'Mad Men' Is Finally Coming Back
The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: Mad Men will soon(ish) be upon us, Blake Lively pops pills, and Miley Cyrus takes a terrible trip to Paris.
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It's been a year and a half since Mad Men was last on the air, and with no official fifth season premiere date set, it was beginning to feel as though it might never come back. But now! Light! Joy! A glimmer of hope! In an interview on comedian Doug Benson's podcast, series star Jon Hamm let slip that the show will be returning on March 25th. A bunch of unfortunate contract negotiations had heretofore stymied the production, but now it's all back on track and two months away. Woohoo! That is very exciting because Mad Men is, y'know, a very good show. Though it's been so long that, what, Sally's going to be all grown up and smoking a peace pipe with Abbie Hoffman. Either that or off at Bryn Mawr, lying there bored and faraway as some Swarthmore boy gropes her on a dorm bed. Poor Sally. Doomed no matter what she does. [THR]
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While we're on the topic of AMC shows, original Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont has gone public with his scuttled plans for the season two premiere of that show, which were never realized as he was fired from the show before filming began on the second season. It was a cool idea, a sort of flashback that tracked the soldier who would eventually become the zombie in the tank that Grimes shoots in the pilot episode. Trouble is it was too expensive, in fact the whole show is too expensive, which is probably why so far in season two everyone's just been chillaxing at a farm instead of running through operatic hellscape after operatic hellscape screaming "Zombiesss!!" as millions of zombies come chomping after them. Kind of expensive to do that on television every week, so instead everyone's chewing straw and playing the jug down at old Hershel's medicine farm. We like Darabont's idea better. [EW]
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While on the topic of Frank Darabont, he's just signed a deal with TNT to make a pilot of his spec L.A. Noir, a true-crime series set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. The show is about Mickey Cohen, who's also the subject of that Sean Penn/Ryan Gosling movie Gangster Squad. Mickey Cohen is having a moment! And he seems very excited about it. And hey, this is rather big for TNT, isn't it? Their first period show and all. (It is, isn't it?) Of course they did that Into the West miniseries but that wasn't a full series. This is TNT's Mad Men! Well, let's hope so. Let's hope it's not TNT's Pan Am. [Deadline]
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When someone used a carrot peeler to shave off a piece of heaven and then molded it into the shape of a person and gave that heaven sliver the human name of Blake Lively, did they ever think their creation would go this far? We'll never know. But what we do know is that Lively has been cast as the lead in Steven "Actually I'm in No Way Retiring" Soderbergh's next movie, The Side Effects. In it she'll play a pill-popping woman who's waiting for her husband to get outta the clink. That inmate will be played by the hardened Spam tower known as Channing Tatum. Jude Law also factors into the movie somehow, most likely as some sort of nefarious villain who's trying to kidnap Blake Lively because he wants to harness the power of her magical sunbeam farts in order to take over the world. [Vulture]
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It was Fox's turn at the TCAs today, and so we've learned a few things. First is that they've canceled Jonah Hill's animated series Allen Gregory, so that's a bummer for him. The second thing is that it's still unclear whether or not the wildly expensive yet only mildly received Terra Nova will get a second season. We'd be disappointed if it didn't. Not because it's a good show, good grief it is sillier than Relic Hunter (miss you, Tia!), but because there was sort of a cool thing that happened at the end and we want to find out just what the heck is going on. Just one more season, OK Fox? Thanks. And lastly there's some indication that The X Factor's vastly disliked host Steve Jones, who in many ways is the British Brian Dunkleman, will be let go from the show in preparation for season two. That show has just not been good to British talent. First the stupidly fired Cheryl Cole (replaced by the Pussycat creature), and now Steve Jones, television's most dynamic man since Jim Breuer. In an order to save costs, Jones will likely be replaced by either an animatronic dinosaur or the grizzled visage of Stephen Lang. [Washington Post]
Paul Feig is moving ahead with his next directorial effort, The Better Woman. The Bridesmaids director was supposed to be doing Bridget Jones' Diary 3 but that fell apart for various reasons concerning the script so now he's doing this, which will have a script written by Gilmore Girls' Amy Sherman-Palladino. Oh good grief. So everyone will be pooping in the street in wedding gowns and talking really, really fast while they do it. Just so, so fast. Everyone in Star's Hollow had some sort of speaking problem or was really in a hurry or something. Becausetheytalkedsofastohmygod. Slow her down, Feig! Slow her wayyy down. [Variety]
Oh god. Here is a trailer for Miley Cyrus' new movie (yes, they're letting her make more) LOL, a remake of a French movie that is apparently about Miley Cyrus being a weird jerk to her mom (Demi Moore) and dating Aphrodite goddess of love and beauty's little brother. And it looks terrible? Just really really bad? Like, these are the jokes that you put in the trailer? This is your A material? It doesn't even make sense! It tonally shifts about six times. And the announcer is basically reading a short story he wrote for his Gotham Writers Workshop class? He says so many things! Plus Marlo Thomas is involved, which is just generally strange. Anyway, what a mess of a movie this looks like. See you opening weekend!
