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21:00 - MOVIES: Spectral Trailer (A Netflix Original Movie)
21:00 - Disjointed - Elizabeth Ho Joins Netflix Comedy Series in Recasting
Elizabeth Ho (Rake, Melissa & Joey) has been cast as a series regular opposite Kathy Bates in Disjointed, Netflix’s pot-themed workplace multi-camera comedy from Chuck Lorre, former Daily Show head writer David Javerbaum and Warner Bros. TV. Ho is a late addition to the series. She replaces Jessica Lu who was originally cast in the role.
Written and executive produced by Lorre and Javerbaum, Disjointed, which has a 20-episode straight-to-series order, stars Bates as Ruth, a lifelong advocate for legalization who’s finally living her dream as the owner of an L.A.-area cannabis dispensary. Joining her are three budtenders, her twenty-something son and a deeply troubled security guard. All of them are more or less constantly high. Ho will play one of the budtenders a big-hearted, type A over-achiever trying to medicate herself back to normal. Dougie Baldwin and Elizabeth Alderfer play the other budtender; Tone Bell also co-stars.
Source:
Deadline
20:15 - MOVIES: Barbie - Amy Schumer to Star as Barbie in Sony's Life Action Adaptation
EXCLUSIVE: Amy Schumer will play the title role in Barbie, the live action Sony Pictures film based on the venerable Mattel toyline. The PG movie will begin production in the spring for a global summer 2018 tent pole bow, after Schumer puts her imprint on the script by Hillary Winston. Given her edgy stand up comedy and her movie breakthrough writing and starring in the R-rated Trainwreck, what makes Schumer the right actress to play the embodiment of a beloved toyline that for years featured a doll with impossibly perfect physical proportions? Aside from the fact that she has Barbie hair, Schumer’s growing stature as a role model for female empowerment fits perfectly with how the film will exploit Barbie’s evolution into dolls of different sizes and shapes.
Schumer will play a character who lives in Barbieland, among all of the various Barbie characters beloved by collectors. In a fish out of water story reminiscent of films like Splash and Big, she gets kicked out, basically because she’s not perfect enough and is a bit eccentric. She then goes on an adventure in the real world and by the time she returns to Barbieland to save it, she has gained the realization that perfection comes on the inside, not the outside, and that the key to happiness is belief in one self, free of trying to adhere to some unattainable standard of perfection. Mattel, with a lot at stake since the toyline has generated $3 billion in sales, signed off on the take.
While Sony, and the film’s producers — Walter Parkes & Lori MacDonald (who won the rights from the toymaker in 2014), and Amy Pascal (who bought the project as Sony Pictures chairman before joining as producer) worked on numerous drafts by top female writers for several years, this one came together like a bolt from the blue after Winston and the producers cracked the code with a funny empowerment take that sparked the interest of Schumer and made her want to fit into her crowded movie schedule. Sony chief Tom Rothman brought the script to Schumer personally, and pitched the take to her. After she read Winston’s script, Schumer emailed that she was in. A deal is now being finalized.
The studio will now lock in a director, and the intention is that the filmmaker be a woman. Word around Hollywood is there is a short list of directors including Me Before You helmer Thea Sharrock (who is apparently unavailable for the slot), but its a big job and the studio expects to fill it shortly
Source:
Deadline
20:15 - Young & Hungry - Season 5 - Betty White to Guest
Betty White has been tapped to guest star in an episode on the upcoming fifth season of Freeform’s hit comedy series Young & Hungry.
White will play Ms. Wilson, Gabi’s (Emily Osment) neighbor who she encounters after a misunderstanding with Josh (Jonathan Sadowski) leaves Gabi confused about what to do. Ms. Wilson reluctantly helps Gabi figure out her next steps. Aimee Carrero, Kym Whitley and Rex Lee also star.
Source:
Deadline
17:30 - Good Girls Revolt - Cancelled by Amazon; Being Shopped
Thanks to Millie for the heads up.
Amazon has opted not to pick up a second season of its period drama Good Girls Revolt. I hear Sony TV, whose TriStar Television division produces the series, is shopping it to other outlets.
The cancellation of Good Girls Revolt is somewhat surprising as it launched to solid reviews and ranked as one of Amazon’s biggest series ever among female viewers. For streaming services, which depend on attracting subscribers, over-indexing in key demographics, like women, is important. (About 67% of Good Girls Revolt‘s viewers are said to be female.)
I hear in Women 18-49, Good Girls Revolt delivered the second biggest debut season for an Amazon original series only behind flagship drama Man In the High Castle and its completion rate in the female demo was 80%. Additionally, Good Girls Revolt touches upon a timely subject, gender equality.
Source:
Deadline
15:15 - Baby Daddy - Season 6 - Tricia O'Kelley guest starring
04:30 - MOVIES: Sigourney Weaver Teases Avatar Scripts, Alien Sequel and Marvel's The Defenders
James Cameron has described the “Avatar” movies as a family saga. How are they shaping up?
In my opinion, the three scripts I’ve read so far are many times more amazing than the first one in terms of their scope. He did a lot of the heavy lifting in the first movie, establishing the family and the relationships and the world, and now he really gets to play.
What’s the status of the “Alien” sequel?
I hope that Neill Blomkamp and I will eventually get back to it. He’s written such a wonderful script. I look forward to finishing Ripley’s story.
What about “Defenders”?
I can’t say much, because they might kill me. I think everyone I work for might kill me if I tell you anything. But I have the most delicious character. She’s really smart, and she’s very in charge.
Source:
Variety
04:30 - MOVIES: The Belko Experiment Trailer feat Tony Goldwyn, Adria Arjona, Michael Rooker & More
04:30 - Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life - Appears Strong In Ratings for Netflix
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life is pulling its weight for Netflix. According to preliminary numbers from research firm Symphony Advanced Media, the first installment of the revival series drew 5.99 million viewers in adults 18-49 in Live+3. All four installments averaged 4.97 million viewers in that demo.
Gilmore Girls ranks third in the 18-49 demo behind Fuller House and Orange is the New Black according to SymphonyAM. Fuller House drew an average 7.33 million viewers in the 18-49 demo in the first three days it was available. Orange is the New Black Season 4 pulled an average demo audience of 5.84 million in Live+3.
Source:
Deadline
04:30 - MOVIES: 21 Jump Street Spinoff - Rodney Rothman To Script & Direct Female Lead Spinoff
EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures is setting Rodney Rothman to script, with an eye toward directing, a 21 Jump Street spinoff movie where the main cops are female. Neal Moritz is producing. This concept has been floated for a while, along with a separate film that will be a mash-up with 21 Jump Street stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum colliding with the hit Sony franchise Men in Black. That project remains in development.
Rothman has turned in the latest draft of that film, and he co-wrote 22 Jump Street, the $50 million-budgeted sequel that grossed $331 million worldwide. His other writing credits include Grudge Match and Get Him to the Greek. It is early days on this, and insiders said there are male characters in this latest version of what started as the 1987-91 Fox drama series by Patrick Hasburgh and Stephen J. Cannell. Rothman is repped by UTA.
Source:
Deadline
04:30 - Liberal Redneck Comedy Starring Trae Crowder from Rob Thimas in Development at FOX
Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to a half-hour single-camera comedy starring comedian Trae Crowder, best known for his stage persona The Liberal Redneck. Inspired by Crowder’s personal life, the untitled project hails from Warner Bros. TV and Rob Thomas’ studio-based Spondoolie Productions.
The comedy will be written by Crowder and John Enbom, who co-created cult Starz comedy series Party Down with Thomas, Dan Etheridge and Paul Rudd. In the Trae Crowder project, worlds collide when Trae, based on Crowder’s The Liberal Redneck character, returns to his conservative Tennessee hometown to start a job at an energy research facility with his California-born wife in tow.
Source:
Read More on Deadline
19:00 - MOVIES: The Shack Trailer feat Sam Worthington, Octavia Spencer, Radha Mitchell, and Tim McGraw
19:00 - MOVIES: Detective Pikachu - Rob Letterman to Direct Live Action Pokemon Film
Legendary Entertainment has set Rob Letterman to direct Detective Pikachu, the live-action film. Scripted by Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch, the project follows Detective Pikachu, a new character and storyline in the Pokémon universe.
Legendary made the movie deal in July at the height of the Pokemon Go craze, in which followers accumulated pocket monsters through their phones by passing by locations. The movie covers a different aspect in the Pokémon universe. Letterman’s credits include Goosebumps and Monsters Vs. Aliens, which he directed, and Shark Tale, which he wrote and directed. He is represented by WME.
Universal Pictures, Legendary’s distribution partner, will release the live-action film outside Japan. The Pokémon Company’s longtime movie collaborator, Toho, will handle distribution of the film franchise in Japan, as it had done in its partnership with Legendary on its iconic monster reboot for Godzilla.
Source:
Deadline
19:00 - Budding Prospects - Adam Rose Joins Amazon's Pot Themed Comedy Pilot
Veronica Mars alum Adam Rose is set as a lead opposite Joel David Moore and Will Sasso on Amazon’s pot-themed 1980s comedy pilot Budding Prospects, from Bad Santa director Terry Zwigoff.
Written by Melissa Axelrod based on the TC Boyle novel and to be directed by Zwigoff, Budding Prospects is set in 1983 San Francisco. Three hapless city boys — Felix (Rose), Phil (Moore) and Gesh (Sasso) — move to the country to grow marijuana. Their expectations of the experience being a back-to-the-land, nurturing adventure in a beautiful rustic setting run up against the harsh truth upon their arrival at “The Summer Camp” – a miserably run-down shanty out in the middle of nowhere, where they are bedeviled by rats, snakes, mosquitoes, harsh growing conditions, noisy neighbors, dangerous locals and menacing law enforcement.
Rose’s Felix is a lovelorn romantic who is sensitive, brooding, vulnerable and ruefully self-aware but also likable and compelling. Zwigoff and Axelrod executive produce with Vincent Landay. Joanna Colbert is co-executive producer.
Source:
Deadline
19:00 - The Fosters - Season 4B - Kara Royster to Recur
Pretty Little Liars‘ Kara Royster is set for a recurring role on Freeform’s The Fosters. Executive produced by Jennifer Lopez, The Fosters follows a multi-ethnic family mix of adopted and biological teenage kids being raised by two moms.
Royster will play Dawn, a flirtatious student who causes some jealousy between Callie (Maia Mitchell) and AJ (Tom Williamson). Known for her role as Yvonne Philips on Pretty Little Liars, Royster’s other recent credits include K.C. Undercover and a guest role on Supernatural.
Source:
Deadline
19:00 - The Strain - Season 4 - K.C. Collins to Recur
K.C. Collins (Robocop) has landed a recurring role on the fourth of FX’s vampire drama thriller The Strain from Carlton Cuse, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.
Collins will play Roman, who helps the main characters in their fight for survival, in a multi-episode arc. The Strain has the very survival of humanity at stake. New York City is a battleground. Written off by the federal government, the citizens are on their own in the ultimate showdown between humans and strigoi. Collins also is cast in HBO’s Mogadishu, Minnesota HBO pilot. He’s repped by Norbert Abrams at Noble Caplan Abrams and A Management.
Source:
Deadline
19:00 - Full(er) House Creator Jeff Franklin buys the original Tanner House in San Francisco
The Tanner House is back in the Full House fold.
Veteran TV producer Jeff Franklin — creator of the beloved long-running Full House — has purchased the iconic San Francisco property where the Tanner family "lived," located in the city's Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood at 1709 Broderick St. The house went on the market in May with a price tag of $4.15 million and Franklin snapped it up in a deal that closed this fall, paying right around $4 million.
Built in 1883, the Charles Lewis Hinkel home is noted for its Italianate, Victorian architecture and was handpicked by Franklin nearly 30 years ago to serve as the Tanner household in stock shots featuring the outside of the home. Inside, the nearly 2500 sq. ft. includes four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Despite a recent redesign that some realtors described as "sophisticated," Franklin is planning to redo the interiors to match its sitcom heritage, making it appear as if the Tanner family really lives there.
"The house came on the market and really, I just thought, I have to buy this house," Franklin told The Hollywood Reporter during a telephone interview from San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon. "I'm so sentimental about the house. It's great to have the house in our Full House family and be able to preserve it for the fans. … Seriously, I love owning this house."
Another thing he loves: The property now has a red door once again. The previous owners painted it a seafoam green color, but Franklin made the change one of his first orders of new homeowner business, a detail that will surely please fans — many of which still flock there on a daily basis for photo ops. "There are probably 250 fans per day that show up and take a picture in front of it," Franklin noted. "It will be a lot more fun for the fans because now the house will look like the Tanners really live there. It's a gift to the fans but it's also fun for me to own it."
