Archive Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker’s Guide news for April 2004

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30th April 2004
More names on the IMDB, some of them even true!
Five more names have been added to the HHGG movie listing on the Inaccurate Movie Database, of which four are probable and one is known to be nonsense. Marcia Ross is listed alongside Susie Figgis as 'casting director' (Figgis' involvement was confirmed for me by a mutual friend). Ross' previous credits include Shanghai Knights, The Haunted Mansion, Reign of Fire and lots of 1980s American TV movies. The gloriously named Srdjan Kurpjel is listed as 'sound designer'; other work includes the forthcoming Jackie Chan/Steve Coogan version of Around the World in Eighty Days and three recent British horror films, Deathwatch, Don't Look Back and Long Time Dead. 'Location manager' David Broder's experience covers Tomb Raider 2, Bridget Jones 2, Star Wars Episode 2, Enigma, Cronenberg's Spider and one of my personal favourite films, near-future British thriller 24 Hours in London. Finally there's Judy Britten, listed as 'production co-ordinator: second unit' who has worked on both Mummy films, the last couple of James Bonds and Harry Potter 3.

I'm listing job titles in quotes because, even if these people are members of the movie crew (and there are plenty of examples of people giving themselves fake credits on the IMDB) there's no guarantee that the job listed is precisely how they will be credited on the finished movie. As for the inclusion of Ben Garant among the writing credits, this is the IMDB merely believing anything they're told and not bothering to check, as I did when I thoroughly quashed this rumour a couple of weeks ago.

30th April 2004
Hitchhiker’s Guide on Mastermind
One of the contestants in the next series of eternally popular BBC TV quiz Mastermind has chosen Hitchhiker’s Guide as their specialist subject. They will be tested on the subject in the series semi-final, which will be filmed next month.

29th April 2004
HHGG movie ‘visualisation’ artist speaks
Matthew O’Neill is a freelance 3D visualisation artist who has recently had the really cool job of working on the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie. Here’s what Matthew told me when I contacted him:

“I have been working with Sean Mathiesen and Daniel May on 3D pre-production visualisation. This covers a range of things from getting some rough shots made up through to checking that the computerised camera rigs can actually do what is required of them. Essentially making rough animated storyboards.

“I’ll have to pass on providing details on the shots I’ve worked on, as I don’t know which scenes will and won’t make it into the film. If I say I’ve worked on scene X and it doesn’t end up in the film then Garth will string me up when the fans get annoyed.”

29th April 2004
eBaywatch – Hitchhiker’s Guide towel
An original 1980s Hitchhiker’s Guide towel is currently for sale on eBay. According to the seller, “it appears to have been stored away for many years and never used” – which is an important factor when buying a secondhand towel! Bidding ends tomorrow at 16.49 (Californian time) and had reached an impressive $56 by this morning (my time).

28th April 2004
Alternative radio scripts book cover found
In December 2002 when I was helping Pan Macmillan to prepare the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts, we needed a cover design that could be produced quickly, easily and cheaply. I suggested a radio microphone on a starscape background and this was the result. Imagine my surprise to discover this listing for the book on the Country Bookshop site with an unused, alternative cover design, incorporating the same microphone and typography but a very different background! Their ‘cover design’ for the 2001 hardback Dirk Gently Omnibus is also an unused prototype.

26th April 2004
Movie costume designer confirmed
Sammy Sheldon is the costume designer on the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie. She has previously worked with Hammer and Tongs on Orange adverts, the Ali G title sequence and a Badly Drawn Boy video, and her feature credits include The Calcium Kid, Plunkett and Maclean, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. She was recently nominated for a BAFTA for her work on The Canterbury Tales.

26th April 2004
Bill Nighy surprised at John Malkovich news
Empireonline reports that Bill Nighy, when asked at a recent event about his thoughts on John Malkovich playing Humma Kavula, responded with ‘a blank look’ but was delighted when the casting was confirmed to him:

“That's great news. I didn’t know that, but that’s brilliant news,” said the actor, grinning broadly as though he knows something we don’t about the story – which, let’s face it, he does. “How marvellous. It’s already got a great cast, and the addition of John Malkovich is brilliant. I’m just processing that now – it’s a brilliant idea and he’s fantastic.” Nighy was, as ever, full of admiration for all his co-stars, who include Sam Rockwell, Martin Freeman and Mos Def. “They’ve started shooting – I don’t start for a bit, but I’m very excited. The script’s great, the book is a favourite of mine and sold 20 million copies – I think it’s in good hands.”

25th April 2004
Release date rumours questionable
Several sites, including the Inaccurate Movie Database, are saying that the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie will be released in the USA on 3rd June next year. However, according to executive producer Robbie Stamp these rumours are just that – rumours – and neither 3rd June nor any other release date is ‘official’ yet. (The IMDB also still mistakenly believes that the film will shoot location scenes in Iceland…)

24th April 2004
eBaywatch – Douglas Adams’ tent!
Is this the ultimate Douglas Adams collectible? It’s not just his tent, it’s the very tent that he took with him on his hitchhiking tour of Europe in summer 1971, during which he pitched it in an Austrian field and (allegedly) thought up the title The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. On his return to Cambridge Douglas sold the tent, which was proving slightly too small for his 6’5” frame, to his friend David Thomas who now offers it for sale. Asking price is a cool grand – but if you want to own possibly the most significant piece of camping gear in the whole of twentieth century English literature, now’s your chance.

