Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWAL

Fear the Walking Dead has been renewed for a 7th season by AMC. (Variety)

SCHEDULING NEWS

CBS will debut the reboot of The Equalizer series, starring Queen Latifah in the lead role, for February 7 right after the Super Bowl. The show stars Latifah as an enigmatic woman who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Chris Noth, Lorraine Toussaint, Tory Kittles [among others] also star. The series will then move to its regular timeslot on Sunday at 8 PM on February 14. (TV Line)

TV CASTING NEWS

The upcoming Hawkeye series at Disney+ has added cast members to join Jeremy Renner, who reprises his film role for the small screen. Hailee Steinfeld has already been cast as Kate Bishop, and now her mother Eleanor Bishop will be played by Vera Farmiga; Florence Pugh will reprise her role of spy and assassin Yelena Belova, the sister of Black Widow; and Zahn McClarnon will play William Lopez, a take of Willie “Crazy Horse” Lincoln from the comics. (Variety)

Actor Raul Esparza will return to Law & Order: SVU, reprising his role of former ADA Rafael Barba. (TV Line)

Actress Dichen Lachman has joined the cast of the upcoming Apple thriller Severance, starring alongside Adam Scott and Patricia Arquette. The series takes place at Lumen Industries, a company that’s looking to take work-life balance to a new level with a severance procedure, which separates work and out-of-work memories. Lachman will play Ms. Casey, an employee at Lumen Industries. (Deadline)

Actor Brandon Routh will have a potential season-long story arc in The Rookie, playing Doug Stanton, an 11-year veteran of the LAPD, whose views prove to be polarizing at the Mid-Wilshire station. (Deadline)

The upcoming FOX ballet-themed hour-long dramedy pilot The Big Leap has announced some recasting. The series is a funny and contemporary tale about second chances, chasing your dreams and taking back what’s yours, revolving around a group of diverse underdogs from all different walks of life who compete to be part of a competition reality series that is putting on a modern, hip remake of Swan Lake. Actress Piper Perabo will take over the role of Paula Dirks from Laura Benanti. Paula is a dancer and white-collar former VP at one of the major car companies who decides that The Big Leap is a chance to just be vulnerable, let go of her fears and explore her artistic side. Actor Kevin Daniels will take over the role of Wayne Sleep from Matt Lucas. Wayne Sleep ia a gay, joyful fellow who is one of the co-hosts of The Big Leap. A former dancer, he is entertaining, enthusiastic and encouraging. And actress Mallory Jansen has been added to the cast, playing Monica Sullivan, a former ballerina with an acid tongue who has come on to co-host and choreograph The Big Leap. She is intimidating, ruthless and convinced that this show is going to be an absolute disaster. The cast already includes Teri Polo, Scott Foley and Ser’Darius Blain. (Deadline)

The new ABC drama Big Sky is adding cast members, including actress Camille Sullivan and actor Chad Willett, who will play Joanie and Robert Sullivan, the parents of the two kidnapped sisters; while actor Patrick Gallagher will play Sheriff Walter Tubb, an officer for the Lewis and Clark County sheriff’s department. (Deadline)

Twenty cast members have been added to the ensemble cast of The Lord of the Rings small screen TV series, including actress Cynthia Addai-Robinson, actors Benjamin Walker, Augustus Prew and Peter Mullan [among countless others]. (TV Line)

Actor Armie Hammer will star in the upcoming limited event series The Offer from Paramount+ (aka CBS All Access), which is about the making of the iconic Oscar-winning film The Godfather. The 10-episode drama is told from the perspective of film producer Al Ruddy (to be played by Hammer), who also serves as an executive producer on the series. (TV Line)

Actor Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole will exit their roles of Graham and Ryan, two of the three new companions on Doctor Who after the holiday special “Revolution of the Daleks” airs on New Year’s Day on BBC America. (TV Line)

Actress Julianna Margulies will recurring in the second season of the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, appearing as Laura Peterson, the newest talking head of UBA News. Season 2 is slated for 2021. (TV Line)

Actress Helen Hunt will appear in the upcoming 8-episode half-hour dramedy Starz drama Blindspotting, based on the film of the same name that stars Jasmine Cephas Jones (reprising her role) as Ashley, who is nipping at the heels of a middle class life in Oakland until her partner Miles is suddenly incarcerated, leaving her to navigate a chaotic and humorous existential crisis when she is forced to move in with Miles’ mother Rainey (to be played by Hunt). (Variety)

Actor David Ramsey will be back in front of AND behind the camera on The CW. He will not only return to direct 5 episodes in the DC Universe, including the new series Superman & Lois, and Supergirl; but he will also guest star in 5 episodes across the Arrowverse, returning as John Diggle in Superman & Lois, Supergirl, The Flash, Batwoman and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. (Deadline)

Actress Imogen Poots will star in the upcoming Amazon drama series Outer Range which centers on Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a rancher fighting for his land and family, who discovers an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness. Poots will play Autumn, an itinerant woman who charms the Abbotts enough to let her camp on their land. A seeker of cosmic truths with a checkered past, she lives without regrets and embraces the unknown with reckless abandon. The cast includes Lili Taylor and Tom Pelphrey. (Variety)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Oscar Isaac is expected to play Solid Snake in the action movie Metal Gear Solid, based on the video game franchise that launched on PlayStation in 1987, which follows Solid Snake, a soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from Foxhound, a renegade special forces unit. (Variety)

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith is set to star in the Netflix drama film Redd Zone, which is based on the true story of Tia Magee (to be played by Pinkett Smith), a single mother who helps her sons and their high school football teammates, “The Bros,” heal after the murder of their best friend, Dominic Redd. One by one, the boys start moving into her house, and soon, 17 of “The Bros” are living under her roof. Eventually, all of them go to college, and four make it to the NFL. Magee’s son, Brandon Magee, became a linebacker for the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and was later drafted by the Boston Red Sox to play outfield. (Variety)

MOVIE NEWS

Warner Bros. Pictures has announced that it will release its entire 2021 theatrical slate direct to HBO Max, the same day they hit theaters. Those movies include: The Matrix 4, Dune, The Suicide Squad, the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark, The Little Things (starring Denzel Washington), Judas and the Black Messiah, Tom & Jerry, Godzilla vs. Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Reminiscence, Malignant, King Richard and Cry Macho. (TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT/PICK-UP NEWS

Director Ava DuVernay and Arrow writer and EP Jill Blankenship are teaming up to executive producer Naomi, based on the DC Comics character. The potential series follows a teen girl’s journey from her small northwestern town to the heights of the multiverse. When a supernatural event shakes her hometown to the core, Naomi sets out to uncover its origins, and what she discovers will challenge everything we believe about our heroes. (Variety)

Netflix has inked a multimillion-dollar deal for the rights to the sci-fi survival thriller Stowaway, that stars Anna Kendrick, Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim and Shamier Anderson. The movie charts how, on a mission to Mars, an unintended stowaway (Anderson) accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life-support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially grim outcome, a medical researcher (Kendrick) emerges as the only dissenting voice against the clinical logic of both her commander (Collette) and the ship’s biologist (Kim). (Deadline)

Apple has given an 8-episode straight-to-series order to the drama series Surface that will star Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but the series is to be a psychological thriller that includes Reese Witherspoon as an executive producer. Mbatha-Raw will co-executive produce as well. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!