Jaime King courtesy Dimension Films
Jaime King and Paz Vega have joined the cast of the Frank Miller-helmed Will Eisner's The Spirit, playing Lorelei, a phantom siren, and the knit-wielding Plaster of Paris, respectively.... Also per Variety, Radha Mitchell is a temptress who comes between Antonio Banderas and his partner in thievery, Morgan Freeman, in The Code.... Ving Rhames has come on board The Goods: The Don Ready Story, starring Jeremy Piven as an ace used-car liquidator.... The Reporter also has Queen Latifah making a cameo in the Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz rom-com What Happens in Vegas.
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June 16 at 10 pm/ET: Kelly Ripa hosts a two-hour Oxygen special counting down The 50 Funniest Women Alive. Wait, is Kelly ineligible because she's host?! I will scream.June 18 at 10 pm: Logo premieres Curl Girls, a six-episode series based on the cabler's 2005 special and following a half-dozen lesbian surfers.June 20 at 8 pm: Oscar winner Morgan Freeman hosts AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies — 10th Anniversary Edition, a new countdown of the greatest films of all time. Beverly Hills Cop III, this is your big chance.June 24 at 8 pm: CMT Crossroads brings together for the first time... since the May 15 CMAs... Kelly Clarkson and Reba McEntire.
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Per Variety, Angelina Jolie's next film gig will be starring alongside Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy in Wanted, an actioner based on a graphic novel and concerning a son out to avenge his dad's murder, with Jolie playing an assassin who tutors him.... Channing Tatum (Step Up) will star in Dear John, based on the Nicholas Sparks best-seller.... Though the timetable is still very much up in the air, insiders refute rumors that the Superman Returns sequel has gone into turnaround.... Per the Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) will direct Brad Pitt in State of Play, a political thriller.... Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn have joined What Just Happened?, a comedy starring Robert De Niro as a down-and-out filmmaker. Penn's his ex.
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Per Variety, Marvel has set a June 27, 2008, release date for its new Hulk, which is not being fancied as a sequel to Ang Lee's tepidly received feature. Among summer '08's other biggies: Marvel's own Iron Man (May 2); the Batman Begins follow-up, The Dark Knight; the new Narnia film; and possibly Hellboy 2 and Indiana Jones 4.... DreamWorks is putting a new polish on the script for Dinner with Shmucks, a French remake to star the now Borat-hot Sacha Baron Cohen.... Per the Reporter, Morgan Freeman is in final talks to star opposite James McAvoy in the sci-fi actioner Wanted.... Kirsten Dunst will star in and produce A Jealous Ghost, a supernatural thriller inspired by the A.N. Wilson novel.
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What, if anything, do Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, and Jaws have in common?
What is the formula for blockbuster-movie success? And how does it differ from the recipe for disaster? Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, an HBO documentary premiering tonight at 9 pm/ET — and based on the new book Boffo! How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb, by Variety editor-in-chief and former studio exec Peter Bart — explores those much-asked questions by way of A-list talking heads and fantastic clips from films both great and... so-so.
Bart says that — especially as cohost of AMC's Sunday Morn
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What, if anything, do Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, and Jaws have in common?
What is the formula for blockbuster-movie success? And how does it differ from the recipe for disaster? The new book Boffo! How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb, by Variety editor-in-chief and former studio exec Peter Bart, explores those much-asked questions, as does an accompanying HBO documentary, Boffo! Tinseltown's Bombs and Blockbusters, premiering June 29 and featuring almost as many A-list talking heads as fantastic clips from films both great and... so-so.
Bart says that — especially as cohost of AMC's Sunday
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Question: Please settle a bet between my friend and me. I am positive that I remember the actor Morgan Freeman on the kids' show The Electric Company in the mid-'70s. My friend says no way. Who is right? I have a bottle of very good wine riding on this!
Answer: Well, this oughtta pop your cork, then, Jessica. (And, at the risk of beating this horse to death, all you goofuses who hold back on the details of your betting should take note of Jessica's gallant move of telling me what she and her pal have at stake in their bet.)
Freeman did indeed play Easy Reader, the afro-wearing character who helped a generation of children learn to read on the brilliant Electric Company, from 1971 to 1976. That role followed acclaimed work on stage and represented the actor's first break in television, but his feelings about the job seem to depend on when you ask him about it. In 2001, when he served as chair of the
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March of the Penguins
I don't know if he'll ever give a more laughable performance than the one he unintentionally delivered in Deep Blue Sea, but Samuel L. Jackson has signed on to send up Morgan Freeman's narration of March of the Penguins in the spoof Farce of the Penguins, Reuters reports. The mockumentary, which is aiming for a racy R rating, was written and directed by onetime Olsen wrangler Bob Saget, a punch line in and of himself.
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Rob Corddry
Rob Corddry, a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, follows in the footsteps of such comedic peers as Conan O'Brien and Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler when he lends his voice to The N's O'Grady (Fridays at 9:30 pm/ET) this week. Here's what he had to tell us about his animated gig, advising Jon Stewart on the Oscars and more.
TVGuide.com: On O'Grady, who or what are you voicing? A news reporter, perhaps?Rob Corddry: No, actually
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Friends with Money, a comedy costarring Jennifer Aniston and Frances McDormand, has been picked to open the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, running Jan. 19-27. Among the other films making the cut at the prestigious event: Little Miss Sunshine, with Steve Carell and Toni Collette; Jonathan Demme's Neil Young: Heart of Gold; This Film Is Not Yet Rated, an expose of the MPAA's esoteric ratings system; and Lucky Number Slevin, with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman.
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