Ulrich Leaves ‘Law & Order: Los Angeles,’ Molina and Howard Take Center Stage

The Law & Order franchise has made a habit of changing horses midstream and the latest iteration , it seems, is no different.

Law & Order: Los Angeles will undergo its first major restructuring since the premiere by replacing Skeet Ulrich with Alfred Molina—despite the fact Molina is already one of the program’s main characters.

Ulrich, who plays police detective Rex Winters, will leave the show after just 14 episodes, along with actresses Regina Hall and Megan Boon who both play lawyers. Come episode 15 Molina’s character, deputy district attorney Ricardo Morales, will make the leap from courtrooms to crime scenes as Law & Order: Los Angeles’ new lead detective.

So, how is this possible? The show plans to reveal that Molina’s character had been a 15-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, achieving the rank of detective during his tenure. His dissatisfaction with the district attorney’s office ultimately causes him to return to police work.

The casting shakeup will essentially make leads of Alfred Molina and the man with whom he split his screen time: Terrence Howard. Howard’s character, John Dekker, also a district attorney, will now star in every episode, as opposed to alternating with Molina.

Series executive producer Dick Wolf described the situation by saying:

“We have the fortune of two world-class actors on LOLA, and it was frustrating to have one on the bench every week. It would be like having Peyton Manning and Tom Brady as your quarterbacks, playing alternate games.”

No stranger to a revolving door of cast members, the Law & Order franchise seems to thrive by pulling out its mainstays and introducing new actors every so often. This time, however, it happened earlier than most expected. NBC’s sudden overhaul of its highest-rated drama is a risky move, but one that is fueled by the show’s ratings reaching a plateau.

Fortunately, Corey Stoll, who plays Ulrich’s partner, will stay on with Molina. While there has yet to be an announcement of who will be joining Terrence Howard in the courtroom, producers are currently searching for an actress to fill Molina’s roll as Deputy District Attorney.

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Law & Order: Los Angeles moves to Tuesdays @10 p.m, on Feb. 8th.

Source: TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly

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Howard Shore Returning To Score ‘The Hobbit’

Now that The Hobbit has clawed its way out of that MGM mess and has been given the all-important green light, us fans are free to properly look forward to what Peter Jackson has in store for us with the much-anticipated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved novel.

For a while now we’ve been hearing word of the different cast members being brought onboard for the The Hobbit, including Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Richard Armitage as the leader of the Company of Dwarves and James Nesbitt as the dwarf Bofur (amongst many other casting additions). Now we have just have to wait for confirmation of those long-standing rumors that Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis will be reprising their roles as Gandalf and Gollum, respectively.

Fans now have one more reason to jump for joy in anticipation of The Hobbit, as it appears that Lord of the Rings composer, Howard Shore, will be returning to compose the musical score for Jackson’s two-part Hobbit epic. The Province spoke to Shore himself:

“We’ve [Shore and Jackson] talked about making these movies [The Hobbit] for many years, at least since 2002… It looks like finally it’s going to be happening. I’ll be working on it for the next three years — it’s going to consume a lot of my time and work now.”

Shore’s score for the LOTR trilogy – which he originally recorded 11 hours of music for – has taken on a life of its own outside of the confines of the films, having been performed over 160 times since 2003. The latest performance will be next week by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Shore regards the music as his best work and says that, “everything I knew about composing, orchestrating, conducting — everything I had learned about music was in it.”

The Lord of the Rings score being conducted

Does anyone really think that Shore won’t do just as stellar of a job with The Hobbit as he did with LOTR? I certainly don’t. His score for the latter somehow managed to be monumentally epic but still feel rather intimate, which perfectly mirrored the journey Frodo and Sam took to destroy the One Ring To Rule Them All.

Fans of The Hobbit novel will know that it has similar attributes to the journey taken in the LOTR but nonetheless falls a lot more on the intimate side of the fence. I have every bit of faith that Shore will help Jackson do justice to the source material.

Both parts of The Hobbit are being shot back-to-back in New Zealand, starting early next year. Part 1 is currently scheduled to hit theaters on December 19th, 2012, while Part 2 will follow a year later in December, 2013.

Source: The Province via Coming Soon

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