Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for yesterday and today:

TELEVISION

Actress Sonja Sohn (The Wire and Body of Proof) has landed a recurring role on The Originals, play Lenore, a powerful salt-of-the-Earth in New Orleans, who will prove to be quite a foe for Klaus (series lead Joseph Morgan). (Tierney Bricker at E! Online)

Actress Ever Carradine (Eureka and 24) will appear in the TNT drama Major Crimes, playing the role Sharon Beck, the mother who left behind Rusty, the teenager who Captain Raydor (series lead Mary McDonnell) took under her guardianship. Major Crimes is back with a new season on TNT starting on June 9. (Adam Bryant at TV Guide)

Actor Jonathan Keltz has been promoted to series regular on The CW period piece drama Reign when it returns for its second season this fall. He played recurring character Leith, the love interest of lady-in-waiting Greer (series regular Celina Sinden). (Andy Swift at TV Line)

Actress Constance Zimmer (House of Cards and Entourage) has landed a role in the upcoming Lifetime dark comedic drama Un-Real that will star Shiri Appleby (Roswell and Life Unexpected) that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the chaos surrounding the production of a competition dating reality series. Zimmer will play the dispassionate executive producer of the unscripted show, The 10-episodes series is inspired by executive producer Sarah Gertrude Shapiro’s short film Sequin Raze and centers on Rachel (Appleby), a young staffer whose sole job is to manipulate her relationships with and among the contestants to get the vital dramatic and outrageous footage the program’s executive producer (Zimmer) demands. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actors Kevin Alejandro (Ugly Betty and Arrow) and Mat Vairo (Revolution) and actresses Sophie Lowe (Once Upon a Time in Wonderland) and India Ennenga (Treme) will star alongside Mark Pellegrino (The Tomorrow People and Lost) in the upcoming A&E drama series The Returned that will be executive produced by Carlton Cuse (EP from Lost). Alejandro will play the town’s authoritative but accessible Sheriff Tommy Moran; Lowe will play Lena and Ennenga will play Camille, Jack’s (Pellegrino) twin daughters. Vairo plays one of the returned, Simon, a musician who comes back 10 years after his death. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline and The Deadline Team)

Actor Corey Stoll (House of Cards and the upcoming The Strain) and actress Laila Robins (Bored To Death) have joined the cast of Homeland. Robins will be a series regular, playing Martha Boyd, the U.S. Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, who is professional and put together, with a ship-to-ship voice and personality to match. Meanwhile, Stoll will be a recurring guest star, playing Sandy Bachman, the CIA Chief of Station in Pakistan and a rising star in the agency’s firmament. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

Actor Brian Van Holt (Cougar Town) has joined the cast of the upcoming Syfy series Ascension that will star Battlestar Galactica alum Tricia Helfer. The new drama is about a starship that was secretly launched from Earth in the year 1963, sending hundreds of men, women and children to populate a new world. Nearly 50 years into the journey, as they approach the point of no return, the mysterious murder of a young woman causes the ship’s population to question the true nature of their mission. Holt will play the ship’s captain William Denninger while Helfer will play his wife Viondra. Ascension is set to air on Syfy in November. (James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly)

NEW TV DRAMA TRAILER

The Lottery (New Drama on Lifetime)

MINI-SERIES NEWS

Executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Smash and the recent Bonnie & Clyde adaptation) are teaming with the History Channel to produce a new four-hour mini-series based on the origins of the mystic medieval Christian order known as Knights Templar. The mini will tell the true story of three brothers, all knights, during the first Crusade, as they make the long journey through the Holy Lands to recapture Jerusalem, ultimately bringing rise to the Knights Templar. (Nellie Andreeva at Deadline)

