Hey All,
Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:
RENEWAL
Apple TV+ has given a second season renewal to Presumed Innocent, but it is unclear who from season one, including Jake Gyllenhaal, will return for the sophomore season. (TV Line)
REBRANDING NEWS
Hallmark Movies Now will be relaunched as Hallmark+. (TCA Press Tour)
TV CASTING NEWS
Halle Berry and Glenn Close will star in the upcoming Hulu legal drama from Ryan Murphy called All’s Fair, which will focus on an all-female law firm in Los Angeles. Specific character details are being kept under wraps, though. (Variety)
Starz has added cast members to its sequel series Spartacus: House of Asher, which will be led by franchise star Nick Tarabay, who is back as Ashur. The 10-episode series will pose the questions: What if Ashur hadn’t died on Mount Vesuvius at the end of Spartacus: Vengeance? And what if he had been gifted the gladiator school once owned by Batiatus in return for aiding the Romans in killing Spartacus and putting an end to the slave rebellion? Among the new cast members are Graham McTavish (Outlander and The Witcher) who will play Korris, a former gladiator who won his freedom in the arena and is now Ashur’s Doctore, training the gladiators in Ashur’s Ludus; Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shannara Chronicles), who will play Messia, a house slave; and Claudia Black (Farscape and The Nevers), who will play Cossutia, a politician determined to keep Ashur in his place and is constantly plotting his downfall. (Deadline)
Lamorne Morris (New Girl and the commercial spokesperson for BMO) will star alongside Nicolas Cage in the upcoming live-action Amazon series called Spider-Man Noir, which debut on MGM+. The series will tell the story of an aging and down on his luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city’s one and only superhero. Morris will appear as Robbie Robertson, who is driven, hard-working and won’t take no for an answer. A dedicated journalist trying to make it with the odds stacked against him as a black professional in 1930s New York. He takes on riskier stories that no one else would touch in order to catch attention and a paycheck. He is willing to do whatever is necessary for his career. Also, Brendan Gleeson has also joined the cast in a role that is being kept under wraps, however, it’s being reported that he will play the show’s villain. (Variety)
Mireille Enos will be reunited with her former co-star from The Killing, Joel Kinnaman, in the upcoming 5th season of the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind. She will have a series regular role as Celia Boyd, a member of the Peacekeeper Security Force on Mars. (Variety)
Emilia Clarke and Luke Evans will join Charlie Hunnam, Richard Jenkins, Adria Arjona and Kadeem Hardison [among others] in the upcoming Amazon Prime series Criminal, which is an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name. Clarke will appear as Mallory, a slick and daring armed robber, as quick with a gun as she is with her wits; while Evans will play Tracy Lawless, who was pushed out of the outlaw life of his family at the age of 18 when a judge gave him a choice of prison or the military. In the Army, Tracy thrived, his wild outlaw instincts getting funneled into the strict discipline of the military. He was placed into the Special Forces and trained to be an expert in covert operations and guerilla warfare. But underneath it all, the Lawless blood still pumps in his heart. The series will include an interlocking universe of crime stories. (Variety)
Renee Zellweger will have the lead role in the currently-in-development series at Max currently titled Jane Smith, which is based on the novel “12 Months to Live” from James Patterson and Mike Lupica, which centers on a brilliant, tough and darkly funny defense attorney in the Hamptons. Up to this point, Jane has only cared about winning; however, her world is completely turned upside down when, on the eve of the biggest case of her career, she is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. While the investigation becomes more dangerous and deeply personal, Jane refuses to let her death sentence stop her from solving this case. (Variety)
Amazon Prime has given a greenlight to the first-ever authorized scripted series about the life of Muhammad Ali. Relative newcomer Jaalen Best will star as Ali. (Variety)
Hallmark+ (formerly Hallmark Movies Now) will present its first-ever holiday series called Holidazed that boost a large ensemble cast, which includes Ser’Darius Blain (The CW’s Charmed and the Jumaji remake movies), Lindy Booth (The Librarians), Erin Cahill (Red Widow), Osric Chau (Supernatural), Nazneen Contractor (24), Loretta Devine (Grey’s Anatomy), Noemi Gonzalez (East Los High), Ian Harding (Pretty Little Liars), Dennis Haysbert (24), Rachelle Lefevre (Under the Dome), Virginia Madsen (Witches of East End), John C. McGinley (Scrubs), Holland Roden (Teen Wolf) and Lucille Soong (Fresh Off the Boat). The limited series will showcase six diverse families, each with distinct backgrounds, cultures, and generations, residing on the same cul-de-sac. As they navigate the joyous chaos of the holiday season, they embrace a family dynamic unique to them. Amid heightened emotions, these families and neighbors engage in both humorous and heartfelt celebrations of their traditions and quirks. Throughout the festivities, they uncover the universal thread binding them all: the various manifestations of love. (TV Line)
Edward Bluemel (My Lady Jane and Belgravia: The Next Chapter) has joined the cast of the upcoming Agatha Christie series The Seven Dials Mystery, which will feature breakout star Mia McKenna-Bruce in the lead role. The series will follow a lavish country house party where a practical joke appears to have gone murderously wrong. It’s down to the fizzingly inquisitive Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent (McKenna-Bruce) to unravel a chilling plot that will change her life, cracking wide open the country house mystery. Bluemel will play Jimmy Thesiger, a charming and witty man who becomes Bundle’s ally in the murder investigation. The cast also includes Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman. (Variety)
