This week FX renewed American Horror Story. With strong ratings and intense creativity brimming, it’s no shocker. The anthology series’ third season remains under wraps plot-wise, of course, but it has been revealed that Jessica Lange (Constance Langdon in Murder House, Sister Jude in Asylum) will star again. With season two encompassing so many intense fears, it’s hard to imagine what Ryan Murphy and co. have in store for us next.
FX president John Landgraf: “With American Horror Story: Asylum, Ryan and Brad have raised the bar in every way from Murder House, the first American Horror Story miniseries. And their original idea—the notion of doing an anthological series of miniseries with a repertory cast—has proven groundbreaking, wildly successful and will prove to be trendsetting. We can’t wait to see what deviously brilliant ideas they come up with for their third miniseries.”
FX begins production on the third season of AHS this summer and it’s set to premiere in Fall 2013.
Currently, AHS: Asylum airs Wednesday nights at 10PM on FX.
This official poster serves as a reminder that HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones returns for its third season on March 31, 2013.
Update (11/19): A promo teaser joins the promo poster after the jump. There is no actual footage from the upcoming season; what we get is this fiery and icy quote: “The great war is between death and life, ice and fire. If we lose, the night will never end.” Continue reading TV poster: ‘Game of Thrones’ season 3 [Update: promo teaser inside]→
Could House of Cardsbe a game-changer in terms of original content distribution? That’s where we last left off when Netflix announced it would be exclusively streaming a new show from executive producer David Fincher (The Social Network) and Kevin Spacey. The streaming giant released a trailer for the “wicked political drama [that] penetrates the shadowy world of greed, sex, and corruption in modern D.C.” Kevin Spacey stars as Congressman Francis Underwood, his wife Claire is played by Robin Wright, and together they “stop at nothing to conquer everything.” Kate Mara (American Horror Story) and Corey Stoll co-star.
Production value looks on-par with the best premium cable giants like HBO and Showtime have to offer. Will it attract the same kind of audiences Game of Thrones and Homeland score? We’ll find out shortly after House of Cards premieres on Netflix February 1. Just like the streaming company is doing with new episodes Arrested Development, all thirteen episodes of House of Cards will be made available on day one. No matter its performance, Netflix is committed to two 13-episode seasons of the politically-driven drama.
Was that split-second footage from Star Trek Into Darkness presented by director J.J. Abrams at Conan not enough for you? Starting December 14, select IMAX 3D theatres (approx. 500 of them) playing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will screen the first nine minutes from the Star Trek sequel.
Greg Foster, Chairman and President, IMAX Filmed Entertainment: “Our longtime partners J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk and the Bad Robot team have really hit it out of the park – the footage is absolutely incredible. Their use of the IMAX Camera and canvas is sure to impress current and future Star Trek fans alike, and we’re thrilled to once again work with our friends at Paramount Pictures to offer this extended ‘first look’ at this highly anticipated summer blockbuster.”
Like Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and some movies before it, Into Darkness includes scenes shot with IMAX rigs. According to Deadline, “sequences filmed with the extremely high-resolution cameras will expand to fill more of the screen with unprecedented crispness and clarity, putting moviegoers right into the explosive action and vast scope of the film.”
So if you want a taste of Abrams’ next vision in the Star Trek franchise, run (don’t walk) to your IMAX 3D theatre to experience never-before-seen footage from Into Darkness. The highly anticipated sequel is out May 17, 2013.
It was only a matter of time before Saturday Night Live produced a sketch parodying the uber-popular Showtime series Homeland. Anne Hathaway proved that she’s got what it takes to over-exaggerate Claire Danes’ “crazy” Carrie Matheson, Bill Hader can add yet another spot-on impersonation to his list with his subtle portrayal of Mandy Patinkin’s Saul Berenson, and Taran Killam has the look and just the right sized mouth to pull off a believable Nicholas Brody; Kenan served as David Estes and Nasim popped in at the end for a brief but effective poke at Brody’s annoying daughter Dana. From the re-creation of the opening credits sequence to Carrie’s obsession with corkboards and her quivering chin, SNL did a stand-up job parodying the show that’s on everyone’s DVRs. Though they had the opportunity to do so much more with it (where was Saul’s ruler and peanut butter…anyone?), it’s an instant classic in my book.
