Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

HBO has renewed “Euphoria” for a second season. (Variety)

The upcoming sixth season of How to Get Away With Murder will be its last on ABC. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actresses Danielle Campbell (The Originals) and Carrie-Anne Moss (Jessica Jones) will appear in the second season of the CBS All Access anthology series Tell Me A Story. Campbell appeared in the first season of the series, playing a character inspired by Little Red Riding Hood; but this time around she’ll play Olivia, who is not inspired by Belle but has ties to the Sleeping Beauty storyline. While Moss will play Rebecca, who has ties to all three storylines (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast). The cast already includes Odette Annable, Natalie Alyn Lind and Paul Wesley. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actress Alana De La Garza will join the cast of the CBS drama FBI instead of the spin-off series FBI: Most Wanted, playing the series regular role of Assistant Special Agent in Charge Isobel Castile. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actress Katherine McNamara (Shadowhunters) has been promoted to series regular for the 8th and final season of Arrow, where she has been recurring as Mia Smoak, the daughter Olive Queen and Felicity Smoak. (TV Line)

NEW SERIES/CASTING NEWS

Actress Katherine Heigl (Suits) will star and executive producer the upcoming 10-episode Netflix drama Firefly Lane, the adaptation of the best-selling book by Kristin Hannah that centers on two inseparable best friends and tracks their enduring, complicated bond over the course of four decades. Heigl will play Tully Hart, a magnetic, ambitious, reckless and fiercely loyal force of nature. Still bearing the scars of a traumatic childhood, Tully is dogged by inner loneliness, even as she goes on to fabulous fame and fortune as a journalist and talk show host. Her saving grace is her best friend and soulmate, Kate (not yet cast), with whom she shares an unshakable bond, over the course of four tumultuous decades. (TV Line)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren is returning to the big screen for the first time in a decade, appearing in her son Edoardo Ponti’s film titled La vita davanti a sé (“The Life Ahead”). She will play Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor who forges a bond with a 12-year-old Senegalese immigrant boy named Momo. (Variety)

Actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House, Emerald City and Man in an Orange Shirt) has landed the title role in the upcoming box office film The Invisible Man that, at one point, was – during early development of the project – going to star Johnny Depp. The cast will include Elizabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale and Mad Men), Aldis Hodge (City On A Hill and Hidden Figures), Harriet Dyer (The InBetween) and Storm Reid (Euphoria and A Wrinkle in Time). (Deadline)

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE NEWS

Actor Colin O’Donoghue (Once Upon a Time) will star in the upcoming National Geographic NASA drama The Right Stuff, taking over the role [which was to be played by Game of Thrones and Deep State star Joe Dempsie] of Lt. Gordon Cooper, the youngest of the Mercury Seven. The cast of this mini-series, which is set to debut in 2020, already includes Patrick J. Adams (Suits) and Jake McDorman (Murphy Brown). (Deadline and TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

CANCELLATIONS/RENEWALS

The Canadian series Ransom has been cancelled after three seasons. (Variety)

Hallmark Channel has given Good Witch a 6th season renewal. However, regular cast member Bailee Madison will not be returning to the show for that 6th season. (Deadline)

It looks like Amazon is finalizing a 3rd season renewal for Stana Katic’s series Absentia. (Deadline)

CASTING NEWS

Actors Chris Klein (The Flash) and Justin Bruening (Good Behavior) and actress Jamie Lynn Spears (Zoey 101) have joined the cast of the upcoming Netflix series Sweet Magnolias, which is based on the popular book series by Sherryl Woods. The series is set in the charming small town of Serenity, South Carolina., centering on three women (Monica Potter, Brooke Elliott and Heather Headley), best friends since childhood. Klein will play Bill Townsend, Serenity’s leading pediatrician who struggles to navigate life in a small town after an unexpected fall from grace. Spears will portray Noreen Fitzgibbons, a young woman who came to Serenity to work as a nurse. After a sequence of bad choices, she is determined to build a new life in her new city. And, Bruening will play Cal Maddox, a former professional baseball player who arrived in Serenity looking for a fresh start. (Deadline)

Actress Kari Matchett (Covert Affairs) and actor Stephen Moyer (True Blood and The Gifted) will star in the Canadian spy drama Fortunate Son, which is set in the social and political chaos of the late 1960s. Matchett will play Ruby Howard, an American who fled to Canada as a fugitive from the law. While Moyer will play Vern Lang, a CIA agent. (Deadline)

TV MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Peter Facinelli (S.W.A.T., Supergirl) will play NXIVM leader Keith Raniere in a newly greenlit Lifetime movie about the dangerous sex cult that will premiere this fall. NXIVM Cult: A Mother’s Nightmare will center on the shocking true story of actress Catherine Oxenberg and her fight to save her daughter India from the cult. Andrea Roth (Rescue Me) will play Oxenberg, while Jasper Polish has been cast as India. Additionally, Sara Fletcher (Mom Tested) will play Allison Mack, the Smallville alum who came to be Raniere’s associate in the cult. (TV Line)

