Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Actor Gilles Marini has been promoted to series regular on the ABC Family drama Switched At Birth. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

The Glades has been renewed for a fourth season by A&E. It will be back sometime next summer. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Emma Caulfield (best known for her role on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) will make a guest appearance in at least a couple of episodes of Royal Pains, playing Hank’s ex-girlfriend Winnie. The summer run will end on September 19 and then the rest of the season will return this winter. (Megan Masters at TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

A&E has given a pilot order to a new drama called Occult from Transformers director Michael Bay and The X-Files writer James Wong. The project centers on an FBI agent who returns from administrative leave after going off the deep end while investigating his wife’s disappearance. Eager to be back on the job, he is paired with an agent with her own complicated back-story who specializes in the occult. Together, they will solve cases for the newly formed occult crimes task force. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

The cable network Bravo had picked up four new projects. First, they are working on a reboot of the 1980’s flick Heathers with this version taking place 20 years later, focusing on the daughter of Veronica (the character played by Winona Ryder in the original film), who goes head-to-head with the new generation of mean girls called the Ashleys — who are also the daughters of the surviving Heathers. Second, the aptly titled Apartment is about two siblings in their 20s who inherit an apartment from their late mother. After learning the home was where their mom had an 18-year affair, the siblings start renting the place out to people who also want to engage in extramarital affairs. Third, The Darlings is based on the novel by Christina Alger that follows a high-society family from New York City’s Upper East Side who becomes involved in a financial scandal. And, lastly, All American Girl will take place over three decades and revolve around three women who all work for a magazine throughout different time periods. The series will focus on the changing points of view about women in the workplace and feminism. (Robyn Ross at TV Guide)

MADE FOR TV MOVIE NEWS

Actress Camryn Manheim (The Practice and Ghost Whisperer) will appear in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie called The Makeover that will star Julia Stiles (Dexter) and David Walton (Perfect Couples) in a modern twist on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Stiles will play Hannah, a driven, Harvard-educated professor who runs for Congress. Manheim will play Colleen Pickering, who decides to enlist the help of Walton’s average guy, Elliot Doolittle, for the next election. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Diane Neal (Law & Order: SVU) will play Helen, a charming, strong and witty actress who gets caught up in a love triangle in the Hallmark made-for-TV movie called This Magic Moment that will center on a video store owner and budding screenwriter named Clark Gable who falls for a famous actress in town to film a movie while he also deals with residual feelings for an old flame. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actor Ewan McGregor will star alongside Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts in the upcoming box office film called August: Osage County, which is an adaptation of the Tracy Letts Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play. McGregor will play Bill Fordham, the estranged husband of Barbara (Roberts) and son-in-law of pill-popping matriarch Violet Weston (Streep). A college professor, he left his wife for one of his students but wants to be there for his family. His marriage is disintegrating and his patience is running thin. (Deadline)

Q&A SECTION (with Tierney Bricker at E! Online; Adam Bryant and Natalie Abrams at TV Guide and Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

Question: I need Once Upon a Time scoop! – Kelli

Tierney: A warlock is coming! Quinn is a handsome young man who is shunned by his parents when they find out about his magical abilities, which leads him to a new family of people with gifts similar to his. While he seems nice enough, Quinn is someone you don’t want to cross. The show is also looking to cast Anita, a sexy and earthy sorceress who is devoted to taking in lost souls. However, don’t let her maternal instincts fool you; because she can be ferocious when it comes to the people she cares about.

Question: Have you seen the NCIS premiere? I need details! — Robbie

ADAM: As expected, the team dusts itself off pretty easily after the explosion at headquarters, although McGee is banged up much worse than some of his colleagues. As for Harper Dearing, the man behind the blast, he’s got a few more tricks up his sleeve — and as you might have guessed, they all involve a big boom. That said, the much-anticipated Gibbs-Dearing showdown surprisingly ends up being a great deal more intimate than expected.

Question: I’m so excited that Daniel Gillies was included in the new Vampire Diaries cast gallery! What can you say about his role this season? — Heather

NATALIE: Elijah will definitely be back. In fact, Gillies just told us about a recent flashback scene he filmed. “It was the 11th century,” Gillies says. “It was an episode that depicted a brand new menace on The Vampire Diaries and not just a menace to the beautiful boys and girls of Mystic Falls, but also to the Originals. A big threat.”

