Weekly News: THE WALKING DEAD Season 3, THE JANSON DIRECTIVE, BEVERLEY HILLS COP TV Show, INDEPENDENCE DAY Sequels

Some TV news for you first of this week, the news relates to The Walking Dead.  The break away hit AMC show is only three episodes into its second series .  The season 2 premiere drew the biggest ever cable ratings with 7.3 million tuning in to catch the “walkers”, the show faltered only slightly on it's second episode “Bloodletting” drawing 6.7 million viewers.

The show already airs here in England and its international roll out is this weekend, that is expected to draw anywhere around 10 million viewers.  So what does the show get for it’s star status?  An AMC spoke said earlier this week “today we are proud to announce that the dead shall live as we proudly renew The Walking Dead for a third season on AMC and globally”.  Not bad considering how far into the second season they are.

Let’s not forget though the show still has a little room to falter as Frank Darabont, the show runner for the first season and beginning of this one, left the show half way through, will it still have the same capture.

Whilst we are on the subject of TV, I will slip this one in for you, you may well have caught it on the Person of Interest reviews, if not then the show has had a full season order from CBS taking us past the 9 we already have.  The show has been the highest watched new drama this season with an audience of 13.97 million, thanks mostly to it’s 9pm slot which was previously filled by CSI.

Also getting high ratings is Homeland, this show has also just been renewed for a second season thanks to large audiences, no doubt helped by Dexter which airs just before it.

Who loves the Bourne movies?  I do, go check the review.  Good news if you like them too, as something just as good seems to be on its way to the big screen.  The Janson Directive is the last book published by late writer Robert Ludlum, who of course wrote the Bourne books.  Now Universal have hired a script writer to turn The Janson Directive into a movie.

It seems it will be a Vietnam veteran movie which follows Paul Janson, an ex Navy Seal and member of a covert government organisation.  He is plagued by memories of the Vietnam War and how his commanding officer handed him over to the enemy to be tortured.  Janson is working on a job trying to rescue an important man but his plans go wrong and before long he becomes then hunted, he’s left with no choice but to follow clues leading him to a massive scandal.

So Stallone loves making sequels to his old movies like Rocky and Rambo but, Eddie Murphy is one actor who isn’t going to be doing any of that.  Talk of Beverly Hills Cop IV (4) has been doing the rounds for many a year now but it has never amounted to anything more than speculation.

Rolling Stone magazine have an interview coming up with Eddie Murphy who has told them that a fourth Beverly Hills cop movie won’t be done and he is preferring the idea of producing a spin off TV show of the hit 80’s movie, check what he said to them below.

They’re not doing it. What I’m trying to do now is produce a TV show starring Axel Foley’s son, and Axel is the chief of police now in Detroit. I’d do the pilot, show up here and there. None of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn’t be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong.

I’m not so sure how a TV show of Beverly Hills Cop would work, I loved the first and second movies, third one was a bit of a joke and I really wouldn’t want to see a fourth so I’m pleased there not doing it  but, a TV show?  Let’s see if it comes off.

It seems we are all about series renewals and sequels this week so why not mention another.  Rumours of a follow up to Independence Day have been doing the rounds for years now but it seems they are moving forward and the scripts are expected to be handed into Fox by December.

The studio have said that there will be two sequels shot at the same time, so that’s ID2 and ID3, they of course would like there star man Will Smith back to take the lead but his involvement still isn’t confirmed after he asked for a salary of $50m to do the movies.  The studio has said that they are prepared to make the movies without him, why?

No script details have been released as of yet but to leave box office gold like Will Smith out would be a big mistake in my opinion.  Would the first movie have been such a hit without him?  Would you even go see the second and third it he wasn’t the star?.... I’m not so sure I would be quite as lured, for me they should be making it their business to get Smith back on board.  The first movie took $800m worldwide and with Smith in for the sequels I think they could gross even more.