Image Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Liv Tyler has joined the cast of The Leftovers, Damon Lindelof’s HBO pilot based on Tom Perrotta’s book of the same name. The Lord of the Rings actress will star alongside Justin Theroux, EW has confirmed.
In the post-apocalyptic story, Tyler plays Meg, who is recruited to join a cult following the Rapture, while Theroux is Kevin, a chief of police.
READ FULL STORY »
Shhh. Can you hear that? It’s the winds of change… and they’re blowing blank pieces of paper all over the Desert of Discontent, or wherever ACN’s News Night team has gathered for The Newsroom season 2′s promotional campaign. (Thought we were done with tumbleweeds and moody stares after that second Newsroom trailer? Think again!)
These nine new posters — which feature each of the show’s regulars, as well as a group shot — come on the heels of a Newsroom event at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in which series creator Aaron Sorkin teased a few more specific details about his drama’s sophomore outing. (Spoilers, naturally, follow.)
Soledad O’Brien is joining fellow Today show alum Bryant Gumbel at HBO’s Real Sports.
HBO said Wednesday that O’Brien will be a reporter on the monthly magazine show, which is anchored by Gumbel. Her first story, due this month, is about war veterans who use martial arts to help cope with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“It’s exactly what I’ve been doing for a long time – telling stories about human beings and their struggles,” O’Brien said. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Michael Yarish/CBS
Two TV juggernauts won extra accolades at last night’s 3rd annual Critics’ Choice Television Awards, presented by the Broadcast Television Journalists Association at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Monday night.
CBS’s The Big Bang Theory — the most-watched comedy both on network TV and on cable — snagged three prizes, including the honors for Best Comedy Series, Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy (Simon Helberg), and Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy (Kaley Cuoco, who tied with The Middle‘s Eden Sher), making it the awards’ single-most celebrated series.
Cable powerhouse HBO, meanwhile, was cited five times for three different series (Veep, Game of Thrones, and The Newsroom) and one TV movie (Behind the Candelabra), making it the awards’ most celebrated network. With four awards of its own, though, FX is nipping at HBO’s heels. And though Game of Thrones was named Best Drama Series at the awards, it wasn’t the only show to win that title; the fantasy shared the prize with AMC’s Breaking Bad.
A full list of winners — including the BTJA’s picks for this fall’s “most exciting new series” — follows.
Image Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
HBO has conquered the fantasy genre with Game of Thrones, and now the cable network is looking to delve into science fiction with a project called The Spark, EW has confirmed. Deadline first reported the news.
Now in development (so it’s not guaranteed to be picked up to air), The Spark comes from the mind of Karl Gajdusek, creator of military TV series Last Resort, which premiered last fall but was canceled by ABC mid-season. Gajdusek also co-wrote the recent Tom Cruise sci-fi flick Oblivion.
Here’s the story description for the potential series from Deadline’s report: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Melissa Moseley/HBO
If the new trailer for The Newsroom is to be believed, Atlantis Cable News may be temporarily relocating to the middle of a desert. Much more likely, of course, is that this new teaser for season 2 of the drama is simply setting the “us against the world” mood. The dialogue-free spot features Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) wandering the desert and seeing flashes of all the other characters before the whole gang (save for new recurring star Marcia Gay Harden) gather in front of a television set as the tagline appears: “Together they stand alone.”
Important people doing important things! Watch below: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Claudette Barius/HBO
Steven Soderbergh’s HBO film Behind the Candelabra is full of WTF moments, but Rob Lowe’s physical transformation as Liberace’s plastic surgeon Dr. Startz might be the most jaw-dropping. Read on for Lowe’s take on his disturbing yet fascinating makeover, the similarities between Dr. Startz and Lowe’s Parks and Recreation character, and what it was like to see “Gordon Gekko banging Jason Bourne.” READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Jojo Whilden/HBO; AP
Don’t let the title fool you — this film is not about Ali taking down Frazier. As it turns out, Muhammad Ali’s greatest fight was not in the ring.
