Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the entertainment news items from this past week:

RENEWAL

SAS Rogue Heroes has been renewed for a third season by MGM+. (Deadline)

TV CASTING NEWS

Harry Potter alum Warwick Davis will return as Charms Professor Filius Flitwick in the small screen TV adaptation of the box office films and novels on which they are based. (Variety)

30 Rock alum Jane Krakwoski will guest star in the upcoming 2nd season of Brillian Minds on NBC, appearing as Arianna Burnett, a high-powered businesswoman who fights her conservatorship despite her family’s growing concerns. (Variety)

Amazon Prime is working on a small screen live-action series of Tomb Raider with Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner taking over the lead role of Lara Croft. (Variety)

Veteran actor Ed Harris has joined the cast of The Dutton Ranch, the working title for the Yellowstone spin-off that will focus on Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler (Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser). The series will focus on the couple and their new home – The Dutton Ranch. Harris will play Everett McKinney, a weathered veteran and veterinarian who treats animals with compassion and understanding and possesses a good sense of humor. (Deadline)

Veteran actor Kurt Russell has joined the cast of the other Yellowstone spin-off The Madison that will star Michelle Pfeiffer. This spin-off is a heartfelt exploration of grief and human connection, following a New York City family in the Madison River Valley of central Montana. The role Russell will play is being kept under wraps, but he joins a cast that includes Patrick J. Adams (Suits), Matthew Fox (Lost), Beau Garrett (Firefly Lane) and Kevin Zegers (The Rookie: Feds). (Deadline)

Chicago Med alum Nick Gehlfuss and actress Michael Michele (the Dynasty reboot and ER) have joined the cast of the upcoming FBI spin-off CIA that will center on two unlikely partners – a fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer (Lucifer’s Tom Ellis), and a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent (Gehlfuss) who believes in the rule of law. When this odd couple are assigned to work out of CIA’s New York Station, they must learn to work together to investigate cases and criminals posing threats on U.S. soil, finding that their differences may actually be their strength. Michele is believed to be playing the series’ third lead, the head of CIA’s New York Station. (Deadline)

Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy and Poker Face), Ted Levine (Monk) and Margarita Levieva (Daredevil: Born Again and Revenge) have all landed major recurring roles in the upcoming Apple TV+ small screen adaptation of Cape Fear. The drama series is a tense, Hitchcockian thriller, examining America’s obsession with true crime in the 21st century. In it, a storm is coming for happily married attorneys Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom Bowden (Patrick Wilson) when Max Cady (Javier Bardem), a notorious killer from their past, gets out of prison. What roles Perlman, Levine and Levieva are being kept under wraps. (Deadline)

Aidan Turner (Being Human and Poldark) will play a key recurring guest star role in the upcoming third season of The Diplomat, but details about his character are being kept under wraps. (Deadline)

Netflix is developing a limited series TV adaptation of The Age of Innocence based on the classic novel by Edith Wharton. The cast of this adaptation will include Camila Morrone (Daisy Jones & the Six), Kristine Froseth (The Buccaneers), Ben Radcliffe (Masters of the Air) and the one and only Margo Martindale (Justified and The Sticky). The main theme of this classic story is about forbidden love in 19th-century New York. Morrone will play Ellen Olenska, the intelligent and independent cousin of May Welland, who returns to New York after a failed marriage to Count Stanislas Olenski, a Polish nobleman. A free spirit who is playful, intelligent, and strong-willed, yet carries conflict and guilt surrounding her new position in society. Froseth will play the aforementioned May Welland, a kind and genuine woman who is a product of her social class. Traditional, a rule follower and believer in the status quo, but not without rebellion. Radcliffe will play Newland Archer, a handsome, progressive, and intelligent society gentleman who craves a deeper and more passionate connection to the world and someone in it. And, Martindale will play Mrs. Manson-Mingott May and Ellen’s grandmother, who is entertaining, scurrilous, defiant, capricious, and stubborn. (Deadline)

Annabeth Gish (Mayfair Witches) will have a multi-episode guest starring role in the upcoming 14th season of Chicago Fire playing the mayor’s chief of staff, Annette Davis. (TV Insider)

Season 3 of Elsbeth on CBS will see William Jackson Harper (The Good Place) and Annaleigh Ashford (Happy Face) in guest starring roles. Harper will play the founding director of a New York City poetry journal, desperate for funding while Ashford will appear in a special Halloween-themed episode playing Sharon Norman, a murderous suburban housewife. (Deadline)

STREAMING MOVIE NEWS

Charles Melton (May December and Riverdale), Rachel Brosnahan (Superman) and Will Poulter (Guardians of the Galaxy) will star in the Netflix flick Saturn Return, a Chicago-set romance that will explore the themes of love, loss and life’s complicated turns in the 10 years between the aspirational young love of college and the complicated realities of adulthood. (Deadline)

BOX OFFICE MOVIE NEWS

Jennifer Taylor (Two and a Half Men) and Hallmark hunk Kristoffer Polaha will star in the faith-based drama flick Between the Lines that will be set in a small town near a military base, focusing on a woman in her late forties who forms an unexpected bond with a young soldier, sparking a journey that challenges her marriage and faith – and ultimately leads her and her husband toward surrender, renewal, and the redemptive power of forgiveness. The cast includes Josh Swickard (General Hospital and A California Christmas) and Mayan Lopez (Co-creator and star of NBC’s Lopez vs Lopez). (Deadline)

Djimon Hounsou has joined the cast of the upcoming box office reboot Highlander, starring Henry Cavill and Russell Crowe in the lead roles. Hounsou will play an immortal warrior from Africa. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Christian Slater (Mr. Robot) will star in the upcoming box office film Father Of Us, a bittersweet family saga based on a true story, set in 1968 suburbia, following five siblings caught between their magnetic but reckless father and their radiant but overwhelmed mother. Slater will play Bob Olson, the adored but flawed father at the heart of the story. (Deadline)

Scott Eastwood (Suicide Squad and The Fate of the Furious) will star opposite Djimon Hounsou and Halle Berry in the upcoming action-thriller flick Red Card that will follow Max Elmi (Hounsou), a veteran ranger battling poachers in Kenya who joins forces with Dane Harris (Eastwood), a tenacious special agent and part of a team led by FBI supervisor Amanda Bruckner (Berry) working with international law enforcement to fight trafficking rings abroad. When Max’s son, a talented soccer player, falls prey to a deceitful sports agent and disappears into the criminal underworld of North Africa, Max will stop at nothing to find his child, and Dane will have to decide how far he’s willing to go. According to the synopsis, their odyssey takes them from the quiet Masai villages of Kenya to the dangerous, simmering streets of Casablanca in Morocco. (Variety)

Walton Goggins (Fallout and The White Lotus) and Lewis Pullman (Lessons in Chemistry and Thunderbolts) will star alongside Jessica Biel in the upcoming box office movie Batso that will tell the true story of a trio of trailblazing climbers, who in the early 1970s took on the most difficult route up iconic peak El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Goggins will play Harding while Pullman will play Caldwell and Biel will play Beryl Knauth, a key pillar in the Yosemite climbing community. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy