Joel and Ethan Coen are teaming up with Cedar Rapids' writer Phil Johnson on their first TV project. It's called Harve Karbo, it's an hour-long single-camera comedy about a private detective in L.A. who frequently encounters big Hollywood names while on the job, and it's got a script plus penalty commitment from Fox. The Coen Brother's famed dark humor and subtle sensibilities are going to fit in great with American Dad. Grade: A [HR]
Kiefer Sutherland will make a dramatic return to television with Touch, which was just given a 13-episode order from Fox. Created by Heroes’ Tim Kring, it stars Sutherland as the father of a mute 11 year old who communicates through numbers. Along with his social worker pal Gugu Mbatha-Raw and gifted-children expert Danny Glover, Kiefer attempts to figure out the meaning of his son’s coded messages. Presumably, those messages are more insightful than your standard 11-year old’s “I want Burger King”? Grade: B+ [HR]
Alex Proyas’s adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost is adding a few names: Casey Affleck, who’ll star as Gabriel, the six-winged angel who teams up with the angel Michael (Ben Walker) to fight Lucifer (Bradley Cooper); and Camilla Belle, who’ll star as Eve, of Adam and Eve fame. Hopefully this movie is a massive success, if only to see easily swayed Hollywood execs attempt other poetry adaptations. Grade: B+ [HR, Deadline]
The writers responsible for The Smurfs — David Stem, David Weiss, Jay Scherick, and David Ronn — will be back for Smurfs 2. In fact, because the live-action/CGI combo thing takes so long to produce, they’ve already turned in a draft of the screenplay for the 2013 sequel. People hoping for topical political humor are probably out of luck. Grade: C [HR]
Sarah Silverman’s working on a new show — about a woman re-entering single life after a decade long committed relationship — and ABC, NBC, and FOX all want it. Also, it’s being produced by Ron Howard’s Imagine TV, and Howard is apparently so into the concept that he’s tagging along to pitch meetings. Can they just make a show about Ron Howard and Sarah Silverman in pitch meetings? Grade: B+ [Deadline]
Following weeks of intense negotiations, Sony and AMC have reached a deal to produce 16 final episodes of Breaking Bad. Those episodes will be filmed together but may or may not be split into two seasons depending on how many Emmys Bryan Cranston feels like winning. Grade: A+ [Vulture]
On Saturday, Captain America's Hayley Atwell (29 years old), Clash of the Titans' Alexa Davalos (29), and Made in Dagenham's Rosamund Pike (32) auditioned for a role in Paramount's Jack Reacher movie, One Shot, opposite Tom Cruise (49). Grade: C- [HR]
Sorry, Dirk. Tom Cruise is now confirmed to play crime-fighting drifter Jack Reacher in One Shot, Paramount's adaptation of Lee Child's best-selling thriller, to be directed by Usual Suspects writer Christopher McQuarrie. Initial reports of Cruise's possible casting caused an uproar among fans of Child's books last month, since Racher is 6'5" tall and Cruise is only 5'7". Said the author at the time: "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way." Maybe his performance will be motion-captured. Grade: C+ [Deadline]
Game of Thrones' Sean Bean will play more royalty, this time the king in the family-friendlier, slightly less ridiculous-sounding one of the two competing upcoming Snow White movies. He'll be the dad to Snow White (Lily Cole) and husband to her Oscar-tarnishing apple-poisoning stepmom (Julia Roberts). Grade: B- [HR]
