Kingsman: The Secret Service‘s Sophie Cookson has been tapped to star in The Crucifixion written by Chad and Carey Hayes (The Conjuring) and directed by Hitman‘s Xavier Gens. Lotus Entertainment made the casting announcement, confirming Cookson is set to star in the supernatural thriller based on a true story.
Filming is taking place in Romania beginning today. Producers include Peter Safran, Leon Clarance, Bill Johnson, Jim Seibel, Ara Keshishian, and the Hayes brothers. Motion Picture Capital’s financing the film, and Laure Vaysse, Jo Monk, and DJ Gugenheim are executive producing.
Cookson’s other credits include Unknown Heart and Moonfleet.
The Plot:
When a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he in fact murdered a mentally ill person, or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence.
Prior to watching episode one of Fox’s Minority Report, I watched the original 2002 Tom Cruise sci-fi film that inspired the new series. That refresher was probably not necessary given the amount of exposition throughout the series premiere airing on September 21, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT. It was helpful to have the film fresh in mind before tuning in to check out the TV show, but not having done so won’t leave you feeling completely lost.
For those who are familiar with Minority Report directed by Steven Spielberg (who serves as an executive producer on this series), expect to see effects that are similar yet updated from the movie. There’s a lot of swiping in the air going on as crime scenes are investigated using infrared technology, which is visually similar to the technology featured in the film. The new show also has updated versions of the feature film’s spiders, face-altering drugs, and even a supporting character who was integral to the Precrime program in the film shows up in this TV series sequel.
In brief, the series is set 10 years after the Precrime program that Tom Cruise’s character worked for was abolished, and the three precogs were set free from their milk bath to live out their lives without being hooked up to machines. In 2065 the Precrime program hasn’t been revived, but at least one of the precogs – Dash, played by Stark Sands – feels the need to use his special gift to stop murders, working outside the system and without the government’s knowledge.
His gift is incomplete without his twin brother, Arthur (played by Nick Zano), who sees the actual names of the victims, whereas Dash sees locations, flashes of numbers, and how the murders will be committed. Arthur is now using his gift to obtain success in the corporate world while their older sister, Agatha (played by Laura Regan), continues to live her life in seclusion and remains cut off from the outside world.
Dash is the audience’s entry into this precog world and seems to be a decent guy who lacks understanding of the real world but knows enough to be fearful of law enforcement and government agencies. Dash is compelled to do good, to continue to help innocent victims, and doing so leads him to place his trust in Lara Vega (Meagan Good), a detective who wants to use his talents to stop murders and promises to keep his identity a secret. The pilot episode also introduces Wilmer Valderrama as Detective Will Blake, an ambitious go-getter who has a history with Lara Vega.
Unlike Minority Report the movie, Minority Report the series allows the lead character to fail occasionally. Dash is like a fish out of water without a verbal filter, and it’s interesting to watch him discover the world around him as if he’s an alien plopped in the middle of Times Square with only a rudimentary knowledge of humans and how they interact.
Sands and Good have decent chemistry, but hopefully, this partnership won’t lead to a romantic relationship. That’s too easy and too cliched. It would also make Dash’s assimilation into this strange world come too quickly, and part of the appeal of the pilot was watching Sands as Dash work through how he’s supposed to react in new situations.
Dash starts off lost and frustrated, and Sands plays that confused and lonely aspect of the character realistically. As Dash’s confidence rises, Sands is allowed to display more of an emotional involvement and attachment to this post-Precrime world. Good is equally believable as a detective who is willing to color outside the lines in order to keep her city safe.
Minority Report‘s pilot episode was fast-paced with first-rate effects, thrilling action scenes, and an intriguing story that provides an introduction to the characters and the show. The writers have smartly infused the series with the same moral dilemmas brought up in the 2002 film, and the setup should provide plenty of opportunities to address the issues raised by having a precog helping to stop future crimes. Given the glut of police shows, Fox will have to play up the sci-fi angle of Minority Report in order to give this one-hour series a chance to find its audience and survive the first season.
