“True Blood” hasn’t yet been renewed by HBO for a Sixth Season — Season 5 premieres June 10 — but barring the Mayan-predicted end of the world in 2012, Sookie, Bill and the rest of the vampires, werewolves and fairies of Bon Temps will doubtless be back for more next summer. With one big difference: They’ll have a new show runner guiding their adventures.
Series creator Alan Ball announced last summer that the Fifth Season of the show would be his last as show runner, but he’s not leaving the world of vampires completely. He’s staying on as executive producer, but co-executive producer Mark Hudis will be stepping up to the boss’ seat.
Incidentally, this is the same location used in the pilot of ‘Six Feet Under,’ but according to Alan Ball, “in our use of it, something very different lurks inside these body lockers.”
Alan Ball creator of HBO’s True Blood will be stepping down from his duties as showrunner. In a statement, the network said, “When we extended our overall deal with Alan Ball in July 2011, we always intended that if we proceeded to True Blood’s sixth season that Alan would take a supervisory role on the series and not be the day-to-day showrunner.
Alan will remain available as executive producer to consult and advise on True Blood and he will be free to develop new shows for both HBO and Cinemax. Banshee, on which Alan serves as executive producer, is the first in house series for Cinemax and is expected to begin production this spring.”
The premium cabler’s sibling network, Cinemax, has given a series order to Ball’s crime drama Banshee, ordering 10 episodes of the project that will be executive produced by the True Blood showrunner.
Reagan: Any True Blood scoop? I am missing Alexander and his hot shirtlessness.
Wait, Alexander has gone shirtless? When? A source tells me Alan Ball is tearing down the Moongoddess set right now, so witches are definitely out for the upcoming season. We happy about this?
Is it true you sought out Kwanten to play Jason Stackhouse?
It is. I went to see this movie called Flicka, a family movie about a brother and sister and a horse, and he was the handsome, charming, not-so-intellectually developed brother. He was Jason. I called my casting director that day.
So Kwanten is particularly good at playing dummies?
Ryan is tremendously underrated. I think that because he is so good at portraying Jason, who is not the brightest bulb in the drawer, people tend to think that that just must be who he is … Ryan is actually really intelligent. He’s a really eloquent, deep, smart guy but he doesn’t have the vanity to feel like he has to let us know that he is not as dim as Jason. I also admire Ryan’s ability in a very clean, very economic way to let you know exactly what his character is thinking.
Ryan Kwanten plays Jason Stackhouse in the successful HBO series True Blood. He’s currently in Australia working on a local film and took time out of his schedule to talk about the creator of “True Blood” Alan Ball who will be appearing for the first time at Sydney Opera House on September 8.
An HBO spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporterthat Denis O’Hare doesn’t appear in Season 4.
As recently as earlier this month, O’Hare told THR that fans should “never give up” on Russell’s return. He also reiterated what series creator Alan Ball had told fans, “Russell’s not dead.”
When we spoke to exec producer and writer, Alexander Woo, before this season’s premiere about the character’s reprisal, he told us, “He’s been locked away, so he’s kind of a time bomb. He could come back in any moment.”
