- NEW YORK (Variety) - Steven Spielberg, the director of "ET"
and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," is heading off to outer
space again with "Taken," a 20-hour miniseries focusing on alien
abductions.
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- Spielberg will serve as executive producer
of the DreamWorks TV project, which will screen on cable's Sci-Fi Channel
in the third quarter of 2000. It will be based on reports of UFO landings
in New Mexico dating back to 1947.
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- "Steven has always had an interest
in this subject," said Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of Sci-Fi's
USA Networks parent.
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- He told Daily Variety that Spielberg's
treatment starts from the premise "that there are abductions, that
they're real and not made up. This will be a big story with multiple characters,
protagonists and antagonists, and it'll span lots of decades."
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- In a statement, Spielberg called himself
a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel, and said "no other place" is better
suited for a miniseries of the "magnitude" of "Taken."
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- "Taken," which will cost upward
of $40 million, will begin production this summer. The director and cast
are still to be named. The Sci-Fi Channel plans to run it for two hours
a night over 10 consecutive nights.
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