newsmakers

newsmakers

John Carpenter returns to horror

LOS ANGELES

The creator of Michael Myers and “Halloween” is returning to horror after a 10-year hiatus.

John Carpenter is back to his beloved genre with “The Ward,” opening July 8.

The film stars Amber Heard as a woman who finds herself in a mysterious mental institution in the 1960s with no memory of her life before.

Carpenter, 63, calls it “a character study.”

“It was the first feature opportunity that I had since 2001,” he says. “It was a limited vision, a limited location and limited cast. It was something I could do and thought it would be a lot of fun.”

He took a break from filmmaking after 2001’s “Ghosts of Mars,” saying he was “burned out.”

“I was really tired from making movies,” he says. “I thought, ‘I got to stop for a while. I can’t do this anymore.’ And the public agreed with me, ‘Stop.’”

But he couldn’t stay stopped. He was drawn back to telling stories on the big screen and to horror, which he calls “a universal emotion that we all feel.”

“Every person in every country, every human being alive feels, has the same fears. We all are brothers and sisters together in fear,” he says. “Horror crosses international boundaries in terms of an audience. Sometimes comedy doesn’t travel. Sometimes other dramas don’t travel, they don’t translate. But horror, fear does.”

CNN sports anchor Nick Charles dies at 64

ATLANTA

Nick Charles, a former taxi driver who became CNN’s first sports anchor, died Saturday after a two-year struggle with bladder cancer, the cable network reported.

He died peacefully at his New Mexico home, his wife, Cory, told the network. He was 64.

Nicholas Charles Nickeas grew up in Chicago, working late-night jobs in high school to help his family, according to CNN. He eventually went to college to study communications and drove a taxi to help pay his tuition.

He was still driving taxis in 1970 when he landed his first gig with WICS in Springfield, Ill. That’s when he adopted the name Nick Charles at the urging of his news director, the network said.

Charles later left Springfield to work at local stations in Baltimore and Washington and then began at Atlanta-based CNN on the network’s first day in 1980.

He made his name before a national audience teaming with Fred Hickman for almost 20 years on “Sports Tonight,” a daily highlight show that battled with ESPN for viewers. Charles became such a popular TV personality that Topps put his face on a trading card, CNN reported.

Associated Press