The Hollywood Caller: NBC to Try Something All Together New and Different!

NBC is reaching way down deep into the well of potentially bad ideas; Ellen Barkin to probably be magnificent in scripted television, oops, it’s on NBC; Well maybe it’ll work! Former talk show host to do an Oscar thing to imitate Oscar things she’s done in the past; Lucifer loses an actor; and Denzel to remake 2002 over and over again.

Oh, hell. NBC is making a western. Cripes. So it’s not enough that they fail at nearly everything they attempt, Playboy bunnies, Undercover Agents, Hard-nosed female cop shows, something or other about bounty hunters, or Federal Marshals or whatever. NOW it totally makes sense because AMC has a western show no one watches, NBC needs to get all 1840 and make something called The Frontier which as names of westerns go, you can’t get clearer than that. Next time why not just call it Outlaw or Tumbleweeds? Anyway they’ve finalized casting and there will be a whole bevy of nobody-persons starring in #24 on the NBC Hail Mary list! The show will feature a farmer, a wife, a writer, and another super secret straight married couple who’s really teh geigh. Hey! They attempted to do this in that Playboy Club show before NBC shot it in the face and buried it in the plot next to all of last year’s cancellations. Yes, when in doubt recycle. NBC the plastic landfill of our nightmares. [Deadline]

The fabulous and Twitterrific Ellen Barkin will soon take her discernable talents to NBC (Gah! Again with you!) to play the zany, hopefully surly, and deliciously insane mother to one half of a gay couple who’re adopting a child. The show titled The New Normal, and not, I repeat not, My Two Dads comes from Glee Glitter Elf, Ryan Murphy. So that’s a nice thing. Good for Barkin who’s probably made a dozen Funniest Chick On Twitter lists, so let’s hope NBC and Ryan Murphy give her something good to work with. We’re hoping it’s more on the creative end of American Horror Story and less on the pap, snazzle, yawn end of Glee, which has become that fancy aunt in the charmeuse gown and Crocs who just won’t go home. [Deadline]

Oh, heartland orgasms. Orpah Winnidoodles will now bring her famous Oscar primetime special, that once appeared on the Orpah Winnidoodle ABC daytime talk show, to OWN that place where Rosie O’Donnell and Suze Orman have parties wherein no one attends but Orpah and Dr. Phill. Even famous TV doc Dr. Oz has better things to do than hang out in Orpah’s basement while everyone smiles pretty for the boss and hopes their show doesn’t get canceled and thrown into a wood chipper with poor, fabulous Nate Berkus. Since the original Oscar Primetime special helmed by Barbara Walters ended in 2010, Orpah hopes to pick it up on her network where everyone will forget to watch because something else, somewhere, anywhere, is on. Oh, Orpah, are you ready to admit that this was probably not a good idea? That unless you’re on a channel you don’t need the digital guide to find, no one cares about all your fantastic shows about The Secret To Your Soul And Other Affirmations? No? Okay. Carry on. [Deadline]

French imposter, Bradley Cooper, will have to stop trying to coax his grin-pasted face into a scowl since Legendary Pictures has scrapped plans to shoot Paradise Lost based on the John Milton poem, and was to star Cooper as Lucifer. Oh, ha! Really? He was gonna be Lucifer? Oh, right. You mean Lucifer holding a small chimpanzee, or Lucifer jumping out an airplane, or Lucifer waking up in a seedy hotel in Prague, right? There’s no way we would have bought mug-face, visual ham artist Bradley Cooper as Hell’s number one resident. That seemed like strange casting, but ok, so that’s sad. Bradley has lost his one chance to be deep and affected, and possibly thespian? Well, it’ll probably be okay. We’re sure there’s a movie called Hair Product he’s tapped to co-star in with Blake Lively, from Gossip Headbands, and we dunno, Adam Sandler or something. There, there, Bradley. You’ll be nestled into the navel of blockbuster comedy again soon. [Deadline]

Denzel Washington will continue his “Older Black Guy Pitted Against Younger White Guy” movie streak with Two Guns co-starring Mark Wahlberg of all people. We can’t imagine what Washington is thinking appearing in movies with all these marginally talented young dudes he’s doing movies with recently. Dude, you have an Oscar! These guys have sandwiches, and we dunno, foot fungus. We could kinda get behind Ethan Hawke, but Chris Pine, Ryan Reynolds, and now Funky Bunch Feel It Feel It? This is like having a staring contest with a bunch of lawn furniture. Is this the point? Is this some magic Denzel system we don’t know about? At any rate this graphic novel turned movie will be directed by Baltasar Kormakur the director of the current toilet-filler, Contraband, also starring Mark Wahlberg. Well, okay. Good luck, Denzel. Maybe you’re remodeling a summer home or something and you need marble countertops so this little thriller with Wahlberg will get you the one you wanted imported from Italy. Good thing nobody’s on a train, right? Right? Please tell me no one’s on a train. [THR]

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