NBC announced today that Chuck will be returning to the entertainment lineup starting January 10th.

Along with this return date confirmation was the announcement of the many guest stars they’ll have churning through the set of Chuck for the 2010 season.

The guests include Angie Harmon (Law & Order), Brandon Routh (Superman Returns), Robert Patrick (The Unit), Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), Armand Assante (Judge Dredd), Steve Austin (WWE Smackdown!) and Vinnie Jones (Snatch).

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HBO is bringing us The Pacific, a WWII story of what went down in the Pacific while the men from Band of Brothers were fighting in Europe.

The series is based on the memoirs of Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie, both of whom were Marines that served in the Pacific Theater of Operations.  It was produced by (you guessed it) Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks (both of whom produced BoB) and Gary Goetzman (producer of Charlie Wilson’s War). 

It’s Wednesday again, time for our regularly scheduled open discussion post.

As usual – talk about whatever you like as long as it’s related to movies, TV or Screen Rant itself – just remember to play nice.

TV Guide got themselves a nice little scoop on Nov 16th when they flaunted the first look at what Michael Shanks will look like as Hawkman on Smallville.  They also had the opportunity to chat with Michael Shanks (Stargate SG-1) who will be playing Carter Hall aka Hawkman in an upcoming pair of episodes from Smallville.

The pair of episodes are now being drawn together into a single night of viewing and The CW Network is calling it a “movie” event.

We will be meeting the Justice Society in this movie and Shanks gave TV Guide some insight to the upcoming episodes and their first look at Shanks as Hawkman:

While fans around the world are waiting to see the final moments of David Tennant as Doctor Who, the Doctor himself has already moved on and is set to star in the pilot for the comedic legal drama Rex Is Not Your Lawyer for NBC.

Created by Andrew Leeds and David Lampson (Stephen’s Life – never heard of it either), the show centers around Rex Alexander (Tennant) who is Chicago’s top litigator, but after suffering from panic attacks, he’s forced to step down from litigating and takes up teaching clients how to represent themselves in court.

The remake bug has made its transition from the big screen to the small screen. This infectious virus, which the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has categorized as the most aggressive ever, has been mutated and become a full-fledged epidemic among the major television networks.  It started a couple of years ago when NBC tried to remake two classic shows from the 70’s and 80’s, Bionic Woman and Knight Rider.

ABC has already showed symptoms of the bug with its most recent remakes of V and Melrose Place. Now, according to Variety, ABC’s next attempt will be the 70’s female spy show Charlie’s Angels.  Josh Friedman, who helped adapt Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for Fox, Leonard Goldberg who was a producer for the original Charlie’s Angels, Steve McPherson, and Drew Barrymore (who was in the movie version of the show in 2000 and its 2003 sequel) are all attached to the project.

Slash Film pointed us to a story over at Bloody-Disgusting (who got it from Cemetery Dance Magazine) talking about how author William Peter Blatty and director William Friedkin might be re-teaming for another take on The Exorcist, the book/screenplay/movie that made both men famous back in 1973-74, when The Exorcist became a horror film sensation, taking home multiple Oscars including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

So is The Devil (aka Hollyweird) at work here? Not so much. The actual word is that Blatty has been working on a (spec?) script for a new Exorcist project for some time now, and that Friedkin may be onboard to helm it.

After watching the first few episodes of the 2nd season of Sanctuary, we all started to wonder if Ashley was dead, as in “dead dead”, or dead as in, “for dramatic ratings and she’ll be back dead.”

Yet the clues were obvious – even before our confirmation.

Though they drew out Ashley’s (Emilie Ullerup) death out for 2 episodes, she is dead.  And she’s been replaced by one of the most dead-pan characterizations of a character I’ve ever seen, in the form of Kate Freelander (Agam Darshi).

As we all know, Fox did not order any more episodes of Dollhouse, and obviously they won’t be ordering a 3rd season of the Joss Whedon show.

But I can’t help but wonder if Joss Whedon might not continue with his world of Dollhouse in his favorite alternate medium, the comics?

He’s taken all his television series to comic form under the Dark Horse label: Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel & Serenity. It’s his vent avenue of choice when he still has something to say about his pet projects but no television studio will let him vent it.

Ray Bradbury has signed on with White Oak Films with the idea of creating a miniseries.  The miniseries is structured as a 6-hour project broken down into six 1-hour episodes, all based on different short stories of Bradbury’s.

