In The Tank: Mark Cuban will be joining ABC’s Shark Tank in its second season. The entrepreneur will appear as a guest venture capitalist on the show for three episodes as one of the multimillionaires judging the business venture ideas pitched by the small-business owner contestants. Cuban will join previously announced guest judge Jeff Foxworthy, who is of course known for his expertise in business-related matters. [HR]
It’s Showtime: Showtime is nearing a pilot-order deal for Homeland, a drama series from the producers of 24 (Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa) based on the Israeli series Prisoners of War. This U.S. version would center on the discovery of an American soldier presumed to have been killed in Iraq ten years ago. When the soldier returns home, “questions arise [as to] whether he was truly a wartime POW or secretly a member of a sleeper cell sent to cause the next terrorist attack.†Do Gordon and Gansa realize Showtime seasons are generally only 13 episodes long?! [HR]
Fame Game: Chris Brown has revealed that the title of his next album, the follow-up to 2009’s Graffiti, will be Fame. Some reports say the name is a reference to a “Fame†tattoo he has on his arm; but perhaps more likely is that he picked the title in hopes of capitalizing on confused Lady Gaga fans. [MTV]
Pecking Order: Screenwriter Anthony Peckham (Invictus) has signed on to work on Paramount’s Jack Ryan spy thriller. The film, based on Tom Clancy’s franchise about an intelligence officer-turned-action hero, will star Chris Pine. Jack Bender (Lost) will direct. Adam Cozad previously worked on the script, and Peckham has been tasked with prepping it for “take-off†with shooting to begin this year or early next year. [Heat Vision/HR]
Hot Stuff: ABC has acquired the rights to Stephanie Dolgoff’s bestselling memoir My Formerly Hot Life, which will potentially become a half-hour single-camera series. The book, based on Dolgoff’s blog, is a “comedic look at the good, the bad, and the ugly moments in a woman’s life as she adjusts to the realization that she is no longer forever 21.†[Deadline]
Four For Four: Rescue Me co-creator/executive producer Peter Tolan has sold a pitch for a half-hour comedy to Fox. The series, based on Bruce Feiler’s nonfiction book, The Council of Dads, is the fourth project Tolan has sold to the broadcast networks this pitch season. The story details Feiler’s “real-life experiences†after being diagnosed in 2008 with “rare, life-threatening cancer.†He recruits the “council†of his male friends to help him in raising his daughters. [Deadline]