The Weekly Round-Up for June 21 to 25

Here are the entertainment news items for this week:

NEWS

FOX has announced that the following Glee cast members: Chris Colfer, Amber Riley, Jenna Ushkowitz, Kevin McHale, Mark Salling, Heather Morris, and Naya Rivera as well as co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk will get to experience Comic Con this year. The other members of the show – Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison and Dianna Agron – attended last year. Jane Lynch, however, has a scheduling conflict and will not be able to attend. Additionally, the cast will be bringing some never-before-seen clips to their July 25 Q&A.

Actress Katherine Graham, from the hit CW series The Vampire Diaries, has released a single called “Sassy” (which is now available at iTunes). Look for her listed as Kat Graham, who isn’t a “newbie” to the music industry as her dad was a record executive and she has recorded with will.i.am (from The Black Eyed Peas).

Congrats to all of the winners of this year’s Saturn Awards, including James Cameron, Avatar, Lost, Torchwood: Children of Earth, Josh Holloway, Anna Torv, Julie Benz, Watchmen, Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Saoirse Ronan (and more).

TV SERIES NEWS

No big surprise here: HBO picks up True Blood for a fourth season.

Four new characters (not including incoming diva Vanessa Williams) will be added to Desperate Housewives this fall. The quartet includes: Maxine: A sweet lady in the 60-80 year-old age range. Maxine is Mike and Susan’s new neighbor in their apartment building, and she has an unusual job that brings in some additional income. Beth: This quirky, sweet thirtysomething woman was Paul Young’s prison pen pal-cum-wife. She’s damaged emotionally but also capable of humor. Penny Scavo: Tom and Lynette’s 12-year-old daughter is being recast. Not sure why. Keith: Hot, sexy, 30-year-old contractor. He’s a charming playboy who turns up on Wisteria Lane. Think Mike Delfino 15 years ago.

A.J. Cook may be seen in at least one episode of Criminal Minds next season in order to “put a cap on her character’s story”; but that will be it despite efforts by fans to make the powers that be behind the show change their minds. It is rumored, though, that a new female character may be introduced during next season.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is set to reprise her role as Nancy’s older sister Jill in one episode of Weeds, while Alanis Morissette is returning for two episodes as Nancy’s baby doc (and girlfriend to Andy). The sixth season, which premieres August 16, finds Nancy and Co. on the run after Shane whacked Pilar with a croquet mallet.

Cynthia Nixon (Sex and the City) has joined the Laura Linney Showtime dark comedy series The Big C. She will have a recurring role as a friend from Cathy (Linney).

NBC is changing their programming on Monday nights, at least for the next two weeks. The drama series Persons Unknown will now air at 8 PM with the reality series Last Comic Standing taking over the other two hours of the night. Mark your calendars.

Mos Def has joined the upcoming HBO comedy Enlightened, starring Laura Dern as a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening and decides to live an enlightened life, which creates havoc at home and work. He will play her new boss when she returns to work.

Jonny Lee Miller (Eli Stone) will appear in a multi-episode arc on Dexter, playing a mysterious man who ends up tangled in a storyline with Julia Stiles.

Jordana Spiro has fallen out of Love Bites, the upcoming romantic anthology series at NBC due to her contractual commitment to the TBS comedy My Boys, which returns for a 4th season on July 25. No official word has been announced on whether the pilot that was filmed with Spiro starring alongside Becky Newton (Ugly Betty) will be recast or reshot.

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Mary Steenburgen will star in the FX pilot Outlaw Country, playing a powerful country music superstar who’s protective of her daughter, Annabel. The drama follows Southern organized crime and Nashville royalty.

Matthew Lillard (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) and Gillian Vigman (Defenders) have landed the leads in the CMT single-camera comedy pilot The Hard Life. Lillard and Vigman will play a married couple who attempt to be great parents and spouses but who find it difficult to juggle everything in their lives.

Lifetime has ordered three new cop drama pilots, including Exit 19 from Jeff Bell, which had been shot as a pilot presentation at CBS during the 2008-09 season, an untitled drama from Josh Berman (Drop Dead Diva) about a female police detective who may have to raise her two children on her own, and Against the Wall, from Annie Brunner (Huff), about a female cop who is placed in the internal affairs division of the Chicago PD, a fact that doesn’t sit right with her two cop brothers.

