AMC renews 'Hell on Wheels'

AMC has given another-season order to oater ''Hell on Wheels.'' Renewal marks another success story for that cabler, that has seen all its first-year scripted series except one receiving year. ''The Killing,'' ''Mad Males,'' ''The Walking Dead,'' and ''Breaking Bad'' all managed to get past their rookie season. Only ''Rubicon'' was canceled after one season. ''Hell on Wheels'' came a proper 4.4 million audiences because of its November. 6 debut, with 2.4 million within the 18-49 demo. The growing season finale is placed for Jan. 15. Show, which shoots in Alberta, Canada and focuses on your building from the Transcontinental Railroad following the Civil War, stars Anson Mount, Colm Meaney and customary. Entertainment One produces, with designers Joe and Tony Gayton professional creating alongside Jeremy Gold of Endemol, showrunner John Shiban and pilot director David Von Ancken. Contact Stuart Levine at stuart.levine@variety.com

HBO to renew 'Enlightened'

UPDATE: HBO renews 'Enlightened,' cancels comedy trioSources say HBO is about to renew "Enlightened."Despite its low ratings, critics have been supportive of the Laura Dern starrer and the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. gave it a thumbs up last week as well, giving both the show and Dern a Golden Globes nom.Pay cabler needs to make a decision on the fate of three other half-hour comedies: "How to Make It in America," "Hung" and "Bored to Death."UPDATE: HBO renews 'Enlightened,' cancels 'Hung,' 'How to Make it in America,' 'Bored to Death' Contact Stuart Levine at stuart.levine@variety.com

Paula Patton on 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol': 'There's Absolutely No Way Tom Cruise Can Kill Me, Right?'

When Tom Cruise confirms to carry out a movie, the dude DOES the film. Just like: he brings excessive stamina and talent to all or any things connected using the development, both on camera off. Cruise even likes doing nearly all their very own stunts -- something you already observed in the event you saw a clip for 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' as well as the scene where Cruise's Ethan Search runs lower the medial side in the Burj Khalifi, the greatest building in the world. The couch-jumping star didn't limit his concentrate on 'MI4' to basically dying-repel levels -- more youthful crowd was readily available for many driving stunts that have been dangerous enough for his co-star Paula Patton to fear on her behalf existence. Sorta. Inside an interview with Vanity Fair author Brett Berk for Stick Change -- an automobile column that runs online every Monday -- Patton spoken about how exactly she didn't achieve do much stunt driving on 'Ghost Protocol,' because Cruise was literally within the wheel. "I've arrived at inform you, besides just as one incredible actor, he's furthermore an excellent stuntman," Patton mentioned. "I'm speaking about, this person can drive an automobile! There has been moments when we'd have to stop within, literally, a ft from you, and he'd be carrying it out full speed, and I'd keep up with the vehicle going [inhales significantly and holds breath]. I'd think, He'll not kill me. There's not a way Tom Cruise can kill me, right? I'm speaking about, isn't that that like a back-up? Tom Cruise is driving? My heart reaches my stomach, but he always came through. He was always on the area.Inch Positive factor! You will see Cruise driving cars and running from explosions when 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' hits IMAX theaters on Friday an entire theatrical release follows inside a couple of days. [via VF.com] [Photo: AP] Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook

'The Killing': 'Desperate Housewives'' Mark Moses Books Major Role (Exclusive)

The CW is getting dramatic with Desperate Housewives' Eva Longoria. The younger-skewing network is developing Vega v. Vega, a one-hour legal drama with Longoria situated on the other side of the camera. The project, from Warner Bros. Television, centers on a brilliant, young, successful lawyer who suddenly finds herself forced to go into a practice with her mother, a pioneering female attorney with whom she has a love/hate relationship. PHOTOS: Eva Longoria's ALMA Fashion Vega will be written and executive produced by Yahlin Chang (Pan Am, Dirty Sexy Money). Longoria and Housewives' George W. Perkins and Sunta Izzicupo are on board as executive producers, with Elizabeth Bradley attached as a co-executive producer. Longoria is repped by CAA, Brillstein Entertainment, Bloom Hergott. Email: Lacey.Rose@THR.com; Twitter: @LaceyVRose Related Topics Eva Longoria TV Development

Box Office Preview: 'New Year's Eve,' 'The Sitter' Open in Advance of Holiday Crush

