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!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

1970’s icons Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) and Shirley Jones (The Partridge Family) will appear as Burt Chance’s (Garret Dillahunt) parents on Raising Hope. The comedy will return to FOX on September 20, at 9:30 PM. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actress Diane Farr (Numb3rs) will guest star on CSI: Miami as a popular novelist who gets tangled up in a Halloween-theme case. Horatio’s (David Caruso) team investigates a murder with vampiric undertones that appears to be based on a young adult book series penned by Farr’s character. The show will be back on CBS starting on September 25 at 10 PM. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actress Sarah Paulson (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) will appear in a 4-episode arc on the new FX series American Horror Story, playing a medium named Billie Dean. The series will debut on October 5. (Jenna Mullins at E! Online)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

ABC has picked up an as-yet untitled drama from The Blind side writer-director John Lee Hancock, who has teamed with Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Dan McDermott’s recently launched TV company for the project that centers on an unorthodox protagonist described as Walter Mitty of the crime world. This recently launched company has already sold several projects to ABC, including a drama from about a complex female ADA and two comedies. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Looks like CBS has bought Sherlock Holmes with the hopes of making it a new drama at the network. The project is described as a modern take on the cases of the pipe-smoking private eye. The network has also put into development the Mommy-Track Mysteries, which is an adaptation of the Ayelet Waldman comedic series of books about Juliet Applebaum, a public defender turned stay-at-home-mom and private investigator. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Former 70’s TV icon Shaun Cassidy is prepping a Western project with director Thomas Schlamme for NBC that would be set in 1840. The project is called The Frontier and it follows a group of disparate travelers in Missouri as they go on an adventure through the mountains, deserts and plains of the West on their way to the coast. (Michael Schneider at TV Guide)

FOX has bought The Spectre, a drama series project based on the DC Comics superhero, which centers on a former cop serving time in afterlife limbo who hunts down earthly criminals on behalf of the dead — and mortals soon to be dead if ultimate justice is not served. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Veteran actor Gerald McRaney (Deadwood and Jericho) will appear in the box office film Django Unchained from director Quentin Tarantino. The story follows a slave-turned-bounty hunter on a mission to rescue his wife from her sadistic slave master. McRaney’s role is unknown at this time, though. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Actress Ashley Greene (the Twilight franchise) will star in the movie called Olivia Twisted, which is a modem take on the classic Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. The story follows 19-year-old Olivia and a group of highly trained street urchins who, upon accepting a kidnapping job, they find themselves in the middle of a turf war between warring criminal factions. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

BOX OFFICE TRAILERS

Watch: Official Trailer for Cameron Crowe’s ‘We Bought a Zoo’ Movie

First Official Trailer for TIFF’s ‘Burning Man’ Starring Matthew Goode

Q&A SECTION (with Michael Ausiello from TV Line)

Question: I’m a sucker for Castle spoilers. Got anything juicy for us this week? —Ivy

Ausiello: Nathan Fillion declares that “sparks will be flying” when Kristin Lehman debuts as a romantic foil for Castle in October, and the fireworks won’t go unnoticed by Beckett. “There is fun to be had in that episode with the Castle and Beckett relationship, for sure,” show runner Andrew W. Marlowe told TVLine’s Matt Mitovich just hours ago on the set. “Anytime a very attractive woman has her eye on Castle, and with Castle being the kind of guy he is, it makes for some interesting sparks.”

Question: Do you have any idea if Katherine will be returning to Vampire Diaries? —Kris

Ausiello: The question isn’t if Elena’s doppelganger will be back, it’s when. “We’re not going to see Katherine right away,” says VD EP Julie Plec. “But when she does show up, she’s not going to show up empty-handed. She’s going to show up with some pretty valuable information.”

Question: Desperate Vampire Diaries fan here! Can I have some “Forwood” scoop, please? —Jo

Ausiello: Elaborating on her Comic-Con tease that Caroline and Tyler would remain in an awkward friends zone in Season 3, Plec says, “The thing about the friends zone is, when there’s that much animalistic sexual tension that exists between two people, eventually the friends zone is going to have a mattress involved. I think we can safely say that sooner or later, Caroline and Tyler aren’t going to be able to avoid the fireworks that very clearly have been simmering between them all summer long.” Now that is a woman who knows how to craft a good sound bite. Well done, Plec. Well. Done.

Question: What’s this I’m hearing about Rookie Blue introducing a new love interest for Andy next season? —Lynda

Ausiello: While it’s true that a new rookie will join the force in Season 3, he will not be a love interest for Andy, per exec producer Tassie Cameron. “Anybody who comes on our show is going to be a love interest for somebody,” she muses, “but I think you’ll see in the first few episodes of Season 3 that we’re headed [in a different direction] with him.”

Question: Oh, great and wonderful Ausiello. I am begging for some Pretty Little Liars scoop! —Estee

Ausiello: The second half of Season 2 will heavily feature Brendan Robinson’s loveable geek, Lucas, beginning with the standalone Halloween episode in October. Also, there’s buzz producers are toying with the idea of introducing Caleb’s recently-mentioned mom. Finally, I realize it was probably self-serving of me to leave in the first part of Estee’s question, but it’s been a long day and, dammit, I am great and wonderful. There, I said it.

Question: Any scoop for Nikita, preferably about Birkhoff, if you have it. —Siobhan

Ausiello: I don’t have it, but Aaron Stanford sure does. “There’s a fledgling romance that happens in an early episode,” he says, “where Birkhoff ends up starring down the wrong end of a gun in the hands of his crush.”

That’s it. Enjoy!

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