Cool News
PITCH BLACK a new sci fi flick...
SPOILER ALERT !!
Harry here with some information and a pic that a fella sent in that just has me asking, "Where did this project come from?" Sheesh, this looks and sounds pretty cool. It's directed by David Twohy, who I felt did a fantastic job with THE ARRIVAL, which is a pretty damn cool movie. I love the Harryhausen feel of the aliens. Well I'm not sure what this spy wants me to call him, so I'll just post the info. (yes I do recognize that it reads like press agent copy. But I haven't seen ANY of this info anywhere else so it's all for you to digest. Enjoy)There are MANY SPOILERS BELOW!!!!
Marooned space-travelers struggle for
survival on seemingly lifeless
sun-scorched world. But when a titanic
eclipse throws the planet into darkness,
the world erupts with nocturnal life - and
now the real battle begins...
Cast:
Radha
Mitchell
Vin Diesel
(Saving
Private
Ryan)
Cole
Hauser
(Good Will
Hunting)
Director:
David
Twohy
Producer:
Tom
Engelman
Exec.
Producers:
Ted Field,
Scott
Kroopf
Screenplay:
David
Twohy
CAROLYN FRY is a junior space pilot on the crew of
a craft traveling to a far away galaxy known as New
Mecca. Among the passengers, JOHNS is a good
looking cop who brings RIDDICK, a deadly killer, to
justice. Riddick's eyes have been enhanced for vision
on a low light planet, making him virtually blind in the
brightness of day.
When the spacecraft becomes crippled in space,
Carolyn fails to pilot a safe landing on an inhabited
planet. She is the only member of the crew to survive.
Johns and Riddick, in the relative safety of the
passenger compartment, are unharmed. These three
characters form an uneasy alliance in the quest to
survive. Under their leadership are a handful of other
passengers: three CHRISLAM PILGRIMS, whose
religion is a combination of Christian and Muslim
scripture; AUDREY, a teenage runaway; ZEKE and
SHAZZA, husband and wife biologists who study
extraterrestrial life forms; and PARIS, effete,
self-interested antique dealer whose belongings
include an abundance of vintage liquor.
On the eerie planet, scorched perpetual sunlight, the
survivors find a landscape dotted with huge, dry
cone-shaped hills and petrified, vine-like croppings.
But no life. Then they find and abandoned settlement.
Whoever they were, the settlers left in a hurry. Why?
Among the belongings left at the camp is a light duty
spacecraft that could be their chance for survival.
Then Riddick, digging a grave for the dead crew
members, finds a tunnel full of bones. Zeke
investigates the hole and a strange, foreboding
clicking that comes from within. Zeke is yanked into
the shadows. His anguished screams echo throughout
the settlement. When Fry follows his trail in the dark
cave, all she finds are Zeke's eviscerated remains.
Suddenly, something unseen comes after her. She
barely escapes into the daylight, where whatever is
lurking in the dark does not follow.
The creatures which almost got Fry, killed Zeke and
the settlers who came before them.
Fry and Riddick further realize that the planet is not
perpetually in light - it's on an orbit that puts it in total
darkness every sixty years. The last time darkness fell
the settlers were destroyed. And as the suns set now,
Riddick warns Fry that she'd better know exactly
whom she can trust. Because Johns isn't all he seems
to be. And Riddick might be more than she imagines.
It turns out that Johns is, in fact, a bounty hunter, and
he's been hiding a morphine habit. Although he's
promised Riddick his freedom, he had no intention of
keeping his word. Fry can't trust either one of them.
But as dusk begins to fall on this hostile world, dread
unites all of the survivors. Whatever is lurking in the
dark has been there a long time, hungrily waiting for
this moment.
As night falls, the tree-like vines come alive, turning
out to be the spines of hibernating beasts called
PLOWHEADS. These huge creatures become easy
prey for winged HATCHLINGS, which fly from the
spired hills like smoke from a volcano top. And the
ominous clicking that preceded Zeke's death begins to
build in intensity as grown CARNIVORES emerge.
Hiding in the gloaming, they navigate their dark world
with clicking echo-location, searching with
saber-bladed precision for sustenance after their sixty
year fast.
Harry here, I'm told that this is where the film then gets very very coool. We'll see. Anybody got any more info on this flick?
-
+ Expand All
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Pitch Black was made in Australia earlier this year. It used primarily two locations - Coober Pedy in outback Australia (an old opal mining town - likely for the 'unknown planet' shots) and studios on the Gold Coast. Radha Mitchell is a young Australian actress recently seen in "High Art" (directed by Lisa Cholodenko).
