BuzzSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 7/22

BuzzSugar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:30:55 -0700

Sam Raimi will direct a live-action movie based on the video game World of Warcraft. - Variety
The Comedy Central series Drawn Together is also getting the feature treatment, but it'll be straight to DVD. - Broadcasting and Cable
Adele, Leona Lewis, Kelly Clarkson, and Miley Cyrus are VH1's new Divas. - E! Online
Uma Thurman will star in the indie drama Girl Soldier, about a woman who helps rescue schoolgirls in Uganda. - ComingSoon
Wipeout will be back with a mostly new obstacle course. - The Hollywood Reporter
Daughtry tops this week's album sales charts. - Billboard
The novel Beginner's Greek will be adapted for film by the screenwriters of 500 Days of Summer. - ComingSoon
Sam Worthington will star in a remake of Danish thriller The Candidate. - Variety

Buzz News Roundup, 12/10

BuzzSugar — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:30:37 -0800

ABC will show Wipeout opposite the Super Bowl. - The Hollywood Reporter
Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler are in negotiations to star together in an untitled comedic bounty hunter movie. - ComingSoon
Five people, including Martha Plimpton, have joined the cast of Matthew Perry's Showtime pilot. - Zap2it
Kiss has decided to hit the studio next year to record its first new album since 1998's Psycho Circus. - Billboard
And speaking of circuses, Britney Spears's album topped the charts this week, making it her fifth No. 1 album. - Billboard
John C. Reilly has signed on to play the love interest to Marisa Tomei's character in an untitled comedy. Jonah Hill will play Tomei's son who comes between the two lovebirds. - Variety
A commencement speech by David Foster Wallace will be turned into a book. - New York Times
Keanu Reeves will play a samurai swordsman in the epic period film 47 Ronin. - ComingSoon

TCA Tidbits: Private Practice, Ashton, Dancing With the Wii

BuzzSugar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:30:12 -0700

Between Katie Holmes, Katherine Heigl, and that hilarious Scrubs panel, ABC's session at the TCA press tour has already been action-packed. And it's only getting nuttier today, when Shonda Rhimes, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and the ladies of Desperate Housewives take the stage. Before we get to that, here are some great stories I didn't get to share on Wednesday:

One of the reasons I'm looking forward to the Private Practice panel: The show is apparently going to go through something of an overhaul. There will be a greater emphasis on strong medical cases, with the hospital playing a greater role and Kate Walsh's character getting back to doing surgery. "When it just became a soap opera about these people's lives it was just a lot of talking," ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson said. "That's not what Shonda does well."
At the start of ABC's session, a special reporter addressed the crowd. Identifying himself as "Tom Weinerman from the Sarasota Star-Herald-Tribune," he asked a series of awkward questions of McPherson, including whether ABC was courting Jay Leno and how McPherson keeps his hair so nice. The secret: "Tom Weinerman" was Jimmy Kimmel, relatively incognito as he sat among the reporters.
McPherson insisted that Life on Mars, ABC's remake of the popular BBC series, isn't troubled - despite the fact that it hasn't shot a pilot, is still casting, and only had two actors (Jason O'Mara and Michael Imperioli) in place in time for its session. The show is ABC's only new drama for Fall, so for the network's sake I hope he's right . . .

A couple of other bits, including a special treat for Dancing With the Stars fans, so just read more.