Serenity now! The time has come for legions of Firefly fans to return to Joss Whedon’s western-in-space. Tonight the Science Channel airs Firefly: Browncoats Unite, a one-hour special that celebrates the tenth anniversary of the cult show by bringing together Whedon, executive producer Tim Minear, executive story editor Jose Molina, and the entire crew of the Serenity: Nathan Fillion, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin, Morena Baccarin, Alan Tudyk, Gina Torres, and Jewel Staite. The special includes “secrets from the set, exclusive cast interviews, and footage from this year’s colossal Comic-Con panel,” according to Science. Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen leads a “roundtable interview that will dive deeper into burning fan questions about the beloved series.”
Preceding the 10PM airing of Browncoats Unite is a day-long marathon of Firefly the series starting at 7AM on the Science Channel.
After staging a comeback from the depths of cancellation, Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy has managed to survive and thrive into its tenth season which premiere earlier this fall and tomorrow night the FOX animated sitcom will air its 200th episode. MacFarlane is acknowledging the milestone with a special episode titled “Yug Ylimaf” in which Brian fiddles with Stewie’s time machine and accidentally causes time to run in reverse. The logline spills that “he and Stewie must figure out how to restore the forward progress of time before Stewie is unborn.” The episode will relive a bunch of classic moments in Family Guy in reverse, including the unforgettable ipecac barf gag. Following the landmark 200th episode, FOX will air a half-hour retrospective called “200 Episodes Later” that includes a behind-the-scenes look at the long-running series and interviews with MacFarlane, producers, and the voice cast.
Sneak a peek at the one-hour Family Guy event set to air this Sunday at 9PM on FOX in the video embedded above.
Fringe spoilers follow; if you haven’t watched the episode “An Origin Story” do not read ahead.
At the end of the episode “An Origin Story,” Fringe took Peter Bishop’s character in a bold new direction. After interrogating a captured Observer, Peter discovered and removed a chip from the back of the baldie’s noggin. “You are nothing but tech,” Peter lashed out to the Observer. “I would be ten times what you are if I had that tech in my head.” In a fit of rage following the recent death of his daughter Etta at the hands of the Observers, Peter lodged the tech into the back of his head and thus began his journey of revenge. He must’ve forgotten what Anil told him an episode prior: “A person who embarks on a path of revenge should first dig two graves.”
So what can we expect from this transformed Peter? In an interview clip embedded above, Jackson shares that “once [Peter] has the tech in his head he’s kinda drunk on his own power all of a sudden” and that “Peter as we know him is very rapidly slipping away.”
And if you watched last night’s episode “Through the Looking Glass and What Peter Found There” we got a glimpse of Peter’s new abilities, though the tech doesn’t seem to be fully affecting his capacity to show emotion…yet. Just as Olivia starts to reach out to Peter, he pushes himself further away by injected the Observer tech into his head. Olivia’s portrayer Anna Torv discusses this topic in the clip.
Minor spoiler from “Through the Looking Glass…” follows. Jackson makes an interesting point in the clip at the end when he mentions that Peter and his father Walter are experiencing “parallel lives.” Jackson is undergoing a transformation thanks to the Observer tech, and Walter is similarly changing ever since Etta and Simon installed the missing parts of Walter’s brain in the pivotal “future episode” 419 last season. Walter made an emotional realization at the end of last night’s episode: “I’m not safe. It’s my mind. Ever since the pieces of my brain were reimplanted, it’s been changing me back into the man I was before. Bit by bit. I’m losing myself, Peter. I’m losing the man that you helped me become.” He’s afraid that he is transforming back into the “arrogant” man he used to be during the days he experimented with William Bell. It will be interesting to watch these parallel character transformations unfold as we enter the final stretch of episodes. Peter promises that he will not let Walter lose himself, but can he keep his word if he’s losing himself to the Observer tech?