Ariana Grande, Emma Roberts, Abigail Breslin and Billie Lourd in ‘Scream Queens’ (Photo by Steve Dietl / FOX)
Fox’s Scream Queens kicks off on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 with a special two-hour series premiere airing at 8pm ET/PT. Episode one (titled “Hell Week”) sets up the horror comedy with a gory flashback to Kappa Kappa Tau House at Wallace University in 1995.
A shocked sorority sister walks through a party with blood on her hands, a joke is made at her expense about menstrual blood, and ultimately the mean girls who rule Kappa are forced to deal with an unwelcome, unexpected baby and with a death of one of their sisters. It’s obvious the baby will ultimately play a big part in Scream Queens, and the way she’s introduced to the world makes it even more obvious she’ll be the one audiences will be rooting for to survive Ryan Murphy’s (American Horror Story, Glee) new series.
Flash-forward to 2015 and it’s Emma Roberts as Chanel Oberlin who’s the current Queen of Mean. Chanel rules the Kappas with an iron fist, with her minions – played by Ariana Grande (#2), Billie Lourd (#3), and Abigail Breslin (#5) – scurrying to do her bidding. The minions have all been renamed Chanel with a number designation as the only way to tell them apart because Chanel #1 didn’t want to be bothered to learn their actual names. Every aspect of their lives as sorority sisters, from their coffee drinks to their choice of wardrobe accessories, is determined by the narcissistic Chanel #1.
Chanel #1, however, has met her match in Dean Cathy Munsch (the amazing Jamie Lee Curtis) who declares her hatred for everything about sororities, and about Chanel #1 in particular. When Chanel asks if Dean Munsch is a lesbian because of her last name or if she was just born that way, the dean points out that in the real world people just don’t talk that way. But where would the fun be in having a Sorority Bitch Queen who isn’t wickedly insensitive and anti-PC?
Series co-creators/writers Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan establish in the show’s opening 15 minutes Chanel’s lack of filter and her ability to find her opponent’s biggest weakness and use it against them. They also establish Dean Munsch as a force to be reckoned with and as someone with a questionable past who could be equally as ruthless as Chanel #1 in getting her way.
And speaking of getting her way, if Dean Munsch had hers Chanel and the Kappas would be shut down permanently as punishment for a horrific event from the school the previous year. That doesn’t happen as Gigi Caldwell (Nasim Pedrad) from the national Kappa chapter rushes in to save the day. However, Gigi doesn’t like the way Chanel’s been handling the chapter and with Dean Munsch’s help demands the doors be opened to anyone who wants to pledge. That means Hester (Lea Michele as a nerd with a neck brace), aspiring politician Zayday (Keke Palmer), legacy Grace (Skyler Samuels), candle blogger Jennifer (Breezy Eslin), and deaf Taylor Swift fanatic (Whitney Meyer) are supposed to be welcomed with open arms. Of course they’re not, with Chanel #1 determined to make their lives a living hell.
As the pledges begin to learn what it takes to be a Kappa, the body count rises. Who is doing the killing? The audience will know one of the killers as the death scene plays out on screen, but there’s also someone in a red devil costume and mask running around the campus who’s apparently the main death dealer on this killer campus.
Don’t get attached to any character in the 15 episodes of season one of Scream Queens as Murphy has promised there will be plenty of deaths. Some characters will survive and will reappear in season two (in a different setting), but Murphy says viewers can expect a death a week and can expect to be kept in the dark as to the main killer until season one’s finale. There will be a lot of red herrings, and judging by episode one pretty much any character could ultimately be named the Red Devil killer.
“Hell Week” also introduces the supporting players including Oliver Hudson as the attractive college professor dad of Grace; Glen Powell as Chanel’s preppy boyfriend, Chad (of course he’s named Chad!); Nick Jonas as Chad’s suck-up BFF; Diego Boneta as a coffee barista and the college’s newspaper editor; and Niecy Nash as a completely out of her league security guard who doesn’t carry a gun. Murphy and company have assembled a first-rate cast and have somehow managed to introduce each over the course of the show’s pilot episode in a way that actually allows the viewer to get to know the peripheral players.
