Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Lena Headey in ‘Game of Thrones’ (Photo: Helen Sloan/HBO)
Just days ahead of their new seasons, HBO has given renewals to Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, and Veep. Game of Thrones earned a seventh season order, Veep earned its sixth season, and Silicon Valley will return for season four. None of the renewals were unexpected.
Season six of Game of Thrones will premiere on April 24, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT. Season three of Silicon Valley immediately follows at 10pm and Veep‘s fifth season debuts at 10:30pm.
Game of Thrones is based on George R.R. Martin’s bestselling fantasy book series and stars Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Aidan Gillen, Diana Rigg, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, and Jonathan Pryce. David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Carolyn Strauss, Frank Doelger and Bernadette Caulfield executive produce, with Martin involved as a co-executive producer. This upcoming season marks the first season in which readers of the book series are just as in the dark about the events about to unfold as those who only watch the series.
Silicon Valley was created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler, and Dave Kinsky and stars Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Zach Woods, Kumail Nanjiani, Martin Starr, Josh Brener, Amanda Crew, Matt Ross, Jimmy O. Yang, and Suzanne Cryer. Season three will consist of 10 half-hour episodes.
Veep‘s 10 episode fifth season was executive produced by David Mandel, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Frank Rich, Chris Godsick, and Lew Morton. Louis-Dreyfus stars as President Selina Meyer, with Anna Chlumsky, Matt Walsh, Reid Scott, Timothy Simons, Sufe Bradshaw, Kevin Dunn, Gary Cole, and Sam Richardson also part of the ensemble cast.
Alison Wright as Martha Hanson and Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings in ‘The Americans’ (Photo by Craig Blankenhorn / Copyright 2016, FX Networks)
‘Trust’ could have been the title of this excellent episode of The Americans as it is mentioned several times. In episode six of season four, Phillip (Matthew Rhys) explains to fellow Soviet spy, William (Dylan Baker), that he wants to get his asset, FBI secretary Martha, (Alison Wright) out because he fears that she is in danger and she trusts him. Phillip met with William so that he could ask William to get more Glanders bacteria since the last sample was destroyed. William tells him that it’s no longer available but he can get Tularemia, which can be easily weaponized, instead.
Martha leaves her house with her gun in her purse. Phillip, disguised as Clark, follows Martha and asks her get in his car. He tells her that the FBI may know about her and he takes her to a safe house. As Martha zones out in front of TV, Phillip meets Gabe (Frank Langella), his handler, in the kitchen. Gabriel tells Phillip that he’s acting impulsively, is flat out wrong, and that Martha should return to work.
Elizabeth (Keri Russell), disguised as Clark’s sister Jennifer, arrives with clothes for Martha and meets Phillip and Gabriel in the kitchen. She is shocked when she sees Phillip without his disguise. She asks, ‘Did you want her to see you?” Elizabeth looks hurt when she realizes that her suspicions about the depth of Phillip’s feelings for Martha are confirmed by his behavior. She is stunned again when he states that it would be better if he stayed the night with Martha instead of her.
That evening when Martha asks Phillip who he works for, he tells her the truth: that he works for the KGB. A crying Martha says that it doesn’t matter as long as we’re together. Martha tearfully asks him to make love and although Phillip’s face is hidden, he is no doubt anguished knowing that they can’t run away as Martha asks. Gabriel hears their lovemaking but seems more resigned than surprised.
Noah Emmerich, Aaron Roman Weiner and Brandon J. Dirden in ‘The Americans’ (Photo by Eric Liebowitz/FX)
Meanwhile, at the FBI, agents Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) and Aderholt (Brandon J. Dirden) are becoming more convinced that Martha is working for the Soviets. They discuss her history and the fact that she told Agent Aderholt that she had a married boyfriend that no one has seen. When Martha calls in sick, they call her and when there is no answer they go to her empty apartment. They also go to the apartment she shared with her “boyfriend” and find that there are no photos nor is there tape in the answering machine. An examination of the lease reveals that the apartment was rented to a Clark Westerfeld.