Star Wars is making a comeback after Disney’s recent acquisition of Lucasfilm; that we know. Who will direct? Who will write the coveted screenplay? Today we have a definitive answer to the latter question. Award-winning writer Michael Arndt will pen the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode VII. He is best known for writing Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3; he also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. According to a news brief directly from the official Star Wars website, Star Wars creator George Lucas (who is serving as creative consultant on the project), newly appointed head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy (the film’s executive producer), and Arndt have commenced story conferences and Episode VIIis slated to release in 2015.
The Star Wars fanbase is a rabid one, so the pressure is on for Arndt to deliver.
After reports of numerous setbacks including reshoots and rewrites, the film adaptation of Max Brooks’ popular novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is on track to release June 21, 2013. Directed by Marc Forster (Quantam of Solace, Finding Neverland) and written by Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play) with help from Damon Lindelof (Prometheus) and Drew Goddard (Cloverfield), World War Z stars Brad Pitt as a United Nations worker attempting to stop widespread zombie outbreak. Despite the public setbacks, the material stitched together in this first-look trailer is exciting and intriguing to say the least. Unlike the walkers Rick Grimes has to face in AMC’s The Walking Dead, the zombies here are mighty fast and travel in extremely large hordes. The plan is to expand Brooks’ novels (“Z” is preceded by two “Zombie Survival Guides”) into a trilogy of movies, all depending on how the first one performs at the box office. With a trailer as suspenseful and intense as this, anticipating World War Z‘s release won’t be hard to do.
Cudder’s released a self-directed music video for the first single off his upcoming fourth studio album Indicud. Along with featured guest King Chip and a young group of ragers, Kid Cudi mellows out and has fun partying it up and driving around town. You’ll notice that the video is framed inside a boarder that’s accustomed to holding artwork. “All my videos will be in a baroque frame. I create art, so it will be presented as such. ART IN MOTION,” explained Cudi in a tweet.
Watch the music video above, download the single here, and anticipate the second single “Immortal” coming soon.
This Tuesday Halo 4 releases for Xbox 360 and a new trilogy forges on. In the original trilogy developer Bungie introduced us to the iconic Master Chief and we controlled the super-solider as he discovered the Halo Array and the Ark, crippled the alien alliance known as the Covenant, and battled the parasitic Flood. After going on to release a prequel to Halo 3 designated ODST and a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved with Halo: Reach, Bungie handed the franchise’s reigns to a new developer, 343 Industries. Halo 4 brings us back into control of the Chief, and we find him just where we left him at the end of Halo 3 in 2007; he’s aboard the UNSC ship Forward UntoDawn, floating in space drifting toward a mysterious Forerunner planet called Requiem. Chief’s last words were delivered to Cortana, his AI companion, and they were, “Wake me, when you need me.” Halo 4, in addition to providing addicting online multiplayer modes, will delve deeper into the franchise’s mythology as Master Chief inadvertently crash lands on a Forerunner planet infested with Covenant, Forerunner technology, and, according to the game’s marketing, “an ancient evil awakens.” And on top of that, there’s something wrong with Cortana; she is going “rampant” (or insane) because she is operating beyond her natural lifespan.
Excited yet? Let me give you a boost…
Leading up to the release of Halo 4, Microsoft Studios and 343 Industries developed a five-part live-action web series set in the Halo universe. Forward UntoDawn follows a group of freshman cadets at the UNSC’s Corbulo Academy of Military Science and places particular focus on troubled cadet Thomas Lasky. The story takes fans to the beginning of the Human/Covenant war and it seamlessly weaves into where things kick off in Halo 4. The series is a bold journey into the Halo universe and it tells a compelling story worth investing your time in, especially if you’re a fan of the franchise. The acting and special effects are surprisingly effective, and in addition to amping you up for the new game it will also make you wish a Halo miniseries a la HBO’s Band of Brothers was made. Forward UntoDawn can be viewed online at Machinima or on your console via the Halo Waypoint app.
