Universal Pictures is gathering a rather stellar cast for their live action adaptation of THE VOYAGE OF DOCTOR DOLLITLE which will see

Doctor DoLittle is set for April 2019 release!

Robert Downey Jr playing the famous doctor who can speak to animals. Antonio Banderas will apparently play his enemy, a pirate named Rassouli while Michael Sheen is set to play Mudfly! Meanwhile, British thespians Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes will lend their voices to some of the talking animals alongside young Tom Holland! An adaptation of Hugh Lofting's classic book from the 1920's the movie is viewed as the potential opening for a whole franchise.

Joseph Quinn Joins 'LES MISERABLES' AT BBC 

Les Miserables will air sometime next year!

Casting news from the period set TV series world today, starting with our lovely chap Joseph Quinn, whom we'd discovered in Dickensian and continued to love in that horrid borefest of Howards End. He has now joined another BBC production, the six part series on LES MISERAB- LES which already has Dominic West as Jean Valjean, Lily Collins as Fantine and David Oyelowo as Javert and Olivia Colman as Madame Thenardier. Quinn will play Enjorlas, a revolutionary who dies for his beliefs in the June Rebellion.

Italian Rai is preparing the new epic series

I've already told you that Italian RAI is preparing $30 million epic series based on Umberto Eco's THE NAME OF THE ROSE and that John Turturro (As William of Baskerville) and Rupert Everett (as Inquisitor Gui) will lead the cast, and now they're joined by Michael Emerson who will play The Abbot, an ambiguous, greedy, over sensitive and irritable prince of the Abbey! To start airing its eight episodes at the beginning of next year, it follows William of Baskerville, a 14th century Franciscan monk, as he investigates a series of unusual deaths at a remote monastery! Damian Hardung will be William's apprentice, Benedictine novice Adso.