The plan is for each episode to be directed by a different person, none of whom have been officially signed yet. Who they pick to direct each episode will be very important, as they’re letting the director select their own favorite short story of Bradbury’s.

Sometimes, when you hear a movie is being turned into a TV show, you can’t help but cringe. It’s not always easy to make the transition from feature film to television show, especially when the movie has a loyal following. Some of the movies that have made the best transition into the TV world include M.A.S.H, Stargate, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Could Gattaca join that list?

Though often overlooked, Gattaca was one of the more interesting science fiction films to come out of the 1990s. Featuring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, and Jude Law, the movie explored a futuristic society where genetic engineering was the norm, creating a world where “Valids” (individuals who had been genetically enhanced before birth) live in a socially superior position to “Invalids” (average Joes like you and me).

To round off this Friday nice and easy, I thought I’d post a little something to get you laughing (or hopefully at least chuckling). Family Guy has become a household name at this point, but the show managed to out do itself back in 2007 with its season 6 premiere, “Blue Harvest”, an hour-long parody of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Well, today we have the trailer for Family Guy’s follow up to “Blue Harvest”, which could only be an equally hilarious skewering of the next film in the Star Wars canon, The Empire Strikes Back.

Columbia Pictures has just released the teaser trailer for their upcoming comedy Grown Ups, staring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and David Spade. While all five actors have previously worked together, this film marks the first time such a comedic ensemble has been put together in a starring role.

Here’s the synopsis:

Five friends and former teammates reunite years later to honor the passing of their childhood basketball coach. With their wives and kids in tow, they spend the Fourth of July holiday weekend together at the lake house where they celebrated their championship years earlier. Picking up where they left off, they discover why growing older doesn’t mean growing up.

By now I would hope most of you have seen the latest episode of South Park, entitled “Dances With Smurfs” (if not, you need to go HERE right away and do so!). The episode follows in the show’s great tradition of intelligent inappropriateness, this time lampooning such things as school shootings (really pushing it there), the current political landscape (hilarious) and, in a twist-turn in the final 1/3, James Cameron’s upcoming sci-fi epic, Avatar.

So what do all those random things have in common? Only the minds behind South Park know for sure…

For most of this year, I’ve been hovering and watching for any news about any Stargate movies.  Various articles or snippets around the internet suggested one thing or another.

Back in September, Amanda Tapping mentioned that the Stargate SG-1 movie was approved and could start filming after Stargate Universe is done filming.

Now comes news that the working title for the next Stargate SG-1 movie is called Stargate: Revolution and it includes bringing Jack O’Neill back “in a big way.”

Citizens of Earth, as the resistance against the Visitors grows, mankind just may have a fighting chance against the alien beings. Unfortunately, I don’t believe our favorite alphabet network (ABC) is so gung-ho about this particular extraterrestrial opposition, as resistance means that ratings for their new science-fiction series V have dropped significantly from last week’s debut.

The premiere episode of ABC’s re-imagining of the 1983 sci-fi mini-series raked in 14.30 million viewers, while this week’s episode saw its audience drop 27% to 10.7 million viewers. While all new shows expect to see a slight drop in ratings after their premiere episode, the drop that V saw was the largest since this season started in September.

Still, 10.7 million viewers is nothing to complain about. If V continues to received ratings in that range, fans of the series need not worry about its fate (sorry Dollhouse). Also, looking at Tuesday’s ratings shows you just much of a powerhouse CBS’s NCIS is, as this week’s episode brought in an astonishing 21 million viewers. (Now we all know how NCIS continues to be the number one rated show: it’s awesome!)

The question remains; why so much of the drop off? Have viewers become numb with revisiting past memories with a new paint job? Is the new V just not holding up to what everyone had hoped it would be?

I, myself, never saw the original mini-series, but have become quite interested in this new version. While I’ve fallen back around four episodes in FlashForward, I continue to look forward to the next episode of V. Although, I do have a problem that they’ve turned a mini-series into a regular episodic television series as this means they’re going to have to artificially lengthen a story that has been previously told. I continue to fight the urge to return to the original just so that I know the entire story.

…I can’t be the only one.

Catch V Tuesday nights at 8PM on ABC

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Have you been watching Smallville for the last eight seasons, hoping and praying that one day the tweenage drama would be put aside and some kick-ass superhero adventures would ensue? Well, you’re prayers are fixin’ to be answered, my friend, as Smallville insiders are saying that the showrunners have to lump to highly-anticipated upcoming episodes into one two-part, two-hour, super hero event, to air in January of next year.

The Smallville two-part special will feature the wo episodes – entitled “Society” and “Legends” respectively -that we previously reported would be scripted by none other than DC Comics’ hottest writer, Geoff Johns (who is also currently working on BIG-screen adaptations of The Flash and Shazam! alongside this Smallville project and his regular comic book duties).

The headlines all around the internet are spreading word the word that Fox has canceled Dollhouse. To be more specific, Fox has chosen not to order any more episodes beyond the first 13 episodes of Dollhouse’s second season, sealing the fate of the Joss Whedon-helmed show.

Despite being overwhelmed in fan-voting websites by The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fox went with renewing Dollhouse for a 2nd season, ignoring the cry for more Sarah Connor.  Of course the popular theory is that Fox feared yet another long-term public lashing from how they handled the much superior Firefly space western of Joss’ years prior.

Fox letting go of Dollhouse isn’t a surprise.  The show confused or creeped out fans in the first season with its core premise.  However, when the show runners had a chance to capitalize on the flow of the story in the latter half of the first season, they kicked in the 2nd season with similar, fragmented episodes.

It’s Wednesday again, time for our regularly scheduled open discussion post.

As usual – talk about whatever you like as long as it’s related to movies, TV or Screen Rant itself – just remember to play nice.

Here are the winners of our Fawlty Towers contest:

• Eric Tomlinson – Morgantown, WV
• DeeAnn Szymanski – Pottstown, PA
• Debbie Heddington – London, Ont, Canada
• Matthew Casale – Greece, NY

Thanks to everyone who entered, and don’t forget we’ve got a cool Star Trek giveaway going on right now!

Are you a fan of Fawlty Towers? Ever even heard of the show? Well it’s where John Cleese headed for a brief time after Monty Python back in 1975 and 1979. The show only ran for 12 episodes, but every single one of them is hysterical, and many are funny enough to bring tears to your eyes (that’s not PR, that’s my opinion). Fawlty Towers also starred Prunella Scales, Connie Both and Andrew Sachs.

Well it’s the 30th anniversary of the show and the episodes are being re-released in a special edition, remastered DVD set – and we have four (4) copies to give away!

Over the last few months, some of us at Screen Rant have been working hard behind the scenes on something we’ve wanted to share with you for quite some time. As you loyal readers know, we aim to share opinion on film and television news, but we’ve really wanted to hit on that other big entertainment item that’s started creeping into the film industry in recent years: Video Games!

So as the second step in building our global domination Screen Rant network, we’re proud to not only be your one-stop place for all of your movie and TV news, but now video game news as well. I present to you GameRant.com, the video games news/previews/reviews website in the same style as Screen Rant.

With more and more video game titles being pushed into development as film adaptations, this is the perfect opportunity to build synergy between movie and video game news, and share our thoughts on the great things coming out of that part of the entertainment sector.

It appears that the newest additions to NBC’s Thursday night comedy line-up may have found their primetime audience as last week’s episodes of Community and Park & Recreation both received some their highest ratings. Conversly, while the peacock was rejoicing, things weren’t so positive on the other side of the proverbial road as FOX’s sophomore science fiction series Fringe hit an all time low, but is Fringe really to blame or did the World Series have something to do with it?

Even though Smallville has been stuck in the death slot of Friday nights, (thanks, CW), the ratings for the Tom Welling-starring fantasy series are improving.

Now admittedly Smallville is not capturing 8 million viewers like NBC’s Law & Order or 7.9 million viewers like Ghost Whisperer on Friday nights, but it is picking up.

Smallville drew in 2.76 million viewers in overnight numbers from last night.  But more importantly, the show won the demographic of adults between 18-34 & men 18-34.

It also hit a new season high and their best performance in these categories in over a year, since September of 2008.

This year’s World Series battle between the valiant Philadelphia Phillies and the evil empire of the New York Yankees (oh, did I mention I’m from the Philadelphia area?) drew an average 19.4 million viewers and a 6.2 Nielsen rating, according to THR.

Remember the muttering about how the country wanted an LA/NY World Series?  Didn’t seem to keep people from tuning in anyway.

