Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Creation Entertainment’s 12th Annual Grand Slam SF convention takes place March 26-28 at the Pasadena Center in Pasadena, Calif. The convention will feature more than 80 celebrities from SF movies and TV shows, including Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, The Dead Zone, Stargate SG-1 and The Lord of the Rings.

ABC Family has acquired rerun rights to The WB’s Smallville, which will begin its off-network run in the fall, Zap2it reported. The cable channel has rights to the show for several years.

Warner Brothers has posted a new Web site and trailer for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, which opens June 4.

Joy Bryant (Antwone Fisher) and Kate Hudson will star in Skeleton Key, a movie about a young woman who begins to experience spooky things in the home of the elderly couple for whom she’s caring, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Bryant plays the friend and roommate of Hudson’s character.

Alias has tapped Mia Maestro to play Sydney Bristow’s (Jennifer Garner) kid sister in at least three episodes, beginning April 25, TV Guide Online reported.

Lion’s Gate has opened a bogus Web site for the Godsend Institute, a cloning clinic that is featured in the upcoming SF movie Godsend, which opens April 30.

The Ring producers Mike Macari and Neal Edelstein have optioned the rights to Don’t Say a Word writer Andrew Klavan’s new, untitled supernatural horror script, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Gold Circle Films will finance the horror project, which revolves around a widow and her daughter, who is haunted by her dead father.

The Columbus Symphony Orchestra in Ohio will debut Howard Shore’s score for the three Lord of the Rings films on March 26, featuring 200 performers, including two choirs, a full orchestra and musicians playing Norwegian fiddle, Japanese drums, African flutes and clanking chains, the Associated Press reported. The score will be performed as a live symphonic work in six movements, each corresponding to a book in J.R.R. Tolkien’s three novels.

Nickelodeon Movies has signed up Scarlett Johansson, Alec Baldwin and Jeffrey Tambor for voice work in its animated The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, due Nov. 19 from Paramount, Variety reported. Stephen Hillenburg, creator of the Nickelodeon cable series, will direct.

The March 19 seventh-season finale of SCI FI Channel’s original series Stargate SG-1, "Lost City, Part 2," drew a 2.1 rating (2.56 million viewers), the network announced. The finale sets up SCI FI Channel’s newest original series, Stargate Atlantis, which will debut in July, alongside SG-1’s eighth season.

Ain’t It Cool News reported a rumor that writer/director Frank Darabont (The Green Mile) has been hired to draft a script for a proposed third Mission: Impossible movie.

Zap2it reported that former S Club 7 pop star Hannah Spearritt has joined the cast of Seed of Chucky, the fifth film in the popular horror comedy series.

Maverick Films has optioned Will Aldis’ spec script The Tiny Problems of White People, a comedy about a grieving former sportswriter haunted by the ghost of a man who claims to have written the works of Shakespeare, Variety reported. Rothman and J. Todd Harris will produce, with Paul Rosenberg and Marc Toberoff co-producing.

The official Star Wars Web site has posted images of the packaging for the upcoming DVD release of the original Star Wars trilogy of films, due Sept. 21.

UPN will pull Game Over from Wednesdays and will shift it to Fridays, where the network will air a mix of original and repeat episodes from 8-9 p.m. ET/PT, effective immediately, Variety reported. The network will begin airing double episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise on Wednesdays.

David Cronenberg is attached to helm London Fields, a supernatural thriller movie based on Martin Amis’ 1991 novel of the same name, Variety reported. Roberta Hanley and Amis wrote the script, about a psychic woman in a seedy London pub who foresees that one of two men she meets there will ultimately kill her.

Warner Home Video will distribute Clifford’s Really Big Movie, an animated feature film based on the Clifford the Big Red Dog children’s book series, in April, Variety reported. The 73-minute movie features the voice of the late John Ritter as Clifford in one of his final performances.

Producers of ABC’s Alias are trying to get guest star Lena Olin to return this season to reprise the role of Irina Derevko, the nefarious mother of spy Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner), E! Online columnist Watch With Kristin reported.

A new full trailer has gone up on the Web for the upcoming Hugh Jackman monster movie Van Helsing, which opens May 7.

Actress Mercedes McCambridge, who secured a place in movie history for voicing the demon child in 1973’s The Exorcist, died March 2 at 87, the Associated Press reported. The actress died at an assisted-living facility of natural causes.

Creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos told the Moviehole Web site that the on-again off-again Superman movie may be on again. "My best friend called me two days ago and said Superman is on," he told the site.

Emmanuel Lewis guest stars on an upcoming episode of SCI FI Channel’s original series Tripping the Rift, which airs Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT. Lewis will play himself in an episode tentatively slated for April 1.

Jared Padalecki will join the cast of the upcoming House of Wax, which will be directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Dark Castle Entertainment remake of the 1953 classic horror film starts shooting in May in Australia for Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow Pictures.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King saw its international box-office gross hit $700.2 million on March 17, becoming the second film to cross that threshold after Titanic, Variety reported. New Line reported King’s global tally at $1.072 billion so far.

Disney Channel has green-lighted Disney’s Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, a new cartoon series from Walt Disney Animation that will join its schedule in August, about a poodle and a rabbit stuck in the Amazon rain forest, according to The Hollywood Reporter.