Alfred Molina has signed on to star in David E. Kelley’s new medical drama pilot Chelsea General. The drama is set to air on the TNT network. The story is based on an upcoming novel from CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

The story follows the lives of five surgeon who face the difficulties of balancing the professional life of a doctor while trying to not fail at maintaining their personal lives.  The show is based around their hospital’s weekly morbidity and mortality conference, when doctors gather with their peers for a confidential review of complications and errors in patient care. It will provides a unique look at how surgeons come to terms with mistakes and try to learn from them.

“Chelsea General promises to be a smart, witty and extremely powerful medical drama, the kind of series David E. Kelley is renowned for making,” said Michael Wright, executive vice president, head of programming for TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies (TCM). “We look forward to working with David and Sanjay in bringing the doctors’ fascinating stories and characters to television.”

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We’ve been waiting for this as some of us are big fans of Rizzoli & Isles here at The Flickcast offices. Yes Mr. Ullrich, we’re looking at you. Still, that doesn’t mean TNT doesn’t have some other fine programming as well.

To let us all know what the network hsa in store for us for the Fall and Winter, they’ve released their schedule for all to see. The new schedule includes the continuation of the current seasons of The Closer, Rizzoli & Isles and Leverage, which all return with new episodes on November 27 and 28.

It also includes the new season of Southland, which will kick off in January and the first installment of the network’s new original movie franchise TNT Mystery Movie Night, which will debut November 29.

TNT also announces additional castings on several of its movies, including Alfred Molina joining Scott Turow’s Innocent, Dermot Mulroney in Silent Witness, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Kevin Alejandro in Hide.

Here’s all the details on TNT’s upcoming premiere dates from the official press release:

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Shakespeare’s The Tempest may be one of the most contrived and story-heavy piece of work in his collection, but that’s not stopping director Julie Taymor, who plans on bringing a direct adaptation of the play to theaters next year.

Yes, this is the same Julie Taymor who is begrudgingly bringing Spider-Man to Broadway, but she’s also the director behind Across the Universe, which introduced a whole new generation to the music of The Beatles, and adapted Shakespeare once before with Anthony Hopkins in Titus.

Now she’s at it again, with a new gang of players including Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Djimon Hounsou, David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, and Alan Cumming.

The premise is a bit confusing, so we won’t try to bog you down with the details. Instead, we have two great clips featuring Mirren, Hounsou, and Brand, which you can check out after the jump.

Catch Disney’s Tempest in theaters this Friday.

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Julie Taymor has made quite a lot of progress in Hollywood in the past few years. If bringing Across The Universe to theaters and Beatles music to a whole new audience wasn’t enough, she was one of the driving forces to bring Spider-Man to Broadway (whether we want it or not). Now Taymor is bringing her unique knack for stage adaptation with Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

The movie looks like an intense music video, with elements of mythology, magic, and yes, Russell Brand. Here’s the full synopsis for those who fell asleep during that 9th grade English class.

In her big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s mystical thriller “The Tempest,” Academy Award(R)-nominated Julie Taymor (“Across the Universe,” “Frida,” “Titus”) brings an original dynamic to the story by changing the gender of the sorcerer Prospero into the sorceress Prospera, portrayed by Oscar(R) winner Helen Mirren (“The Queen”). Prospera’s journey spirals through vengeance to forgiveness as she reigns over a magical island, cares for her young daughter, Miranda, and unleashes her powers against shipwrecked enemies in this exciting, masterly mix of romance, tragicomedy and the supernatural.

Mirren is followed by an almost Expendable-sized cast such as Alfred Molina, Djimon Hounsou, David Strathairn, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Ben Whishaw, Reeve Carney, Felicity Jones, and Tom Conti.

The film is expected to hit theaters on December 10th, but you can see what we’re going on about with the first trailer after the jump. Enjoy!

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Veteran television and film actor Alfred Molina will be joining Skeet Ulrich in the new Law and Order spinoff based in Los Angeles. Molina can be seen in theaters right now in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

However, fanboys will forever remember him as ill-fated Satipo from Raiders of the Lost Ark (“Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip!) and, of course, as Dr. Octopus from Spider-Man 2.

Molina will be playing Deputy D.A. Morales.  Ulrich will be playing Detective Rex Winters. The show is to begin production August 2, and will premiere on television on September 22 on NBC.

This will be Molina’s first regular television role since Bram and Alice in 2002.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt dive right in and discuss a whole bunch of new and exciting topics. Some of these new and exciting topics include the new Predators film, the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con, Edward Norton out as Bruce Banner in The Avengers, various casting news, The Expendables, Inception, Johnathan Nolan directing the Superman reboot, Zachary Levi as Clark Kent/Superman the awesomeness of Alfred Molina and a whole lot more.

You favorite co-hosts also made some great picks including Matt’s pick of the new sci-fi action film Predators and Chris’ pick of the new game Singularity.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

If you saw the trailer for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and thought to yourself, “YES.  I have been waiting for this.  The team that brought us National Treasure and National Treasure: Book of Secrets have made another film starring Nic Cage that looks a bit like Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and I totally want to see this. I am SO THERE.”, then you will not be disappointed in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  I had kind of the opposite reaction when I saw the trailer – falling somewhere between “Oh no.” and “Huh.  I think I’m going to have a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch today.”

Generally speaking, this type of movie just isn’t my cup of tea, so when I entered the theater my expectations were neutral – to say the least. That said, it was a lot better than I expected it to be.

