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HBO's Westworld got some unwanted attention from animal-rights group PETA this week. The group is not happy that the series used real elephants in this week's episode, and it wrote a letter of protest to HBO. For its part, HBO insists that the elephants were not harmed in any way during filming.

Via The Hollywood Reporter.

The third installment of the latest season, "Virtu e Fortuna," opened up the world of Westworld with a surprising sequence in which a new park was revealed: "The Raj," based on British rule over India, where guests can embark on safaris to hunt Bengal tigers and ride on elephants. In a letter to the pay cable network, the animal rights organization identifies one of the elephants featured in the episode as Tai, an elephant owned and exhibited by Have Trunk Will Travel, caught on camera suffering abuse during training.

“Shouldnt we too try to survive?” #westworld Sunday at 9pm.

A post shared by Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood) on May 5, 2018 at 1:13pm PDT

"In light of the egregious cruelty and human health risks as well as the public's growing opposition to the use of animals for entertainment — and because reports say that there are still plans to use bears this season — we're urging HBO to commit to not using any wild animals in future episodes or other series," PETA manager of animals in film and television Lauren Thomasson wrote Monday in a letter addressed to HBO programming president Casey Bloys. "Considering the realistic and cruelty-free CGI technology that exists today, all wild animals in HBO series should be computer-generated, just the way the tiger was so beautifully done in last night's episode."

Quite the welcome. #Westworld

A post shared by Westworld (@westworldhbo) on May 7, 2018 at 8:45am PDT

This is not the first time PETA has spoken out against HBO for the use of animals in its television series, with other incidents including the use of a lion on The Leftovers and a tiger on Vice Principals.

Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.

Do you think Westworld is abusing animals? Speak up in the comments below.

What would you get if you mashed up two of HBO's biggest hits? What about a version of Westworld with Game of Thrones style robots and settings? That's what could happen if the series decides to incorporate the medieval and ancient Roman versions of the fictional amusement park featured in the novel on which the series is based. This week, showrunner Jonathan Nolan hinted that that just might happen next season.

Via Vanity Fair.

When Westworld wrapped up its twist-filled first season last year, fans were treated to a brief glimpse of other, non-cowboy-centric playgrounds to come. At one point during the finale, our robotic heroes wandered out of the realm of hats and lassoes and into a room marked “SW,” where men in feudal Japanese armor attacked each other with swords. During this summer’s Comic-Con, when asked about a possible “Samurai” or “Eastworld” in Season 2, notoriously secretive show-runner Jonah Nolan weaponized a familiar phrase from Season 1 in order to dodge the question: “Doesn’t look like anything to me.” Meanwhile, star Ed Harris joked about Season 2: “I just don’t want to be naked or wearing a samurai suit . . . I’m saying that publicly. I’m the Man in Black, not the Man in the Samurai Suit.”

But during day two of Vanity Fair’s fourth annual New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles, Nolan hinted that we may see another world or two next year that have nothing to do with Samurai.

At the top of the panel discussion moderated by Maureen Dowd, Nolan and co-show-runner Lisa Joy were asked why the Roman and Medieval Worlds—which featured in the original 1973 Michael Crichton film—were left out of the first season.

Nolan teased: “We had to save something for Season 2.” That is by no means a confirmation that knights in armor and warriors in sandals will definitely appear next year, but it does reinforce some popular suspicions that we may not see Samurai World just yet.

If Samurai World were indeed coming soon, then wouldn’t we have learned of some Japanese actors joining the cast of Season 2 by now? (The series is currently shooting.) True, Delos is a futuristic corporation which, as we learned last year, isn’t entirely and fussily historically accurate when it comes to the race of its A.I. characters. That being said, it’s doubtful that an HBO series in 2017 co-run by an Asian-American woman would deliver a Samurai World devoid of any Asian actors.

Get the rest of the story at Vanity Fair.

Do you think a medieval Westworld is a good idea? Sound off in the comment section below.

Evan Rachel Wood isn’t taking any risks when it comes to the supernatural.

The 29-year-old “Westworld” actress told Cosmopolitan UK that she always carries sage as well as the gemstone tiger’s eye for “cleaning demons out of places.”

Wood isn’t the only Hollywood star to turn to mysticism in her everyday life; Katy Perry said in 2014 that she used rose quartz to attract men.

Read the rest of this article at Page Six.

Evan Rachel Wood is one of the stars of HBO's Westworld.

There's a new visitor coming to Westworld.

The Leftovers alum Katja Herbers has joined the cast of the HBO drama for season two, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

Herbers will play a seasoned guest in Westworld whose latest visit comes at the park’s darkest hour.

The casting news comes as production on season two prepares to begin.

For Herbers, the role keeps her in the fold at the pay cabler, where she recurred on the final season of The Leftovers and before that, on the first season of the Sarah Jessica Parker comedy Divorce. Her other credits include acclaimed dramas The Americans and Manhattan.

Read the rest of this article at The Hollywood Reporter.

Westworld also stars Evan Rachel Wood.

“Westworld” star Thandie Newton compared shooting nude scenes on the HBO show to having a fourth baby, while talking with Oprah Winfrey during Variety‘s “Actors on Actors” series.

Newton, who plays android host Maeve Millay, had given birth to her third child just five months ago when she began filming the show, and she said the impact of the moment was less about looking a certain way and more about having the courage to do it. She said she felt more in control while playing the role than she ever had before.