But they better hurry because the red door will take a temporary hiatus. "I need to do some construction work on the inside, and do a seismic retrofit so the building is safe. It still has the original, brick foundation from 1883, and the whole house needs to be brought up to code," Franklin explained. "That will probably be six months of construction and during that time, the red door will not be there because I don't want it to get ruined."
Source:
Read More on THR
21:25 - Hawaii Five-0 Actor, Keo Woolford Dies At 49
Keo Woolford, best known for his role as Detective James Chang on the CBS crime-drama “Hawaii Five-0,” died on Monday following complications from a stroke. He was 49.
Woolford died at an Oahu, Hawaii hospital after suffering a stroke three days prior, according to his publicist Tracy Larrua.
Born in Honolulu, the late actor was also known for writing, directing and producing his 2013 independent drama “The Haumana,” which centers around the host of a failing Waikiki lūʻau who goes on to teach a high school boy’s hula class. The film earned him special jury prize at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival that year.
Source:
Variety
16:10 - Netflix - You Can Now Download Shows
Netflix members worldwide can now download in addition to stream great series and films at no extra cost.
While many members enjoy watching Netflix at home, we’ve often heard they also want to continue their Stranger Things binge while on airplanes and other places where Internet is expensive or limited. Just click the download button on the details page for a film or TV series and you can watch it later without an internet connection.
Many of your favorite streaming series and movies are already available for download, with more on the way, so there is plenty of content available for those times when you are offline. For example, Orange is The New Black, Narcos and The Crown are available for download today.
The new feature is included in all plans and available for phones and tablets on Android and iOS.
To start downloading today, please update your Netflix app to the most recent version and take us with you to enjoy Netflix everywhere you go. If you have any questions, please visit our Help Center.
Source:
Netflix
10:30 - Buckaroo Banzai - Kevin Smith No Longer Involved in TV Series
Thanks to Mkone for the heads up.
There hasn’t been a single ruling in MGM’s copyright lawsuit for a Buckaroo Banzai TV series, but there’s already two clear casualties: Kevin Smith and the show itself, at least for now. After the studio filed legal paperwork November 23 against the 1984 movie’s director W.D. Richter and writer Earl Mac Rauch, the Clerks creator went online today to declare “I’m no longer involved” with the proposed Amazon TV series version.
“This is not what I signed up for,” Smith said of the legal issues while praising MGM in other respects (watch the video below). “I was caught off-guard [by the lawsuit]. I literally had no idea. It blows, man, because that’s the closest I’ve [come] to having my own show so far.”
Additionally, Deadline has learned that with this pronouncement by Smith and MGM’s moves in the courts, the project is in limbo at Amazon until the legal matters are resolved. When contacted by Deadline, Amazon had no comment on the series or the lawsuit. As Deadline revealed during Comic-Con this summer, Amazon and MGM had locked a deal for a Smith run Buckaroo TV series intended to debut in 2017.
Source:
Read More on Deadline
10:30 - NBC Developing Character Driven Procedural with an Emotional Spin
NBC has put in development an hourlong procedural drama from Mike Daniels (Sons of Anarchy). The project, produced by Universal TV, stems from the writer-producer’s overall deal with the studio.
Described as a character-driven police procedural with an emotional spin, the untitled drama explores the complex personal life of a former cop and mother who returns to the force, in part, to solve the murder of her detective husband. In the vein of NBC’s breakout This is Us, the show will use its procedural storylines to examine the humanity of the victims, perpetrators and innocent people affected by crime.
Source:
Deadline
10:30 - Lance 2.0 - Jim Parsons Developing Comedy at CBS
Jim Parsons is adding yet another project to his growing development slate.
“The Big Bang Theory” star is executive producing “Lance 2.0,” a single-camera comedy from writer Alex McAulay, Variety has learned exclusively. The series centers around a young couple that deals with the aftermath when the boyfriend has an accident that changes his personality and causes him to lose his impulse control.
McAulay penned the pilot and will serve as co-executive producer, working alongside Parsons who is exec producing with Todd Spiewak. Eric Norsoph, head of development and production for Parsons’ shingle, That’s Wonderful, will oversee the project for the company. Warner Bros. Television is the studio.
Source:
Variety