Hey All,
Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:
RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS
Amazon Prime has given the period piece drama Young Sherlock a second season renewal. (Deadline)
PBS has given the detective series Maigret a second season renewal. (Deadline)
ABC has given season renewals to The Rookie and Will Trent, meaning The Rookie will be back for season 9 and Will Trent for season 5. (Variety)
The Paramount+ drama The Madison already aired its first season and its second season was filmed at the same time, and that 2nd season will potentially air later this year or in early 2027. In the meantime, the Taylor Sheridan-created drama has been given a 3rd season renewal. (Deadline)
MGM+ has renewed the thriller series From for a fifth and final season. (Deadline)
NBC has pulled the plug on Law & Order: Organized Crime after 5 seasons; meanwhile, Law & Order: SVU will return for a 28th season in the fall. (Deadline)
For All Mankind has been renewed for a 6th and final season. (TalkAndroid.com)
Peacock has pulled the Simu Liu-led drama The Copenhagen Test after only one season. (Variety)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
It looks like CBS is planning to grow the Fire Country franchise as the network is in the very early stages of developing another show. This untitled drama would follow a medical team in the town of Edgewater, California. (Deadline)
PILOT NEWS
Erin Kellyman (Eleanor the Great) and country singer and actor Tim McGraw (1883) will star alongside Kevin Bacon in the upcoming Hulu drama pilot Southern Bastards which will follow a tenacious military vet into Craw County, Alabama, in search of her estranged father. What she finds is a murderous hornet’s nest of organized crime run by the winningest high school football coach in the South. Kellyman will play Roberta while McGraw will play Coach Boss. Bacon will play Earl, the son of the legendary Sheriff Bert, who ruled Craw County with an iron fist. (Deadline)
NEW INTERNATIONAL SERIES NEWS
A new sci-fi thriller will be airing on the BBC with Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki), Stuart Martin (Miss Scarlet and the Duke) and Iain De Caestecker (Agents of SHIELD and The Winter King) starring. Sutherland, the six-part series, will be set in the near future in the far north of Scotland, where Mbatha-Raw will play Mirren, who works as flight director at Paravel Space Hub for the UK’s first crewed mission to the stars. Martin will play local detective Logan, who is drawn back into Mirren’s world as a decades-old conspiracy begins to emerge while De Caestecker will play the central role of Callum. Just hours after launch, however, a series of unexplained events throws Sutherland into turmoil, threatening everything she has worked towards. There are no details on when the U.S. will get to see the show, though. (Radio Times)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
The Lin-Manuel Miranda-directed film Octet will include an impressive cast including Jonathan Groff (Glee and Hamilton), Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary and Dreamgirls), Gaten Matarazzo (Stranger Things), Amanda Seyfried (Veronica Mars and The Housemaid), Phillipa Soo (Hamilton and Doctor Odyssey), Paul-Jordan Jansen (Broadway’s & Juliet and Sweeney Todd) and Tramell Tillman (Severance). The movie will follow eight internet-obsessed people meet in a church basement and lock their phones in a box. The musical follows the octet as they struggle with digital dependency, charting their compulsions using only the analog vibrancy of their own voices. (Variety)
Adria Arjona (Andor) has landed the role of Maxima in the upcoming Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow. Maxima is the warrior queen from the planet Almerac. In the comic books, she arrives on Earth in search of a suitable mate and quickly sets her sights on, of course, Superman. (Deadline)
The White Lotus and Gen V alum Patrick Schwarzenegger and Bridgerton alum Phoebe Dynevor will star in the upcoming rom-com Beach Road, based on the best-selling novel from Emily Henry that follows January Andrews, a successful romance novelist who struggles with grief and writer’s block after her father’s death and the discovery of secrets he’s long kept hidden. While spending the summer in his Michigan beach house to prepare it for sale, she unexpectedly reconnects with Gus Everett, an author who was once her rival in college. Both creatively stuck, they agree to a writing challenge over the summer, swapping literary genres while promising that there will be no romance between them. (Deadline)
The upcoming biopic Good Thing will star Cate Blanchett as Martha Stewart. (Variety)
The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum will feature Jamie Dornan (the Fifty Shades franchise and Belfast) as Strider (an alias used by Aragorn, which was played in the original movies by Viggo Mortensen) and Leo Woodall (One Day and Vladimir) as Halvard. Andy Serkis will reprise his role of Gollum (and will direct the movie as well) along with Elijah Wood and Ian McKellen reprising their roles of Frodo and Gandalf, respectively. The movie will follow Aragorn’s perilous quest to capture Gollum before the creature can reveal the Ring’s location to Sauron. The story is set between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. (Deadline)
The animated feature film Hexed from Disney has announced that Hailee Steinfeld and Rashida Jones will provide their voices in a story that will follow a teenager and her Type-A mom as they discover that what makes her unusual might just be magical powers that will turn their lives and a secret world of magic, upside down. (Deadline)
The upcoming Rambo prequel film that will have Noah Centineo (To All the Boys franchise and Black Adam) in the title role has added Stranger Things and Thunderbolts alum David Harbour to its cast as Major Trautman, the commanding officer Rambo. (Deadline)
TV CASTING NEWS
Michelle Monaghan (The Family Plan and The White Lotus) has joined the third season of the Apple TV Jon Hamm-led drama Your Friends & Neighbors, but details about what role she will play are being kept under wraps. (Deadline)
Josh Charles (FOX’s medical drama Best Medicine) has joined the cast of the upcoming Netflix drama The 99’ers, which will tell the story of the inspirational 1999 U.S. Women’s Soccer Team. What role he will play is being kept under wraps, but he joins previously announced cast members Emily Bader, Emilia Jones, Lizzy Greene, Isabelle Fuhrman and Alessandro Nivola. (Deadline)
Original Baywatch alum Erika Eleniak will reprise her role as Shauni McClain, the former Baywatch lifeguard who is now a Santa Monica city councilwoman who returns to the beach to help Hobie Buchannon (Arrow’s Stephen Amell) kick off the annual “Beach Games” in the reboot of the series that will air on NBC. (Variety)
Ethan Embry (That Thing You Do and Sweet Home Alabama) has landed a series regular role in the Amazon Prime thriller Cross, the Aldis Hodge-led drama based on the legendary character created by author James Patterson. He will play Frederick, a charismatic sobriety coach known for leading with tough love. Strong, resilient, and generous with his time, he is widely admired for making others feel seen. (Deadline)
That’s it. Enjoy!
Rueben's Ramblings 