Hey All,
There is a lot of news to share with everyone today so happy over-the-hump day! Let’s get right to all of it:
TELEVISION
BBC has confirmed that no more episodes of the popular Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures will be made, but that the six episodes completed WILL be aired. This is due to the shocking and sudden death of series lead Elisabeth Sladen. (Twitter)
Recently retired WWE superstar Edge will visit the Syfy series Haven in the potentially recurring role of Dwight, a longtime resident of the spooky town and close confidant of Luke’s late father. Season 2 of the supernatural series premieres Friday, July 15 at 10 PM. (Megan Masters at TV Line)
Actor Jim O’Heir (Parks and Recreation) will pop appear as a rich, tightly wound public figure during the second season of TNT’s Rizzoli & Isles. (ShaneSaunders.com and Megan Masters at TV Line)
Actor Raymond J. Barry (Justified) will show on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, playing the role of dad to Alex Eames (Kathryn Erbe). (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)
AWARD SHOWS NEWS
Actress Naya Rivera (Glee) will be hosting the GLAAD Media Awards that will be held on May 14 in San Francisco. (Megan Masters at TV Line)
Meanwhile, actor Neil Patrick Harris Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) will return as host of the Tony Awards in June. (Deadline and Zap2It)
MADE FOR TV MOVIE – FIRST LOOK
Here is your first look at the Syfy made-for-TV movie Red Faction: Origins, which is based on the popular video game:
Syfy’s ‘Red Faction: Origins’ trailer
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Actress Rachel Weisz is in negotiations to star in the upcoming film Oz: The Great and Powerful, playing Evanorah, the Wicked Witch of the East and older sister to Theodorah (Mila Kunis), the Wicked Witch of the West. James Franco is already locked to play the title character in this story which explores the origins of the three witches and The Wizard. (Deadline and Dark Horizons)
Actress Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air and the Twilight franchise) and actor John Francis Daley (Bones) are in talks to join the post-apocalyptic comedy film called Rapture-Palooza” that will be a comedic look at life in the fallout of a religious apocalypse. Craig Robinson (The Office) will also star. (Reuters and Dark Horizons)
Actors Clive Owen and Anil Kapoor (Slumdog Millionaire and 24) will star in the financial thriller called Cities that will interweave stories of a New York hedge fund manager, a young London couple looking to buy their first home and a Mumbai cop fighting corruption. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)
Actor David Boreanaz (Bones) will star in the independent film called Officer Down that is to tell the story of a doctor and security guard whose dreams consist of what each other did during the day. They meet when the security guard murders his wife, is then hit by a car and brought into the doctor’s emergency room. Boreanaz will play a humorless and ambitious rival detective to another cop played by Stephen Dorff. The cast also includes Dominic Purcell, Stephen Lang, James Woods and AnnaLynne McCord. (Deadline and First Showing)
Actor Bokeem Woodbine (Devil) has landed a role in the remake of Total Recall that stars Colin Farrell. The story is an updated version of the original which follows Douglas Quaid, a man who believes he is a secret agent on a Martian colony. Woodbine will play Quaid’s best friend who is more like a big brother to him than anything. (Variety and First Showing)
Actor Sam Claflin, who will be seen in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (which opens on May 20) is in negotiations to join the cast of the upcoming fairy tale film Snow White and the Huntsman. He will play the prince. In this version the Huntsman acts as a mentor and teaches Snow White (Kristen Stewart) to fight and survive when he spares her life after the evil Queen (Charlize Theron) orders her death. (Universal Pictures and Dark Horizons)
BOX OFFICE TRAILERS
Watch: Badass Red Band Trailer for Medieval Action Movie ‘Ironclad’
Must Watch: Sundance Hit ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ First Trailer
Q&A SECTION (with Adam Bryant and Natalie Abrams at TV Guide and Michael Ausiello at TV Line)
Question: What can you tell me about the death in the Hawaii Five-0 finale? — Alan
ADAM: I can tell you that McGarrett may not be blameless in the demise. It seems his single-mindedness about catching Wo Fat may put his team members at risk. “McGarrett is a guy who goes to extremes,” executive producer Peter Lenkov tells us. “I think he’s going to go further than he’s gone all season and he’s going to be very reckless.”
