H2G2, THE MOVIE

NB : The delays, rumours, and silences about "H2g2, the movie" have become quite a private joke stuff or a very annoying subject for the fan community. Do you think it will be made one day? MJS : No, I don't think the film will ever get made. It would be too expensive, so expensive that it would have to be a huge blockbuster like Titanic or Star Wars, and HHGG can never be that. If it was up to me, I would wait a few years and then make it as computer animation, like Final Fantasy but better (I thought Final Fantasy was an okay film, but...). That way it would be cheaper. NB : A lot of fans are still doubtful about Disney being at the production and Jay Roach (Austin Powers) as a director? What do you think about it? MJS : It is not a Disney' film. Disney is a huge corporation which owns many, many companies, so Disney is only a small part of Disney. Pulp Fiction was made by a company which is owned by Disney. I don&Mac186;t remember Pulp Fiction having singing animals in it! I think Jay Roach is an excellent director who understands what is special about HHGG. If anybody can make the film work, it's Jay. He's a very nice, very clever, very talented guy.

MJ SIMPSON

NB : You are working and have been working on several projects regarding Douglas Adams? you're adding stuff for the third version of Neil gaiman's "don't panic" which is going to be published in June, you're writing a biography of dna which will be published next year, and you got involved in the edition of "salmon of doubt". Can you tell us more about your projects about dna? MJS : I have wanted to write a book about Douglas/HHGG for a long time, but I could not get a publisher interested. Then I wrote The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker's Guide for a very small publishing company, which came out in April 2001. By the end of that year, I had signed a contract to write a biography of Douglas, and I was helping Douglas' assistant Sophie Astin and his editor Peter Guzzardi to find things to put in The Salmon of Doubt. Then, unexpectedly, Titan Books rang me and said, "We are doing a new edition of Don't Panic and the new chapters have to be written in three weeks. Can you do it?". In Britain we always say "You wait a long time for a bus, then three come along at once". I feel the same way about Douglas Adams books! NB : your biography will be the first to cover the whole life of Douglas, and will be his first true biography (Neil gaiman's book was about dna & h2g2). What do you want to achieve with it? MJS : I want to write about Douglas as a person, because he was a fascinating man. He went to places and did things and met people and had ideas. A lot of people still think that all he did was write funny sci-fi books and scripts, but I want people to know about computers and aye-ayes and Pink Floyd and all the other aspects of Douglas. I hope I can fit it all in one book. I promise you that, however much you know about Douglas Adams, you will find lots of things in my book that you didn't know. I can promise this because the two people in the world who know more about Douglas than anyone else are me and Kevin Davies. And there's lots of things in my book that even Kevin and I didn't know! NB : You've been also involved to in zz9 (the official fan club) for quite a lot of years now? How did you discover Douglas adams? and what attracted your interest? MJS : I discovered HHGG in 1980 when a friend bought me the novel. I loved comedy and a I loved sci-fi, so I fell in love with the book. Two years later I joined ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. I edited the ZZ9 magazine for two years, and then I was President for two years, now I'm called the Research Archivist - which means I collect things and find things out. NB : you opened your owned website last January? Why? MJS : I'm now a full-time writer and it's important that people recognise the name MJ Simpson. Some people will know my name from SFX magazine or other magazines I write for like Fangoria and Starburst, but many people will not know my name. A website is a reference point. The first thing I do when I want to find out about somebody is look: do they have their own website? It also gives me somewhere to publish all the hundreds of interviews I have written over the years. But the HHGG interviews which I am doing for this book will all be appearing in the ZZ9 magazine - so join ZZ9 now!

LINKS

MJ Simpson's website.

ZZ9 PLURAL Z ALPHA's website.

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