Scream Queens isn’t as sharply written as American Horror Story nor is it as dark, bizarre, or gory. The comedy pokes fun at easy targets, and there are scenes in which Chanel’s razor-sharp barbs are brutal and uncomfortable. Roberts does such a terrific job in delivering the lines that they almost feel too genuinely cruel to laugh at. Scream Queens goes for the jugular and doesn’t back down, and no subject matter is off limits. The twisted sense of humor in Scream Queens knows no bounds, with racist and homophobic slams on unsuspecting targets part of Chanel #1’s repertoire.
Of course, since Scream Queens is aimed at a slightly younger crowd than American Horror Story, there’s more of an emphasis on romantic entanglements. But the humor works well for all ages (except younger viewers) and should work well for both sexes.
Scream Queens has a lot in common with the original 1996 Scream from horror maestro Wes Craven, which is bizarre given there was actually an MTV series this year based on that film’s concept. Scream Queens carries on the Scream tradition of a slasher story told with dark humor and gore better than MTV’s Scream pulled off. Hopefully, episodes two through 15 will up the ante further and the story will not lose its bite as the series unspools.
Fox’s Scream Queens will move to its Tuesday night at 9pm ET/PT time slot on September 29, 2015.
Jaimie Alexander as Jane Doe in ‘Blindspot’ (Photo by Virginia Sherwood / NBC)
NBC’s new dramatic series Blindspot premieres on September 21, 2015 at 10pm ET/PT with Jaime Alexander and Sullivan Stapleton in starring roles. The pilot episode opens with a large canvas bag found abandoned in the middle of Times Square with a note attached that reads, “Call the FBI.” The streets are cleared and a member of the bomb squad approaches the bag to investigate. Just as he’s about to touch it, the bag moves and the zipper slowly works its way open. A naked woman (Alexander) completely covered in tattoos and looking lost and confused emerges from the bag and is immediately taken into custody.
Next, we’re introduced to the second key player in the series as FBI Agent Kurt Weller (Stapleton) is seen involved in the harrowing takedown of an armed suspect holding three women and a baby hostage in Kentucky. Minutes after that arrest and rescue, he’s picked up by helicopter and transported to where the woman from Times Square is being held. Why? Because his name is tattooed prominently on her back. She has no idea who she is, how she came to be in a bag in Times Square, or where the tattoos came from, and the FBI hopes Agent Weller can shed some light on why his name is on her body. Unfortunately, it’s a mystery to him as he’s never seen this woman before.
As Dr. Bordon (Ukweil Roach) explains, there’s a drug in Jane Doe’s system that has induced a permanent state of amnesia. Every memory prior to the minute she climbed out of the bag has been effectively – and efficiently – erased. There’s never been a recorded case like hers before, so there’s no way to know if she’ll ever get any of her memories back. A team’s quickly assembled to help Agent Weller try and figure out who she is and who could have possibly done this to her.
Written by Martin Gero and executive produced by Gero, Greg Berlanti (Arrow), Sarah Schecter (The Flash), Marcos Siega (The Following), and director Mark Pellington (Cold Case), Blindspot has an intriguing premise and solid acting from its leads. Alexander is completely convincing as a woman branded by a mysterious stranger (or strangers) and left scared, confused, and frustrated. Alexander brings a depth and realism to the character that pulls the audience in. Alexander is equally compelling as the Jane Doe who’s exploring her tattoos in the mirror with a look of complete and utter terror at her inability to understand her situation and as the Jane who starts to consider herself more than just a victim and begins to attempt to take charge of her life.
Alexander’s role is physically demanding as it turns out Jane’s background involves some combat training. There are multiple layers to Alexander’s performance in the pilot and more sure to come as Jane figures out what she’s capable of.
Sullivan’s Agent Weller’s in a difficult position as there’s an unknown connection between himself and this tattooed stranger. Sullivan portrays Weller with the perfect tough guy demeanor without being too over-the-top or FBI caricature-ish. There’s also solid chemistry between Alexander and Sullivan, and they’re well matched as a team.
The pilot sets up the premise that each of Jane’s tattoos provides a clue to a particular case that will be investigated by the FBI with Jane’s assistance. Hopefully, Blindspot can keep up the level of intensity it established in the pilot throughout the season. And, hopefully, the answers to Jane’s situation won’t be doled out too quickly as the idea of discovering Jane’s talents over the course of a season is more intriguing and entertaining than the prospect of being presented with the answers a few episodes in. That said, the final act of episode one might have provided a tad too much information, but we’ll have to see how that plays out. Based solely on the pilot, Blindspot is a compelling drama worth checking out.