Question: I can’t wait for Person of Interest to return. Will Reese be able to rescue Finch? — Luke

ADAM: Despite a valiant effort on Reese’s part, Reese and Finch’s reunion won’t come in the season premiere. In fact, most of Finch’s scenes take place in flashbacks, as we see how he trained the Machine to work. (Fun fact: The machine’s excellent at blackjack!) What we do see of Finch in present day is a pretty certain fear of Root, who both reveals why she wants the Machine and proves exactly how ruthless she will be in order to get it.

Question: I am dying to know what’s going to happen to Belle on Once Upon A Time. Got anything you can share? —Donald

Ausiello: Freshly plucked out of her hospital cellar confines and thrust into the orbit of the purple smoke-conjuring Mr. Gold, Emilie de Ravin’s beauty is in for quite a bit of culture shock as Season 2 opens. Is somewhere inside this Rumplestiltskin the same imp she fell in love with in the other realm? “Rumple has always been a character who has had to choose between love and power, and he has always chosen power,” series co-creator Eddy Kitsis reminds. “So now that Belle, this wild card, has come into his life, how will it affect his meticulous plan? And which path will he now choose because of it?”

Question: Any news at all on Justified? —Jay

Ausiello: The FX western is recruiting a new batch of freaks for Season 4, and they include a rule-bending military police sergeant who shares a past with Boyd, a fugitive family man who teams up with a pair of drug addicts, a local Constable who went to high school with Raylan, and a charismatic young preacher who starts cutting into Boyd’s profits. Bonus Spoiler: The Season 4 premiere is titled “Hole in the Wall.”

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Showtime is developing a new potential drama with former Californication executive producer Gina Fattore that is being described as a high-concept multi-cultural family drama called Holiday. There are no other details about the project at this time, though. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

ABC is developing another fantasy project called A Kingdom Far Away from feature writer Justin Marks. The project is being described as a fantasy adventure about a quirky family surviving together on a lawless frontier; a magical land where monsters are real and one young woman’s unlikely destiny is about to change their lives forever. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

CBS has committed to a new potential drama The Mentalist creator Bruno Heller called The Advocates, a legal drama that centers on a female lawyer and a male ex-con who team up as “victim advocates,” going to the edge of the law to right wrongs and fight for the underdog. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actress Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City) is set to play reclusive poet Emily Dickinson in the upcoming film called A Quiet Passion that will follow Dickinson’s life from precocious schoolgirl to tortured recluse who saw only seven of her 1,000+ poems published in her lifetime. After her death though, Dickinson was recognized as one of the greatest American poets of all time. (The Hollywood Reporter and Dark Horizons)

Actor Peter Facinelli (the Twilight franchise) will star in the upcoming supernatural horror flick called Gallows Hill where he will play an American, widowed from his Colombia-born wife, who flies to Bogota with his new fiancée (Sophia Myles) to retrieve his rebellious teenage daughter Jill (Nathalia Ramos). After a car accident leaves them stranded in a rundown isolated inn, they discover the old innkeeper has locked a young girl in the basement and their decision to set her free has unintended consequences. (Heat Vision and Dark Horizons)

Q&A SECTION (with Tierney Bricker and Team Watch with Kristin at E! Online)

Question: I am literally counting down the minutes until the season two premiere of Scandal! Give me some good news about my favorite couple Fitz and Olivia?! – Kasey

Tierney: The fact that his wife is expecting obviously complicates his relationship with Olivia as well, and in the season two premiere, we learn the two haven’t spoken in quite some time. However, they do share a moment that left us breathless…and they aren’t even face-to-face. Yeah, their chemistry is that good.

Question: Downton Abbey spoilers if you got them! – Christina

Tierney: Elizabeth McGovern says the world of Downton Abbey will be dealing with “massive change” in the new season. “There is starting to be a lot more movement between classes and that is funny, heartbreaking, disturbing, and wonderful. You find out a lot more about the characters because you see how they react to a changing world,” she tells us. “The kids who are growing up of course in the ’20s, [when] everything started to be much more liberated. There were a lot more possibilities for those girls than had been at the start of the series. They’re now looking to maybe have careers. So, that is the sort of dramatic thrust of a lot of the stories in Season three.”

