Next Installment of ACS: 'The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story'

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story will now be the second installment of FX's award-winning American Crime Story limited series franchise. Production of Versace: ACS began in April and it is tentatively slated to debut in early 2018.

Katrina: American Crime Story, which was originally scheduled as the second installment of the American Crime Story franchise, now becomes the third installment of the limited series. Production of Katrina: ACS is now slated to begin in early 2018.

Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Brad Falchuk and Tom Rob Smith are Executive Producers of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story. It is written by Tom Rob Smith, and Ryan Murphy directed the premiere episode of the series, which stars Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin. The series is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions.

FX's first installment of ACS, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, received 22 Emmy Award nominations and it won nine Emmys. It also won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, AFI, PGA, WGA and TCA awards and it was the most critically acclaimed program of 2016.

NEWS: Catherine Coulson, Joan Collins,Shonda Rhimes, Minka Kelly, Ryan Murphy, Benedict Cumberbatch

 Catherine Coulson

Catherine Coulson, Log Lady on Twin Peaks, Dies at 71
Actress Catherine Coulson, best known for playing the Log Lady on David Lynch's Twin Peaks, died Monday. She was 71.

Mary Dangerfield, Coulson's agent and friend, told THR that Coulson died Monday morning and that the family had not yet made the cause of the death public.

"We are all deeply sad — she meant so much to so many," Dangerfield said.

Lynch released a statement to The Hollywood Reporter to express his grief about the news.

"Today, I lost one of my dearest friends, Catherine Coulson," Lynch wrote. "Catherine was solid gold. She was always there for her friends — she was filled with love for all people, for her family, for her work. She was a tireless worker."

"She had a great sense of humor — she loved to laugh and make people laugh," Lynch continued. "She was a spiritual person — a longtime TM meditator. She was the Log Lady."

Jackie Collins and Joan Collins

Joan Collins pens beautiful tribute to her late sister, Jackie Collins
In "A Tribute To My Beloved Sister," Joan writes: "I used to nag my sister about getting mammograms, as our darling mother Elsa had succumbed to the disease in 1962 when she was only in her the early fifties. I was religious about doing mammograms regularly. Jackie however refused – she didn’t even like going to doctors. Like my brother and I she was needle-phobic.

"As Jackie said in her last interview she did things her way. I celebrate the way she lived her life and, as she put it, the pleasure she gave to me and to so many people. In her inimitable way she had more concern for others than for herself to the end, and anyone who knew Jackie well will tell you how courageous and selfless she was. This, of course, was one of the reasons for her great success in both her personal and professional life and why she was loved and admired by so many. I therefore choose to remember her as the strong, independent, loyal, caring, maternal, fun-loving, witty, joyful woman she was.

"I don’t think I will ever recover from the sadness of losing my beautiful baby sister. Someone once said, 'The reality is that you don’t get over the loss of a loved one, you learn to live with it.' I think Jackie would have liked us to do more than that. As she requested, I will not mourn her death, but rather celebrate her life. She will live on in the wonderful memories I have of her from our childhood and particularly from the last fifteen years, during which we were closer than ever. I feel her spirit, I hear her wonderful laugh and I see her all the time in the hundreds of photos of her that are sprinkled around my home.

"She wasn’t just a star – to me she was an entire galaxy."

Benedict Cumberbatch to visit EastEnders?
The Imitation Game star has known Dominic Treadwell Collins, the executive producer of British soap EastEnders, since they were kids. Dominic has now revealed he has asked his old pal to make a cameo in the soap, and Benedict is trying to find time in his busy schedule.

"I really want Benedict Cumberbatch to come and do a turn," Dominic tells Britain's Radio Times magazine. "And he says he'll come and do it but he is slightly busy."

Minka Kelly reunites with Jason Katims for Hulu drama series The Path
Friday Night Lights alumna Minka Kelly has been cast opposite Aaron Paul and Michelle Monaghan in Hulu original drama series The Path from Jason Katims’ True Jack Prods. It’s a reunion of sorts for Kelly and Katims: He wrote and executive produced the hit series Friday Night Lights, on which Kelly appeared for three seasons. Also joining the cast of The Path is Oscar nominee Kathleen Turner (The Doctors).

