"Conchords" star Clement says HBO show may end
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Flight of the Conchords" star Jemaine Clement has said his offbeat HBO comedy series may not continue for a third season because it requires so much work, but a final decision will be made within a month.
Clement told Reuters that he needs to discuss the future of the show with his co-star, Bret McKenzie, and with the director of the series, James Bobin.
"It very likely might not" return for a third season, Clement said.
"It could come back in a shorter season or like a special," he added.
The largely autobiographical "Flight of the Conchords," an offbeat, cult favorite in the United States, tells of two New Zealand bandmates named Jemaine and Bret who move to New York to try to make it in the music business.
The show began in 2007 and is based on Clement and McKenzie's folk parody band Flight of the Conchords. The second season ended this past spring on the U.S. network HBO.
This year, the show gained an Emmy nomination for best comedy series, but lost to "30 Rock" on NBC. Clement also was nominated for best lead actor in a comedy series.
Clement, who took flight on a solo career last week starring in a new movie "Gentleman Broncos," said he and McKenzie are challenged to keep up with the work required for the show.
"We've got to write the series, but we've also got to write the songs, and just dividing your time into those two writing tasks is really tricky," he said.
Clement, who also told Reuters in January that Season 2 could be the last for "Flight of the Conchords," said its end would be "bittersweet" because "it's so hard" to produce.
"Flight of the Conchords" averaged 3.1 million viewers per episode last season, in-line with Season 1, HBO said.
"We've left their future entirely in their hands," said Nancy Lesser, a spokeswoman for the network. "We would love to have more, and we left an open door at HBO."
Last year, Clement and McKenzie's musical duo Flight of the Conchords won New Zealand's first Grammy since 1984, for their EP "The Distant Future." They won for best comedy album.
Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin to co-host Oscars
LOS ANGELES – Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will co-host the Oscars.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says the two Hollywood veterans will share hosting duties at the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony.
Telecast producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman said in a statement the two actors are "the perfect pair of hosts for the Oscars."
Martin has hosted twice before, in 2001 and 2003, and has appeared as a presenter several times. Baldwin is a first-timer.
Baldwin, 51, who stars on NBC's "30 Rock," called the Oscar gig "the opportunity of a lifetime." He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2003 for his supporting role in "The Cooler."
Martin said that he is "happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin." The 64-year-old entertainer is currently touring with the bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers in support of his album, "The Crow: New Songs for the Five String Banjo."
The 82nd Academy Awards will be presented March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre.
'This Is It' DVD launch delayed to 2010
Movie executives at Sony Pictures have scrapped plans to release Michael Jackson's This Is It film on DVD before Christmas after cinema bosses urged them to delay the release.
Theatre chain heads insisted a speedy DVD turnaround for the holiday season would keep fans away from cinemas and hamper ticket sales, prompting movie bosses to hold off releasing the concert rehearsal film on DVD until the New Year.
Instead, the Sony bosses have extended the film's limited two-week run by one to three weeks.
Michael Jackson's This Is It pulled in $101 million around the world in just five days. The film ruled the U.S. box office, taking $21.3 million in its opening weekend.
Hansard, Irglová have a Swell Season
Lightning has already stuck Once for The Swell Season — and that’s more than enough for now.
“It’s been a huge couple of years,” says singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, chatting over his cellphone while he sips tea on the patio of the swanky Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood.
“My life has completely changed.”
And it’s all due to one song. Two years ago, the Irish musician was frontman of the critically acclaimed but commercially obscure band The Frames.
Then, in February of 2008, he was catapulted into the spotlight when he and Markéta Irglová — his musical partner and co-star in the busker romance Once — won the 2008 Best Original Song Oscar for Falling Slowly. You might remember Irglová being cut off in mid-acceptance speech and being brought back onstage by host Jon Stewart so she could finish.
For Hansard, the indie-folk duo’s overnight success ended 18 years of struggle.
But even as it put an end to many of his financial and professional worries, it created a whole new set of personal problems that left him feeling decidedlly less than swell for a season.
“Success came at such a rate and such a speed that I couldn’t adjust to it,” he admits. “All of these great things had happened — I had just won an Oscar and we were playing these rooms for thousands of people who were listening and interested and had paid money to come see our band — and I was so sad. I couldn’t understand why.
“And then I realized: The person I had been for 18 years had just died. The guy who struggled and wanted success and who was ambitious and chasing every opportunity was gone, and now I was being introduced to this new character — the guy who is successful — and I didn’t know how to deal with him. There was a brief but intense grieving period.”
Equally brief but intense, he admits, was a romance that sprung up between Hansard and Irglová — who is 18 years his junior.
“That was a chapter that was really great and fine,” he admits, “but we quickly found that we get on much better as mates than we do as boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Some 18 months later, the 39-year-old Hansard’s mood has finally improved along with his fortunes. And his expanded horizons are reflected in the sound of the duo’s third album Strict Joy, released Oct. 27 on Anti-Epitaph.
While it’s hardly as rigourously optimistic as its title — Hansard and Irglová still specialize in heartfelt tales of romantic yearning and regret — it does move their sound several steps onward and upward by fleshing out their acoustic guitars, pianos and voices with the richly layered textures of Hansard’s longtime band.
Fittingly, Hansard says he felt no pressure to make a record that would have the same impact as Once.
“For me to sit around and think that I could match that success would be insane. Of course, you want to make stuff that lives up to your standard. But in terms of what it did and how it did in the world ... Let’s say that soundtrack was heard by a million people. I would hope that maybe a third of those people would hear this one.
“Which is a f---ing huge amount of people. But you’re not going to reach a million people again. Once had such a good amount of energy and was such a good thing in my life. To want to repeat that would be greedy.”
Instead, he’s learned to embrace his new life, which has taken him everywhere from The Simpsons (“That’s almost bigger than the Oscars”) to the funeral of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (“Bono called me and asked if I could sing at her wake because he was playing Wembley that week”).
“It’s been an amazing ride, but it’s time to get back to work and to get back to doing what we do,” he says of The Swell Season’s upcoming tour, which stops at Massey Hall tomorrow, Montreal’s Olympia on Wednesday and Vancouver next month.
“Hopefully, along the way I’ll have other successes that are just as profound.”
After all, who says lightning can’t strike twice?
'Doctor Who' star lands 'Rex' pilot
Popular British actor David Tennant, best known for playing the title role in the BBC's long-running sci-fi series "Doctor Who," is set to make his American television debut as the title character in NBC's hourlong pilot "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer."
Written by Andrew Leeds and David Lampson, "Rex" centers on Rex Alexander (Tennant), a top Chicago litigator who begins suffering panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court.
David Semel, who directed the pilots for "Heroes" and "Life," has come on board to helm the comedic legal drama from Universal Media Studios and BermanBraun.
He will also executive produce with veteran Barry Schindel (who is attached as showrunner), Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein. Leeds and Lampson serve as supervising producers.
NBC greenlighted the project in August, about two years after it was first developed, and had been trying to find a lead actor for several months until Tennant came along and nailed the part.
Tennant, a theater and TV actor, rose to fame playing the mysterious alien time-traveler at the center of "Doctor Who" for the past five years. His performance as the Doctor has been often rated as the top in the franchise's 46-year history.
Tennant's casting is reminiscent of the tapping of another established British TV actor with virtually no American TV experience, Hugh Laurie, as the lead on Fox's medical drama "House."
Tennant, who co-starred in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," recently signed with UTA. He's also repped by U.K.'s Independent Talent Group.