Filmmaker James Cameron and his Lightstorm Entertainment were sued Thursday by a former employee who claims he spent two years developing a movie that became the basis for Avatar but he has been excluded from participating in its success.our editor recommends'Avatar' Is The Most Pirated Movie Of All TimeJames Cameron Returns to Titanic for TV Special (Exclusive) Eric Ryder filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that in 1999, while he was a Lightstorm employee, he wrote a story called K.R.Z. 2068, as well as created treatments, photos, 3-D imagery and character elements for a planned movie the company was developing. The K.R.Z. project was to be an "environmentally-themed 3-D epic about a corporation's colonization and plundering of a distant moon's lush and wondrous natural setting," he alleges in a complaint obtained by THR. The story allegedly included "a corporation spy," "anthropomorphic, organically created beings populating that moon," and a relaitonship between the spy and one of the beings that culminates in the spy becoming a leader of the group's revolt against the corporation's mining practices. PHOTOS: Crazy Cases! 18 of Hollywood's Outrageous Entertainment Lawsuits Sounds a lot like the plot of Avatar. But is the highest-grossing movie of all time really a rip-off? Cameron and the producers of Avatar has been sued by many people who believe they came up with the idea for the project, and none of those cases has produced a judgment against the filmmaker. This, to our knowledge, is the first suit brought by a former employee. Ryder says he and Lightstorm had an implied agreement that the company wouldn't exploit his material unless he was compensated and credited. He says that in 2002 Lightstorm told him that the movie couldn't be made because no one would be interested in an environmentally themed science fiction film. Then Avatar came out in 2009 and made $2.8 billion worldwide. We've reached out to Cameron's reps for comment. The suit acknowledges that Cameron says he came up with the idea for Avatar and began writing before 1999, when Ryder says he wrote K.R.Z. The complaint contains allegations of breach of implied contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, interntional interference with prospective economic advantage and negligent interference with prospective advantage. To read the full complaint, click here. Email: Matthew.Belloni@thr.com Twitter: @THRMattBelloni PHOTO GALLERY: View Gallery Crazy Cases! 18 of Hollywood's Outrageous Entertainment Lawsuits Avatar James Cameron

Vans Footwear Designer James Van Doren Dies Shoes Grew to become National Fad After 'Fast Occasions at Ridgemont High'

There is a damning group of statistics presented at the outset of Under Fire: Journalists in Combat that provide it a haunting immediacy. It appears that the mere two journalists were wiped out in The First World War, and 63 journalists lost their lives in The Second World War. Contrast by using 1397 people from the press wiped out within the 10 years between 1996 and 2006.our editor recommendsTripoli, Libya Hotel Holds Trapped Journalists (Video)London Riots: Journalists Under Attack Share Tales In the Front LinesChina Roughs up Journalists over 'Strolling' Protests That precipitous rate of mortality, plus an alarming increase in kidnappings and torture, has brought journalists to become at elevated risk for such conditions as publish-distressing stress disorder, depression, panic attacks and drug abuse. Martin Burke's documentary, presently around the candidate to have an Oscar nomination, provides interviews with a number of prominent war correspondents and photography enthusiasts who provide vivid testimony regarding both hazards and also the allures of the marketplace. Even though film's number of speaking heads interviews--supported by fancy pictures and interspersed with frequently graphic and disturbing combat footage-hardly breaks any new aesthetic ground, the strategy is usually effective. Like the topics, all of whom is supported by a listing of the scarily extensive combat credits-- are a nearly evenly articulate, informative group who frequently prove themselves able to examining their very own complex motivations. Thus you've Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Occasions correspondent and author of War may be the Pressure That Provides Us Meaning, explaining themself like a "war junkie"-"In the same manner a drug physically stops working a drug addict, I had been being divided by war," he describes. Finbarr O'Reilly, a Reuter's photojournalist who's seen receiving onscreen therapy through the film's co-producer, mental health specialist Dr. Anthony Feinstein, confesses he were built with a compulsion to get involved with the war: "You kind of resign yourself that you are most likely getting hurt and merely hope it is not too badly if this happens." The film, which borrows part if it is title from Roger Spottiswoode's superb 1983 film drama about war journalists in Nicaragua, also explores the kind of moral issues haunting war journalists. Paul Watson from the La Occasions describes his residual guilt over getting captured pics of the corpse of the U.S. soldier being pulled with the roads of Mogadishu, while BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen is haunted by his decision to prevent in a certain location, simply to then watch a friend get wiped out just ten or twenty yards away (we have seen the live footage). There'll hopefully come a period when this documentary can come to appear a bit of vintage history. But at this time that point appears a lengthy ways away. Main Point Here: Harrowing documentary particulars the traumas of combat journalism. Mercury Media Worldwide. Production: JUF Pictures. Director/film writer: Martyn Burke. Producers: Martyn Burke, Anthony Feinstein. Executive producer: Laura Morton. Director of photography: Jesse Purser. Editor: Christopher McEnroe. Music: Mark Korven. No rating, 90 min.