Kiefer Sutherland Is Returning to His Old TV Stomping Grounds
Today in film and television: All My Children signs off, George Lucas cleans up, and Kiefer Sutherland returns to Fox as a dad on the edge.
Star Wars fanboys were outraged--outraged!--to learn that the Blu Ray edition of Return of the Jedi inserted audio of Darth Vader screaming "NOOO!" after Emperor Palpatine gets tossed off the Death Star, which didn't stop the franchise'a complete nine-disc Blu Ray set from registering $84 million in worldwide sales in its first week of release.That number doesn't include figures from the separate trilogy collections for Episodes IV-VI (the good ones) and Episodes I-III (the Hayden Christensen ones). [Variety]
24 star Kiefer Sutherland is returning to Fox this spring in Touch, another series about a man forced to make sense of things that are Not As They Seem. According to the Los Angeles Times, he'll play Martin Bohm "a widower who discovers that his mute 11-year-old son Jake has a special ability to see things and patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events—and it’s up to Martin to find the meaning in all of it." Which was basically the premise of 24's second season, except instead of a mute 11 year-old, he had a teenage daughter stuck in a cougar trap. The series was given a 13-episode commitment and will debut in the spring. [Show Tracker]
Richard Jenkins earned a Best Actor nomination in 2009 for The Visitor and has hit his prime as a lead at 60, but he's still game to play the occasional civil servant, which explains why he's signed on to play--wait for it--the Indianapolis district attorney prosecuting Tom Cruise's rough-and-tumble former Army sniper character Jack Reacher in One Shot, the first in a series of novels featuring Reacher by author Lee Child. Another possible factor: being an Oscar nominee in a stock role in a silly thriller has financial benefits. [The Hollywood Reporter]
All My Children ends its 41 year run on ABC today and while there's been discussion of the show continuing online, star Susan Lucci has already said she wouldn't consider it. It will be replaced starting Monday with a food talk show called The Chew. Even non-viewers can agree it's the end of some kind of era. In a Los Angeles Times editorial, novelist Alice Hoffman delivers a touching and thoughtful tribute to the show's four decades of just being there. [The Los Angeles Times]
