Hey All,
Here are the news items for today:
TELEVISION
Lifetime has canceled the military-themed drama Army Wives after seven seasons on the air. The last new episode of the drama aired this past June. But, a two-hour retrospective will air early next year. (Deadline and TV Fanatic)
Actress Joanne Kelly (Warehouse 13) will have a major recurring role on the new CBS drama Hostages, playing Vanessa, an ambitious ambassador and the sister of the First Lady of the United States (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)
Actor Jack Coleman (Heroes and Burn Notice) will have a multi-episode arc on Scandal, playing Daniel Douglas, a charming Southerner with ties to one of the gladiators. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
FOX is developing a drama pilot called Gotham, an origins story about Commission James Gordon and the villains who made Gotham City famous. In this project, Gordon is still a detective with the Gotham City Police Department and has yet to meet Batman, who will not be part of the series. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)
NBC is developing a drama series called Odyssey that will center on three families who are torn apart when a stranded female soldier, a disillusioned corporate attorney and a disrespected political activist are pulled into the same shocking international military conspiracy. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)
The cable network Bravo is developing an as-untitled dramedy project that will center on an eccentric New England family that decides to take justice into its own hands when its matriarch is murdered. When the murderer is set free on a technicality, they decide to hunt down the killer together, as a family. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)
Actress Rumer Willis (yes, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore) has landed a role in the E! scripted pilot Songbyrd that will star One Tree Hill alum Bethany Joy Lenz in the lead role. The pilot will center on Lauren Byrd (Lenz), a writer of hit love songs, who employs a small staff, including her sister Mickey (Willis), to enable and manage her eccentric yet wildly successful process. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Actor Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje (Lost) has joined the cast of the upcoming big screen adaptation of Annie, a reimagining of the Broadway musical. He will play Nash, the tough but lovable bodyguard and driver for Stacks (Jamie Foxx) and a good friend of Annie. (The Deadline Team)
Actress Agnes Bruckner (the star of Lifetime’s The Anna Nicole Story) will appear in the independent drama flick called There Is A New World Somewhere, playing Sylvia, a struggling artist who returns to her hometown and meets an enigmatic stranger who becomes the catalyst for a road trip through the Deep South. (The Deadline Team)
Actress Dakota Fanning (The Twilight franchise) and Theo James (the upcoming film Divergent and the short-lived TV series Golden Boy) will star in the Richard Gere-led movie Franny that will center around a gregarious hedonist (Gere) who finds a renewed sense of purpose by desperately ingratiating himself into the lives of a young couple, Olivia and Luke (Fanning and James). (The Deadline Team)
Actor Joseph Mazzello, who was a kid when he appeared in Jurassic Park, is working on his directorial debut (for which he will also star), the box office film called Undrafted, which was written by Mazzello based on his brother’s experience as a collegiate baseball star who was skipped over in the Major League Baseball draft. An intramural baseball game with his misfit teammates then becomes incredibly important to him as he tries to come to grips with his dashed dreams. The cast will include Aaron Tveit (Graceland), Matt Barr (The Hatfields & McCoys mini), Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), Tyler Hoechlin (Teen Wolf), Manny Montana (Graceland), Philip Winchester (Strike Back) and James Belushi. (Mike Fleming, Jr. at Deadline)
Q&A SECTION (with TV Scoop Team from E! Online, Natalie Abrams at TV Guide and Michael Ausiello at TV Line)
Question: Love S.H.I.E.L.D. already, but I’d love it more if Cobie Smulders, aka Agent Hill, would stick around. Got any scoop on that? – Lorena
TV Scoop Team: Smulders told us she does appear in more than one episode this season, as well as hinted that she could be a series regular in season two after that other show she’s on is done. Or she could just mash up both roles to make How I Met Your Superhero. We’d watch that show.