Sunny (Daniel Wu) in ‘Into the Badlands’ episode one (Photo Credit: James Dimmock / AMC)
AMC’s set to premiere season one of Into the Badlands, an action series that will reintroduce martial arts to television, on Sunday, November 15, 2015 at 10pm ET/PT. Starring Daniel Wu, Aramis Knight, Emily Beecham, and Marton Csokas, Into the Badlands is set in a future world in which seven feudal Barons control all of the resources. Wu plays a ruthless warrior, and Knight is a young boy who teams up with the warrior to embark on a spiritual journey in this very dangerous world.
Joining Wu and Knight to do press roundtables at Comic-Con was executive producer/director David Dobkin, and together they provided a look behind the scenes at Into the Badlands.
Daniel Wu, Aramis Knight, and David Dobkin Interview
Where is the show set? What can you say about the premise?
David Dobkin: “It is set somewhere in America, sometime in the future. It is a historic future. Actually, it’s easier when the writers are at the table because then you know what you can say and what you really can’t say. Yeah, it’s post great extinction. Society was chaotic for a while, probably nomadic. Finally a few people put together armies to protect the few. The world has seven barons that each sit on a critical natural resource and they each control one. They all work in cahoots but it’s basically a very violent, very brutal world where there’s no guns. There are just martial arts armies. There’s no inheritance like a king would pass down bloodlines. None of that exists. It’s basically dog eat dog and whoever can get to the top of the hill survives.”
You’re also bringing back the old Wuxia style?
Daniel Wu: “I think there’s also a very clever way that Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar] gave me the reason for why there are no guns in the battles. I don’t think I can say why, but they have a very good reason because when we were shooting, let’s say, contemporary pieces, it’s like we always have to find good reasons why they’re fighting with swords and bare hands and not with guns. I think you had the same problem in Shanghai Knights, right?”
David Dobkin: “We did, because as soon as someone pulls a gun, there’s no reason to actually fight. So they created a world that actually very organically addresses that.”
How many styles of martial arts are there in the world of this series?
David Dobkin: “It’s infinite.”
Aramis Knight: “I mean, every martial artist has a different style.”
Daniel Wu: “We have Chinese Kung Fu. We have Krav Maga. We have a little bit of Jiu Jistu, Ninjutsu, Muay Thai.”
David Dobkin: “So basically we drew from elements of the martial arts genre that we liked and kind of made our own mashup of it. So it’s a mix of styles trying to create a new, dynamic style, something that’s fresh and new for American television because you definitely haven’t seen this kind of fighting on American television before. So we really wanted to up that game and try to not just stick with one style, but use whatever is dynamic with any martial arts style. In that way, it’s kind of like Bruce Lee’s martial arts philosophy which is, ‘Don’t stick to one thing. Do what works best for you. Use what works best for you.’ In this case, we’re doing that stylistically as well for the fighting action.”
Why do you think there hasn’t been a martial arts show on television in years?
Daniel Wu: “It’s very expensive.”
David Dobkin: “It’s very difficult to make and expensive.”
Daniel Wu: “The truth is in order to do it right, do it the way that these guys do it, it takes a lot of time. And in America, shoot days are too expensive to do it the Hong Kong style. But we’ve kind of designed a way of doing that and it’s not without its expense. But this is the first time anyone’s ever tried to actually do it and mount it successfully for television like this. You’ve never seen anything like it on TV, for sure.”
Aramis Knight: “It definitely takes a specific type of team. We work two units. We have a main unit which is for all the theatrics, for all the drama, and then a fight unit for all the martial arts. Both of them sort of intertwine in certain ways. We have to work around each other and at the end of the day still come together as one whole project.”
Can you talk about the filming style? Are there parts that look like a comic book? Did you choose a specific color palette?
David Dobkin: “The color palette relates to, especially with the costumes, relates to the different groups. So our baron, Quinn, is the Armadillos. They will wear sort of crimson color. The Widow is the Butterflies and they have this aqua blue marine color. And those are just sort of helping to differentiate the different groups and their barons and how they interact with each other.”
