Finally, a Male 'Will & Grace'
Today: CBS has a turkey on its hands, Jon Favreau acts again, and ABC, well, has a turkey on its hands.
.The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: CBS has a turkey on its hands, Jon Favreau acts again, and ABC, well, has a turkey on its hands.
CBS has released full trailers for their new shows for next season, among them Partners, the new sitcom from Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnik and David Kohan, about two pals, one straight and one gay, based on Mutchnik and Kohan's real life friendship. The series stars Michael Urie, David Krumholz, Sophia Bush, and, somewhat inexplicably, Superman himself Brandon Routh. So we knew all that back when the show was getting put together, but here we basically see a recap of the entire first episode in three minutes, and yiiiikes, guys. Yi-yi-yi-yikesss. It does not look good! Maybe the full 23 minutes are a thing of tremendous humorous beauty, but this clip, supposedly of the highlights, is not. Did you know that Michael Urie was in Jessica Chastain's class at Juilliard? He was. True fact. Just something to think about while you watch this preview. We'll put the previews for the other CBS shows at the bottom of this post. [via Deadline]
Jon Favreau will be returning to the Iron Man franchise, but only as an actor. He'll be reprising the role of Happy Hogan the bodyguard in the third film, which just started shooting this week in North Cahhlina. Of course Favreau directed the first two Iron Man movies, but has passed the torch to Shane Black for this one, because it's probably pretty exhausting to keep directing all that machine whirring and whizzing and Tony Stark patented Stark Snark™. But he wanted to keep hanging out with Downey, Gywnnie and the gang in some capacity, so there he is. Must be nice. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Er oh. The new ABC singin' show Duets, which is not-a so good, debuted to pretty dim numbers. Over the two-hour broadcast, 6.7 million people tuned in and the show earned a 1.7 Nielsen rating, considerably lower than its competitor So You Think You Can Dance. So that's not terribly encouraging! But it's also not that big of a deal because there are only like nine episodes total of this thing, so they'll just burn it off and that'll be that. But for those of you who were hoping for Duets II: Retaliation, well... Don't hold your breath, probably. [Variety]
Lifetime: Television For People With Wine-Stained Slankets has found a costar for Lindsay Lohan in the much-chatted about Liz Taylor/Richard Burton biopic. Grant Bowler, from Ugly Betty and True Blood (and briefly Lost), will play Burton opposite Lohan's Taylor, so... that'll be interesting. Burton was like seven years older than Taylor, while Bowler is like 18 years older than Lohan. But, Lohan isn't exactly the youthful sprite she once was, so maybe it'll all work out. It's not like Lifetime is known for being a hallmark of perfect accuracy, anyway. I mean, in real life Jennifer Love Hewitt doesn't even know what a handjob is! So let's all calm down. [The Wrap]
Oof. The actress Amy Huberman has been fired from the new Justin Kirk show Animal Practice and replaced with JoAnna Garcia. Like, fired after the show was picked up, she's in the official previews and everything. That's pretty brutes. But Garcia was available after a couple other pilots fell through and maybe they needed a bigger name than Humberman (not that JoAnna Garcia is some huge name, despite having two capital letters in the first part of it, but still) and it all happened. Cruel business, Hollywood. Cruel, cruel business. We suppose it's possible that Huberman knew she was just filler the whole time, but still, that's pretty cruel. [Deadline]
Here are the rest of those new show promos from CBS. The first is Elementary, the Sherlock Holmes thing with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. It actually doesn't look terrible? Mostly because Miller and Liu are likable, but also it could be a lot cheesier than it seems to be. I mean, it's basically The Mentalist with a British accent, but whatever. New York-filmed shows are fun.
Next is Made in Jersey which looks pretty terrible and will probably not last long, but that girl's accent is pretty good considering she's a posh Brit in real life.
And then there's the fancy period show Vegas, about Las Vegas in 1960. It might be OK, but mob shows where you can't swear feel sort of useless, don't they?