Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

Yellowstone has been renewed for a second season by Paramount Network. (Variety)

Showtime has renewed The Affair for a fifth and final season in advance of the start of the drama’s 4th season. (Variety)

Good Witch will be back for a 5th season at Hallmark Channel (TCA Report)

Amazon has ordered a third season of Sneaky Pete. (Variety)

AMC has given Better Call Saul and Fear the Walking Dead (both) for a 5th season and given McMafia a second season renewal. (Variety)

Lifetime has renewed the new drama You for a second season well in advance of the show’s debut season, which is set for September 9. (Variety)

The Netflix drama Altered Carbon has been given a second season renewal with Marvel’s alum Anthony Mackie taking over the lead role. (Variety)

AT&T Audience Network via DirecTV has given the new drama Condor a second season renewal. (The Hollywood Reporter)

SERIES PICK UPS

Amazon has ordered a 13-episode limited series based on the Taylor Jenkins Reid novel Daisy Jones & The Six, which centers on a fictional rock band in the 1970s, following their rise through the ranks of the LA music scene and beyond, eventually becoming one of the most legendary bands in the world. (Variety)

Netflix has picked up the acclaimed comic book franchise Locke & Key to series, bringing an 8 year saga to adapt the project to the small screen. The story revolves around three siblings who, after the gruesome murder of their father, move to their ancestral home in Massachusetts only to find the house has magical keys that give them a vast array of powers and abilities. Little do they know, a devious demon also wants the keys, and will stop at nothing to attain them. (Variety)

Crown Media, the parent company of Hallmark Channel, has announced there will be a spinoff of the network’s popular long-running series When Calls the Heart, currently titled When Hope Calls that will stream exclusively on the Hallmark Movies Now platform. (Parade)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Luke Baines will take over the role of Jonathan Morgenstern in the remaining episodes of the third and final season of Shadowhunters, taking over the role from Will Tudor (Humans). (Deadline)

Actress Kathryn Newton (Supernatural and Little Women) has been cast in an untitled series at Netflix that will follows a group of teenagers who are mysteriously transported to a facsimile of their wealthy New England town, left without any trace of their parents. As they struggle to figure out what has happened to them and how to get home, they must establish order and form alliances if they want to survive. The series is a modern take on The Lord of the Flies. (Variety)

FX has ordered a limited series based on the life of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon that will star Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams in the lead roles. Based on Fosse, the biography written by Sam Wasson, the untitled 8-part series will tell the story of the romantic and creative partnership between Fosse and Verdon. Fosse was a visionary filmmaker and one of theater’s most influential choreographers and directors, while Verdon was the greatest Broadway dancer of all time. The limited series is set to launch in 2019. (Variety)

The National Geographic channel is planning an Ebola scripted mini-series called The Hot Zone that will star Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife and Dietland). The series will be set during 1989 in Washington, D.C. with Margulies playing Dr. Nancy Jaax, a U.S. Army scientist working with a secret military SWAT team who puts her life on the line to head off an Ebola outbreak before it can spread to the human population. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Rising British star Josh O’Connor (God’s Own Country) will play Prince Charles in next season of The Crown on Netflix, stepping into the role of the heir to the throne for the 3rd and 4th seasons. Meanwhile actress Marion Bailey (Allied) will play Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, taking over the role from Victoria Hamilton. (Variety)

Actress Rhona Mitra (The Last Ship) will have a season-long recurring role in Supergirl, playing villainess Mercy Graves, who is known from the comics as super villain Lex Luthor’s longtime bodyguard. Also actor Robert Baker (Grey’s Anatomy and The Originals) will also be joining the cast in the recurring role of Mercy’s brother Otis, who serves as her right-hand man. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actresses Missi Pyle (Impulse), Spencer Locke (Resident Evil: Afterlife) and Sherri Shepherd (30 Rock) and actor Bailey Chase (Longmire) have joined the cast of the Netflix film Walk Ride Rodeo, a biopic about paralyzed rodeo champion Amberley Snyder (Locke). The film will follow the story of nationally-ranked barrel racer Snyder who, at 19 years old, barely survived a car accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Her doctors said she would never walk again, let alone ride, but she overcame her prognosis and was back on her horse 18 months after the accident. (Deadline)

As most know, actor Seann William Scott has taken over the lead in Lethal Weapon after Clayne Crawford was fired from the series. Scott will play Wesley Cole, a war veteran and new partner of Roger Murtaugh (Damon Wayans). Actress Maggie Lawson (Psych) will have a recurring role in the new season, playing Natalie Flynn, an emergency room surgeon and Cole’s ex-girlfriend and mother of his child. (Deadline)

Actress Garcelle Beauvais (The Magicians and NYPD Blue) will have a recurring role on the Freeform drama Siren when it returns for its second season. She will play Maddie’s (Fola Evans-Akingbola) mom, who returns to Bristol Cove to make amends with her family. (TV Line)

Actor Rob Morrow (Northern Exposure and Numb3rs) will guest star in an episode of Chicago P.D., playing Evan Gilchrist, an outspoken critic of the police department who is forced to call on CPD for help when his teen daughter goes missing. (TV Line)

Actress Annie Ilonzeh (Arrow and Charlie’s Angels) will have a recurring role on Chicago Fire, playing paramedic Emily Foster, who is new to the Chicago Fire Department. Also actor Steven Boyer (Trial & Error) will recur as former firefighter-turned-CFD Assistant Deputy Commissioner Jerry Gorsch, who has his sights set on a cushier job at headquarters. (Variety, Deadline and TV Line)

Actress Alfre Woodard will star opposite Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones and Aquaman) in the new drama See that will debut on Apple. The show is described as a world-building drama set in a future where humans have lost the sense of sight; the new, sightless world order is thrown into chaos, then, when a set of sighted twins are born. Earlier this year, the drama got a 10-episode, straight-to-series order from Apple. Woodard will play Paris, a priestess and advisor. Momoa will play warrior/leader/guardian Baba Voss. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actress Jill Hennessy (Crossing Jordan) will guest star in multiple episodes of Bull, playing a new client who asks Dr. Jason Bull (Michael Weatherly) to help her with one of the most challenging and emotional cases he has ever faced. (TV Line)

Actor Rob Morgan (Daredevil) will have a recurring role on This Is Us, playing Solomon Brown, a city councilman who oversees the district where Randall’s (Sterling K. Brown) late birth father William lived. (The Hollywood Reporter and TV Line)

Actress Sela Ward (CSI: NY) has joined the upcoming CBS new fall drama FBI, playing Dana Mosier. This character is expected to take over as boss of the New York FBI office, replacing departing cast member Connie Nielsen’s character Ellen. Nielsen exited the series back in May after co-starring in the pilot.) (Deadline and TV Line)

BOX OFFICE CASTING NEWS

Actor Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey and Legion) will star alongside Harrison Ford in the 20th Century Fox movie Call of the Wild. It is unclear what role Stevens will play, however. Ford will play John Thornton, a prospector searching for gold in the unforgiving Yukon. The film is a big-budget adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel. (Variety)

Actress Bryce Dallas Howard will play Elton John’s mother in the Paramount biopic Rocketman that will include John’s emergency as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music to becoming a music superstar and his partnership with songwriting collaborator Bernie Taupin. Actor Taron Egerton (Kingsman franchise) will play Elton John while Jamie Bell (TURN: Washington’s Spies) will play Bernie Taupin. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!