Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Today’s news is primarily full of TV and box office details. Please read on:

TELEVISION

NBC has signed Kelli Giddish (Chase) and Danny Pino (Cold Case) as two new series regulars who will play detectives on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. (The Futon Critic)

Actress Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy and Gossip Girl) will guest star on Weeds this season, playing Emma, a low-level, pot-dealing rival to Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) who catches Silas’ (Hunter Parrish) eye. (The Futon Critic)

Actor Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down) will have a multi-episode arc in Hawaii Five-0 when it returns for its second season this fall, playing a former Detroit Homicide Detective who’s now the head of Hawaii’s Internal Affairs. After McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) was arrested in the Season 1 finale for the murder of Governor Jameson (Jean Smart), the IA unit will definitely have their hands full. (Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide)

Veteran actor Bruce Davison will appear in the season finale of Drop Dead Diva, which just started its new season this past weekend. Davison will play Cyrus Maxwell, a long-sitting and well-respected judge who requests that Jane (Brooke Elliot) take on the case of a death row inmate. (Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)

Actor Ed Begley Jr. will guest star on the TNT police drama Rizzoli & Isles, playing Dr. Pike, an assistant medical examiner called in by Dr. Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) from Western Massachusetts to cover a murder case. Pike, an egotistical, officious, anal-retentive guy, thinks he should have Maura’s job and quickly makes himself at home. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actress Carey Mulligan (An Education) has joined the cast of the upcoming sci-fi film called Outback that, of course, is set in the Australian outback, but no other details have been released. (Variety and The Wrap)

Actor David Strathairn will play William Steward, the outspoken abolitionist who was Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State in the upcoming movie called Lincoln, which will star Daniel Day-Lewis as the nation’s 16th president and Sally Field as his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. The movie is based on historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s bestselling biography Team of Rivals. (The Wrap).

Actor Jeff Bridges will appear in the film adaptation of the Lois Lowry novel The Giver. The story follows a 12-year-old who lives in a futuristic utopian society where all memory of human history has been erased. His life is thrown into turmoil when he is designated to inherit the role of the Giver and bear his community’s vast range of human emotions, which causes him to realize that living a pain-free life comes at a high cost. (Dark Horizons and Hollywood.com)

Child actor now grown-up actor Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) is set to star in the comic adaptation called where he will play Victor Franklin, a college student experimenting with reversing death in this contemporary take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Actor Brendan Fehr (who got his big break in the TV series Roswell) will play the lead in an independent romantic comedy called Roswell FM, playing a young man deciding between the financial needs of his family and his dream job of hosting a quirky, UFO-themed talk show in Roswell. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Actress Rosario Dawson has landed the female lead in the independent drama flick called Fire with Fire that already stars Bruce Willis, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Josh Duhamel. Additionally, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Richard Schiff, Vinnie Jones and Bonnie Sommerville have also signed on to star. The story behind the film is about a fireman in the witness protection program (Duhamel) who takes matters into his own hands when he’s threatened by the man against whom he’s set to testify. (Variety and First Showing)

That’s it. Enjoy!