'Community' boss 'confident' about season 4 chances. Plus, more scoop from Paleyfest!

Fans at Saturday night’s Community event during the annual PaleyFest got plenty of scoop on the remaining 12 episodes of the cult comedy — but if any news had them cheering, it was the hopeful message producers sent about the show’s chances of a fourth season.
 “The people at NBC love the show. We’re feeling pretty confident,” Russ Krasnoff, one of the show’s executive producers, told the crowd, to cheers that were almost as big as the standing ovation given to recent Oscar winner Jim Rash when he walked on stage.

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On the Scene: Prop 8 play reading in L.A. featuring Brad Pitt and George Clooney

Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

Everyone from Hollywood moguls to Barbra Streisand came out last night (so to speak) for the Los Angeles reading of Dustin Lance Black’s play 8, drawn from the transcripts of the federal trial over whether the U.S. constitution allows for Proposition 8 to ban same-sex marriage in the state of California. In the beautiful and historic Wilshire Ebell Theatre, George Clooney, Martin Sheen, Kevin Bacon, and Brad Pitt headlined an A-list cast that read a modified version of the play that was first performed last September in New York City.

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Midseason TV Death Watch: Bubble Show Edition

Welcome to cold tight grip of Death Watch, Bubble Show Edition! Time to check the status of freshman shows and the less-than-certain fate of returning ones. Here’s the rundown:
ABC
Cougar Town: 1.8 rating, 4.9 million. Status: It’s tied with NBC’s Community, but ABC isn’t so forgiving. Those awesome winos tried hard, but we don’t expect the Alphabet bosses to show mercy after this season.

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ESPN Starts Opening The Doors To Its Data With Developer Center, First API Program

Geeks and sports together? It’s a beautiful thing. Well, at least that’s what ESPN is hoping with the announcement of its brand, spanking new Developer Center, which marks the first time that it will open its doors to third-party developers and provide access to its enormous array of editorial content, stats, and other data.
As Y Combinator Founder Paul Graham tweeted recently, APIs are self-serve business development. Many startups are catching on to the business development catalyst that APIs can be, but certainly few would say that ESPN, the self-tagged “world leader in sports,” needs as much help in that department as the many startups out there just trying to get off the ground.

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Alex O'Loughlin in Treatment, Taking a Break From Hawaii Five-0

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Danno always warned McGarrett that he was pushing himself too hard.
Hawaii Five-0 star Alex O'Loughlin will be taking a break from the CBS series while he undergoes "supervised treatment for prescription pain medication due to a recent shoulder injury," the actor's rep said in a statement confirmed to E! News.
We aren't surprised to hear he hurt himself—have you seen Lt. Cmdr. Steve McGarrett in action?! But what does O'Loughlin's absence mean for the show?

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Box office update: 'The Lorax' rules with $17.4 mil on Friday, on pace for $60 mil weekend

Image Credit: Universal Pictures

He is the Lorax, and soon he’ll be speaking for Hollywood.
In what is becoming a common occurrence this year, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax performed even better than expected, grossing an estimated $17.4 million on Friday. That’s the best opening day ever for a Dr. Seuss adaptation, topping 2000′s How the Grinch Stole Christmas ($15.6 million). It’s also a huge victory for distributor Universal and the young production company Illumination Entertainment, the latter of which is now three for three after the box-office success of Despicable Me and Hop.

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'Awake' premiere review: Did the show put you to sleep, or intrigue you?

Image Credit: Lewis Jacobs/NBC

Awake has a premise that’s complicated to explain but was easy to follow when you watched it. Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter; Brotherhood) stars as a cop who was in a car accident with his wife and son. When he comes to, he thinks his son Rex died and his wife Hannah still lives. But when he closes his eyes to sleep, he enters an equally believable reality in which his wife died and his son lives. He toggles back and forth between these two states and quickly discovers that he just does not know which one is real. (Or if both are?) (And when does this guy get any rest?)

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'Walking Dead' exec producer Robert Kirkman talks about the casting of David Morrissey as 'The Governor'

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Last week, it was announced that British actor David Morrissey (the TV version of State of Play) had been cast as the Governor in the yet-to-be-shot third season of AMC’s zombie show The Walking Dead. The Governor is easily the most infamous villain yet to appear in the comic book version of the post-apocalyptic undead saga and the subject of who would (and should) play him had been the subject of much debate amongst fans.
Below,Walking Dead comic writer and TV show executive producer Robert Kirkman explains how they decided Morrissey was their man.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you decide to cast David Morrissey as The Governor?
ROBERT KIRKMAN: We were looking for David Morrissey is the answer to that. We were looking for that perfect guy and he turned out to be it. It was a long, grueling casting process but I think that after the success of cast

