Lorraine Nicholson, Lee Majors and Bruce Dern have been added to the cast of the feature version of the 1960s ABC series “The Big Valley.”

The Western television series, which ran on ABC from 1965-69, revolved around the Barkley ranching family in the 1870s San Joaquin Valley.

Jessica Lange has been cast as Victoria Barkley, the matriarch of the Barkley family. Barbara Stanwyck originated the role on the TV show.

Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”) was recently cast in the role of the eldest son Jarrod.

Jason Alan Smith and Travis Fimmel have also been cast.

Nicholson will play the role of daughter Audra while Dern portrays Judge Adams. Majors, who originally played the Heath Barkley character on the TV series, will play the Tom Barkley role in the film.

According to Variety, production starts July 26 in Baton Rouge, La.

Daniel Adams is writing and directing the film.

Straw Weisman and Steven Brandman are producing. Kate Edelman Johnson, whose late father Louis F. Edelman created the series along with A.I. Bezzerides, is executive producing.

Source: Monsters and Critics

John Soto’s voodoo thriller Needle has been snapped up by a European distributor – even before the film screens at Cannes.

Needle is the story of two brothers who go on a quest to find an ancient voodoo machine, and was filmed in Perth. One by one, a group of teenage friends get picked off by some sort of supernatural serial killer.

It stars Michael Dorman, Trilby Glover, Calvin Klein model Travis Fimmel, Jessica Marais and John Jarratt.

Perth director Soto also wrote the screenplay, while Kane Manera produced it.

American distribution company Lighting Entertainment has been spruiking the product, and negotiated a sale to German-speaking group Telepool even before the scheduled Cannes screening.

“There has been tremendous interest in Needle since we first showed the promo in Berlin,” Lightning co-president Richard Guardian told Screen Daily.

“Buyer reaction to this initial footage made it clear that we had something special on our hands and we expect an even greater reaction to the finished version being screening in Cannes.”

Soto aimed from the start to make a film with international appeal. He described the plot as being Agatha Christie-style, and a gruesome suspense-filled story.

Very happy to hear this information!

Lightning licensed German-speaking Europe to Telepool, which negotiated a pre-emptive acquisition ahead of the film’s market premiere screenings in Cannes.

Playarte acquired the film for Brazil and Eagle Films for Middle East. Lighting Entertainment is handling worldwide sales excluding Australia and New Zealand, where the filmmakers are in talks with distributors.

Michael Dorman, Trilby Glover, Travis Fimmel and John Jarratt star in the story of a student who teams up with his estranged brother to recover a deadly 18th century device that goes missing after he inherits it.

Soto wrote the screenplay with Anthony Egan and Deidre Kitcher produced. The film shot entirely in Western Australia.

“There has been tremendous interest in Needle since we first showed the promo in Berlin,” Lightning co-president Richard Guardian said. “Buyer reaction to this initial footage made it clear that we had something special on our hands and we expect an even greater reaction to the finished version being screening in Cannes.”

“I’m delighted with the job Lightning is doing with my film, and proud that even before our first screening a major German distributor has stepped forward to take it off the table,” Soto said.

Lightning’s Cannes sales slate includes: Jonathan Hensleigh’s The Irishman starring Ray Stevenson, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer and Vincent D’Onofrio; survival thriller The Reef; romantic comedy Coach; and supernatural thriller Road Train.

Source: Screen Daily

PARKER COUNTY — Actors and crews were south of Millsap Tuesday and again today, shooting the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced pilot of “Chase,” which will air on NBC TV perhaps early this summer.

The pilot features a group of Texas-based U.S. Marshals – part of a team chasing violent criminals – who track a fugitive in Dallas, Fort Worth and across the “Mexico/U.S. Border near El Paso” in western Parker County.

The show’s team of marshals includes Kelli Giddish (“Past Life”), Amaury Nolasco (“Prison Break”), Cole Hauser (“Good Will Hunting”), Rose Rollins (“The L Word”) and Jesse Metcalfe (“Desperate Housewives”).

On Tuesday and again today, the actors, approximately 80 extras and many crew staged a Mexico/U.S. border scene on the old State Highway 80 steel bridge crossing the Brazos River.

The fugitive, played by Travis Fimmel (“The Beast” and “Tarzan”) dodges through and around vehicles and pedestrians on the bridge pursued by Giddish and her team. His character, Mason Boyle, eventually jumps into the muddy “Rio Grande River,” (really the Brazos) along with Giddish – or her stunt double.

Bruckheimer is know for action in such films as “Armageddon” and “Top Gun” and in the “CSI” television series. Other locations for Bruckheimer’s Dallas-based production are East Dallas neighborhoods and the Fort Worth stockyards, where they wove in and through the longhorn herd.

source: Mineral Wells Index

“Ben Rutherford, a young college student, inherits a small antique machine known as “La Vaudou Mort” from his late father’s estate. He shows the mysterious machine off to a group of his close friends, who are suitably impressed, but he returns to his dorm room one day to find that the machine has gone missing! He suspects that one of his friends has stolen it, but who? The next day his estranged older brother, Marcus, a forensic photographer, turns up with some terrible news – Ben’s best friend, Ryan, has been gruesomely killed, ripped apart from the inside by some unexplainable force…

Professor Banyon, Ben’s archaeology teacher, informs him that La Vaudou Mort was built in the 1800′s by a man known only as “Rubinstein”, a brilliant but disturbed engineer who was a devout follower of the occult. He reveals that the machine was created as a tool for revenge, supposedly harnessing the supernatural powers of voodoo. It’s not long before more of his friends start being dispatched one-by-one by an unseen and vengeful killer. As the body count grows, Ben must reunite with Marcus in a race to uncover the killer’s motivation and identity before they, too, become victims!”