It turns out that Lizzy Caplan wasn't kidding when she said she'd be loyal to Party Down until the bitter end. CBS is reportedly close to giving the comedy Mad Love a 13-episode pick-up for midseason, without Caplan on board. Caplan was in the original pilot but wouldn't accept any overtures of commitment from CBS because of Party Down, and now it looks like her role is being recast with -- fingers crossed -- Judy Greer as the frontrunner. A television landscape with Party Down still airing and Judy Greer on a network show? Yes please. [Deadline]
As we've learned from the plights of Patton Oswalt and Ryan Devlin this spring, no one is ever really safe from the pilot season recasting phenomenon. The latest actors to be cut just as their pilot goes to series are Tate Donovan and Christina Chang, who were quietly dismissed from ABC's superhero series No Ordinary Family after creator Greg Berlanti decided there wasn't much he could do with their characters. Both actors were told that they could still maybe return to the series in guest star capacities. [EW]
· Aaaand here's your domestic, non-Cannes version of the Gulliver's Travels poster, starring Jack Black. Click for bigger.
· Betty White released a statement about the death of Rue McClanahan: "Rue was a close and dear friend. I treasured our relationship. It hurts more than I even thought it would, if that's even possible."
· Remember when New Line asked John Waters to write an insane treatment for Hairspray 2? Yeah, that's not happening anymore.
· "[Robin Wright] is a ghost to me now," Sean Penn tells Vanity Fair. "We spent all those years together.... Now she's just gone."
· Jennifer Gilbert was supposed to be a featured cast member on this season of Real Housewives of New York City, but Bravo virtually excised three months of footage because she was too boring.
Vice president Joe Biden and his wife Jill were the guests of honor at Wednesday night's eighth annual Sesame Workshop Gala, where the couple was recognized for their efforts on behalf of military families. The event raised $2.2 million for the organization, no doubt aided by its "'huge' surprise when Snuffleupagus made a rare public appearance." I hope Biden's microphone was off; you know how emotional he can get over big f***ing deals. [Sesame Workshop]
If you could not make it to Carrie Fisher's one-woman Broadway show, HBO has got the remedy for you: The premium cable network announced a feature-length documentary today that will include interviews, archival clips and footage of Fisher's June 25 show at the South Orange Performing Arts Center in Orange, NJ. Fisher's act is based on her memoir Wishful Drinking, which chronicles her life as the "daughter of Hollywood inbreeding." World of Wonder Prods. will co-produce the project. [Variety]
The sexual oversharing stakes were recently upped when Alison Brie wrote a story about her early days as a self-described "Queen of Copulation." Now it's Sarah Silverman's turn, and in an excerpt from her new book published on Nerve, she details the bloody loss of her virginity. It's actually kind of sweet, and the only objectionable gross-out joke comes at Mario Cantone's expense. Who knew? [Nerve]
So you might have heard New World and Princess Kaiulani star Q'orianka Kilcher was arrested at the White House on Tuesday during a political protest with her mother Saskia. Awww! Not as cute: Mom was witnessed dumping "a black substance" on the 20-year-old, who was chained to a fence. Now that's bonding. The duo was said to be protesting the visit of Peruvian president Alan Garcia (Kilcher's father is Peruvian); Saskia was charged with defacing government property while Q'orianka was charged with disorderly conduct. Court dates are expected to follow this week. [AP]
Another grim, alarming summer of celebrity demises seems underway. The sad latest: Golden Girls star Rue McClanahan passed away earlier this morning after suffering a massive stroke. She was 76.
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Hot on the heels of the leaked Marvel concept art that gave us our first look at Chris Evans in his Captain America costume, Collider's gotten similar pictures that show Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Just to make things fun, we've hidden it in a photo collage above, but if you're having trouble picking out which is the real concept art and which is just a videogame character, we've got the full-sized image below. Enjoy!
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· Opening-night tickets to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: $12.
· Special-edition Twilight Saga DVD box set: $70
· Antidepressants while waiting for the opening of Breaking Dawn: $845.
· Spending your last penny via refillable Twilight MasterCards: Priceless.
See all eight -- including Team Jacob, Team Edward and Team Three-Way Cockblock -- after the jump.
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So there's this documentary called Burzynski opening this week in New York City. I haven't seen it and had never even heard of it before last night. But oh, what an introduction at The Village Voice, where critic Ella Taylor -- perhaps still rinsing bile residue after her Sex and the City 2 takedown -- absolutely trashed the film, its subject and its director. And then came the defenders trashing Taylor. Wait -- what the hell is a Burzynski again?
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Sony and director Ryan Murphy may not have had much to say about their strategy to reverse Eat Pray Love's initial R-rating, but either way it worked. Murphy and producer Dede Gardner successfully (and perhaps predictably) made their case for a softer rating, turing an R for "brief strong language" into a PG-13 for "brief strong language, some sexual references and male rear nudity." Yeah, it makes no sense to me either, but all that matters is that all those pending mother-daughter bonding trips are on. [THR]
Warner Bros. TV has officially pulled the plug on The New Adventures of Old Christine. After CBS surprisingly canceled Christine last month, ABC toyed with the idea of reviving the Julia Louis-Dreyfus series but could not afford the license fee. The network opted out of reviving the other hit that CBS canceled unexpectedly, Ghost Whisperer, last week. [Deadline]
Victoria's Secret model, Girlfriend of Statham and human product placement Rosie Huntington-Whiteley received an official introduction today by way of MichaelBay.com -- which left the second "E" out of her surname, but hey. With RHW's sultry, nude Russian Harper's Bazaar cover providing the accompaniment, no one's reading the words anyway. That said, there is some news about shooting that's currently underway in L.A. (and soon to follow elsewhere) if you're interested.
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· Like much of the rest of the moviegoing world, Sam Mendes is kind of over waiting for MGM to get its affairs in order and develop the next James Bond film. So the filmmaker has reportedly knocked the project to the back burner and picked up the planned stage-musical adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novella On Chesil Beach. He wants Carey Mulligan for the latter. The schedule has also bumped Mendes from his attachment to direct Disney's The Great and Powerful Oz, which is fine, since Tim Burton will probably wind up doing it anyway with... you know. [Deadline]
Sigourney Weaver will fulfill her closely held dream of working with Taylor Lautner, Fox Searchlight is playing with its Oscar formula, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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