Everyone's favorite fantasist has gone and made a stealth film. Also today: Melanie Griffith gets a new gig, so does Jenna Elfman, and E! embarks on a terrible new journey.

  • Beloved cult writer/director Joss Whedon has made a secret movie! No one knew he made it except the people he made it with, but now everyone knows about it! It is called Much Ado About Nothing and it is based on a little-known play by obscure British dramatist "William Shakespeare." (It's a modern version, so don't get your hey nonny nonnys in a bunch, Branagh purists.) The movie, which was filmed over 12 days in Santa Monica, stars lots of Whedon regulars, including the wonderful Amy Acker as Beatrice, Alexis Denisof as Benedick, as well as Nathan Fillion, Fran Kranz, and Clark Gregg. The movie will be done with post-production in the spring and will then try to hit the festival scene. So there you have it! No supernatural ghoulies, no magic superheroes. Just regular old California romance with Joss Whedon's repertory company. Sounds fun! [THR]
  • It seems like just yesterday Melanie Griffith was having hotdogs for dinner (it was two weeks ago), and now she is set to star in a new pilot for Lifetime: Television for Playing In the Background While You Play Words With Friends and Drink Too Much Wine. The show is called American Housewife, and is about a single French man. No, hahahah, no no no, it's about a housewife in America. Specifically it concerns "a mother of two children who has conversations with her inner voice while dealing with one of her kids leaving home for college and the other remaining at home." Oh. Hm. So it's about a lonely woman who talks to herself. Hm. That's just a little too on the nose for Lifetime, isn't it? Ah well, congrats to Ms. Griffith! And to her husband, the kid from Milk Money Antonio Banderas, who is producing. [Deadline]
  • CBS's kaffeeklatsch show The Talk continues to be a dumping ground for coulda-beens who never quite were. Aisha Tyler, she of Talk Soup and an unfortunate airplane accident on Ghost Whisperer, has signed on to be the show's newest gabber. On the one hand, yay she has work! On the other, she deserves much better. (And don't say "But she's on Archer!" That does't really count.) [EW]
  • Interesting. Star from recent yesteryear Jenna Elfman has taken a role on the upcoming season of Damages. This is kind of promising? Say what you will about Dharma & Greg and whatever other awful sitcoms she's done since, but Elfman can be something of an appealing actress, as witnessed in EDtv years ago and recently, and bizarrely, in Friends With Benefits. Plus this is a dramatic role and watching comedy actors do drama is always interesting, and something that Damages has done well with in the past. So I say good for this! Elfman joins other season guest stars Ryan Phillipe and John Hannah. Presumably they will all drink brown liquor and do devious things. [Deadline]
  • Oh dear. Blood your doors everyone, the rapture's a'comin'. E! has hired an ABC TV exec to head up their new scripted television division. Yes. E! is planning on doing scripted television, much like MTV, which has been heading more and more in that direction recently. (With, actually, a few decent successes — the charming Awkward., the frustratingly addictive Teen Wolf.) Oh god, can you even imagine what E! scripted shows will be like? Lots of "bitchiness" masquerading as humor and, like, TMZ jokes? What else could it be? Could it possibly be good? I fear for the future. I fear for it indeed. No fate. [THR]
  • Kevin Bacon saw Footloose at a movie theater in Boston and he liked it. So there, naysayers. So there. [EW]

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