'Game of Thrones' Is Unstoppable
The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: HBO has a real hit on its hands, Zooey Deschanel will be back in the fall, and the Eastwood reality show drops.
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HBO's second season of Game of Thrones, a prequel to Sex and the City about Carrie and the gang's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents having brunches of mead and grog and wild boar, continues to thrive in its second season. The ratings for last night's episode, the second of the season, essentially matched the premiere episode's numbers, which is pretty good considering how big the premiere's numbers were. Better yet, at this point the second season of the show is "on track to best its freshman average by more than 50 percent." So that is pretty good for ol' Arry Bradshaw and Melisandre Hobbes and Sandor Blatch and everyone. It's good news for us too, as we really, really need to get to at least next season so the crazy events of the third book can happen and omg you guys you will not believe what happens. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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Speaking of television success and renewal, Fox has announced that they will give a second season to the Zooey Deschanel face-making comedy New Girl, as well as Raising Hope and America's answer to the question "What if it got progressively worse while also getting better?", Glee. This is unsurprising for both New Girl and Raising Hope, they're well-watched shows with nice critical followings, but we are surprised about Glee. Well, at least if we're to believe those rumors that in this year's season finale, Finn, Rachel, and Kurt, instead of graduating, are beheaded in King's Landing. We thought the show would just end after that, but apparently not! Still, can't wait, like really cannot wait, to watch that scene. [Vulture]
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Uh oh. There is a new teaser trailer out for the E! reality series Mrs. Eastwood & Company, the reality show about Clint Eastwood's wife and kids, and you can watch it by clicking on the link below. It's very brief and doesn't tell us much, but we do at least see Mr. Eastwood himself for a brief moment, though surprisingly he's not wielding some sort of enormous elephant pistol and warning Hmong people to get off his lawn. I thought that was just his basic default setting when at home? Apparently it's not. Apparently we've all been deceived. Instead Eastwood and his family all live on some rambling mountain somewhere in Northern California and there's lots of hugging and some sort of band made up of young men in suits. Maybe the orangutan from Every Which Way But Loose lives with them too? It's unclear, but it seems likely. [Entertainment Weekly]
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Disney has scheduled a release date for their Mirror Mirror/Snow White and the Huntsman-esque (in that its a live action fairy tale story with a slightly altered perspective) film Maleficent, which explores the backstory and motivations of the evil witch fairy who turns a regular beauty into the sleeping kind. You remember, she's all purple and green fire in the Disney movie? She's great, maybe greatest Disney villain of them all. (Ursula's pretty good too.) Anyway, Angelina Jolie will be playing the part, against Elle Fanning's Princess Aurora, and the film will be released on March 14th, 2014. So, everyone prick your finger on this spindle here and by the time you wake up it'll be time for that movie to be released. Or it's possible you'll sleep much longer and wake up in a castle surrounded by brambles, which, well, that's the risk you take. What can I say, this isn't an exact science. Just trying to spare you the agony of waiting two damn waking years until this thing comes out. Do the spindle or don't do the spindle, what do I care. [Deadline]
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Another renewal! TNT is getting close to picking up the show they found in the dumpsters out behind NBC a few years ago, cop drama Southland. This would be the series' fifth season, and this is good news. It's a solid show, not a perfect show, but definitely worth the air time and full of good actors and all that. Southland is, of course, the TV version of Richard Kelly's smash hit film Southland Tales. [Variety]
Steve Carell is close to signing on to star in a live action adaptation of the beloved children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, about a kid who has, well, a really shitty day. Oddly enough this film will be directed by The Kids Are All Right director Lisa Cholodenko. No word yet on who Carell would play, but we'd hope it's not Alexander. Carell's great and all but that would be very strange? Probably he'll play Alexander's dad, but you never know! They could be going real weird with it, or like Where The Wild Things Are artsy at least. Anyway, we hope they don't screw this little book up, which is great and wonderful book. [Deadline]
Here's a teaser for the teaser (that seems to be a thing we're doing now, which... Well, that head-in-hands rant is for another time) of Rian "Brick" Johnson's new film Looper. It's about Joseph Gordon-Levitt being hired to travel forward in time and kill his future self (Bruce Willis) and ohhh crazy and all that (really! sounds fun!) but there's one thing about this teaser teaser that really bothers (besides it being a "teaser teaser"): WTF is JGL's face? WTF JGL? Did they digitally alter him to look "more like" Bruce Willis? I put that in quotes because he does not look more like Bruce Willis at all he just looks creepy and like wax. Like, how is this Joseph Gordon-Levitt?
Maybe he's supposed to look middle-aged-ish there? Maybe this is a crazy movie about a wax robot trying to kill its future human self (Bruce Willis looks normal enough)? It is Rian Johnson after all. He's kind of a weirdo. But whatever the reason, we really don't like it. It's Joseph Gordon-Levitt! Messing with Joseph Gordon-Levitt's face with a computer is like putting a Burger King in the Place des Vosges. You just do not ruin something so sad and beautiful with something so cheap and modern. It just shouldn't be done! We object.
