Hey All,
Today is the start of the annual upfront presentations made in New York by all the networks. The proposed fall schedules for FOX and NBC have been announced (you can find those lists on the home page), but what is to follow is the rest of the news for today:
TELEVISION
Actress Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) will guest star in an episode of White Collar, playing a skilled hacker suspected of a major cyber crime who “gets close” to Mozzie (Willie Garson). The show returns on June 7 at 9 PM with new episodes. (Hanh Nguyen at TV Guide)
Actor Nicholas Bishop (Body of Proof) will guest star in the new USA Network series Necessary Roughness, playing Griffin Page, a dashing former war correspondent who goes on to host his own cable news show. Page seeks treatment from psychotherapist Dani (Callie Thorne) after inexplicably cracking up during a somber report and getting suspended from his job. The show debuts on June 29. (Jethro Nededog at Zap2It)
ABC has moved the summer premiere date for Rookie Blue to June 23. (The Futon Critic)
Actor Leon Rippy (Saving Grace) will have a recurring nemesis role on Leverage when the show returns with new episodes on June 26 at 9 PM. He will play a mysterious Warren Buffett-type named Mr. Latimer. (TV Guide)
Actor Masi Oka has been made a series regular on Hawaii Five-o (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)
Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer) is being eyed to play the new female lead on Law & Order: SVU as Mariska Hargitay has signed a deal to return for the 13th season in a reduced capacity. But, there is no confirmation on this as of yet. (Deadline and TV Guide)
HBO has renewed their drama Treme for a third season. (Deadline)
UPFRONT NEWS
CBS has canceled the drama The Defenders and the comedies Mad Love and *&$% My Dad Says and it looks like Blue Bloods, Hawaii Five-0 and Mike & Molly are being renewed. Meanwhile, the network has picked up the new cop drama The 2-2 (formerly Rookies), the Poppy Montgomery-starring detective drama Unforgettable (formerly The Rememberer) and the sitcom How to Be a Gentlemen. Lastly, (New York Times, TV By The Numbers, TV Guide and The Futon Critic)
The CBS pilot Ringer, that stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kristopher Polaha, Ioan Gruffudd and Nestor Carbonell has jumped from the consideration list at the Eye network to the CW. The show has been given a green light for production. (Deadline and TV Line)
BOX OFFICE MOVIE NEWS
Here are the top 10 movies at the box office for this past weekend according to Exhibitor Relations and E! Entertainment:
1. Thor, $34.5 million
2. Bridesmaids, $24.4 million
3. Fast Five, $19.5 million
4. Priest, $14.5 million
5. Rio, $8 million
6. Jumping the Broom, $7.3 million
7. Something Borrowed, $7 million
8. Water for Elephants, $4.1 million
9. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family, $2.2 million
10. Soul Surfer, $1.8 million
Actors Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska have joined a movie “project” that is to be a “crypto-vampire love story” set against the romantic desolation of Detroit and Tangiers. Tilda Swinton also stars with John Hurt said to be in a featured role. (Screen Daily and Dark Horizons)
Actress Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck) is joining Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in the film My Mother’s Curse that follows an inventor (Rogen) who invites his mother (Streisand) on a cross-country trip as he tries to sell his new product, while also reuniting her with a lost love. Strahovski will play Rogen’s high school sweetheart to whom he once proposed. (Yahoo and Dark Horizons)
Actress Hilary Swank will produce and wants to star in an adaptation of You’re Not You that delves into the relationship between a thirty-something woman with Lou Gehrig’s disease and her female career. (Indiewire and Dark Horizons)
Actors Stanley Tucci and Cloris Leachman have joined the cast of the remake of Gambit that centers on British art curator Harry Deane (Colin Firth) who devises a finely-crafted scheme to con England’s richest man and avid art collector, Lionel Shabandar, (Alan Rickman) into purchasing a fake Monet painting. In order to bait his buyer, he recruits a Texas rodeo queen (Cameron Diaz) to cross the pond and pose as a woman whose grandfather liberated the painting at the end of WWII. No word on what roles either Tucci or Leachman will play. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)
Actor Dominic Purcell (Prison Break) has joined the cast of the action-adventure film called Vikingdom. (Screen Daily and Dark Horizons)
Actors Joel Edgerton and Luke Evans are now in contention for the role of Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)
That’s it. Enjoy!
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