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Casting Bites: Amanda Seyfried, Anne Hathaway, Tom Selleck, Peter Krause and More March 24, 2009 12:52 am

Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in ABC, Casting, CBS, HBO, Lionsgate, Movies, NBC, Summit Entertainment, Television, Warner Brothers, Warner Independent.
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amandaseyfried-032409Here’s a round up of the latest casting related news for television and film.

  • Amanda Seyfried won’t be able to take on the lead role in Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch because HBO won’t release her from her contract on Big Love. Snyder’s film begins shooting this fall, which would conflict with scheduled shooting on the fourth season of Big Love. [EW]
  • Actors Chaske Spencer, Bronson Pelletier, Alex Meraz, Kiowa Gordon and Tyson Houseman have all signed on to star as members of the wolf pack in Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon. [STYD]
  • Anne Hathaway has signed on to star as Judy Garland in the film and stage adaptations of Gerald Clarke’s biography Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland. [Weinstein Co.]
  • Giovanni Ribisi has joined the cast of Hunter S. Thompson’s adaptation of The Rum Diary from Warner Independent. Ribisi will play a carousing journalist in the film, which stars Johnny Depp.  [Variety]
  • Amanda Bynes has landed the starring role in the ABC pilot Canned.  The actress will play Sarabeth, a naive Midwesterner who’s being exploited by her boss – and doesn’t realize it. [Variety]
  • Tom Selleck, Catherine O’Hara and Martin Mull have all joined the cast of Five Killers, a Lionsgate action comedy that also stars Ashton Kutcher (as a retiring hitman) and Katherine Heigl (his computer tech girlfriend).  Selleck and O’Hara are playing Heigl’s overprotective father and doring mother, while Mull is playing Holbrook, Kutcher’s handler. Robert Luketic is directing the film which is scheduled for release on June 4, 2010 release. [THR]

More casting bites after the jump. (more…)

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Crank: High Voltage Movie Poster March 18, 2009 7:25 pm

Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Lionsgate, Movie Posters, Movies.
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crankhighvoltagesmall-031809Lionsgate has released a brand new outdoor poster for Crank: High Voltage.  The studio released the image via their Twitter account.  By the way, if you aren’t already, you can follow me and my site on Twitter.com/YourEntNow.  Check out the full poster after the jump.

Crank: High Voltage hits theaters on April 17, 2009. (more…)

Lionsgate Searching for New Mad Men Showrunner? October 29, 2008 12:55 pm

Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in AMC, Cable, Lionsgate, Mad Men, News, Television.
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It seems like a joke, no?  Why would Lionsgate be looking for a new showrunner on a series which just had its best ratings ever (while admittedly still low) and became the first basic cable show to ever win an emmy for best drama?  But, apparently that’s exactly what the studio is doing.  According to Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily, Lionsgate execs are calling around various Hollywood agencies looking for a showrunner to replace Mathew Weiner, the creator of AMC’s Mad Men.  The reasoning, according to Finke’s sources, is that they think Weiner’s agents are asking too much money for him.  CAA, the agency that represents Weiner, is reportedly asking for Weiner to be paid $10 million a year.  He also wants control over promotion and advertising.

While that type of money is common place for hit shows on premium cable, the economics almost never make sense to pay some one that much for a basic cable television show and Lionsgate is balking at the asking price.  From DHD:

“The ‘ask’ was insanity,” one insider tells me. “It’s preposterous. AMC is a basic cable network. The economics don’t support this. It’s why Lionsgate is throwing their arms up in the air. And, remember, they got a two-year pickup for the show with or without Matt Weiner.”

When asked by a Lionsgate source about this situation, Finke was told, “We’re negotiating with Matthew Weiner. But we want him back…”  If that’s the case, then it seems very odd for them to go out and look for a new showrunner just in case.

As I prefaced earlier, Mad Men just concluded its best season.  Sunday’s finale drew 1.75 million total viewers, an improvement of 89% over the first-season finale (926,000).  Compared to season one, season two saw an increase of 63% among total viewers (1.5 million vs. 925,000) as well as gains among the key demos adults 18-49 (+109%–705,000 vs. 338,000) and adults 25-54 (+81%–780,000 vs. 430,000).

Source: Deadline Hollywood Daily