I promise, I’m still alive!! I’ve just re-coded the gallery theme (I was annoyed with the original coding to no end) and I’ve just added a couple promotional photos and movie stills for Hornet’s Nest into the gallery before I cap and sort Alcatraz episodes!

Also, don’t forget that Hornet’s Nest will be premiering Saturday night (March 31st) at 8pm ET on TNT!

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• Productions > 2012 | Hornet’s Nest > Promotional Photoshoot
• Productions > 2012 | Hornet’s Nest > Stills

How I Met Your Mother alum Robbie Amell has been tapped to play the co-lead opposite Colin Ferguson in Bill Lawrence’s semi-autobiographical Fox comedy pilot Like Father.

The premise: When Van Lyons’ (Ferguson) wife dies, he shows up at son Will’s (Amell) college campus for a prolonged visit, hoping to get his son to open up and get on with his grieving.

Amell, the cousin of Vampire Diaries alum and newly-christened Green Arrow Stephen Amell, is coming off of guest stints on Revenge and CSI: NY. His additional credits include the Scooby-Doo live-action TV-movies (playing head-sleuth Fred) and Nickelodeon’s hit kiddie show True Jackson, VP.

Source: TV Line

The locally filmed TV movie “Hornet’s Nest” will air at 8 p.m. March 31, according to TNT officials.

Sherry Stringfield (“ER”) and Virginia Madsen (“Sideways”) star in the movie, an adaptation of the Charlotte-based novel of the same name by Patricia Cornwell.

“Hornet’s Nest” filmed last December at the StarNews Media newsroom on 17th Street and other Port City locations, such as the New Hanover County courthouse.

The movie features reporter Andy Brazil (Robbie Amell), Police Chief Judy Hammer (Madsen) and her top deputy, Virginia West (Stringfield). The story begins with everyone desperate to solve the latest crisis: a serial killer targeting out-of-town businessmen. Hammer and West make the murder investigation their top priority.

“Hornet’s Nest” will premiere as part of the TNT Mystery Movie Night, the network’s new film series adapted from contemporary crime novels, said Gina McKenzie, a vice president of public relations for Turner Broadcasting System Inc. TNT is a division of Turner.

Source: SterNews Online

If you haven’t seen it yet, E! Online has premiered the movie trailer to Chris Colfer’s Struck By Lightning. I must say, I’m quite excited for it!

TNT has greenlit an original movie adaptation of the chart-topping bestseller Hornet’s Nest, a novel by America’s #1 crime novelist, Patricia Cornwell, whose works have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. Sherry Stringfield (ER) and Virginia Madsen (Sideways) have been cast to star in Hornet’s Nest, which will premiere next spring as part of the TNT Mystery Movie Night, the network’s new showcase of movies adapted from contemporary crime novels. Robbie Amell (Picture This), Michael Boatman (The Good Wife) and Michael Silver (ER) are also set to star in the movie.

The TNT Mystery Movie Night is set to launch Tuesday, Nov. 29, at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) with Scott Turow’s Innocent. The franchise will feature six movies in November and December before returning in spring 2012 with Hornet’s Nest and three additional movies.

Hornet’s Nest, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, is the first in Cornwell’s series of mysteries featuring reporter Andy Brazil (Amell), Police Chief Judy Hammer (Madsen) and her top deputy, Virginia West (Stringfield). Boatman has been cast as Richard Panesa, and Silver will play Deputy Chief Adam Goode. Set in Charlotte, N.C., the story opens with everyone desperate to solve the latest crisis: a serial killer is specializing in out-of-town businessmen. Hammer and West make the murder investigation their top priority. But West is less than pleased when Hammer pairs her up with Brazil, a cub reporter assigned to cover the police department.

Hornet’s Nest is being adapted by screenwriter Dee Johnson, whose credits include TNT’s Southland and Rizzoli & Isles. Jim Head serves as executive producer, along with Cornwell, who will release Red Mist (G.P. Putnam’s Sons), the eagerly anticipated 19th novel in the acclaimed Scarpetta series, on Dec. 6. Millicent Shelton (Californication, 90210) is set to direct Hornet’s Nest. Head is also currently executive-producing Ricochet, which premieres Wednesday, Nov. 30, as part of this winter’s TNT Mystery Movie Night lineup. Based on the novel by Sandra Brown, Ricochet stars John Corbett, Julie Benz, Kelly Overton and Gary Cole.

In addition to Scott Turow’s Innocent and Ricochet, the TNT Mystery Movie Night’s winter 2011 presentations will include Hide (Tuesday, Dec. 6), based on the novel by Lisa Gardner and starring Carla Gugino, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Kevin Alejandro and Bridget Regan; Silent Witness (Wednesday, Dec. 7), based on the book by Richard North Patterson and starring Dermot Mulroney, Michael Cudlitz, Anne Heche and Judd Hirsch; and Good Morning, Killer (Tuesday, Dec. 13), based on the book by April Smith and starring Catherine Bell, Cole Hauser, William Devane, Titus Welliver and Suleka Mathew. Closing out the showcase’s winter 2011 lineup, Kathy Najimy, Scottie Thompson, Jane Alexander and Larry Miller will star in Deck the Halls (Tuesday, Dec. 20), based on the book by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark.

Source: Zap2It

ABC’s ‘Revenge’ premiered last night, and it might be one of the hot new shows this fall!

It’s NOT a story of forgiveness, but TV Guide is calling it a must see!

