Rueben's Ramblings

Hi All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWAL

Netflix has given Bridgerton the green light for seasons 3 and season 4 well ahead of the season 2 premiere. (TV Line)

The Cinemax drama Warrior has been renewed for a third season with the show moving over to HBO Max. (Variety)

CBS has renewed Bull, S.W.A.T., Blue Bloods, Magnum P.I. and NCIS. It should be noted that Mark Harmon will actually be back for the show’s 19th season, but it hasn’t been determined how many episodes will include him. (TV Line)

TV CASTING NEWS

Robert Buckley (iZombie) has joined the ensemble cast of the Hallmark Channel series Chesapeake Shores. His casting follows the announcement that series regular Jesse Metcalfe will be leaving the series at the end of the upcoming season. (Deadline)

The Netflix holiday franchise movie Princess Switch 3, which stars High School Musical alum Vanessa Hudgens in the lead roles, has added Will Kemp, Amanda Donohue and Remy Hii to the cast. Kemp will play Hunter Cunard, a suave and sophisticated international hotelier, with a particular interest in acquiring valuable antiques and rare artifacts. Details on who Donohue and Hii have yet to be announced. The “threequel” plot line is: When a priceless relic is stolen, Queen Margaret and Princess Stacy enlist the help of Margaret’s audacious look-alike cousin Fiona (all played by Hudgens) again who teams with a dashing, mysterious man from her past to retrieve it, rekindling the sparks of a tantalizing Christmas romance and resulting in a very unexpected switch. (Deadline)

Gabriel Luna (Terminator: Dark Fate and Matador) has joined the cast of the HBO series adaptation of The Last of Us that is based on the video game that will star Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie respectively. Luna will star as Tommy, Joel’s younger brother, a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world. The series takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival. (Variety)

Italia Ricci (Designated Survivor and Chasing Life) will star in the 10-episode Netflix sci-fi drama The Imperfects that revolves around three twenty-somethings who, following an experimental gene therapy, are turned into monsters who band together to hunt down the scientist responsible and force him to make them human again. Ricci will star as Dr. Sydney Burke, a brilliant scientist looking to fix her past mistakes, both professional and ethical, by allying with Abbi, Juan and Tilda to track down the scientist responsible for their grim fates. (The Hollywood Reporter)

New Amsterdam fans are probably wondering what really happened with Dr. Vijay Kapoor (series regular Anupam Kher) after Tuesday night’s episode. It was announced that Kher is leaving the show due to a real life medical issue: his wife – actress Kirron Kher – has been diagnosed with a type of blood cancer. (Deadline)

Oscar Nunez (The Office) will appear in multiple episodes of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist as Dr. Tesoro, Zoey’s therapist who is a warm yet slightly sarcastic man who will help Zoey navigate her grief, powers and relationships. And for once, Zoey is able to tell someone about her special abilities without any consequences. (TV Line)

Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange and Sherlock) will star in the limited series The 39 Steps from Netflix that is based on the classic thriller novel by John Buchan. The series is a provocative, action-packed conspiracy thriller series that updates the classic novel for relevance in contemporary times. An ordinary man, Richard Hannay, becomes an unwitting pawn in a vast, global conspiracy to reset the world order: 39 Steps that will change the world as we know it, with only Hannay standing in the way. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Jordan Belfi (Moonlight, Entourage and All American) will recur in Good Girls, playing Z, who is part of the multi-level marketing group Dean (Matthew Lillard) gets involved with to help him find a way out of his dire situation with his wife Beth (Christina Hendricks). (Deadline)

Regina Taylor (I’ll Fly Away) will appear in the upcoming Showtime anthology series The First Lady, playing Michelle Obama’s mother. Young actress Saniyya Sidney (Fences) will play Sasha Obama and newcomer Julian De Niro as young Barack Obama. The series already stars Viola Davis as Michelle Obama, Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford and Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt. (Deadline)