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InsideTV Podcast: Mark Cuban on trying to make people cry on 'Shark Tank,' and his one fear about Jeremy Lin

Image Credit: Michael Ansell/ABC

ABC’s Shark Tank added even more bite with the full-time addition of investor Mark Cuban this season. The outspoken Dallas Mavericks owner is not afraid to pick business battles with entrepreneurs…or the other Sharks. They may not like it, but viewers like myself simply can’t get enough. Now, Cuban brings that same intensity to the InsideTV Podcast as the investor extraordinaire calls in to discuss the ins and outs of the Tank. How many of his deals actually go through when all is said and done? What’s the one deal he regrets not making? What’s one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when they try to strike a deal? And whom is he talking about when he says, “I love crushing those people.” It’s Mark Cuban unleashed, as the magnate-turned-owner-turned-TV-star reveals all.

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Brad Pitt joins star-studded Prop 8 play

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Brad Pitt is set to join the cast of the West Coast premiere reading of 8, the play penned by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) that follows the legal fight to overturn Proposition 8, the California law that outlawed gay marriage.
Pitt will play United States District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who found Prop 8 unconstitutional after presiding over the 12-day public trial. He joins a cast that includes George Clooney and Martin Sheen (as the plaintiff’s lead co-counsel), Christine Lahti and Jamie Lee Curtis (as a lesbian couple), Matthew Morrison and Matt Bomer (as a gay couple), as well as Kevin Bacon, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, Campbell Brown, Chris Colfer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Cleve Jones, Rory O’Malley, George Takei, Yeardley Smith, Vanessa Garcia, Jansen Panatierre, James Pickens, Jr., and Bridger Zadina.

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One Million Moms hate 'Archie' comics and gay marriage

The conservative organization One Million Moms wants Toys R Us to stop stocking an Archie comic book that features a gay wedding. In the story, the character Kevin Keller gets hitched to Clay, whom he met in a military hospital after being wounded in the armed services. The marriage occurs in Life With Archie #16, featuring a cover depicting the nuptials, and featuring a banner saying, “Just Married.”
The One Million Moms letter, as quoted in the publishing blog GalleyCat, asserts, “Unfortunately, children are now being exposed to same-sex marriage in your toy store. This is the last place a parent would expect to be confronted with questions from their children on topics that are too complicated for them to understand.” It concludes, “Please remove all the same-sex ‘Just Married – Archie’ comic books immediately from your shelves. My decision to shop in your stores depends on it.” This issue of the long-running comic has been available in comic-book stores since January.

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Bruce Springsteen joins the efforts to find a missing Boston College student

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Bruce Springsteen‘s latest anthem is called “We Take Care of Our Own,” and the legendary musician is doing his part to help in the search for a missing person. Springsteen’s eldest son is a senior at

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Carson Daly blogs 'The Voice' final blind auditions: Prepare for battle!

With Cameron Novack, I think the coaches made the right call. There was this talk about “Can we break the rules?” but as Cee Lo said, it jeopardizes the integrity of the whole show. The coaches are going to have regrets, and Cameron was Cee Lo’s regret. Cameron seemed to be a lightning rod on Twitter. People wrote to me, “I loved him in an Adam Lambert way!” or they said, “Absolutely not.” I got no gray area on Cameron.

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Smash': Why is it not a smash? Some theories

Image Credit: Patrick Harbron/NBC

This week, Nick Jonas popped up to try and keep the youth demo from turning off Smash when it came on after The Voice. If previous weeks are any indication, it probably won’t do much to halt Smash‘s ratings slide. [See UPDATE below.] How did the season’s most-promoted show, one most eagerly praised by both critics and industry observers as fresh and original, turn out to be more like the Marilyn Monroe musical it’s chronicling — a flop waiting to happen?
Jonas was on Smash to portray a “big TV star”

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Rock Your Launch (Get It?) With This Email-Collecting WordPress Theme

Although I think you’re better off not hosting your hot, hot beta launch screen yourself, if you simply must have complete control there’s LaunchEffect, a WordPress theme that recreates the complex process of asking for – and storing – email addresses of wannabe beta users.

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How Twitter Is Pairing Its Interest Graph With Ads

With somewhat coincidental (?) timing, given this week’s Facebook Marketing Conference, a new article published today by Bloomberg Businessweek takes a deep dive into Twitter’s advertising’s business. Twitter is the other major social network after big brands’ ad dollars, and although its 100 million active members pale compared with Facebook’s 800 million+, there is the potential for a different kind of ad targeting arising on Twitter. The company is going after the “interest graph,” a concept we’ve covered in some detail before.

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