Friday Night Lights' Matt Lauria Becomes a Person of Interest

Matt Lauria Matt Lauria will guest-star in an upcoming episode of CBS' Person of Interest, TVLine.com reports. The Friday Night Lights vet will portray a trader at a major investment bank. He'll be Reese and Mr. Finch's person of interest-of-the-week in Episode 16, slated to air during February sweeps. Check out the rest of today's news The 27-year-old actor, who starred on Fox's short-lived The Chicago Code, recently guest-starred on Burn Notice and CSI. Person of Interest airs Thursdays at 9/8c.

SAG Honours Ballots Due Friday by Noon (PST)

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Taylor takes development reins at DWA

SchwartzDreamWorks Animation has tapped Gregg Taylor as its new head of development. He replaces Alex Schwartz, who is switching roles at the toon studio to produce "Mr. Peabody & Sherman."In his new post, Taylor will oversee development of all of DreamWorks Animation's projects. He previously served as a senior development and production executive, overseeing DreamWorks Animation's expanding franchises, including the upcoming sequel to "How to Train Your Dragon," "The Penguins of Madagascar" and the company's various TV initiatives.Before DWA, Taylor spent six years as executive VP of development and production for the Kennedy/Marshall Co., during which it produced "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Persepolis" and "The Bourne Ultimatum."DWA has had a long relationship with Taylor, beginning with "Shrek," when he ran Mike Myers' production shingle. His credits there include "Austin Powers in Goldmember" and "The Cat in the Hat.""Gregg is an exceptional executive with a wide range of creative experience that will positively influence our future slate," said DreamWorks Animation chief creative officer Bill Damaschke. "I am confident that he will thrive as the new leader of DreamWorks Animation's development team." Schwartz had been head of development at DWA since 2008, putting together various projects including "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," "Rise of the Guardians" and "Trolls." "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," helmed by Rob Minkoff and produced by Denise Cascino, bows March 14, 2014."Alex's exemplary work in development over the years makes her an ideal choice to assume the role of producer on 'Mr. Peabody & Sherman' and I look forward to her continued creative input and leadership," Schwartz said.Before joining DWA, Schwartz served as Walden Media's executive VP, where she was in charge of the creative group and served as executive producer on films including "Holes," "Bridge to Terabithia," "Charlotte's Web" and "Journey 3D to the Center of the Earth.""I have enjoyed four wonderful years overseeing development at DreamWorks Animation, thanks in large part to the unparalleled quality of my team, including Gregg, Damon Ross and Chris Kuser," Schwartz said. "I am eager to take on the next creative challenge of producing 'Mr. Peabody & Sherman,' which has long been a passion project of mine."DWA has three pics skedded for release in 2012: "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" and "Rise of the Guardians," and "The Croods." "Turbo" and "Me and My Shadow" are scheduled to bow in 2013. Contact Marc Graser at marc.graser@variety.com

The brand new the new sony Pictures Classics acquires 'Sugar Man'

'Searching for your Sugar Man' See the reviewSony Pictures Classics has acquired the rights within the U . s . States to Malik Bendjelloul's directorial debut "Looking for Sugar Guy."The brand new the new sony Classics introduced the sale Friday at Sundance, following its premiere Thursday evening in the world docu competition.The film is produced by Simon Chinn of Red-colored-colored Box Films and executive produced by John Battsek of Passion Pictures in colaboration with Canfield Pictures as well as the Documentary Company.Josh Braun and David Koh at Submarine Entertainment brokered the sale using the new the new sony Pictures Classics, with Protagonist Pictures handling Worldwide Sales.SPC noted it's the third film with Battsek following "Eventually in September" and "My Kid Could Fresh fresh paint That."Story explores Rodriguez, a Detroit artist who disappeared into obscurity among gossips from the nasty on-stage suicide. But a bootleg recording found its distance to apartheid Nigeria and, over the following 20 years, he increased to become phenomenon. The film follows the story of two South African fans who set to uncover what really happened for his or her hero. Contact Dork McNary at dork.mcnary@variety.com

