Hey All,
Here are the news items for the past two weeks:
RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS
Hunters has been renewed for a second season by Amazon. (Variety)
Freeform has pulled the plug on their fantasy drama Siren after 3 seasons. (Variety)
Hulu has canceled the Zoe Kravitz led drama High Fidelity after only one season. (Variety)
Hulu has renewed Love, Victor for a second season. (Variety)
TV NEWS
It’s become almost a tradition on the Hallmark Channel that each year the Good Witch has a Halloween special EXCEPT for this year. There won’t be an installment this year (and we can all guess the reason: the pandemic) (TV Line)
TV MOVIE NEWS
Journalist Robin Roberts is extending her partnership with Lifetime with four new movies. One of those movies will be The Mahalia Jackson Story, which will star Tony Award nominee, SAG and Grammy Award-winning actress Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black) as the iconic gospel legend and civil rights activist while Tony winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun and Lifetime’s Steel Magnolias) will direct. (Deadline)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
The box office has been devastated by the pandemic, desperately trying to find ways to release their latest movies and Disney has been struggling to get its big-budget live-action version of Mulan out to the movie going public. That hasn’t worked well so instead the 60 plus million subscribers of Disney Plus will get to watch the box office movie on its streaming service on September 4 (for the cost of $29.99). (Variety)
Actress Naomi Scott (the latest version of Aladdin and the latest version of Charlie’s Angels) will star alongside Broadway’s Anthony Ramos (from Hamilton) in the upcoming comedic sci-fi movie called Distant [she’s taking over for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan, who couldn’t appear due to her commitment to the popular series]. The movie tells the the story of an asteroid miner who, after crash-landing on an alien planet, must contend with the challenges of his new surroundings, while making his way across the harsh terrain to the only other survivor – a woman who is trapped in her escape pod. (Deadline)
Actress Rhona Mitra (The Last Ship and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) will appear in the upcoming box office film Prisoners of Paradise, which will be set in 1925 following 17-year-old orphan Lucy Gladwell (Ellie Bamber from Les Miserables), who is sent from England to live under the guardianship of her uncle George Huyton (Rupert Penry-Jones from Spooks and the box office movie Persuasion). Mitra will play Lucy’s aunt Betty. (Deadline)
CASTING NEWS
Actor Stanley Tucci will star in the AMC limited series La Fortuna. The thriller, based on a graphic novel, centers on Alex Ventura (Spanish actor Álvaro Mel), a young Spanish diplomat who unintentionally becomes the leader of a mission to recover sunken treasure stolen by Frank Wild (Tucci), a notorious adventurer. The series has a targeted premiere date set for later in 2021. The cast also includes Clarke Peters (The Wire). (The Hollywood Reporter)
Actress Elle Fanning (The Great) will star in the real-life case of Michelle Carter in the Hulu series The Girl From Plainville. Carter was infamously convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2017 after texting her boyfriend encouragement to commit suicide three years prior. The series will be based on the Esquire article by Jesse Barron. (Variety)
Actress Lindsey Gort has been promoted to series regular on the CBS legal drama All Rise where she plays attorney Amy Quinn. (Deadline)
Actors Andrew Scott (Fleabag and Sherlock) and Dominic West (The Affair and Stateless) will join actresses Lily James (Downton Abbey and 2015’s Cinderella) and Emily Mortimer (The Newsroom) in the limited series (consisting of 3 episodes), The Pursuit of Love, which is an adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s novel. The romantic dramedy is set in Europe between World War I and World War II. The series will premiere on BBC One in the UK and on Amazon Prime in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (TV Line)
Actress Regina Hall (Black Monday and the box office Girls Trip) and actor Bobby Cannavale (the box office movies Ant-Man and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) have joined the cast of the Hulu limited series Nine Perfect Strangers that takes place at a boutique health-and-wellness resort that promises healing and transformation as nine stressed city dwellers try to get on a path to a better way of living. Watching over them during this ten-day retreat is the resort’s director Masha (Nicole Kidman), a woman on a mission to reinvigorate their tired minds and bodies. Hall will play Carmel, one of the nine strangers and Cannavale will also play one of the nine strangers. The cast also includes Melissa McCarthy, Michael Shannon, Luke Evans, Samara Weaving and Tiffany Boone. The series is eyeing a 2021 debut. (The Futon Critic and Deadline)
Actress Michelle Gomez (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Doctor Who) will appear in the Kaley Cuoco-led HBO Max thriller The Flight Attendant. Cuoco will play Cassie, a flight attendant who wakes up in the wrong hotel, in the wrong bed, with a dead man – and no idea what happened. The cast includes Michiel Huisman, Zosia Mamet and Merle Dandridge. Gomez will play Miranda, a hardened, savvy businesswoman with anger-management issues who Cassie meets in Bangkok. (Deadline)
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Apple has given a straight-to-series order to the series The Sting, based on a Lista’s Toronto Life article with Team Downey (the production company of Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Downey). It follows a frustrated Canadian detective who takes on a decades-old cold case in hopes of winning a confession and becoming a hero. The case quickly spirals out of control when the undercover cop attempts an elaborate sting, adding playacting cops, taxpayer resources, and an unexpected friendship with the peculiar target. (Variety)
Actress Amy Adams will appear in the Netflix limited series Kings of America, based on real events. It will center on the stories of three women whose lives were inextricably intertwined with the world’s largest company: a Walmart heiress, a maverick executive, and a longtime Walmart saleswoman and preacher who dared to fight against the retail giant in the biggest class action lawsuit in US history. Adams will star in the series in one of the lead roles, though which has not been determined yet. (Variety)
Netflix will be moving forward with a limited series from The Witcher (the Henry Cavill fantasy series) universe. The Witcher: Blood Origin will be a 6-part, live-action prequel set in an elven world 1,200 years before the world of The Witcher that will chart the origins of the very first Witcher. No cast has been announced yet. (Deadline)
Amazon is planning a series adaptation of the popular box office film A League of Their Own that will tell the story of an entire generation of women who dreamed of playing professional baseball. Actress Abbi Jacobson (Broad City) will star – as well as executive produce – the series, which she co-created. The cast will include Chante Adams (The Photograph), D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place), Melanie Field (Heathers, You and The Alienist), Kelly McCormack (Killjoys), Roberta Colindrez (The Deuce and Vida) and Molly Ephraim (Perry Mason and Halt and Catch Fire). (Variety)
That’s it. Enjoy!
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