Will Arnett Tries Again
Everyone's favorite cult comedy actor is saddling up for yet another television show. Will this one stick? Let's hope so. Also today: Arnold Schwarzenegger announces his next move, TV actors leave and join pilots, and John Travolta is so gangsta.
- Will Arnett has gained the kind of cult following that is surely the envy of many an actor. And yet he's never quite caught on the way some of his peers have. Sure Arrested Development is a touchstone of comedy genius, but that was many years and one Running Wilde ago. So it's with cautious optimism that we read today that he's been cast on a Lorne Michaels-produced pilot alongside similarly-careered Christina Applegate. He'll play a stay-at-home dad to Applegate's harried working mom. Not the most promising-sound concept, but it's something! It does seem to indicate, however, that he will not be taking over on The Office, as had been rumored. Ah well. Probably for the best. [THR]
- Hm. Hard to know how to feel about this one. On the one hand, it's great to hear that the great Margot Martindale has been cast on that TV pilot that has Jennifer Ehle and Patrick Wilson in it, but on the other it's sad to hear that Martindale is replacing the also great S. Epatha Merkerson. Can't they just do a different show together? Some kind of melancholy Cagney & Lacey type thing? Nothing unmarketable about that! Also in this item is news that Gary Marshall's spirit animal, Hector Elizondo, has been cast in the Tim Allen pilot. Tim Allen, Nancy Travis, AND Hector Elizondo on a television show? 1992 called, it wants its celebrities back. [Deadline]
- Speaking of Margot Martindale, the show she is currently tearing it up on, Justified, has won a distinguished Peabody Award, awarded by a bunch of people on Boston's North Shore who like TV. Well, no, but it is for excellence in television and other media. Justified was justifiably joined by The Good Wife and somewhat less so by The Pacific. [The Wrap]
- As has long been rumored, John Travolta will indeed be playing mobster John Gotti in an upcoming biopic. As Gotti used to say, "Leave the gun, take the Learjet full of twinks." [THR]
- So the bad news is that the In Treatment that you know and maybe love (do we love it? I'm on the fence about this show — good acting, but sometimes criminally boring and a tad cliche-ridden, no?) will not exist after this season. The good news is that an In Treatment that you don't know could continue. HBO announced yesterday that is ending the show in its current format, but is working to figure out a way to keep the thing rolling depressingly into the future. The popular theory seems to be that they'll do away with the four-times-a-week thing and just have a concentrated hour every week. Which would sort of make sense. They really seem to like veering into Gabriel Byrne's character's personal life, and have had a hard time shoehorning that into their strict format. My suggestion? They change the show title to Dane DeHaan Makes Out with Boys for a Half Hour. It practically writes itself! [Deadline]
- Oh good grief. Former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to lend his voice to a new cartoon called The Governator that will also be a comic book. Basically it's about Ahnuld leaving the governor's office and going back to Brentwood, where he has a super-secret superhero lair in the basement from which he launches assaults against the criminal underbelly. Arnold Schwarzenegger: Bringing dignity to political office since 2003. [EW]
[Photo via Getty]