Image Credit: Michael Tran/FilmMagic
Nominations were announced this morning for the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, set to take place Jan. 27.
In television, Emmy Modern Family grabbed four nominations while Homeland and Downton Abbey walked away with three nominations each. In movies, Les Miserables, Lincoln, and Silver Linings Playbook all tied among nominees. (For more on that, read Anthony Breznican’s take.)
See the full list of TV and movie nominations below! READ FULL STORY »
Hollywood’s two big acting unions just took another step toward a significant merger. The National Board of Directors of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or AFTRA — which oversees more than 70,000 actors, broadcasters, singers, and dancers — voted Saturday to recommend a merger with the Screen Actors Guild by 94 percent. The vote comes a day after the SAG National Board of Directors voted in favor of approving the merger package by 87 percent.
Members of AFTRA and SAG (which oversees 120,000 members) will now vote on the merger after Feb. 27. More than 60 percent of the actors need to approve it in order to create a merged union that would be called SAG-AFTRA.
SAG National President Ken Howard said in a release:
This is a terrific outcome and I offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to AFTRA’s National Board and National President Roberta Reardon. Professional performers are now an important step closer to the strongest union representation possible. Just as our boards have, I believe our members will decisively approve this merger and that SAG-AFTRA will be a leader in shaping the entertainment and media industries.
The proposed merger is expected to be addressed at tonight’s SAG Awards that will be telecast on TNT. READ FULL STORY »
Netflix has released some statistics that indicate the video subscription service must be doing something right, even though investors and customers have been ridiculing it for much of the past six months. The company says more than 20 million subscribers worldwide watched more than 2 billion hours of old TV shows and movies on devices with high-speed Internet connections during the final three months of last year. The numbers released Wednesday contributed to an 11 percent surge in Netflix Inc.’s stock price. The shares gained $8.21 to finish at $80.45. It marked Netflix’s highest closing price in seven weeks. READ FULL STORY »
What a delightful day for a “Bluth Family Reunion.” On Sunday afternoon, Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz gathered with his entire cast for their first time together since December 2005 for the hot-ticket panel at the New Yorker Festival. On stage Hurwitz revealed that he was halfway through the movie script he wanted to start shooting next summer. The cast of Bluths are leaving their own schedules free should this dream scenario come to fruition.
Further intriguing news: Hurwitz said his plan is to shoot a limited-run TV series of nine to 10 episodes that would air next fall and catch audiences up on the characters’ lives in the five years since the series ended. While he didn’t want to give up any spoilers, he did reveal one obvious hint of what’s in store for the family Bluth: “They f— everything up.” Lord, let this all happen.
UPDATE: Netflix, Showtime interested in ‘Arrested Development’ limited TV series
(Reporting by Aubry D’Arminio)
Read more:
‘Arrested Development’ movie: Jason Bateman admits ‘It’s frustrating’
‘Arrested Development’ movie: Jason Bateman has a role in mind for Jennifer Aniston
Michael Cera talks ‘Arrested Development’ movie: ‘I feel scared by all the expectations’
28 TV Reunions You Want to See
Universal has said no to the quest.
The studio and filmmaker Ron Howard announced last year an ambitious plan to make three movies and two seasons of television based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower — an epic, seven-part (so far) series of novels that fuse westerns and sci-fi/fantasy in the tale of Roland the Gunslinger and his journey through surreal and treacherous territories to a mythical structure that binds the dimensions of existence.
Here’s what went wrong: READ FULL STORY »
Janet Mayer/PR Photos
By the time summer is over, Cory Monteith, who plays nice-guy jock Finn Hudson on Glee, will have wrapped his second concert tour for the Fox series and appeared in two films, Monte Carlo (out July 1) and Glee the 3D Concert Movie (out Aug. 12). In Monte Carlo — a teen comedy starring Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, and Katie Cassidy — 29-year-old Monteith plays Cassidy’s boyfriend, Owen, and is one of the few males in the flick. “Just how I like it,” he says with a laugh. “Owen is someone I think the Glee audience could relate to.” The actor shot the movie in Europe shortly after he and his fellow Gleeks wrapped their initial concert tour last summer. “I gotta say, I took almost every opportunity I had to disappear and travel,” he says. “I saw 10 countries in a month.” READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Stan Lee Comics/A2 Entertainment
Maria Shriver isn’t the only one with a broken heart. This week’s revelations about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s secret love child also have several Hollywood producers blowing into their hankies. Last week at Cannes, up-and-coming film financier Megan Ellison (True Grit) spent nobody knows how many millions for the rights to possibly make more Terminator movies with Arnold (sorry, Megan). Al Ruddy, veteran producer of Million Dollar Baby and The Godfather, was going to pay Arnold a reported $12.5 million to star in his first feature since leaving the governor’s office, Cry Macho (there, there, Al).
But of them all, the producers of The Governator, the animated series that was going to turn Arnold into a kid-friendly cartoon superhero, have had the hardest time dealing with the betrayal. READ FULL STORY »
People who love the video game Angry Birds can drive people who love football crazy on Sunday by pausing during the Super Bowl commercial for Fox’s animated feathered-friends comedy Rio and scanning for a secret code.
The code can be found on a single frame during the ad, and can be entered in the game to unlock a special level on Rovio’s hit game. In turn, that level will lead the player to a sweepstakes entry to attend the film’s world premiere in Rio de Janeiro on March 22.
The 3-D animated film is about a pet macaw named Blu (voiced by The Social Network‘s Jesse Eisenberg) who is part of a gravely endangered species and is brought to the Brazilian beach city to breed with Jewel (Anne Hathaway) who only wants to escape captivity.
