Hey All,
Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:
RENEWAL
Hallmark Channel has given The Way Home a third season renewal. (TV Line)
Paramount+ has given the Canadian medical drama Skymed a 3rd season renewal; and announced that cast member Aaron Ashmore (who plays Wheezer) has been promoted to series regular and that Anthony Grant (Star Trek: Discovery) and Nicola Correia-Damude (Shadowhunters) have joined the cast in recurring roles. Grant will play TJ, a fun-loving, social pilot who is easy to crush on but secretly carries some heavy baggage of his own while Correia-Damude will play Marianne, an appealing city-slicker who struggles to fit in up north despite her electric chemistry with Chopper (series regular Praneet Akilla). (Deadline)
NBC has renewed Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for new seasons for the 2024-2025 TV season. (TV Line)
CBS has renewed NCIS: Sydney for a 2nd season. (TV Line)
TV CASTING NEWS
Friends alum David Schwimmer and Ana Ortiz (Ugly Betty and Devious Maids) will star in season 2 of the Disney+ series Goosebumps, based on the book series by R.L. Stine. Season two will focus on teenage siblings who discover a threat stirring, triggering a chain of events that unravel a profound mystery. As they delve into the unknown, the duo find themselves entangled in the chilling tale of four teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994. Schwimmer will play Anthony, a former botany professor and divorced parent of teenage twins whose world takes a tumultuous turn as he juggles the responsibilities of overseeing an aging parent while having his kids for the summer. While Ortiz will play Jen, a dedicated police detective who remains rooted in her Brooklyn neighborhood after experiencing a tragic event that involved her friends in adolescence. (Variety)
Hulu has added cast members to the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers, which includes Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians), Mark Strong (Shazam and The Kingsman franchise) and Lena Olin (Alias and Hunters), joining Nicole Kidman, who will be back as resort director Masha. Details about season 2 are being kept under wraps, though. (Variety)
Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) will star alongside Grey’s Anatomy alum Ellen Pompeo in the Hulu limited series Orphan, which is inspired by the true story of Natalia Grace. The 8-episode series will follow a Midwestern couple — Kristine and Michael Barnett (played by Pompeo and Duplass) — who adopt what they believe is an 8-year-old Ukrainian girl with a rare form of dwarfism. But as they begin to raise the girl alongside their three biological children, they slowly start to believe she may not be who she says she is. When the couple question their adopted daughter’s story, they’re confronted with hard questions of their own about the lengths they’re willing to go to defend themselves, falling into a battle that winds up “fought in the tabloids, the courtroom, and ultimately their marriage. (TV Line)
Kyle Schmid (Blood Ties, Copper and Six) has joined the cast of the CBS prequel series NCIS: Origins that will focus on a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Schmid will play the younger version of Special Agent Mike Franks, who was portrayed by Muse Watson in the flagship series. (TV Line)
Season 2 of The Sandman on Netflix has added new cast members including Barry Sloane (Revenge, Longmire and Six), who will play the Endless Destruction, a sibling of series lead Tom Sturrige’s Dream. Destruction is different from his siblings, as he is the only one of the Endless to abandon his realm and responsibilities. Also joining the cast are Esme Creed-Miles (Hannah) and Indya Moore (Pose) both in unknown roles. (Redanian Intelligence)
Anna Camp (the Pitch Perfect franchise) and Griffin Matthews (The Flight Attendant) have joined the cast of the Netflix series You as series regulars for season 5. Camp will play both Raegan and Maddie Lockwood, twin sisters-in-law to Joe Goldberg (series lead Penn Badgley) while Matthews will play Teddy Lockwood, the snarky yet loyal brother-in-law of Joe Goldberg. (Variety)
Jessica Biel will executive produce and star in a limited series at Peacock called The Good Dauther, adapted from the Karin Slaughter novel. The series will focus on sisters Charlotte (Biel) and Samantha Quinn, who have spent the last 28 years trying to piece together the lives that were fractured by a single night of violence. When another attack splinters the small town of Pikeville, Charlotte is the first witness on the scene. Now a lawyer like her father, she’s forced to confront her own demons as the case twists through one shocking revelation after another. In the end, both she and Samantha find themselves wondering if the price of being the good daughter was worth it after all. (Variety)