FOX drama Star co-creator Lee Daniels announced this week that the series will be getting a movie of the week to wrap “things up” on the cancelled series. (TV Line)

BOX OFFICE MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games franchise, Me Before You) has joined the cast of the upcoming box office movie Enola Holmes, which will star Stranger Things actress Millie Bobby Brown in the title role as well as Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter and Fiona Shaw. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

Blood & Treasure has been renewed by CBS for a second season. (Variety)

One Day at a time has been rescued by Pop for a 4th season after being cancelled by Netflix. (TV Line)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off the Boat star Constance Wu will star in the movie Goodbye, Vitamin – based on the 2017 debut novel from Rachel Khong, which follows Ruth Young (Wu in lead role), who discovers that her father, a renowned history professor, has lost his job after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She decides to return home and work with her father’s former student to stage a fake class so he can continue to teach. (Variety)

Former Superman Henry Cavill is set to star as Sherlock Holmes in the box office movie Enola Holmes, which will star Stranger Things youngster Millie Bobby Brown in the title role, which is based on the Nancy Springer book series that follows Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes’ much younger sister. (TV Line)

TV CASTING NEWS

Actor Matt Lauria (Kingdom and Friday Night Lights) will join Paul Wesley in season two of Tell Me a Story on CBS All Access. Also joining the cast will be actor Eka Darville (Netflix’s Jessica Jones) and actress Ashley Madekwe (Revenge). Season 2 will put fresh twists on the princess-themed tales Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Lauria will play Jackson, the black sheep of a family who is torn between his demons and the desire to be a better man. Darville will play stoic and honorable Beau, whose adherence to a moral code has recently blown up both his personal and professional life. And, Madekwe will play the Cinderella-esque Simone who, upon returning home after her father’s untimely death, is forced to come face-to-face with the life she purposefully left behind. The cast also includes Odette Annable (Supergirl) as Maddie, the piece-keeping, overachieving middle child in a broken family; and Natalie Alyn Lind (The Gifted) as Ashley, a rising country music star who survives a brutal attack, then confines herself to her home. Tell Me a Story Season 2 is slated to bow later this year on CBS All Access. (TV Line)

Actor Henry Ian Cusick (Lost and The 100) has joined the cast of MacGyver for the show’s 4th season, playing the series regular role of Russ, a handsome and quick-witted ex-military man described as a master manipulator and salesman, who is skilled in propaganda and lie detection, and boasts an extremely high emotional intelligence. (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

The Paramount Network has given Yellowstone a third season renewal. (Variety)

FX has renewed Pose for a third season. (Variety)

The Danish Netflix original drama The Rain has been renewed for a third and final season). (Variety)

NEW SERIES NEWS

Netflix has walked away with the rights to Tick, Tick…Boom, a musical adaptation to be directed by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. The series is set in 1990, telling the story of Jon, an aspiring theater composer who is waiting tables in New York City while writing Superbia, which he hopes will be the next great American musical and finally give him his big break. Jon is also feeling pressure from his girlfriend Susan, who is tired of continuing to put her life on hold for Jon’s career aspirations. Meanwhile, his best friend and roommate Michael, has given up on his creative aspirations for a high paying advertising job on Madison Avenue and is about to move out. As Jon approaches his 30th birthday, he is overcome with anxiety — wondering if his dream is worth the cost. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) has landed the lead role in the long-gestating Wheel of Time, based on the best-selling fantasy novels by Robert Jordan, for Amazon Studios adaptation, playing Moiraine, a member of the powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai. The series is set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only certain women are allowed to access it. The story follows Moiraine as she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, a powerful individual who will either save humanity or destroy it. (Variety)

Once Upon a Time alum Jennifer Morrison will have a major recurring role in season 4 of This Is Us. While her character is being kept under wraps, her character will have a substantial presence on the series. (TV Line)

Lost and Colony alum Josh Holloway will appear in the third season of Yellowstone, playing the major recurring role of Roarke Carter, a handsome, charming, shaggy-haired hedge fund manager with ambitious plans in Montana. (TV Line and Deadline)

Actress Elaine Hendrix (Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll) and actor Silas Weir Mitchell (Grimm) will appear opposite Josh Hartnett and Bridget Regan in the Spectrum Originals and Paramount Network series Paradise Lost, a Southern Gothic mystery series about a psychiatrist (Regan) who moves with her family from California to her husband’s (Hartnett) hometown in Mississippi only to uncover shameful secrets that irrevocably change the lives of everyone involved. Hendrix will play Devoe Shifflet while Mitchell will play Boyd. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

