Letting It Rip

Life post-Revenge has gotten bloody for Josh Bowman.

Bloody good, too.

The British actor has been tapped to portray John Stevenson, a.k.a. Jack the Ripper, on Kevin Williamson’s Time After Time, a drama pilot based at ABC.

Hogwarts alumnus Freddie Stroma will star, as a young H.G. Wells.

Hotties, hotties, all around and all over the place.

Photo: PopSugar.com.

Whoopi Revisits 9/11

This could invite controversy.

Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg is getting ready to get dramatic for the movie cameras again. Real dramatic.

The View co-host has signed on to co-star in Nine Eleven, an indie about five people trapped in a World Trade Center elevator that fateful Tuesday morning.

Charlie Sheen – whaddya know! – also will be featured in the project. Ditto Luis Guzman (TV’s Code Black).

Photo: TheSource.com.

Swiping Right for Her Boss

We all know that Terminator Genisys did Emilia Clarke like, zero favors.

So the actress is (smartly) now going to make a play for rom-com domination.

The Game of Thrones player is setting up to headline Set It Up, a story that shall unfold in the high-stakes world of (New York?) fashion, and see two overworked assistants with nasty bosses attempt to catch a break by setting up their supervisors with some hot dates.

That is one way to go about it, I guess.

Photo: TheWrap.com.

Ready to Kick Some Mummy Behind

Tom Cruise sure likes them up-and-coming.

British actress (Chris Martin gf) Annabelle Wallis (The Brothers Grimsby) being courted for the female lead opposite the Cruiseter in the Mummy reboot that will star him and Sofia Boutella.

Wallis would play a scientist in the set-in-the-nowadays summer 2017 project, which is expected to be part of a larger, star-studded Monster Mash.

Franchises for everyone!

Photo: Bustle.com.

Conviction Man

Eddie Cahill has done good for himself on TV, huh.

I mean, who knew that a quick guesting turn on Felicity and another on Friends would lead to a long-lasting tenure on CSI: NY and a stint Under the Dome (and, I know, a lot of other jobs – just go with what I am saying).

Now the actor is ready for some Conviction, opposite Hayley Atwell (TV’s Marvel’s Agent Carter). The new potential legal ABC drama will center on a ne’er-do-well former first daughter, who, brilliant as she turns out, is still sorta kinda blackmailed into taking a job as the head of the Conviction Integrity Unit that his confident New York district attorney-character has created.

He probably thought of her because, as it happens on all shows (just about), they know each other...like that.

You know what I mean.

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

A Woman’s Duty to the Truth

Kerry Washington will not keep silent.

The star of TV’s Scandal is set to tell the story of Anita Hill next month, on HBO’s Confirmation, and I cannot wait.

We are all watching, right? I definitely am, because I really do not know all that much about her 1991 sexual harassment case against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas (Wendell Pierce is portraying him on the made-for-HBO movie) – and we all know how old cases from the ’90s are in right now.

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

The Marvelverse Goes Zen(daya)

Along came...Zendaya.

The powers that be (that includes former Sony boss Amy Pascal and all-around Marvel MVP Kevin Fiege) behind the forthcoming second Spider-Man reboot starring Tom Holland have tapped the actress/singer for a lead role on the project, which is to be directed by Cop Car’s Jon Watts.

Zendaya will be playing a character generically named (for now) Michelle.

The new Spider-Man will swing into theaters in July of next year. The new Spider-Man, however, is fully expected to pop up in this year’s Captain America: Civil War.

Photo: NJ.com.

Level with Me, Zac...

I wanna know how Zac Efron did it.

No, not how he landed yet another high-profile role when his box-office appeal in on the ground but how he got so much muscle on his not-the-biggest frame? I mean, that is a lot of buff on him on the South Florida set of Baywatch....

Just what is the actor’s secret? Or is it a situation where like, we know what his secret is – we’re just not like, talkin’ about it. Because his secret sounds like schuman growth hormone?

Just speculatin’ here. I have been asked if I know.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

R.I.P. Mrs. Reagan

Put your lighters up, America – Nancy Reagan has left the building.

Indeed, President Ronald Reagan’s first lady passed away today at the age of 94, of congestive heart failure, at her home in L.A.

Mrs. Reagan, a former actress who became one of the most visible anti-drugs-in-the-United States advocates, will be buried next to her husband at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif.

Photo: DailyMail.co.uk.

