The Kennedys Killed The Kennedys
The canceled miniseries may have been canceled due to family pressure. Also today: Glee will not be saluting Justin Bieber, your favorite shows have been renewed, and Wicked heads to the small screen. No, not that Wicked. Not really.
No surprise here: The History Channel's scuttled miniseries The Kennedys, about the Kennedy clan, was shelved partly because of influence from Camelot progeny Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver-The Barbarian. Typical story of a powerful family exerting their power to protect their powerful family. Supposedly some guy from Showtime is watching the miniseries this week and will maybe make a bid to bring it over to that network. (But there aren't any swears! What's the point??) Meanwhile, we can watch lesser-known minseries like The Fords, in which the whole family just sort of bumbles around an empty field and says "Well... gee" a lot, or The Harrisons, in which everyone dies by the end of the first episode. (More president miniseries jokes in comments, plz. Something about The Tafts being on TLC maybe?) [THR]
Here's a cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Jeremy Northam, and Christopher Walken have all signed on to A Late Quartet, a drama about a famous musical quartet. Though this is independent now, clearly it will be scooped up by a big studio and positioned as a summer tent-pole picture, maybe for Fourth of July weekend, because this thing's got blockbuster written all over it. [Deadline]
Uh oh. ABC is developing a miniseries based on Wicked. Hey hey hey, calm down, turn down the original Broadway cast recording, stop shrieking "Idinaaaa!!!," why don't you go play sports outside with the other boys. It's not based on the musical. It's based on the musical's source material, the novel by Gregory Maguire. So, as in, there's no music. Specifically, there's no "Popular" and there's no "Defying Gravity" and there's no "Dancing Through Life." (A song whose simple meaning people seem to misunderstand, as "dancing through life" in the song's context is supposed to be a bad thing, not a fun quote to put on your AIM buddy info. Sincerely, 2004.) There is none of that. So just chill the fuck out. No I haven't seen Shoshana Bean do Elphaba. I'm sure Laura Bell B. was a great Glinda. Yeah, I don't think Adam Lambert makes a masculine enough Fiyero either. Y'know... I think it's time you moved on from all of this. I real do. The rest of us moved on years ago. We don't defy gravity anymore. In some ways, maybe we never did. [TV Line]
Ugh. Baz Luhrmann might shoot his Great Gatsby movie, supposedly starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, in 3D. Because that's necessary. Sure. Well, OK, he was sort of talking about Blu-Ray, which is another word for 3D? What is Blu-Ray? Are we always going to have to wear stupid glasses to watch movies in the next few years? Honestly, what is Blu-Ray? [THR]
Though it was rumored, there will not be a Justin Bieber-themed episode of Glee. There will be a performance of one of his songs, by resident mouth-angel Chord Overstreet of course, but that's it. Not a whole episode. That would be ludicrous. I mean, does he have another song other than that "Baby Baby Ooo" one? I will confess that that song was maybe my drunken 3 am dance party jam last spring. A staff member or two at this very company can confirm this. BUT. I know none of his other songs, I don't think, so what would they have done? Just "Baby" over and over again? Actually, I wouldn't mind that. Get on it, Overstreet! [EW]
ABC has gone and renewed your favorite shows! You know, your favorite shows like Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice and Castle. Oh man you love those shows. They really are just your favorite. What with Owen and Teddy and Addison and Cooper and Castle and all them. You love those shows so much, and you will get to watch them next year all over again. Your friend will have you over to watch them and you two can drink not-too-much wine and gasp and giggle at all the sexy adventures, and then when it's over you'll drive home in your Honda back to your condo in the development that's getting kinda run down these days, certainly not new anymore, and Bali the cat, named after you read Eat Pray Love, will be waiting by the sliding glass doors, so you'll feed him and then you'll go sit by the computer for a while, no light on, just the cold blue glow of the monitor, and you'll go to a fan site to read a few spoilers about next week's episode. And then you'll think about Greg and if he ever regrets any of it, if Colorado is nice, if it's weird to have a whole new life. But then you'll push that out of your head and bedtime it will be, Bali meowing quietly from the darkened carpeted living room, the central air droning on and on and on, like it does every night, every week, every new season. [TV By the Numbers]