Lifetime Gets Out of the Happy Ending Business

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Today in show business news: Lifetime cancels Jennifer Love Hewitt's massage parlor show, The Sound of Music finds its kids, and a look at Tilda Swinton as a vampire.

Poor Jennifer Love Hewitt. Lifetime has canceled her handjob drama The Client List after two seasons. What happened? Well, it wasn't necessarily a ratings problem, though those were down. Deadline says the show, about a single mom working as a massage therapist and providing, ahem, extra services, was "mainly talent-related," so maybe we shouldn't be saying poor Jennifer Love Hewitt just yet! Unless it was that Loretta Devine causing problems. Or, actually, more likely it was Cybill Shepherd-related. She seems difficult. Whatever the reason, the show is now done. Lifetime once had a show about handjobs, and now it no longer has a show about handjobs. End of an era, really. [Deadline]

After all these years, Shane West is still holdin' on. The actor, who first made waves in teen fare like A Walk to Remember and Whatever It Takes and the series Once and Again before doing 70 episodes of ER, has landed himself another show. He'll star in WGN's first-ever scripted series, Salem, about the Massachusetts town in the 17th century. Like during all the witch business. He'll play Goody Proctor. No, no, he's playing the romantic lead! C'mon, it's Shane West. The character is described as "handsome, tough, pragmatic, wry-humored, not a man to suffer fools, a hardened veteran of 10 years of war and captivity at the hands of the Indians." That sounds about right. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Ellen Barkin has been cast opposite Robert De Niro and Usher in a movie. Yes, Ellen Barkin, Robert De Niro, and Usher are all going to be in the same movie. That's quite a cast! The movie is a biopic about a boxer, but who really cares about that, I just want to see Ellen Barkin and Usher do scenes together. That's all. I think that's all anyone cares about. [Variety]

NBC has cast the von Trapp children for its upcoming, sure-to-be-disastrous live Sound of Music movie. Yes, they're still going ahead with that, despite the fact that it is probably going to go very, very badly. I mean, Carrie Underwood is Maria. Vampire Bill is the Captain. How can that work? I don't see how it can. But yes, the von Trapp children have been cast. Oh and Rolfe too. All anyone really cares about is Liesl and Rolfe, so I'll tell you that Ariane Rinehart, a junior at Barnard, will be Liesl while Michael Campayno has been cast as Rolfe. OK. That works. Carry on. Good luck. I'm nervous. But good luck. [Deadline]

Here is a trailer for Only Lovers Left Alive, aka Jim Jarmusch's vampire movie starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. Yesssss. I mean, it's probably not going to be very good, but just look at Tilda! Look at her! Yaaaas Tilda, you look so good!

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