John Krasinski knows what he’ll be doing on his vacation from The Office. He’ll join Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin in an untitled comedy written and directed by Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give), Variety reports.
Krasinski starred opposite George Clooney and Renée Zellweger in last year’s Leatherheads. His feature directorial debut, an adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, premiered at Sundance last month.
Indie star Greta Gerwig (Hannah Takes the Stairs) has joined Ben Stiller in Margot at the Wedding writer-director Noah Baumbach’s latest dramedy, Greenberg. Insiders are mum on the plot, but The Hollywood Reporter safely assumes the film will focus on "relationship intimacies." Cameras are expected to roll in March.
Aaron Eckhart and Richard Jenkins have joined Johnny Depp in the cast of Rum Diary, the Bruce Robinson-directed movie adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The story is about a washed-up, hard-drinking journalist named Paul Kemp (Depp) in 1950s Puerto Rico. Eckhart, who is still negotiationg his deal, plays Sanderson, a wealthy landowner who is part of a love triangle with Depp and co-star Amber Heard. Jenkins is the man who oversees the rundown newspaper where Depp’s character works. Shooting starts March 30.
Jim Sturgess, Geoffrey Rush, Rachael Taylor, and David Wenham have been tapped to voice characters in the Zack Snyder-directed animated movie Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Variety reports. The story, based on the first three installments of Kathryn Lasky’s children’s book series, is about a young barn owl and his friends as they escape a band of rogue owls. Shooting is underway.
Robert Anderson, the prolific writer who gained wide acclaim as the author of the Broadway hits Tea and Sympathy and You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running has died, the Associated Press is reporting. Anderson was 91 and passed away from pneumonia on Monday at his home in New York; he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
A success when it opened on Broadway in 1953, Tea and Sympathy was originally directed by Elia Kazan and featured, in various productions, such actors as Deborah Kerr, Joan Fontaine, Anthony Perkins, and Ingrid Bergman. Vincente Minnelli directed a 1956 film version. Anderson also wrote the screenplays for movies including 1966′s The Sand Pebbles and 1970′s I Never Sang for My Father, which was an adaptation of his own play. He was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for I Never Sang for My Father; that followed an earlier adapted screenplay nod for 1959′s The Nun’s Story.
It may have fizzled at the box office, but Star Wars: Clone Wars the TV series is a hit: Variety is reporting that Cartoon Network just renewed the animated show for a second season, and is planning to air it this fall. Set in between Star Wars: Episode II and Episode III, the show has consistently delivered boffo ratings since its Oct. 3 debut last year — Variety says it’s the No. 1 television program "in all boys demos" on both cable and network TV.
Phil Carey, who played business mogul Asa Buchanan on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live from 1980 to 2007, died Friday after a struggle with lung cancer, says the network. Carey took a short medical leave from the show after his cancer diagnosis in 2006, and his character died in his sleep on the episode that aired Aug. 16, 2007. The following day, Asa Buchanan’s funeral aired on the show’s 10,000th episode.
A World War II and Korean War veteran, Carey got his first feature-film role in the 1951 John Wayne movie Operation Pacific, and he worked steadily in movies and television for the following 30 years until he was cast on One Life to Live. Carey is survived by his wife Colleen, their two children, Shannon and Sean, and his three children Lisa, Linda and Jeff from a previous marriage.
ABC Family has renewed the popular cable drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager, according to Variety. The network ordered 24 episodes of the series about a 15 year old’s accidental pregnancy, which brought in the cable channel’s best ratings ever when it debuted last summer. ABC Family plans to run the new season starting this summer.
Random House announced today that it plans to publish Diane Keaton’s memoir, which will focus on her life, as well as her mother’s 15-year struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease. (Writes Keaton: "I was an ordinary girl, who became an ordinary woman, with one exception, Mother gave me extraordinary will. The profound love and gratitude I feel now that she’s left has compelled me to try to unravel the mystery of her journey. In so doing I hope to find the hidden meaning of our relationship and understand why realized dreams are such a strange burden.") Though there’s no word yet on what the book will be titled, it is tentatively scheduled to go on sale in 2012.
America’s Got Talent has got a new host: Nick Cannon will take over as emcee from Jerry Springer when the NBC talent competition starts its fourth season this summer, according to an Associated Press report. The star of films like Drumline (2002) and Roll Bounce (2005), Cannon has also released a self-titled album and produced and hosted the popular MTV improv insult show Wild ‘N Out. He is perhaps best known of late for marrying music superstar Mariah Carey last April. America’s Got Talent judges Sharon Osbourne, Piers Morgan, and David Hasselhoff will remain on the series, produced by Simon Cowell.
