Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:

CANCELLATIONS

Apple TV has pulled the plug on the drama The Last Frontier after one season. (Variety)

Paramount+ has pulled the plug on NCIS: Tony & Ziva after only one season. (Variety)

TV CASTING NEWS

Heels and Vikings star Alexander Ludwig and AJ Michalka, from The Goldbergs, have joined the cast of season four of The White Lotus that will take place in France, but plot details as well as who Ludwig and Michalka will play are being kept under wraps. (Variety)

Harry Potter and The White Lotus alum Jason Isaacs has joined the cast of the upcoming live-action Amazon MGM series Tomb Raider that will star Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) in the lead role of Lara Croft. There are no details on what character Isaacs will play, though. (Deadline)

The second season of The Pitt will find Travis Van Winkle (Fubar and The Last Ship), Meta Golding (Ransom Canyon and Rabbit Hole) joining the cast. They will play Curtis Larson, an aggressive patient of the ER and Noelle Hastings, a nurse, respectively. (Deadline)

Power franchise star Naturi Naughton-Lewis is coming back to Starz in the new 6-part drama The Nowhere Man will focus on Lukas (Bonko Khoza from The Woman King), a former Special Forces mercenary crippled by PTSD, who has turned his back on his violent past and is operating as a junk collector on the streets of Johannesburg. But when he witnesses a home invasion and intervenes, he is dragged back into the world he’s spent years trying to escape. To survive, he will have to come face-to-face with his demons and confront the dark secrets of his old life. (Deadline)

SERIES PICK-UP NEWS

Apple TV has picked up the dramedy Beat the Reaper to series. The show will star Guardians of the Galaxy alum Will Poulter as Dr. Peter Brown, an intern at Boston’s worst hospital, with a talent for medicine, a shift from hell, and a past he’d prefer to keep hidden. But when a patient recognizes him from his dangerous past, Brown has eight hours to elude the government, mob hitmen, quack surgeons, and a trail of dead gangers to somehow beat the reaper. (Variety)

A new prequel series to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is in the works at Apple TV. The new spinoff series will follow the story of Colonel Lee Shaw, an American operative who in 1984 went on a secret mission behind enemy lines in an attempt to stop the Soviets from unleashing a horrific new Titan big enough to destroy the U.S. and turn the tide of the Cold War. (Deadline)

FX has a new drama that has been ordered to series Seven Sisters, starring Marvel’s alum Elizabeth Olsen, The Penguin alum Cristin Milioti and Succession alum J. Smith-Cameron, will follow a large, tight-knit family that begins to unravel when one sister, Adrienne (Olsen), starts communicating with a voice no one else can hear, forcing them to confront long-buried secrets. The cast also includes New Amsterdam lead Ryan Eggold and ER alum Anthony Edwards. (Deadline)

Amazon has given a series order to a small screen adaptation of the Wendy Wunder novel The Probability of Miracles that will follow Campbell Cooper, an acerbic teenager dying of cancer who, after receiving a terminal diagnosis, moves with her mom and younger sister to the town of Promise, where miracles are said to happen. Cam, however, doesn’t believe in miracles. How could she when science says she’s definitely going to die? But as she spends her summer in this quirky, mystical town, she discovers that miracles — and falling in love — are still possible, no matter how improbable they may seem. (Deadline)

MGM+ has given a greenlight to a small screen adaptation of the box office movie The Magnificent Seven. Set in the 1880s American frontier, the series will follow a group of mercenaries who are hired to protect a peaceful Quaker village after it is massacred by a land baron’s hired guns. As the flawed but gifted mercenaries embed with the Quakers, they must grapple with the question of whether it is acceptable to use violence to defend a people whose faith is based on nonviolence. The series will explore each member of the Seven, exploring what’s at stake and why they chose to take on this mission. (Variety)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Johnny Depp will star in the box office movie Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol in the lead role with Harry Potter alum Rupert Grint, Star Wars alum Daisy Ridley and The Hunger Games alum Sam Claflin joining the cast. Grint will play Bob Cratchit, Scrooge’s selfless employee, but it is unknown who the others will be playing. (Deadline)

STREAMING MOVIE NEWS

Matthew McConaughey and Zoe Saldana are in talks to star in the upcoming Netflix film Positano, but plot details are being kept under wraps. However, the movie is being described as a romantic caper set in the Italian town the film is named after. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!