Read the rest of this article at Page Six.

Thandie Newton has also appeared in ER and Rogue.

Eager for the second season of Westworld to begin? You probably should relax a little, because the next season of the hit HBO series won't be ready until sometime next year. This week, however, we got some news that can at least give you something to look forward to.

Deadline reported this week that Talulah Riley, the actress who played a host named Angela in the series' first season, will be promoted to a series regular cast member for the second season. Although Riley appeared in the majority of episodes in the first season, her role was relatively small, and she didn't have regular status.

Riley's promotion hints at some intriguing possibilities for an expanded storyline. Angela had functioned as both a greeter who prepared guests for their adventures in the park and, in the series' future timeline, an in-world host who seemed to have some knowledge of the upheaval that was going to take place at the season's climax. With Angela playing a bigger role, she could become a host that determines the fate of many guests in-world.

There's no definite premiere date for Westworld's season two, but creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have said they want to take their time with the new episodes. In order to do that, they've pushed the premiere date to sometime in 2018.

Sunday's season finale of HBO's Westworld was a ratings success, setting a new series high and ending the show's first season in positive territory. Now viewers just have to wait more than year, and perhaps as long as two years, until the next season hits the air.

The season-ending episode, which clocked in at 90 minutes instead of the usual hour, drew 2.2 million viewers to the live broadcast on the HBO cable network. When you take into account those viewers who watched Sunday night on HBO's digital streaming platforms, that number rises to 3.6 million.

Those ratings are very good for Westworld when compared to itself; the episode rose compared to last week's ratings and set a series high mark. But, more importantly, they're good numbers compared to any other HBO series. Westworld's average of 12 million viewers per episode (when delayed viewing is figured in) makes it the most-watched first season of any HBO series to date.

The only problem now is that Westworld will be on hiatus until sometime in 2018. That leaves HBO with a fantasy-drama vacuum until Game of Thrones premieres its seventh season, and there is not yet a definite official date for that premiere. It also leaves Westworld fans in limbo for a very long time, running the risk that the series will have to start all over again to build a fan base for its second season.

The Walking Dead is still, by far, the most-watched series on cable TV, but its ratings trend so far this season has been consistently in a downward direction. Over on HBO on Sunday nights, Westworld looks like it's starting to pick up steam to become the second-most-popular cable-TV fantasy on Sunday nights.

This week's fourth episode of TWD's seventh season continued to lose viewers, as the episode turned in ratings that were down by 5 percent compared to the week before. The season's debut episode delivered huge ratings--along with huge controversy--but each subsequent episode has racked up lower and lower ratings. Episode four was down a staggering 36 percent from the season premiere in the 18-49 age demographic.

The news is better for Westworld, which saw its ratings edge up this week compared to last week. The new series is holding steady, and although its ratings are a fraction of TWD's, Westworld still manages to be the most-watched Sunday-night cable show that doesn't involve zombies or Real Housewives.

TWD has a long way to go to turn the season around; it's just halfway through the first half of its seventh season. Westworld, on the other hand, is beginning to wind down; it has just three more episodes to go in its debut season.

HBO tried an interesting strategy for keeping its expensive new series Westworld from being totally obliterated by last week's presidential debate, and it's too early to tell if it worked. Judging by traditional ratings numbers, though, was no match for the real-life political intrigue over the weekend.

Westworld was up against the debate and NFL football on Sunday evening, and the debate won handily. Debate broadcasts and debate analysis on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel all drew more viewers than Westworld did. That wasn't anything to be ashamed of, since no other programming was able to compete with the debate.

Perhaps more concerning, though, is the fact that Westworld's ratings tied with those of Basketball Wives: LA and Family Guy on Adult Swim. Westworld's ratings were also down by about 12 percent compared to ratings for its debut episode the previous week.

To avoid being totally shut out by the debate, however, HBO made the second episode of Westworld available for streaming on its HBO Go and HBO Now platforms two days before its air date. HBO says that 2.7 million people watched the episode via those streaming platforms and on the air by the end of the weekend. That's down substantially from the viewership of the first episode, but it's not terrible considering the inhospitable situation the series faced.

Next weekend's third episode should give a clearer picture of just how much fans are enjoying the new series.

Last weekend's premiere of Westworld was the most eagerly anticipated series launch on HBO in quite some time, and with the season premiere of Game of Thrones nowhere in sight, much of the channel's hopes are pinned on the new sci-fi thriller. Did the debut of Westworld live up to the elevated expectations?

Well, yes and no. The series premiered on Sunday night opposite the first hour of the season finale of Fear the Walking Dead. In terms of pure numbers, Westworld didn't even come close to FTWD, drawing just 1.9 million viewers as compared to FTWD's 3.6 million. Westworld was also edged out by reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TBS.

On the other hand, live broadcast ratings don't mean as much to HBO as they do to traditional TV networks, and when streaming is taken into account, the debut of Westworld fared better. HBO puts total viewership of the episode at about 3.3 million. That brings it virtually even with FTWD at the top of the charts for the night.

The bottom line is that Westworld debuted with viewership that is essentially typical for an HBO series - not as good as The Newsroom or True Detective, but better than The Leftovers and Vinyl. It doesn't look, though, like a series that is going to draw subscribers to HBO the way GoT does, and that could be a problem for a series with a first-episode production budget of $100 million.