After making what he referred to as a premature decision, with Fox’s cancellation of the ambitious sci-fi drama Terra Nova and the Netflix deal not going through, actor Jason O’Mara immediately pursued a role in the CBS drama series Vegas, starring Dennis Quaid, Michael Chiklis and Carrie-Anne Moss.  Premiering on September 25^th, Vegas is a 1960′s period piece inspired by the true story of Ralph Lamb (Quaid), a cowboy turned sheriff of Las Vegas, and Vincent Savino (Chiklis), a Chicago mob fixer.

While at the CBS portion of the TCA Press Tour, Jason O’Mara shared some thoughts about the creative issues with Terra Nova, how he felt about the cancellation of the series, that the showrunners had plans for what they could do with Season 2, and that he would have definitely stuck with it, if it had moved to Netflix.  Check out what he had to say after the jump.

After Fox officially canceled Terra Nova at the end of its first and only season, fans of the prehistoric sci-fi adventure series got a brief glimmer of hope when it was announced that Netflix had an interest in picking the show up for new episodes (at an obviously reduced cost). Well, I’m here to dash your hopes in meteoric fashion as word has it that talks have fallen through between Netflix and 20th Century Fox Television. THR reports that neither side was able to come to terms on salvaging the series. Although it carried a bloated production budget and never produced the necessary number of viewers, I was intrigued by Terra Nova’s premise even more so than its visual marvels. Netflix continues to be aggressive with its series pickups, notably Eli Roth’s horror series, Hemlock Grove; new episodes of the fantastic comedy series, Arrested Development; and David Fincher’s House of Cards, a drama starring Kevin Spacey.

Lionsgate has released the first trailer for One for the Money, the feature debut of the Stephanie Plum character created by Janet Evanovich.  Katherine Heigl plays Plum: “Desperate for some fast cash, Stephanie turns to her last resort: convincing her sleazy cousin to give her a job at his bail bonding company… as a recovery agent.”  It’s not my cup of tea, but it doesn’t appear completely charmless if you’re one of those mythical viewers who can tolerate Katherine Heigl.  And hey, Jason O’Mara looks like he’s having fun.  Faint praise!

Daniel Sunjata, John Leguiziamo, Debbie Reynolds, and Debra Monk also star in the January 27, 2012 release, directed by Julie Anne Robinson.  Watch the trailer after the jump.

The ambitious new sci-fi series Terra Nova (premiering on Fox on September 26^th) is an epic family adventure 85 million years in the making. Following an ordinary family on an incredible journey back in time to prehistoric Earth, the Shannon family joins the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers to the first colony established in this beautiful yet treacherous land. With the planet overdeveloped and overcrowded, and the majority of plant and animal life extinct, the future of mankind is in doubt, so Jim Shannon (Jason O’Mara) takes his wife and three kids in search of new opportunities and fresh beginnings. Once there, the Shannons come to suspect that not everyone on this mission has the same idea of how to best save mankind and, along with the very real danger of man-eating dinosaurs, they realize that there are forces intent on destroying this new world before it even begins.

During a recent interview to promote the Steven Spielberg-produced series, actor Jason O’Mara talked about this scary vision of the future, the challenges of working with so much green screen, how the show will answer many of the questions it poses, and how much fun he has doing action scenes. He also talked about his role opposite Katherine Heigl in One for the Money, due out in 2012. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

As the new television season looms closer, the marketing machine is starting to pick up steam. A couple new posters promoting the return of The Good Wife and the premiere of Terra Nova have just debuted. One is pretty damn sexy implying some naughty behavior (though it really just seems like a way to get people’s attention, and the other has some photoshopped images in a jungle that look a little to clean cut.  I’m pretty sure you can figure out which attributes belong to which piece of poster, but we’ll let you take a look yourself after the jump.

Though we should’ve seen a sneak peek premiere last month, audiences will have to wait until this fall for the first episode of Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi drama Terra Nova. However, this weekend comes a big push to get audiences who aren’t in front of their TV this weekend excited for the new series as a new trailer has just shown up that will also be playing in theaters across the nation this weekend. It’s only a minute long, but it’s a nice, short set-up for the series, and let’s everyone know what it’s all about. I’m still not convinced that the dinosaurs here are going to look as good or offer as many thrills as Spielberg’s escapades with them in Jurassic Park, but I’m hoping this doesn’t end up being a flop. Check out the new trailer after the jump.

Take some of Avatar, mix with Jurassic Park and toss in a little bit of Lost for good measure, and that’s about what Fox’s new series Terra Nova looks like. We got our first glimpse at this new series back in February, but Fox has just released a new trailer that gives us a better idea of the size and scope of the story. Showing us both the world our characters leave behind and the new world where humanity hopes to start with a clean slate. Despite the more gritty, thrilling and dramatic tone of the series, I can’t help but also see a comparison to Land of the Lost.  Hopefully there won’t be any Sleestaks showing up. The series was supposed to have a sneak preview premiere event in May, but that’s since been delayed until sometime this fall. In the meantime, check out the new trailer and the official series synopsis after the jump.

