Friday April 23 4:07 AM ET

Spielberg 'Taken' By Aliens

By John Dempsey

NEW YORK (Variety) - Steven Spielberg, the director of ''ET'' and ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind,'' is heading off to outer space again with ``Taken,'' a 20-hour miniseries focusing on alien abductions.

Spielberg will serve as executive producer of the DreamWorks TV project, which will screen on cable's Sci-Fi Channel in the third quarter of 2000. It will be based on reports of UFO landings in New Mexico dating back to 1947.

``Steven has always had an interest in this subject,'' said Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of Sci-Fi's USA Networks parent.

He told Daily Variety that Spielberg's treatment starts from the premise ``that there are abductions, that they're real and not made up. This will be a big story with multiple characters, protagonists and antagonists, and it'll span lots of decades.''

In a statement, Spielberg called himself a fan of the Sci-Fi Channel, and said ``no other place'' is better suited for a miniseries of the ``magnitude'' of ``Taken.''

``Taken,'' which will cost upward of $40 million, will begin production this summer. The director and cast are still to be named. The Sci-Fi Channel plans to run it for two hours a night over 10 consecutive nights.