Here’s more of today’s casting news:

• Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The First Avenger) is in negotiations to join Luke Evans in Dracula, the Universal picture directed by Gary Shore.
• Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) is in talks for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the Guy Ritchie-directed adaptation of the TV series that stars Tom Cruise and Armie Hammer.
• Pierce Brosnan (The Thomas Crown Affair), Jessica Alba (Sin City) and Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient) will star in How to Make Love Like an Englishman for director Tom Vaughan.

Hit the jump for more on each casting announcement.

This week on The Collision, we are joined by Allison Keene and Charles Judson.  Our conversation is sparked by a Mad Men spec script from actress Erika Anderson, which brings African-American characters into Matthew Weiner‘s critically acclaimed show.  From there, our conversation expands to explore diversity in popular TV series, if showrunners should feel obligated to diversify their casts, the difficulty in writing minority characters, and much more.  As always, we finish up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“Violence and Evil Dead“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

With AMC’s award-winning series Mad Men airing new episodes on Sunday night , I recently had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with creator Matthew Weiner.  Since he’s always guarded when talking about upcoming episodes, most of the interview covered the big storylines of last season and its big twists and turns, the theme of season 6, Don’s (Jon Hamm) relationship with Megan (Jessica Pare), Weiner’s decision to put Betty (January Jones) in a fat suit, what he learned from working on the later seasons of The Sopranos, why he needs to stay away from the internet, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to what Weiner had to say.

Since the Mad Men Season Six screeners were sent out to reviewers, series creator Matthew Weiner has kept an iron fist wrapped tightly around any spoilers (which, for him, means pretty much everything).  Maybe he’s earned that right, but it means that until now, no one has been able to speak one specific word about the return of this cultural juggernaut of a show.  I am breathing a sigh of relief to finally talk about all of the redacted things, because there are many.  This two hour movie-like premiere threw in everything about the series, touching on every major person and every theme we’ve come across over the past six years.  It’s no small feat, and the writing (Weiner wrote the premiere) and directing (by Scott Hornbacher) were as top-notch as ever.  So where exactly do we find Don now, after that suffocatingly bleak end to Season Five?  Hit the jump to find out what you see when you die.

Though the clips featured in the latest Mad Men promo from AMC all come from last season (because as we all know, creator Matthew Weiner keeps an iron grip around most of the promotional material), the message is still clear: moving forward, things are still not going to get easier for Don Draper (Jon Hamm).

The show has also released a telling poster that highlights Don’s internal struggle as he tries to move forward with his life but keeps getting pulled back into his old ways.  There have also been a few glamourous promo photos that tease the show’s movement into the 1970s.  For the latest TV trailer and a few thoughts on the upcoming season, hit the jump.

Fresh off yesterday’s unveiling of a magnificent poster for the upcoming sixth season of the drama series Mad Men, AMC has now released a new featurette for the show.  Though there’s no new footage to scrutinize, we do get to see castmembers Jon Hamm, Jessica Pare, and Rich Sommer talk about what fans can expect from the new season alongside creator/showrunner/mastermind Matthew Weiner.  With season seven poised to be the show’s last, Hamm describes the upcoming season as “like getting almost to the end of a great book.”  Weiner teases a central focus on Don for season six, saying the new episodes will give viewers “a lot of insight into Don, a new dynamic, and people striving to grow up.”  Also, Sommer is rocking some serious late 60s/early 70s sideburns.  This show cannot come back fast enough.

Hit the jump to watch the new featurette.  The two-hour season six premiere of Mad Men airs on AMC on Sunday, April 7th.

Notoriously tight-lipped Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has allowed AMC to drop a few more tidbits about the upcoming sixth season of the juggernaut drama in a new on-air promo.  The spot features some of the recently released black and white images that show all of the principle cast draped in late 1960s fashion, but now made slightly 3D (ok, AMC).  It also features the tagline, “You’re invited to the affair of the year.”

Like Season Five, the upcoming season will kick off with a two-hour premiere (without a title as of yet) that will be written by Weiner and directed by executive producer Scott Hornbacher.  The show will also start an hour earlier than its regular time slot (9 p.m.) which it will return to the following week (10 p.m.) with an episode written by Jonathan Igla and Weiner, and directed by series star Jon Hamm.  For the promo spot and more, hit the jump.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mad Men season six now has a firm ETA.  AMC announced today that the season six premiere of the hit drama series will air on April 7th, with a two-hour episode that creator Matthew Weiner likens to a movie.  This is pretty much exactly how season five began, as the show had been off the air for a considerable amount of time and Weiner wanted to give viewers a two-hour episode that played like a mini-Mad Men movie.  Weiner also confirmed that season six will be the second to last season of the series, as previously reported.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say about heading towards the end of Mad Men and not holding all the “big stuff” for the final season.

You’re driving down the street, and it’s suddenly blocked off.  You notice these weird yellow signs with nonsensical letters or numbers.  There’s unusual glow lighting up a neighborhood you can’t usually see from your house.  What you might have here is a film company shooting in your town.  It happens a lot, and you never know where they might pop up…until now.

The following is a semi-comprehensive list of films currently shooting, what they’re shooting, and where they’re shooting.  We’ll be telling you where you might get to see the very famous, the kinda famous and (if all goes well) the soon-to-be famous. While we can’t list every single movie, television show, or student film in production, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what the heck is going on where all those people are buzzing about.  Want to know where in the world are Matt Damon, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Woody Harrelson, and Leonardo DiCaprio? Hit the jump for more.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has been trying for years to get his feature film debut You Are Here into production.  Weiner will direct from his own script, which centers on “childhood best friends who go on a road trip after one of them inherits significant coin following the death of his father.”  Back in 2009 (when the childhood friends were roommates), the movie was set to star Jennifer Aniston, Bradley Cooper, and Zach Galifianakis.  Almost a year later, the movie had lined up a new cast featuring Jack Black, Matt Dillon, and Renée Zellweger.  Today, Variety reports that the movie now has Galifianakis back on board to play the part he was attached to in 2009.  He’ll now be co-starring with Owen Wilson, and Amy Poehler is in talks to co-star.

Hit the jump for more.

The premiere of the long-awaited fifth season of Mad Men is just around the corner with a two-hour return slated to air on Sunday, March 25th at 9/8c. Until then, the marketing campaign should be enough to whet our appetite, especially with this strange and cryptic poster that AMC just debuted. Speaking with The New York Times, series creator Matthew Weiner commented on the image, inspired by the work of Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico, saying, “This is a dreamlike image, a nonverbal representation of where my head is at and where the show will be. By the end of the season, I guarantee you’ll know what it is about.” I can’t wait to see Jon Hamm back as Don Draper and see what’s he’s been up to this whole time. See the new poster after the jump.

In preparation for the two-hour season five premiere of Mad Men on March 25^th, AMC has rolled out some new marketing. It’s a tricky thing to do, and do well, when your popular show centers on the men and women of an ad agency, but as usual they’ve nailed it. With all the color and clutter of New York City’s skyline vying for your visual attention, these clean and minimalist billboards are refreshing, eye-catching and iconic. We’ve also got the first promo video for season five which ties in nicely to the rest of the marketing. Mad Men, starring Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss and Vincent Kartheiser, returns to AMC on March 25^th. Hit the jump to check out the marketing.

As part of the AMC portion of the TCA Winter Press Tour, the cast and creator of Mad Men (which premieres on March 25^th) hosted a cocktail party, which appropriately gave out a jar of green olives, just perfect for martinis, as a parting gift. During this interview, show creator/executive producer/writer/director Matthew Weiner gave very slight hints at where Season 5 is going, how he feels about all the network series that have been inspired by his creation, the themes and arcs he’s focusing on this year, why he wanted to do a two-hour premiere episode, how far ahead he plans things out, how often he’s surprised by where the story and characters take him, that there was a point where he was convinced that this season would never happen, how he feels about where this season ended up, and stressed that it was not his decision to keep the show off the air last year. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

Though working to bring Mad Men back almost each and every season proved to be a chore when negotiating with AMC, series creator Matthew Weiner likely has a more difficult task ahead of him as he works on what will be the final three seasons of the series as was dictated in the deal revealed in April of this year. Weiner will have to effectively end a series with rich characters that audiences have come to love for seven years by the time all is said and done. However, though the end is still roughly three years away, Weiner can’t help but think about how the series will end. And while he doesn’t know everything that will happen in the end, Weiner says, “I do know how the whole show ends.” Find out what else he had to say after the jump.

Back when creator/executive producer Matthew Weiner had finally closed his deal for the final three seasons of Mad Men, it was said that each episode airing on AMC would be trimmed down for 45-minutes in length as opposed to the usual 47-minutes that had been previously allotted. The episodes would, however, remain the proper length for OnDemand, DVD and other formats. However, Variety now reports that change in the running time has now been axed every single episode aired will be the 47-minute version. Weiner says, “”I don’t know how they managed to make that work out. It was a lot of worry. I’m so thrilled.” Frankly, while two minutes seems like an inconsequential amount to worry about trimming, when it comes to TV, every minute counts, especially when that show is something as spectacular as Mad Men. Sadly the fifth season doesn’t premiere until March 2012, but it will be worth the wait.