Auto Club Speedway Celebrates The Pepsi 500 - 7th October 2009

The Jericho star’s arc will send the CSIs all over New York City on one of the wildest cases of their careers. The three episodes will begin airing Oct. 7. The killer character harkens back to Ulrich’s role in Scream, the horror mystery that helped make him a star.

Soccer Match-Up Of Chelsea FC v Inter-Milan To Benefit

First Annual Setanta Cup Game With Hollywood United Football Club

In another CBS pilot casting, “Ugly Betty’s” Ashley Jensen has joined the comedy “Accidentally on Purpose.”

“Back,” from CBS Paramount, centers on a man (Ulrich) who returns home to discover he was reported missing eight years earlier, after Sept. 11. He must reconnect with his family and a world that has moved on without him.

Dean Widenmann (”CSI: Miami”) penned the script and is exec producing with “Hairspray” producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. Mark Pellington is directing.

Ulrich was involved in the successful grass-roots campaign to save the cult drama “Jericho” when CBS canceled it after one season. In a rare reversal, the network brought the show back for a second season.

In addition to his starring role on “Jericho,” which is airing on the CW, Ulrich also appeared in the TNT mini “Into the West” and has the Sony Screen Gems feature “Armored” in the can.

He is repped by ICM and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

“Accidentally,” from CBS Par, stars Jenna Elfman as a movie critic who gets pregnant after a fling with a younger man.

Jensen will play her best friend, a reversal of sorts to her role on “Ugly Betty,” where she played the prgnant best friend to the show’s star, America Ferrera.

The casting is in second position on “Betty,” though there has been speculation that Jensen will be leaving the show at the end of this season.

With the new year, comes some new hope. A few days ago, IF Magazine broke an interesting story saying that a Jericho movie is in the works for theatrical release. But can we believe that?

In the article they talk about Executive producer/Director Jon Turteltaub being pretty jazzed that repeats of the first season are playing on The CW. He feels that if Jericho can hit it big on The CW, there’s a chance it could come back to broadcast TV with new episodes. He did emphasize the phrase “remarkable success,” which means that despite the loyal core of fans, there need to be a lot more viewers willing to fawn all over themselves about Season 1 repeats.

But at the moment the bigger news is the potential development of a Jericho feature film for the big screen.

If you remember, Jericho debuted in 2006 and followed the events in a small Kansas town after a series of terrorist attacks left the US in disarray. The residents had to come together, fend for themselves and pretty much start all over in their own mini-society that had to deal with the new reality of it all. It starred Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, Ashley Scott, Kenneth Mitchell, Brad Beyer, Alicia Coppola and Gerald McRaney.

Turtletaub said they are “developing” a Jericho feature. The movie would also not require you to have seen the show. It would cover a broader scope of events - beyond the town of Jericho itself. It would be a “full on American version of what’s going on beyond the town in Jericho.”

He further added that the TV cast would return.

Eh? That’s where I got confused. If the movie takes place outside of Jericho, how can the original cast return?

I don’t mean to be a naysayer but this doesn’t seem to add up.

How can the original cast return to a TV series-based movie that:

1. Doesn’t take place where the TV show did.
2. Yet still involves the same actors/characters.

Or is this just Turtletaub hoping to generate buzz? I don’t get it, but what I do get is that when asked if it would be a huge budget movie, instead of saying it had a budget, he indicated any budget would be huge compared to what they had for the weekly series.

Jericho repeats are airing Sunday nights on The CW. I don’t see the show generating phenomenal ratings on that night so I’m betting this is all just smoke and mirrors and we must be content with what we have at the moment, gang.

So what do you think: Could a movie do it for you? How would it work with the same cast in a different setting? Would you even want to get involved in another town or from a different angle (a national scale) of those events?

Let us know what you think.

TV Guide 2007

Set #004

St. Jude’s 5th Annual Runway For Life Benefit

Cole and Dylan Sprouse’s 16th Birthday Party