Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for today:

TELEVISION

Actor Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones) will have a regular role in the upcoming WGN drama called Manhattan that is set against the backdrop of the clandestine mission to build the world’s first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico, following the brilliant but flawed scientists and their families as they attempt to co-exist in a world where secrets and lies infiltrate every aspect of their lives. Lloyd will play one of the scientists. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Mark Deklin (GCB and Lone Star) will have a series regular role on Devious Maids when it returns for its second season on Lifetime. He will play Nicholas, a handsome, charming, well-educated and wealthy Beverly Hills businessman-philanthropist with many secrets, whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Some major casting has been made for the upcoming FX dark comedy series Hoke (based on the novels by Charles Willeford) that will star Paul Giamatti as Hoke Moseley, a hardboiled homicide detective hero who investigates crimes while wrestling with his own mid-life crisis in 1980s Miami. Among the new cast members include Tammy Blanchard (Moneyball) will play Loretta Hickey, the striking mother of a murdered drug addict whose case Hoke investigates; John Carroll Lynch (Body of Proof) will play Hoke’s former partner; Robert Wisdom (Prison Break and Nashville) will play the head of the Miami PD Homicide Squad who has a long history with Hoke and Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones) will play Ellita Sanchez, a sharp young homicide detective recently promoted from dispatcher to Hoke’s (Giamatti) new partner. (Jen Yamato at Deadline and Sandra Gonzalez at Entertainment Weekly)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

Before the Lifetime adaptation of the V.C. Andrews book Flowers in the Attic has even aired the network is planning to do a sequel to the second book. The small screen adaptation will air on January 18. (Lisa de Moraes at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Actors Richard Gere and David Strathairn have joined the cast of the sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. (Mike Fleming, Jr. at Deadline)

Actress Glenn Close will play Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be the Grand Russian Duchess Anastasia, in the upcoming box office film called Duchess that will cover the last days of Anna and her American husband Jack Manahan. After the courts forcibly put Anna into a retirement home in Charlottesville in 1983, Jack kidnapped her, and together they evaded the authorities across rural Virginia hoping to experience the honeymoon they never had. (Mike Fleming, Jr. at Deadline)

Actress Kelly Lynch (Magic City) and actor Jim Beaver (Supernatural and Justified) will star in the independent film called The Frontier that will be set in 1974 along Route 66, centering on a desperate woman on the run from the law who takes a job at a remote desert motel. She soon discovers the motel’s patrons are rendezvousing after a large robbery, and deciding she has nothing to lose, hatches a plan to steal their loot. (The Deadline Team)

Actress Cote de Pablo (NCIS) has joined the cast of the upcoming film called The 33 that will focus on the 2010 rescue of 33 Chilean miners who were trapped for 69 days in the Copiapo gold and copper mine. The cast already includes Antonio Banderas, Juliette Binoche and Rodrigo Santoro. de Pablo will play a wife of one of the trapped miners, who became international stars following their dramatic rescue that played out live worldwide. (The Deadline Team)

Q&A SECTION (with Matt Mitovich at TV Line)

Question: Can I get some scoop on S.H.I.E.L.D.? –George

Mitovich: Now that we’ve finally been fed scraps of info on Coulson’s resurrection, the next reveal to wow you may involve Skye’s search for her momma. “There’s a lot more to the story of Skye’s parentage than meets the eye, and that comes up in the next couple of episodes,” Clark Gregg told me. “She turns out to have a mystery of her own, one that is as existentially startling and threatening as anything Coulson’s dealing with” — which is saying something! Oh, and Ming-Na shared with us this teaser about an upcoming episode: As Melinda May, “I get to put on an interesting outfit. Let’s put it that way.”

That’s it. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!