'The Descendants' wins best drama Golden Globe

Film, DRAMA"The Descendants"ACTOR, DRAMAGeorge Clooney - "The Descendants"Film, COMEDY OR MUSICAL"The Artist"ACTRESS, DRAMAMeryl Streep - "The Iron Lady"ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL, MOTION PICTUREJean Dujardin - "The Artist"BEST COMEDY OR MUSICAL, TELEVISION"Modern Family" (ABC)BEST DIRECTOR, MOTION PICTUREMartin Scorsese - "Hugo"BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS, MOTION PICTUREOctavia Spencer - "The AssistanceInchActing professional, COMEDY OR MUSICAL, TELEVISIONMatt LeBlanc - "Episodes"ACTRESS, DRAMA, TELEVISIONClaire Danes - "Homeland"Language FILM"A Separation" ("Jodaeiye Nader az Simin") - IranSUPPORTING ACTRESS In The SERIES, Small-SERIES OR MOTION PICTUREJessica Lange - "American Horror Story"BEST Script, FilmInchNight amount of time in Paris" - Woodsy AllenBEST ANIMATED FEATURE"The Adventures of Tintin: The Important Thing in the Unicorn"SUPPORTING ACTOR In The SERIES, Small-SERIES OR MOTION PICTUREPeter Dinklage - "Wager on Thrones"ACTRESS , COMEDY OR MUSICAL, MOTION PICTUREMichelle Williams - "My Week with Marilyn"ACTOR In The Small-SERIES OR MOTION PICTUREIdris Elba - "Luther"BEST ORIGINAL SONG, FilmInchWork of artInch - "W.E." - Music & Lyrics by: Madonna, Julie Frost, Jimmy HarryBEST ORIGINAL SCORE, FilmInchThe Artist" - Ludovic BourceBEST DRAMA, TELEVISION"Homeland" (Showtime)ACTOR, DRAMA, TELEVISIONKelsey Grammer - "Boss"ACTRESS In The Small-SERIES OR MOTION PICTUREKate Winslet - "Mildred Pierce"BEST Small-SERIES OR FilmInchDownton Abbey" (PBS)ACTRESS, COMEDY OR MUSICAL, TELEVISIONLaura Dern - "Enlightened"BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR, MOTION PICTUREChristopher Plummer - "Beginners"THE CECIL B. DEMILLE AWARDMorgan Freeman Contact Variety Staff at news@variety.com

Fox orders pilots for 2 dramas, comedy

Fox is loading up on pilot orders, giving greenlights to a serial killer project from Kevin Williamson serial killer project, a legal drama from Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim and a comedy pilot from scribe Dana Fox, Chernin Entertainment and 20th Century Fox TV. Williamson and Berlanti/Guggenheim dramas hail from Warner Bros. TV. Williamson's project revolves around a serial killer who uses social media to create a network of murderers as he's being hunted by an FBI agent. Williamson penned the script and is exec producing his first project for a net other than the CW in several years. Penned by Guggenheim, the drama "Guilty" centers on a defense attorney who takes on tough cases and seeks to track down the people who had him falsely convicted of fraud. Guggenheim and Berlanti are exec producers. On the lighter side, the Dana Fox single-camera comedy revolves around a mother who winds up hiring her brother to serve as a "manny" to her children. Tentative title is "Ben Fox is My Manny." Fox, a feature scribe whose credits include "What Happens in Vegas," "The Wedding Date" and "Knight and Day," exec produces with Peter Chernin and Katherine Pope. Contact Cynthia Littleton at cynthia.littleton@variety.com

Law & Order: SVU Scoop: Harry Connick Junior. to see Benson's New Love Interest

Harry Connick Junior., Mariska Hargitay There's a brand new guy in Olivia Benson's existence.Law & Order: Special Sufferers Unit has reserved Emmy and Grammy champion Harry Connick Junior. for just about any four-episode arc, TVGuide.com has learned. NBC is predicted to announce Connick's casting Friday within the Television Experts Association winter previews.Convey more scoop inside your favorite shows inside our Winter TV previewConnick, who's presently starring on Broadway in Around the Apparent Day You Will See Forever, may have Executive Assistant Da David Haden, a committed, straight-shooting da who's designated a scenario with Detective Benson (Mariska Hargitay). While Benson is initially careful about Haden, each of them soon learn they create good team. Which teamworkwill spill in the court room. (Don't believe us? Uncover the shocking truth clip below!) The bond has come about as Benson continues to handle insufficient her partner, Elliot Stabler, who was simply written in the show after Christopher Meloni selected not to renew his seek the NBC procedural's thirteenth season."This is often a homer on lots of levels," Hargitay mentioned of Connick's casting. "The show is very fortunate to own Harry's amazing talent, and i'm lucky because I get moving with my friend. In my opinion Olivia couldn't have asked for a far greater companion to think about her using a new stage in their existence and career."Have a look at our report on TV's hottest crime mma fighters!Connick, 44, can be a three-time Grammy and a pair of-time Emmy champion, most recently for your musical direction of his live show TV special. He's came out inside the films Hope Floats, Independence Day, Copycat, P.S. I Like You together with Dolphin Tale. Round the small screen he's most broadly noted for his recurring role as Dr. Leo Markus on NBC's Will & Sophistication. SVU airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on NBC. Connick's arc begins Jan. 18.

