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Kevin Alejandro (Southland) will appear in almost every episode of the upcoming third season of True Blood. He'll play Jesus, a Latino orderly who is taking care of Ruby Jean Reynolds (Alfre Woodard) at her care facility and becomes involved with her son, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis). (THR)
Pierre Morel (Taken, Banlieue 13) will direct Paramount's adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, after Peter Berg dropped out. Reacting to this news, Pajiba takes the opportunity to weigh in on the "filmability" of the novel: 'While Paramount might claim that they are aiming to be true to the book’s ecological message, which they believe has special importance today, are they really willing to faithfully transcribe from the novel? Paul does not go into the desert and fall in love with its stark beauty and native people in a montage and then return to defend their way of life against the big bad empire. He uses the Fremen as a weapon and uses the knowledge of the planet’s ecology to devise a way to destroy it, the ultimate threat to use as leverage against the empire, to put himself on the throne. Dune is not a science fiction epic in which the good guys beat the impossible odds at the end and ride off into the sunset, it is a meditation on the nature of power and heroes. It forces a reckoning, Paul is indisputably a hero, but is the universe really a better place in the wake of his jihad and its billions of dead across hundreds of worlds?'
The short film that became District 9.
New international trailer for Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Scott Grimes, Alan Doyle, William Hurt, Danny Huston, Kevin Durand, Max von Sydow and Aileen Atkins as Eleanor of Acquitaine. [imdb]