How did you prepare for your role?
Daniel Wu: “Well, we had a fight camp for the actors that had no martial arts experience before and it was a six week fight camp with D.D. and Stephen [Fung], first of all assessing what they could do because people have natural abilities, natural talents. Like Aramis is naturally athletic. So we figured out what we can use of his natural abilities that would help in the fighting scenes.
And then also teach him new things as well. You cannot become a martial arts expert in six weeks, but what we can do is pick and choose the best of what these people have naturally and accentuate those or make it better. But then also to teach them basics as well, basic roundhouse kick, all this stuff they didn’t know as well.
For me myself, I hadn’t done a martial arts action piece in a long time, like eight years or something like that. So I started preparing probably as early as August because I’m older than him. So it takes a little while to make sure…and I also had serious injuries. I’ve torn an ACL, I’ve broken an ankle. So for me it was a slower process at the beginning and then I ramped it up at the end once I knew my body was handling it well. That’s basically it is training hours. Fight camp was from 9 to 6 every day, 9 in the morning to 6 at night.”
What is the emotional core of the story?
David Dobkin: “I think the emotional core of the story is about, it starts with there’s a boy who’s trying to find his way home. And there’s a man who has never had a home, but he’s slowly discovering, Quinn, this man who was not his real father but a father that saved him and brought him up, trained him to be the man that he is today. It’s discovering that your father is a horrible man and trying to understand how you get out from underneath that when there’s not really an escape.
It’s a little bit like being in a gangster movie where you discover, ‘Hey man, I want to get out now,’ and nobody leaves. So that dynamic is there and together I think they end up on a journey to enlightenment.
We always think of all of this through the terms of the great Chinese epic storytelling. The fact that he’s carrying the burden of all the people that he’s killed and how does he move forward from that? He’s starting to be effective and carry the weight of that. He’s having an awakening already at the beginning of the show. This boy walks in who’s very pure and has a very simple emotional journey and he can’t stand to see that boy’s journey not continue. And he also realizes that the boy may be his chance to get out. So it’s beautiful because the lines are very simple, but I think of a movie like Shane or any of the great Westerns. It has all those very, very simple elements of character to it.”
How quickly will be introduced to Veil (played by Madeleine Mantock) and Sunny’s relationship?
David Dobkin: “In the first episode, we’re introduced to it because his emotional core is built around her actually.”
Can you talk more about the different color palettes and different barons, and will it be similar to the approach of Game of Thrones?
David Dobkin: “I love that you point that out. We don’t have the extremities that they have as far as they have snow. They have Italy or wherever they’re shooting that stuff, Malta, huge castles and stuff. We have a world that’s much less populated and sparse and just finding its way back onto its feet as a civilization. But I think that the color palette to be able to identify people, especially when you start to see from a base place, when armies start fighting, you need to identify who’s who.
And I also like the fact that the characters each have colors that are kind of specific to themselves and you can identify them. But we hope we imbue the kind of feeling that you get in a show like Game of Thrones. When you cut to The Watch, you feel a certain way. When you cut to Westeros, you feel totally different.
We have that element in a smaller scale. Like our fort where Quinn is at, it has a specific feel, a specific color. Then when you go to The Widow’s lodge, it’s totally has a different name, The Lodge, because The Fort has a masculine feeling. You go to her place and there’s this sophisticated element. There’s books around. There’s art around. There’s things like that that represent her character and what she’s about, what she’s trying to imbue upon her followers.”
Aramis Knight: “It might feel a bit more rural than The Fort really just because The Fort is the biggest. Quinn is the most powerful baron in the badlands. He’s the biggest baron in the badlands so he overlooks everything and controls so much, not only in The Fort but also just in the badlands in general. I think it’s going to be interesting to see The Lodge, there’s more freedom of speech and it’s less organized government I guess that Quinn has really created with The Fort.”
David Dobkin: “Widow’s introducing new ideas. She’s the first female baron and she trains girls to fight. There are things that she’s doing that are really revolutionary but like any person at the forefront of a bunch of ideas, it’s very extreme and it has a lack of humanity to it as well. It’s very brutal because she’s trying to win this idea through. But it’s fascinating how much depth and detail these guys have dreamt up and put into the show. It’s a very complete world. That’s very, very hard to find. Unless you’re coming out of a novel, it’s very hard to find a world that’s been this well thought out.”
