Fox isn't wasting any time setting up its development slate.
The network has ordered four comedy pilots and three dramas, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The newcomers join previously announced drama pilot Eva Adams, which is finalizing casting, and fall comedy Boldly Going Nowhere.
Fox President Kevin Reilly said last week that the new comedy slate would be closer in tone to hit series Malcolm in the Middle and The Bernie Mac Show than this season's quickly cancelled Do Not Disturb. Among the contenders are ...
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Ben Stiller, Jack Black and a mustache-rockin' Robert Downey Jr. stopped by BET's 106 & Park to promote Tropic Thunder, but they probably weren't expecting to partake in an impromptu dance-off to Nelly. Stiller started out as a serious contender, but Black basically schooled him once he busted out the pop 'n' lock.
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Attached to the big-screen adaptation of Dallas for more than two years, John Travolta has been released from the role of J.R Ewing and "given a nice seven-figure 'gift' to go away quietly," a source tells Page Six. A pal of the former Vinnie Barbarino confirms the news, saying the film's producers "have gone in a different direction than was originally intended."What sort of different direction? Originally envisioned as a dramedy, the talk is that Dallas will now be a "comedic, behind-the-scenes" "show-within-a-show" a la Bewitched, and that Ben Stiller has been offered J.R.'s 10-gallon hat. Wow, there is just so much wrong with that previous sentence.
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Ben Stiller's Red Hour Films has decided to make a series of Gods Behaving Badly, a popular British novel (being released on our side of the pond Dec. 10) about what happens when the deities of ancient Greece, now roomies in a modest London flat, stop being polite and start getting real.... West Wing Emmy winner Alex Graves will direct Fox's Fringe, the J.J. Abrams pilot about a cute FBI agent who, in another place and time, would've been Veronica Mars.... GSN has ordered 40 episodes of How Much Is Enough?, a new game show in which Corbin Bernsen (Psych) invites contestants to pit their greed against their speed. Ben Katner
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Ben Stiller (voicing an elf named... Stiller) and The Sopranos' Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa (as a wannabe Bert and Ernie) are but a few of the stars who will help out with Elmo's Christmas Countdown, a one-hour holiday special coming to ABC. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Ty Pennington, Alicia Keys, Sheryl Crow and Brad Paisley are also set to appear as themselves to perform in musical numbers, while Big Bird, Grover, Oscar, Snuffie and the Count will be representin' for the "I've got someone's hand inside me" set.
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