ABC

Forget daisies, ABC is pushing pies.

To coincide with the second-season premiere of Pushing Daisies, the network is launching a mouthwatering marketing scheme sure to ingratiate itself to hungry fans across the nation—or send them into a diabetic shock trying—by kicking off the Pushing Daisies Touch of Wonder Tour.

The tour will hit 10 cities across the U.S., with pop-up facsimiles of Ned's bakery, the Pie Hole, offering free pie to all comers.

Even those without a Nielsen box.

Keep Reading

Universal Pictures, Jason Kempin / Getty Images,

• Apparently over that whole Pacifier interlude, Vin Diesel wants to blow things up again. The 41-year-old thesp is ready to resurrect his ass-kicking sci-fi antihero Riddick, reteaming with writer-director David Twohy for a pair of sequels to 2000's Pitch Black and 2004's The Chronicles of Riddick.
  "The only question is whether we take a page from the Lord of the Rings guys and try to shoot the two chapters at the same time," Diesel tells MTV, adding that the new flicks "would answer Pitch Black in the same way that Lord of the Rings answered The Hobbit."
• Hilary Swank has snapped up the film rights to the chick-lit novel Something Borrowed and its sequel for a potential starring vehicle, per Variety. The soapy saga centers on a self-professed good girl who ends up sleeping with her best friend's fiancé.
• Real-life spouses David Mann and Tamela J. Mann of Tyler Perry's film Meet the Browns are set to reprise their roles in a TBS sitcom version developed by Perry. The cable channel has ordered 10 episodes of the show, which it plans to syndicate as a spinoff to Perry's House of Payne, TBS' all-time highest-rated original sitcom. Perry will pop up in one ep as his beloved, no-nonsese Medea.
• Jesse James, best known for Monster Garage and being Mr. Sandra Bullock, has been signed by Spike TV for 10 episodes of Jesse James Is a Dead Man. The series will feature James partaking in potentially deadly stunts. His life is in jeopardy beginning in February.
• Blythe Danner (aka Mother of Gwyneth) will guest in NBC's Medium as a mother whose adult daughter is missing. The Patricia Arquette-starring show returns in the midseason.

CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images

Sure, it lasted for 17 days (not including soccer)—but still!

Thanks to NBC's multipronged, round-the-clock coverage, the 2008 Summer Olympics reached 214 million viewers, making it the most-watched event in U.S. television history, according to numbers released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research.

The extra eyeballs glued to such spectacles as Michael Phelps' acquisition of a record eight gold medals, the triumph of the itty-bitty Chinese women's gymnastics team and the U.S. "Redeem Team's" total domination over all comers in basketball helped the Beijing games surpass the previously most-watched event of all time—the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta—by 5 million viewers.

Beijing also blew Athens away by 11 million.

Keep Reading

MTV/Jeff Lipsky

The Summer Olympics didn't finish as big as it started. The Hills didn't start as big as it finished.

Here are the broadcast and cable ratings highlights for the week ending Sunday, per the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings:

Keep Reading

FOX

The Emmy awards and fall season premieres are just around the corner, so it's time to recognize some of America’s great television thespians. Or better yet, the actors pretending to be Americans. You thought we hadn’t noticed the influx of Brits infiltrating our airwaves?

Some accents are more convincing than others, of course, so we've assembled some of the most smashing in our British Invasion gallery. Who do you think does the best job at converting their aluminiums to aluminum? Who can say that losing the extra "i" in speciality is their specialty? Do you fancy someone else altogether? Whinge away in the comments!

Meanwhile, please enjoy Hugh Laurie's special tribute to our great country.

Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images, John Shearer/ Getty Images, FOX, Jean-Paul Aussenard/ Getty Images

• Woody Harrelson's done the Natural Born Killers thing. Now he's tackling the supernatural kind in the horror comedy Zombieland. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Harrelson will be the world's last hope, bashing some brains in the blood-and-guts romp for Columbia Pictures.
• Mario Lopez keeps finding gainful employment. He's just been tapped to front MTV's Top Pop Group, an Idol-esque competition to find—wait for it—the top pop group in the U.S., with the winning outfit getting $100,000. The reality contest kicks off Sept. 11.
• Former O.C. denizen Ben McKenzie is heading back to the boob tube, playing a rookie cop in the NBC drama pilot LAPD.
• Former American Idol finalist Ace Young is the word for Grease. The season five finalist makes his Broadway debut Sept. 9, starring as Kenickie in the hit revival.

Keep Reading

Art Streiber/ The CW

Gossip Girl's reputation is proceeding 90210.

A leading watchdog group that has been critical of Gossip Girl today warned advertisers about committing sight unseen to the upcoming Beverly Hills 90210 reboot.

"I think it's fair to say that the CW has been a bad actor, particularly when it comes to Gossip Girl," said Dan Isett, director of public policy for the Parents Television Council.

Both Gossip Girl and 90210 are CW shows.

Last week, the network confirmed it wasn't sending out advance copies of 90210, which is scheduled to premiere Sept 2. The CW described the move as a "strategic marketing decision."

Keep Reading

AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Yes, the Olympics suffered the post-Michael Phelps blues. And, yes, suffered is too harsh a word.

A whopping 211 million watched the Beijing Games on NBC and/or its cable outlets through Saturday night, the network said.

NBC hailed the number as the most viewers for "any event in U.S. television history," an "event" apparently being defined as something that lasts a couple weeks longer than the Super Bowl or the final episode of M*A*S*H.

The 17-day-long Beijing Games concluded last night.

In prime time, the Olympics, at its best, put up American Idol-like numbers. Through the games' first nine days, NBC averaged 31.1 million viewers.

Keep Reading

AlbertL. Ortega/Steve Granitz/Francois Durand/Getty Images

Nicolas Cage has suffered a serious downgrade in sexy sidekicks.

After revving up Eva Mendes in his last comic book-based flick, Ghost Rider, the Oscar winner now gets stuck with Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka Superbad's McLovin, for his next comic go-round.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Cage and Mintz-Plasse have joined Kick-Ass, director Matthew Vaughn's feature film based on the ultraviolent Mark Millar graphic novel.

Keep Reading