Say this about the growing number of new cast members and guest stars on Heroes: it’s an eclectic bunch.

There’s a former Alias star who is now a series regular: David Anders.

There’s a Star Trek veteran of the big screen coming aboard for a few episodes: Nichelle Nichols.

And now there’s Janel Parrish, an actress from the recent Bratz: The Movie who will play May, the head cheerleader at Claire’s new school.

In addition to playing one of the leads in Bratz, which opened to an underwhelming $4.2 million at the box office two weekends ago, Parrish wrote and recorded a song for the film’s soundtrack.

Maybe she can team up with Hayden Panettiere - another occasional singer - for a song-and-dance number on Heroes.

No one can argue with the success of Heroes after just one season.

But further proof of this program’s popularity lies in how many new shows on the fall schedule appear to be influenced by the NBC hit.

Other network look to have studied the Heroes model. Characters with extraordinary powers can be found in:

• ABC’s Pushing Daisies
• CW’s Reaper
• CBS’ Moonlight

NBC will also schedule two such series with Heroes on Mondays: Chuck and Journeyman.

“We’ve got to be a little careful that just because a Heroes works in Season 1 that 10 shows like that can work,” says Steve McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment.

Still, it makes sense that others would hope to piggyback on the wild success of this show. But are there limits to how far NBC Universal can extend the Heroes brand. What about a theme park ride, for instance?

“No one has talked to me yet,” creator Tim Kring says.

The man behind Claire Bennet, Sylar and company also dismisses the notion of a movie version of his program. And that’s probably a good thing for now.

Let’s at least give season two of Heroes a chance to captivate us first.

It started this week with the episode “Collison.”

And for the rest of the summer, we’ll be treated to reruns of Heroes every Monday night in its usual time slot.

The shows won’t be unfolding in chronological order, however. Instead, various cast members will host the hour and present us with their favorite episodes from season one. Here’s the schedule:

• Monday, August 20 Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia host “Homecoming.” (A photo from this episode is featured below.)

• Monday, August 27 Masi Oka and James Kyson Lee host “Six Months Ago.”

• Monday, September 3 Jack Coleman and Greg Grunberg host “Company Man.”

• Monday, September 10 Sendhil Ramamurthy and Zachary Quinto host “Parasite.”

Well, reruns of Heroes return tonight.

The actual second season premiere isn’t until September 24.

But it’s refreshing to actually have a repeat of our favorite show back on NBC this evening. We’ll take that any time over the latest reality TV fare.

So tune in at 9 p.m. to watch Collision, the fourth episode from season one. This hour picks up with Claire on a table in the morgue and Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) on a table within the Primatech Paper headquarters.

Also, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) has his first run-in with Mohinder, as the scientist tries to warn the politician about a certain evil-doer named Sylar.

It all goes down - again - tonight on NBC. Here’s a photo from the episode to whet your Heroes appetite:

The connections between Star Trek and Heroes continue.

Zachary Quinto, of course, is joining the next installment of this movie franchise - and in new casting news, it’s been announced that another member of the original series is coming to Heroes for a bit.

Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) will be joining her Star Trek cast mate George Takei (Hikaru Sulu) on the NBC hit show next season.

According to reports, Nichols will have a recurring role on the show, appearing in five or six episodes.

Her addition was already hinted at recently by Heroes creator Tim Kring, when he told E! Online he was looking “for another face that will have a very similar impact” to genre fans as the casting of Takei did.

Heroes was the most successful drama series on NBC last year. Halfway through the first season, Takei joined the show as Kaito Nakamura, the father of a young Japanese Star Trek fan who can move through time and space using only his will.

Last month, word already leaked out that former Star Trek: Enterprise star Dominic Keating (Malcolm Reed) will be playing an Irish mobster during several episodes of the show’s second season.

Sure, Heroes played a major role at Comic-Con this year. But that was a massive convention covering a countless number of movies and TV shows.

Now, however, it appears as though an event dedicated solely to our favorite show is headed to Great Britain.

The convention will be called Eclipse. It’s scheduled as a three-day event that will run from March 14-16. And they’ve lined up at least one impressive star so far for an appearance: Zachary Quinto.