Question: What’s next for Stiles on Teen Wolf?! While I like the more serious stuff with his dad, I kind of miss the funny side of him! – Sarah

Team WWK: Fret not, Stiles fan, you’ll be seeing all the sides of Stiles in season three. “They can expect him to get back to being funny, which is another reason we wanted that space of four months,” executive producer Jeff Davis says of what the show’s four-month time jump will mean for Scott’s partner-in-crime. “We could kind of hit the reset button on the characters and put them back into a place where they begin to feel human again after all these inhuman events. We’ll definitely get back to him being funny, but he’s going to have more drama ahead and probably some more complications with Scott now that Scott has changed so much, too.”

Question: Do you have anything on the NCIS premiere? I hear it’s going to be epic. – David

Team WWK: Michael Weatherly let us in on all the season premiere secrets. “It’s going to be an awesome thing. I’m stuck in an elevator with the beautiful Cote de Pablo. Tony and Ziva stuck in an elevator. TiVo that,” he insists. “It’s a massive season premiere. I would be hugely surprised if there was one person on the planet earth that didn’t like it. I’d be hugely shocked.”

That’s it. Enjoy!

PS: Please remember to honor all those we lost 11 years ago on that fateful 9-11.

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Actor Gil Bellows (Ally McBeal) will guest star in the new fall drama Vegas, playing mayoral candidate George Grady, who is campaigning against incumbent Ted Bennett and is intrigued with and inspired by Vincent Savino (Michael Chiklis). Vegas will debut on CBS on September 25. (Lynette Rice at Entertainment Weekly)

Actor John Shea (Gossip Girl and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) will appear on The Good Wife as Cary’s (Matt Czuchry) dad. This will potentially be a recurring role. The series returns to CBS on September 30. (TV Line and TV Guide)

Actress Alfre Woodard will play Sam’s (Taye Diggs) mom on Private Practice. The series will return to ABC on September 25. (Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Angela Bassett will star and executive produce the potential new drama at NBC for which the network just closed a deal. The project is called Vanishing Point and comes from writer Ben Ripley (the box office film Source Code). The project is being described as a character-driven legal franchise revolving around two women. One, to be played by Bassett, is a brilliant yet unsympathetic rainmaker at a powerful New York law firm whose world is suddenly and permanently upended by a health issue. Facing this crisis, she makes her condition public and vows to continue her practice with the help of a young brilliant attorney she chooses to be her right hand. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Shonda Rhimes and Grey’s Anatomy writer Peter Nowalk will be working together on a potential new drama for NBC called Under the Gun. The project revolves around Erin Kain, a woman who goes to work for the FBI as she struggles to make sense of a terrible event in her past that ruined her life and tore her family apart. While her young and fragile appearance doesn’t typically suggest that she’s best suited to work as a field agent, her dark past helps her get inside the head of criminals who were normal one day and cracked the next. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

Jason Katims, the creative mind behind Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, will be working with feature writer Simon Kinberg on the potential new pilot called Anonymous for which FOX. The project follows a rebellious, hot-shot wunderkind who is plucked as the CIA’s latest recruit and teamed with a seasoned handler with whom he forms an unlikely father-son relationship. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

A potential hour-long drama from producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (the men behind Smash) has been selected by NBC. The tentatively titled White House Confidential is being described as an upstairs-downstairs type soap set in the White House, told from the point of view of a young female doctor who has a secret from her past. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Here are the top 10 box office movies for this past weekend courtesy of Deadline:

1. The Possession – 9.3 million
2. Lawless – 5.9 million
3. The Expendables 2 – 4.9 million
4. The Words – 4.7 million
5. ParaNorman – 4.2 million
6. The Bourne Legacy – 4 million
7. The Odd Life of Timothy Green – 3.6 million
8. The Campaign – 3.3 million
8. 2016 Obama’s America – 3.3 million
10. The Dark Knight Rises – 3.2 million

Actor Sean Bean (Lord of the Rights) is set to star in the post-apocalyptic action thriller called Scorched Earth that is set after an environmental collapse causes billions to die where mankind has finally re-established a rudimentary society with a new set of laws for the ravaged wastelands. Bean will play a bounty hunter named Atticus Gage who is very similar to the criminals he hunts. He is soon presented with the bounty of a lifetime, and goes off in search of the most wanted criminal in these badlands. (Deadline and Dark Horizons)

Actor David Thewlis (Harry Potter and War Horse) is expected to have a supporting role in the sequel film RED 2. The original film was about a group of retired special agents (Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich). Thewlis will play a character called The Frog, an information dealer who got his name by poisoning the water supply at the Kremlin using a poisonous Amazonian frog. (Heat Vision and First Showing)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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