• Paul Scofield (1922-2008) - British actor (pictured) who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons and who was nominated again almost thirty years later for his supporting role in Quiz Show. He also co-stars in Frankenheimer's The Train, Branagh's Henry V, Zeffirelli's Hamlet, Hytner's The Crucible and Michael Winner's Scorpio, and he played the title role in Peter Brook's King Lear. He narrated the documentaries London and Robinson in Space and voiced the part of Akira Kurosawa in the documentary Kurosawa. He died of leukemia March 19, in West Sussex, England. (NY Times)
• Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) - Oscar-nominated screenwriter of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Best known as a science fiction author, he wrote the novel-turned-film 2010, and his novels Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood's End are also currently being adapted. See Richard's full post for details of his death.
• Hugo Claus (1929-2008) - Belgian filmmaker, novelist and playwright. He wrote the screenplay for the 1958 Oscar nominee Dorp Aaan De Rivier and his directorial work includes the Berlin Film Festival nominee Vrijdag and an adaptation of his play De Verlossing. He died March 19 in Antwerp, Belgium. (BBC)

The great futurist now belongs to history; AP reports that Arthur C. Clarke was found dead in his home in Sri Lanka. Others can write about Clarke's contributions to technology ... for example his 1945 scientific paper "Extra-Terrestrial Relays" describing the possibilities of the communication satellite, which was as essential to modern living as electricity was to earlier generations. Let's talk about movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey is in some ways a collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick ... or as the author said, "the film should be credited to Kubrick and Clarke and the novel should be credited to Clarke and Kubrick."

This account from wikipedia notes the genesis of one of the ultimate science fiction films was a 1950 short story by Clarke, titled "The Sentinel." The classic spawned a 1984 sequel, 2010. Various short stories were adapted for television (unfortunately not enough of them from Tales From the White Hart, still waiting for its time on screen.) It's been announced that David Fincher will film Rendezvous With Rama, with Morgan Freeman in the lead; here's Jessica Barnes' item on it from 2007. The film concerns a close encounter of the third kind with an alien spacecraft. And John Hurt is definitely playing a Clarke figure in this Jodie Foster outer-space movie.

Clarke was born in England, and was a radar expert with the RAF during World War 2. Years of astronomical research gave way to a later-life interest in the ocean; hence his life in Sri Lanka, where he could scuba dive. He is remembered, among numerous accomplishments, for the fostering of Clarke's Three Laws: 1."When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." 2."The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." 3."Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

If there is one thing you can say about director Kimberly Peirce, it's that she likes to keep things fresh and interesting. She found huge success with Boy's Don't Cry, and now she's following up the story of Brendan Teena with Stop Loss -- a war story of all things, about a soldier who refuses to return to battle. If you thought that was a bit of a theme change, get a load of the other project she'd like to helm -- a big-screen adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Yes, that's sci-fi, folks.

She recently talked about the possibility with MTV and says: "I love Childhood's End. That's a phenomenal book. We have a draft of that and we'll see if Universal wants to make it." What does she have in mind? "If you're going to launch something that big, you need a big movie star. It's probably not less than a 70 million dollar movie. You go to that movie with a certain appetite for spectacle." For those of you who haven't read it -- it's a different kind of post-apocalyptic future. In Clarke's world, aliens come to earth and help end wars, get people happy, and prolong life, which brings the Earth into a utopia. The twist -- these aliens look just like Satan.

But right now, it's just a script and a hope. Meanwhile, she's penning a "dark, sexual story" set in New Orleans that follows "the rise of a great American gangster." So, would you like to see Clarke's world hit the big screen, and can Peirce pull it off?

While hard at work on graphic novel adaptation Wanted with Angelina Jolie and The Dark Knight, Morgan Freeman spoke with MTV movie blogs about his adaptation of Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. The story centers on an alien star ship that floats into our solar system and the human team of scientists working to figure out its origin. Freeman is planning to produce and star in the film and has promised that David Fincher will direct. There is no official confirmation on whether Fincher's involvement in the film is just wishful thinking on Freeman's part, but Freeman seems confident that Fincher is on board. Freeman first expressed interest in the project back in 2000, but in 2003 he had spoken with Sci-Fi Wire to speak about the problems he was having with studios, saying "These things, they always want to make it into an action film, You can't do it with this. And we've been having trouble getting someone to see the science aspect of this, the exploratory aspects of it, rather than the blood and guts and stuff".

Four years later, and it doesn't sound like getting the film into production has gotten any easier. Freeman now tells MTV, "It's a very intellectual science fiction film, a very difficult book to translate cinematically. [At least] we have found it very difficult to translate, to get ready for film". Rama was published back in 1972 and won both a Nebula and a Hugo award for science fiction writing. The book was later expanded upon into a series of novels, but Clarke was no longer writing them. Instead, he served as an executive editor for the remaining novels. Freeman still isn't finished with Wanted, and he has already signed to portray Nelson Mandela in a biopic about the legendary human rights leader. But in spite of the delays; persistence has paid off and Rendezvous with Rama is tentatively set for release in 2009.