This past May saw the news of Steven Soderbergh’s first directing gig since his self-imposed hiatus from the cinematic world, the ten-episode Cinemax series “The Knick.” With production beginning next month, Deadline is reporting that the Clive Owen-starring series has added four new castmembers: Andre Holland (“Miracle At St. Anna,” “42”), Juliet Rylance (“Sinister”), Eve Hewson (“This Must Be The Place,” “Blood Ties”) and Michael Angarano who last worked with Soderbergh in last year’s “Haywire.” The series is set in a New York City hospital at the dawn of the 20th century and starts shooting late September.
Though he’s no doubt still reeling from the critical and financial disappointment that was “After Earth,” M. Night Shyamalan (and Fox) is still pushing ahead with his “Twin Peaks”-influenced event series “Wayward Pines.” According to Deadline, the show—based on the best-selling novel by Blake Crouch—has found its female lead in Juliette Lewis. She joins Matt Dillon, who stars as a Secret Service agent dispatched to a strange small town to investigate the disappearance of two federal agents. As most investigations on TV, things quickly escalate into the weird and nothing is what it seems. The show’s likely to air sometime next year.
With the success of shows and movies like “Once Upon A Time” and “Alice In Wonderland,” we’re in the middle of a fairy tale overload with every studio and production company in town trying to get in on the action. And as the critical success of “Hannibal” proves, it’s not impossible to bring a new and interesting take on an iconic story and character. Still, that doesn’t mean we understand CBS’ attempt to turn “The Wizard Of Oz” into “a medical show based in New York City, inspired by the characters and themes immortalized in” the classic novel and film. Yes, everything you just read is an actual thing that a network wants to put on the air and it’s been titled “Dorothy.” This is still a long way from appearing on small screens everywhere, but somehow we don’t doubt that we’ll eventually see medical intern Dorothy arrive in gritty New York fresh off the bus from Kansas. Ugh.