There will be some changes on Dirty Sexy Money this year, especially with new showrunner John Feldman at the helm. "I think we learned a lot from the show last year," McPherson said. He specifically mentioned being excited to have Lucy Liu on the show.
Ashton Kutcher looked less than engaged during a big part of the session for his new reality show, Opportunity Knocks, in which families are asked to play a game show all about themselves (sample challenge: a dad is given several pieces of pottery and asked to use a hammer to smash the ones that weren't made by his daughter). That said, the show actually looks like it could be pretty adorable - as in, if I were 12 years old, I'd want nothing more than for Ashton to show up at my door and pick my family to compete. Bonus points for JD Roth, who won me over during the session by showing just what it takes to be a good host. Then again, maybe I only have these relatively positive feelings because I'm not one of the critics whose lives were put on display on stage in a real-time version of the game. Ouch.
There's definitely going to be more Wipeout, though it's not clear how much or when. McPherson said he wouldn't mind having a go-to Summer show, and Wipeout could be it.
On Wednesday night, several of the Dancing With the Stars pros gave critics an informal cha-cha lesson. While that was fun(ny), it was nothing compared to watching Derek Hough play the DWTS game for Nintendo Wii (as Apolo Anton Ohno, naturally):

Photo copyright 2008 ABC, Inc.

Will You Be Watching Any of Tonight's Wacky Game Shows?

BuzzSugar — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:30:14 -0700

Tonight's a big night for game shows: Three new ones are premiering, two on ABC and one on NBC, all with different levels of zaniness.

NBC's entry, Celebrity Family Feud, is the most recognizable of the three, as it's the latest in a long series of Family Feud updates. Tonight's show pits Ice T vs. the Rivers clan and Raven-Symone's folks against Wayne Newton's. I'm holding out for The Office vs. American Gladiators.

More curious are the shows making their debut on ABC: Wipeout, otherwise known as that show where people fall all the time, and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. Both are based on common tropes of Japanese game shows, as this New York Times article explains, and both involve humiliation played for laughs.

I saw an extended preview of Wipeout during the upfronts, and the voiceover narration making fun of the mud-covered, dazed contestants made me feel extremely uncomfortable. But I am a little curious to see Japanese Game Show, which I hope will be more wacky and less mean-spirited.

Do you think you'll be watching any of these shows tonight?

Here's What We'll Be Watching on TV This Summer

BuzzSugar — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:30:35 -0700

ABC, CBS, and Fox have joined NBC in releasing their Summer schedules in recent days, and while we're still waiting on The CW, this already gives us a pretty good sense of how the season will look. There's a lot of reality, of course, but at least one cool scripted series is also on the schedule. Here are some of the goodies:

Swingtown, the CBS series about '70s swinger couples, will finally see the light of day! It's scheduled to air Thursday nights at 10 starting June 5.
So You Think You Can Dance will be the centerpiece of Fox's Summer schedule again (yay!), following last year's pattern of performance shows on Wednesdays and results shows on Thursdays. The show will also have a two-night premiere starting Thursday, May 22, and continuing the following Wednesday.
NBC is touting this as its All-American Summer, thanks to the August broadcast of the Summer Olympics. Apparently, a big part of that is American Gladiators, which returns May 12.
The High School Musical reality show, now called High School Musical: Summer Session, will begin airing July 20, taking over both Sundays and Mondays for three weeks and ultimately airing on Mondays until the grand-prize winner is chosen.
ABC's two big reality franchises, The Bachelorette and The Mole, both kick off in May: The Bachelorette starts May 19, while the new edition of The Mole starts May 26.
Last Comic Standing, meanwhile, returns to NBC May 22.

As for other reality shows, there's a ridiculous-sounding crop in the works - many of which were in my spot the fake pilot quiz. To check out a list, just read more.

CBS has Greatest American Dog (dogs and their owners competing on various tasks), Million Dollar Password (like the old-school game show but with celebrities and Regis Philbin as host), and Jingles (contestants have to write jingles pitching products, sports teams, or entertainment options).
ABC has Wipeout (the falling-down game show), I Survived a Japanese Game Show (which ships contestants to Japan and judges them on how best they adapt to the culture, which just sounds odd), and Dance Machine (which pits regular people against each other in "dance-offs" to popular songs).
NBC has two we've already talked about, but they're so crazy I have to mention them again: The Baby Borrowers (teenage couples are entrusted with raising children) and Celebrity Circus (exactly what it sounds like). Luckily, ABC has canceled its own celeb-circus show.

Photos courtesy of CBS, NBC, and ABC, Inc.