and Inactives. Dushku's character, Echo, is an Inactive.

In one scene, Adelle, the "ice queen" who runs the Dollhouse, meets with a Senator who's considering "buying" an Active doll to use as an "escort." She convinces the Senator the Active will be better than any human escort, because the emotions will be real to the "doll" and she'll be programmed to want it as much as he does.

The geek who programs the dolls, Topher, calls Echo's "handler" Boyd, because he's noticed that a group of the mind-wiped dolls has sat together at lunch at the same table for the third time within a week. Dushku's character, Echo, seems to be initiating this clique, which means she may be evolving beyond her mind wipes. There is definitely something unusual about Echo, compared to the other "dolls." If Adelle the boss finds out, she'll have Echo killed.

Topher the geek and Boyd the handler have differing opinions about their work. Topher believes it's purely programming and sort of morally wrong (even though he enjoys doing it.) But Boyd thinks it's healthy for the "dolls" to get to experience every possible human emotion through their programmed personalities. [Blank_Dolls community]

Doctor Who

Some new bits of info have leaked out about Doctor Who season four. The Agatha Christie episode attempts to explore the real-life mystery of Christie's two-week disappearance.

Meanwhile, Steven Moffat's two-parter set in the giant deserted library features "data ghosts," plus a menacing entity called the Suit Creature, which may be sort of like Moffat's "Empty Child" from back in season one. Also, the library's air swarms with flesh-melting piranha called the Vashta Nerada, and the library is full of dead bodies. ER's Alex Kingston plays an Indiana Jones-esque archeologist.

And there are more rumors that Dalek creator Davros will be back. Also, completely iffy rumors that the prehistoric Sea Devils, the Axons and jolly rogue Sabalom Glitz will put in appearances. [TeleWatcher]

Meanwhile, in "Planet of the Ood," we learn what drove the Ood to become a servant race. And in "The Sontaran Strategem," the cloned warrior Sontarans show up on Earth looking for their longtime enemies the Rutans. And then, supposedly, the Sontarans use mind-control on some soldiers from the alien-fighting organization UNIT, and they take the Doctor's friend Martha Jones away to be cloned. But then more UNIT soldiers show up to rescue her. [DoctorWhoForum]

Here's a source claiming that Davros doesn't show up at all. Instead, we get John Simm's version of the Master back again, in a "botched regeneration. [Stuff On TV]

And remember the Adipose? Those weird aliens in the season opener, who use diet pills to turn fat people into alien babies? Well, here are early special effects shots of them. (Not entirely sure what's happening to the woman whose cleavage we see in one shot.) Stephen Regelous, who developed the Massive FX technology used to create crowd scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies, used it to create these swarms of Adipose. [SFX]

Lost

Lost is filming some scenes at the "Santa Rosa Mental Institute" where Future Hurley is a patient, and Matthew Fox and Jorge Garcia were both there, along with Jack's truck. Since we recently had a casting call for a doctor appearing in episode 10, these scenes could be from that episode... but it was rumored to be a Kate-centric outing. So it's possible this episode will feature all of the Oceanic 6. [Spoilers Lost]

Commenter OMG-Ponies proclaimed the other day that the only true zombies come from "voodoo or Jesus," not science. But as champions of a rational, scientific view, we disagree, of course. And here's the list to prove it:

Reanimator. A mad scientist, Herbert, invents a "re-agent" serum that brings the dead back to life in this H.P. Lovecraft adaptation. It starts with cats and devolves into zombie heads and rampaging corpses. Here's a gross and possibly disturbing zombie head scene:

World War Z by Max Brooks. A plague causes a zombie outbreak, which starts in China and spreads around the world. At first people think it's a type of rabies, but they soon realize it's an unstoppable pandemic that resurrects the newly dead.

Fido. This 2007 movie never really explains how the zombie plague happened, but it's definitely science fiction. The last survivors of humanity live in fenced-in bubbles of normality and turn zombies into their slaves using electrical collars. The collars neutralize the zombies' aggression and turn them docile and obedient. It's this weird paternalistic 1950s pastiche where your newly dead loved-ones become your mindless servants. There may be some social commentary buried in there.

28 Days Later and I Am Legend. Two movies with slightly different takes on the same premise: well-meaning scientists create a plague that turns people into monsters. They're not technically undead, but they growl, eat human flesh and rampage just like zombies. In 28 Days Later, their bite turns you into one of them, which is much more zombie-like. In both cases, it starts in the laboratory and ends with pale mutants biting you.

Night of the Living Dead. This one's a bit iffy. At one point, a scientist suggests that radiation from a returning Venus probe may be responsible for the zombie outbreaks. But director George Romero later disavowed this explanation.

Planet Terror. The better half of Grindhouse (sorry, Quentin) features a toxic gas called DC-2, aka Project Terror. A bioweapon deal gone wrong releases some of the fumes onto a sleepy town in Texas, and soon everybody is turning into horrendous zombies. A few people are immune, and you can delay the effects of the process by exposing yourself to the gas again.

Zombie Prom. A lovestruck teenager throws himself into a nuclear cooling tower, only to return as the Atomic Zombie. Reunited with his sweetheart, he wants to attend the high school prom, but principal Delilah Strict (RuPaul!) harbors anti-zombie prejudices. This musical short film is yet another 1950s pastiche, possibly harboring more social commentary. Here's the trailer:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The monster is a collection of dead body parts, and Victor Frankenstein zaps him to unlife using a modern science, including electricity and chemistry, mixed with old-school alchemy. Okay, so the monster doesn't go around turning others into zombies, and he's conscious and intelligent in the book. But he acts quite zombie-like in most of the movies, except Kenneth Branagh's. Call him a zombie outlier.

Resident Evil. In the movies, at least, the evil Umbrella Corp. creates viruses to use as biological weapons. The deadly T-virus is later turned into a cosmetic cream to restore your dead skin cells, which has the unfortunate side effect of turning tons of people into contagious zombies. And cosmetics company Olay recently started marketing a rejuvenating product that looks just like it.