AMC is said to nearing a deal to develop drama The Wreck, from writers Graham Gordy and Michael Fuller and executive producer John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), which would revolve around the head coach of a struggling college football team who is given one last chance to turn the team’s fortunes around.

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Simon Pegg revealed he is the new voice behind the brave pint-sized mouse warrior Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. He is replacing Bill Nighy who was announced as a replacement for Eddie Izzard (who voiced the character in Prince Caspian).

Linda Cardellini, Michael Shannon and Tim Blake Nelson will star in the indie drama Return, which tells the story of a woman (Cardellini) who returns home from war to her husband (Shannon) and kids in a small town and struggles to readjust. Nelson will play an older war vet who befriends the female soldier.

Bruce Dern has joined the movie adaptation of The Big Valley, the 1960’s western TV series of the same name which followed a family of ranchers.

Disney has lined up 10 young actors and actresses (mostly unknowns) for the ensemble cast of Prom, a high school comedy which the studio hopes will serve as a launch for a new franchise much like High School Musical. The movie is said to be similar in tone to John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink.

Walton Goggins (Justified) has landed a role in Cowboys & Aliens where Apache Indians and Western settlers must put their differences aside when a spaceship crash lands in their city. The cast includes Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano and Clancy Brown.

Michael Shannon and Jamie Chung have joined the cast of the thriller Premium Rush, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a New York bike messenger who picks up an envelope at Columbia University, and suddenly finds himself chased throughout the city by a dirty cop desperate to get his hands on it. Shannon will be playing the corrupt cop in pursuit while Chung will play Gordon-Levitt’s ex-girlfriend, a fellow daredevil bike messenger who helps him outwit the cop.

Kenny Wormald, a 25-year-old newcomer, who has appeared in Centerstage: Turn It Up, the MTV series Dancelife and was a backup dancer for Justin Timberlake, joins Julianne Hough and new addition Dennis Quaid in the remake of Footloose, which starts shooting in August. The movie is expected in theatres on April 1, 2011.

John Lithgow and Freida Pinto have joined the cast of the Planet of the Apes prequel called Rise of the Apes. Pinto will play the female lead, a primatologist named Caroline, while Lithgow will play the Alzheimer’s-stricken father to James Franco‘s scientist character, who’s trying to work on a cure for his father’s disease. Rise of the Apes is set in contemporary San Francisco and follows a young scientist who becomes a crucial figure in the war between humans and apes. Franco has been testing his Alzheimer cure on apes, but one of them, named Caesar, starts to evolve rapidly, so he takes him home to live with him and protect him from the “cruel doctors,” thus starting the inevitable ape revolution.

Jason Biggs and Joel David Moore will star in the indie political comedy Grassroots, the story of a recently fired journalist (Biggs) who reluctantly agrees to spearhead the Seattle City Council campaign of his eccentric friend (Moore), a former pedicab driver with a burning passion for the Monorail. The film, written and directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal (father of Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal), is based on the memoir Zioncheck for President.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has joined Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener in the movie Peace, Love & Misunderstanding, which is a portrait of an unconventional family in the story of a conservative New York City lawyer (Keener) who is in desperate need of an escape after her husband asks for a divorce. Along with her two children she takes refuge at her estranged hippie mother Grace’s (Fonda) farmhouse, where she is exposed to a motley crew of free thinkers. What was meant to be a stress-free getaway quickly turns into a reminder of why Diane escaped her mother’s hippie lifestyle in the first place, but the reunion forcers her, her children, and Grace to search for peace with each other and with themselves.

Lukas Haas has joined the cast of the supernatural movie Red Riding Hood. The story is a Gothic update on the Grimm Brothers tale and will see a medieval village haunted by a werewolf. Haas will play the village priest. The cast already includes Amanda Seyfried as the title red hooded girl, Gary Oldman, Julie Christie, Max Irons and Shiloh Fernandez.

Pierce Brosnan will star in the thriller movie Bonded, which is being produced by and co-stars his son Sean. The story, based on true events that took place in El Monte, CA in the early ’90s, follows a Mexican teenager named Jesus who, after the death of his mother, is sold by his father and smuggled into America, where he’s forced to work as a slave laborer in a Los Angeles sweatshop. While imprisoned there, he befriends a young woman named Elena. But when she is claimed by a sex trafficker, Jesus must make a daring escape in order to rescue her. Both Brosnans will be playing police officers in the movie and casting is still on the search for the male lead.