Here’s how the official site describes this ground-breaking event:

Eclipse is set to be a fantastic 3-day UK event to celebrate the hit television series Heroes, from Friday 14th - Sunday 16th March 2008. This unofficial convention aims to bring together fans of the series from across the country to meet some the show’s stars and enjoy various events over the weekend. There will be activities each day from guest talks and photograph sessions to quizzes and late night parties.

For more information on these, check out our events section. This event will take place in The Park Inn Hotel, Northampton for more information on this venue and room rates see our venue page.

The following is taken from The Sioux City Journal, chronicling the mass appeal of Heroes…

One year ago, Masi Oka was just hoping a little thing called Heroes would last six weeks. Now, the NBC drama is a worldwide phenomenon and Oka is an Emmy nominee.

“It’s a dream come true,” Oka says as he leads a tour around the series’ sets. “Every day, I noticed something changing. A little kid would come up to me and ask for an autograph. A father would stop and say, ‘Thank you for uniting my family.’ People would be so nice… and all because the series touched them.”

Considered a key bridge between network television and on-line broadcasting, Heroes has managed to create buzz in countries where it hasn’t even aired.

Sendhil Ramamurthy (pictured) was at the French Open this spring and couldn’t move without a crowd gathering. Tennis officials had to assign him an escort just to keep fans at bay.

“That’s the power of the Internet,” he says. “France hasn’t gotten the show yet but people there are fully aware of it.”

Tabloid reporters are savvy, too. Hayden Panettiere can’t leave her home without photographers chronicling every move.

“You’re like shark bait,” she says. “Being a young female in Hollywood is no easy task.”

Still, Panettiere is grounded. She has a curfew, household chores and “great parents” to make sure success doesn’t change her.

“In the first season, we had no idea it had become a phenomenon,” Ramamurthy says. “We were locked away in L.A. It didn’t hit until we actually finished and were able to travel.”

NBC found a lifeline with Heroes, the biggest new hit last season.

As The Orlando Sentinel reports, the success will reverberate with the DVD release Aug. 28, at the Emmys September 16 and in many new fall series that feature superheroes.

Then there’s the main event: Season two starts September 24. Yet series creator Tim Kring says he’s not feeling pressure to top last season.

“It’s pressure to keep it going,” Kring says. “This particular show has become a show defined by its ability to defy your expectations. People want that experience of watching the show and not knowing where it’s going to take them.”

Heroes will introduce more everyday characters with astonishing powers this year. Among them the actor playing these roles? David Anders, Jessica Collins and Dianna Agron.

Heroes features, from left, Ali Larter as Niki Sanders, Noah Gray-Cabey as Micah Sanders, Adrian Pasdar as Nathan Petrelli, Milo Ventimiglia as Peter Petrelli, Zachary Quinto as Sylar, Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura, Hayden Panettiere as Claire Bennet, Greg Grunberg as Matt Parkman, Jack Coleman as H.R.G., Sendhil Ramamurthy as Mohinder Suresh

“The message of hope caught people’s attention,” Kring says. “There’s something hopeful about the idea we have these abilities, and abilities to connect around the world.”

NBC Universal hopes to connect a vital property with more consumers. Universal Media Studios produces the series, which is a model for how NBC hopes to expand its business online and internationally.

“A hit does drive the business,” says Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment. “Then we can build so much of this around it.”

Universal Studios Home Entertainment is releasing the first-season DVD weeks before season two begins. The goal: gain viewers who haven’t watched and please fans with extra content.

“There’s like 50 extended and deleted scenes,” says Masi Oka, who plays Hiro. “You get to see the behind-the-scenes things, the making of, Tim Kring’s commentary on the 72-minute pilot that we premiered at Comic-Con.”

Heroes will produce 24 episodes next season. The plan is for them to end in April. Heroes: Origins, a six-episode anthology series, will air in May and introduce characters separate from the main series.

Continue reading this article …

Jason La Padura is the casting director on Heroes. Over on Heroes Wiki, the man with one of the coolest jobs in Hollywood spoke on choosing roles for the NBC series…

You cast for major characters and for minor characters. Is that correct?
Yes, that’s correct. As long as somebody actually has something to say, we cast that role.

