Author: Robert Greenberger

Fox’s Arrested Development may be dead as a television series, but a feature film version is closer to reality. The Hollywood Reporter sais that Fox Searchlight is just about ready to sign a deal with Ron Howard’s Image production company.

The director told Ain’t it Cool News, “Yeah, we’re closer than ever. Mitch [Hurwitz] is really focused on it, the cast seems really interested, the studio seems to be on board, and God know they’ve got a narrator who’s just chomping at the bit. [laughs] So we don’t have a script yet, but we all want it and we want it to be good. We’re pushing in that direction and all really pushing together for the first time in ages. So, I think we’ve got a very good chance of it happening.”

Members of the cast, including Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Jeffrey Tambor have been publicly talking about a movie and they always made it sound like it was more than wishful thinking.

Hurwitz would write and most likely direct the feature film version.

The series ran a total of three seasons and 53 episodes between November 2, 2003 and February 10, 2006. Despite being a critics’ darling, it never found an audience. It did, though, win five Emmy Awards including the validating Outstanding Comedy Series in 2004. Time Magazine named it one of the 100 Greatest Shows of All Time.

Freema Agyeman, who debuted on the UK’s latest genre series, Survivors, on November 23 said, “I couldn’t have wished for a better start to my career than Doctor Who. It was like a rocket that blasted me up and as a consequence I have all these opportunities presented to me. It feels like it would be rude to say no.”

The 29-year-old told the London Telegraph that she plays Jenny Collins, “a teacher trying to escape a population-killing virus in a six-part remake of the 1970s cult drama.” Survivors.

“Jenny is bright and capable but in this situation she is overwhelmed,” she described. “Looking after her sick flatmate gives her a purpose to get through the situation. The whole thing is about trying to find hope.”

“Doctor Who was a good warm-up,” Agyeman admitted. “You’d be running around on the edge of cliff, chased by someone holding a fake monster on the end of stick. At first you would feel silly, but you quickly learn to go for it, to feel the terror of the moment. In Survivors, although it is much more serious, I tried to imagine the loss and loneliness Jenny is feeling in that moment.”

Agyeman will also be seen in the BBC’s new adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit, followed by playing a government prosecutor Alesha Phillips on Law & Order: London. “There’s so much I want to learn and these three [roles] were all extremely different from each other and from what I had done before,” she said.

For Little Dorrit, the attractive actress will play attention-seeking orphan Tattycoram. “Tattycoram’s race wasn’t specified but in Victorian London if you weren’t upper class, you experienced prejudice, so race transposes beautifully,” she said. “Up until Doctor Who I was happy in my career but I was being cast as gangsters and suchlike, which was a frustration for me. Now I get parts that could have been cast to any color. I am aware that I have this huge platform and I am proud to represent the black community but I am also proud of being able to show that I can do other parts.”

Director Terry Gilliam told Contact Music that his The Man Who Killed Don Quixote film project will be back before the cameras in 2009.

When the film began production in November 2000, a flash flood destroyed the sets so the insurance firm paid out $15 million and star Jean Rochefort, withdrew after injury.  The entire film fell apart but did become the subject of a documentary, Lost in La Mancha, on the process.

Gilliam told a crowd at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in London that he has secured the rights from the insurance company and is back to work on pre-production.

"I was in some way relieved that it did fall apart," he said. "Because I didn’t have the money to finish it. It’s a good thing it went down when it did because I would have got the blame for going over budget. I think this time we will make a better film."

Johnny Depp, cast in 2000, remains attached to the film but no other casting has been announced nor a start date for filming.

Former Marvel Comics editor Nel Yomtov was named executive editor at Hammond World Atlas, a division of Langenscheidt. In addition to working with the century old map publisher, Yomtov will also be charged with developing new lines for the parent firm.

The map company provides graphics to WCBS in New York and CNN nationally.

Yomtov was a long time editor at Marvel before leaving during the turbulent bankruptcy years.  He served as a special projects manager at DC Comics before moving to Rosen Publishing.  While there he rose to editorial director and was largely responsible for the educational publisher’s move into graphic biographies and histories. Yomtov also worked as a creative director at Parachute Press, a consultant to Major League Baseball and colored The Transformers for nine years. Yomtov is considered one of the friendliest guys in the field and played a mean softball game when he played on the DC and Marvel teams.
 

Fantasy Flight Games will release their new board game, Android in December, according to ICv2. Designed by Kevin Wilson (Arkham Horror, Descent), the game has been two years in the making and is described as “a groundbreaking game of murder and conspiracy set in a dystopian future that is made to order for Bladerunner fans.  Players assume the role of detectives who must travel between the city of New Angeles and the moon colony Heinlein to chase down leads and in the process they must balance their pursuit of the murderer against the turmoil in their personal lives while wrestling with their inner demons.”

After months of teasing the game through viral marketing, the $59.95 game is ready for release, designed for 3-5 players and takes between 2-4 hours to play. A trailer previewing the game is now available on the company’s website.

The Last Templar, a four hour miniseries starring Mira Sorvino, Victor Garber and Scott Foley has been scheduled to air on consecutive nights, January 25 and 26, at 9 p.m. Directed by Paolo Barzman (Grand Star), the miniseries was written by Suzette Couture (The Terrorist Next Door) based on Raymond Khoury‘s novel.

Sorvino will be Tess Chaykin, a Manhattan archaeologist who is drawn into a fast-paced, romantic adventure concerning the lost secrets of the medieval Knights Templar. Garber (Eli Stone) is Monsignor De Angelis, who steps in to help with the investigation to retrieve the lost artifact.

The Last Templar opens with the fall of the Latin Kingdom’s reign in the Holy Land in Acre in 1291. As the burning city falls to the Sultan’s forces, a lone galley escapes out to sea, carrying a young knight from the historic order of the Knights Templar, Martin of Carmaux, his mentor Aimard of Villiers, and a mysterious chest entrusted to them by the Order’s dying Grand Master. But the ship never reaches its destination.

Later, in present-day New York, Chaykin witnesses four masked horsemen, dressed as Templar Knights, who storm into the Metropolitan Museum, scattering Manhattan society gathered for the gala opening night of an exhibition of Vatican treasures. She watches in silent terror as the leader of the horsemen hones in on one piece in particular–a strange-geared device that he grabs as he disappears into Central Park.

As the horsemen’s dead bodies start turning up–and the importance of the stolen device becomes more apparent–Tess and FBI Agent Sean Reilly are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading knights and of the last surviving Templars’ fateful journey from Acre. The pair is soon propelled into a dangerous adventure that takes them through the cemeteries and sewers of Manhattan, across continents to desolate Turkish highlands, to a violent storm on the Mediterranean that shipwrecks them onto a remote Greek island–and into the very heart of an incredible Vatican secret.