“We get the FBI to fight our wars and we do whatever we want to do,” says James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (Johnny Depp) to his right-hand man, Steve Flemmi (Rory Cochrane). Whitey makes the confession to Flemmi, revealing his best kept secret as he tries to pulls him in to helping as an informant for the FBI in order to take down the rival mobs in Boston in Black Mass.
Based on the true story of one of the most notorious gangsters in the United States, Black Mass tells the story of how Whitey Bulger, who grew up on the streets of South Boston, rose from being the Godfather of the Irish mob in the 1970s to being the crime lord over all of Boston and parts of Miami. When FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) gets assigned to take down the mafia in Boston he reaches out to his old childhood friend Whitey to help him by giving him information on the headquarters of rival mob bosses so he can plant a wire and secretly record all their conversations. Since Bulger is already at war with the mafia over territory and discovers from John that his rivals are planning to put a hit out on him, Bulger agrees to an alliance with John and the FBI but makes it perfectly clear that he’s not a rat or a snitch.
Over the next decade while the FBI slowly built its case against the mafia, Bulger was a protected informant who used the FBI shield to steal, deal drugs, and murder anyone who got in his way or dared try to inform on him to the Feds. Little by little Connolly and his partner, John Morris (David Harbour), get in deeper and deeper covering up for Bulger’s crimes and Whitey eventually ends up on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
Powerful, dark, and gritty, Black Mass is an engrossing crime drama that focuses not just on the violence but on the relationships between Bulger and his crew. The film features hands-down the best performance Johnny Depp has ever given in his career. Depp is sure to grab (and deserves) an Oscar nomination for his chilling portrayal of mobster Whitey Bulger. He captures brilliantly the ruthlessness and cunning of the man but also shows the human side early in the film in the scenes between Bulger, the mother of his child, and his young son. Depp transforms himself into the role, almost completely disappearing with the deadly ice blue eyes, slicked back receding hairline, and lean exterior. It’s a performance that’s sure to stay in the minds of the audience long after they exit the theater.
Joel Edgerton delivers a strong performance as John Connolly, an eager, ambitious FBI agent who sees Bulger as his ticket to making a name for himself as the agent who broke up and destroyed the mafia in Boston. Unfortunately, he ends up getting lost in his admiration of Whitey and the thrill of breaking laws, bending the rules, and looking the other way all in the name of so-called justice. He’s a big believer in the ends justifying the means.
The sets, costumes, and cars are spot on, bringing back to life the 1970s and 80s look and feel. The musical score is great and enhances the tension and emotional impact in many scenes. The direction and pacing are tight and intense, giving the gangster film an uneasy tense feel to many of its scenes which is sure to have the audience almost dreading the next act of violence.
With an unforgettable, stunning performance by Depp in an extremely well-crafted and executed crime film, Black Mass is one of the best films of the year and shouldn’t be missed.
GRADE: A-
Rated: R for brutal violence, language throughout, some sexual references and brief drug use.
Andy Samberg tackled his first Emmys hosting gig on September 20, 2015, kicking off the 67th Emmy Awards with a song and dance number followed by jokes about Bill Cosby, racism (“Racism is over…don’t fact check that!”), Kim Davis and Eye of the Tiger, the hiring age and wage gap between women and men, and Donald Trump. He also acknowledged the shows we’ve said goodbye to this year and took a jab at this less than exceptional season of True Detective, saying, “We also said goodbye to True Detective even though it’s still on the air.”
Samberg also explained that in addition to changes in how a show is nominated in the drama or comedy categories, another change at this year’s Emmys is that the nun from Game of Thrones will make sure speeches don’t go long, with Jane Lynch joining Samberg on stage to chant, “Shame, shame, shame.” And speaking of Game of Thrones, the Emmys fell on George R.R. Martin’s birthday and as Samberg wished him a happy one, he thanked him for letting him know during the commercial break that Jon Snow is alive.
#Spoilers trended on Twitter as the Emmys showed clips that ruined the ending of a couple of shows that wrapped up this year without warning viewers who weren’t caught up to not watch the video clips. (Sons of Anarchy fans who’ve DVR’d the Emmys, definitely don’t watch the segment if you’re not finished with the final season!)