While they are waiting for leads to locate Clark Westerfeld, they tell their boss, Agent Gaad (Richard Thomas) about their findings. Gaad is incredulous at first. Later he berates himself for not realizing what Martha was doing. Stan tells him that we trust each other as a way of explaining his lack of suspicion.
The next morning Martha tearfully asks Clark/Phillip if they can go back to the way it was. He indicates they can’t and she says, “I’m never getting out of here, am I?”
Later, Gabriel tells Phillip that he must see William because the bioweapon is important to the protection of the Soviet people in the case of war. Phillip is unable to wake Martha to tell her that he’s leaving. He sees the bottle of Valium and her gun and takes it. He reluctantly meets William to get the titular “Rat,” an allusion to Martha, that died of exposure to Tularemia. As an aside, Tularemia is also known as Pahvant Valley plague, rabbit fever, deer fly fever, and Ohara’s fever, and is a serious infectious disease that is highly virulent in humans. William says that he admires Phillip for taking on the KGB, as he wanted to in a situation involving his wife, but didn’t.
In a brief scene at the rezidentura, we learn that they have been asked to exfiltrate Martha to Moscow. However, Martha awakens and finding Clark/Phillip gone she leaves the safe house. Gabriel tries to stop her, telling her, “Trust me.” As she runs out, she says that if he tries to stop her she will tell everyone that he is KGB.
So, Martha is now in a very dangerous position. She has seen Phillip without his disguise, knows that he, Elizabeth, and Gabriel are KGB agents. The FBI knows that she has been helping the Soviets. Where can she go and who can she trust?
Neil Gaiman, Bryan Fuller, David Slade, Michael Green and Ricky Whittle on the ‘American Gods’ set (Photo Courtesy of Starz)
Starz and FremantleMedia North America have released the first photos from the set of American Gods starring Ricky Whittle. Starz announced filming is now underway in Toronto on the 10 episode first season of the series based on Neil Gaiman’s bestselling fantasy novel, with Gaiman involved as an executive producer. Hannibal‘s Bryan Fuller and Heroes‘ Michael Green are adapting the book for the series and serve as showrunners as well as executive producers. Director David Slade and Fuller previously worked on together on Hannibal and are collaborating once again, with Slade directing multiple episodes and executive producing.
The Story: The plot posits a war brewing between old and new gods: the traditional gods of mythological roots from around the world steadily losing believers to an upstart pantheon of gods reflecting society’s modern love of money, technology, media, celebrity and drugs. Its protagonist, Shadow Moon, is an ex-con who becomes bodyguard and traveling partner to Mr. Wednesday, a conman but in reality one of the older gods, on a cross-country mission to gather his forces in preparation to battle the new deities.
The Cast and Characters:The 100‘s Ricky Whittle plays Shadow Moon, Ian McShane (Deadwood) is Mr. Wednesday, Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) is Laura Moon, Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) is Mad Sweeney, Yetide Badaki (Aquarius) is Bilquis, Bruce Langley (Deadly Waters) is Technical Boy, Crispin Glover (Back to the Future) is Mr World, and Jonathan Tucker (Kingdom) is Low Key Lyesmith.
Starz also announced four new cast members. Cloris Leachman will play Zorya Vechernyaya, Peter Stormare is Czernobog, Chris Obi is Anubis, and Mousa Kraish will play The Jinn.
Zorya Vechernyaya is described as “the eldest of three sisters who watch over the constellations, guarding against horrors forgotten by modern man. Once accustomed to royal status, the sisters have learned to survive on far less in a country that has no memory of them.” Czernobog is a “Slavic god of darkness and evil, Czernobog is reluctant to join the coming war, wary of Wednesday’s motivations.” Anubis is “the commanding ancient Egyptian god of the dead, gently guiding mortals through the judgment of their souls.” And The Jinn is “a mythical creature of the fire who understands a person’s deepest desires better than they do. He fears for his safety with the coming war, and considers fleeing America.”
In the new trailer for Jason Bourne Tommy Lee Jones’ character asks why Bourne would come back now. The answer as to why the character Bourne is back isn’t really explained in the trailer, but the reason Matt Damon is back after a decade is because he thought the story was right. That, and the fact director Paul Greengrass was up for returning to the franchise brought Damon back to the role for the fourth time. Damon previously starred in The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum, skipping only The Bourne Legacy which found Jeremy Renner taking over the lead. Jason Bourne marks Greengrass’ third time as director of a Bourne movie starring Damon.
The cast of Jason Bourne also includes Julia Stiles, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel and the aforementioned Tommy Lee Jones. Paul Greengrass co-wrote the script with Christopher Rouse and produced along with Frank Marshall, Jeffrey Weiner, Matt Damon, Gregory Goodman, and Ben Smith. Universal Pictures will release Jason Bourne in theaters on July 29, 2016.
The Plot: Matt Damon returns to his most iconic role in Jason Bourne. Paul Greengrass, the director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, once again joins Damon for the next chapter of Universal Pictures’ Bourne franchise, which finds the CIA’s most lethal former operative drawn out of the shadows.
Dave Franco, Jesse Eisenberg and Jon M. Chu at CinemaCon (Photo by Dan Steinberg / Invision for Lionsgate / AP Images)
Lionsgate’s screening of Now You See Me 2 at the 2016 CinemaCon was halted 15 minutes in when an unattended backpack caused security to evacuate the Coliseum at Caesars Palace. The screening was ultimately cancelled but Jesse Eisenberg, who reprised his role as J. Daniel Atlas in the sequel, still stuck around for the Big Screen Achievement Awards that were held hours after the screening was halted. Prior to taking the stage to accept CinemaCon’s Male Star of the Year award, Eisenberg answered a few questions about his current film projects during a small press conference.
Asked about working with Woody Allen and if he’s playing a version of the award-winning filmmaker in Allen’s Cafe Society, Eisenberg said he wasn’t trying to channel Woody for the role. “If there’s any effort in that regard it’s to avoid that kind of thing because no one can do it as well and it would seem to be a mistake to not take on the role in its own way,” explained Eisenberg. “But, that said, the dialogue is written by him and it has a specific cadence. He’s directing you so in between takes his speech patterns and his mannerisms are kind of the thing that is most present for me. And, I’ve liked him so much since I’m younger so probably there’s those two kind of competing interests that I have and I’m not sure which one will win out because I’ve not seen the movie.”
Eisenberg said he doesn’t watch the movies he’s in and he didn’t pay attention to any of articles about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice while working on the film. “I really try to stay in a bubble. There’s really no way to kind of respond to people criticizing you for a role you haven’t yet screwed up. It’s certainly odd. Almost everything else I’m in you’re kind of in the strange position of obsequiously begging people to see it. And then suddenly I’m in a movie like that where you’re actually doing the opposite; you’re trying to kind of avoid saying anything about it. You’re not allowed to kind of talk about it. It’s shrouded in total secrecy, so it’s certainly kind of a different experience. But it doesn’t affect me that much because I don’t read anything about it or watch it or anything like that.”
I asked Eisenberg if the character from Now You See Me was one he wanted to go back and explore in a sequel and he replied, “Now You See Me, these two movies have been really like the only time I’ve relaxed in my life because my character is a performer. I’m also a performer, obviously, but this guy is like the most confident performer. He has worked hard establishing this incredible skill set and he doesn’t apologize for it. He is confident, probably in excess, and I, in a lot of ways, am kind of the opposite. I perform on stage for a living as my main job and I have total stage fright and anxieties about going up there, so playing this character in Now You See Me and Now You See Me 2 again is like really the only time I can feel totally at ease because when you’re playing a character for a long time, you know several hours a day for an extended period of time over the course of a few months, you end up just unconsciously taking on the experience of that character, the feelings of that character. I mean, if you make the face of somebody confident for 12 hours a day over the course of a few months you end up just tricking yourself into thinking that you have all those feelings. And so for me this is like the only time where I could actually lower my medication.”
Eisenberg also explained that to him it’s easier to play a character who has some kind of eccentricity or strange behavior that seems very different from himself. “Those are the roles that are most comfortable to play for actors because you just lose your self-consciousness. If you’re playing a character that’s very similar to you, you’re kind of hyper-aware and second guessing every aspect of that performance because it seems so close to you. You can be very hyper-aware of the inconsistencies or the superficialities or whatever the artifice that you’re doing. But in a part like [Lex Luthor], it’s so different from me – looks different from me, sounds different from me, behaves different from me – I can kind of just lose myself in the character and I don’t feel any of the kind of usual self-awareness.”
Larry Roberts, Justin Vititoe, Jose Martinez Amoedo, Tracy Wilson, Mary Kate Green, Desmond White, Randy Champagne, Mike Lowe, David McIntyre, and Nicole Apelian in ‘Alone’ season 2 (Photo by Brendan Meadows)
Season two of History’s Alone has yet to premiere and the network’s already given the survival series an order for a third season. The second season is set to kick off on April 21, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT. Filming on season three, which will take place in South America rather than Vancouver Island, will begin in May.
Season one’s finale drew in 2.4 million viewers which was up 50% from the show’s premiere, according to the network. The ratings were high enough to make Alone season one the network’s #1 new non-fiction series. “The success of Alone truly speaks to the fact that there is simply nothing else like it on television,” stated Paul Cabana, Executive Vice President and Head of Programming of HISTORY. “Season two truly takes the series to the next level and gives us the confidence to trigger season three immediately.”
The Alone Plot: The series places ten hardcore survivalists alone in the wilderness and the contestants have one mission: to stay alive. There are no camera crews, no teams, and no gimmicks. At stake is a $500,000 cash prize awarded to the person who can last the longest. Equipped only with limited gear, their wilderness experience, and cameras to self-document their journeys, these brave men and women are completely separated from one another in harsh, unforgiving terrain. To survive, they must find food and water, build shelters and fend off predators. They will face extreme isolation, psychological distress, and treacherous environmental conditions as they descend into the unknown.
Bryan Cranston goes from being a drug lord in Breaking Bad to chasing down a drug kingpin in The Infiltrator which just debuted a new trailer. Adapted from Robert Mazur’s book by Ellen Brown Furman and directed by Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer), the cast of the dramatic film also includes Diane Kruger, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt, Yul Vazquez, Joseph Gilgun, Olympia Dukakis and Amy Ryan. Broad Green Pictures will release the film in theaters on July 15, 2016.
The Plot: Based on a true story, Federal agent Robert ‘Bob’ Mazur (Bryan Cranston) goes deep undercover to infiltrate Pablo Escobar’s drug trafficking scene plaguing the nation in 1986 by posing as slick, money-laundering businessman Bob Musella. Teamed with impulsive and streetwise fellow agent Emir Abreu (John Leguizamo) and rookie agent posing as his fiancé Kathy Ertz (Diane Kruger), Mazur befriends Escobar’s top lieutenant Roberto Alcaino (Benjamin Bratt). Navigating a vicious criminal network in which the slightest slip-up could cost him his life, Mazur risks it all building a case that leads to indictments of 85 drug lords and the corrupt bankers who cleaned their dirty money, along with the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, one of the largest money-laundering banks in the world.