Doctor Fever Much, Brad?

The plight of a Mexican immigrant has caught the attention of Brad Pitt.

The actor-turned-Oscar-winning-producer (he won for 12 Years a Slave, and he was nominated again this year, for the indispensable The Big Short) is overseeing the development of Dr. Q, a Disneyfied take on the real-life story of Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, who went on to become the current head of brain tumor surgery at John Hopkins, one of the leading hospitals in the nation.

Quiñones-Hinojosa crossed over when he was 19, making his way by working on Californian farms to save up, learn English, and go to school (Harvard, no less) to make something of himself.

And, boy, did he ever.

Eat that, Donald Trump.

Anyway. Enough of that.

Pitt is also working on producing a Tony Kushner-written adaptation of He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter’s Quest to Know Him by Mimi Baird and Eve Claxton.

Looks like Pitt has a doctor thing going on these days.

Dr. Baird, FYI, was a medical wunderkind back in the late ’20s, early ’30s, who did research on the biochemical root of manic depression, a condition from which he suffered. Obvs.

His work saved lives, but his findings were vetted much too late to help him. His condition cost him his family, and, eventually, he was lobotomized, dying in his mid-’50s in 1959.

Photo: TheWrap.com.

Update: Pitt is also working on bringing the young-adult novel, Illuminae, to the screen. Because he prolific like that, yo.

No. No, No!

Kids, just say no to Meghan Trainor’s “No.”

I mean, can we take back that Grammy she won a couple of weeks ago? ’Cause this new single is just awful.

No, indeed.

Photo: Bustle.com.

Will You Join Him?

Tom Hiddleston is going to have a big Marvel-less 2016 – I can feel it in my finger bones as I type.

Not only is the Hiddle-hunk starring as Hank Williams in the eagerly awaited I Saw the Light, dude also has High-Rise coming out later this year.

An adaptation of of J.G. Ballard’s 1975 novel, a classic thriller about a luxury residential tower that isolates its residents from the outside world and leads them to regress to a primitive state, High-Rise also will feature Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, and Jeremy Irons.

The film is due out...at a date TBA.

Hey! The latest preview I have seen did not offer a date. Not all previews offer a date. Deal with it.

I am.

Photo: Telegraph.co.uk.

Ghosts for Girlfriends Present

Thirty years ago was for the men.

Today is for the women.

Here come the female Ghostbusters, America. Get ready!

Of course, I mean the first trailer for Paul Feig’s much-, much-anticipated all-female Ghostbusters led by Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones (and Chris Hemsworth) is out and ready to welcome all the think pieces it shall engender.

Because that’s where we lives now, too.

Anyway. Check it out:



Ghostbusters will arrive in theaters on July 15.

The Man Is Taken

Taken is coming to TV.

I know, right?

Not with Liam Neeson, though. The Peacock is not that powerful.

Indeed, though, NBC is prepping an adaptation of the movies about the man with a particular set of skills – specifically, about how Bryan Mills got these particular set of skills.

Origins Story Reboot Alert! Except the show will be set in the now.

Hot Northern Irishman Clive Standen (History’s Vikings) has been tapped for the role, btw.

Photo: EW.com.

They Got That Voodoo

Kevin Williamson has gotten Chased and Szohrd.

Meaning Bailey Chase (A&E’s Longmire) and Jessica Szohr are going to headline the producer’s new for-The CW offering, an still-untitled drama about a young woman (the erstwhile Gossip Girl star), the descendant of a voodoo priestess, seeking help from a (studly) novelty-like parapsychologist after she begins to experience paranormal phenomena.

The show will be set in Baton Rouge, so expect a lot of voodoo and magic, OKRRR.

Photo: TVGuide.com.

Update: Megan West (TV’s How to Get Away with Murder) is actually the one who will be plagued by all dem aparitions.

Szohr, I take it, will be a supporting player.

Almost Taboo Time

Are y’all just dying to watch Tom Hardy’s Taboo (you know, the forthcoming series that recently required that he go fully nude on set, thus producing these accidental d--- pics)?

Well, the wait is almost over.

And here is your first look at the Revenant Oscar nominee’s new Ridley Scott-produced FX 1813-set miniseries by that name from screenwriter Steven Knight. Hardy will star as a rogue adventurer who returns to Africa with more than a dozen diamonds of questionable provenance dead-set on avenging his late father, becoming embroiled in the war between Great Britain and America in the process. Check it:

Btw, the eight-episode mini was born from an original idea by Hardy and his father, Chips.