24th April 2004
HHGG movie – first week completed
The movie has now completed its first week of principal photography. Martinfreeman.com reports that the first scene shot was the party where Arthur meets Trillian, which was also the scene used for the screen test which Freeman and Zooey Deschanel recorded. Jamie Freeman adds that his brother has been suffering from nasty headaches, but fortunately the rest of the week was scheduled for non-Arthur scenes.

22nd April 2004
‘Worst Poet in the Universe’ passes away
News has just reached me that Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, immortalised in the radio series of Hitchhiker’s Guide as ‘the worst poet in the universe’ sadly died earlier this month (from pancreatic failure). Johnstone shared a dormitory with Douglas Adams at Brentwood school – you can see a photograph of them together in my book – where he developed a reputation for writing slightly pretentious poetry. However, he must have had some literary skill as he won a prize for English the same year as Douglas and, like Douglas, won a scholarship to study English Literature at Cambridge. He went on to achieve some success in the poetry world as an editor and festival organiser. Famously, he objected to being named in HHGG and his character was thinly disguised in the subsequent book and TV series as ‘Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings.’ David Thomas, a friend of both men, told me: “Although Paul was miffed by Douglas’ epithet he was also amused. It was the inclusion of his then address (Beehive Court, Redbridge) in the first edition that annoyed him.” (NB. In the TV series graphics, Jennings’ address is given as ‘Wasp Villas, Greenbridge’!)

21st April 2004
HHGG to feature in social history of radio SF
The Alien Online reports that Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s Guide will feature in Weird Science, a ‘social history of science fiction on radio’ presented by author Brian Aldiss. The programme will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 8pm on Saturday 15th May.

20th April 2004
Nick Webb interviewed
‘The Duke of Dunstable’ has interviewed Nick Webb about his book Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams for his Douglas Adams Continuum site.

20th April 2004
Tertiary Phase disappears
Above the Title Productions have updated their website and removed all references to The Tertiary Phase. The project remains in limbo with no information or clues as to when it might be broadcast.

19th April 2004
Film starts production today! Director and producer interviewed here!
The idea of a feature film of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first publicly discussed in a British newspaper on 13th October 1979, the day after the novel was published. Today, twenty-four and a half years later and nearly three years after Douglas Adams passed away, that movie finally starts principal photography at Elstree Studios. Check out my Movie FAQ for up-to-date information.

And go here for the first detailed, lengthy, exclusive interview with production team ‘Hammer and Tongs’ aka director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith. Jim Lynn and I interviewed Nick and Garth at the end of January and have been excitedly sitting on our transcripts since then.

Magrathea wishes all the cast and crew of the Hitchhiker’s movie the best of British luck for a successful shoot.

16th April 2004
John Malkovich cast, two new characters confirmed!
Citing the Hollywood Reporter as their source, this morning (just after I left for work!) Reuters broke the news that John Malkovich has been cast as a new, Douglas Adams-created character called Humma Kavula. Malkovich’s many film roles include an android in Making Mr Right, film director FW Murnau in Shadow of the Vampire, Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde in Mary Reilly and of course himself in Being John Malkovich (directed by Spike Jonze, whose recommendation brought Hammer and Tongs aboard the HHGG movie).

This is the first confirmation that the screenplay will differ very significantly from the novel, the radio series and all previous versions of Hitchhiker’s Guide. But who is Humma Kavula? I can exclusively reveal that he is a ‘crazed missionary’ who has travelled to Viltvodle VI, home of the many-armed Jatravartids (a race and planet which are mentioned in the books) and become a passionate convert to their belief in the Great Green Arkleseizure and the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief. Furthermore I can confirm that Anna Chancellor’s character is also new; she plays the Vice-President of the Galaxy, a being named Questular.

16th April 2004
New writer rumour quashed
The same Hollywood Reporter story which announced John Malkovich’s involvement also claimed that a writer called Robert Ben Garant had done a rewrite on Karey Kirkpatrick’s script. However, although Garant is currently attached to remakes of Disney’s The Love Bug, The Incredible Shrinking Man (to star Eddie Murphy) and Luc Besson’s Taxi, he is not involved with the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie in any way. Executive producer Robbie Stamp tells me he has never heard of Garant so it’s just the trade paper getting their wires crossed. (Further research has revealed that this mistake is because Garant is working on another Spyglass movie, the Vin Diesel actioner The Pacifier.)

Kirkpatrick was in fact at Elstree Studios this week and flew back to the USA only yesterday. “The film was in fantastic shape when I last left it on Wednesday evening,” he told me, “with the cast sinking into their roles really nicely. I saw Vogons practising their marching in formation. Awesome. I think people are going to be very happy.”

16th April 2004
Major exclusive on the way
The Hitchhiker’s Guide movie is now only three days away from principal photography. As production starts on Monday morning, a major exclusive which I have been sitting on for several weeks will be posted on this site before I go to work so check in about 9.00am (UK time).

15th April 2004
Another movie crew member
‘Unit production manager’ Peter Heslop is the latest member of the HHGG movie crew to add his name to the IMDB listing. It’s a role he has already performed on two other intergalactic epics – The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones – as well as The Mummy, Gladiator and Tomb Raider 2.

15th April 2004
French Salmon, Don’t Panic announced
Nicolas Botti’s Le Guide Galactique reports that French publisher Folio SF is planning to publish both The Salmon of Doubt and Don’t Panic next week. The Neil Gaiman book will be entitled Pas de Panique but Salmon has been renamed Fonds de Tiroir (literally ‘Drawer Collection’). Nicolas has also added an interview with Folio MD Sébastien Guillot to his site, only in French for the moment but an English translation will follow. The books are available for pre-order from Amazon.fr here and here.

14th April 2004
Duckface joins the movie cast – confirmed!
Last week Bill Nighy was interviewed on breakfast television and let slip the name of a previously undisclosed member of the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie cast – Anna Chancellor, best known as ‘Duckface’ in Four Weddings and a Funeral. She already has a few genre credits including Dennis Potter’s Cold Lazarus and cult sci-fi soap Jupiter Moon. Her other movies include Fairytale: A True Story, Princess Caraboo and most recently Agent Cody Banks 2. My sources on the movie have confirmed that she is indeed in the cast but I’m not yet at liberty to say what character she plays.

14th April 2004
Movie production designer named
One more name has been added to the list of confirmed crew on the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie. Joel Collins, a frequent collaborator with Hammer and Tongs on their music videos, is the production designer, responsible for the overall look of the movie. He is on the IMDB listing but has also been independently confirmed by my sources.

12th April 2004
Wales replaces Iceland as movie location
Back in January, the Cinescape site reported that the HHGG movie was planning a location shoot in Iceland. That report, though accurate, was slightly premature and it has now been confirmed to me that the location work will take place in Wales instead.

12th April 2004
Movie and Tertiary Phase FAQs added
Newly added to this site are two FAQs: one on the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie – which is now only one week away from production – and one on the Tertiary Phase. Both will be updated as more information becomes available.

12th April 2004
HHGG at Eastercon – report
The 55th British National Science Fiction Convention or ‘Eastercon’ ends today, with more than 700 SF fans from the UK and elsewhere wrapping up four days of discussion and drinking at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool. I’m sorry to report that Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams, which was nominated for the BSFA Award, didn’t win. However, a lively and well-received discussion panel on Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s Guide was held on Saturday night. ZZ9 President ‘Flick’ chaired the discussion between myself and Gerry Webb, who had some great anecdotes about attending a Star Trek convention in Leeds in 1980 with Douglas and two actresses from the Hitchhiker’s stage show. Talk of the HHGG play revealed that in the audience were people who had seen the ICA production, the Rainbow production, the Theatr Clwyd tour – and a gentleman named Daniel Murphy, who had actually written the script of the 1983 production at the La Boite Theatre in Brisbane!

6th April 2004
Mostly Harmless 92 received
The latest issue of Mostly Harmless, the world’s only Hitchhiker’s Guide magazine, arrived at Magrathea this morning, bearing a superb cover caricature (by Dave Hallewell) of Messrs Nighy and Freeman in character. Contents include a summary of known movie cast and crew; a report on the second Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture; a transcription of Martin Freeman interviewed on the Simon Mayo show; an in-depth look at where the Tertiary Phase has got to; the story behind the DNA@BBC triple CD set; a guide to the different editions of Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams; part one of an epic interview with Dirk Maggs; a detailed advance review of the new Pratchett novel; and all the usual other stuff that dedicated Guide-fans need to know.

5th April 2004
Bradford documentary screening alteration
The Douglas Adams event at the Bradford Fantastic Films Weekend in May originally planned to include a screening of the 1992 South Bank Show about (and written by) Douglas Adams. However, possible problems with obtaining screening rights mean that the 2001 Omnibus tribute ‘The Man Who Blew Up the World’ will be screened instead.

4th April 2004
Meet the movie’s Mr Prosser
I can now exclusively reveal that the “small part” in the movie for which The League of Gentlemen’s Steve Pemberton has been cast is council workman Mr Prosser. He becomes the seventh confirmed member of the cast.

3rd April 2004
Douglas Adams News Huddlines gags discovered!
It has been known for some time that, before the success of Hitchhiker’s Guide, Douglas Adams contributed a tiny amount of material to the Radio 2 topical sketch show The News Huddlines. Now five jokes written by Douglas and used in the show in 1977 have been unearthed by Huddlines actor Chris Emmett. The jokes are included in an interview with Emmett which will be published in issue 93 of Mostly Harmless in July.

3rd April 2004
League of Gentlemen star cast in HHGG movie
A report on Chortle.co.uk about the forthcoming League of Gentlemen feature film, citing an interview on Teletext, mentions that the League’s Steve Pemberton “has a small part in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie.” I have already been told what the part in question is, and I’m just waiting for the okay to reveal that. Thanks to Chris Bainbridge for spotting this.