Written by Shawn Slovo and directed by Stephen Frears, Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight tells the story of Ali’s famous courtroom battle. After being drafted to the Vietnam War, Ali claimed conscientious objector status on religious grounds, which therefore lead to years of dodging punches from the U.S. judicial system before finally facing the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971.But Frears’ latest film takes the focus away from Ali and puts the camera on the nine Supreme Court justices, lead by Christopher Plummer’s John Harlan and Frank Langella’s Warren Burger, who took on the case. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: John P. Johnson/HBO
Recognize the guy on the right?
That’s a virtually unrecognizable Larry David in the new HBO movie Clear History (due in August). David stars as Nathan, a hipster marketing exec who sells all his shares at a start-up over a fight with his boss (Jon Hamm, left), only to miss out on billions when the company’s new product—an electric car—becomes a smashing success. READ FULL STORY »
Jonathan Groff is coming back to TV.
EW has confirmed that HBO has picked up eight episodes of a gay-themed dramedy starring the former Glee actor/Broadway star. The series, set to air in 2014, is not currently untitled.
The show centers on three friends living in San Francisco and explores “the fun and sometimes overwhelming options available to a new generation of gay men.”
The project also stars Frankie J. Alvarez (Smash) and Murray Bartlett (Guiding Light).
Production is expected to start this fall in San Francisco.
Related:
Listen: Michael Douglas tickles the ivories as Liberace — EXCLUSIVE AUDIO
‘Girls’ beats ‘Game of Thrones’ at BAFTA TV awards
HBO’s Liberace biopic arrives draped — as its subject was — in showmanship and song. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Behind the Candelabra stars Michael Douglas as the famously flamboyant Vegas performer alongside Matt Damon as his much-younger lover/lookalike. In this exclusive audio clip of “The Liberace Boogie” from the film’s first scene, take a listen to Douglas-as-Liberace. Does Douglas’ voice match Liberace’s as well as the rest of him?
The soundtrack includes both Liberace’s recordings and original pieces and is available digitally on May 21; the film premieres on HBO on May 26. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Jojo Whilden/HBO
It’s not just New York City twenty-somethings who can’t stop watching Hannah Horvath and Co.
The British Academy Television Awards were held last night and the award for International Program went to Girls, beating out Game of Thrones, Homeland, and The Bridge. But Game of Thrones didn’t go home empty handed — the HBO drama did win the Audience award (which Girls was not nominated for).
Elsewhere, fans looking for their next option to binge-watch should consider the Olympic-themed Twenty Twelve. The U.K. sitcom, starring Downton Abbey‘s Hugh Bonneville, won Olivia Colman the BAFTA for Situation Comedy and Performance in a Comedy Programme. On the more serious side, Last Tango in Halifax won for Drama Series. Last Tango in Halifax follows two teenage sweethearts who are reunited 60 years later courtesy of Facebook.
Shocking losses included The Girl, starring nominees Toby Jones, Sienna Miller, and Imelda Staunton, as well as Parade’s End, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which just concluded an HBO run in the United States.
A full list of winners can be found on the BBC’s site.
Read more:
British cult hit ‘The IT Crowd’ to return for finale special
Peabody Awards honor ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Girls,’ The New York Times (and a bunch of other stuff)
BAFTA announces 2014 awards date, two weeks before Oscars
Image Credit: Suzanne Tenner/HBO
Tom Chadwick is an affable British-Irish chap stuck in a bad patch. He’s reeling from a breakup, and he’s just been made redundant at his job. His longtime best friend keeps setting him up on disastrous dates with dim-witted women. Tom needs to Move Along, Please!, to borrow the title from his father’s favorite sitcom. Into Tom’s stultifying life drops a box of heirlooms bequeathed by a dead great-aunt. He begins investigating the knotty roots of his screwy family history, which takes this hangdog Homer on an absurdly funny odyssey into oddball quarters and pastimes (pantomime horse racing, anyone?). Tom, a product of his reality TV/self-documenting generation, allows a film crew to record his journey of discovery. Look, everybody! I’m interesting!
James Hibberd
@James_Hibberd
Lynette Rice
@EWLynette
