Rainn Wilson took over the CNN newsroom to shamelessly plug his new movie, which might be considered annoying if we weren’t completely in love with him. The anchor calls Rainn “the guy from The Office” and then questions his credentials. Uh, if anyone is qualified to discuss gales and hail storms, it’s Dwight K. Schrute.
In Jesus-it’s-hard-to-be-an-actor news, two of America’s most acclaimed and intimidating thespians, Laurence Fishburne and John Malkovich, are currently competing to replace the exiting William Petersen on television’s gimmicky but fun CSI. Ah, acting: From Broadway to a Culver City sound stage littered with blacklights, just like that!
No word yet on if there’s a front-runner, but we hope the slithery, simmering Malkovich gets it and out-weirds CI’s Vincent D’Onofrio.
SPOILER ALERT “Katherine Heigl could be killed off Grey’s Anatomy next season [by] giving her character, Dr. Izzie Stevens, a brain tumor. … Still, there’s good news for fans sad to see Izzie suffer: newly single Jeffrey Dean Morgan will reprise his role as hunky patient Denny Duquette, whom Izzie will see in visions brought on by the tumor.”
HOW THE OLD GUY GOT REHIRED “‘Nat! My gosh. It was such an accident,’ [the new 90210 executive producer] said. ‘Someone said they saw Nat in a store, so I called casting and told them, let’s see if he’d like to do it. He was ecstatic.’”
We will miss Portfolio’s napkin math sessions when the magazine eventually closes. Last month, they calculated the net worth of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” supposedly the most profitable song ever recorded, which earned an estimated $572 million. Now, they’ve moved on to other pop culture fare: Project Runway. Just how much is the fashion reality show franchise worth?
SNL JUST GOT EVEN WORSE “‘Saturday Night Live’ star Amy Poehler may be ready for primetime after all. The actress is said to be in talks to star in the new NBC spin-off of ‘The Office,’ the trades report. Details about the show have been kept tightly under wraps and the only actor cast in the project so far is comedian Aziz Ansari. There has been speculation, however, that the show might be built around a name actor, similar to how the original ‘Office’ is anchored by Steve Carell. Still, the series, despite initially being called an ‘Office’ spin-off, isn’t expected to be one after all, Variety notes.”
DO YOU HAVE TO LET IT LINGER? “Smartypants magazine editor to CNN: If Comedy Central can do it, why can’t we? That was a good part of New Yorker editor David Remnick’s argument to Wolf Blitzer about the controversy the current issue of the magazine has whipped up by portraying Barack Obama and his wife as a couple of gun-slinging, bin Laden-loving terrorists on its cover. Remnick likened what the magazine has done to what ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The Colbert Report’ do every weeknight on television. He said the point of the cover was to satirize the many right-wing rumors and innuendoes that have spread virally about the Democratic candidate.”
SESAME STREET FIGHTS TO STAY COMPETITIVE “Nearly 40 years ago ‘Sesame Street’ forged a new path in educational television for preschoolers. But in recent years, as even very young children have migrated online, the show’s Web efforts have lagged far behind those of commercial competitors like the Walt Disney Company and Viacom’s Nickelodeon. The show’s nonprofit parent, Sesame Workshop, hopes to change that on Aug. 11, when the new Web site sesamestreet.org goes live. Developed over two years at a cost of $14 million, the site is making its debut the same day as Season 39 of ‘Sesame Street,’ seen weekdays on PBS.”
Looks like Katherine Heigl might have to take her whining elsewhere, because rumor has it Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes is considering killing off Heigl’s Izzie Stevens. And not just because the character has become insufferable — Katherine’s recent comments about the upcoming Emmys have pissed off the writers and others on the set.
‘It’s not good there,’ a source tells of the Grey’s Anatomy set. ‘Shonda is pissed. They’re thinking of killing her off. They want Izzie dead.’
Congrats, Katherine! Now you can leave that worthless little show and get on with your dreams of becoming the next Jennifer Aniston.
[Source]
Can someone introduce us to a Jeopardy contestant who actually watches The Hills?
Is your town big enough to get basic cable but small enough to alienate all the funny, flamboyant gays who would have made great friends had they not left for the coasts years ago? Well today’s your lucky day, hayseed:
In a rare move for a cable network, Lifetime is looking to launch a daytime talk show, handing out a pilot order for a talker hosted by Carson Kressley.
