Short Cuts
THE HOLLYWOOD SHOWCASE

The Actor’s Out There

One of the hottest serials ever to hit television the world over is soon going to be minus a major character. Fox Mulder aka David Duchovny will be bowing out of the eight season of The X-Files and the hunt is on to find an appropriate partner for Gillian Anderson. And while the sesame seed-chewing, FBI agent Mulder seemed the perfect supernatural experience as far as the series is concerned, Hollywood Reporter came out with a list of lucky actors. Fox Television refused to comment on the casting speculation. So while Duchovny takes a paranormal break here are the guys who might be fencing with aliens soon:

• Hart Bochner: He’s the guy who featured as the professor of urban legends in Urban Legend. And while he’s never ever come face-to-face with aliens, he has acted in Supergirl.

• Bruce Campbell: He’s played a demon and an agent. Jack of All Trades saw him play the role of a government agent while his paranormal encounters are many. Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, and a spot as a demon on The X-Files.

• Robert Patrick: Played Terminator 2’s liquid-metal terminator, whose favourite form was that of a motorcycle cop. Oh, he also witnessed an alien abduction in Fire in the Sky and was taken over by an alien in The Faculty.

• Stephen Rea: Usually spotted on the wrong side of the law (The Crying Game) and played one of the undead in Interview With the Vampire.

Sandra Strikes Back

Actress Sandra Bullock will soon be spotted playing a martyr in her new picture, a thriller about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. Bullock, who has been busy filming the beauty pageant adventure Miss Congeniality, will relink with producer Irwin Winkler for Enough.The two worked together on 1995’s The Net, that featured Bullock in the laughable role of a computer programmer who becomes the victim of an online conspiracy coup. Bullock and Winkler will turn things up a notch this time, with the actress attempting to flee an evil force made of flesh rather than circuit boards.

The X Factor

Hollywood adaptations are usually avoided by a movie-going audience. They are also among the riskiest propositions. If you stay true to the source, you may alienate the general public; deviate from the original and you win the undying enmity of hardcore comic fans. Now fans and the public alike have embraced 20th Century Fox’s X-Men, directed by The Usual Suspects’ Bryan Singer. The film opened with an estimated $57.5 million, apparently the biggest non-holiday non-sequel opening ever. It’s also the fourth-largest three-day-weekend opening, behind such heavyweights as The Phantom Menace, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Mission: Impossible 2 all of which were sequels. Apparently X-Men’s numbers and Scary Movie’s continued draw (it brought in $26 million its second week, hitting second place) helped pull the box office out of the slump it was in. The box-office this month was 38 per cent higher than it was during the same time last year, with the top five films earning more than $10 million each.

• X-IT: David Duchovny’s on his way out of the hit series

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