Netflix has renewed Russian Doll for a second season. (Variety)

L.A.’s Finest has been renewed for a second season by Spectrum. (Variety)

STRAIGHT-TO-SERIES ORDER

WarnerMedia’s new streaming service has given a straight-to-series order to the sci-fi project Dune: The Sisterhood, which will be told through the eyes of a mysterious order of women known as the Bene Gesserit. Given extraordinary abilities by their mastery of the body and the mind, the Bene Gesserit expertly weave through the feudal politics and intrigue of The Imperium, pursuing plans of their own that will ultimately lead them to the enigmatic planet Arrakis, known to its inhabitants as Dune. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Veteran actress Geena Davis will have a recurring role on season 3 of the Netflix series GLOW, playing Sandy Devereaux St. Clair, the entertainment director of Las Vegas’ Fan-Tan Hotel and Casino. (Deadline)

Spectrum Originals and Paramount Network have finalized a 10-episode series order for the Southern Gothic mystery series Paradise Lost, a complex and compelling series full of incredible characters, including the small town in Mississippi where it is set. The cast will include Josh Hartnett (Penny Dreadful, Bridget Regan (The Last Ship and Jane the Virgin), veteran actors Barbara Hershey and Nick Nolte. Regan will play a psychiatrist who moves with her family from California to her husband’s (Hartnett) hometown in Mississippi only to uncover shameful secrets that irrevocably change the lives of everyone involved. (Deadline)

The Vampire Diaries alum Paul Wesley will be returning to the CBS All Access anthology drama Tell Me a Story this time playing a new fairy tale based character named Tucker, a struggling novelist who spends his sleepless nights toiling away in a secluded cabin in the woods and his days trying to prove he’s good enough for his beautiful fiancée as a dark secret threatens to destroy his world. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor Drew Van Acker (Pretty Little Liars) has joined the cast of DC Universe’s Titans for the show’s upcoming second season, playing the role of Aqualad aka Garth (Tempest), a founding member of the Titans and Aquaman’s eager sidekick who was also born in Atlantis and is a member of the royal court who trained under Aquaman to be a protector of life in and out of the ocean. (TV Insider and Spoiler TV)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

Netflix has given Dead to Me a second season order. (Variety)

Syfy has cancelled both Deadly Class and Happy. (Variety)

Amazon has cancelled Sneaky Pete after three seasons. (Variety)

DC Universe has pulled the plug on its all-new Swamp Thing series less than a week after its debut on the streaming service. (TV Line)

Netflix has given Lucifer a renewal for its 5th and final season. (Variety)

The Red Line has been cancelled by CBS after one season. (Deadline)

STRAIGHT TO SERIES ORDER

WarnerMedia’s streaming series has given a straight-to-series order to the drama Tokyo Vice that is based on the Jake Adelstein non-fiction book of the same name that is a first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat that will star Ansel Elgort as Jake Adelstein, an American journalist who embeds himself into the Tokyo Vice police squad to reveal corruption. The series will chronicle Jake’s daily descent into the neon soaked underbelly of Tokyo, where nothing, and no one is truly what or who they seem. The series has received a 10-episode order. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Patrick J. Adams will return for the final season of the long-running legal drama Suits, reprising his role of Mike Ross at mid-season to get involved in a case that will put him toe to toe with his former mentor Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) and Samantha Wheeler (Katherine Heigl). Ross left the firm to move to Seattle with his wife, Rachel (Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex). (Variety)

Actress Elizabeth Banks will star in the upcoming FX limited series Mrs. America that tells the story of the movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and the unexpected backlash led by a conservative woman named Phyllis Schlafly (to be played by Cate Blanchett. Banks will play Jill Ruckelshaus, a pro-choice, socially progressive Republican who was appointed by President Ford to advance women’s rights and fought to keep the Republican Party from being taken over by Phyllis Schlafly and the Religious Right. (Variety)

Actor Jussie Smollett will NOT be returning to the FOX drama Empire. (TV Line)

Actress Elizabeth Hurley (The Royals) will appear in season 3 of the Hulu streaming series Marvel’s Runaways, appearing as villainess Morgan le Fay, a student of Merlin who is considered the greatest sorceress of all time. With a black crow as her familiar and the ability to 1) enchant objects, 2) manipulate mystic energy and 3) astral project, she is powerful and intelligent while also wielding a cut-throat wit. (TV Line)

Actor Ivan Sergei (Crossing Jordan and Charmed) will recur on the revival of Beverly Hills 90210 that is coming to FOX in August. He will play Nate, the husband of Tori Spelling’s character, an ex-hockey player who wants to be a professional sports announcer. (TV Line and Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

