Hey All,
Here are the news items for this past week:
RENEWAL
Netflix has given a 3rd season order to Never Have I Ever. (TV Line)
CANCELLATION
Peacock has pulled the plug on the Punky Brewster reboot after only one season. (TV Line)
TV CASTING NEWS
Sandra Mae Frank, who played Abigail in an episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist and performed the memorable American Sign Language performance of ‘Fight Song,’ will recur on the NBC medical drama New Amsterdam, playing a deaf surgeon. AND, Chloe Freeman (The Blacklist) will also recur in the series as Dr. Pavan Carey, a new resident in Dr. Bloom’s (series regular Janet Montgomery) Emergency Department. (TV Line)
Hank Azaria will star in the Showtime anthology series Super Pumped that details the rise of the driving service Uber, playing Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. The cast also includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick; Kyle Chandler as Texas venture capitalist Bill Gurley; and Kerry Bishé aslAustin Geidt, Uber employee number four. (Variety)
Newcomer Zaria (Two Distant Strangers and Malia Pyles (Baskets) have joined the cast of the HBO Max spin-off series [of sorts] Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. They join the previously announced Bailee Madison (of Good Witch fame). Twenty years ago, a series of tragic events almost ripped the blue-collar town of Millwood apart. Now, in the present day, a group of disparate teen girls find themselves tormented by an unknown Assailant and made to pay for the secret sin their parents committed two decades ago as well as their own. (Deadline)
Raven Goodwin (Being Mary Jane) and Nicole Chanel Williams (Boomerang) will recur alongside Yaya DaCosta, Morris Chestnut and Joe Morton in the upcoming FOX drama Our Kind of People, which follows strong-willed single mom Angela Vaughn (DaCosta) as she sets out to reclaim her family’s name and make an impact with her revolutionary hair care line that highlights the innate, natural beauty of Black women. She soon discovers a dark secret about her mother’s past that will turn her world upside-down and shake up this community forever. Goodwin will play Josephine, Angela’s (DaCosta) old college roommate and close friend while Williams will play Taylor, a 17-year-old fun-loving and open girl. (Deadline)
Peter Gallagher (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist and The O.C.) will have a recurring role in the upcoming season of Grey’s Anatomy, playing Dr. Alan Hamilton who knew Ellis Grey (Kate Burton) back in the day and meets Meredith (series lead Ellen Pompeo). (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
Actress Tayler Buck has been promoted to series regular for the second season of Superman & Lois. She played Natalie Irons, John Henry’s daughter via the Lois of his own Earth. (TV Line and Deadline)
The Sopranos alum Jamie-Lynn Sigler will have a key role in season 2 of the ABC drama Big Sky. She will play Tonya, a waitress at a local diner, who hires Dewell & Hoyt to find her missing boyfriend. Season 2 will find Cassie (series lead Kylie Bunbury) and Jenny (series regular Katheryn Winnick) reunited to investigate a car wreck outside of Helena, Montana. But they soon discover that the case might not be as straightforward as it seems. As they unravel the mystery of the accident, their worlds will collide with a band of unsuspecting teens, a flirtatious face from Jenny’s past and a vicious outsider hellbent on finding answers. (Deadline)
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN
Efforts to find the ABC drama Rebel a new home has come up empty, as series creator Krista Vernoff announced that hopes to get a streaming platform to pick it up have failed. It should also be noted that IMDbTV has passed on picking up the canceled drama For Life as well. (The Futon Critic, Deadline and TV Line)
TV DEVELOPMENT NEWS
Peacock has given a straight-to-series order for a small screen adaptation of the box office movie Field of Dreams. (Variety)
FALL TV SCOOP
Thanks to Matt Mitovich over at TV Line for the following scoop items:
- Jack Coleman (of Heroes fame) will recur on this fall’s new NBC drama Ordinary Joe, recurring as Dr. Douglas Banks, the father of Jenny (to be played by Elizabeth Lail from You and Once Upon a Time);
- Burden of Truth is currently airing its final season on The CW here in the States, and viewers can be happy to know that Nicola Correia-Damude (who has been recurring on The Republic of Sarah, has recurred on Coroner and was a recurring cast member on Shadowhunters) will indeed be back in Millwood, returning as Diane.
