Kevin Alejandro and Mircea Monroe have been cast opposite star Nathan Fillion on Fox’s midseason drama series Drive, says The Hollywood Reporter. The show, from 20th Century Fox TV and executive producers Tim Minear, Ben Queen and Greg Yaitanes, chronicles an underground race across the U.S. Alejandro and Monroe will play two of the participants in the race, Winston Salazar and Ellie Laird, respectively. Both roles have been recast. Andres Saenz-Hudson and Taryn Manning played the parts in the pilot. Manning is expected to stay on the show playing a different character, Jewel. Fillion replaced Ivan Sergei, who played the lead in the pilot. Several other parts, including John Ashton, played in the pilot by Alan Ruck, and Sean Salazar, originally played by Shahine Ezell, also are being recast. The members of the original cast staying on include Melanie Lynskey, Emma Stone, Kristin Lehman and Rochelle Aytes.
Welcome to the Spoiler Roundup, the most comprehensive weekly spoiler wrapup on the internet. We scour the web for all the best spoilers on some of the most popular shows on the air. Catch it here every Wednesday at The TV Remote.
This week: 30 Rock, Bones, Criminal Minds, Crossing Jordan, CSI, Desperate Housewives, ER, George Lopez, Ghost Whisperer, Gilmore Girls, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, House, Law & Order: SVU, Lost, Men In Trees, My Name Is Earl, Prison Break, Scrubs, Smallville, Supernatural, The Office, The Unit and Ugly Betty.
Continue reading The Spoiler Roundup 12.20.06
ABC’s adaptation of Britain’s Footballers’ Wives scored two touchdowns Monday, snagging a pilot greenlight and a potential big-name director in the form of Bryan Singer (Superman Returns, first two “X-Men” films), reports Variety. Chris Brancato and Bert Salke are executive producing the new take on “Wives,” with Marco Pennette writing and executive producing via Touchstone Television. ABC first ordered a script for the project last summer. Singer wasn’t originally involved in “Wives” but is now loosely attached to direct. A rep for Singer said the director hasn’t yet decided which script he’ll helm under the terms of his ABC deal. The new take on “Wives” will be set in the world of pro football rather than soccer but will retain much of the over-the-top spirit of the original. The original was a campy mix of “Dallas” and “Desperate Housewives” revolving around three ordinary women whose lives are transformed by the celebrity and fortune that come with marriage to sports superstars.
Teri Polo, Sarah Jones and KaDee Strickland will star in The Wedding Planners, David E. Kelley’s new Fox series about three sisters in the nuptials business. Polo will play Jane, the oldest sister, known as the “conservative one.” She is attractive, smart, practical and sensible. Jones will play Sammy, the youngest sister. She is a free spirit, the most romantic of the three. Strickland will play Annie, a natural-born leader. She is tough, fit and not afraid of a fight, verbal or physical. Michael Landes also has been cast in the project as David, who works at the wedding-planning company as a photographer. He is self-deprecating and charming and has a talent for calming jittery brides. Wedding is slated to premiere in the spring.
Polo, best known for playing Ben Stiller’s wife in the Meet the Parents films, has worked with Kelley before. She had a recurring role on The Practice, his legal drama for ABC, and guest-starred on Chicago Hope, his medical drama for CBS. Jones recently recurred on HBO’s Big Love and Showtime’s Huff, while Strickland’s feature credits include Fever Pitch and The Grudge. Landes recently did multiple episodes on CBS’ Ghost Whisperer.
Along with scoring six Golden Globe nominations last week, The Departed has landed a TV deal with FX. The cable network has acquired Martin Scorsese’s hit drama along with three other Warner Brothers films: V for Vendetta, The Wicker Man and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Under a four-year agreement, said to be worth in the $18 million-$20 million range for all titles, FX will get Departed and box office bomb Wicker Man in early 2009, and Vendetta in late 2008. The network’s window on T3, which already airs on television, will start in about a year.
Departed is Scorsese’s highest-grossing film, raking in about $120 million to date. The crime thriller is an adaptation of the 2002 Hong Kong feature Internal Affairs. Wicker Man, starring Nicolas Cage, grossed $23.6 million in the fall. The Wachowski brothers’ Vendetta grossed $70.5 million last year.
USA Network has won its bet on Casino Royale. After heated bidding with several outlets, including broadcast networks, and cable rivals Spike TV, TNT and FX, USA landed the latest James Bond film, which has grossed about $400 million worldwide to date. Under the five-year deal, said to be worth about $20 million, USA will get the blockbuster movie in June 2009. Casino Royale, the first Bond movie with Daniel Craig as the famous British spy, is on track to outpace Die Another Day as the highest-grossing movie in the franchise. The Bond movies have been strong performers on cable TV. When TBS had the rights to many of the films, it launched a holiday 007 movie marathon. The tradition was continued by Spike TV, which bought the Bond movie package a few years ago.
NBC has halted production on Raines, its upcoming midseason supernatural drama, capping the number of episodes produced at seven instead of 13, Variety reported. The network had ordered 13 segments of the series, which stars Jeff Goldblum, but ultimately decided it only needed a half-dozen episodes beyond the pilot, the trade paper reported. Raines will still get a prime-time shot on Friday nights, starting in March, and NBC will stick with plans to air all seven produced episodes. The Raines cutback marks the second time in recent weeks that NBC has reduced an episode order for a midseason series, following The Singles Table. In Raines, Goldblum plays a Los Angeles cop who imagines he’s interacting with dead people in order to solve crimes.
ABC has pulled the plug on its midseason SF series Day Break, which is off the air, effective immediately, Variety reported. Day Break, starring Taye Diggs as a cop who relives the same day over and over, was a midseason fill-in on Wednesday nights for Lost, which is on hiatus until February. Day Break was headed off the air at the end of December anyway and will leave two weeks earlier than planned. In the Wednesday timeslot, ABC will launch its new comedy block this week rather than next month, starting with a mix of holiday-themed repeat episodes of George Lopez and According to Jim. The remaining episodes of Day Break will show up on ABC.com.
Nathan Fillion will play the lead on Fox’s midseason drama series Drive, which chronicles an underground race across America. Fillion will play Alex Tully, a charming, rogue landscaper who is coerced into joining the race to search for his wife who had been abducted. In the original pilot, the role was played by Ivan Sergei. Fillion, who is friends with one of the executive producers, Tim Minear, was first approached with the project in the spring but couldn’t do the pilot because of a scheduling conflict with the filming of his feature White Noise 2: The Light, slated for release January 5.
“I was a little disappointed because Tim is a friend, and there is nothing better than working with people you know and like,” Fillion said. At a barbecue this summer, after the pilot was shot but before Fox picked it up to series, Minear again floated the idea for Drive to Fillion and showed him the pilot. In addition to White Noise 2, Fillion will soon appear in the indie Waitress, which is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. His other credits include the series Two Guys and a Girl and Firefly.
Here is a short of list of when some of our favorite shows will be returning from their Christmas breaks.
CSI, January 4.
Desperate Housewives, January 7
Gilmore Girls, January 23
Grey’s Anatomy, January 4
Heroes, January. 22
Lost, February 7
Prison Break, January 29
Smallville, January 11
Ugly Betty, January 4
Veronica Mars, January 23