Hey All,
Happy Friday to each and every one of you! Hope you have some fun activities planned for this weekend. I’ll be hitting up several movies with friends so that ought to be fun.
In the meantime, here are the news items for today:
TELEVISION
Actress Kaylee Defer (The Mountain and The Ware at Home) is joining the CW series Gossip Girl as a recurring character, which is shrouded in secrecy but will be introduced later this season. (Deadline)
Actor Jack Huston has been made a series regular for the second season of Boardwalk Empire. (Maureen Ryan at TV Squad at AOL)
Actress Rita Wilson and actor F. Murray Abraham will guest-star in an episode of The Good Wife inspired by The Social Network. The episode is slated to air in February and will center on a wunderkind who creates a successful website. His story is, naturally, created into a film, which prompts him to sue the studio for defamation. Abraham will play Burl, the head attorney representing the studio while Wilson will play Viola, a bright lawyer and old friend of Diana (Christine Baranski), who she turns to for help with a case. (Entertainment Weekly and Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)
Actor Danny Strong (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) will guest star on How I Met Your Mother, playing a noogey-loving bully from Marshall’s (Jason Segel) past. The episode will air early next year. Alexis Denisof (Alyson Hannigan’s real-life husband and fellow Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel star) will make a return visit as Robin’s (Cobie Smulders) former co-anchor, Sandy Rivers. (Vlada Gelman via LA Times)
Actor John Corbett has been tapped to appear in a multi-episode arc on the NBC series Parenthood as Lauren Graham’s on-screen ex-husband Seth, a recovering alcoholic-musician. His arrival is slated to coincide with Parenthood’s move to Mondays at 10 pm in early March. (Deadline)
Actors Brian Austin Green (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and Harold Perrineau (Lost) will lead the cast of the TBS hour-long comedy pilot called The Wedding Band that follows a group of guys who try to escape the stress and craziness of their lives by performing in a wedding band. Anchored by lifelong best friends – one a perennial bachelor and the other a married father of two – the band will stop at nothing to make every wedding, birthday or bar mitzvah a concert to remember. The pilot stars Peter Cambor (NCIS: Los Angeles) and Derek Miller (Secret Girlfriend). (The Futon Critic)
Soap actress Alexa Havins will appear on Grey’s Anatomy as the new wife of Meredith and Lexie Gray’s father, Thatcher. (William Keck at TV Guide)
Latin actor Kuno Becker will have a recurring role on the CBS series The Defenders, starring as a Cuban bad boy named Alex Velasco, who is too smart for his own good. His episodes will start appearing in early 2011. (William Keck at TV Guide)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
Actors Nick D’Agosto (Heroes) and Enver Gjokaj (Dollhouse) are set as the two leads in the USA pilot called Eden, which centers on a young hotel worker (D’Agosto) who, with the help of his escaped con artist cousin Eddie, gets a job as the concierge at an elite NYC hotel. Together they manage to provide the hotel guests with whatever they desire, at whatever the cost. (Kate Stanhope at TV Guide)
Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg is planning to bring Marvel superhero, Jessica Jones, to television. This potential project is being considered for the slate of new ABC shows for next fall. (Variety and Jeff Labrecque at Entertainment Weekly)
Scottish actress Laura Fraser has landed a lead role in the Showtime drama pilot Homeland, which centers on Marine Sergeant Scott Brody, who returns home eight years after going missing in Iraq. Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes) is the driven CIA officer who suspects he might be plotting an attack on America. Fraser (A Knight’s Tale) will play Jessica Brody, Scott’s smart, strong wife. Mandy Patinkin will co-star. (Deadline)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Rising, new Australia actress Bella Heathcote has landed the female lead in Twylight Zones, the film David Chase wrote and is directing. She joins John Magaro, Will Brill and Jack Huston in the film that is set in the 1960s and involves three high school friends who form a band inspired by the classic rock influences like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. The film follows their rise and the pitfalls of fame. (Deadline)
George Clooney has taken over for Robert Downey Jr. in the film Gravity, which will also star Sandra Bullock, Tom Hanks and newcomer Thomas Horn. Clooney will play the team leader of a space station. He and Bullock’s character are off working on a shuttle and become the sole survivors when the space station is decimated by the debris field from an exploded asteroid. Bullock will carry much of the action adventure, a mother who is hell-bent on returning to her young child back on earth. (Deadline)
The sizable ensemble cast of Ten Year has added actresses Rosario Dawson (Unstoppable) and Lynn Collins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine). The film already stars Chris Pine, Justin Long and Anna Faris in a story which follows a group of friends attending a ten year high school reunion. (Risky Biz and First Showing)
Actress Sienna Miller (G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra) and actor Danny Huston (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) will star in Two Jacks, an indie drama based on the story The Two Hussars by Leo Tolstoy. The story follows two different generations of a family starting in 1992, when a legendary filmmaker returns to Hollywood after a lengthy absence to get financing for a new movie. He’s a boozer, a womanizer and wins the money he needs from poker games. Flash forward 20 years later and the filmmaker’s son (played by Jack Huston from Boardwalk Empire) comes to town to make his directorial debut amid curiosity as to whether he’s inherited his father’s gifts. (Variety and First Showing)
Actor Dennis Quaid will star in the indie thriller Beneath the Darkness, which is a story following a teen (Tony Oller) who struggles to expose the grim secrets of the house owned by Quaid’s character, a respected local hero. The cast also includes Aimee Teegarden (Friday Night Lights) and Brett Cullen (Lost and The Gates) [among others]. (Variety and First Showing)
Actress Teri Polo (Meet the Parents) and actor Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding) have joined the thriller Beyond, that follows a veteran detective and a questionable television psychic who will stop at nothing to find a missing child. Jon Voight also stars. (Heat Vision and First Showing)
SPOILER ROOM (with Sandra Gonzalez from Entertainment Weekly)
BURN NOTICE: PREQUEL MOVIE SCOOP!
You’re probably nursing a TV hangover from last night’s two-hour season finale, I know, but I come with the scoop equivalent of a greasy breakfast cure. In our conversation with Bruce Campbell, the actor spilled some juicy details on the upcoming Sam Axe-centered Burn Notice TV movie, which shows us Sam’s last CIA mission in the mountains of Colombia. “[Sam] sees some events go down that change the initial plan, and he takes matters into his own hands at great risk to himself and others with a small group of misfits to try to right a bad situation,” Campbell said. “It’s a David and Goliath thing.” The Jeffrey Donovan-directed movie, which Campbell says will introduce us to the “mature side of Sam” via an emotion-heavy mission, is scheduled to air in spring before the start of Burn Notice‘s fifth season. “[People] should watch it because that’s the only way they’re going to get the whole [season 5] story,” Campbell said. “There is possibly a character and story elements that will linger forward — and not in a good way. Something from Sam’s past might come back to haunt him.”
SIDE DISHES:
Question from Heather: Thank you for all The Vampire Diaries EW has covered lately! Now, any word on the upcoming Damon shower scene I’ve been hearing about?
Answer: No word on the identity of the “beautiful girl” he shares the scene with, but I can confirm it takes place in episode 13 and airs February 3.
That’s it. Enjoy!
Have a great weekend!
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Rueben's Ramblings 