At WonderCon, Fox unveiled a 3 minute sizzle reel from their upcoming time travel and dinosaur filled TV series Terra Nova.   While the show has been delayed until the fall, after watching the footage, I understand why.  Not only does the show take place 85 million years in the past, it also takes place a hundred years in the future.  Nothing is present day.  It’s without a doubt one of the most ambitious ideas for network television to ever be greenlit and I couldn’t be more excited.  For all our previous coverage on Terra Nova including trailers and images, click here.

Before the panel, I got to talk with Jason O’Mara who plays one of the leads.  We talked about the epic scope of the project, how physical the role is, the intense production schedule, and, of course, what’s his go-to karaoke song.  Hit the jump to watch.

Lionsgate has moved the Katherine Heigl-led comedy One for the Money from July 8 to June 3.  On the original July release date, One for the Money would have been one of three comedies opposite The Zookeeper and Horrible Bosses.  Variety suggests the switch is counterprogramming tactic; action tentpole X-Men: First Class is the only other film scheduled for June 3.

Heigl plays “a down-and-out woman who takes a last-ditch job working for her cousin’s bail bond business, and her biggest client turns out to be her high-school heartbreaker.”  Jason O’Mara, John Leguizamo, and Debbie Reynolds also star, directed by Julie Anne Robinson (The Last Song) from a script by Liz Brixius (Nurse Jackie).  One for the Money is based on the novel of the same name by Janet Evanovich; hit the jump for a synopsis.

Though a canceled Comic-Con panel for Steven Spielberg’s Terra Nova stirred the pot of skepticism, we now have our first official look at Steven Spielberg’s time travel and dinosaur filled TV series Terra Nova. There’s guns being fired and a general sense of danger and adventure featuring Jason O’Mara as Jim Shannon trying to protect the rest of his family who have found themselves traveling back in time to a paradisiacal era where dinosaurs roam the Earth. Obviously, this isn’t a Land of the Lost scenario though since there are clearly military forces somehow involved, but you can see that for yourself in the pictures below along with the official synopsis just to refresh your mind.  Hit the jump for the synopsis and pics:

Just last month, Comic-Con attendees unfortunately were not given the opportunity to get an early look at Terra Nova, Steven Spielberg’s science fiction series about a man whose family lives on a dying earth where people are traveling back in time to survive and end up surrounded by dinosaurs. There was speculation that the reason the program pulled its appearance was because of a lack of significant footage to show audiences. All this seems to make sense as a new press release indicates that Terra Nova won’t be seen by audiences until a sneak preview on Fox in May of 2011 (likely after the season finale of one of Fox’s big series). The official series premiere will happen when the rest of television kicks off later that fall. More details on this epic sounding series including portals, time travel babble and casting confirmations can be found after the jump.

A couple of notable items have sprung from Fox headquarters this week.  First up, it turns out that the photogenic cast of the hit teen musical Glee are signed up for a trilogy of feature films if Fox fancies such a move.  Per their 2008 contracts:

“[The actor] hereby grants Fox three exclusive, irrevocable options to engage [the actor] in up to, respectively, three feature length motion pictures.” [Hollywood Life]

That’s not to say that Glee will ever hit the big screen.  But if Fox ever pulls the trigger, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Dianna Agron, Mark Salling and the gang are all contractually on board.

Hit the jump for details on the upcoming American Idol auditions, and the lead casting of the Steven Spielberg produced Terra Nova.

It really is too bad that Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) seems to have passed on the rumored lucrative offer to star in the prehistoric drama Terra Nova.  But the creative team is headed in the right direction if they are reaching out to Jason O’Mara (Life on Mars).  Deadline reports that the folks behind Nova — including producer Steven Spielberg and showrunner Brannon Braga (24) — want O’Mara to play Jim Shannon, a “devoted father with a checkered past.”  The show follows the Shannons as they travel back in time from the year 2149 to the dinosaur era in an effort to escape an overcrowded, overpolluted future.

O’Mara was the best part of the ill-fated U.S. remake of Life on Mars.  (The worst part? The last five minutes.)  The Dubliner is totally deserving to be the centerpiece of an excellent weekly series, which Terra Nova is shaping up to be.  You’ll find a detailed plot synopsis which justifies such claims after the jump.

I long ago realized that my loving a series usually means that it’s doomed. The magic worked again with last season’s Life on Mars. It was, to my way of thinking, one of the best and most intelligent shows on TV at that time. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the series was set — sort of — in 1973. An American version of a BBC hit, the series chronicled the adventures of New York police detective Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara), who having survived a car accident in 2008, somehow woke up over thirty years before. Each week, Tyler’s “enlightened” views on police and societal affairs were pitted against the “archaic” mores of his fellow cops, especially Lt. Gene Hunt (Harvey Keitel). Sam’s only ally is Policewoman Annie Norris (Gretchen Mol).

But that was only one motif. In with and under his struggles with the past, and attempts to solve crimes without the technology he was used to in the present, Tyler also was forced to try to figure out how he had arrived in the past, and whether he was really there at all. Each episode veered in the direction of one or another explanation: that he really was back in time; that he was actually in a coma; that he had died in the accident, and was in some sort of strange Purgatory; and on and on. Moreover, 2008 had an odd way of bleeding back to him, via radio broadcasts, newspapers, and the occasional odd character. More after the jump: