Sunday, February 28, 2016

For the Movie Star Money!

OK. Since we’re all watching the Oscars and whatnot right now, can we talk about a movie that is going to feature some actual movie stars?

I’m talking about Jodie Foster’s Money Monster, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts and opening on May 13.

Look. I can’t recall what the flick is about, ergo the hyperlinking – fine...it deals with something like, a talk-show host becomes involved in a kidnapping that plays live on the air because the economy. Look: That’s Clooney and Roberts on screen together. (And La Foster helmed. Look...here...at right!)

Worship accordingly.

Except why aren’t we?

No one cared about Secret In Their Eyes, for whatever crazy reason, but I sure hope we will care about this one, because if we don’t, Hollywood will throw in the towel for good, and we will have to watch The People v. Angry Birds: Captain America Episode Vs Godzilla: 3-D, OKRRR.

Photo: ComingSoon.net.

Mournful Jackie

Oscar Bait! Oscar Bait!

This is a timely drop, huh.

So. People.... Do you wanna see more of Natalie Portman in character as Jackie in Jackie?

Well want no mo’!

OMG, right? Love.

And perfectly timed (everyone is on the Internet looking at s---, so way to slip this one in, marketing department).

Photo: EW.com.

Look at Mr. Jones

Speaking of what’s next, you best get ready for another new project from another Academy Award winner.

I am talking about Matthew McConaughey’s upcoming Free State of Jones.

The Gary Ross-directed film will tell the chronicle of the impact a slave woman (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) had on a soldier’s (McConaughey) life and of the rebellion he led against the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Keri Russell will portray the man’s first wive, and the film?

The film will look a little something like this. (That’s the trailer, kids – haha.)

Photo: EW.com.

Fantastic Eddie

So since Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne is trying for Oscar No. 2 tonight – for his turn in The Danish Girl – I thought it is high time I finally share something, anything...about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

You know...the before-Harry story by J.K. Rowling.

I mean, did you see all these first-look pics that EW.com ran a while ago?

No? Well get to it.

Photo: EW.com.

Transcending Progress

While Fifty Shades of Grey got Razzied last night, the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards were making a little history by honoring Tangerine.

Specifically, the powers that be awarded that film’s Mya Taylor the Best Supporting Female award, thus marking the first time a transgender performer has been honored during a major awards ceremony.

In accepting her hardware, the actress said, “There is transgender talent. There’s very beautiful transgender talent. So, you better get it out there and put it in your next movie.

Loves it! Everyone has a story, and everyone should see his or her story reflected up on that gorgeous silver screen.

Here’s to more inclusion in the years ahead. We need it.

Photo: EW.com.

Singin’ and Dancin’ All the Way to Broadway

Derek Hough is going full Broadway (by way of a classic film).

The Emmy-winning Dancing with the Stars hoofer is going to topline a Harvey Weinstein-produced staging of Singin’ in the Rain. Weinstein announced the news himself last night, at The Weinstein Company’s annual pre-Oscars party, before introducing a special performance by Hough.

And the revival – the show first hit the Great White Way in 1985 – is shaping up fast.

The new Singin’ in the Rain is reportedly set to open early in 2017.

Photo: DigitalSpy.com.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Doctor-Turned-Lawyer

Emmy nominee T.R. Knight (hulu’s 11.22.63is headed back to ABC.

No, George isn’t coming back from the dead.

The actor is going to be featured on a new, Reese Witherspoon-produced divorce drama pilot, playing an associate at a Dallas law firm at which this ruthless divorce attorney rules until her emotionally damaged sister appears on the scene, sending everything into a tailspin.

So. Much. Drama, already!

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

More Author For Ya

Wow. Fifty Shades Darker got really a lot sexier and enticing this week.

Tyler Hoechlin has been tapped to play Boyce Fox in the Fifty Shades of Grey sequel. A minor character in the E L James novels, the role of a rising author who signs with Christian Grey’s (Jamie Dornan) publishing company has been expanded for the screen, ergo the casting of the Teen Wolf star.

Meanwhile, Eric Johnson (Cinemaxs The Knick) also has boarded the February 2017 follow-up, as an editor trying to pressure Dakota Johnson’s Anastasia Steele into a sexual relationship (what is it about that girl, anyway?) and, thus, as a man who becomes Christian’s enemy.