It is part of an effort by the female-centered cable net to add original programming during the day, when it currently airs mostly off-net sitcoms.
Let’s hope this one doesn’t go the way of the ill-fated Christopher Lowell show.
BLACK REPUBLICANS DISSED YET AGAIN “TV One, the cable network aimed at African-American viewers, will cover Barack Obama’s nominating convention but is ignoring John McCain’s. The network is telecasting live, prime-time coverage of the Democratic convention in Denver Aug. 25-28, followed by ‘TV One Live: DNC Afterparty,’ with political and social commentary from panelists. TV One is available in 43.7 million households, or about 40 percent of the nation’s TV homes. … ‘We are not a news organization,’ [the network’s CEO] said. ‘We are a television network that is designed to celebrate African-American achievement. That is why we are covering this convention. If Hillary (Clinton) was the nominee, we would not be covering this year’s Democratic convention.’”
SOCCER MOM DIVERSIONS GETTING MORE GIMMICKY “More than 500 participants - including 11 men - from 40 states will compete in Regis [Philbin] and Kelly [Ripa’s] first-ever High Heel-a-thon in Central Park this morning for a chance at first place and $25,000. The race will air live starting at 9:30 a.m. … how hard could 150 yards be in hot pink 41/2-inch Walter Steiger heels?”
MANY PEOPLE FINDING NEW WAYS TO SIT ON THEIR ASSES “‘Screen time,’ or the amount of time the average American spends watching content on a thin, flat surface, is on the rise. But the real growth is coming from nontraditional watching, not TV time, according to Nielsen. Nielsen found that Americans spent 56% more time watching time-shifted TV, primarily on a digital video recorders, and 9% more time using the internet to watch at home and at work. Overall TV viewing — live and played back — increased only 4% …”
NEED A ‘FRESH’ WAY TO LOOK AT BUILDINGS FUCKING EXPLODING? “Cable network History is retelling … Sept. 11 … from a fresh perspective. … the network has culled together amateur and professional footage shot on Sept. 11 for ‘102 Minutes That Changed America,’ a 102-minute special that will retell the events of that morning in real time. … For example, the videographers include two confused, terrified New York University seniors in a high-rise dormitory just blocks from the World Trade Center who started shooting the smoking North Tower after it was hit by the first plane and then captured the second plane hitting the South Tower.”
Less than one week after Ingrid Betancourt’s rescue from a six-year stint as a rebel hostage, RCN-TV, a Colombian television station, announced yesterday that it is partnering with a Hollywood production company to make a movie about the former presidential candidate’s bloodless liberation.
“We are honored to be first people allowed to reap the profits of this tumult,” said an RCN spokesman, “and we will do our best to squeeze some high drama out of the disappointingly non-violent event.”
JUST KIDDING! Nobody said that, but, trust us, those freaking vampires were thinking it.
Rejoice, Peach Pit purists!
Multiple sources confirm to me exclusively that [Shannon] Doherty is currently engaged in formal talks to — wait for it, wait for it — reprise her role of Brenda Walsh on The CW’s breathlessly anticipated 90210 update!
…
… the producers behind el nuevo 90210 recently met with the tempestuous tabloid mainstay to gauge her interest in returning to the zip code from which she was banished in 1994. And by all accounts, she is interested. “But,” whispers an insider with close ties to the reboot, “she wants to know what the story is going to be first.” She also wants more money than they’re apparently offering.
Also rumored to be standing in the way of Doherty’s return is real-life rich kidTori Spelling, with whom Doherty has been feuding for years now. Though we know very little about both Spelling and Doherty, we’re on Doherty’s side, but only because we’ve always had a weird thing for women who are mean and crazy.
If a certain report out of the U.K. is to be believed, Sex and the City isn’t the only big screen adaptation of a favorite television series to look forward to. Get ready for Monica, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Joey and Phoebe to regroup, more than four years after the show wrapped, for Friends the movie. Supposedly they’ve seen the success of Sex and realized, “Hey, people might still like us!” (As if our TiVo full of every day’s cache of syndicated episodes might suggest otherwise.) Also: They could command enormous paydays, especially if they get in on the production side! Plus: It’s not like any of them are doing something worthwhile in front of a camera these days (read: Dirt).
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