Douglas Smith (Big Love and Big Little Lies as well as the younger brother of Everwood alum Gregory Smith) will play Jimmy Olsen in the third and final season of Superman & Lois on CW. (TV Line)
Starz has added cast members to its upcoming thriller The Hunting Wives based on the novel by May Cobb, including Chrissy Metz (This Is Us), Katie Lowes (Scandal) and Jaime Ray Newman (Eureka and Dopesick). The series follows Sophie O’Neill (Snow), who moves with her family from the East Coast to deep East Texas, where she succumbs to socialite Margo Bank’s (Malin Akerman) irresistible charms — and finds her life consumed by obsession, seduction, and murder. Lowes will play Jill, the wife of a minister and queen of the megachurch who is overly invested in her son’s life, who is dating Abby, Sophie’s daughter. Meanwhile Newman will play Callie, the wife of the town’s powerful sheriff and second in command of the Hunting Wives behind Margo. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Before The Good Doctor comes to an end on ABC, Antonia Thomas will be back as Dr. Claire Brown and Brandon Larracuente will be back as Dr. Danny Perez. (Deadline and TV Line)
The new FOX international drama series Murder in a Small Town, that will star Rossif Sutherland (the 2003 box office film Timeline and The Handmaid’s Tale) and Kristin Kreuk (Smallville, Beauty and the Beast and Burden of Truth), have added guest stars to its roster, including James Cromwell (Babe and Succession), Stana Katic (Castle and Absentia) and Aaron Douglas (Battlestar Galactica and The Watchful Eye) [among others]. The show follows Karl Alberg (Sutherland), who moves to a quiet Pacific Northwest coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work. But this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets, and Karl will need to call upon all the skills that made him a world-class detective in solving the murders that, even in this seemingly idyllic setting, continue to wash up on his shore. Kreuk will star as Cassandra, a local librarian who becomes Alberg’s muse, foil and romantic interest. (Variety)
ORDERED TO SERIES
ABC has ordered an untitled drama series from Ryan Murphy that will star Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek and Fatal Attraction). Exact plot details are being kept under wraps, but it is rumored the series is to be a medical procedural, slated to premiere during the 2024-2025 TV season. (Variety)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
NBC is eyeing a return to the medical drama New Amsterdam with a sequel that would center on Max’s adult daughter Luna Goodwin, who was featured in the series finale. Tentatively titled New Amsterdam: Tomorrow, the potential offshoot would be set 30 years in the future and would explore the role of artificial intelligence in advancing medicine as Luna steps into her father’s role as Medical Director of New Amsterdam Hospital. It is unclear if Molly Griggs, who played Luna in that series finale episode, would reprise her role if the sequel series moves forward, though. (Deadline and TV Line)
BOX OFFICE CASTING NEWS
Maisy Stella (the younger of the Stella sisters who appeared as Connie Britton’s daughters in the ABC musical drama Nashville and made heads turn in this year’s Sundance hit My Old Ass, yep that’s the movie title!) and Christian Covery (who stars in the Netflix series Sweet Tooth) will star in a mysterious new project alongside Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor. Plot details are being kept under wraps though. (Variety)
Brian Cox (Succession) will provide the voice for Santa Claus in the upcoming Netflix festive animated feature film That Christmas, starring alongside Fiona Shaw (the Harry Potter franchise), Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who) and Bill Nighy (Love Actually). (Variety)
Ilfenesh Hadera (Godfather of Harlem) will star opposite Denzel Washington in the crime thriller flick High and Low, an English-language reinterpretation of the Akira Kurosawa 1963 crime thriller, which is loosely based on the 1959 novel King’s Ransom by Evan Hunter. (Deadline)
Looks like the cult favorite film The Boondock Saints will be back for more in what is being called a universe expansion of the action film franchise about the fraternal twin Irish brothers who raise holy hell to rid their Boston hometown of all criminals. Original stars Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery will be back as the MacManus brothers, with Billy Connolly playing their father. (Deadline)
Elizabeth Olsen (the Marvel franchise), Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick) and Callum Turner (Masters of the Air) will star in a new rom-com. Plot details are being closely guarded, though. (Digital Spy and Deadline)
That’s it. Enjoy!
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