Danny Comden has been tapped to play a new love interest for Courteney Cox on the FX drama series Dirt says The Hollywood Reporter. He will play Ted Rothman, an almost-divorced president of a major TV studio who wants to rekindle a romance with Lucy Spiller (Cox). He is signed on for a three-episode arc. Comden, who co-starred on ABC’s comedy series I’m With Her, is developing the comedy feature You’re Amazing - about an average Joe who gets a new lease on life after a full makeover - at Universal.
SCI FI Channel has greenlighted a television series based on the Web series Sanctuary, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show will be the first to use live-action actors against virtual sets in the style of the features 300 and Sin City. SCI FI has ordered a full 13-episode season of the new scripted drama series, which originated online as the first high-definition SF Web series. Sanctuary is a side project from the Stargate SG-1 trio of star Amanda Tapping, writer-producer Damian Kindler and producer-director Martin Wood. They are executive producing the series with Sam Egan. Kindler created Sanctuary, Wood directed the webisodes starring Tapping. Tapping plays the enigmatic Dr. Helen Magnus, who is on a quest with her young protege, Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), to track down, aid and protect strange creatures that walk the earth. Sanctuary will be produced by Stage 3 Media in association with SCI FI Channel. Filming is slated to begin in March.
Australian actress Anna Torv has been tapped to play the lead role in Fringe, Fox’s upcoming SF drama from J.J. Abrams according to The Hollywood Reporter. Actress Blair Brown and Jasika Nicole have also joined the cast. Torv has been cast as Olivia Warren, a young, tough FBI agent who is forced to confront the spread of unexplained phenomena and work with Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), an institutionalized scientist whose work might be at the center of a coming storm. Brown will play the brilliant Nina Cord, a 16-year veteran at Prometheus Corp., a cutting-edge research facility. Nicole will play the recurring role of Astrid, a stunning federal assistant. Lance Reddick and Kirk Acevedo also star. The two-hour pilot is being directed by Alex Graves.
ABC Family has picked up the supernatural drama pilot The Middleman for a full series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The production schedule and launch date of the new series have yet to be determined because of the writers’ strike. Middleman, from writer-producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost), stars Natalie Morales as a 20-something struggling artist recruited by a secret agency to fight comic-book-type villains. Matt Keeslar plays the title character, a superhero who serves as her guide.
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: Breaking Bad, Brothers and Sisters, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, Jericho, Lost, October Road, One Tree Hill, Pushing Daisies, Scrubs, Smallville and Supernatural.
Continue reading The Spoiler Roundup 01.30.08
NBC has picked up The Celebrity Apprentice for a second season. The order completes a strong comeback for the Apprentice franchise, which had been canceled in May before new NBC programming chief Ben Silverman brought it back with a celebrity version. In what will be Apprentice’s eighth installment overall, the reality competition hosted by Donald Trump will stick to the celebrity format, featuring entertainment figures competing in business tasks for charitable causes. The second season of Celebrity Apprentice will premiere in January.
The first season of “Celebrity Apprentice” will wrap with a live two-hour finale March 27. So far, the contestants have raised more than $1 million for various charities, including the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund of CNY, the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Despite some declines since its premiere, Celebrity Apprentice is the top Thursday series among adults 18-49, averaging a 3.9 rating/10 share in the demographic and 9.3 million viewers overall.
CBS has renewed Survivor for next season, ordering a 17th and 18th installment of the long-running reality series. Additionally, Jeff Probst has signed a new deal to continue as host. The series’ 16th edition, Survivor: Micronesia, premieres Feb. 7. Casting for Survivor 17 is under way. The most recent installment, Survivor: China, averaged 15.2 million viewers and a 5.1 rating/14 share among adults 18-49. While the franchise has been trekking down in the ratings since its early heyday, it still dominates its time period, anchoring CBS’ Thursday lineup.
Starz has greenlit Crash as its first original drama series. Based on the Oscar-winning feature, the 13-episode series, co-produced with Lionsgate TV, is slated to debut on the John Malone-backed pay cabler this year. Key members of the team behind the gritty, racially charged film are on board for the series, including director/co-writer/producer Paul Haggis, co-writer and producer Bobby Moresco, producer Bob Yari, producer Don Cheadle, producer Mark R. Harris and executive producer Tom Nunan. If his schedule allows, Cheadle might reprise his role on the series as well as direct.
The order for Crash follows the recent launch of Starz’s first original series - the comedies Head Case and Hollywood Residential. While Starz brass had stated plans to develop lower-cost original series as a complement to the channel’s movie packages, that won’t be the case with Crash.
The Jim Henson Company announced that it has made its TV programming and feature film library available for download on Apple’s iTunes Store. Beginning January 28, fans will be able to purchase episodes from the first season of the cult SciFi series Farscape, as well as the classic children’s series Fraggle Rock (which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2008).
Through a partnership between digital distributor New Video and the Jim Henson Company, both series will be available in their entirety in the coming months. The shows will be available for $1.99 per episode.
Director Sam Raimi is teaming with Disney-ABC Domestic Television and ABC Studios on a new first-run, live-action weekly series targeted for a fall launch. The series, Wizard’s First Rule, is based on Terry Goodkind’s best-selling epic fantasy series The Sword of Truth. The book follows the extraordinary transformation of woodsman Richard Cypher into a magical leader who joins with a mysterious woman to stop a bloodthirsty tyrant.
Raimi is executive producing the hourlong series with Robert Tapert, Joshua Donen and Xena: Warrior Princess production executive Ned Nalle. Production on 22 episodes is slated to begin in May. The show marks the return of the weekly syndicated fantasy series genre, which had disappeared after its heyday in the late 1990s with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena. Disney is bringing the show to the syndication marketplace for a fall launch.