FROM TV TO STAGE

Actress Kristen Bell (best known for her work on Veronica Mars), actor Hunter Parrish (Weeds) and actress-singer Amber Riley (Glee) will appear in a revival of the musical Hair slated to run at the Hollywood Bowl from August 1 through August 3. Bell will play Sheila, Parrish will play Claude and Riley will play Dionne. Beverly D’Angelo, who played Sheila in the 1979 film adaptation, will play the mother. (Jeremy Gerard at Deadline)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. will play famed civil rights attorney and activist Fred Gray in the upcoming box office film Selma, which is about Martin Luther King’s 1965 landmark voting rights campaign. The cast includes David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Oprah Winfrey and Martin Sheen. (The Deadline Team)

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

1. Maleficent – 70 million
2. X-Men: Days of Future Past – 32.6 million
3. A Million Ways to Die in the West – 17 million
4. Godzilla – 12.2 million
5. Blended – 8.4 million
6. Neighbors – 7.7 million
7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – 3.8 million
8. Million Dollar Arm – 3.7 million
9. Chef – 2 million
10. The Other Woman – 1.4 million

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) and actress Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) have joined the cast of the much-anticipated Star Wars film, joining the already cast John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow as well as original stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker. The movie is expected to open on December 18, 2015. (Seat42F)

Actors Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Dracula) and Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy) and young actress Joey King have joined the cast of the upcoming box office film Stonewall about the 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village that became the flashpoint for the gay rights movement. The drama centers on Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine), a young man who is kicked out of his house and flees to NY, where homeless and destitute he befriends a group of street kids who soon introduce him to the watering hole of the local drag queens, gays, lesbians, and everything in between: the Mafia-run Stonewall Inn. There he meets the suave Danny (Meyers) but catches the eye of the Stonewall’s repulsive manager (Perlman), who colludes with corrupt police, exploits homeless youth for financial gain and is even suspected to have had a hand in some of their “disappearances.” King will play Winters’ sister. The film isn’t expected out until July 2016. (The Deadline Team)

BOX OFFICE TRAILER

Q&A SECTION (with Tierney Bricker from E! Online)

Question: Hit me up with some scoop on Arrow, would you? – Liam

Tierney: You got it! Prepare to see a different side of former (and current?) baddie Malcolm Merlyn when season three kicks off. “Malcolm’s losing everybody around him in his life for whatever reason. He figured out the last reason he lost Tommy was because he became emotionally connected to somebody. Malcolm can control everybody physically or with money, what’s really interesting now is Malcolm needs to learn how to control people emotionally so he doesn’t lose anybody now,” John Barrowman previewed for us. “That’s what he he’s doing with Thea now because she’s at her emotional low. Malcolm needs to build his family back around him, whoever that may be. He needs Thea as much as she needs him.”

Question: I’m still so upset that Regina is getting her happy ending taken away from her! Is she going to re-embrace her evil side on Once Upon a Time next season? – Rebecca M.

Tienrey: Funny you should bring that up because when we chatted with OUAT co-creator Eddy Kitsis, we asked him that very question. Gird your loins, magic lovers, because hell hath no fury like an evil queen scorned! “We have built 66 episodes of growth for Regina and this is a very big setback,” Kitsis revealed. “The question we want the audience to think about is, ‘How does she handle it?’ It is a very uncomfortable situation for everyone involved, it’s very complicated. She’s done a lot of growing and yet we know what her weaknesses are.” Translation: Emma you had better run, girl!

Question: My friend and I have a Pretty Little Liars bet going on. Do you think that Ali is going to be upset or relieved when she discovers that her mom was murdered? – Britney

Tierney: Luckily you’re not going to have to wait long to find out! With the season five premiere exactly one week away, fans will be treated to a laundry list of shocking answers and heart-pounding reveals. But to help curb your PLL cravings, we’ll go ahead and let executive producer Joseph Dougherty answer that question for you. “I think she’s going to be upset,” the EP explained. “She made up her mind and was going to go back and get some answers, and if this person is not there, she’s not going to get the answers she wanted to get. There are as many unanswered questions in that town for Ali as there are for those other girls.”

That’s it. Enjoy!