Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

USA Network has renewed Covert Affairs, Royal Pains and Necessary Roughness. (Ted Linhart at USA Network via Twitter)

Actress Tania Raymonde (Alex Rousseau from Lost) will guest star in Hawaii Five-0, playing Trisha, a married woman caught up in a love triangle between her husband and the volleyball coach she’s sleeping with. Meredith Monroe will guest star in the same episode as a star player on the volleyball team. Also, actor Robert Englund (Freddie Krueger himself) will also guest star on Hawaii Five-0 in the show’s Halloween episode. He will play a homeless desert storm veteran who hangs around an ancient burial site and becomes a suspect in a murder investigation. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

Actress Rebecca Romijn (Eastwick and Ugly Betty) will guest star in Chuck as Robin Cunnings, an elite Special Agent with the CIA who’s as cold and calculating as she is sexy, and is known for her barbaric (yet highly effective) interrogation techniques. Her appearance brings nothing but bad news for Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Morgan. Her character is said to be a member of a rogue group within the CIA that is planning to frame Chuck for the crime of the century. (Sandra Gonzalez at Entertainment Weekly)

Actor Richard Schiff (The West Wing) has joined the cast of the new half hour dark comedy series House Of Lies. He will play the boss of the management consulting firm where stars Kristen Bell and Don Cheadle are employed. (Alex Ben Block at The Hollywood Reporter)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actors Ethan Hawke and Vince D’Onofrio have teamed with writer-producer Chris Brancato for a cop drama called Blue Tilt that has been picked up for production by NBC. Brancato conceived the project and took it to Hawke and D’Onofrio, who helped shape it. All three will executive produce. The show will star Hawke and D’Onofrio as two seasoned homicide detectives — one married and one divorced — as they solve cases while dealing with their wives/ex-wives and kids. The title Blue Tilt refers to a cop term for homicide detectives who, as a result of dealing with particularly brutal crimes, become a danger to themselves and are put under psychiatric observation. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Impossible Pictures (British producers) and Omni Film Productions are teaming for a Canadian spin-off of the British Primeval sci-fi series. The twist is the new Canadian series, Primeval: New World, will be structured as a Canada-UK co-production, and will use characters and story-lines from the British Primeval series, while inserting new Canadian characters and story-lines into the local version. The production has been picked up for 13 one hour episodes for the Space channel. The series will be set in Vancouver against the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, and promises elements that Space viewers already know from watching the Brit Primeval series while including darker storylines from an all-Canadian writers room. (Etan Vlessing at The Hollywood Reporter)

ABC has picked up a drama project called Bazirkus, a soap from based loosely on 32-year-old Nicole Feld of Ringling Bros & Barnum and Bailey Circus, who grew up in the circus her grandfather bought in 1967 and has become the first female producer in Ringling Bros’ history. The project will be set at a fictional circus and will be a family/workplace soap about unfulfilled dreams and great expectations in the circus world where everyone is pushing the limits, personally and professionally, to reinvent themselves as they reinvent their world. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Meanwhile, FOX has a new as-yet untitled medical dramedy on tab as a possible new project for the network, which would center on a young neurologist who is a single mother of a sperm-donor baby. The show would chronicle (with humor) her struggle to balance work, motherhood, family and romance as she moves to Boston to start a new job that she hopes will help her find a cure for her ailing brother. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Elsewhere, ABC Family is nearing a pilot order for “Strut” from writer Amy Sherman-Palladino (the woman behind Gilmore Girls), was asked to come on board and give the show a refreshening after network executives felt the original pilot needed retooling. The show centers on a Las Vegas showgirl who unwittingly gets married to a Texan and becomes a high school instructor for a misfit drill team. The cabler is also giving a pilot order to the action-driven drama Intercept, which is about college students who are crime solvers. (Stuart Levine at Variety)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actress Marisa Tomei will co-star with Bette Midler and Billy Crystal in the box office comedy called Us and Them that follows the story of a couple (Milder and Crystal) who are stuck caring for their grandchildren and baffled by their 21st century lives. Tomei will play the couple’s estranged daughter, Alice, for whom they slowly repair their relationship. Young actress Bailey Madison also stars as one of the grandchildren. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Future Films has reportedly optioned the film rights to the supernatural mystery comic called Hope Falls that was created by Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood. The comic is about a girl who returns to her hometown after 20 years, and then is revealed to have been murdered by a group of men who are now prominent town citizens. Now she’s out for some supernatural revenge. (Bleeding Cool and Dark Horizons)

ME: Doesn’t this kind of sound like the female version of The Crow?

Actor Nathan Lane has joined the cast of the box office film called The English Teacher”, which stars Julianne Moore as a small-town high school English teacher visited by a beloved former student (Greg Kinnear) who has returned after failing as a playwright. Lane will play the high school’s drama teacher who tries to get the playwright’s help with his upcoming school production. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

Official Trailer for Creepy Horror ‘The Awakening’ with Rebecca Hall

That’s it. Enjoy!