Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

CANCELLATION

Netflix has cancelled Altered Carbon after two seasons. (Variety)

ELECTION SPECIAL

The cast and creators of The West Wing are reuniting to perform together for the first time in nearly two decades in a special set at HBO Max. A West Wing Special to Benefit When We All Vote will debut on the streamer this fall. It will feature a theatrical staging of the “Hartsfield’s Landing” episode from the show’s third season and will be shot at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles in early October. The special is meant to raise awareness for When We All Vote, a non-partisan, nonprofit organization co-chaired by Michelle Obama. The cast expected to be involved include Rob Lowe, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney, Janel Moloney, Richard Schiff, Bradley Whitford, and Martin Sheen. (Variety)

SERIES ORDERS

OWN has given a straight-to-series order to the drama Delilah, from Greenleaf creator Craig Wright. Actress Maahra Hill (The L Word: Generation Q) will star as Delilah Connolly, a headstrong, highly principled lawyer living in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is doing her best to raise two kids alone and keep her ties to family, friends and faith strong, all the while ceaselessly seeking justice for those who need it most, in a time when the rich and powerful of Charlotte and beyond will do anything to stop her. The series will air on OWN in 2021. (Variety)

Netflix has picked up a one-hour, live-action Resident Evil series, giving it an 8-episode order. Andrew Dabb, latest showrunner of the long-running series Supernatural, will serve as writer, executive producer and showrunner. The story of the series will unfold across two timelines: In the first timeline, 14-year-old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker are moved to New Raccoon City: a manufactured, corporate town, forced on them right as adolescence is in full swing. But the more time they spend there, the more they come to realize that the town is more than it seems and their father may be concealing dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy the world. In the second timeline, well over a decade into the future, there are less than 15 million people left on Earth. And more than 6 billion monsters — people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now thirty, struggles to survive in this New World, while the secrets from her past – about her sister, her father and herself – continue to haunt her. (Variety)

ABC has given a series order to the limited anthology series Women of the Movement, which will tell the story of key female figures in the Civil Rights Movement. The series will focus on Mamie Till Mobley, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son Emmett Till following his brutal murder in the Jim Crow South. The first 6-episode season is slated to debut in 2021. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Keira Knightley (Love Actually and Pride and Prejudice) will star in and executive produce a drama series for Apple. A series order has been given to The Essex Serpent, a period drama based on the Sarah Perry British Book Award-winning novel. The series will center on Cora (Knightley), who has been released from an abusive marriage, and relocates from Victorian London to the small village of Aldwinter in Essex. She is intrigued by a local superstition that a mythical creature known as the Essex Serpent has returned to the area. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Mary McCormack (In Plain Sight) will star opposite Stephen Amell (Arrow) and Alexander Ludwig (Vikings) in the 8-episode hour-long Starz drama Heels. The story will be about the men and women who chase their dreams in the world of small-town pro wrestling. Set in a close-knit Georgia community, following a family-owned wrestling promotion as two brothers and rivals, Jack Spade (Amell) and Ace Spade (Ludwig), war over their late father’s legacy. In the ring, somebody must play the good guy (Ludwig) and somebody must play their nemesis, the heel (Amell). But in the real world, those characters can be hard to live up to — or hard to leave behind. McCormack will play Willie, the business partner of Jack Spade and logistical brains behind the local wrestling organization who came up in the glory days as Wild Bill’s (Chris Bauer) valet but grew tired of babysitting and left him just as his career took off. His return to the local circuit complicates her life, as does the reflection of her younger self that she sees in Crystal (Kelli Berglund). (Deadline)

Actresses Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black) and Daphne Rubin-Vega (Katy Keene) as well as actors Asante Blackk (This Is Us), Mike Colter (Luke Cage and Evil) and Oscar Nunez (The Office) are among the cast of upcoming Netflix anthology series Social Distance. The 8-part series is set in the first few months after the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe. Each episode is a standalone that was shot remotely in the actors’ real-life homes across the country. Brooks stars in an episode along with her real-life mother LaRita Brooks and her brother DJ Brooks. Blackk stars alongside his real-life father Ayize Ma’at. (Variety)

Actor Tim Rozon (Wynonna Earp) will star in the upcoming Syfy series The Surrealtor, which follows realtor Nick Roman (played by Rozon) and an elite team of specialists that handle the cases no one else can: haunted and possessed houses that literally scare would-be buyers away. Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek) will play Susan Ireland, an enormously successful real estate agent who is a realist and doesn’t believe in ghosts or hauntings. Savannah Basley (Wynonna Earp) will play Zooey L’Enfant, The Roman Agency’s office manager. (TV Line)

Actress Elizabeth Debicki (the box office movie Tenet) is set to star in and executive producer Code Name Hélène, an international limited series based on the New York Times bestselling author Ariel Lawhon’s World War II spy thriller. The series will tell the epic real-life story of Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, a New Zealand-born journalist who became a ferociously brave spy and one of the most powerful leaders of the French Resistance. The series will be told in interweaving timelines following each of the four code names used by Nancy during World War II. (Variety)

Actor John Harlan Kim (The Librarians) has been promoted to series regular on 9-1-1. He recurred throughout last season as Albert, the younger half-brother of Chimney (series regular Kenneth Choi. (Deadline and TV Line)

MOVIE NEWS

Actress Amy Adams (Man of Steel/Superman franchise) has joined the cast of the box office version of Dear Evan Hansen, the Tony-winning musical that opened on Broadway in 2016. The story follows a high schooler with social anxiety who gets caught up in a lie after Connor Murphy’s family mistakes one of Hansen’s letters for their son’s suicide note. Adams will play Cynthia Murphy, mother of Connor and Zoe Murphy, which will be played by Kaitlyn Dever (Unbelievable and Book Smart) while Ben Platt, who originated the part and won a Tony for his performance, is expected to reprise the title role. Also, actor Danny Pino (Mayans M.C. and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) will play the stepfather to the classmate who dies by suicide, a role conceived specially for the film. (Variety)

Actress Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars franchise) has joined the cast of the upcoming Disney animated feature Raya and the Last Dragon, playing the titular heroine, marking the first Southeast Asian to lead a Disney animated film. This film is set in the fantasy kingdom of Kumandra, following a warrior who teams with a crew of misfits in her quest to find the Last Dragon and bring light and unity back to their world. The cast includes Awkawafina (Crazy Rich Asians), who plays a dragon in human form named Sisu. (Deadline)

Actor Justin Hartley (This Is Us) will play the lead in The Noel Diary, the Netflix film adaptation of the Richard Paul Evans novel. He will play Jacob, a bestselling author who returns home during the holidays to settle his estranged mother’s estate after she passes away. As he digs through the many items his mother hoarded over the years, he comes across a diary left by someone named Noel, which may hold secrets to Jacob’s own past. And when he receives an unexpected visitor named Rachel, a beautiful woman on a mysterious journey of her own, the two of them try to make sense of their pasts and rewrite their futures. Bonnie Bedelia (Parenthood) and Treat Williams (Everwood) will also star. (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!