Hey All,
Here are the news items for this past week:
CANCELLATIONS/RENEWALS
Spectrum Originals has pulled the plug on LA’s Finest after two seasons. (Variety)
CBS All Access has renewed Star Trek: Discovery for a 4th season. (Variety)
CASTING NEWS
Actress Kate Hudson will star in the second season of the Apple drama series Truth Be Told, starring alongside series lead Octavia Spencer. Spencer plays Poppy Parnell, a true crime podcaster with Hudson set to play Micah Keith, a lifestyle guru and longtime friend of Poppy. A new case deeply involves both women and quickly puts their relationship to the ultimate test. (Variety)
Veteran actress Kathleen Turner will be back for the third and final season of The Kominsky Method. She will return as Roz Volander, the ex-wife of Sandy Kominsky (Michael Douglas), who is a and doctor with whom Sandy has a very volatile relationship. In season three, Roz will come to Los Angeles to spend time with their daughter Mindy (Sarah Baker). (The Hollywood Reporter)
Actor Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek and The Affair) will take over the lead role from Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey franchise) in the upcoming Peacock limited series Dr. Death, the medical doctor from hell. Based on the popular podcast of the same name, Dr. Death tells the “terrifying true story” of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Jackson), a rising star in the Dallas medical community. “Young, charismatic and ostensibly brilliant, Dr. Duntsch was building a flourishing neurosurgery practice when everything suddenly changed. Patients entered his operating room for complex but routine spinal surgeries and left permanently maimed or dead. The series is slated to premiere sometime next year. (TV Line)
Actress Shalia Grant (NCIS: New Orleans) and actor Travis VanWinkle (The Last Ship) will join season 3 of the drama series You. Grant will play Sherry, a “Mom-fluencer” who appears down to earth, but is actually a mean girl who only pretends to welcome Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) into her social circle. Meanwhile, VanWinkle will play the wealthy Cary, who invites Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) into his inner circle. (Netflix on Twitter and The Futon Critic)
Tony nominee Adrienne Warren (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) will star in the ABC limited series The Women of the Movement. She will play Mamie Till-Mobley, who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son Emmett Till. After the brutal murder of her son in the Jim Crow South, Mamie, a soft-spoken young mother in Chicago, put her own life on the line to seek justice in his name. Unwilling to let Emmett’s murder disappear from the headlines, Mamie chose to bear her pain on the world’s stage, and as a result ignited the civil rights movement as we know it today. The 6-episode series will premiere sometime next year. (Deadline)
Actor Conrad Ricamora (How To Get Away With Murder) has landed a key recurring role in The Resident, playing Dr. Jake Wong, a handsome gay plastic surgeon, and amateur singer-songwriter in his off hours. Jake used to be Dr. Bell’s (series regular Bruce Greenwood) stepson half a lifetime ago, but their relationship ended bitterly when Bell divorced his mother. (Deadline)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
Hulu is developing a series based on the novel ‘Interior Chinatown’ by Charles Yu. The book follows the story of an Asian-American actor struggling against clichéd roles and stereotypes, both at work and in his personal life. (Variety)
Paramount Plus (aka CBS All Access, at least until next year) has nabbed the rights to the Grease spin-off Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, an hour-long musical comedy about how the infamous Pink Ladies began and how the reverence, fear, and moral panic they sparked changed Rydell High forever. (Variety)
Amazon has given a series order to the planned small screen adaptation of the horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer. The young adult series will be a modern take on the hit 1997 horror film. In a town full of secrets, a group of teenagers are stalked by a mysterious killer a year after a fatal accident on their graduation night. (Variety)
Showtime has ordered a limited series revival of Dexter, but details are being kept under wraps. (Variety)
NBC is working on a series based on Fried Green Tomatoes (the insanely popular 1991 film based on the book of the same name by Fannie Flagg). The project will star Reba McEntire as present-day Idgie Threadgoode, who returns to Whistle Stop after a decade away. She must wrestle with a changed town, estranged daughter, faltering cafe and life-changing secret. (Variety)
The CW is developing a drama Slay from Oscar and Emmy winner Regina King (Watchmen) and her sister Reina King. The series would center on Carson Jones, a bold, witty teenager with afro puffs, leather boots, seventies cool, and – thanks to her mother’s ancient African bloodline – supernatural gifts and the responsibility to use them to protect Virginia’s Historic Triangle (one of the most haunted areas in the country) from the forces of darkness. (Deadline)
MOVIE NEWS
Actors Leonardo DiCapril and Timothee Chalamet as well as actresses Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence will star in the star-studded Netflix comedy film Don’t Look Up that follows two low-level astronomers who embark on a media tour to warn mankind of an impending asteroid that could destroy the planet. The cast also includes Jonah Hill, Himesh Patel, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi and Matthew Perry as well. (Variety)
Actress Anya Taylor-Joy and actors Chris Hemsworth and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will star in the box office film Furiosa, a prequel based on the Imperator Furiosa character (played by Charlize Theron) in the 2015 box office movie Mad Max: Fury Road. (Variety)
The long-anticipated sequel to Coming 2 America is in the process of being sold by Paramount Pictures to Amazon Studios. Final details are still being hammered out, though. (Variety)
Actress Xochitl Gomez (The Baby-Sitters Club) has joined the cast of the upcoming Marvel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. (Deadline)
Actors Darren Barnet, Harry Shum Jr. and James Saito will star in the Netflix romantic comedy Love Hard that will star Jimmy O. Yang and Nina Dobrev. Barnet takes over the role that was to be played by Charles Melton, who had to leave the film due to scheduling conflicts with his role on Riverdale. The movie is described as When Harry Met Sally meets Roxanne, following an LA girl, unlucky in love, who falls for an East Coast guy on a dating app and decides to surprise him for Christmas, only to discover that she’s been catfished. But the object of her affection actually lives in the same town, and the guy who duped her offers to set them up IF she pretends to be his own girlfriend for the holidays. (Deadline)
That’s it. Enjoy!
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