Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:

RENEWAL

The Hallmark Channel has given a third season renewal to Mistletoe Murders. (Hallmark Ever After)

TV CASTING NEWS

Mckenna Grace (Captain Marvel and Ghostbusters reboot franchise) will star in the upcoming live-action Scooby-Doo series at Netflix. The 8-episode TV series as yet untitled series will be an origin story about how the Mystery Inc. group got together and first teamed up to crack the haunting case that started it all. During their final summer at camp, old friends Shaggy and Daphne (Grace) get embroiled in a haunting mystery surrounding a lonely lost Great Dane puppy that may have been a witness to a supernatural murder. Together with the pragmatic and scientific townie, Velma, and the strange, but ever so handsome new kid, Freddy, they set out to solve the case that is pulling each of them into a creepy nightmare that threatens to expose all of their secrets. (Deadline)

Emilia Jones (Task and CODA) and Alessandro Nivola (Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale) have joined the cast of the upcoming Netflix sports drama series The 99’ers that will focus on the 1999 World Cup US soccer champs. Jones will play Julie Foudy, a prominent member of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team for 17 years, who played midfielder and ultimately elevated to co-captain, and then captain of the team. Nivola will play Tony DiCicco, who was the team’s head coach from 1994-1999, leading them to become world champions in 1999, with 103 wins overall. They join Zoey Deutsch and Emily Bader, who will play Marla Messing, the trailblazing soccer executive who oversaw the massively successful 1999 World Cup tournament, star forward and striker Mia Hamm respectively. (Deadline)

Original cast member David Chokachi will reprise his role of Cody Madison in the planned reboot of Baywatch over on FOX that will find Arrow star Stephen Amell playing the adult version of Hobie Buchanon, the son of legendary lifeguard Mitch Buchanon from the original show. (Variety)

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD alum Ming-Na Wen and Flashdance star Jennifer Beals will be seen in season three of Percy Jackson and the Olympians with Wen playing Hera, the queen of Olympus and wife to Zeus. She is the goddess of marriage and family, so the infidelity of Zeus (Courtney B. Vance) rankles her. Regal, maternal and no-nonsense, Hera is the only god besides Zeus who has children who are also members on the Olympian council, which gives her leverage in the family politics. Meanwhile, Beals will play Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, the harvest and the cycle of life and death. A respected sister of Zeus, Demeter remembers the war against the Titans very well and will do what she must to prevent the return of her father Kronos. (Variety)

BOX OFFICE MOVIE NEWS

Walton Goggins (The White Lotus and Fallout) will star alongside Chloe Grace Moretz (Oh. What. Fun. and Kick Ass) in the action-comedy feature film Mister that will follow a man (Goggins) who wakes up in a strange house covered in blood and comes to realize his true identity while fighting off contract killers from his past, including everyone from his exes to his best friend. To get out, he teams up with his estranged daughter (Moretz) who also has ended up in the family business, but they will need to repair their relationship in order to survive. (Deadline)

Leo Woodall (One Day and Prime Target) will co-star with Sydney Sweeney in Custom of the Country, a movie adaptation of the Edith Wharton classic novel. Sweeney will play Undine Spragg, a fiercely ambitious woman from the Midwest, who strives for the social heights of turn of the century New York. Armed with beauty, daring/hustle and sheer force of will/unwavering ambition, Undine battles an entrenched elite, fearlessly courting controversy, until love and fortune align. (Deadline)

Bridgerton alum Phoebe Dynevor will have the lead role in Beach Read, the movie adaptation of the best-selling novel by Emily Henry that follows January Andrews, a successful romance novelist who struggles with grief and writer’s block after her father’s death and the discovery of secrets, he’s long kept hidden. While spending the summer in his Michigan beach house to prepare it for sale, she unexpectedly reconnects with Gus Everett, an author who was once her rival in college. Both creatively stuck, they agree to a writing challenge over the summer, swapping literary genres while promising that there will be no romance between them. Of course, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. (Deadline)

PILOT NEWS

Orange Is the New Black alum Taylor Schilling will star in the NBC crime drama procedural pilot What The Dead Know that will center on highly intelligent, hyper-vigilant death investigator Ava Ledger (Schilling) who is really good with dead bodies. It’s the living that gives her trouble. The series follows Ava as she teams with the NYPD to solve their toughest cases. Also, Peter Krause (9-1-1) will star in the drama pilot Protection, playing Mike Thornhill, a former Secret Service agent who’s now an assistant director of intelligence and Bones alum Emily Deschanel will play the lead in an untitled drama about a criminal profiler. (Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter)

That’s it. Enjoy!