EVIL PUPPET MASTERS

According to Variety, Jack Bender will be directing the pilot for a new ABC drama The Prince of Motor City. More info below:

“The Prince of Motor City”…[is] set to start shooting at the end of June, [and] is a gothic family sudser set in the world of Detroit’s auto business. Hour-long project, from ABC Studios, also contains “Hamlet” undertones.

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Chris Brancato and Bert Salke are behind “The Prince of Motor City” as exec producers; Jessica Goldberg is also an EP. Goldberg wrote the pilot with thesp Hamish Linklater.

Andie MacDowell, Piper Perabo, Aunjanue Ellis and Warren Christie are all set to star in “Prince of Motor City.”

Source

According to Variety, J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot are on board to produce “Hot for Teacher” for Paramount and have a couple of other movies in development for Paramount as well. Blurb is below:

Paramount Pictures has purchased Jay Dyer’s spec “Hot for Teacher,” with J.J. Abrams to produce via his studio-based Bad Robot shingle.

Story revolves around three high school boys who vow to have sex before they graduate; one of the teens plots to seduce a hot teacher.

Bad Robot most recently delivered the monster film “Cloverfield” for the studio. The shingle also has a number of projects in various stages of development and production with Paramount, including “Star Trek,” “Morning Glory” and “Men Making Music.”

Dyer is a supervising producer on Showtime series “Californication.” He previously sold to New Line the spec “Multiple Mary,” which Scot Armstrong is attached to direct.

Source

According to Variety, Dominic Monaghan has been added to the cast of the X-Men Origins movie “Wolverine”:

Monaghan will play Barnell, a mysterious character from Wolverine’s past who has the ability to manipulate energy and electricity…

Soooo…he’s the X-Men version of Elle? Seriously though, congrats to Dom!

If you have read this blog for awhile, then you know that speaker and I both are never-ending fans of former LOST writer, Javier Grillo-Marxuach. The insanely talented Javi’s television series adaptation of his comic book series “The Middleman” has been officially picked up by ABC Family. w00t!

A well deserved feather in the cap of my good friend Javi. Congratulations, buddy!

According to this article in Variety, Matt Reeves, JJ Abrams, and Drew Goddard are in talks with Paramount to develop a sequel to CLOVERFIELD.

Sooooo…how long before the viral marketing for “CLOVERFIELD II: Electric Bugaloo” starts up? A week? Two?

According to SciFiWire, the director for the planned 2-hour pilot of BR’s new television project, Fringe, will be Alex Graves (Journeyman, The Nine, The West Wing). Fringe has a series commitment from Fox and will begin production in February. Graves will serve as an Exec Prod, along with JJ, Burky, Bob Orci & Alex Kurtzman.

Word on the street is that the fabulous David Anders is in talks to join the cast of HEROES next season. *crosses fingers*

As much as I would LOVE for the hotness behind Sark to adorn my television screen again, it is still weird to hear him talk without the English accent. *sigh*

Former Alias writer (and younger brother of Roberto Orci), J.R. “Rick” Orci, will be writing for the new NBC drama Journeyman. It will be airing this Fall after Heroes at 10 p.m. (EST).

Don’t know much about the show (yet), except what is on the NBC site — which does have some vid clips and interviews with the actors. I’ll post more as it becomes available.

Bad Robot’s drama pilot (the first one under JJ’s new deal with Warner Bros.) has been cast and they say JJ Abrams will be directing it as well. They are referring to the show, which will air on HBO, by the name of the book it is based on — “The Anatomy of Hope” — but I’m not sure if that is the “official” title of the show. I think most people are calling it “that cancer show JJ’s doing on HBO.”

hijinx and speaker are back in business, discussing the last two LOST episodes: One of Us and Catch-22. WARNING! There is some spoilery discussion regarding the next episode airing on April 25th. (Spoilers from minute 17:31 to minute 17:50.)

 Standard Podcast [68:00m]: Download

Guess those boys don’t like to twiddle their thumbs, eh?

Michael Bay, director of the upcoming Transformers movie, will reteam with Transformers writer-producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci for Warner Bros.’ 2012, a sci-fi drama based on Whitley Strieber’s upcoming book of the same name. The story is about an academic researcher who opens a portal into a parallel universe and makes contact with his double in order to stop an apocalypse foreseen by the ancient Mayans. Kurtzman and Orci are also the writers for J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek movie for Paramount.

Source: Variety

This interview with JJ Abrams by WIRED is over a month old, and I apologize. I’m weeding through my inbox to try and make sure I post the interviews and articles that shouldn’t be missed. Bear with me

In this interview, JJ talks a tiny bit about Trek, his kids, his influences (Rod Sterling and Aristotle, if you’re curious), LOST, and The Dark Tower.

It looks like that mutual appreciation society formed by JJ Abrams and Stephen King may produce an offspring. Rumor has it, or at least SciFiWire claims that JJ and King are talking about possibly developing the latter’s Dark Tower series into a television mini-series or big screen production.

From today’s edition of Cynthia’s Cynopsis:

CBS has cast Harold Perrineau in its drama pilot Demons, from CBS Paramount Network TV. The story is about Gus, a former priest who performs exorcisms; Perrineau will play Mitch, a priest who is a friend and former colleague of Gus. You know Perrineau from his role on two seasons of Lost as the single father, Michael Dawson.

According to Variety, Jennifer Garner has signed on for a big screen remake of “Christmas in Connecticut.”