Goodbye 'Borgias'
Today in showbiz news: Showtime is ceasing its relationship with the papacy, a beloved (?) character leaves Shameless, and Django bombs in China.
.Today in showbiz news: Showtime is ceasing its relationship with the papacy, a beloved (?) character leaves Shameless, and Django bombs in China.
Showtime and show creator Neil Jordan have decided to end The Borgias after three seasons, so the June 16 season finale will actually be the series finale. Apparently when they were filming a big scene for the finale episode, series star Jeremy Irons said he felt like it was an ending and Jordan agreed, even though he'd planned to do a fourth season. So he told Showtime that he could end things with a movie, but they deemed that too expensive, so everyone decided to just end things here. Jordan says he's happy with how it all wraps up, though the movie ending would have been better and more concrete, with the bad pope (played by Irons) dying and burning in hell. I'm not sure how literal Jordan's being about that "burning in hell" part, but it would have been pretty great if he really does mean for-real hell. Oh well. I'm sure everyone will find something else to do. Irons has his budding political career. Joanne Whalley has a movie called Monster Butler with Gary Oldman. Holliday Granger's got that Bonnie and Clyde miniseries that she did with Emile Hirsch. And of course François Arnaud is coming over to watch movies and then we'll probably turn in early. So everyone's fine. [Deadline]
In other Showtime news, Justin Chatwin will not return to Shameless for the show's fourth season. I guess Jimmy really is [SPOILER ALERT] dead. Well, OK, apparently Chatwin might return for one or two episodes next season, but they'll probably be flashbacks or something. I think he's gone. Which is sad! But also OK. His storyline had run its course, and Chatwin wasn't the best actor, so it's probably time he shuffles off. And this means Fiona gets a new love interest! Will it be Evan Chambers, I mean Jake McDorman, again? Or will there be another? I oddly can't wait to find out. Who knew I'd come to like Shameless so much? [The Hollywood Reporter]
Conan O'Brien has been tapped by Turner Classic Movies to host a show called Carson on TCM. The show is basically just old clips from Carson's run on The Tonight Show, specifically interviews. Airing every Monday, the show will have O'Brien introducing five old interviews with various celebrities and other people of note. The show premieres on July 1, and will feature an interview with an E.T.-era Drew Barrymore, along with Kirk Douglas, Mary Tyler Moore, George Burns and Neil Simon. So basically Conan is hosting a Tonight Show clip reel. That's gotta be a little bittersweet. I mean, on the one hand, nice to be asked to do the job. But on the other... He'll be talking about The Tonight Show every week. On basic cable. That's got to be a little difficult for him, right? I don't know. Maybe not. It's Carson! Carson's great. It'll be great. It's fine. [Deadline]
Hm. Apparently Django Unchained was a huge bomb in China. The movie originally came out there in April, but was pulled from theaters by the government almost immediately. It was then edited to tone down the violence a bit — one minute of material excised — and then rereleased in the middle of last month. And, well, nobody wanted to see it. It had to compete with Iron Man, which didn't help, and has only grossed $2.5 million so far. Oops! I guess some things don't translate? Or maybe the delay hurt it. It's possible everyone watched bootlegs while it was being tinkered with so when it finally came out, everyone had already seen it. Or they just didn't care. Whatever the reason, Django Unchained did not fare well in China. It did really well everywhere else, though. So it's fine too. Everything's fine. [The Hollywood Reporter]
J.J. Abrams's production company is developing the final script written by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling before his death. It's called The Stops Along the Way and will be a limited-run TV series (also known by its street name "miniseries"). We don't know what it's about, but I'm sure we can somewhat accurately assume that, given the writer and J.J. Abrams's interest, there's some kind of mystery or sci-fi element to it. Intriguing! Let's just hope it's more Lost season one than season six. [Deadline]
Here's a trailer for the horror movie Insidious 2. Basically Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are having the same ghost/demon problems they were having in the first one, only on a bigger scale. Lots of weird things happen and Patrick Wilson goes down into some sort of demon basement to save his son. OK, sure, fine. Just hurry up and do well so we can get to the third one, Insidious: Spooky-o Drift.