Question: How will Oliver get rid of the Omega symbol and the darkness on Smallville? — Dan
NATALIE: We’ll have to wait until the finale to find out, but who better than Superman to solve that problem? “Oliver ends up, in the finale, having to ask Clark to help him,” Justin Hartley reveals to us. “[The darkness] is overpowering him. He’s not in control anymore. Oliver is gone, just disconnected. We figure it out in the finale, to a point. We do the story justice.”
Question: Castle is killing me with all the Beckett-Castle teasing. Something has to happen between them in the finale, right? — Erica
ADAM: Something huge is going to happen. “Both characters lay their cards on their table,” creator Andrew W. Marlowe tells us. “[They] come to an understanding about the issues that they’re dealing with, the ways in which each of them were approaching the relationship.” The catch? The powwow is necessitated by Beckett’s obsession with her mother’s case and the end result isn’t very romantic. “At the end of the day she cares too much about this case to care about being protected,” Marlowe says. “[She’s] pretty much pushing everybody away.”
Question: Will we see anymore flashbacks on The Vampire Diaries this year? — Betty
NATALIE: The final two episodes left are very much about the present. If you’re a fan of the history lessons, though, you’re going to love next season, which has already been dubbed “the year of the originals,” and thus will feature many flashbacks. The bad news: Neither Joseph Morgan nor Daniel Gillies (Klaus and Elijah, respectively) have new contracts yet.
Question: The season finale of Nikita sounds insane. What can you tell us? — Steve
NATALIE: With the clock ticking down to an imminent attack on the U.S., Ryan will put his job on the line to get Nikita released from CIA custody. Meanwhile, Birkhoff decides to ditch Division, but not before pointing Michael in Nikita’s direction. Too bad he’ll be stuck inside Division, which is not the safest place to be in the finale.
Question: Anything cool you can tell me about Burn Notice’s new season? — Andrew
ADAM: This sounds very interesting. The show is looking to cast Michael Westen’s doppelgänger. The poor sap is hired by a group of powerful people with dubious intentions. And even though he knows he’s mixed up with some bad dudes, he’s kind of too stupid find his way out of it.
Question: How will Mary’s pregnancy affect her working relationship with Marshall on In Plain Sight? — Christina
NATALIE: The snarky WITSEC partners will still have their moments, Mary McCormack says. “There’s a really beautiful scene where Mary tells him she’s pregnant and he asks who the father is.” (Does this mean Marshall isn’t? Not necessarily!) “It’s a really touching scene. There’s a lot of stuff that’s not said and you feel it should be said, but it’s all still there.”
Question: Since you are almost as big a fan of Chuck as I am, I need to know: What is your degree of confidence that the season finale can also serve as a satisfying series finale if NBC does the unthinkable and unforgivable? —Jeff
Ausiello: To be honest, my confidence level was pretty low. But then I spoke to exec producer Chris Fedak and it shot through the freakin’ roof. Despite the finale being titled “Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger,” Fedak assured me that the episode features “some fantastic resolution to a number of the stories that we set up this season.” But as has become something of a Chuck tradition, the final scene features a “cliffhanger component that launches us very much into [a possible] Season 5,” Fedak adds. What would such a season look like? “There were a number of stories that we’ve always wanted to do – even from Season 1 – involving who Chuck is as a person and as a hero. So [Season 5] would be an extension of that.”
Question: In last week’s AA you mentioned that the Chuck season finale broke the bank, budget-wise. Care to elaborate? Do you know what was so expensive? —Jeremy
Ausiello: The mother of all action sequences, according to Fedak. “It’s set in the desert and includes a super motorcycle, lots of special effects and a truck getting blown off the road,” he says. “It has an element of Duel, which is Steven Spielberg’s first movie. There’s also an element of Road Warrior… and an ode to the television show Street Hawk, which I watched as a kid.”
Question: What’s in the future for Shawn and Juliet on Psych? —Emily
Ausiello: “Their romance is evolving,” leading lady Maggie Lawson told TVLine’s Matt Mitovich at USA Network’s upfront soiree on Monday. “I can’t give away too much — we’re only in Episode 4 of the [new] season so far — but I can tell you the romance is solid and good. And there might be other characters that have some romance this season as well!
That’s it. Enjoy!
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