This summer, PBS’s rechristened Masterpiece Mystery! series is saying farewell to some favorite franchises, with the final installments of Foyle’s War (starting tonight), which I recently reviewed, and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. To fill the gap, Mystery! is turning to some old friends for next summer’s line-up, specifically Agatha Christie’s renowned sleuths Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and introducing a new crime-solver. Kenneth Branagh will star and co-produce a series based on Swedish novelist Henning Mankell’s Inspector Kurt Wallander books, which Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton describes as being in the Inspector Morse tradition.On the Christie front, there will be four episodes each of the Poirot and Marple series. David Suchet will reprise his role as the Belgian Sherlock, and Eaton says Suchet has expressed interest in filming every single Poirot story before he’s finished. And they’ve found yet another new Miss Marple ...
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This summer, PBS’s rechristened Masterpiece Mystery! series is saying farewell to some favorite franchises, with the final installments of Foyle’s War (starting tonight), which I recently reviewed, and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. To fill the gap, Mystery! is turning to some old friends for next summer’s line-up, specifically Agatha Christie’s renowned sleuths Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, and introducing a new crime-solver. Kenneth Branagh will star and co-produce a series based on Swedish novelist Henning Mankell’s Inspector Kurt Wallander books, which Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton describes as being in the Inspector Morse tradition.On the Christie front, there will be four episodes each of the Poirot and Marple series. David Suchet will reprise his role as the Belgian Sherlock, and Eaton says Suchet has expressed interest in filming every single Poirot story before he’s finished. And they’ve found yet another new Miss Marple ...
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Smallville's Kristin Kreuk will play martial artist Chun-Li in Twentieth Century Fox's adaptation of the Street Fighter video-game series. Michael Clarke Duncan and Chris Klein also star in this second attempt to bring the popular title to the big screen.... Peter Facinelli (Damages) and Elizabeth Reaser (Grey's Anatomy) have joined the cast of Twilight, which stars Kristen Stewart as a teen who befriends a classmate only to learn he's a vampire.... Kenneth Branagh and Rhys Ifans are hoping to get their sea legs in The Boat That Rocked, playing a pair of deejays for an English pirate radio show in the 1970s. Mad Men's January Jones is Ifans' love interest. — Adam Bryant
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Aside from the poet himself, nobody does Shakespeare quite like Kenneth Branagh. For his latest Bard-based project, the Emmy-winning native of Ireland directs Shakespeare's As You Like It (premiering on HBO Tuesday, Aug. 21, at 9pm/ET) and sets it in 19th-century Japan. The former Royal Shakespeare Company member spoke to us from the set of his new movie Valkyrie, in Berlin, about his modern take on the 16th-century text.
TV Guide: You've done a lot of Shakespeare before, so why adapt this particular play? Branagh: It's funny and romantic and rather magical. I had been in it in the theater myself, and I'd seen it many times. Although some critics dismiss it as being a little frivolous, a little frothy, I found it to be very beautiful and very life-affirming. I [also] wanted to return to a Shakespearean comedy.
TV Guide: And you chose to set it in Japan based on your own experiences. Branagh: Yes, the play is so much about the impa
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HBO has announced an Aug. 21 premiere for a Kenneth Branagh-helmed adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like It, starring Kevin Kline, Bryce Dallas Howard and Alfred Molina.... Actress-singer Christina Milian is attached to star opposite Matt Keeslar (Scream 3) in Snowglobe, an ABC Family pic about a young woman who is able to escape real life by venturing inside her grandmother's Christmas-themed tchotchke.
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