Universal has confirmed that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 director John Woo will be in the driver's seat for the feature film adaptation of Midway Games' SPY-HUNTER, reports HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The film is set to star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Based on arcade classic, SPY-HUNTER follows Alec Sects, a former F-15 pilot and a current member of the International Espionage Services' Spy Hunter team.

Just when it had seemed that STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE was doomed, the STAR TREK prequel (with vfx by Eden FX, among others) was apparently saved following a massive fan campaign organized by the Internet site SaveEnterprise.com. When UPN made its upfront presentation on Thursday, it noted that ENTERPRISE would be renewed for a fourth season, switching to the network's low-rated Friday movie slot at 9:00 pm.

Visual effects shop Eden FX has expanded its production team by naming Andrea D'Amico as exec producer. In her new post, D'Amico will specialize in the production of feature film visual effects. Regarding her new position, she says, "Eden FX has an excellent track record in long-form television visual effects and recently made an impressive entrée into the feature world by providing over 200 fx shots for HELLBOY, and a beautiful fx shot for THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

Due to his leaving the Director's Guild to co-direct SIN CITY with the comic creator Frank Miller, helmer Robert Rodriguez has stepped down as director of the Paramount adaptation of the first book in Edgar Rice Burroughs' 11-book JOHN CARTER OF MARS series, A PRINCESS OF MARS, reports IGN FilmForce. Rodriguez couldn't stay on MARS because Paramount under DGA guidelines can't employ directors who are not members of the guild. Despite not having a director, Paramount still plans to go into production on the film next year.

SMALLVILLE - THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON (Warner Home Video, $59.98) has made it to DVD, with all 23 episodes of the WB series on six discs. The focus shifted in season two to Clark Kent's (Tom Welling) growing and agonizing self-discovery. Episodes such as the two-parter "Heat" and "Red" deal with his past and his disturbing superpowers. Look for Christopher Reeve as a scientist who helps explain his Kryptonian origins in "Rosetta." Vfx provided by Modern Videofilm Inc. and Rainmaker Digital Pictures.

Continuing our focus on films this month, we look internationally, as Alain Bielik examines the gorgeous hallucinatory work done by Mac Guff Ligne for the French western BLUEBERRY, Chris Harz sizes up the London vfx scene, where a flurry of big budget American productions have recently migrated; and on Thursday I take a glimpse of the emerging presence of Shanghai SFS Digital Media as a vfx/3D-animated force to be reckoned with in China.

ACM SIGGRAPH announced the content of the Emerging Technologies exhibition for SIGGRAPH 2004, the 31st International Conference on Computer Graphics and Techniques, being held Aug. 8 -12 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The SIGGRAPH 2004 Emerging Technologies exhibition will feature 28 interactive installations from research labs, universities, independent artists and industry that explore the theme of enhancing life.

BAFTA announced the winners of its Craft Awards on May 16, 2004 at a ceremony hosted by Alistair McGowan at the Dorchester. The TV documentary RESTORATION won the BAFTA for Graphic Design while Framestore took home the Visual Effects BAFTA for its work on SEA MONSTERS – A WALKING WITH DINOSAURS TRILOGY.

Warner Bros. has snatched up the rights to the fantasy novel series XANTH to be produced by TROY helmer Wolfgang Petersen along with TROY writer David Benioff and Diana Rathbun of Petersen's Radiant Prods, reports VARIETY. Radiant's Samuel Dickerman will exec produce.

A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON is the first book in the series, which chronicles a boy named Bink in the world of Xanth, where all the inhabitants must possess magical powers or face banishment.

Caligari announced the release of gameSpace Light (gSL), a special edition of the company's game graphics authoring software. gameSpace Light is designed to introduce independent game developers, students and hobbyists to 3D game content creation using Caligari's trademark first-person-perspective design interface.