-
Was there any indication of who did the artwork? From seeing the picture, my guess is Wayne Douglas Barlow - The fantastic science-fiction/fantasy/dinosaur illustrator. He has done a great number of book covers, and has a few books of his own out there as well: Expedition, Barlow's Guide to Extraterrestrials, and one or two more. If you have a taste for scifi art, don't hesitate to look his work up - He is a painstaking craftsman of the highest order, and a creative genius.
-
Double Negative (London) is doing character (I suppose it is creature) animation for the film.
-
From reading the description this sounds like a ripoff of Asimov's "Nightfall" with some aliens thrown in. Might still be cool, but it's not especially innovative.
-
Combined details for
Pitch Black (1999)
Directed by
David N. Twohy
Writing credits
David N. Twohy
Jim Wheat
Genre: Drama / Sci-Fi
Plot Outline: A group of marooned space travelers struggle for survival on a seemingly
lifeless sun-scorched world.
Production Notes/Status:
Status:
Filming
Last Updated:
09 September 1998
Note:
Since this project is categorized as being in production, the data is subject
to change or could be removed completely.
Cast (in alphabetical order)
Vin Diesel
Cole Hauser
Radha Mitchell
Directed by
David N. Twohy
Writing credits
David N. Twohy
Jim Wheat
Ken Wheat
Produced by
Tom Engelman
Ted Field
(executive)
Scott Kroopf
(executive)
Tony Winley
Other crew
Ric Anderson
....
stunts
Ian Gracie
....
art director
Patrick Tatopoulos
....
creatuer designer
Production Companies
Intrepid Pictures
Also Known As:
Nightfall (1998) (USA: working title)
Country: Australia / USA
Language: English
Color: Color -
It sounds like they took a lot from Barlow's Expedition (which is a great book, BTW) Echo-location et al sounds a great deal like what he put in there. The design even looks a lot like the a combination of two of the predatory species in the book.
-
will this turn up in US theaters or is it just another Austrailian movie that the USA might get on video sometime between 2000-2001?
-
The concept art was in fact done by Patrick Tatopoulos, of Independence Day and Stargate fame....
-
Wow, the sun sets every 60 years and they just happen to show up right on time for this to happen? But hey, that's okay, because they just happen to have someone with them who's eyes have been altered so he can see in the dark, more or less. Talk about forced coincidences...strrrrrrreetch..
-
I agree that the plot sounds very much like Nightfall, but the only reason I caught that was the fact that I saw a tape of a movie based on Nightfall. Didn't actually watch the tape, just noted its existence and became very nervous. There are certain stories that should just be left alone.
-
Does the video box for Issac Asamov's Nightfall show a barren planet surface with a ringed planet sightly tilted behind? I watched that when it first came out...I fell asleep cause that stinker was so slow... not stupid, just extremely slow.
-
In Larry Niven's story "Flare Time" pretty much the same thing happens, as far as the beasts turning from rocks and such into monsters. The plot outline of this movie seems to take the frightening idea of the hibernating beasties and waters it down into a regular, run-of-the-mill action\horror film that does little or nothing to further the bounds of film, exept to make another late nite HBO filler like the Arrival is now. My sugestion to everyone in the world is to read everything Larry Niven has ever written. Some of it isn't that good, but most of it, the majority of it, is pure sci-fi adventure. For example, in flare time instead of these monsters coming out every 60 years and staying out for I don't know how long, the monstors come out as regularly as the sun has a major flare, (which is more often than 60 years)because of the little rock demons and other things that come out and kill people, a whole ecosystem has evolved to live with these things that only come out every so often. The indiginous life is very interesting, there is and actual reason for the people to be on this planet, and the charecters are more than just projections of different human emotions, qualities and vices. Now, having said all of that, I will say this...Please, please please, hollywood, DONT EVER make a movie out of Niven's work. However cool it would be to have Gil Hamilton (who has a psycic third arm, its a long story) or Beowulf Shaeffer (a seven foot tall albino\spaceship captian that has done everything from killing someone with a quantum black hole to seeing the core of the galaxy explode) as a action figure, today's film industry would turn every plot, and every character into something out of Con-air or
(heaven forbid and forgive me for even mentioning this)"Its like Die hard with (insert planet, spaceship, alien race here). Okay, I've said my piece and I've advocated my favorite sci-fi author for the day. Thank you and sorry about the long post. -
I read an Arthur Clark story in which a major religion on future Earth was Chrislam. As for this movie I'll have to wait and see. But the illustration is cool.
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