Tom Hanks
Get ready to jet-set to The Eternal City for a behind-the-scenes look at Angels & Demons. From Rome's St. Peter's Square to the Pantheon, TV Guide Network will take you on a tour of some of the historic locations included in the prequel to the 2006 blockbuster The Da Vinci Code. Watch interviews from the movie premiere with star Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard to see what they had to say about the thriller. Plus: Find out if Hanks will reprise the role of Robert Langdon in the next Dan Brown adaptation: The Solomon Key.
Watch the video after the jump.
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Ron Howard
After the fallout surrounding The Da Vinci Code, director Ron Howard is trying to get ahead of any criticism that his latest film, Angels & Demons, is anti-Catholic.
"Let me be clear: Neither I nor Angels & Demons are anti-Catholic," Howard wrote on the Huffington Post. He also suggested that Catholics who give his movie a chance will find something to like. "I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome."
The flick again stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of symbology who tries to track down the mysterious Illuminati, a group that has killed the four Cardinals in line to become the next pope. "Robert Langdon teams up with the Catholic Church to thwart a vicious attack against the Vatican. What, exactly, is anti-Catholic about that?" Howard wrote.
The Pope banned....
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Ron Howard thinks Americans should vote for Barack Obama. And so do Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham.
During this campaign season, some celeb messages have been serious, others have featured useless yapping (we're looking at you Hayden Panettiere), but Howard's recent Funny or Die video is the fist to reunite cast members from two TV classics: The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days.
Watch the video after the jump.
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Henry Winkler and Ron Howard by Michael Tran/FilmMagic
A bevy of balloons and children arrived for the premiere of A Plumm Summer, held Sunday at the Mann Bruin Theatre in Westwood, Calif. In homage to one of the film's icons — a true-life marionette named Froggy Doo who appeared alongside "Happy Herb McAllister" on Montana television for 22 years starting in the '60s —the carpet rolled out for celebs was green. Beyond the real Froggy Doo, other icons hit the carpet, including Henry Winkler, who plays "Happy Herb," and Ron Howard, there to support his Happy Days pal as well as his brother Clint, who has a cameo in the film. Also making an appearance were actors from the movie including Billy Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money) and Brenda Strong (Desperate Housewives). Delivering news about another ABC fave was Jasmine Jessica Anthony, who will soon be seen on Ugly Betty as Gio's younger sister, Antonella. "I don't like Betty," Anthony says of her character. "I'm kind of rude to her and say in one of my scenes, 'You're a little old to w...
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With an eye on the possible writers' strike and a Christmas 2008 release, Columbia is fast-tracking Angels & Demons, the Ron Howard-directed follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, for a February production start.... Also per Variety, Dakota and Elle Fanning will star with Cameron Diaz in an adaptation of the Jodi Picoult novel My Sister's Keeper.... Michael Mann is developing the mob drama Frankie Machine as a star vehicle for Robert De Niro.... According to the Reporter, Woody Harrelson will join Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum in Oliver Stone's new Vietnam drama Pinkville.... Jamie Foxx is a detective investigating race-related slayings in The Zebra Murders.
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"Aristophanes!" CBS is teaming with Idol producer FremantleMedia North America on Million Dollar Password, a "pumped-up" (read: swirling lights and annoying/overly theatrical music) remake of the classic game show, Variety reports. Regis Philbin will host; our copy editors will go mad over the hyphen-deficient title.... Fox is opening The Church of Reggie, a Ron Howard-produced comedy pilot about a man who starts a religion from his back porch.... Also per the Reporter, Lifetime is embracing more reality with Matt Titus: Matchmaker and It's My Party (aka My Super Sweet 16 for super-affluent adults).
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The Intruder box art courtesy Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Penthouse is getting into the adult-TV biz, signing a 10-year, $10 mil deal with adult network developer New Frontier to create a 24/7 bow-chicka-wow-wow network as well as a VOD service, says Variety.... Fox Business Network, launching Oct. 15, has added four more anchors: former CNBC correspondent Peter Barnes, Forbes.com's Jenna Lee, Bloomberg's Nicole Petallides and The Financial Times' Cody Willard.... A Sept. 25 release has been set for a pair of Roger Corman DVDs: The Intruder: Special Edition, starring William Shatner, and Eat My Dust! Supercharged Edition, with Ron Howard.... It's never too early to not care: the 62nd Annual Tony Awardswill be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 15, on CBS.
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Per Variety, DreamWorks Animation has moved up the release of Monsters vs. Aliens, its first pic produced in stereoscopic 3-D, to May 15, 2009 — a week before James Cameron's 3-D Avatar is set to bow.... John Leguizamo has joined M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, playing Mark Wahlberg's best friend.... Ron Howard is set to direct an adaptation of The Emperor's Children, Claire Messud's novel about Ivy League grads snobbing up Manhattan.... Oscar-nominated screenwriter Michael Tolkin is penning Rob Marshall's big-screen take on Nine.
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Per the New York Post, The Devil's Rejects helmer Rob Zombie is creating a three-minute trailer for a fake film titled "Werewolf Women of the SS," to star Sybil Danning and Udo Kier, and be featured as part of Quentin Tarantino's and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse.... Per the Hollywood Reporter, Lost alumna Maggie Grace will play Liam Neeson's kidnapped and enslaved daughter in Taken.... Darren Lynn Bousman is on board to direct Saw IV, to begin production April 16 and hit theaters October 26.... Per Variety, Ron Howard may direct an American version of Caché, a French film in which a couple finds increasingly violent videos on their porch.
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Per Variety, Reiko Aylesworth (24) and Steven Pasquale (Rescue Me) have grabbed the leads in Alien vs. Predator 2, to start filming next week in Vancouver.... Ron Howard is on board to direct a film adaptation of Frost/Nixon, a play currently earning raves on the West End about the famed 1977 television interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon.... Per the Hollywood Reporter, Cate Blanchett is set to star in Cancer Vixen: A True Story, based on the memoir of Marisa Acocella Marchetto, a fashionista cartoonist for Glamour and the New Yorker.
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