Probably THE spectacle movie of 2009 is going to end up being Roland Emmerich’s latest big-budget disaster flick, 2012, which focuses on the Mayan prophecy that the world will end in December of the year 2012. The $200 million, special-effects laden, film stars the likes of John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton and Danny Glover, and is set to crash into theaters in a week’s time.

However, with a film of this size, you know the buck rarely stops at one. In this case, Emmerich is already looking ahead at making more out of his latest disaster tale. Recently news surfaced that there was a 2012 sequel spin-off  TV series in the works (yes, they’re thinking about furthering this seemingly finite disaster story). But wait, how can there be a sequel, in any form, of 2012… isn’t it supposed to be about the end of the world? That’s what I thought, but apparently that’s not exactly the case. Thanks to Cinemablend we have some info on what the spin-off show might take:

[SPOILERS ahead]

Hankering for some Captain N? In need of the Superhuman Samurai Cybersquad? Been wondering what Penny, Brain and Inspector Gadget are up to? Well, we’ve got just what you need as The Cookie Jar Company has just launched Jaroo.com, a Hulu-esque video site with full-length episodes of over 50 television series that anyone who remembers when Saturday morning was “Saturday morning” will enjoy.

Jaroo.com launches today with one of the largest selections of full-length episodes of popular kids television programming and movies, both current and classic. The new free premium video destination for kids of all ages will initially offer over 50 popular TV series with more than 500 episodes available on-demand, any time, making entertaining your child or inner-child just a simple click away. Full episodes of such longtime favorites as “Inspector Gadget”, “Johnny Test”, “Super Mario Bros.”, “Zelda”, “The Adventures of Paddington Bear” and “Madeline” as well as the exclusive U.S. premiere of “Mona the Vampire” are available on Jaroo.com.

Additional shows include “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”, “Horseland”, “Liberty’s Kids” and live-action favorite, “Cake”, plus many more. New episodes and shows will be added daily, with over 2,000 episodes offered over the next three months to ensure Jaroo.com will always remain fresh.

Screen Rant - Television

When Arthur Nielsen first started metering television with his Audimeter, there were only 200 TV sets in use world wide. Originally, the Nielsen system was meant to measure brand advertising analysis for radio in the 30’s. When the Nielsen system established itself in 1950, the average home had 1 television and received three networks.  I’m betting someone back then probably was saying “With all these channels, and there’s still nothing on!”

As a society, we’ve grown beyond the constraints of the television itself.  We now watch our favorite shows not only when we want, but where and how we want. We have shows streaming on the internet to our laptops, desktops, phones and even streaming into our televisions now!  Who knows what else will come up.

Modern times are starting to tear apart that standard system of what time a show airs and what day. As this methodology of watching shows develops, I predict that the Friday night time slots will no longer be the death knell it’s known for but just a quaint myth.

The original V series that aired back in the 80s was basically about the threat of Communism and Soviet Russia, so I anticipated that ABC’s remake would have some sort of political undertone as well. What suprised me in the pilot was the apparent target of the show’s political undertone: President Barack Obama.

The episode opens with the standard TV pilot mechanism of briefly showing us a a minute or so of each of the characters we’ll come to know over the course of the series. We have the handsome newscaster who is not taken seriously and wants to get ahead, the single mom FBI agent, a priest and a man with an obviously shadowy background trying to make a fresh start in life.

[WARNING: READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!]

Last week the Paley Center for Media hosted an “Inside the Writers Room” for the hit HBO vampire series, True Blood. Before the event started, the folks over at Sci-Fi Wire caught up with writer/producers Alan Ball, Alexander Woo and Raelle Tucker, to ask them what kind of things we can expect to see in Season 3.  It appears that the showrunners may still be under demon-god Maryann’s spell as they have no inhibitions about revealing anything and everything about the third season.

Readers beware, WHAT LIES BELOW IS NOTHING BUT SPOILERS!!! So, if you’re the type that doesn’t want things ruined for you, turn back now. But, if you’re like me and can’t bear to wait until June 2010 for the next season, then enjoy.

It’s Wednesday again, time for our regularly scheduled open discussion post.

As usual – talk about whatever you like as long as it’s related to movies, TV or Screen Rant itself – just remember to play nice.

Oh BTW, on a side note: Screen Rant has just passed the 100,000 comment barrier. W00t!