Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today

TELEVISION

Actress Piper Perabo (Covert Affairs) will appear in a three-episode arc on the NBC comedy Go On, playing Simone – a former member of the group who returns to therapy and who develops a relationship with Ryan (Matthew Perry). (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Torrey DeVitto (The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars), singer-actress Ashanti and newcomer Elle McLemore have landed series regular roles on Army Wives. DeVitto will play Maggie Hall, a sexy and smart Ex-Army Airborne, now a truck driver married to a Staff Sergeant with a teen daughter, who decided to get out of the Army to devote herself to being a wife and mother; Ashanti will play Latasha Durant, an optimistic mother of three and McLemone will play Holly Gordon, a sweet, wide-eyed, bespectacled farm girl newly married to a soldier who is lonely and homesick. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Serinda Swan (Breakout Kings and Smallville) will have a series regular role in the upcoming new USA Network drama Graceland that will star Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me), Aaron Tveit (Les Miserables), Vanessa Ferlito (CSI: NY), Brandon Jay McLaren (The Killing and Falling Skies), and Manny Montana (Chicago Code). The series delves into the lives of an elusive group of undercover agents from the FBI, DEA and US Customs, whose worlds collide at a repossessed Southern California beachfront mansion called “Graceland.” Swan will star as Paige Arkin, an intuitive and merciless DEA undercover agent living at the mansion. (The Futon Critic)

Actor Gil McKinney (who played Julie’s TA/love interest on Friday Night Lights) will have a pivotal guest role in an upcoming episode of Supernatural. He will play the Winchesters’ paternal grandfather Henry in yet another time travel-themed episode. (Vlada Gelman at TV Line)

Actress S. Epatha Merkerson (Law & Order) has landed a recurring role on the upcoming NBC drama Deception that is an opulent soap in which detective Joanna Padget (Meagan Good) returns undercover to the wealthy and troubled Bower family she grew up in — as the maid’s daughter — to solve the murder of the notorious heiress Vivian Bower who was once her closest friend. Merkerson will play Joanna’s mom Beverly Padget, who worked for the Bowers family when Joanna was a young girl. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Jere Burns (Breaking Bad, Burn Notice and Justified) will have a recurring role on the upcoming A&E series Bates Motel, which is a prequel to the legendary film Psycho, which examines the twisted relationship between serial-killer-to-be Norman (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Varmiga). Burns will play a mysterious character who has a pivotal role on the show. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

BBC One and BBC Drama are teaming to adapt the J.K. Rowling adult novel The Casual Vacancy for the small screen. The story is set in a seemingly perfect English village whose pretty façade hides a town at war. (Nancy Tartaglione at Deadline)

BBC One has commissioned a new series for 2013. It will be an ambitious six-part series based on the Susanna Clarke acclaimed best-selling 2004 period fantasy drama Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell, which is set in an alternate England during the Napoleonic Wars. The story follows a magician and his apprentice who use their powers to help the government but who are ultimately pitted against one another. (Deadline and Dark Horizons)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Here are the top 10 box office films for this past weekend courtesy of Exhibitors Relations:

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, $17.4 million
2. Skyfall, $17 million
3. Rise of the Guardians, $13.5 million (tie)
3. Lincoln, $13.5 million (tie)
5. Life of Pi, $12 million
6. Killing Them Softly, $7 million (tie)
6. Wreck-It Ralph, $7 million (tie)
8. Red Dawn, $6.6 million
9. Flight, $4.5 million
10. The Collection, $3.4 million

Actor Dane DeHaan (Chronicle and Lincoln) will play Harry Osborn in the upcoming sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man alongside Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. (Patrick Hipes at Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!