newsmakers

newsmakers

Fox adds comedies but cans ‘Alcatraz’

LOS ANGELES

Fox has picked up three comedies and two dramas for the 2012-13 season. In addition, the network renewed its Kiefer Sutherland-led drama “Touch” and canned “Alcatraz” and “Bones” spinoff “The Finder.”

The network may be losing a grumpy doc with “House” ending its run this season, but it’s staying in the medical practice with “Mob Doctor.” Jordana Spiro stars as a young female thoracic surgeon who becomes indebted to the South Chicago Mafia and is forced to moonlight as a “mob doctor” while also working full time at Chicago’s most prominent hospital.

Fox also will add “The Following.” The series features Kevin Bacon as a former FBI agent searching for a serial killer, played by James Purefoy, who has created a cult of killers.

The network added three comedies. “Ben & Kate” centers on a single mother whose brother moves in to help raise her baby.

“Goodwin Games” centers on siblings who inherit their late father’s fortune. And “The Office’s” Mindy Kaling makes the move to the top-rated network in “It’s Messy,” in which she plays a young doctor trying to balance her personal and professional life.

Stern to critics: Watch before judging

NEW YORK

New “America’s Got Talent” judge Howard Stern has some advice for his critics: Watch me before attacking me.

Prior to Stern’s debut Monday on the NBC talent show, a group that advocates for cleaner TV content has written to advertisers asking them to stay away. The Parents Television Council says Stern’s addition “will likely result in a sharp increase in explicit content.”

But Stern said at a news conference Thursday that he fully understands “America’s Got Talent” is a family show.

The radio shock jock said his critics “are entitled to their opinion. They just look awfully foolish when they haven’t seen the show.”

Russell Brand to host MTV Movie Awards

LOS ANGELES

Russell Brand is returning to the MTV stage. The 36-year-old comedian has signed on to host the 2012 MTV Movie Awards.

“This MTV Movie Awards will be more impressive than ‘The Avengers,’ and you won’t have to wait an hour for someone to Hulk out,” Brand said Thursday.

After hosting MTV’s Video Music Awards in 2008 and 2009, Brand took on leading roles in films such as “Get Him to the Greek,” “Arthur” and “Rock of Ages,” which hits theaters next month. This is his first time hosting the MTV Movie Awards.

Executive producer Jesse Ignjatovic, who worked with Brand on the VMAs, calls the actor-comedian “such a brilliant talent.”

“He brings the funny but he also has that rock ’n’ roll aesthetic,” he said.

The top contenders at the 21st annual MTV Movie Awards are “The Hunger Games” and “Bridesmaids,” which have eight nominations each, including bids for best cast, breakthrough performance and movie of the year.

Court rules for Costner in appeal

PIERRE, S.D.

The South Dakota Supreme Court has ruled that actor Kevin Costner did not breach a contract with an artist he commissioned to produce bronze sculptures of bison and American Indians.

The Hollywood superstar paid Peggy Detmers $300,000 to make the sculptures in the 1990s for a resort he planned in South Dakota’s Black Hills. The resort never was built, and he instead placed the sculptures at his Tatanka attraction near Deadwood.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the alternative placement did not constitute a breach of contract.

Costner filmed much of his Academy Award- winning movie “Dances with Wolves” in South Dakota.

Vindicator wire services