Tom Hanks Is Back in the Dan Brown Business
Today in show business news: Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are doing another Robert Langdon adventure, Showtime renews its new hit, and Oxygen breaks a bunch of kids' hearts.
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Both Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are signed up for a third Robert Langdon movie. You know, those movies based on the Dan Brown novels about a symbologist who solves murders that have to do with all sorts of religious imagery and other such things. They've already made The Da Vinci Code and the really nonsensical Angels & Demons, and now they are going to make Inferno, which was just released as a book two months ago. They were supposed to make the third Robert Langdon book, The Lost Symbol, into a movie, but Howard pulled out of that one and the whole thing fell apart. But this one, this Inferno, everyone's interested in. Probably because it takes place in Europe like the other two (it's all about Dante's Inferno, duh), instead of just running around Washington D.C. like some sorta lame-o version of National Treasure. (Though, to be fair, National Treasure is a lame-o version of National Treasure.) The movie is set to be released in December of 2015, so these folks better get cracking. These ham-handed fake history yarns aren't going to spin themselves! [Deadline]
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Given that it stars a big name and is a ratings success, it's unsurprising that Showtime has decided to go ahead and renew the Boston-meets-LA crime drama Ray Donovan for a second season after only three episodes have aired. It's just how the premium networks do things. So, it's more work for Liev Schreiber, meaning he and Naomi Watts can't move back to New York anytime soon, meaning those kids are growing to grow up as LA kids, which is a choice I hope they're comfortable with. They were going to raise New York kids but now they'll be raising Los Angeles kids. They've gone from Lena Dunhams to Maggie Gyllenhaals. Not that those two are that different, I guess. And the Schreiber-Wattses have boys. So. I dunno. The point is, they're going to be living in LA for a while longer now. [Deadline]
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Oh no! If you have a teen or know a teen who is super sunshiny and telegenic and into musical theater, they might be in a bit of a state for the next little while. Why? Because Oxygen has canceled The Glee Project. The show, which acted as a feeder into Fox's Glee, did two unremarkable seasons that sent a bunch of kids onto the big show only to have them completely pushed to the sidelines after like an episode. So, Oxygen is done. Meaning that MacKenzie and Ryden are going to have to figure out another way to get on Glee. Or, y'know, maybe forget Glee? They could just become YouTube stars, like this kid. I think that's the ticket. Tell that Apple-products obsessed, "I die"-saying, character shoe-wearing nightmare boy or girl in your life to stop pining after Glee and get on the computer. Because The Glee Project is over. It's time for their own thing. [Entertainment Weekly]
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Oh lord, another movie about zombies. I was really hoping World War Z would be the last of the zombie things, but no. It appears not. Anna Kendrick, Molly Shannon, and Cheryl Hines have all just joined the cast of Life After Beth, a comedy written and directed by the guy who co-wrote I Heart Huckabees. The movie stars Dane DeHaan as a guy whose girlfriend (Aubrey Plaza) comes back from the dead and things get crazzzyy. It's a good cast and an interesting director and all that, but it's about zombies. Another thing about zombies. Aren't we sick of zombies? I'd settle for a mummy movie over another zombie movie at this point. Or what about a will-o'-the-wisp movie or a goblin movie or a Vera Farmiga movie. I mean literally any other kind of scary supernatural creature would be more welcome than a zombie movie. So let this be the last one. That's it. We're drawing a line. No more undead. [Deadline]
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American Dad, the bizarre and occasionally shockingly enjoyable (but mostly gross) Fox animated comedy, is moving to TBS next year. So everyone's still got a job, they're just making less. Probably way less. But them's the breaks. That's the landscape now. And hey, they're in good company. Cougar Town is on TBS now. Gotta love Cougar Town. It's about wine! [The Hollywood Reporter]
I know all your nerds are currently in a wagon train, racing furiously toward San Diego, but if you can get a hold of them somehow, telegram or something, tell them that Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be premiering on ABC on September 24. That will give them something to look forward to after Comic-Con is over. Unless they screen the pilot and all the nerds hate it. Then I don't know what to tell you. Better hope Thor 2: More Thor is good. [Deadline]
