Jonathan Ross to front new movie show for ITV

Jonathan Ross is to front a new film show for ITV.

The show will be produced by Ross’ production company Hot Sauce and is expected to be similar to the BBC’s Film programme. Ross previously fronted Film for the BBC between 1999 and 2010. The show of course is best known for its many years fronted by former television newspaper critic Barry Norman, who quit the show to host a similar programme on Sky One. The BBC’s Film programme, which launched in 1971, is now hosted by Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh

Of the project, Ross told Radio Times: “The BBC film show is fine, it’s a lovely show but it’s always been what it is – reviews, talking about movies. We’re doing stuff that is a bit bigger; we’re opening it up a bit more. We’ll do these stunts. In the pilot we had Ross Noble with a dialogue coach trying to do a scene from Jaws.”

Noble, who stars in new horror film Stitches is one of the first guests confirmed to appear on the new ITV show which is expected to air from April 2013. Ross hosts a number of programmes for ITV, including his own late night chat show which moved to the commercial broadcaster in 2010 after nine years on BBC One. The show was temporarily canned in 2008 following ‘that’ incident concerning actor Andrew Sach’s grand daughter, Russell Brand, Ross’ BBC Radio 2 programme and a tacky ‘joke’.

Ross shot to fame in the late 1980s hosting programmes for Channel 4.