Quick Takes: Rare ‘View’ of Obama

Rare ‘View’ of Obama

President Obama has many “firsts” in his list of accomplishments. Now he’s got one more: On Thursday, he will be the first sitting U.S. president to be seen on a daytime talk show.

Obama will appear on “The View” as part of the program’s “Red, White & Blue View” campaign, which is dedicated to political guests and discussions. He’ll tape his interview on Wednesday and, according to ABC, is expected to cover such topics as jobs, the economy, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and family life in the White House.

Executive producer and co-host Barbara Walters, who has been off since she had heart valve replacement surgery in May, will join her colleagues for the interview.

—Maria Elena Fernandez

NBC prepares for Carell’s exit

NBC might wish Steve Carell was just joking, but a network executive says “The Office” star has consistently told NBC he’s leaving after this season.

In the network’s first acknowledgment of Carell’s plans, NBC prime-time entertainment president Angela Bromstad said the actor’s seven-year run as boss Michael Scott will end when his contract expires in 2011.

Bromstad says it’s not unusual for a “major movie star” to leave a series, and added that “The Office” is strong enough to weather the change.

—Associated Press

‘Merchant’ heads indoors

Al Pacino’s turn as Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” will move to Broadway in October, the Public Theater announced Monday, following a sold-out run in New York’s Central Park that ends Aug. 1.

It will mark Pacino’s first Broadway role since 2003, when he played King Herod in a much-derided revival of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome.”

Pacino’s previous Shakespearean turn on Broadway was a celebrated 1979 performance in the title role of “Richard III.”

—Mike Boehm

Evanovich has new publisher

Here’s a publishing plot twist: One of the book world’s top moneymakers, Janet Evanovich, has switched literary homes.

The author of the multimillion-selling Stephanie Plum series and other popular mystery novels has left her longtime publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and joined the Random House Publishing Group.

Random House announced Monday that Evanovich, 67, has agreed to write four new novels, including two Stephanie Plum releases. She will publish through the Random House imprint Ballantine Bantam Dell.

St. Martin’s publisher Matthew Shear said in a statement: “We’ve had a good relationship and I truly am sorry that we’re unable to come to terms. But it’s a negotiation like anything else and it didn’t work. And I hope it works well for her elsewhere.”

Financial terms were not disclosed, although Evanovich’s book deal is likely worth tens of millions of dollars. Evanovich’s books have sold more than 75 million copies worldwide.

—Associated Press

Gilliam gets Arcade Fire gig

Terry Gilliam will direct the live webcast of Arcade Fire’s concert at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

The Arcade Fire show kicks off “Unstaged,” a new online concert series being launched by American Express and streamed on YouTube. The Montreal-based band will live stream its Aug. 5 concert at 10 p.m. EDT.

Gilliam, whose films include “Brazil” and “12 Monkeys,” last released “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” in December.

It’s the first in a planned series of five live streamed concerts, with John Legend and the Roots to follow. Others will be announced later.

—Associated Press

Finally

Film to stage: A musical based on Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 farce “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” is coming to Broadway in October, with a cast that includes Patti LuPone, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Sherie Rene Scott.

TV to book: Dick Wolf, creator of the “Law & Order” series and its spinoffs, will write two novels for William Morrow. The first will be a thriller about a terrorist attack planned for New York City.