CHRIS ROBERTS, the head of Austin-based Digital Anvil, is now shooting for a new set of stars. The thirty-year-old computer-game designer has finished directing his first film, Wing Commander, which is based on Roberts’ wildly popular CD-ROM games of the same name. The $27 million movie is scheduled for release in February or March, but some familiar faces from the game won’t make it to the big screen. For one, Malcolm McDowell’s character, Admiral Tolwyn, will be played by veteran actor David Warner. The real shock, though, is that Mark Hamill will not reprise his role as the dashing, world-weary Commander Blair. The movie, Roberts explains, reaches back to the first Wing Commander, when Blair is fresh out of the academy. “I love Mark, but it was going to be difficult to make him look twenty-one or twenty-two” says the director. Instead, young actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. (I Know What You Did Last Summer), will play Blair. Roberts does offer a nugget of hope to Hamill fans. Asked if the star would make a cameo appearance, he replies: “Well, he’s not on the screen, and I won’t say anything else.” Then, with a sly giggle, he adds, “But you never know.”