New Shonda Rhimes book, "The Year of Yes," will hit bookstores November 10.
Rhimes' new book, "The Year of Yes," chronicles a year of her life after she decided to say "yes" to unexpected invitations in December 2013. Below is an excerpt:

"The lives of my characters had become unimaginably huge. People all over the world knew Meredith and Olivia. At the same time, my life had so drained of color and excitement that I could barely see it," she writes. "Why? You never say yes to anything. Oh yeah. That. I put down the glass of wine and lay down on the sofa. And really thought about those six words. You never say yes to anything. Maybe it was time to start saying yes. Maybe."

Did ABC's Quantico go too far in destroying Grand Central?
Monument destruction has been a reliable movie trope for decades, and will remain one for as long as directors like Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay are around. Grand Central has been destroyed at least three times over the years.

TV has been more circumspect, for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is cost. This trope is an enormous budget-sucking enterprise, costing millions, for a few minutes of on-screen carnage. Television -- even bomb-happy Blacklist -- has neither the budget nor sense of profligacy to engage in regular monument destruction.

Malone Seen Pursuing ITV, Mobile Networks After Vodafone
Liberty Global Plc and Vodafone Plc may have ended their talks over a tie-up, but Liberty’s billionaire Chairman John Malone probably won’t halt dealmaking in Europe anytime soon.

Liberty Global acquired a 6.4 percent stake in ITV in 2014 and increased that in July. The U.K. TV company –- with a market valuation of 10 billion pounds ($15 billion) -- has top-rated shows such as Downton Abbey and U.K. soap opera Coronation Street and has been increasingly investing in U.S. production and exporting content worldwide. ITV Studios sells more than 40,000 hours of programming to more than 300 international broadcasters, according to its website.

Ryan Murphy on Scream Queens Ratings Bump: Overnights Aren’t Everything
Wednesday morning brought surprising news for Fox execs and the Scream Queens creative team: After a premiere night that saw a flurry of social activity on Twitter and other platforms, the overnight ratings for the new horror/comedy series were a bit of a disappointment, bringing in 4 million viewers overall.

That all changed Sunday morning, when the live-plus-three-day (L3) ratings were released, giving the show an 80% lift, to a new total of 7.3 million across all platforms, including Fox Now and Hulu. What’s more, the median age of the show dropped from 52 to 36.

“The story of the fall is just how much people are time-shifting and watching programming in new and much more dramatic ways than even six months ago,” says executive producer Ryan Murphy.

NEWS: Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy, Chris Colfer, Richard Caine, Alec Baldwin, Danny Dyer

ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee compares Shonda Rhimes to Charles Dickens
"I call her the Charles Dickens of the 21st Century if Charles Dickens had been black and a woman," Lee says about the all-Shonda Thursday on the ABC fall schedule.

Ryan Murphy Responds to Rumors About Star Tension on 'Glee' Set
Extra's Jerry Penacoli caught up with director Ryan Murphy at the premiere of his HBO movie, “The Normal Heart,” talking about his hit FOX show Glee and the recent rumors of a rift between stars Lea Michelle and Naya Rivera, along with the headlines Rivera was fired.

Murphy replied, “I don’t think there is a story between Naya and Lea. I always marvel at the things that become headline news that most of the time are completely fabricated. Naya's coming back next year, Lea's coming back next year, anybody ever in that cast has an open invitation to come back and finish the character they so beautifully started.”

Get Ready For AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAK SHOW

It was announced last week that FX's AMERICAN HORROR STORY would be adopting a carnival aesthetic for its upcoming fourth season, leading some to speculate that the season may be set around a "freak show," a la Todd Browning's 1932 horror classic, Freaks. Today, series creator Ryan Murphy confirmed that the plan is to do just that, posting a "Freak Show" logo along with "AMERICAN HORROR STORY SEASON FOUR:"

Previous reports suggest that AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAK SHOW will be set in the 1950s with Jessica Lange already confirmed to be returning.

NEWS: Y&R's Eric Braeden on Immediate Fan Reaction on Twitter; Alec Mapa Joins SWITCHED AT BIRTH; An Oral History of One Life to Live; Is GLEE Ending Next Season Or Not?

Eric Braeden: Team at Y&R hears from fans "immediately on Twitter if they don’t like something or like something"
THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS star Eric Braeden visited Prince Albert at the Northern Lights Casino on Thursday for a fan meet and greet.

“I don’t know why but I still enjoy making something that someone else wrote real,” Braeden (Victor Newman) says. “That’s what we get paid for as actors. Why that doesn’t bore me yet, I don’t know. It is still fascinating to me, the whole process is still fascinating, why some scenes seem more real than others. I can’t put my finger on it.”

When asked if the lack of turnover in the major roles has helped keep the show on top, Braeden isn’t shy to wade in.

“The main players they have not touched,” Braeden says. “Trust me, they were tempted to, as all new studio heads are tempted to do. They want to experiment with things. They’re wrong, very wrong, and they’re beginning to realize that and that’s why the modern media is so wonderful. They hear it immediately on Twitter if they don’t like something or like something.”

"Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live" Jeff Giles on what the story of his book turned out to be
"The story was just that the idea of putting out five hours of television a week into perpetuity was just a crazy idea that should never have worked, and if anybody had thought about it for more than a couple of minutes, they wouldn’t have done it. Eventually all of these shows turned into machines that just were running, and anybody that got on or got off had to match that speed. It was not nearly as smooth as it seemed on the screen. The odds were always stacked against these shows from the very beginning. It’s just a tremendous amount of work for everybody, and I can understand why some of the actors who have gone on to bigger and better things are still a little ticked off about how soaps are disregarded."

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can order "Llanview in the Afternoon: An Oral History of One Life to Live" at Amazon.com.

Ryan Murphy Addresses GLEE's Plans For Cory Monteith's Finn Hudson Character

GLEE co-creator Ryan Murphy spoke for the first time on Friday about Cory Monteith's passing and how it will impact the show.

"We had several options," Murphy said. "We could delay shooting until November, we could delay shooting until January. But, ultimately, what we decided to do for the cast and crew was start shooting with something that we had already written. We had written two Beatles episodes in May and had been working on that tribute for four years. We just decided that it would probably be the best for everybody to get back together and be working and have grief counselors on set for two weeks, which we’re going to do. But, ultimately, we made no decisions without consulting Lea [Michele]."

Adam Lambert Joins GLEE

GLEE showrunner Ryan Murphy just tweeted that AMERICAN IDOL season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert would be joining the cast of hit musical soap.

"I am thrilled to announce that the super talented Adam Lambert is joining the cast of Glee this fall," Murphy wrote.



Lambert said in a 2012 interview that GLEE "really paints a picture of what it’s like to be an arts kid in high school. GLEE is really irresistible -- it's charming."

We saw Lambert at the Broadway Bares 23 event last month where he did an incredible a cappella version of the "National Anthem."

Who would you like to see him play in GLEE?

THE GLEE PROJECT Not Returning For Season 3?

Oxygen is not going to air a third a third season of THE GLEE PROJECT, TVLine is reporting. Although the cable network declined to comment, sources confirm that a number of factors — not the least of which is that GLEE itself has not been renewed yet — contributed to the decision to shelve the reality spin-off.

Blake Jenner won Season 2 of THE GLEE PROJECT, and now plays Ryder Lynn on GLEE.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY Renewed For Season 3

FX has ordered the next book of the award-winning miniseries AMERICAN HORROR STORY, picking up 13 hours of a new miniseries from Twentieth Century Fox Television, it was announced today by John Landgraf, President and General Manager of FX Networks. Production of the untitled AHS will begin next summer and premiere in the fall of 2013.

THE NEW NORMAL's "SING" Looks A Lot Like GLEE

SING characters have the similar first names as the actors who
portray their GLEE equivalents

Tuesday night's episode of THE NEW NORMAL, "Unplugged," was excellent taking a took at how technology has interrupted our lives. Bryan (Andrew Rannells), David (Justin Bartha), Goldie (Georgia King) and Shania (Bebe Wood) reluctantly gave up their various electronic devices for one day while Rocky (NeNe Leakes) showed Jane (Ellen Barkin) how to use Twitter. Hoping to gain more followers, Jane posted a sweet but embarrassing private video from Bryan which was meant to surprise David on their future wedding day. Shocked at the invasion of privacy, Bryan was appalled until the cast of his show SING told him they thought the tweet was actually very sweet.

THE GLEE PROJECT: And The Winner Is...

In THE GLEE PROJECT season two finale on Tuesday night, the final three contenders – Ali Stroker, Aylin Bayramoglu and Blake Jenner – vied for a seven episode arc on GLEE. Joining the finalists was GLEE series regular Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel) who mentored the contenders through “Glee-ality” week. The competitors brought everything they had to the stage for their final performances, including their last homework assignment which was “You Can’t Stop The Beat” from "Hairspray." Last year's winner, Damian McGinty, returned to star in the music video along with all the eliminated contestants.