CANCELLATIONS/RENEWALS

NBC has pulled the plug on freshman dramas The Enemy Within and The Village. (Variety)

Starz has given Vida a season 3 renewal. (Variety)

Burden of Truth was given a third season renewal mere days before its second season started on Sunday night. (Deadline)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Jake Johnson (New Girl) will play one of the male leads in the new ABC fall drama Stumptown opposite Cobie Smulders and Michael Ealy. The series follows Dex Parios (Smulders), a strong, assertive and sharp-witted Army veteran with a complicated love life, gambling debt and a brother to take care of in Portland, Oregon. Her military intelligence skills make her a great PI, but her unapologetic style puts her in the firing line of hardcore criminals and not quite in alliance with the police. He will play Grey McConnell, Dex’s best friend, who owns and operates a popular bar in town, all the while hiding a questionable past that comes back to bite him. (Deadline)

Actress Carla Gugino (San Andreas) will star opposite Jack Huston and Cameron Britton in the second season of the anthology series Manhunt, which ran on the Discovery Channel for its first season, but will air on Spectrum’s new streaming service. Manhunt: Lone Wolf will chronicle one of the largest and most complex manhunts on U.S. soil, the search for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Bomber, Eric Rudolph (Huston) and the media firestorm that consumed the life of Richard Jewell (Britton) in its wake. Gugino will play Kathy Scruggs, a hard-drinking, tough-talking crime reporter for Atlanta’s biggest daily newspaper who gets the once-in-a-lifetime scoop that Richard Jewell may be the Olympic Park bomber. Breaking the biggest story in the world makes a Kathy a sensation – but her life unravels as evidence starts pointing against it being the truth. (Deadline)

Actor Patrick J. Adams (Suits) will star in the National Geographic series The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe’s best-selling nonfiction book. Adams will play Maj. John Glenn in the series that takes a look at what would become America’s first “reality show,” as ambitious astronauts and their families become instant celebrities in a competition that either will kill them or make them immortal in the quest to be a part of Project Mercury.  (Deadline)

Actress Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey) will star opposite Alden Ehrenreich in the USA Network drama Brave New World based on the Aldous Huxley’s groundbreaking 1932 novel, which imagines a utopian society that has achieved peace and stability through the prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family, and history itself. Findlay will play Lenina Crowne, a Beta Plus Hatchery worker, who has begun to question her position within the strict social strata of the New World. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actresses Monica Potter (Parenthood), Brooke Elliott (Drop Dead Diva) and Heather Headley (Chicago Med) will star in the new Netflix drama Sweet Magnolias, which is about three South Carolina women, best friends since high school, as they shepherd each other through the complexities of romance, career, and family. Potter will play Maddie Townsend, a low-key but resolute, warm and loving woman with a vocabulary like Southern poetry; Elliott will play Dana Sue Sullivan, everyone knows her as the strong-willed owner and head chef of Sullivan’s Restaurant, a cherished spot in the town of Serenity and Headley will play Helen Decatur, a lawyer who has made it her goal to create an opportunity for the people of Serenity, her hometown. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actress Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin) will star in the Netflix sci-fi thriller Awake. After a sudden global event wipes out all electronics and takes away humankind’s ability to sleep, chaos quickly begins to consume the world. Only Jill (Rodriguez), an ex-soldier with a troubled past, may hold the key to a cure in the form of her own daughter. The question is, can Jill safely deliver her daughter and save the world before she herself loses her mind. (The Futon Critic)

Actresses Vanessa Lachey (Dads) and La La Anthony (Power) will appear in the upcoming FOX serialized drama BH90210, inspired by the real lives and relationships of the cast of the original Beverly Hills, 90210 cast. Lachey will play Camille, the high-powered publicist wife of Jason Priestley who is balancing her demanding career with the hopes of starting a family while Anthony will portray Brian Austin Green’s wife, Shay, a superstar hip-hop/pop artist, who is the breadwinner of the family while her Mr. Mom husband watches over their three kids. Shay has become used to being the center of attention, but can still be surprisingly down to earth. (Deadline)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Brendan Fraser (Doom Patrol and The Mummy movies) as well as actor Tom Welling (Smallville and Lucifer) will appear in the Scandinavian SVOD service Viaplay. The film is set against a backdrop of international espionage and corporate sabotage in the 21st century’s privately-funded space race, following follow Welling as Captain Vincent Corbo, a hardened former counterintelligence officer. After their advanced medical satellite explodes on deployment, billionaire futurist Peter Swann (Fraser), and his fiancée, medical visionary Dr. Graciela “Grace” Davila turn to Corbo, who assembles a team of experienced professionals to investigate the incident. They learn that any combination of Swann’s business rivals, corrupt governments officials, and a shadowy crime syndicate could be behind the attack and represent a continued threat. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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