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Writers Jane Espenson and Drew Z. Greenberg ("Buffy The Vampire Slayer") will write the Syfy/ITV Studios’ pilot-in-development "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", adapting the 1960's Brit TV series for Us audiences.

Executive producer is Howard Braunstein ("The Memory Keeper's Daughter").

The original detective series, created by Dennis Spooner for producer Monty Berman, starred Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope as 'Jeff Randall' and 'Marty Hopkirk'.

In the initial episode Hopkirk was killed in the line of duty, but returned as a ghost that only Randall was able to see or hear to help his former partner fight crime from beyond the grave.

Creator Spooner, inspired by the film "Topper", had a keen interest in the paranormal and ghostly phenomena which he believed would be an inspired idea for a television series, incorporating it with the characteristic crime, drama and action of other successful UK TV fare at the time,...

One of the stranger items of note this year, if you're into this sort of thing, has been the rise of Blake Lively. To those who merely observe, it's no different than the dawn of any other interchangeable big breasted blonde starlet. Those come around with the frequency of #22 buses and are rarely lasting.

But this particular star-forming has been interesting. TV girls, let alone those of the primetime soap genre, don't have the best track record with the transition to big screen success. Where some (Michelle Williams) have found critical success, others have either striven for popularity over acclaim, or simply didn't have the skills to ascend past their television status.

But Blake Lively is not only in the company of the small-screeners who've reached for the brass rail of film. She's in that elite club where the crash and burn is just as swift and harsh, but even...

Syfy will develop an update of the 1960's UK 'ghost' TV series "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", with ITV Studios, ordering a pilot based on a teleplay by Josh Bycel ("Scrubs") and Jonathan Fener ("American Dad").

Executive producer is Jaffe/Braunstein Entertainment's Howard Braunstein ("The Memory Keeper's Daughter").

The original private detective series, starring actors Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope as 'Jeff Randall' and 'Marty Hopkirk', was created by Dennis Spooner for producer Monty Berman.

In the initial episode Hopkirk was killed in the line of duty, but returned as a ghost that only Randall was able to see or hear to help his former partner fight crime from beyond the grave.

Creator Spooner, inspired by the film "Topper", had a keen interest in the paranormal and ghostly phenomena which he believed would be an inspired idea for a television series, incorporating it with the characteristic crime, drama and...

NBC has tapped Dermot Mulroney to star in its remake of "The Rockford Files."

Mulroney ("Zodiac," "My Best Friend's Wedding") will play a present-day version of the L.A. private made famous by James Garner in the 1970s, the showbiz trade papers report. It will be his first regular role on a TV series; his other small-screen credits include Lifetime's 2008 adaptation of "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and a few episodes of "Friends" in 2003.

"House" creator David Shore is writing the remake and executive producing with "The Office" star Steve Carell.

- In other remake casting news, Grace Park has signed on to CBS' "Hawaii Five-o."

The "Battlestar Galactica" star will play Kona Kalakaua, the niece of Daniel Dae Kim's character, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her character is fresh out of the police academy when Detective Steve McGarrett (Alex O'Loughlin) recruits her to his team.

"BSG" cast members have...

Andrea Wong brought us The Bachelor! Now she's trying to reinvigorate Lifetime with positivity and fun.

If Project Runway had a needlepoint challenge, the show might find itself with an unlikely contestant. "About a year ago, I started needlepointing," confesses Andrea Wong, CEO of Lifetime Networks. She is perched on a chair in her Los Angeles office, wearing a black Yves Saint Laurent pantsuit. "It completely relaxes me." Well, usually. There was that time she was stitching a cushion for her boyfriend. "I was needlepointing while doing conference calls. It practically killed me."

Wong's coexisting affection for high fashion and homey crafts are the perfect metaphor for her plan to reinvigorate the dowdy, if successful, cable channel. Lifetime has been the top ad-backed female-focused network for years but, before Wong's 2007 arrival, was plagued with a reputation for lowbrow movies like My Stepson, My Lover. Its ratings were falling or flat for five straight years.

Canada's Movie Central and The Movie Network today announced that they have given the greenlight to a four-hour mini-series adaptation of the long-running superhero 'The Phantom'. The series will be a co-production with Sci Fi Channel (soon to be renamed Syfy). It will debut on Movie Central and The Movie Network in spring 2010.

The Phantom was created by Lee Falk and first appeared in 1936 as a newspaper strip. Since then a character with that name has appeared in comic books by numerous publishers throughout the world. The Phantom has also starred in animated and live-action screen adaptations. The latter include a 1940s movie serial, a 1996 theatrical film and a 1961 TV pilot. Another feature film adaptation, The Phantom: Legacy, is also in the works.  Speaking to Moviehole, screenwriter Tim Boyle said that the movie is still at the scripting stage and he believes it will go into pre-production...

A new TV maxi-series is trying to buck the trend and bring back appointment viewing for fictional sagas, a la "The Thorn Birds" or, more recently and modestly, "Angels in America" or "Broken Trail." Most of the big Euro stations have lined up to air "The Pillars of the Earth," but so far there are no broadcast takers in the U.S. or the U.K.

A Germany-Canada co-production spearheaded by Munich-based Tandem Communications and Montreal-based Muse Entertainment, the eight-hour saga, based on Ken Follett's best-seller, will be directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, who has helmed episodes of "Heroes" and "Saving Grace" and was Steven Spielberg's first assistant director on "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List."

"Pillars" starts lensing June 22 in Hungary and Austria. The premiere is set for the second half of 2010.

Ian McShane, who starred on HBO's "Deadwood," will play Waleran; Donald Sutherland takes the role as Bartholomew; and Rufus Sewell,...

An Affair, Sorry, TV Movie to Remember: Lifetime's LeAnn Rimes-Eddie Cibrian publicity coup, Nora Roberts' Northern Lights, scored with an estimated 4.5 million viewers last night, the network said. The movie is the network's biggest of the year, outdrawing the likes of Rosie O'Donnell's America (3.2 million) and Sigourney Weaver's Prayers for Bobby (3.8 million). It fell short, however, of last year's more fully clothed The Memory Keeper's Daughter (5.8 million) and Coco Chanel (5.2 million). Weekend's Most Popular Soap: Despite no Rimes, no Cibrian and no juicy rumors, Desperate Housewives (14.7 million viewers, per preliminary Nielsen estimates) ruled. They Love I Love You, Man:...

The Times (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5670983.ece) reports that Public Lending Right (http://www.plr.uk.com/) (Plr), the government-funded group that pays authors with books in libraries, has revealed that Deathly Hallows is the most borrowed book. Sadly, it has also made it onto a list of the most stolen from shops too. Estimates tell us that around 100 million books are stolen each year in the UK. ---Quote--- Many of the booksellers who took part in the survey are convinced that a thriving black market for books exists - according to them, illicit sales are made mainly in pubs, where disorientated consumers are happy to buy maps, travel guides and the latest Harry Potter for their children from a network of book thieves selling at bargain prices. ---End Quote--- ---Quote--- _Ten most stolen from UK shops_ 1. London A-Zs: London Street Atlas by Geographers' A-z Map Co.

The Lifetime network flirted with over four million viewers Saturday as those viewers tuned in to watch the Lifetime Original Movie "Flirting with Forty." The movie, starring Heather Locklear, premiered on the network on December 6.

Celebrity News Service has learned that the high ratings for "Flirting with Forty" gives Lifetime Television the year's four most-watched original basic cable movies among W25-54 and W18+.

In "Flirting with Forty," Locklear starred as a divorced mother who finds unexpected romance with a much younger man, played by Robert Buckle. "Flirting with Forty," joins "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" (5.8 million viewers), "Coco Chanel" (5.2 million viewers) and "The Two Mr. Kissels" (4.2 million viewers) as Lifetime's most-watched 2008 movies.

The next Lifetime Original Movie will be "Prayers for Bobby," starring Sigourney Weaver, which premieres Saturday, January 24, at 9/8c.

"30 Rock" and "Mad Men," this year's Emmy winners in the top series categories, are among the TV nominees for the 2009 Writers Guild Awards, announced Monday.

In the dramatic series category, AMC's "Mad Men" will vie with Showtime's "Dexter," NBC's "Friday Night Lights," ABC's "Lost" and HBO's "The Wire," which had its series finale in March.

On the comedy side, NBC's "30 Rock" will take on HBO's "Entourage," NBC's "The Office," Fox's animated "The Simpsons" and Showtime's "Weeds."

Vying for best new series honors are AMC's "Breaking Bad," Fox's "Fringe," HBO's "In Treatment" and "True Blood" and ABC's "Life on Mars."

In the longform adaptation category, HBO's mini "John Adams," which set a record this year with the most Emmy wins in a single year, will compete with another HBO mini, "Generation Kill," and Lifetime's telefilm "The Memory Keeper's Daughter." Original longform nominees are Showtime's movie "An American Crime," Fox's "Fringe" pilot and HBO's movie "Recount.

Two HBO productions are dominating the nominees list of 13th Annual Satellite Awards which prize-giving ceremony will be held on Sunday, December 14 at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City. "John Adams", a mini-series starring Paul Giamatti, has four chances to take home an award, and so does made-for-tv movie "Recount".

Apart from Giamatti who earns a nomination for Actor in a Miniseries or a Motion Picture Made for Television, his co-star Laura Linney is also taking the similar nod, only for the Actress part. The movie itself is put under Miniseries category while its other actress Sarah Polley is contending for Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

In the mean time, "Recount" that is produced and starred by Kevin Spacey, is competing for Motion Picture Made for Television; Actor in a Motion Picture Made for Television for both Spacey and Tom Wilkinson...

There might be a green light in the red planet's future.

AMC is looking to outer space as it beefs up its slate, developing a series project with writer/executive producer Jonathan Hensleigh based on the sci-fi novel "Red Mars."

"Mars," a 1992 novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, chronicles the inhabitants of the first human colony on the planet. Hensleigh ("Armageddon") is the writer and will executive produce alongside Michael Jaffe and Howard Braunstein of Jaffe Braunstein Entertainment ("The Memory Keeper's Daughter") and Vince Gerardis, Ralph Vicinanza and Eli Kirschner of Created By ("Jumper").

"This fits in with our bigger vision of wanting series that feel like cinematic one-hour movies," said Christina Wayne, senior vp original series and miniseries at AMC. "We're always looking for big genres but to do them in slightly different ways so they feel fresh and new," she added, noting as examples the network's Western mini "Broken Trail...