Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today, few though they may be:

TELEVISION

Actress Alex Kingston (Doctor Who and ER) will reprise her role of Dinah Lance, the mother of Laurel Lance (series regular Katie Cassidy) on Arrow later this season. (Natalie Abrams at TV Guide)

Actress Sydney T. Poitier (Veronica Mars and the daughter of legendary actor Sidney Poitier) has landed a five episode arc on the upcoming NBC sequel series Chicago PD, playing a new detective, a role that will cross over on Chicago Fire. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Matthew Goode (Watchmen and Leap Year) will have a major recurring role on The Good Wife, playing a prosecutor who befriends Alicia (series lead Julianna Margulies) after having a crisis of faith and deciding to chart a new direction for his career. (Michael Ausiello at TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor Martin Donovan (Homeland and Boss) and actress Salli Richardson-Whitfield (The Newsroom and Eureka) will both have roles in the Lifetime dystopian thriller pilot The Lottery that features a world staring down the barrel of impending extinction. Remarkably, 100 embryos are successfully fertilized and a national lottery is held to pick the surrogates. As conflict, control and mystery unfold over this important scientific breakthrough, government interests and power begin to dominate one of the most personal and basic elements of humanity: the right to have a family. Donovan will play the series regular role of Darius Hayes, the calculating director of the country’s Fertility Commission who is willing to use any strategy to achieve what he believes is the greater good. Meanwhile, Richardson-Whitfield will recur as Gabrielle, the first lady of the United States who is desperate to have a child of her own. The show has yet to be given a greenlight to series by the network. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items from the long holiday weekend:

TELEVISION

BBC America has renewed their new series Atlantis for a second season after only one episode airing. (The Wrap)

Actress Melissa Ponzio (Teen Wolf) has landed a recurring role on the NBC drama Chicago Fire playing Donna, a love interest to Chief Wallace Boden (Eamonn Walker). (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Kevin Ryan (Copper) will have a recurring role in the upcoming series Crossbones that will focus on legendary pirate Blackbeard (to be played by John Malkovich). Ryan will play Finnegan, a heavily-tattooed, hard and solemn pirate who becomes involved with Blackbeard. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actress Barbara Hershey will reprise her role of Cora, The Queen of Hearts in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. (William Keck at TV Guide)

Actor Victor Garber will appear in at least one upcoming episode of Sleepy Hollow, playing Ichabod Crane’s father. (Kimberly Roots at TV Line)

Actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner (The Cosby Show) will appear in at least two episodes of Major Crimes, playing Lt. Chuck Cooper, a SIS (Special Investigation Section) supervisor brought in to help protect Rusty from his stalker. (Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Actor Kirk Acevedo (Fringe) will appear in the Syfy drama pilot 12 Monkeys, based on the feature film of the same name that will center on a time traveler from the post-apocalyptic future who appears in the present day on a mission to locate and eradicate the source of a deadly plague that will eventually decimate the human race. (Lesley Goldberg at The Hollywood Reporter)

NBC is developing a potential new series for its Friday night timeslot based on the 2010 feature film The Wolfman from Daniel Knauf, the executive producer and head writer of the new NBC series Dracula. The drama will explore what it means to be a man and to be human, centering on Lawrence Talbot, who is afflicted by an ancient curse and jacks into the powerful, primordial soul of the alpha-predator. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

MINI-SERIES NEWS

The History Channel is developing a mini-series tentatively titled Hannibal that will tell the story of the greatest generals in antiquity: Hannibal Barca and his archrival Scipio Africanus, who went head-to-head in the Second Punic War. One of the executive producers on this project is actress Halle Berry. (The Futon Critic)

Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (the duo behind the upcoming live staging of The Sound of Music) are developing an event program for NBC; an 8-hour mini-series called Nemesis about famous Prohibition agent Eliot Ness. The project will tell the true story of Ness in 1935, post-Untouchables, as Cleveland’s newly appointed Director of Public Safety. When bodies have started turning up, each one decapitated and dissected with a doctor’s skill and a madman’s bent, the police are baffled and the population is terrorized over America’s first serial killer. Ness is forced to take over the case, but the more energy he pours into the investigation, the more it takes over and threatens to destroy his life. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Here are the top 10 box office movies for this past holiday weekend courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – 74.5 million
2. Frozen – 67.4 million
3. Thor: The Dark World – 11.1 million
4. The Best Man Holiday – 8.2 million
5. Homefront – 6.9 million
6. Delivery Man – 6.8 million
7. The Book Thief – 4.9 million
8. Philomena – 3.67 million
9. Black Nativity – 3.66 million
10. Last Vegas – 2.7 million

That’s it. Enjoy!

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