Question: Can we expect a lot of flashback about Emma’s past in Once Upon a Time? We want to see more of that. – Alex96401212
TV Scoop Team: Then you definitely won’t want to miss the first two minutes of Sunday’s season premiere! Fans will be treated to a very special Emma-centric scene in which we flashback to 11 years ago. Hmm… interesting. Isn’t Henry 11 years old? What a magical coincidence! And speaking of magic, let’s just say that Emma’s powers have been with her long before her trip to Storybrooke
Question: Did you get any juicy Scandal scoop when you were on set? — Laura
NATALIE: Olivia Pope might be the First Mistress, but it’s her co-workers who will bear the brunt of that revelation in the season premiere. “It makes it hard because they go from being people who manage other people’s crises to people who have to manage their own crisis in a big way,” Kerry Washington tells me. “When Olivia herself is at the center of it, it really challenges everybody. It’s hard for them to figure out what their roles are. If she’s the client, how can she be the boss? Who gets to make the rules?”
Question: What can you tease about Once Upon a Time’s premiere? — Jessica
NATALIE: It’s very action-packed. There will be fighting — seriously, at least two people get punched in the face and it’s awesome — flying and betrayal. But before we get to Neverland, the third season will pick up in the real world with a moment fans have been waiting for since the beginning of the series. But manage your expectations: You won’t get the whole story about that moment until Episode 9.
Quesbtion: Any scoop on Bonnie next season now that she’s dead on The Vampire Diaries? — Jonah
NATALIE: When the show returns, Jeremy is still the only person who knows, and that secret, and their new circumstances, will bring them even closer. “It creates this intense intimacy, even as a friend, that they never had before,” Kat Graham told us during a recent visit to the set. “There were always distractions and they weren’t ever forced to always just ‘be.’ You’ll see a lot of us working together early on in the season.”
Question: Got any scoop on Revolution? —Kevin
Ausiello: The mystery man known as Mr. President will be unmasked “by midseason,” exec producer Eric Kripke confirms. “For now, he’s just this shadowy figure that is moving into the White House, and we’ll start to tease all that out.” Bonus Scoop: Adam Beach (SVU, Big Love) makes his first appearance in Wednesday’s premiere playing “the sheriff of the town of Willoughby that our heroes stumble into and immediately there’s a little friction with Miles because he senses that there’s [something off],” Kripke explains. “Miles comes into town using an alias and not wanting anyone to know his true identity, and Adam begins to realize pretty quickly that there’s more to Miles than meets the eye.”
Question: Please tell me anything about Scandal. —Katy
Ausiello: Now that Olivia has been outed as the POTUS’ mistress, “She is no longer the fixer,” explains Bellamy Young. “She is like the client. Mellie is the fixer in her own mind. We’re looking at a reelection campaign, so I’ve got to handle it because we need four more years. And Mellie has a very particular idea about who a scapegoat should be, what a strategy should be, how to push it all under the rug so we can get past it and get reelected. Of course, it will no doubt blow up in her face as Mellie’s plans inevitably do.” Bonus Scoop: This season’s third episode is going to be bananas.”So far, I have loved Episode 3,” raves Young. “Episode 3 was one of our best so far. I really look forward to [watching] that.”
Question: I have to wait so long until Season 2 of Under the Dome! Can you please give me some hint as to what the future holds for Barbie? —Alicia
Ausiello: A tighter, more compelling narrative? That’s my personal hope, anyway. I’m encouraged by something Dean Norris told us Saturday at BAFTA’s pre-Emmy Team Party. “I’m meeting with producers to start sorting it out, but [Season 2] is going to be good,” he said. “We get to reboot the whole thing… I think there’s going to be some changes. They want to beef it up in a lot of ways.” Bonus Scoop: Norris confirms that “Stephen King is going to write the first episode.”
That’s it. Enjoy!
PS: It’s day three of the first official week of Fall TV – check your calendars and guides carefully for what to watch tonight, as there is even more programming rolling out.
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