Gaul TV ad coin rises 7%

Gaul's TV ad revenue rose 7% to a record 8.6 billion ($11 billion) in 2011, according to media monitoring company Yacast. France's dynamic digital terrestrial TV market, second only to the U.K. in terms of maturity, accounted for the TV sector's increase in ad spending, according to Francois Lienard, head of Yacast's advertising monitoring. "The figures underscore a highly contrasted French TV landscape: while DTT channels have been attracting bigger advertisers and more revenue, the picture is less rosy for older terrestrial channels -- particularly TF1 and M6," Lienard said. Ad revenue at DTT nets went up 23% to $4.19 billion while ad time rose 1%. Ad revenue at the older channels, notably TF1 and M6, went down 1% to $6.8 billion and ad time fell 4%. "These channels have been hurt by the economic recession, which has degraded pricing negotiations, as well as the audience fragmentation generated by DTT channels, and the competition with other media such as radio and the Internet," Lienard said. Paybox Canal Plus generated more ad coin in 2011: up 8% to $222 million and up 1% in ad time. American skeins drew the largest ad revenue, with "The Mentalist," "Grey's Anatomy," "Criminal Minds" and "CSI" leading on TF1. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Helmers, designers proceed and take edge from war

'The Flowers of War''War Horse'"War films are fantastic challenges," states Thomas Walsh, leader in the Art Company company directors Guild. "But they're right near the top of the foods chain if this involves projects that are tough to succeed.InchThat didn't stop two veteran company company directors -- Steven Spielberg and Zhang Yimou -- from taking a bite this year, with "War Equine" and "The Flowers of War," correspondingly. The foremost is set largely inside the hellish arena of trench warfare, the second through the nightmare occasions from the Nanking Massacre.But while both company company directors were unquestionably around the brilliant challenges of staging war, destruction and fight moments, each of them did something unusual: Without stinting round the atrocities of fight, they thought we would frame their tales as fables.That created a couple of from the finest challenges on each film around the designers, clients and makeup artists. They have to bring a sense of verisimilitude to every scene -- by getting a creative twist."How will you mix being practical and being poetic?" asks "War Equine" production designer Ron Carter. "This is actually the design challenge: To make a place where all of people aspirations are satisfied."Carter and Spielberg link that spans nearly thirty years, which meant they'd an easy, familiar approach to communicate. Spielberg would sometimes say "surprise me," Carter recalls."Each day was like creating a new painting," Carter states.That meant finding a means to progressively lead everyone else as well as the film within the eco-friendly, rocky slopes of Devon, England to the blasted, otherworldly the surface of the war's battleground within the British Funnel. Carter situated an airfield west located in london, gutted and trenched it, then sculpted it completely.Carter states he and Spielberg were affected with the films of John Ford and David Lean, who understood making movies that evoked the landscape around them."You're monitoring a sense of the thing that was lost, and the way you survive," states Carter. "That type of thinking informed plenty of imagery, which starts to produce a fable."It absolutely was 2006's "Pan's Labyrinth," however, that informed the imagery of Yimou's "Flowers," states the film's production designer Yohei Taneda, who notes that both films tell their tales using the eyes from the youthful girl."Rather than reenact history," produces Taneda using a translator, "I felt it may be more interesting to incorporate an extremely subjective, fable-like feel as one example of war as gone through by the innocents."To do this, Yimou leaned heavily on contrasting spare bursts of color getting a bleak, bombed-out landscape. Drab schoolgirl clothes in comparison while using silken clothes of hookers plus an enormous stained-glass window."Yimou tended to own lots of demands and demands if the found color," produces Taneda, who built the destroyed capital of scotland- Nanking situated on soundstages and backlots, almost the choice of Spielberg's choice to stay largely on location. Taneda states he preferred to render the bombed-out city as "ruins worth love," with "each failing building distinctive and wonderful.InchBut neither director preferred to tread on familiar territory. Spielberg told his department heads that "this is not ('Saving Private) Ryan.' " Too as with representing the colorful red-colored-colored-light district, Yimou did not have goal of while using the signature lamps he featured in 1991's "Boost the Red-colored-colored Lantern.""He strongly was adament he'd never use lamps on his movies again," produces set decorator Yoshihito Akatsuka, who then required to develop an alternate and made the decision on the Chinese decorated gate.Adhering with a "fable" atmosphere, however, needed compromises. Spielberg's wish to have a PG-13 rating on "War Equine" meant some "artistic license" must be analyzed, as mind makeup designer Lois Burwell recalls. She cites the gas burns on lead character Albert's eyes, which have been first easily engrossed inside a bandage after which it moderate once uncovered. "Nevertheless the integrity remains,Inch she states. "Accurate, in a properly developed-lower way. Remember, the war may be the premise nevertheless the film is among the feelings of individuals as well as the animals."And therein arrives the artistry: With both "Flowers" and "War Equine," the organization company directors required the horror-film dictum of not showing the monster to heart, which leaves probably the most frightening regions of each inside the audience's creativity and allows an individuals story to dominate. Still, it's a little difference simply to walk -Body that cannot be accomplished without expert below-the-line department heads."I applaud anyone who comprises a war film with moderation," states Walsh. "An excellent war movie is not a snuff movie. In lesser hands, a war movie being launched at Christmastime -- with animals -- may well be a dangerous film. These movies prove you could show the war, but celebrate the individual.InchAttention round the Oscars: Art Direction, Costumes & Makeup Moments reveal souls Makeup for beauty greater than skin deep Helmers, designers proceed and take edge from war Realistic, exotic look for 'Lady' Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com