Loosely based on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Disney’s Fantasia, the film has a relatively simple premise. The wizard Merlin – of Arthurian legend fame - is going about the business of doing battle with his nemesis, Morgana le Fay.  Though aided by his three apprentices – Balthazar (Nicolas Cage, equipped with flowing extensions), Veronica (Monica Bellucci) and Horvath (Alfred Molina), Merlin is destroyed by Morgana due in large part to an act of betrayal by of one of his followers, the amusingly named Horvath.

What follows is a little difficult to explain, but during the kerfuffle Veronica sacrifices herself by taking the spirit form of Morgana into her own body while a deeply wounded Balthazar uses magic to trap the remaining three wizards inside a matryoshka doll. Before his demise, Merlin had given Balthazar his Dragon Ring, explaining that he would eventually cross paths with a wizard whom the ring would chose to belong to and that this person would be powerful enough to defeat Morgana. For centuries Balthazar searches for his new apprentice – to no avail – collecting several other dark magicians to fill the nesting doll along the way.

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There is no doubt this weekend is going to be a massive draw for the overall box office. Between Warner Brothers’ Inception, and Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, there will be plenty of things for adults and kids alike to check out in theaters.

The latter of the two films is quite intriguing because it’s a feature script based on the short from Fantasia of the same name. Only instead of Mickey Mouse, we get Jay Baruchel and instead of the silent wizard, we get Nic Cage. One of those trades sounds worthwhile.

The film is also supposed to incorporate some of the elements of Harry Potter, while staying as contemporary as a film like Jumper. Also, expect plenty of high-tension CG fight scenes taking place in downtown Manhattan.

We’ve got four new clips from the film you can check out, including one with one of our favorite film baddies, Alfred Molina. Take a look at them after the jump. Catch Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in theaters this Friday.

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To all who have survived the month of June by successfully traversing lines of blood-sucking twihards, I congratulate you. You can relax now because the steaming month of July is less about men of iron and teenagers who use SPF 60 and more about whiz kids, dreamers, and spies.

Movie studios may appear to be throwing grenades into your trench, but don’t let the eye-catching blue and orange of the movie posters fool you. These grenades are merely filled with smoke and a good amount of marketing slickness. They will explode in your face only when you yank the pin by paying $12. Then, they will have truly won the battle. Instead of succumbing to the propaganda, arm yourselves wisely with the reviews below.

Those in the know will hold their breath until August when the golden generation of action heroes team up to save the world, kick some ass before kicking the bucket, and get sweaty enough to take off their shirts- giving both men and women some very good reasons for sitting in an air-conditioned multiplex.

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In Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Jake Gyllenhal stars as Prince Dastan, a former orphan who caught the eye of the king with a heroic deed, and was adopted into the royal family. Alongside his adoptive brothers he learns to fight like a warrior, but he is a bit scrappier that the other two, and can’t resist a good street fight from time to time.

He can nimbly traverse the city’s rooftops and his fancy footwork allows him to escape many a predicament that would have felled a lesser man. Prince Dastan is definitely supposed to be a throwback swashbuckler like Indiana Jones, or Richard O’Connell from The Mummy. Jake Gyllenhal almost pulls it off, but in the end, this story felt like a wanna-be Indiana Jones movie. Unfortunately, it comes up a bit short in every way.

The story begins when the Persian King believes that a neighboring kingdom harbors weapons of mass destruction, so they must invade and occupy the city. This will be Dastan”s big chance to to lead the army and prove his worth.

And so they invade the neighboring kingdom of Alamut under false pretenses. In Alamut, they encounter a beautiful, stubborn princess named Tamina, who takes a an instant dislike to Daston, but later, when Daston is accused of a committing a horrible crime, Tamina (Gemma Arterton, of Clash of the Titans) leads him to safety.

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Earlier this week, we brought you three exciting new clips from the upcoming Disney blockbuster Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. We got our first look at the drama between Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Nizam (Ben Kingsley), as well as some of the immense action that the film plans to deliver.

Today, we’re bringing you even more. The screenplay comes from Boaz Yakin who was set to originally write the Batman Year One project directed by Darren Aronofsky. That film later became Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins. Also, the team of Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard helped move the Prince script along. They also wrote the script for Disney’s upcoming The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

In the clips today, we get our first look at Alfred Molina in the film, sporting a spiffy tan. Also, we get a bit more action and roof-jumping from Gyllenhaal’s Dastan, and a cool “Sand Trap” scene showing off some of the CG effects of the film.

Check out those clips after the jump. Catch Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as early as midnight tonight across the U.S.

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This week could mark the the continuation of an epic summer blockbuster season as Disney comes out of the box swinging with Prince of Persia. Robin Hood and MacGruber had pretty lame opening week’s, while Iron Man 2 and Shrek Forever After took home a nice chunk of change. Disney, along with Bruckheimer and most of Hollywood, believe they will continue that success with this Jake Gyllenhaal-starring vehicle.

In the film, Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a character made famous by the classic side-scrolling video game Prince of Persia. The movie is set against an epic historical backdrop, with plenty of fantasy elements thrown in for good measure. Joining Gyllenhaal are Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans), Ben Kingsley, and Alfred Molina.

In the first three clips we’ve got for you (that’s right, there will be more), Dastan and Nizam (Kingsley) prepare for battle, we get some nighttime sneak attacks, and Dastan and Tamina (Arterton) have a lover’s quarrel.

Check out the clips after the jump, and catch Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in theaters Friday, May 28th.

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