The 2015 Emmys turned out to be full of firsts. Viola Davis was the first African-American woman to win in the Best Actress category, 16-time nominee Jon Hamm won his first Emmy for Mad Men, and after winning the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series last year Uzo Aduba won the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for the same character in Orange is the New Black this year.
Overall, it was once again HBO that took home the most Emmys. Including the Emmy Awards given out during the Creative Arts ceremony on September 12, 2015, HBO’s Game of Thrones earned 12 Emmys (the most of any series), Olive Kitteridge picked up eight, Veep earned five, and Bessie was the winner in four categories. HBO’s grand total was 43 Emmy wins followed by NBC with 12, and FX and Comedy Central with eight.
2015 Emmy Nominees and Winners:
Outstanding Drama Series
“Better Call Saul” (AMC)
“Downton Abbey” (PBS)
“Game Of Thrones” (HBO) WINNER
“Homeland” (Showtime)
“House Of Cards” (Netflix)
“Mad Men” (AMC)
“Orange Is The New Black” (Netflix)
Outstanding Comedy Series
“Louie” (FX)
“Modern Family” (ABC)
“Parks And Recreation” (NBC)
“Silicon Valley” (HBO)
“Transparent” (Amazon)
“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (Netflix)
“Veep” (HBO) WINNER
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Kyle Chandler, “Bloodline”
Jeff Daniels, “The Newsroom”
Jon Hamm, “Mad Men” WINNER
Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”
Liev Schreiber, “Ray Donovan”
Kevin Spacey, “House of Cards”
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Claire Danes, “Homeland”
Viola Davis, “How to Get Away With Murder” WINNER
Taraji P. Henson, “Empire”
Tatiana Maslany, “Orphan Black”
Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men”
Robin Wright, “House of Cards”
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Anthony Anderson, “black-ish”
Louis C.K., “Louie”
Don Cheadle, “House of Lies”
Will Forte, “Last Man on Earth”
Matt LeBlanc, “Episodes”
William H. Macy, “Shameless”
Jeffrey Tambor, “Transparent” WINNER
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Edie Falco, “Nurse Jackie”
Lisa Kudrow, “The Comeback”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “Veep” WINNER
Amy Poehler, “Parks and Recreation”
Amy Schumer, “Inside Amy Schumer”
Lily Tomlin, “Grace and Frankie”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Jonathan Banks, “Better Call Saul”
Ben Mendelsohn, “Bloodline”
Jim Carter, “Downton Abbey”
Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones” WINNER
Michael Kelly, “House of Cards”
Alan Cumming, “The Good Wife”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Joanne Froggatt, “Downton Abbey”
Lena Headey, “Game of Thrones”
Emilia Clarke, “Game of Thrones”
Christina Hendricks, “Mad Men”
Uzo Aduba, “Orange Is the New Black” WINNER
Christine Baranski, “The Good Wife”
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Niecy Nash, “Getting On”
Julie Bowen, “Modern Family”
Allison Janney, “Mom” WINNER
Kate McKinnon, “Saturday Night Live”
Mayim Bialik, “The Big Bang Theory”
Gaby Hoffmann, “Transparent”
Jane Krakowski, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Anna Chlumsky, “Veep”
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Andre Braugher, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”
Adam Driver, “Girls”
Keegan-Michael Key, “Key & Peele”
Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”
Tituss Burgess, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”
Tony Hale, “Veep” WINNER
Outstanding Miniseries
“American Crime” (ABC)
“American Horror Story: Freak Show” (FX)
“The Honorable Woman” (Sundance)
“Olive Kitteridge” (HBO) WINNER
“Wolf Hall” (PBS)
Outstanding Television Movie
“Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Curtain, Poirot’s Last Case” (Acorn TV)
“Bessie” (HBO) WINNER
“Grace Of Monaco” (Lifetime)
“Hello Ladies: The Movie” (HBO)
“Killing Jesus” (National Geographic)
“Nightingale” (HBO)
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
Timothy Hutton, “American Crime”
Ricky Gervais, “Derek Special”
Adrien Brody, “Houdini”
David Oyelowo, “Nightingale”
Richard Jenkins, “Olive Kitteridge” WINNER
Mark Rylance, “Wolf Hall”
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie
CBS has released the first official photo of Dr. T.O. Morrow (aka Red Tornado) from the upcoming comic book-inspired series Supergirl. The new photo features Iddo Goldberg (Salem) in costume for season one of the series which is set to debut on October 26, 2015 at 8:30pm ET/PT.
Along with the photo, CBS released the following description of Goldberg’s character: “Red Tornado is the most advanced android the world has ever seen. Designed by scientist T.O. Morrow for the U.S. Army as the ultimate superweapon, he soon becomes sentient, posing a grave danger to National City — including the people Supergirl cares about most.”
The Plot:
Supergirl is an action-adventure drama based on the DC Comics character Kara Zor-El, Superman’s (Kal-El) cousin who, after 12 years of keeping her powers a secret on Earth, decides to finally embrace her superhuman abilities and be the hero she was always meant to be. Twelve-year-old Kara escaped the doomed planet Krypton with her parents’ help at the same time as the infant Kal-El. Protected and raised on Earth by her foster family, the Danvers, Kara (Melissa Benoist) grew up in the shadow of her foster sister, Alex (Chyler Leigh), and learned to conceal the phenomenal powers she shares with her famous cousin in order to keep her identity a secret.
Years later at 24, Kara lives in National City assisting media mogul and fierce taskmaster Cat Grant, who just hired the Daily Planet’s former photographer, James Olsen, as her new art director. However, Kara’s days of keeping her talents a secret are over when Hank Henshaw, head of a super-secret agency where her sister also works, enlists her to help them protect the citizens of National City from sinister threats. Though Kara will need to find a way to manage her newfound empowerment with her very human relationships, her heart soars as she takes to the skies as Supergirl to fight crime.
Ariana Grande, Emma Roberts, Abigail Breslin and Billie Lourd in ‘Scream Queens’ (Photo by Steve Dietl / FOX)
Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan are launching the new horror comedy Scream Queens on Fox on September 22, 2015. The new series stars Jamie Lee Curtis – an actual Scream Queen – and Emma Roberts, and is set in a sorority.
The cast includes Lea Michele, Abigail Breslin, Nasim Pedrad, Oliver Hudson, Skyler Samuels, Keke Palmer, and Billie Lourd. Diego Boneta, Glen Powell, Lucien Laviscount, Niecy Nash, Nick Jonas, and Ariana Grande also star in season one.
Kappa House, the most sought-after sorority for pledges, is ruled with an iron fist (in a pink glove) by CHANEL OBERLIN (Roberts). But when anti-Kappa DEAN CATHY MUNSCH (Curtis) decrees that sorority pledging must be open to all students, and not just the school’s silver-spooned elite, all hell is about to break loose, as a devil-clad killer begins wreaking havoc across the campus.
An over-the-top, biting satire, Scream Queens is part black comedy, part slasher flick and a modern take on the classic whodunit, in which every character has a motive for murder…or could easily be the next victim.
Milla Jovovich in a scene from Resident Evil: Retribution
The final film of the Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, has begun shooting in South Africa. Screen Gems just announced the start of production and confirmed the cast list for this last R.E. movie. Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter return in starring roles with support from Iain Glen, Shawn Roberts, Ruby Rose, Eoin Macken, William Levy, Fraser James, and Rola.
Paul W.S. Anderson is back at the helm and also wrote the screenplay.
This sixth Resident Evil film is expected to shoot in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer, and Samuel Hadida are producing the action horror film, and Screen Gems is aiming for a January 2017 theatrical release.
The Plot:
Picking up immediately after the events in Resident Evil: Retribution, humanity is on its last legs after Alice is betrayed by Wesker in Washington D.C. As the only survivor of what was meant to be humanity’s final stand against the undead hordes, Alice must return to where the nightmare began – Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse.
In a race against time, Alice will join forces with old friends and an unlikely ally, in an action-packed battle with undead hordes and new mutant monsters. Between losing her superhuman abilities and Umbrella’s impending attack, this will be Alice’s most difficult adventure as she fights to save humanity, which is on the brink of oblivion.