Taboo is set to air next year.

The Man in Dior

Wait. Huh?

Dior spokesperson Robert Pattinson has become the first celebrity spokesperson for Dior Homme?

But, wait. Isn’t he already on the payroll?

Oh. Got it. He’s the first star to hawk the clothes solo...on top of helping to sell fragrances.

All these like, silly like, records and s---.

There R. Patz will be, though, for all of y’all to enjoy in a campaign shot by Karl Lagerfeld. Because why not.

Vampire done good, huh.

Photo: DailyMail.co.uk.

Towering Up

Speaking of long-in-the-making projects, the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is officially on.

As expected, Film Independent Spirit Award winner Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation) will star as as Gunslinger Roland Deschain, while Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey will portray the Man in Black, Walter Padick.

Danish director Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) will helm from a script he co-wrote, while Mad Max: Fury Road’s Abbey Lee (pictured here) has been cast as the mysterious Tirana, a minor, minor character from the King oeuvre that clearly is getting the female-empowerment treatment for the big screen.

The Dark Tower is scheduled to go into production in seven weeks, for a mid-January 2017 release.

Photo: Tracking-Board.com.

The New Annette Hargrove

Boo.

NBC’s Sarah Michelle Gellar-featuring reboot of Cruel Intentions will not be featuring Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon.

A Kate Levering (Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva) is going to play Annette Hargrove on the show, which means that Kate Levering is now the most dismissed chick on the Internet (because she is not Witherspoon).

I guess the powers that be would have needed Witherspoon to commit to the show much more than her movie career would allow, since it sounds like Annette will be a big part of the show, given that she has been keeping mum on the true parentage of her son, to be played by Taylor James Smith (he is a Valmont!).

Ooh...scandalous.

Photo: Pinterest.com.

She Got Soul

Elephants are born quicker than that Nina Simone biopic starring Zoë Saldana – which was once meant to be a starring vehicle for Mary J. Blige – has gotten done.

But the film has gotten made.

Simply, aptly titled Nina and directed by Cynthia Mort (the writer of Jodie Foster’s The Brave One), the film will chronicle the relationship between the High Priestess of Soul and her assistant-cum-manager, Clifton Henderson, who will be portrayed by Selma’s David Oyelowo (who, props where props are due, stuck by and with the film since it was announced back in 2010).

Nina will be available in select theaters and On Demand on April 22.

Photo: EW.com.

Update: Check out the first trailer for Nina, which I did not realize was quite so marred in controversy over Saldana’s casting.

The actress reportedly (obviously) had to wear skin-darkening make-up and a prosthetic nose to play Simone, which the singer’s estate isn’t happy about, btw.

FYI, though, Saldana is on the record about not being about to worry about whether she is “black enough” for folks to approve of her yet-to-be-seen performance.

Rolling to Cuba

Everybody’s going to Cuba now (y’ know, before ugly America takes over).

I can only imagine that is why the Rolling Stones have announced that will play a free concert in Havana later this month, thus marking the first time a big, big act has played on the island since the 1959 revolution. The Stones will perform at the Ciudad Deportiva de La Habana on March 25, just three days after Barack Obama visits Cuba.

Said the band in a statement, “We have performed in many special places during our long career, but this show in Havana is going to be a landmark event for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba too.”

Having caught Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & Co. in Orlando last summer, during their “Zip Code Tour,” I can honestly say this one’s gonna be one for the books.

The Rolling Stones are in the middle of their predominantly South American “América Latina OLÉ Tour” these days. The Cuban date will be part of this tour.

Photo: RollingStones.com.

Update: Well, another big act of a different kind, Major Lazer, became the first American act to perform in Cuba on March 7.

The air is changing down there, and the world can see it. It is a beautiful thing.

Here Comes Mama

Perhaps, this will break her bad spell.

Becki Newton (TV’s Ugly Betty) is going to lead yet another show for Fox. The actress and the network last tried with Weird Loners and The Goodwin Games – huh, the what?

Exactly.

Newton will star in a new untitled comedy, as the psychologist-wife of a black ex-NFL lineman and the matriarch of an oddball family (she has two sons).

She will help her husband conquer the greatest game of all: fatherhood. All the while illustrating an interracial marriage on primetime.

How timely.

Photo: CelebMafia.com.