Channing Tatum is to star in the sci-fi romantic epic Ion, which revolves around a man who travels to different Earths and dimensions in order to find his reincarnated lover. As you can imagine, comparisons to Avatar are being loosely thrown around as the success of it and the likes of Star Trek and District 9 last year have lead to several sci-fi projects being put into development lately.

MADE FOR TV MOVIES

Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous), Shanna Collins (Swingtown), and Caitlin Custer have joined the cast of the HBO made-for-TV movie Cinema Verte, based on the groundbreaking 1970s reality series An American Family, which stars Tim Robbins, Diane Lane, James Gandolfini, and Thomas Dekker.

Alex Wolff (The Naked Brothers Band) has signed on for a multiple-episode story arc on HBO’s In Treatment, where he will play the son of Gabriel Byrne.

Syfy is also giving fans of its Saturday night movies the chance to oversee each and every aspect of the production of one of its upcoming creature features. “The network is launching a production site, B Movie Mogul, where fans can vote and pitch ideas for the film, from title, creatures, wardrobe, dialogue and character deaths to promotional taglines. The resulting ‘script’ will be shot as a two-hour Syfy original movie to be released next year.”

CASTING SCOOP

International pop star Charice has signed on to recur next season on Glee as a foreign exchange student whose killer vocals get Rachel (Lea Michele) contemplating murder. Not literally, mind you.

Richard Dean Anderson will guest star on the upcoming USA Network series Facing Kate, appearing in at least five episodes. The series stars Sarah Shahi (Life) as Kate Reed, a top-flight litigator who leaves her firm to become a mediator. Anderson will play David Smith, a charismatic but secretive man who enters Kate’s life shortly after the death of her father. In short order, it is revealed that David has deeper connections to the Reed family.

RUMOR PATROL

Whales, the true tale of gray whales trapped under the ice of the Arctic Circle, may be adding a new cast member: Kristen Bell. The former Veronica Mars star will join Drew Barrymore, who will appear as a Greenpeace activist, along with John Krasinksi, who will play a small-town reporter. Bell is negotiating to play an LA reporter.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

The following shows, movies and specials will air this weekend as well as next week:

The Hallmark Channel movie You Lucky Dog will debut on Saturday, June 26 at 9 PM.

The movie Dinocroc Vs. Supergator will premiere on Syfy on Saturday, June 26 at 9 PM.

The Daytime Emmy Awards will air on CBS at 9 PM.

The new ABC Family Channel series Huge will debut on Monday, June 28 at 9 PM.

The series Make It or Break It will return to the ABC Family Channel on Monday, June 28 at 10 PM.

Rescue Me is back on FX at 10 PM on Tuesday, June 29.

There will be a marathon of Royal Pains episodes on USA on Friday, July 2.

Here are the new episodes of the dramas that will be airing this coming week:

Saturday, June 26
Doctor Who on BBC America at 9 PM
Three Rivers on CBS at 8 PM

Sunday, June 27
Leverage on TNT at 9 PM and 10 PM
Scoundrels on ABC at 9 PM
The Gates on ABC at 10 M
Unnatural History on Cartoon Network at 9 PM
True Blood on HBO at 9 PM
Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime at 9 PM
Army Wives on Lifetime at 10 PM

Monday, June 28
Lie To Me on FOX at 8 PM
The Good Guys on FOX at 9 PM
Persons Unknown on NBC at 8 PM
The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family Channel at 8 PM
True Blood on HBO at 8 PM

Tuesday, June 29
HawthoRNe on TNT at 9 PM
Memphis Beat on TNT at 10 PM
Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family Channel at 8 PM
Law & Order: Criminal Intent on USA at 10 PM
Ashes to Ashes on BBC America at 10 PM

Wednesday, June 30
Unnatural History on Cartoon Network at 9 PM
In Plain Sight on USA Network at 10 PM

Thursday, July 1
Rookie Blue on ABC at PM
Burn Notice on USA at 9 PM
Royal Pains on USA at 10 PM

Friday, July 2
Flashpoint on CBS at 9 PM
Miami Medical on CBS at 10 PM
Friday Night Lights on NBC at 8 PM
Merlin on Syfy at 10 PM (Season Finale)

NOTE: Please check your local listings for the correct air dates and times for all of the above.

Have a great weekend!