And finally, Brant Daugherty (Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars) is going to feature in the trilogy-capping Fifty Shades Freed, as Luke Sawyer, a bodyguard that Christian hires to take care of Anastasia.

Photo: Zimbio.com.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Selena Does Netflix

Jeez. Everybody wants to Netflix.

Even Selena Gomez.

The multi-hyphenate is set to star on 13 Reasons Why for the streamer, with Academy Award-nominated Spotlight director Tom McCarthy calling dem shots.

The project is an adaptation of the young-adult novel by Jay Asher, about 13 high schoolers, whom a depressed classmate named Hannah blames for her suicide in posthumous cassette tapes.

How dark. And retro.

Oh wait. Hold the iPhone.

Gomez is only executive producing, and McCarthy is only doing the same.

Moving on.

Photo: CraveOnline.com.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

A New Kind of Thomas Crown

Speaking of cute....

The powers that be want Creed’s Michael B. Jordan to, perhaps, lead a re-remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, which was last remade – with great style and sex appeal – by Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in 1999.

Color me cautiously optimistic. If anything because Jordan should probably cool it with the whole revisiting an old property thing for a minute, you know.

Photo: TheYBF.com.

Iron Fist Has Been Found

You know streaming is It when people start leaving HBO in favor of Netflix.

Kidding! (Sorta.)

In news that could possibly spell doom for his day job, Finn Jones, a.k.a. Ser Loras Tyrell from Game of Thrones, has been cast as Danny Rand, a.k.a. Iron Fist, on Marvel’s latest collaboration with Netflix.

Danny Rand, for the uninitiated like me, is a supernaturally enhanced hero who wields a mystical force – lemme guess: on his fist – on his fist, known as the Iron Fist, which allows him to laser-focus his chi (seriously?), and briefly render his fist super-powerful.

Fist. Fist, fist, fist!

Fist.

Netflix has yet to confirm the casting news, but let’s just run with it, OKRRR.

’Cause Finn Jones is that cute.

Photo: IndoDaily.ga.

Ready Player Tye Sheridan

Mud’s Tye Sheridan could be Steven Spielberg’s new muse.

Not surprising. Kids got dem chops.

The young actor – soon to be seen as young cyclops in X-Men: Apocalypsehas been cast in Ready Player One, in the lead role.

The project is an adaptation of the Ernest Cline cult novel, which shall co-star Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Ben Mendelsohn (Adore).

Photo: havasunews.com.

Sister Uma

Cue up the white savior comments.

Uma Thurman is going to produce and star in an adaptation of Kathy Cook’s Stolen Angels: The Kidnapped Girls of Uganda, a film about the 1996 raid at a boarding school that saw a band of armed rebels take young girls away from their lives in order to turn into sex slaves or soldiers.

What. You thought this was gonna be about som’in’ else?

Thurman, I presume, will take on the role of Sister Caroline, the courageous teacher that tracked down the soldiers and demanded the girls be released back into her care. Her crusade and anti-trafficking campaign would later reach the ear of the Pope and earn the attention of the United Nations.

Could this lead La Thurman to her Oscar at long last?

Photo: LaineyGossip.com.

Moore TV

Demi Moore is headed back to TV.

Because what else is she doin’?

The Ghost actress is going to headline 10 Days In the Valley, a new drama series from Canadian writer-producer Tassie Cameron (TV’s Rookie Blue). She will play an overworked writer and single mom in the middle of a contentious divorce, who, on top of everything, has her 5-year-old daughter kidnapped from bed in the middle of the night.

High stakes, highly reactive reaction.

The project will mark a return to the tube for Moore, who caught her first big brake on the daytime soap General Hospital way back in the day.

Photo: CelebMafia.com.

Hombre of the Covenant

Another top-secret Alien: Covenant role was cast earlier this week, you guys.

Hateful Eight star Demián Bichir (FX’s The Bridge), an Academy Award-nominated talent, is going to join my Fass, Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, and Danny McBride in Ridley Scott’s forthcoming follow-up to Prometheus.

And that...is all we know for now about the matter.

