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ENTERTAINMENT
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
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Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS
The cast of the television series “Package Deal” (from left Harland Williams, Julia Voth, Randal Edwards, and Jay Malone) are pictured in Toronto, as they promote their upcoming television series.
City adds comedies to fall lineup SHOWS FROM ROBIN WILLIAMS, ANDY SAMBERG, REBEL WILSON COMING BY THE CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO — New comedies starring Robin Williams, Rebel Wilson, Andy Samberg and Anna Faris are heading to City this fall, while violent dramas are being excised from the schedule in favour of a lighter lineup. Rogers Media — which runs City as well as specialty channels including FX Canada, Sportsnet, OMNI and OLN — announced a 2013-2014 roster Tuesday that includes fresh laughs from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, The Big Bang Theory creator Chuck Lorre and Parks and Recreation creator/ producers Dan Goor and Michael Schur. “We want to be known as the place people come to laugh,” Rogers Media president Keith Pelley said at a breakfast gathering that kicked off a full day of celeb-studded promotions. The fall slate includes Faris’ single parent sitcom Mom, MacFarlane’s multi-generational series Dads, Samberg’s cop comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Wilson’s single-camera Super Fun Night and Williams’ fatherdaughter laugher The Crazy Ones, co-starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as his daughter. Mom in particular is seen as a key buy, said broadcast president Scott Moore, who called it the “best comedy out of L.A. this year.” It will air Mondays alongside returning hit 2 Broke Girls while Williams’ buzzy The Crazy Ones, from Goor and Schur and executive produced by Boston Legal mastermind David E. Kelley, will anchor Thursday nights alongside “Parks and Recreation.” “I’m a huge Robin Williams fan, I’m a huge David E. Kelley fan, I think it’s going to be a grand slam,” said Moore. Williams’ plays a quirky advertising agency boss while Mad Men’s James Wolk co-stars as a cocky ad man.
Daunting as it may seem to trade barbs with the notoriously unpredictable Williams, Wolk said it was “an honour.” “The only reason it isn’t intimidating is because he doesn’t make it intimidating,” said Wolk, in Toronto to promote the City lineup along with actress Eva Longoria, who provides the main voice in the mid-season animated series Mother Up! “Once you’re working with Robin he couldn’t be a kinder, more gracious, generous actor and he makes you feel right at home.” Meanwhile, City is dropping its crime procedural Person of Interest from Thursday nights, throwing in the sudsy drama “Scandal” instead. “Person of Interest” will move over to CTV. “One of the hallmarks of the City schedule this year is comedy and brightish dramas. Not violent dramas,” said Moore, insisting that’s what’s most in demand by the young urban demographic that City targets. “We don’t have gratuitous violence on City this year, which I think personally is important. It’s one of the reasons we off-loaded Person of Interest — a great show but a little violent. There’s no gun play on City this year, I think that’s as important for us as anything else.” There was no word on what that meant for the fate of the gruesome mid-season thriller Hannibal, which airs on City. The Toronto-shot crime show recently got a season two pickup by NBC but Rogers Media execs made no mention of it returning to their lineup. Six new fall dramas that are headed to City include the lottery ensemble Lucky 7, the Alice In Wonderland-inspired Once Upon a Time in Wonderland and the romantic drama Betrayal. The sultry music series Nashville, meanwhile, also joins City after airing season one on CTV Two. Other new comedies include the army-set Enlisted,
the baseball-themed Back in the Game and the Canuck romantic comedy Package Deal. The multi-camera Package Deal, shot in front of a live studio audience in Vancouver, centres on a young lawyer played by Randal Edwards whose love life is complicated by two overbearing brothers, played by comics Harland Williams and Jay Malone. “He’s very centred and grounded, he’s kind of the normal one and me and Jay are the dysfunctional ones,” Williams explained while seated alongside Edwards, Malone and co-star Julia Voth. “He’s extremely insecure and I’m kind of a shady, kind of a weaselly guy. And so you’ve got these two bookending nut jobs kind of squeezing in on his very kind of traditional and normal and grounded life.” Overall, City’s 2013-14 fall and mid-season primetime schedule features 16 imports — eight comedies, six dramas and two reality series. The network also boasts of five new and two returning homegrown series, including fresh reality shows The Project: Guatemala, Storage Wars Canada and Meet the Family. The Bachelor Canada will return — but not for at least a year. The reality dating series is slated for fall 2014, to give producers more time to find the right bachelor and bachelorettes. “We want to make more of a meal of the casting process on the front end,” said Claire Freeland, director of original programming. “This first phase of casting the show is so important, we want to look at doing a more multiplatform, wider search for our cast.” Shaw Media, which runs Global and a raft of specialty channels including Showcase, HGTV and Slice, is slated to reveal its upcoming lineup Wednesday. Bell Media, which runs CTV as well as specialty channels including Bravo, Much and Comedy, will announce its plans Thursday.
Latest Godzilla movie will shoot scenes on Oahu HONOLULU — Oahu will be the backdrop this summer for movie scenes of a large, damage-prone star. Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures on Monday said filming for its new Godzilla movie is planned for the island starting July. Studio officials have picked several locations and filmmakers should be easy to spot, Hawaii film commissioner Donne Dawson told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “They’ll be filming in some very public places,” she said. “The public will have no problem observing filming activity. It is not going to be hidden away in the jungle.” The monster itself may not be apparent. Godzilla will be computer-generated on screen. “They will be doing a lot of shooting with a lot of people,” Dawson said. “It’s probably not going to be evident from the shooting what is actually going to take place on the screen.” Filming on the movie began March 18 in Vancouver, British Columbia, under British director Gareth Edwards, who directed the 2010 movie, Monsters. The Godzilla screenplay is by Max Boren-
stein, Frank Darabonte and Dave Callaham. It stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn and Bryan Cranston.
Honolulu film commissioner Walea Constantinau said filming will be good for the local economy. Filming of two other recent movies, The Descendants and Battleship,
has underscored the island’s value for making movies, she said. “This is an indelible franchise that lives through history,” she said. “For us to be part of
it, with Honolulu front and centre in some of it, is an unbelievable marketing opportunity.” Godzilla has been to the island before. Matthew Broderick starred in a 1998 version
of the monster movie shot on Kauai and Oahu, one of 30 Godzilla movies filmed since 1954. Honolulu Star-Advertiser: http://www.staradvertiser.com
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