Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:

CANCELLATION NEWS

The horror-comedy series Hysteria! has been canceled by Peacock after only one season. (TV Line)

SEQUEL NEWS

It looks like a sequel series to Buffy the Vampire Slayer just might be getting a pilot order at Hulu; and what’s more series lead Sarah Michelle Gellar is in final talks to reprise her role as Buffy Summers. (TV Line)

TV CASTING NEWS

The For All Mankind spin-off series Star City has added Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill and House of the Dragon) and Anna Maxwell Martin (Philomena and Good Omens) to its cast. The spin-off is being described as a propulsive, paranoid thriller that takes us back to the key moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race – when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon. But this time, we explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain, showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers, and the intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space program, and the risks they all took to propel humanity forward. Ifans will play the Chief Designer, the driving force behind the Soviet Space program while Martin will play Lyudmilla, the head of the KGB surveillance department at Star City. (Deadline and Variety)

Justified star Timothy Olyphant has joined the cast of the upcoming Apple TV+ limited series Lucky that will star Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit) and Annette Bening. Based on the book by Marissa Stapley, the series will follow a young woman who left behind the life of crime she was raised in years ago, but must now embrace her darker, criminal side one final time in a desperate attempt to escape her past. Olyphant will play John, Lucky’s father. (Variety)

Mark Strong (Shazam! and Kingsman: The Secret Service) has joined the cast of the upcoming Apple TV+ series adaptation of Neuromancer based on the novel by William Gibson that follows a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case (Callum Turner from Master of the Air) who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.” Strong will play a character named Armitage. (Variety)

Constance Zimmer (Entourage and UnREAL) has joined the 4th season of the Netflix legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer. The new season will see Mickey Haller (series lead Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) defending himself as he goes on trial for murder. He will face off with the prosecutor on the case, Dana Berg (Zimmer) who has ties to Mickey’s first ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell). (Deadline)

Omari Hardwick (Power) and Dana Gourrier (Evil and The Hateful Eight) will star in the upcoming Amazon Prime scripted series about the life of Muhammad Ali. Hardwick will play Ali’s father, Cassius “Cash” Clay Sr., while Gourrier will Ali’s mother, Odessa “Bird” Clay. (Variety)

BOX OFFICE MOVIE NEWS

James Norton (Joy and Grantchester), Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon) and Pip Torrens (The Crown) have joined previously announced cast members Cosmo Jarvis (Shogun), Rosamund Pike, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Benedict Cumberbatch in the upcoming Guy Richie box office movie Wife & Dog that will look into the colorful and backstabbing world of the British upper classes. (Variety)

Charlize Theron, Eric Bana and Taron Egerton will star in the new movie called Apex, which will be about a grieving woman who seeks solace in the Australian wilderness, only to find herself ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a serial killer. (Tudum by Netflix)

Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), James Norton (Joy and Grantchester), Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones and The Last of Us) will star in the upcoming movie Sunny Dancer, a deeply personal, coming-of-age, comedy romance that follows Ivy (Ramsey), a young girl who is less than thrilled when forced to attend a summer camp for young people affected by cancer. (Variety)

Owen Wilson (Loki) and Alan Ritchson (Reacher) will star in the upcoming action-drama Runner, which follows Hank Malone (Ritchson), a high-end courier who has three hours to transport an organ to save a seven-year-old girl in need of an immediate transplant. The seemingly simple mission turns deadly when the leader of a notorious crime syndicate becomes hell-bent on claiming the organ. Wilson will play Ben, the medical courier that Ritchson is begrudgingly forced to transport and protect. (Deadline)

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and Lucas Hedges (Manchester By the Sea) will star in the Vietnam War thriller Trust the Man that follows an ambitious Army Intelligence officer during the Vietnam War assigned to investigate a decorated soldier with a mysterious past. As surveillance and interrogation deepen, the line between loyalty and obsession blurs, leading both men into a dangerous and uncontrollable connection. (Deadline)

Madelyn Cline (Netflix’s Outer Banks) will star alongside Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz in the upcoming action thriller Day Drinker, which follows a cruise ship bartender who meets a mysterious day drinker — only for both of them to find themselves entangled in a criminal underbelly. (Variety and Deadline)

Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect franchise) will star alongside 24 alum Kiefer Sutherland in the Christmas comedy Tinsel Town. Sutherland will play Bradley Mack, a Hollywood action star with a bloated ego who is blindsided when his iconic action franchise is abruptly canceled. With his career in freefall and worried his Hollywood days are behind him, he heads to England, hoping to rebuild his image as a serious actor on the West End. But his long-suffering agent has other plans, sending Bradley instead to a small, snow-dusted village to star in the town’s eccentric production of ‘Cinderella.’ As he fumbles through rehearsals with a colorful cast of oddball locals, Bradley begins to discover a spark of new beginnings in the form of no-nonsense choreographer Jill (Wilson). (Variety)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

The holiday movie My Secret Santa will be part of Netflix’s 2025 Christmas line-up, and the cast will include Virgin River star Alexandra Breckenridge, New Amsterdam and Cross star Ryan Eggold and newcomer Madison MacIsaac as well as Tia Mowry and Diana Maria Riva. The movie will follow a vivacious single mom who, in need of a job, disguises herself as a man in order to get hired as the seasonal Santa at a luxury ski resort. When she starts to fall in love with the hotel manager, complications sure do ensue. (What’s on Netflix)

Hallmark and Great American Family alum Jen Lilley will star alongside Kathleen Quinlan (Apollo 13) and Michelle Hurd (The Glades and Star Trek: Picard) in the Christmas movie Holiday Hearts that will follow Silver Morgenstern (Lilley), a heart surgeon who returns to her hometown and meets a man with terminal illness at a local hospital. Quinlan will play Silver’s tough mother while Hurd will play a veteran surgeon who goes toe-to-toe with Silver at work. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!