Brannon Braga

Jon Cassar joins Terra Nova

June 23, 2010 · 0 comments

Jon Cassar Emmy Award

Looks like another show to watch – Jon Cassar is one of the best directors out there, and David Fury is a very strong writer. Nice little 24 reunion on this show which sounds pretty interesting. Congrats Jon!

EXCLUSIVE: It will be an even larger 24 reunion on Fox’s upcoming prehistoric drama Terra Nova, which is executive produced by Steven Spielberg and Peter Chernin. Long-time 24 director-executive producer Jon Cassar has joined the 13-episode midseason series as an executive producer and regular series director. He joins fellow 24 executive producers Brandon Braga and David Fury who are executive producing Terra Nova. (Braga also serves as the series’ showrunner). Cassar, who won an Emmy for his directing work on Fox/20th TV/Imagine’s 24 and shared the show’s 2006 best drama series Emmy, will direct multiple episodes of Terra Nova following the pilot episode, which is being helmed by Alex Graves. “This is a huge coup for us,” said Dana Walden, chairman of 20th TV, which is co-producing Terra Nova with DreamWorks TV, Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and Chernin Entertainment. “Jon is one of the best directors we have ever worked with, and this project is a huge priority for our company.”

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What Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff brings to 24

August 10, 2009 · 0 comments

Katee Sackhoff

Former Battlestar Galactica star Katee Sackhoff will play a CTU analyst and the love interest of Freddie Prinze Jr.’s new CTU agent in the upcoming eighth (and possibly final) season of Fox’s 24, and executive producer Brannon Braga says she brings a lot of her Starbuck credibility to the role.

“Credibility is a very, very good word to use,” Braga (FlashForward) said in an exclusive interview at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour in Pasadena, Calif., last week.

Braga added: “Obviously, we’re all fans of Katee from Battlestar, and we were looking for this role of Dana Walsh—that’s the character’s name—a character who is really smart and part of a new CTU that is what we’re calling CTU 2.0. It’s the next generation of CTU. And we wanted to find someone who just had an inherent strength and intelligence, but was also very beautiful. That’s a very hard role to cast, and Katee fit the bill. It’s that Jeri Ryan type of actress, you know?” Braga added, referring to his former Star Trek: Voyager star. “They’re hard to find. I mean, no insult to the talent pool out there, but they’re not easy to find.”

For her part, Sackhoff said that she’ll be playing “the head programmer at CTU.” Will she butt heads with Mary Lynn Rajskub’s irascible Chloe? “Of course,” Sackhoff said. “Of course. That’s part of the fun, yeah.”

The new season, which kicks off at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Jan. 17, 2010, moves the action to New York, Braga said. “CTU has been reconstituted and is in the form of CTU New York,” he said. “And it involves the U.N. And a very, very important peace process that is being threatened. … Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) will get involved. … There’s some familiar faces coming back, but there are some new faces in the form of Katee Sackhoff and Freddie Prinze Jr. and Anil Kapoor (Slumdog Millionaire), and it’s a very cool season. But there are some big surprises as well that I think I’d be fired if I gave away.”

For Sackhoff, shooting 24 was eerily reminiscent of her time on Battlestar. “It’s a little weird,” she said. “Because Brad Turner directed one of the episodes of Battlestar Galactica, … and he was [one of] the first directors that I had for 24. So I literally, like, came in, and it was a seamless transition. … [Former Battlestar co-star] Callum Keith Rennie was there, and I was there, and Brad was there, and it was like, ‘Wow, this is great!’”

Source: SCI Fi Wire

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Callum Keith Rennie’s character on 24: Vladimir Laitanan

August 10, 2009 · 0 comments

Callum Keith Rennie

William Keck from TV Guide Magazine has wrangled a little more information out of 24 writer Brannon Braga regarding Callum Keith Rennie’s character:

Battlestar Galactica vet Callum Keith Rennie, who played Leoben Conoy on the sci-fi series, will be joining his former co-star Katee Sackoff on the new season of 24, premiering in January 2010. Callum, who also had a recurring role on Californication and played Harper’s Island killer John Wakefield, will be playing Vladimir Laitanan. Co-executive producer Brannon Braga describes the character as a Russian syndicate mobster who debuts around episode six or seven. “We love this actor,” says Braga.

Expect Vlad to team in some way with 24‘s other new villain, Eastern European mobster Bazhaev, played by “Das Boot” actor Jurgen Prochnow.

Source: TV Guide Magazine

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24 Comic-Con 2009 news roundup

July 27, 2009 · 1 comment

Comic-Con 2009 logo

In attendance were Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub along with new cast members Katee Sackhoff, Freddie Prinze Jr, and Anil Kapoor, writers Howard Gordon, David Fury, Evan Katz, Manny Coto, and Brannon Braga and composer Sean Callery.

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