'SVU' Forever!
Today: NBC decides to keep a beloved show around, VH1 renews a be-hated show, and Cameron Diaz smartens up.
.The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: NBC decides to keep a beloved show around, VH1 renews a be-hated show, and Cameron Diaz smartens up.
Oh good. NBC announced today that is has renewed its lurid crime procedural show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for a fourteenth season. That is great news! Despite the show being about horrible things like rape and child murder and Ice T, it is just so very entertaining and such a staple of a healthy TV diet. Can you imagine if there wasn't a Law & Order on the air? That would represent a new era of anarchy or something. SVU is the last holdout — L&O: Los Angeles made a perfectly decent effort, but people just weren't having it — so it kind of needed to stick around. Now please, NBC: let us know if Awake is canceled so we can start hoping for the Law & Order return of one of its most crucial aspects, the beloved B.D. Wong. [Entertainment Weekly]
From good TV news to f-ckin' terrible TV news, we learn that VH1 has renewed its show about feral alley cats living on Staten Island, Mob Wives, for a third season. The third go-around will air early next year and will mostly be about the Mob Wives spitting acid at each other like the queen alien in Aliens. Then we'll hear a series of loud bangs and the rest of the season will just be a fixed shot of them lying in a ditch by the side of the highway. Should be thrilling! [Deadline]
Former American Roman Polanski has decided that his next feature film will be a movie called D, a sort of remake O told from Julia Stiles' character's perspective. Ha, nooo, it is not that very random joke premise. It is actually about the Dreyfus Affair, which is how NBC refers to Watching Ellie. SORRY. No it's that old French treason scandal that was very knotty and complex and interesting and this will make a great movie if we can forget for a second that it's directed by Roman Polanski. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Cameron Diaz is returning to drama (where we think she really belongs) for a supporting role in the Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy joint The Counselor. Good for her! This sounds like a solid choice. She'll be acting opposite Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, and Penelope Cruz. She'll be saying Cormac McCarthy's words. And she'll be under the guidance of Ridley Scott (who, OK, can be a bit hit or miss — also, did you know that he is 75??). Diaz is good when she's not the lead and when she surrounds herself with smart people — isn't she kind of the best thing about Being John Malkovich? It's when everyone around her lazily figures they'll feed off her glow so she's stuck saying horrible lines about dating and guys while everyone else just groans and nods their heads that she gets in trouble. So good for this. Well-chosen, Cam'ron D. [Deadline]
Oh dear. Rising British actor Luke Evans, who recently bought a lovely new home back in the closet, has signed on to act in the sixth Fast and the Furious movie. Luke, why? Why, Luke? Sure, he's done worse — Immortals, The Three Musketeers, and The Raven come to mind — and the F & F movies still make a billion dollars every time they come out, but it's the sixth one, Luke m'boy. And you're gonna be in the freakin' Hobbit. Have some self-respect. Although, oh, right, that whole closet thing. Self-respect not an issue. Gotcha. OK. [The Hollywood Reporter]
America's dad (he used to be America's older brother) Tom Hanks might soon be making his Broadway debut in a Nora Ephron play. Tom Hanks and Nora Ephron, together in New York? Too perfect! The play is called Lucky Guy and is about tough Daily News journalist Mike McAlary, who died of cancer in 1998 at a too-young 41. So it will be exciting and sad and probably funny, a perfect thing for everyone's beloved Hanks. Plus George C. Wolfe is directing the thing, so this is basically premium A-grade talent being assembled here. Come on, Hanksy. Hit it out of the park. Don't go all Julia Roberts and totally biff it. (Come back and try again, Julia!) We believe in you, Hanx. [The New York Times]