Photo: Deadline.com.

Update: Billy Crudup is also going to be in Alien: Covenant.

In fact, a whole bunch of people are going to be in the blockbuster, including Empire MVP Jussie Smollett and Carmen Ejogo (Selma).

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Kathryn Merteuil Is Back!

Yes!

Yes, yes.

Even though I so want the TV reboot of Cruel Intentions to move from NBC to, say, Showtime, I can already tell ya I will sooo be watching.

Why?

My, because Sarah Michelle Gellar is going to be on the show!

I know, right! Kathryn Merteuil is back, bitches.

SMG confirmed the news herself on Instagram tonight – news that, of course, I immediately hearted. She did so by throwing it all the way back to the eve of the start of production on the 1999 cult fave...and bringing it back to today, to the eve of production on the new show. That’s the actress with her OG producer and director, Neal Moritz and Roger Kumble, btw, so you know the project is in good hands.

If only they could cuss on NBC...!

Gellar joins newcomers Taylor James Smith and Samantha Logan on the – shudder – reboot.

Photo: Instagram.com/sarahmgellar.

Like a CTU Boss

24: Legacy is going Sears.

Teddy Sears.

The Flash actor is switching networks to be featured on the TV reboot as the new (and ambitious and driven) head of CTU, Jack Bauer’s (Kiefer Sutherland) old haunts. Meaning he is playing Miranda Otto’s character’s replacement.

So he’s gonna be locking horns with her, I bet.

Straight Outta Compton’s Corey Hawkins is starring on the show, as a military hero who turns to CTU upon his return home to the United States, for help in saving his life and stopping what could be a massive terrorist attack on America.

Photo: Deadline.com.

Recon Woman

Look who’s back, kids.

Tracy Spiridakos (TV’s Revolution) is headed to Fox.

See, the actress is going to lead Recon, a new show by Kevin Williamson (TV’s The Vampire DiariesScream) on which she’ll play a young, driven FBI analyst who has to go deep undercover...and into a Muslim family suspected of terrorist activity.

Alexander Siddig (HBO’s Game of Thrones) will play her target’s pater families.

Photo: GotCeleb.com.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The New Sebastian Valmont

Now that the Peacock is rebooting Cruel Intentions, the world needs new bad kids to love/hate/lust over.

Enter Taylor James Smith (TV’s American Crime).

The young’un has landed the part of Sebastian Valmont on the potential new NBC series (which I think should be snapped up for Showtime, btw). Anyway. You know, the part that really put Ryan Phillippe on the map for an entire generation.

Samantha Logan (ABC Family’s Freeform’s The Fosters) also has been tapped for a role, while, more importantly, OG star Sarah Michelle Gellar is in negotiations for, to reprise her bitchy and bitchin’ part as Kathryn Merteuil. The show will be set in the present day, with SMG plotting to control Valmont International and the soul of her half-nephew (surprise!), Bash Casey (Smith).

Wait. Does this mean Reese Witherspoon could guest, too?

I could get into this.

Photo: Deadline.com.

She Loves Dick

A not-so-subtle title should get a not-so-subtle talent, right?

And that’s exactly what Emmy winner Jill Soloway has found for herself in formidable character actress Kathryn Hahnfor I Love Dick, the writer-director’s for-Amazon-too instantly must-y follow-up to Amazon’s equally celebrated Transparent.

What...a mouthful.

Based on a 1997 novel by a Chris Kraus, the show will be set in Marfa, Texas, on a colorful academic community, and revolve around a struggling married couple who both realize they are obsessed with the same man, an odd, if charismatic professor named Dick. Richard. This prompts Chris, the wife portrayed by Hahn, to go on a journey of self-discovery with transformative results.

Sound like fun.

Photo: StarPulse.com.

Here Comes the New Johnny Castle

What a leap!

Colt Prattes (GTD – he quite buff!), Pink’s co-star in her “Try” video, is ready for primetime.

The dancer-turned-actor has been tapped for the role of Johnny opposite Abigail Breslin’s Baby on ABC’s upcoming three-hour remake of Dirty Dancing. Debra Messing is also on board, as Breslins mother.

Someone’s career just went next level, yo.

Photo: LasVegasSun.com.