SAVE OF THE WEEK, MAYBE
Netflix is in ongoing talks to POTENTIALLY save the NBC drama Manifest for a 4th season but neither the streaming service nor Warner Bros. TV has made no official announcement. (Deadline and TV Line)
There is no guarantee, but it looks like the recently cancelled CBS legal drama All Rise just MIGHT be getting a second chance thanks to the folks over at OWN. The network is in very early negotiations to potentially pick up the series for a 3rd season and have even been in touch with series lead Simone Missick and several other cast members whose contracts ended in June. (TV Line)
STREAMING SERVICES NEWS
HBO Max is in early development with writer Misha Green for a Black Canary movie that would find Jurnee Smollett reprising her role from last year’s Birds of Prey movie. (Cinelinx and Collider)
Hulu has acquired the US rights to the heist series The Unusual Suspects set to star [among others] Miranda Otto. The Australian series revolves around women from different walks of life who come together following the elaborate heist of a $16 million necklace which belonged to a self-made businesswoman. The ensuing police investigation exposes cracks in Eastern Sydney’s sparkling façade and provides an insight into the immigrant experience in the region. (Variety)
Big Sky cast member Jesse James Keitel will be a series regular in the reboot of Queer as Folk on Peacock. The update will chronicle a diverse group of friends in New Orleans, whose lives are transformed in the aftermath of a tragedy. Keitel will play a trans, semi-reformed party girl who is struggling to grow up. (Variety)
Tim Robbins will join Rebecca Ferguson in the Apple series adaptation of the book ‘Wool’ by Hugh Howey. The series will be set in a ruined and toxic future where a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Robbins will play Bernard, the head of IT for the Silo. (Variety)
Phoebe Dynevor (Bridgerton breakout, who was also in Younger) will star in and executive produce the screen adaptation of the book ‘Exciting Time,’ which will center on Ava, an Irish transplant teaching English grammar abroad to wealthy children. She becomes entangled in a love triangle with banker Julian and lawyer Edith. (Variety)
Netflix has a new family movie series set to roll out that will include among its cast Jane Lynch (Glee), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Sasha Pieterse (Pretty Little Liars). The story will follow two girls who could not be more different: Ivy is quiet, thoughtful and intellectual while Bean is rambunctious, wild and fearless. But an adventure will reveal that opposites attract and bring the two girls together. The series will actually be made up of one-hour movies, rather than being a TV show. (Deadline and Digital Spy)
Actor O-T Fagbenle (The Handmaid’s Tale and the box office movie Black Widow) will recur alongside Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway in the upcoming Apple TV+ limited series WeCrashed. He will play Cameron Lautner, a partner at a powerful investment firm who is tasked with trying to instill discipline at WeWork and prepare it for its upcoming IPO, which brings him into conflict with the company’s eccentric and headstrong CEO. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)
MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS
Lifetime has greenlit a Flowers in the Attic four-part prequel mini-series that will star Jemima Rooper (Hex and Lost in Austen) and Max Irons (Condor) as well as Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), Harry Hamlin (Mad Men), Kate Mulgrew (Orange is the New Black) and Paul Wesley (The Vampire Diaries) [among others]. Flowers in the Attic: The Origin will peel back the curtain to reveal the twisted origins and dark secrets of the Foxworth family. Olivia Winfield (Rooper), who is working alongside her beloved father (Hamlin) when she finds herself unexpectedly wooed by one of the nation’s most eligible bachelors, Malcom Foxworth (Irons). After a whirlwind romance, Olivia finds herself as the mistress of the imposing Foxworth Hall, where she soon discovers that the fairytale life she expected has quickly become a nightmare. Mulgrew will play Mrs. Steiner, Malcom’s loyal house manager and head of the Foxworth Hall staff; Grammer will play Malcom’s illustrious father Garland Foxworth, and Wesley will play John Amos, Olivia’s cousin whose revelations change her life forever. (Deadline)
BOX OFFICE MOVIE NEWS
Lana Parrilla (Why Women Kill and Once Upon a Time) will star alongside Anthony Rapp (Rent and Star Trek: Discovery) in the indie drama film Scrap. Writer-director Vivian Kerr will also star in the film as Beth, who has recently been laid off and struggles to maintain the appearance of a successful middle-class lifestyle as she bounces around Los Angeles. Hoping to land a new job and change her situation before her estranged older brother Ben (Rapp) finds out, Beth must confront her own pride before she can reconnect with him and provide for her young daughter Birdy. Parrilla will play Ben’s wife, a successful attorney who is secretly struggling with IVF and re-evaluating her own conflicted relationship with motherhood. (Deadline)
Anthony Mackie will suit up in the upcoming Captain America 4 movie that will be co-written by Malcolm Spellman, who was head writer for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. (Variety)
Jack O’Connell (the box office film Unbroken and the Netflix series Godless) will star alongside Emma Corrin (the latest season of The Crown and the first season of the EPIX period piece Pennyworth) will star in the Sony Pictures and Netflix film Lady Chatterley’s Lover, based on the classic D.H. Lawrence novel, which follows the life of Lady Chatterley, a woman born to a life of wealth and privilege, who soon finds herself married to a man that she eventually falls out of love with. (Deadline)
Relative newcomer Dominique Thorne (who had roles in the box office films If Beale Street Could Talk and Judas and the Black Messiah) will star in the Disney+ series Ironheart in the lead role of Riri Williams, a 15-year-old MIT student who reverse engineers Iron Man’s armor in order to create her own suit of armor. Thorne will also be featured in the upcoming sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. (Variety)
That’s it. Enjoy!
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