Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Former Charlie’s Angels beauty Jaclyn Smith has just signed on to play Wallace Langham’s mom on CSI, who makes a surprise visit to see her son and gets to interact with all his co-workers in an amusing fashion. (William Keck at TV Guide)

FOX has finally done it. They have cancelled the long-running medical drama House, which will end at the end of this season after being on the air for eight seasons. (Variety)

Syfy has ordered a third season of the US version of Being Human. The series will get a 13 episode order for that season. The current season just started airing as of January 16. (TV By the Numbers)

Actress Mercedes Ruehl has joined the cast of the new HBO horse-racing drama Luck where she will play Julietta Caligari, the mother of Renzo (Ritchie Coster). (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Catherine Dent (The Shield) has landed a recurring role on the upcoming FOX drama Touch. She will play the sister-in-law of Kiefer Sutherland’s widowed character — and won’t necessarily make his already tricky life any easier. The show will make its official debut on March 19. (Megan Masters and Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Actress Jessica Tuck (True Blood) will appear in an upcoming episode of Grimm, playing Adalind’s (Claire Coffee) Hexenbiest mother Catherine. (Sandra Gonzalez at Entertainment Weekly)

MADE FOR TV MOVIE NEWS

Actress Lisa Edelstein (House) will appear in a Lifetime made-for-TV movie called Blue-Eyed Butcher, which is based on a true story. The film will follow the story of Susan Wright (Sara Paxton), a gorgeous young wife and mother of two who violently kills her husband (Justin Bruening) in their Houston home after years of alleged abuse. When Susan claims that she needed to kill her hubby — out of self-preservation for herself and her children after years of mental abuse — prosecutor Kelly Siegler (Edelstein) argues that the accused is actually a cunning, doe-eyed sociopath. The film will premiere on March 3. (Megan Masters and Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor James Purefoy (Rome) will star opposite Kevin Bacon in the untitled Kevin Williamson pilot for FOX that centers on Joe Carroll (Purefoy) a diabolical serial killer who uses technology to create a cult of serial killers, and the retired FBI profiler (Bacon) who finds himself in the middle of it all. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Aimee Garcia (Dexter and Trauma) has been cast in the NBC drama pilot called County, (from creator Jason Katims) that will star Jason Ritter (The Event and Parenthood). The project chronicles the lives of a group of young doctors, nurses, and administrators in a frenetic underfunded and morally compromising LA County Hospital. Garcia will play a sharp-witted, no-nonsense new intern at the hospital. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actor Sullivan Stapleton (Strike Back) is in final negotiations to star in the untitled follow-up to the box office flick 300, but plot details are being kept under wraps. (Justin Kroll at Variety)

Actor Billy Connolly has been added to the cast of the two-part adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel The Hobbit. He will play Dain Ironfoot, a dwarf warrior and cousin of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). The first part of the film is slated to hit theaters on December 14. (Bruna Nessif at E! Online)

Actress Naomi Watts will play the role of Princess Diana in the upcoming movie Caught in Flight that will paint a portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales during the last two years of her life. It charts how finding true personal happiness for the first time allowed her to achieve her defining successes evolving into a major international campaigner and humanitarian. (Nancy Tartaglione at Deadline)

Actress Jaimie Alexander (Thor and Kyle XY) and Frank Grillo (The Grey and The Gates) have joined the cast of the upcoming thriller called Intersection. Alexander will play a woman who, along with her lover, plans to murder her husband. Things get complicated, however, when the lover and the husband wind up in a car accident together along a desert road in Morocco. (Variety and Dark Horizons)

Actor Morgan Freeman will star alongside Tom Cruise in the sci-fi film called Oblivion that has Cruise playing the last man on a post-apocalyptic and nearly uninhabitable Earth, who stays behind to repair ships that hunt down and blast a virulent alien species. Actresses Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko will also star. (Mike Fleming at Deadline)

Actor Henry Cavill (the upcoming Man of Steel reboot) is in negotiations to star in the upcoming film The Great Wall that looks at the mystery behind how China’s Great Wall was constructed. (Justin Kroll at Variety)

Legendary Pictures has officially pulled the plug on the planned film Paradise Lost. (Jeff Sneider at Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!