Have you noticed all the movie actors who have moved into television series this season?
- Bonnie Hunt, who played the mother in the "Beethoven" films and was Marisa Tomei's best friend in "Only You," is the only one of these performers to have her name in her show's title - "The Bonnie Hunt Show."- Elizabeth McGovern, who made her film debut in Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" and then co-starred in "Ragtime," "Once Upon a Time in America" and "The Bedroom Window," among others, is top-billed in "If Not For You."
- JoBeth Williams, the mother in the first two "Poltergeist" films, as well as one of the ensemble cast in "The Big Chill," has the lead in John Grisham's small-screen adaptation of his best-selling novel (and big-screen hit) "The Client." (Veteran supporting player John Heard co-stars in the series, a familiar face from dozens of films, including "The Trip to Bountiful" and "The Pelican Brief.")
- Pamela Reed, most recently Danny DeVito's wife in "Junior," and prominent in such films as "The Long Riders" and "The Right Stuff," headlines in "The Home Court."
- Nancy Travis, who brightened up "So I Married an Axe Murderer," "The Vanishing" and both of the "Three Men and a Baby" films, gets top billing in "Almost Perfect."
- Lea Thompson, best-known as Michael J. Fox's mother in the "Back to the Future" films (and perhaps for one of the biggest bombs in movie history, "Howard the Duck") stars in "Caroline in the City."
- Jonathan Silverman, who starred in the "Weekend at Bernie's" films and Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs," is "The Single Guy."
- D.B. Sweeney, most recently the costar of "Roommates" with Peter Falk, as well as "The Cutting Edge" and "Fire in the Sky," stars in the fantasy-thriller series "Strange Luck."
- Mariel Hemingway, Woody Allen's teenage girlfriend in "Manhattan" and doomed Playboy playmate/actress Dorothy Stratten in "Star 80," shows up in the ensemble drama "Central Park West."
- Jon Cryer, best-remembered as "Duckie" in "Pretty in Pink" and the doomed nice-guy pilot in "Hot Shots!" is in "Partners."
It's true that this is not the first series outing for some of these folks - Hunt and Cryer, for example, tried and failed with other series of quite recently. But each is still best-known for film work, although that could quickly change if any of these shows are hits!
Of course, we're used to it going the other way - quite a few big stars, from Steve McQueen to Burt Reynolds to Jack Lemmon to a vast number of "Saturday Night Live" regulars, launched their careers with television series. So when someone like Tim Allen hits it big with a movie like "The Santa Clause," it's no big surprise.
And occasionally it has gone the other way, with a James Stewart or a Charlton Heston or a Jane Wyman jumping into the TV series competition late in their careers.
But I'm hard-pressed to remember this many well-known movie folk starring in this many new TV series all at once.
Those big-screen scripts must not be coming in like they used to.
- KEVIN COSTNER MAY not be planning a follow-up to "Waterworld" or "Field of Dreams," but he has hinted in recent interviews that a sequel to "The Bodyguard" may be forthcoming.
Entertainment Weekly reports that Costner, who has yet to make a sequel, said he would definitely do "The Bodyguard II" with Whitney Houston, "But the script would have to be great. People know how I feel about writing, so it has to be something special."
Right. That explains why he did the first "Bodyguard" movie.
- JOEL SCHUMACHER, the director of "Batman Forever," isn't as shy about sequels, however. He has already signed on to helm the next "Batman" movie, which he plans to direct next year for release in the summer of 1997. He also expects Val Kilmer and Chris O'Donnell to return as Batman and Robin, respectively.
According to the entertainment trade paper Variety, the villains will be Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy, and Schumacher hopes to lure Patrick Stewart and Demi Moore, for those respective roles.
- BUGS BUNNY'S hilarious new short "Carrotblanca," a spoof of the classic "Casablanca," failed to get the audience it deserved, so Warner Bros. is giving it another chance.
The seven-minute cartoon was tacked on the front of the studio's summer release "The Amazing Panda Adventure," which bombed at the box office. So, Warner's has promised to put it in theaters again, on the front of one of its fall or Christmas movies.
Which one? The studio hasn't decided yet.
But a good guess might be "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls," which is due Nov. 10.
After all, why not pair a cartoon with a live-action movie that looks like a cartoon?
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Lea Thompson, of TV's "Caroline in the City" (and previously the "Back to the Future" films), on the difference between starring in a show and being a star:
"I was on a plane with Sophia Loren and Ann-Margret. These people live a whole life, with beauty and make-up and stuff. They're stars, and I know I can never do that. I'm just not that kind of person."
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK II: Jonathan Silverman of TV's "The Single Guy," and previously "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and the "Weekend at Bernie's" films, on the difference between doing movies and television:
"It's overwhelming that more people saw (the 10-second TV promos for his series) than the 18 or 19 movies I have done."
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK III: Robert Mitchum, who makes a guest appearance next week on the TV series "The Marshal":
Asked if he ever watches his movies on television, he answered, "I watched `Thunder Road' and `Night of the Hunter' on TNT the other night."
How does he like seeing himself in old movies? "I was always sort of shy about my appearance but I look at myself now and I didn't look too bad."
And will he be watching his appearance on "The Marshal"?
"If I live till Monday, I may look at it."