The CW Is Really Going Ahead with That 'Sex and the City' Prequel

Ray Gustini
The CW Is Really Going Ahead with That 'Sex and the City' Prequel

Today in movie and TV news: The CW's moving ahead with its Sex and the City prequel, Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut begins filming, and Anderson Cooper's syndicated talk show debuts.

  • The CW is pressing ahead with a series based on Candace Bushnell's novel The Carrie Diaries, which details the high school years of Sex and the City protagonist Carrie Bradshaw. As of now, Sex and the City creator Darren Star and Carrie l'original Sarah Jessica Parker aren't involved with the project, but the prequel may not be totally without interest for fans of the HBO series. According to Deadline, corporate siblings HBO and Warner Bros. TV (which is producing the series) are ironing out a deal that would "allow the writers of a The Carrie Diaries series to incorporate characters, traits and developments introduced on the Sex and the City series along with the core source material, Bushnell’s book." [Deadline]

  • When Anderson Cooper's syndicated talk show Anderson debuts today, it will feature an interview with the family of Amy Winehouse. Other guests booked for the first week include: Snooki from Jersey Shore, Sarah Jessica Parker, and the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Cooper's apparently not worried about the new show's guest list undermining his ability to effectively cover, say, an uprising in the Middle East, on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. “Everybody has different sides to them,” he tells The New York Times' Bill Carter. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to work different jobs that show different sides of you.” [The New York Times]

  • Filming begins today in the United Kingdom on Quartet, which in addition to being the first film in recent memory to be set in a retirement home for opera singers, also marks the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman. The cast includes Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, and Pauline Collins, one of whom will probably not be speaking to their director by the end of the day, if  Hoffman's reputation for clashing with directors as an actor is any indication. [The Guardian]

  • Former Spartacus: Blood and Sand star Andy Whitfield died Sunday in Sydney at the age of 39, his family said in a statement. Whitfield took a leave of absence from the Starz show following its first season after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in March 2010. The absence was supposed to be temporary, but his health failed to improve and the role was eventually recast. [The New York Times]