Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Happy President’s Day! I hope everyone had a really nice long holiday weekend. Here are the news items for today:

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace) has landed the lead role in the ABC drama pilot called Americana that is about Robert Soulter (LaPaglia), the creator of the most iconic fashion brand in the world – Americana – which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, his family and his business. (MovieHole.net and The Futon Critic)

Actress Jurnee Smollett (Friday Night Lights) has landed a lead on the NBC drama pilot called Bad Girls that is adapted from the long-running U.K. series that follows the ins and outs of a group of unlikely women in a federal prison: a scandalous female warden, her new protégé and a host of inmates — some mothers, some friends — who struggle with loyalties to people on the inside and outside. Smollett will play Gwen, a famous rap star who lives the high life on the local club scene until she gets busted by the DEA and finds herself tossed into a women’s prison without bail. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Ana Ortiz (Ugly Betty) has landed a lead role on the ABC drama pilot called Devious Minds that is about four maids with ambition and dreams of their own while they work for the rich and famous in Beverly Hills. She will play one of them, Marisol who goes to work in the upscale neighborhood to try and acquit her son, who was recently convicted of murder. Earlier Dania Ramirez also landed a lead role in the pilot. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actor Scott Speedman (Felicity and the Underworld franchise) [among others] has joined the ABC drama pilot called Last Resort about the crew of a nuclear submarine, who, after disobeying a suspicious order become fugitives, take over the NATO listening array and declare themselves an independent nuclear nation. Speedman will play the ship’s second-in-command, XO Sam Kendal. The cast already includes Andre Braugher, Autumn Reeser and Daisy Betts. (Deadline, Twitter and The Futon Critic)

Actor Scott Michael Foster (Greek) has been cast in the ABC drama pilot called Zero Hour that is about Hank, a skeptical everyman who gets swept up in one of history’s greatest conspiracies. He will play Arron, a staffer at Hank’s magazine, Modern Skeptic. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actor Taylor Kinney (The Vampire Diaries) has landed a lead role in the NBC drama pilot called Chicago Fire about the complex and heroic men and women of the Chicago Fire Department. He will play adrenaline-junkie Squad Lieutenant Kelly Severide, the leader of the elite firefighters who respond to the most dangerous fires or rescue operations. Eamonn Walker is also part of the cast. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Brían F. O’Byrne (FlashForward) will star in the ABC drama pilot called Gilded Lilys from Shonda Rhimes that is set in 1895. It is an epic love story about a vicious rivalry and a scandalous secret that unfolds against the backdrop of the opening of New York’s first luxury hotel. It centers on wealthy blue-blood Edwin Lily (O’Byrne), a heavy hitter in New York society who, reeling from a recent family scandal, tries to revive his family’s fortunes by opening the most lavish hotel in history. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Mary McCormack (In Plain Sight) will star in the currently unnamed ABC comedy pilot that centers on Hilary Pfeiffer-Dunne (McCormack), a high-powered executive who, having dominated the corporate America for years, now faces the biggest challenge of her life when she finds herself unemployed and acting as a full-time mom to her two teenagers. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Here are the top 10 box office films for this past weekend, including estimates for the long holiday weekend from BoxOfficeMojo.com:

1. Safe House, $23.8 million ($28.4 million Friday-Monday)
2. The Vow, $23.6 million ($26.6 million Friday-Monday)
3. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, $22.1 million ($25.7 million Friday-Monday)
4. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, $20 million ($26.4 million Friday-Monday)
5. This Means War, $17.4 million ($20.4 million Friday-Monday)
6. Star Wars: Episode 1—The Phantom Menace, $8 million ($10.2 million Friday-Monday)
7. Chronicle, $7.6 million ($9.2 million Friday-Monday)
8. The Woman in Black, $6.7 million ($7.9 million Friday-Monday)
9. The Secret of Arrietty, $6.5 million ($8.1 million Friday-Monday)
10. The Grey, $3.1 million ($3.8 million Friday-Monday)

Actor Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) has joined the cast of the Kathryn Bigelow untitled box office film about Navy SEAL Team 6′s long hunt for Osama bin Laden. Chandler will likely be playing a CIA agent. (Deadline and Dark Horizons)

Actor Oded Fehr (The Mummy franchise) has joined the indie thriller called Inescapable that follows a Syrian expatriate (Alexander Siddig) whose journalist daughter goes missing in Damascus and he must return to his homeland to find her. Marisa Tomei and Joshua Jackson also star. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)

Actors Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger will star in the box office film called The Tomb with Stallone playing the architect of a maximum security prison who is wrongfully incarcerated and must fight his own design to escape. But there are no specific details on the role Schwarzenegger will play, though. Also actor Jim Caviezel (Person of Interest) will star as the prison warden. (Ain’t It Cool News and First Showing)

That’s it. Enjoy!