Hamm radio

Jon Hamm is coming to Winnipeg in the fall to star in an eight-episode TV adaptation of the 2022 podcast American Hostage, according to a story in Variety.

Emmy-winning actor Hamm (Mad Men,Your Friends and Neighbors), who also starred in the podcast version of American Hostage, will play Fred Heckman, an Indianapolis radio reporter who, in 1977, was “thrust into the middle of a life-or-death crisis when hostage-taker Tony Kiritsis demanded to be interviewed on his popular radio news program,” according to an MGM+ press release.

Sony Pictures Television will distribute the series internationally. The Directors Guild of Canada website confirms a Sony-produced series will go into production here from Sept. 22 to Dec. 19.

But the show might not stop there. The series is planned to be an anthology, Variety reports. Shawn Ryan (The Shield) and Eileen Myers (Big Love) are the co-creators of the series and serve as executive producers. Hamm will executive produce in addition to starring alongside Connie Tavel, Sharon Hoffman and Marney Hochman.

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Winnipeg is currently playing host to the shoot of Silent Night, Deadly Night, the second reboot of the notorious slasher that was pulled from theatres during the holiday season of 1984 when protesters picketed the film due to the concept of a crazed killer dressed as Santa Claus.

It stars Rohan Campbell (The Hardy Boys) and Ruby Modine (Happy Death Day). Directed by Mike P. Nelson (the 2022 iteration of Wrong Turn), it started shooting April 13 and is scheduled to wrap on May 10.

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Also shooting in town is a neo-noir thriller titled Briefcase, 8, starring and directed by James C. Clayton in which he plays a hitman on the run. (Clayton’s feature film debut was in K-19: The Widowmaker, the Harrison Ford submarine thriller that shot in Gimli in 2001.) The film will also star Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice), Mena Suvari (American Beauty) and Cam Gigandet (Twilight), making a third trip to Winnipeg after Violent Night and Love Hurts. The film will shoot until early June, when production will move to Kamloops, B.C.

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November 1963 goes into preproduction next week and is scheduled to shoot from June 18 through to the end of July, confirms producer Kevin DeWalt of Mind’s Eye Pictures.

As previously reported, it will star John Travolta, Mandy Patinkin and Dermot Mulroney. DeWalt’s Mind’s Eye Entertainment will produce along with screenwriter Nick Celozzi’s Le Monde Productions.

DeWalt confirms a recent report in Deadline that Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty) has been added to the cast in the role of Jack Ruby, alongside Jefferson White (Yellowstone) as Lee Harvey Oswald. The film will be directed by two-time Oscar nominee Roland Joffé (The Killing Fields).

Celozzi told Variety the script for the film is based on the accounts of Pepe Giancana, brother of Chicago Mob boss San Giancana, who asserted the Mob’s involvement in the assassination.

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