Kings

• Vanessa Hudgens will reportedly star in Beastly, a Manhattan-set, modern-day take on Beauty and the Beast, based on Alex Flinn's young-adult novel. — ComingSoon
• Christopher Gorham will return as Henry in the finale of Ugly Betty. — Entertainment Weekly
• Simon Cowell claims he'd leave American Idol if it stopped being the No. 1 show. — The Hollywood Reporter
• The 3-D "motion picture event," Disney's A Christmas Carol will screen at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, May 18. — ComingSoon
• NBC is pulling Kings from the schedule starting this week; it's set to resume June 13. — Zap2it
• A "major character from the first two seasons" will show up in the Desperate Housewives finale. — TV.com
• Comedian Demetri Martin will star alongside Brad Pitt in the film adaptation of Moneyball. — Variety
• ABC has announced the cast of The Superstars, which pairs athletes and celebrities for a competition. — The Futon Critic

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• Once Pushing Daisies is done, the final episodes of Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money will also air Saturday nights on ABC this Summer. — Entertainment Weekly
• Borat director Larry Charles is in talks to direct the comedy Winter's Discontent about a "sexually frustrated widower" who moves into a retirement community. — ComingSoon
• NBC's Kings has been bumped from Sunday to Saturday. — TV.com
• Moonlight's Alex O'Loughlin is in line to play the lead opposite Jennifer Lopez in the romantic comedy The Back-Up Plan (aka Plan B). — Zap2It
• HBO has renewed Eastbound and Down for a second season. — TV Guide
• The iTunes price changes for popular songs have gone into effect. — geeksugar
• Diane Keaton and Jeff Goldblum have signed on to join Harrison Ford and Rachel McAdams in the comedy Morning Glory. — Variety
• Leonard Nimoy is reportedly playing a pretty major role in the Fringe finale. — E!
• Kiss's upcoming US and Canadian tour will be entirely routed based on demand at event-based social networking site Eventful. — Billboard

Photos copyright 2009 ABC, Inc.

NBC's Kings, which premieres tonight, is a vastly ambitious series, set in an alternate universe at a time of war and based on the Biblical story of David and Goliath. It has a fantastic cast, including Ian McShane as the powerful King Silas and relative newcomer Christopher Egan as young David. And while it doesn't necessarily get everything right in tonight's two-hour premiere, I'm curious to see how the show develops in the coming weeks.

Tonight's premiere introduces us to Gilboa, a fictional modern world, where a war is raging. In the first two hours, we're introduced to the main players — including David, who leads a mission that ends up saving the king's son. He's swept into a magestic, upper-class world, and watching him deal with sudden fame is one of the more intriguing parts of the premiere.

The show's pacing is a bit odd — events in the first two hours either happen very quickly or seem to take forever to develop — and the Bible parallels are a bit heavy-handed at first, as though the writers wanted to make very sure that we get what they're doing here. But its production is impressive and the acting strong, and I'm looking forward to seeing what turns the show takes next.

Will you check it out tonight? To watch a preview, just read more

NBC's Kings had one of the more infamous panels at the TCA press tour last Summer, complete with star Ian McShane berating reporters. Lost in the drama, though, was the fact that the clips we saw of the show actually looked pretty great. Set to the regal sounds of Coldplay's "Vida la Vida," the show played out like a hypercolor modern version of the David and Goliath story, with McShane as the powerful King Silas Benjamin and relative newcomer Christopher Egan as young David.

Sadly, I never found that trailer online, but a new one popped up on NBC's site recently introducing us to Gilboa, a fictional land which bears the butterfly on its flag (hence all the butterfly imagery throughout). According to the network:

Silas must deal with the tensions rising between Gilboa and neighboring nation Gath. When several prisoners of war are taken, a young soldier, David Shepard, defies orders and crosses enemy lines to save them. Unknown to David, the soldier he saves is Jack Benjamin, the son of the king. From that day forth, David’s life will never be the same.

Sebastian Stan, Allison Miller, and Susanna Thompson also star. The show doesn't have an airdate yet (it's not on NBC's new January schedule), but I'm keeping an eye on it. All the bits and pieces I've seen so far are slick and beautiful, if a little confusing, so I can't wait to experience a full episode. To check out the trailer, just read more

• The Smurfs turned 50 this week! — The Independent
• Ben Stiller may now be the director of The Trial of the Chicago 7. — The Hollywood Reporter
• Macaulay Culkin has joined the cast of Kings on NBC. — Entertainment Weekly
• Cillian Murphy and Jim Broadbent have joined the cast of the comedy-thriller Perrier's Bounty. — Variety
• Crispin Glover is the latest actor to join Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie. Glover will play the Knave of Hearts. — ComingSoon
• Bono has apparently been asked to write a column for the New York Times next year. — Billboard
• There are fears that Cloris Leachman is ruining Dancing with the Stars. — Chicago Sun-Times
• Paramount is negotiating with Chris Columbus to direct its movie Ripley’s Believe It or Not! with Jim Carrey still set to play Robert Ripley. — Variety

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NBC started off this year's Upfronts more than a month early this afternoon, kicking off the frenzy of Fall TV announcements with its no-frills presentation (which took the form of either a PowerPoint presentation or a conference call, depending on where you were). While the format of the announcements wasn't thrilling, the content will give us much to speculate about over the next few months. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

• I think Save Friday Night Lights said this one best: Touchdown! The Friday Night Lights/DirecTV deal had been sounding like a sure thing for a while, but it's nice to know for sure that the Panthers will live to play another season. There are more details over here about how the partnership will work, but the short version is that episodes will start airing on DirecTV in October and then be broadcast at 9 p.m. on Fridays on NBC starting in February. I wonder, though, if people will actually wait for the NBC episodes or if BitTorrent and YouTube will be the real beneficiaries here.
• The spinoff of The Office is . . . mysterious, to say the least. NBC issued a separate press release about the show, but it's quite vague: "Audiences will follow another comic journey, complete with new faces and new locations, but with the same unique sense of humor and brand of quality from Daniels and his creative team." NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman said they were keeping a lid on things because Office fans are so rabid; when asked if characters from the main show would appear on the spinoff, he responded: "There's a huge ensemble on The Office right now . . . " Come on, man. A title? A setting? Anything?
• More on that: Back in October, most of you thought a spinoff would be a bad idea. Now that it's happening, how do you feel? What's your dream setting for the show? Have you changed your mind about which characters it should focus on? Best suggestion I've heard so far: the warehouse.
• Also, it's worth mentioning that the big headline from last Spring's NBC Upfront was a Heroes spinoff, and, well, we know how that turned out.
• My gal Liberty is wondering what you think of NBC's plan to put special "Weekend Update" segments on the air on Thursdays leading up to the Presidential election in November. There certainly should be enough political mockery to go around by then.

Some other thoughts, plus the full night-by-night schedule, so just read more

Once, he played a cunning criminal. Now, he's ruling an ancient nation.

Deadwood's Ian McShane has joined the cast of NBC's drama Kings, which is based on the life of the Biblical king of Israel. He will play King Silas, modeled on the Bible's King Saul, who welcomes David (Christopher Egan) into his court but ultimately becomes jealous and vengeful toward him.

Kings hasn't shot a pilot yet, but it's rumored to be a virtual lock for NBC's Fall schedule, which the network is announcing Wednesday, weeks before any of the other major networks unveil their lineups.

I'm guessing McShane won't get to be as, er, profane on NBC as he was on HBO. But I'm glad to see the Golden Globe winner taking on another powerful and authoritative role. Deadwood fans, do you think you'll be able to believe McShane as royalty rather than an outlaw?

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