Courtney Taylor (Abbott Elementary) has joined the currently untitled Bosch spin-off, which will star Maggie Q as Detective Renee Ballard, who is tasked with running the LAPD’s new cold case division — a poorly funded, all-volunteer unit with the largest case load in the city. Taylor will play Samira Parker, a wary ex-cop who returns to the force five years later at her former mentor Ballard’s behest. There, she’ll work to right past wrongs and restore her sense of justice. (Deadline and TV Line)
The prequel series NCIS: Origins has added Lori Petty and Bobby Moynihan to its ranks. Petty will play an assistant medical examiner while Moynihan will take over as a lead forensic analyst. (Deadline)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Looks like a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada is in the works with Meryl Streep returning as Miranda Priestly, the high-powered fashion magazine editor from hell. It is unclear, at this time, if any other original cast members will be back as well, though. The sequel will reportedly follow Priestly as she navigates her career amid the decline of traditional magazine publishing and faces off against Emily Blunt’s character, who is now a high-powered executive for a luxury group with advertising dollars that Priestly desperately needs. (Variety)
Bridgerton beauty Simone Ashley has joined the cast of F1, the Formula 1 racing movie that will star Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, a former Formula 1 driver who returns to the sport and partners with and mentors rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) on APXGP, a fictional 11th team on the grid. The details of Ashley’s role are being kept under wraps, though. (Variety)
The upcoming animated feature Watchmen Chapter I will feature the voices of Matthew Rhys, Katee Sackhoff and Titus Welliver [among others]. The two-part film will be set in an alternative world in which costume vigilantes are real with Rhys as Dan Dreiberg (aka Nite Owl), Sackhoff as Laurie Juspeczyk (aka Silk Spectre), Welliver as Walter Kovacs (aka Rorschach). (Variety)
Regina King will star opposite Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz in the upcoming crime thriller Caught Stealing, that will follow Hank Thompson (Butler), a burned-out former baseball player, as he’s unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of ’90s NYC. What role King will play is being kept under wraps, though. (Deadline)
STREAMING MOVIES NEWS
Speaking of Simone Ashley, she will also appear in the upcoming Amazon Prime rom-com Picture This that will focus on single, and without a man on the horizon, Pia (Simone Ashley) who runs a failing photography studio in London with her best friend Jay (Luke Fetherston). As her sister Sonal (Anoushka Chadha) prepares to get married and her mother Laxmi (Sindhu Vee) urges the resolutely independent Pia to partner up, a spiritual guru at Sonal’s engagement party predicts Pia will meet the love of her life among the next five dates she goes on. As her family intervenes, setting her up on a series of increasingly desperate blind dates, Pia begins a hilarious but heartfelt quest for real love. (Glamour Magazine)
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sam Worthington and Gugu Mbatha-Raw have joined the cast of the David Mackenzie-directed flick Fuze, which will be a ticking thriller that ignites when a long-buried WWII bomb is found in central London, sparking a citywide evacuation, while a group of men exploit the chaos to their own ends. (Variety)
The Amblin and Netflix movie The Thursday Murder Club already boosts a cast including Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren, David Tennant and Jonathan Pryce [among others], but now Richard E. Grant and Tom Ellis have also joined the ranks of this movie that will a group of friends in a retirement home who gather to solve murders for fun but find themselves caught in a real case. (Deadline)
Jennifer Lawrence will star in the upcoming dark comedy Why Don’t You Love Me, which follows a miserable couple, Claire and Mark, struggling through their marriage while feeling like something is not quite right in their reality. (Variety)
MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS
Great American Family is planning their first holiday ensemble movie, which will be a modern-day retelling of Little Women. A Little Women’s Christmas will star Jillian Murray as Jo March, Trevor Donovan as Friedrich “Fritz” Baehr, Laura Osnes as Beth March, Jen Lilley as Meg March, Jesse Hutch as John Brooke and Julia Reilly as Amy March. Gladys Knight wil also star and perform her new original Christmas song, “Joy.” (Variety)
Also on Great American Family, Candace Cameron Bure and Cameron Mathison will star in the upcoming holiday movie Jingle Bells, Wedding Bells. The movie will follow Gracie (Bure) who is Peachtree Inn’s perfect wedding planner whose mantra “No problems, only solutions waiting to be discovered” makes blushing brides’ dreams come true. When Charlie (Mathison) brings his sister and future brother-in-law to their former hometown of Butler, South Carolina, expecting to create a magical Christmas Eve wedding at the Inn, the trio is stunned when Gracie stubbornly declines the job, saying it is not possible to pull off the perfect wedding two weeks before Christmas. Eventually, Gracie relents and agrees to plan the wedding, only to discover there are more hurdles to overcome than expected. (Deadline)
Speaking of Hallmark+ (see above), the new movie franchise The Groomsmen will star Tyler Hynes, Jonathan Bennett and B.J. Britt in three connected movies: First Look, Second Chances and Last Dance. The three films will follow the lives and romances of three longtime best friends who stand up for each other at their weddings. Bennett will play Danny, a baseball coach with a heart of gold; while Britt will play Pete, a kind-hearted pediatrician with a penchant for planning and Hynes will play Jackson, a stylish and charming social media agent. (Heavy)
That’s it. Enjoy!
Rueben's Ramblings 