Disney Scrambles to Solve This Whole Demi Lovato Mess
They'll protect her popular TV show at all costs! Also today: the Chilean miners might get their story told in the movies, some new TV scheduling revolutionizes and evening, and young couples are in love.
So, Demi Lovato went mad, and now the Disney Channel has to figure out what to do with her show, Sonny With a Chance. It seems that the show has a show within in the show, called So Random!? Uhhherm. So what they're going to do is: So Random! will become the main focus of the show, with sketches and music bits and whatnot. And then when Demi Lovato figures everything out, she'll come back, and the regular Sonny With a Chance show will recommence in earnest. So it's a little like if Tina Fey went off the reservation so they actually did TGS for a few episodes. In other words, it's extremely fucking weird. [Variety]
Brad Pitt's production company Plan B (well, it used to be his AND Jennifer Aniston's, but she was boring and stiff and always a bit dour, so he had to go find some passion in his life, with someone else, and now she's lonely and miserable and everyone hates her) has optioned the story of the Chilean miners. Do you remember the Chilean miners? They're the ones that were on the oil rig in the Gulf and they lied and said that one of their miner friends was in a balloon floating over Wasilla, AK but it ended up landing safely in the Hudson River. A miracle! It was big news for a while, but then everyone moved on. But now Brad Pitt has swooped in to capture our imaginations all over again. Except for Jen Aniston's, because she's too busy being stuck in a deep, dark coal mine of her own crushing emotions. [THR]
This is kinda old, but I missed it, so maybe you did too, and it bears mentioning. Wes Anderson is putting a new movie together called Moon Rise Kingdom and an A-team of cast members is being assembled. Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis, and Edward Norton are all named as being on board. Woof! That is quite a cast. The story? It's set in the '60s and is about two teen lovers who run away, and the people who go looking for them. Norton is a Boy Scout troop master who puts together a search party, Willis is the town sheriff who is having an affair with one of the kids' moms, McDormand, and Murray is her husband. No word on who Swinton would play, though let's hope it's the teen boy part. [Deadline]
Oh good. NBC has ordered a new dating reality show, about people weeping (and maybe falling in love!!!!!) in the middle of the woods. Love in the Wild puts a blind date couple in the middle of the forest and gives nothing but a compass. Then they have to do various challenges and things to get out of the forest but also to figure each other out and fall in love. So that's nice. That will work out well. I personally can't wait for the dating-show-meets-Open Water show about two lovelorn losers bobbing out in the middle of the South Atlantic, feeling the tingle of not only sharks gnawing at them, but of their hearts blooming into love. [THR]
Shawn Levy, respected auteur behind such great works as Cheaper by the Dozen and the Pepper Dennis pilot, will next take on a modern version of Romeo & Juliet. Not like Baz Luhrmann modern R & J. Like based on the new YA novel Rosaline, which tells the whole story from the perspective of Rosaline, the girl that Romeo's totally boffing in the beginning of the play but ditches for Juliet once he goes to that fancy party. This version takes place in a modern American high school, natch. So that should be... what it is. Who do you think will play Rosaline? Other than Emma Stone, I mean. [Deadline]
NBC is going full-bore with their Thursday night comedy lineup. Starting in January, they'll air three hours of comedy. Community will kick everything off at 8. Then the new Olivia Munn/waitress from It's Always Sunny joint Perfect Couples will be on at 8:30. After that it's The Office, followed by the blessedly returning Parks & Recreation. In the previously un-comedy-friendly 10 o'clock hour are 30 Rock followed by Outsourced, which y'know is just so good it has to finish out the evening. Just so good, that show! [Movieline]
Darren Aronofsky will no longer call his upcoming X-Men movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2. Sadly. Now he's changing it to just The Wolverine. Borrrrring! [Hit Fix]