Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATION

FOX has given a second season renewal to the medical drama Doc. (TV Line)

Netflix has pulled the plug on the Australian based series Territory after only one season. (Tom’s Guide.com)

AMC has given a 4th season renewal to Dark Winds. (TV Line)

TV CASTING NEWS

Malcolm-Jamal Warner (The Resident) and Megalyn Echikunwoke (Almost Family) will recur in the upcoming 3rd season of the FOX drama Alert: Missing Persons Unit. Warner will play Chief Inspector Bill Houston, who steps into an interim role with oversight of the MPU. A former Army Captain, Houston believes in structure and rules and, in the past, had issues with Jason’s cowboy tactics. He begins to come around to the idea that some rules need to be broken once he sees the results the team gets with their unorthodox approach. He will become the father figure MPU didn’t know they needed. Echikunwoke will play Lt. Gabrielle Bennett, who started her career in Philly PD as Jason’s trainee. His departure under clouded circumstances was followed by her fast rise. Not a coincidence. Bennett is tough, ambitious, and has a cutting sense of humor. She supports getting things done by any means necessary, just so long as nothing comes back to bite her. (Deadline)

Patrick Wilson will join Amy Adams and Javier Bardem in the upcoming Apple TV+ Cape Fear adaptation that will follow a happily married couple whose lives are turned upside down when a notorious killer from their past gets out of prison. Adams will play the wife, Anna, while Bardem will play the killer. Wilson’s role has yet to be officially disclosed. (Variety)

Director and Emmy winner Lena Waithe will make a rare acting appearance in the ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, playing Dr. Evynn Moore, a brilliant and savvy former student of Catherine Fox’s (Debbie Allen) who visits Grey Sloan to help her on a unique case which happens to be for her wife (Andrea Bordeaux. She will appear in two episodes. (Deadline)

The Reacher spin-off series Neagley, which will center on Frances Neagley (Maria Sten), has added some series regulars including Greyston Holt (Riverdale) as Detective Hudson Riley, Matthew Del Negro (Mayor of Kingstown) as Pierce Woodrow and Damon Herriman (Justified) as Lawrence Cole. The series will focus on Frances Neagley, a private investigator in Chicago. When she learns that a beloved friend from her past has been killed in a suspicious accident, she becomes hell-bent on justice. Using everything she’s learned from Jack Reacher and her time as a member of the 110 Special Investigators, Neagley puts herself on a dangerous path to uncover a menacing evil. (Variety)

There will be a Supernatural reunion on The Boys when series regulars Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins will both appear in the superhero dramas’s upcoming 5th season. What roles they will play, though, are being kept under wraps. (TV Line)

Box office actress Sharon Stone will appear in the upcoming third season of Euphoria, but details about her role have yet to be announced. (Variety)

Actors Jamie Campbell Bower and Eddie Marsan have joined the cast of the upcoming third season of the Amazon Prime fantasy series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but details on their characters have not be announced yet. (Variety)

Peacock has announced that even more guest stars have been added to the upcoming 2nd season of Poker Face. Those latest additions are David Alan Grier, Lauren Tom, Lili Taylor, Natasha Leggero and Richard Kind, but details on their roles are being kept under wraps. (Variety)

BOX OFFICE CASTING NEWS

Zendaya has joined the cast of the upcoming animated movie Shrek 5 in which she will provide the voice for Felicia, the daughter of Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) and Fiona (voice by Cameron Diaz). (Variety)

Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler will star in the upcoming box office movie Deep Cuts, which will be based on the recently released debut novel by Holly Brickley. The film centers on a love story between two music-obsessed twenty-somethings as they navigate the messy realities of ambition, belonging, and adulthood in the 2000s. (Indie Wire)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

Looks like Adele Lim has been set as showrunner and executive producer of a series adaptation of 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians, which is based on the Kevin Kwan book of the same name. Lim co-wrote the film. It is not yet known whether the series will feature returning cast members from the film, though. (Variety)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

Disney has given a greenlight to the 5th Descendants movie in the franchise with Kylie Cantrall and Malia Baker set to reprise their roles of Princess Red and Princess Chloe respectively. Leonardo Nam will return as Maddox Hatter as well. The 5th film will pick up shortly after the events of the 2024 film Descendants: The Rise of Red, exploring what happily ever after is really like for Red and Chloe following their return from their time-traveling adventures and delves into the warning at the end of The Rise of Red. (Deadline)

NEW SERIES CASTING

Scott Foley will star as a modern-day minister named Malcolm in the new Amazon Prime series It’s Not Like That, which has been given a cast contingent series order. The series will be about Lori who is freshly divorced with two teens. Malcolm is a minister and a recently widowed dad of three. Their families once did everything together, but now Lori and Malcolm must navigate their newly minted singledom, parenthood and the complexities of Malcolm being a modern-day minister. Is this the beginning of a love story? It’s not like that. Or is it? (Variety)

Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany will star in the new comedic thriller series Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed at Apple TV+, which will follow a newly divorced mom who falls down a dangerous rabbit hole of blackmail, murder and youth soccer. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!