Entertainment Weekly
Tonight, we see the backdoor pilot for the Vampire Diaries ’Originals spin-off, a safe bet to make The CW’s fall schedule, which will be announced on May 16. But Daniel Gillies (Elijah), who’s currently filming the second season of CTV’s Saving Hope, has something else to look forward to next month: Last October, he released his feature-length directorial debut, the drama Broken Kingdom, and Kingdom Come, the documentary following the three-year process of getting that independent movie made, online. Unbeknownst to him, reps for one of the documentary’s co-directors, Paiman Kalayeh, then began shopping Kingdom Come – which also features a score of indie filmmakers including Don Cheadle, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Spurlock, and Kevin Smith sharing their own war stories and triumphs – to networks, and got a bite from Showtime. After viewing the documentary, execs asked to see Gillies’ movie as well. And now, both will air on the cable network May 15, back-to-back. Gillies, who wrote and stars in Broken Kingdom as an American writer who forms an unlikely union with a 14-year-old street girl in Colombia, chatted with EW about the films (which you can still stream at Brokenkingdomfilm.com) and the script he’s penning now.