Now, you’ve had some pretty big guest stars on Heroes—Malcolm McDowell, Stan Lee was on, George Takei. How do you approach “bigger name” stars like that?
What will happen is, like in a case like Malcolm, we wanted somebody who—we wanted a certain amount of a payoff. Because we had been speaking about Linderman for awhile, we wanted somebody that people were familiar with in some sense, but not so familiar that it would be like an Ed Asner, where they go, “Oh there’s Lou Grant!” You know, you want somebody that people will go, like, “I know that guy.”

And Malcolm’s one of those men who’s been around for such a long time. You know, you go back to his early stuff, like A Clockwork Orange, that made a big impact back in the ’70’s. That movie is still being watched today, probably by a lot of our core audience, too.

They may know him from that, or they may have seen him somewhere before. But at least there’s a little bit of familiarity there, and we wanted a little bit of that there. What we had done is we came up with a long list of actors, and we circulated that amongst our producers, and entered into a discussion as to who did they like, who didn’t they like. Then it became, like, who’s available, and who will do it for the amount of money that we have.

I enjoy George Takei. I know he’s returning for Season Two.
Yes.

Not only does he have the Star Trek background, and Masi Oka is a big fan of Star Trek—
Right.

That’s a really great choice.
Well, you know the thing there, of course, is we needed an actor who could speak Japanese. And that is a much more limited pool of actors here in the United States. I mean, there’s a small pool, and we have been really seeing them. Keri has been prereading men and women because of storylines we’re thinking about and that we’re currently in production with. She’s looking at people who speak Japanese quite a bit.

But we came up where we had to do Masi’s dad, there’s only a couple of actors that came immediately to mind. Even with the help of breakdown services and solicitations from agents, that list didn’t get very large. And then George just seemed like a natural fit.

And with the success of Heroes, I’m sure that some of your actors are contacting you.
Oh yes! It’s become a very different thing now. I’ve worked on a lot of different series over the years, and I can tell you when a series is somewhere in the middle or the bottom of the ratings list, it’s a lot harder getting people on.

When you’re doing a big hit, people are coming to you saying, “Oh, my client would love to be on your show!” “Oh, my client would love to be on your show!” Okay, great! Especially if it’s a well-known actor, what we do is we let our producers know that so-and-so is interested in being on the show so that they can keep that in mind when they’re actually writing roles. Or they may actually conceive a role for somebody specifically.

What were some of the toughest roles to cast, and some of the easiest ones to cast?
Oh, I don’t know, let’s see… Well, you know, early on, one of the toughest things to cast was the role that eventually went to [Milo Ventimiglia], because Milo and Adrian, those two characters were originally conceived as twins. And what happened there was we found that to make the character old enough that the character could be running for Congress, you have to be a certain age to run for Congress.

If you made the character too old, it made the character that Milo plays seem pathetic. So we had to stop - we were seeing men who were in their early 30s for this role. But the dilemma that Milo had in that pilot seemed almost pathetic in a man his age. It didn’t make sense. So during the casting process, we realized that the character really needed to be the younger brother to a successful older brother.

And Adrian does have the maturity needed to believe that he’s running for Congress.
Right. But that was a very difficult role to cast. Milo’s role is one of the last roles cast. Whereas other roles there were very easy to cast.

Continue reading this article …

Video game developer Gameloft is working on a Heroes game for your mobile phone. Below is the press release from the company regarding this development:

Recreating the mind-bending universe of the television phenomenon of 2007, Gameloft®, a leading developer and publisher of games for mobile phones, today announced an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with NBC Universal to develop and publish Heroes: The Mobile Game.

“Heroes has created a large, die-hard fan culture and we are excited to bring the action and intrigue of NBC’s leading drama series to gamers and Heroes fans alike,” said Gonzague de Vallois, vice president of Publishing, Gameloft.

“With an international cast and rapidly growing international level of success, Heroes has achieved a massive global appeal and as such, Gameloft is the perfect publisher to deliver Heroes: The Mobile Game worldwide.”

Heroes: The Mobile Game will allow fans of the show and casual gamers the chance to experience the thrill of the superhuman abilities of the show’s characters.

The game’s action will be based on the events from the electrifying first season, as well as the hotly awaited second season, with the game script being contributed to by writers of the hit television series.

Players will assume the roles of the time-travelling Hiro Nakamura; the beautiful, but deadly Niki Sanders; telepathic cop Matt Parkman and the enigmatic Peter Petrelli, as they enjoy game play styles based on their unique powers.