After the last chance performances, Ryan Murphy announced the winner of THE GLEE PROJECT. The person who won a seven-episode role in GLEE is...

Ryan Murphy Releases Two New Never Aired GLEE Scenes: Santana's Coming Out & Rachel's Yearbook Message To Kurt

GLEE co-creator Ryan Murphy tweeted links to two new never-before-seen videos.

The first, entitled "The Santana 'Coming Out Scene,'" Santana (Naya Rivera) confirms her homosexuality to the entire Cheerios squad hours before that infamous political campaign ad will hit the airwaves. We get to see reactions from Coach Sue (Jane Lynch) and Becky (Lauren Potter).

Watch it below:

WATCH: Unaired GLEE Scene Featuring Rachel & Her Bridesmaids

Ryan Murphy has released another scene from Season 3 of GLEE that never aired. This time it features Rachel (Lea Michele) in her wedding dress with all her bridesmaids, including Quinn (Dianna Agron) who has some tough talk for the leader of the Glee Club about marrying Finn Hudson.

Watch the unaired scene below:

WATCH: The Long Lost Klaine "Box Scene" on GLEE

Ryan Murphy is wasting no time at becoming a Twitter pro. The GLEE creator tweeted on Wednesday, "Gleeks are the best fans in the world. Because you asked for it...here is the long lost Klaine Box Scene." He's referring to last year's Christmas episode of GLEE in which Blaine gave Kurt a box containing a ring he’d made out of gum wrappers. Only we never saw it because the scene was cut.

Murphy has finally released it and you can watch it below:

NEWS ROUNDUP: Carlos Bernard Joins DALLAS, GLEE, J.R. Martinez, Bobbie Eakes, Amherst Soap

24’s Carlos Bernard Joins the New DALLAS in a Recurring Role
Bernard will play a suave Venezuelan businessman trying to hammer out a deal with J.R. He debuts early in the season.

Ryan Murphy discusses the GLEE "First Time" episode
“We were talking about it [in the writers’ room] like, ‘Why shouldn’t [Kurt and Blaine] lose their virginity at the same time?’” Murphy said. “Everybody has seen a straight couple losing their virginity, but has anyone dovetailed the gay and straight stories together and given them equal weight? That seemed like an exciting choice and a new thing.” According to Murphy, the four actors’ only worry was that they look good in the love scenes: “The first thing they all said was ‘Do we have to go on diets?’”

NEWS ROUNDUP: B&B In Aspen, Melody Thomas Scott On 'Respect', Charles Napier

Aspen Plays Role in THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Through October 11, 2011, fans of the CBS series will become virtual visitors to Aspen, Colorado, which recently welcomed actors Scott Clifton (Liam Cooper), Kimberly Matula (Hope Logan) and Jacqueline MacInnes Wood (Steffy Forrester) for three days of filming. As the suspense unfolds, viewers will watch Hope take a spin in Aspen’s Ultimate Taxi, a sensory experience which has been enjoyed over the years by such famous faces as George Lucas, Pierce Brosnan and Clint Eastwood.

NEWS ROUNDUP: Alicia Minshew - Not Happily Ever After For Everybody, Nouri to HOUSE, Damian McGinty

Alicia Minshew on the end of ALL MY CHILDEN on ABC: It does not just end happily ever after for everybody
"I think I'm getting mixed." Minshew tells THR about cast mates feelings on the Prospect Park deal. "I know some people, and I'm not obviously saying names. I know some people that are dying to do the online thing. They need the work, they love the people. Some people just started on the show and they are not ready to leave. There are others who are a little bit older and who want to do the online thing. Then, there are others like myself that have had a good run and are ready to move on."

"I don't know if they are going to do a small group or a large group, if they are going to kill some people off. Honestly, we haven't been told much. So, that’s why we are just sort of waiting to see what happens. And that's why in my mind, I'm looking ahead. And, again, even if they do come to me, we'll see what can be worked out. But I'm still looking ahead to do other things."

NEWS ROUNDUP: Y&R Reaches New Ratings Lows, Josh Duhamel Visits Flooded Hometown

Daytime Soap Ratings: Y&R Hits New Lows, ABC 1, 2, 3 in W18-34 demo
America's top-rated daytime soap opera THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS hit new lows for the week of August 22-26 in total viewers, W18-49 and W18-34. ONE LIFE TO LIVE was the top-rated show in the W18-34 demo and ABC's top-rated daytime soap.