Emily VanCamp is great as the lead, and the rest of the cast, including Gossip Girl’s Connor Paolo (how’s that work?) fits just as well.

Add in the fact that Robbie Amell is joining the cast next week for a couple of episodes and we’ve got ourselves a hit!

Did you watch ‘Revenge?’

Source: Starz Life

ROCKLAND — Rockland fisherman Joel B. Strunk is no newcomer to show biz; he can remember being a young child sitting on the lap of Karen Carpenter while his father performed on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” Now he is filming his own project, in the Rockland area and on Vinalhaven, and it is decidedly less glam and more real.

Strunk, son of the late Jud Strunk — a popular singer/songwriter whose biggest hit, “A Daisy a Day,” was the first recorded song ever played on the moon — and his crew have begun a 25-day shoot for “Anatomy of the Tide,” an independent coming-of-age feature-length film. The cast includes some real stars, drawn to the project by Strunk’s Nicholl Fellowship-contending script (a 2010 semifinalist, it was in the top 2 percent of the last year’s thousands of entries). How that script came to circulate in Hollywood is a tale of personal connections and how the film came to be funded is, too.

The inspiration for the film’s story goes back to 1990s, when the state eliminated the deer herd on Monhegan, and even earlier, to when writer/director Strunk was 11 years old and started thinking about what it must be like to grow up on an island. He describes “Anatomy of the Tide” as a summer kids’ story, grounded by a deeper tale but basically about redemption … and about a very particular aspect of an island summer.

“There hasn’t been a Maine movie that really captures the politics of the haves and have-nots of summer here, the ebb and flow of the social classes, like this one,” said Strunk.

There hasn’t been a movie funded like this one either, he said. While he tried to find some big pockets — at one point, he was pitching the movie “to this old billionaire in Palm Beach” — it ended up coming together through the aggregated generosity of his fellow fishermen.

“It’s hard-working, blue-collar people that made this happen,” he said.

Strunk grew up watching his father wow audiences around the country, and he knew at some level that he was an artist too. It took him a while to figure out his niche.

“My dad was an incredible entertainer. I couldn’t pick up the banjo and play like he did or tell a joke like he could,” he said.

But he could write. In college, he began writing plays. His first Nicholls’ screenplay entry, “Veterans Day” in 2000, was in the top nine of that year’s contenders; one in that finalist group that ended up winning became “Akeelah and the Bee.” “Anatomy of the Tide” has been in the works for some 15 years.

“I fish to pay the bills, and other times I write. My neighbors must think I’m lazy because I show up late on my porch in my bathrobe, but I’ve been writing until 3 in the morning,” he said.

Now that the script is actually being lensed — Maine Media Workshops instructor Daniel Stephens is the cinematographer, wielding a RED digital video camera courtesy of MMW’s David Berez — Strunk said his neighbors must be even more concerned, given the state of his just-outside-Hope yard.

“They must think my lawn mower has broken down,” he said.

How Strunk’s script became so hot in Hollywood is thanks in part to his late father. About five years ago, Strunk connected with Charles Kipps, a friend of his father, in New York. Kipps has produced both records and films and when he found out Strunk was a Nicholls finalist with a screenplay in hand, he asked to read it. After he did, he offered to produce “Anatomy” if Strunk could pull together the funds. Kipps put the script in circulation, and Strunk was amazed at the people who expressed interest, as well as those who eventually signed on.

“I am so excited! I mean, we have eight stars,” he said, ticking off a list that includes Spencer Locke (“Resident Evil,” “Cougar Town”), Jamie Lynn Sigler (“The Sopranos”) and Robbie Amell (this season’s “How I Met Your Mother,” “Scooby-Doo!”).

Playing the coming-of-age characters that form the core of the story are up-and-coming young actors Gabriel Basso (“Super 8″) and Daniel Flaherty (“Skins”), as well as Nathan Keyes (“Ben 10: Alien Swarm”).

“I mean, driving back from casting in Portland, I stopped into a rest-stop McDonald’s and there was Nathan Keyes in a Happy Meal prize and he’s in my movie,” enthused Strunk.

The “local casting,” which spanned Maine to Boston, was handled by Karen True and Maureen Gorman, “who did a fabulous job,” said Strunk. The film has a fairly large cast, thanks to its script’s complex weaving of multiple subplots. What it does not have is a large budget. The fishing dock investors have raised some $600,000; the film’s Modified Low Budget Agreement cut-off is $625,000, as a dollar more would mean a different set of requirements from the Screen Actors Guild.

“The SAG guidelines make it difficult to accept any more donations of money, but we can do in-kind,” Strunk said.

Those donations have included everything from use of a parent’s dock to “a car Dick Crossman from the Allen Agency waved down in the street and asked if we could use,” said Strunk. Right now, the production company is looking for another set of wheels.

“What I really need is an old, rusted-out bread truck — an old Wonder Bread truck would be ideal,” he said.

Local businesses that have provided in-kind donations include the Lord Camden Inn and Penobscot Island Air. Anyone interested in making this kind of investment in the film is encouraged to contact Strunk at info@anatomyofthetide.com.

Strunk said there already are a couple of distributors showing interest in the finished film and there is a possibility his team can put together clips to submit for the next season of film festivals. The team does have an on-site editor, but post-production details have yet to be worked out.

“Right now, I am totally focused and committed to getting it filmed,” said Strunk.

Source: Herald Gazette