In this Issue:

Scooby Two to start production
Kong remake to be shot in New Zealand
Hints of Xmen-3
Hints of Mummy 3
Bonus: New Matrix:Reloaded Trailer to debut

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Scooby Two to start production

Warner Brothers announced an April 14 production start for the sequel to last year's hit film Scooby-Doo. Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Matthew Lillard and Linda Cardellini all return for the sequel, which is eyeing a March 26, 2004, release date.

Raja Gosnell again directs, from a screenplay by James Gunn. Charles Roven and Richard Suckle are producing.

In the sequel, Scooby and the gang confront an anonymous masked villain who is plotting to take over the city of Coolsville by wreaking mayhem with a monster machine that creates Mystery Inc.'s classic foes, such as The Creeper, Captain Cutler and the 10,000-Volt Ghost, the studio announced.

Also...

Charles Roven, one of the producers of the upcoming Scooby-Doo sequel film, told SCI FI Wire that filmmakers have cast Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) in a key role. The casting marks a reunion of sorts between Green—who played the werewolf, Oz, on UPN's Buffy—and former castmate Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), who reprises the role of Daphne in the Scooby sequel.

"And there'll be other interesting casting that, hopefully, we'll be able to reveal to the public within the next couple of weeks," Roven added in an interview.
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Kong remake to be shot in New Zealand

Director Peter Jackson told the New Zealand Dominion Post newspaper that his upcoming remake of King Kong will duplicate New York on kiwi sets. Jackson said he would construct 1930s-era New York sets on a paddock on the outskirts of Wellington.

"We will build somewhere in the Wellington area," Jackson told the newspaper. "We'll just find some flat land and build a big back [lot] set of New York streets and then use our computers to extend the buildings, make the streets longer and the buildings higher."

Two-thirds of the film is set on Skull Island, so location scouts will also be looking for jungle-type locations and beaches around the country, the newspaper added. Shooting is slated to start in mid-2004, with a release in 2005.
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Hints of Xmen-3

Bryan Singer, director of the upcoming X-Men sequel, X2, told the Comics Continuum Web site that he has story ideas for a third film. "There are three ones I would like to address if I were to go into a third film that I would like to go into fruition," Singer told the site. "You have to see how these things go."
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Hints of Mummy 3

Rachel Weisz—the Mummy star who previously said she didn't want to do any more sequels—has apparently had a change of heart and told SCI FI Wire that she now wants to do a third installment. "If there is one, I hope they ask me," Weisz said in an interview. "It would be kind of weird not to."

When The Mummy Returns was released in 2001, Weisz told SCI FI Wire that "twice is definitely enough." Weisz first played Eve Carnahan, the Egyptologist who fell for heroic Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser), in 1999's original The Mummy.

A third Mummy film would reportedly place Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) in modern times

(Note by Granite: I assume 'modern times' means 1990's-ish).
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Bonus: New Matrix:Reloaded Trailer to debut

Warner Brothers has partnered with NBC Sports to debut a new two-and-a-half minute trailer for the upcoming sequel film The Matrix Reloaded at 3 p.m. ET April 13, during NBC's Arena Football League coverage, according to The Hollywood Reporter.