Early in the new year we got our first look at the teaser trailer for Treme, the upcoming series from The Wire creator David Simon.  Consisting mostly of slow pans about New Orleans, it didn’t reveal much, though the scattering of various instruments hinted at the musical nature of the show.  HBO has released a new trailer that imparts all sorts of great imagery, though it still doesn’t reveal much about the narrative–we’ll let the logline do that: the show “explores the lives of several struggling musicians and other New Orleans locals in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina”.  The new trailer rather beautifully lingers on said musicians dancing and parading through the street amid the destruction, and gives us a look at cast members Steve Zahn, John Goodman, Wendell Pierce, Clarke Peters, Khandi Alexander, and Rob Brown (among others), plus an Elvis Costello cameo.  The 1:37 clip is often reminiscent of the mostly headless “Way Down in the Hole” montages that primed the viewer for each episode of The Wire.

The show’s debut date of April 11 is now less than a month away, so get excited.  Hit the jump to check out the trailer and the full plot synopsis.

After a long time paying her dues, Amy Ryan had a great decade.  After all, anytime you’re nominated for an Academy Award (Gone Baby Gone) and have a great part on one of the best shows in the history of television (The Wire), you’ve had a good run.  But she’s not sitting back and resting on past glory, as she plays a reporter in Paul Greengrass’ new film Green Zone, and she’s also in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut Jack Goes Boating – which premiered at Sundance a few months ago.

With Green Zone opening this weekend, I was able to participate in a roundtable interview with this great actress last week in New York City.  We talked about making Green Zone, will she come back to The Office, her next project with Tom McCarthy called Win Win, and reveals David Simon asked her to be a part of his new HBO show Treme, but she was pregnant at the time.

It’s a great in depth interview, so hit the jump and take a look:

A week ago, the online community was in a tizzy when reports that the African American WWII airplane drama Red Tails was in a tailspin and that George Lucas would step it to make a hefty overhaul of the film in place of director Anthony Hemingway. Now, according to Nicole Sperling in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly [via The Playlist], much of that was grossly exaggerated.  Sperling reports that the reshoots are quite normal and this is nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, how Lucas and company plan to get the cast back together is something of a mystery, if in fact these reshoots weren’t worked into the schedule beforehand.

For a deeper explanation of the madness and why this story might not quite be finished, hit the jump.

Since the dawn of the new year, it’s been hard to keep up with all the film talent HBO was luring to the channel for various projects.  Michael Mann is directing a pilot for Luck from Deadwood creator David Milch.  Charlize Theron and David Fincher are teaming for the serial killer series Mind Hunter.  Russell Crowe and Maria Bello are set to star in Emergency Sex from Slumdog Millionaire scripter Simon Beaufoy.  Zooey Deschanel will headline a series adaptation of I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie.  And most recently HBO acquired the Todd Haynes miniseries adaptation of Mildred Pierce with none other than Kate Winslet attached to star.  Plus miniseries The Pacific, which counts Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks among its producers, will begin a ten-week run on March 14th and the Martin Scorsese-directed pilot for Boardwalk Empire starring Steve Buscemi is set to air later in the year.

But they’re not done just yet.  The Hollywood Reporter announced that recent Oscar-nominee (and soon-to-be Oscar-winner) Kathryn Bigelow will direct the pilot for The Miraculous Year from a screenplay by John Logan.  Details after the break.

Fans of The Wire (and if you’re not one, we just have to assume you’ve never seen it) can rejoice: Not only is David Simon coming back to HBO with a new show called Treme in April, but now we’ve got the teaser trailer to prove it.

Treme, named for the New Orleans neighborhood in which it takes place, will be a drama about a group of musicians and other folks struggling to get by in the Big Easy post-Katrina. It will be a family reunion of sorts for not only vets of The Wire, but of Simon projects Homicide and The Corner as well. From The Wire, New Orleans native Wendell Pierce will play a jazz trombonist and Clarke Peters will play the leader of a Mardi Gras Indian tribe. The Corner star Khandi Alexander plays the ex-wife of Pierce’s character and a struggling bar owner, and from Homicide, Melissa Leo will play a civil rights attorney.

Hit the jump to view the teaser trailer, and let us know if you’re as thoroughly geeked up for this as I am.

If you’re a fan of David Simon (“Homicide”, “The Wire”, “Generation Kill”), you’re really going to enjoy the interview I did with Steve Zahn at the premiere of his new movie “A Perfect Getaway”. That’s because after talking about the film, he told me a ton of info about David’s new show which he’s a part of. The big info is the pilot is done and they start filming the first season this November! If you haven’t heard of the show yet, Steve says “Treme” is about the rebuilding of New Orleans right after Katrina through the eyes of the musicians. He says he play’s a DJ/musician named Davis that’s the voice of the jazz scene. He also talked about how badly he wanted to work for David Simon. Watch the full interview after the jump: