Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today, including some interesting development news as well as casting announcements and more:

TELEVISION

Actor Michael Graziadei (The Young and the Restless) has booked a recurring role on the upcoming FX drama series American Horror Story, which is about a couple (Dylan McDermott, Connie Britton) moving into a 1920s house and their new nosy neighbor Constance (Jessica Lange). He will play Constance’s new, young boyfriend. (Deadline)

Actor Ashton Holmes (The Pacific) has landed a recurring role on the upcoming ABC drama Revenge, which stars Emily VanCamp (Brothers & Sisters) as a young woman who goes to the Hamptons to exact revenge on the rich Grayson family who destroyed her father. Holmes will play a high-society bad boy who is a Harvard classmate of Daniel Grayson (Josh Bowman). (Deadline)

New Zealander actress Simone Kessell (Underbelly) will have a major recurring role on the upcoming prehistoric drama Terra Nova from FOX. She plays Alicia Washington, the tough second-in-command to the Terra Nova colony’s Commander Frank Taylor (Steven Lang). (Deadline)

Actress Mariana Klaveno (True Blood) has been cast in the TNT movie Innocent opposite Bill Pullman and Marcia Gay Harden. The movie is based on the novel by Scott Turrow, which takes place twenty years after the events in best-seller Presumed Innocent. Klaveno will play a court clerk whose relationships with both Rusty Sabich (Pullman) and his son come into the limelight after Sabich is charged with the murder of his wife. (Deadline)

Actor Roy Dotrice (best known for his work on Beauty & the Beast) and actress Hannah Murray (Skins) have joined the cast of Game of Thrones for its second season. Dotrice will play Pyromancer Hallyne, chief of the Guild of Alchemists while Murray will play Gilly, one of the many women living with Old Craster who wants to escape his oppression. (Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)

Actor Scott Wolf (V and Party of Five) will appear in the season premiere of NCIS, playing FBI Agent Casey Stratton. This role could potentially be recurring. The long-running CBS series returns with new episodes on September 20 at 8 PM. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actor Zachary Abel (Make It or Break It) will guest star on The Secret Circle, the new drama from The CW that debuts on September 15. The premise of the show is orphaned Cassie (Britt Robertson) moves in with her grandmother after the death of her mother. She soon learns that she’s a teen witch destined to bind powers with five others to complete a new generation of the Secret Circle. Abel will play a “hot jock” named Luke who asks Cassie out in episode 3. (Mandi Bierly at Entertainment Weekly)

Actress Claire Holt (Pretty Little Liars) will appear in The Vampire Diaries when the show returns this fall to The CW. She will play Rebecca (aka Bex), a beautiful vampire who had the pleasure of Stefan’s company back in the early days when he was feasting on human blood. (Zap2It)

Actors Justin Hartley (Smallville) and Jeff Fahey (Lost) will guest star in the second episode of the final season of Chuck when it returns this fall. Fahey will play Karl Sneijder the boss of a diamond company with mines in South Africa, who has been investigated by the CIA in the past for alleged criminal activity. Hartley will play Wesley Sneijder, Karl’s handsome younger brother, who is a Dartmouth and Oxford-educated anthropologist. (Zap2It)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

It looks like the 1980’s classic film Dirty Dancing is in for a remake treatment much like Footloose and countless other movies. Kenny Ortega, the movie’s original choreographer and the man behind the High School Musical franchise will be directing. No cast has been set yet. (Marc Malkin at E! Online)

Actress Kim Fields (The Facts of Life) has joined the cast of the ensemble romantic comedy What to Expect When You’re Expecting. She will play a social worker who helps out a couple with an adoption. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)

Brit Marling, one of the indie film circuit’s newest faces, will appear in the new political thriller The Company You Keep from Robert Redford. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Neil Gordon. Redford will star in the film as a former Weather Underground radical wanted by the FBI who must go on the run when his true identity is exposed by an ambitious young reporter (Shia LaBeouf). It’s not clear what role Marling will play in the story. Nick Nolte co-stars. (First Showing)

Actress Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) and Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes) have joined the Russia-set period drama film called Closer to the Moon. Strong plays Max Rosenthal, the former head of a Bucharest police criminal investigation unit. He and four prominent Jews pulled off a bank robbery while assuring the crowds they were filming a movie. The group are tried and sentenced to death, but only after the communist government forces them to re-enact their crime in a propaganda film. Farmiga plays Max’s former lover and mother of his child, who returns from studying in Moscow. (Deadline and Dark Horizons)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

The Odd Life of Timothy Green Movie Trailer

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created Gilmore Girls, is working on a new project for ABC based on the New York Times best-seller The Nanny Diaries, written by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. (Michael Schneider at TV Guide)

The film The Lincoln Lawyer is also being considered for a TV adaptation. (Michael Schneider at TV Guide)

NBC has ordered a drama script for a modern-day take on the legend of Frankenstein to be written by Russel Friend and Garrett Lerner (the men behind House). (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!