Travis Fimmel as Ragnar and Clive Standen as Rollo in ‘Vikings’ (Photo by Jonathan Hession)
The epic battle between brothers that Vikings has been building toward all season four has finally arrived. Episode 10 titled ‘The Last Ship’ serves as the midpoint of season four and History promises the payoff will definitely be there for viewers who’ve been anxiously awaiting the Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) versus Rollo (Clive Standen) showdown. Will we actually find out who doesn’t survive the battle? It’s possible more than one character’s fate will be left hanging when the first half of season four finishes up, and we may not know if any of the characters shown injured in battle in the trailer for ‘The Last Ship’ will be alive when the series returns later this year. In addition to Fimmel and Standen, season four’s cast includes Gustaf Skarsgard as Floki, Katheryn Winnick as Lagertha, Alexander Ludwig as Bjorn, Morgane Polanski as Princess Gisla, and Alyssa Sutherland as Princess Aslaug.
Vikings season four episode 10 will air on April 21, 2016 at 10pm ET/PT. History offers up this brief plot description for ‘The Last Ship’ – A ferocious battle between the Vikings and the French eventually comes down to Ragnar against Rollo and the outcome seals the fates of the two brothers.
Vikings season 4 episode 10 trailer:
Clive Standen as Rollo in ‘Vikings’ (Photo by Jonathan Hession)Travis Fimmel as Ragnar in ‘Vikings’ (Photo by Jonathan Hession)
Wil (Austin Butler) and Amberle (Poppy Drayton) in a scene from ‘The Shannara Chronicles’ (Photo Credit: MTV)
MTV’s top rated new series The Shannara Chronicles has been renewed for season two. The series is based on Terry Brooks’ bestselling fantasy book series and stars Austin Butler (The Carrie Diaries), Poppy Drayton (When Calls The Heart), Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth), John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings), and Manu Bennett (Spartacus). Brooks serves as an executive producer along with Al Gough, Miles Millar, Jon Favreau, Jonathan Liebesman, and Dan Farah.
“This dream team delivered a beautiful, ground breaking show with compelling stories and character journeys which brought in new viewers. I can’t wait to see what season 2 brings,” said Mina Lefevre, Executive Vice President and Head of Scripted Development at MTV.
“We’re thrilled to continue the momentum established in Season 1,” stated Jenna Glazier, Executive Vice President, Television Series, Sonar Entertainment. “Along with the ongoing support of MTV, the entire creative team is poised to raise the bar even higher in Season 2.”
The Plot: Set thousands of years in the future, the story follows three heroes, Elf-Human hybrid Wil, Elvin Princess Amberle, and Human Rover Eretria, as they embark on a quest to stop an evil Demon army from destroying the world.
AMC’s unveiled a poster for the upcoming series Feed the Beast starring David Schwimmer (The People v O.J. Simpson) and Jim Sturgess (Cloud Atlas, The Way Back). The upcoming series based on the Danish series Bankerot is executive produced by showrunner Clyde Phillips (Dexter) and will premiere on May 31, 2016 at 10pm ET/PT. Henrik Ruben Genz, Malene Blenkov, and Piv Bernth are also executive producing.
The Plot:Feed the Beast tells the story of Tommy (Schwimmer) and Dion (Sturgess) who are like brothers. With all the love – and all the complications – that comes with it. Dion can’t stay out of trouble. Tommy can’t move past it. For two friends on the brink of losing everything, a dusty pipe dream of opening up an upscale restaurant in their hometown of the Bronx is all they have left to turn their lives around.
Michael Gladis plays Patrick Woichik, aka The Tooth Fairy, the soft spoken, brutally intimidating local mobster with a penchant for pulling teeth. Lorenza Izzo is Pilar Herrera, a woman who meets Tommy in a grief group, and is desperately searching for true love. Christine Adams takes on the role of Tommy’s late wife Rie Moran. John Doman is Tommy’s father Aidan Moran, a shrewd and ruthless businessman and unapologetic racist. And Elijah Jacob will play Tommy’s ten year old son TJ Moran.