Young actresses Mckenna Grace (Designed Survivor) and Lexi Underwood (Little Fires Everywhere) will star in the Disney+ supernatural anthology series Just Beyond, which is based on the bestselling BOOM! Studios graphic novel from Goosebumps author R.L. Stine. The 8-episode series will tell astonishing and thought-provoking stories of a reality just beyond the one we know. Each episode introduces viewers to a new cast of characters who must go on a surprising journey of self-discovery in a supernatural world of witches, aliens, ghosts and parallel universes. Grace and Underwood will lead their respective-stand-alone episode. (Deadline)

Carlos Gomez (The Glades and The Baker and the Beauty) and Anja Savcic (Loudermilk) have landed recurring roles on the new ABC drama Big Sky. Gomez will play Gil Amaya, the former ranch manager who is forever entangled with the Kleinsasser family, including their darkest secrets while Savic is set to play Scarlet Leyendecker, the loving, protective mother of ten-year-old daughter, Phoebe, who will be played by Zoe Noelle Baker (The Haunting of Bly Manor). (Deadline)

Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) will star in the 8-episode Irish mystery thriller Harry Wild that will air on Acorn TV. The series will be set in Dublin with Seymour playing Harriet Wild, a recently retired English professor who cannot help but take an active interest in the criminal cases assigned to her police detective son, Charlie. The series will premiere in 2022 on Acorn TV in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. (Deadline)

Common (Hell on Wheels) will appear in the second season of the Netflix series Never Have I Ever, set to premiere in July, in the recurring role of Dr. Chris Jackson, a suave and debonair dermatologist who works in Nalini’s (Poorna Jagannathan) building. His high-end practice and celebrity clients are impressive to everyone except Nalini. (Deadline)

BOX OFFICE CASTING NEWS

Natalie Portman will appear in the upcoming HBO Film The Days of Abandonment, which is based on the Elena Ferrante novel. The film follows what happens when Tess (Portman), a woman who abandoned her own dreams for a stable home life, is in turn abandoned by her husband, and her world is thrown off its axis. (Variety)

Lucy Liu will appear in the sequel film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, playing the villain Kalypso, the sister of villain Hespera, who will be played by Helen Mirren. Zachary Levi will return as Shazam with Asher Angel back as the teenage alter ego Billy Baston. (Variety)

Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern will star in the box office movie The Son from writer-director Florian Zeller, which is an adaptation of Zeller’s acclaimed stage play. Jackman will play Peter, who has a busy life with his new partner Emma and their baby. Their lives are thrown into disarray when his ex-wife Kate (Dern) turns up with their teenage son, Nicholas, who is troubled, distant, and angry, playing truant from school for months – both Kate and Nicholas need Peter’s help. Nicholas’s wish is to live with his father for a change. Peter strives to be a better father, searching to help his son with those intimate and instinctive moments of family happiness – to solve, with understanding, what Nicholas is going through. But the weight of Nicholas’ condition sets the family on a dangerous course. They must do everything they can to maintain the bonds that hold them together. (Variety)

Guy Pearce and Monica Bellucci will star opposite Liam Neeson in the box office movie Memory, a crime thriller based on the book De Zaak Alzheimer by Jef Geeraerts as well as the Belgian film The Memory of a Killer. The follows Alex Lewis (Neeson), an expert assassin with a reputation for discreet precision. When Alex refuses to complete a job for a dangerous criminal organization, he becomes a target and must go on the hunt for those who want him dead. Veteran FBI agents Vincent Serra (Pearce), Linda Amistead and Mexican intelligence liaison Hugo Marquez are brought in to investigate the trail of bodies, leading them closer to Alex, but also drawing the ire of local tech mogul Davana Sealman (Bellucci). With the crime syndicate and FBI in hot pursuit, Alex has the skills to stay ahead, except for one thing: he is struggling with severe memory loss, affecting his every move. As details blur and enemies close in, Alex must question his every action, and who he can ultimately trust. (Deadline)

Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal) will star alongside Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones 5. Plot details have not been announced nor are their details on what part Mikkelsen will play. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!