Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are all the news items for the past week:

BROADWAY IS CALLING

The 2012 NBC TV series Smash, about the backstage drama of putting together a new Broadway show, about the life of Marilyn Monroe, looks to be heading to the Great White Way. Smash, A New Musical will include the following heavyweights behind the scenes: Steven Spielberg, Robert Greenblatt, Neil Meron, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman – all of who were involved in the original series production. (Variety)

BIG DEPARTURE NEWS

Series star Ruby Rose has decided to leave the CW series Batwoman (she plays the lead) ahead of its sophomore run. According to the network, the role will be recast. (TV Line)

UPFRONT INFO

ABC has renewed the following dramas: A Million Little Things, The Rookie and Stumptown. The network had already given renewals to Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19 and The Good Doctor. The fates of the new dramas For Life and The Baker and the Beauty are to be determined at a later date.

The network picked up on drama for the fall TV season:

Big Sky from storyteller David E. Kelley. The thriller is about private detectives Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury from Pitch) and Cody Hoyt (Ryan Phillippe from The Shooter) who join forces with his estranged wife and ex-cop, Jenny Hoyt (Katheryn Winnick from Vikings), to search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. But when they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken.  (Variety)

CBS announced its fall 2020 line-up with much of its primetime schedule intact, including one new drama. The dramas will air as follows:

Mondays: All Rise and Bull
Tuesdays: NCIS, FBI and FBI: Most Wanted
Wednesdays: SEAL Team
Thursdays: Evil
Fridays: MacGyver, Magnum P.I. and Blue Bloods
Sundays: The Equalizer (NEW), NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans

The Equalizer is a reimagining of the classic series Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. She presents to most as an average single mom who is quietly raising her teenage daughter. But to a trusted few, she is The Equalizer – an anonymous guardian angel and defender of the downtrodden, who’s also dogged in her pursuit of personal redemption.

S.W.A.T. will return to CBS in the mid-season along with the new drama Clarice.

Clarice will star Rebecca Breeds (Pretty Little Liars and the Australian soap opera Home and Away) as the title character. The series is a deep dive into the untold personal story of FBI Agent Clarice Starling as she returns to the field in 1993, six months after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. (TV Line and Deadline)

BOX OFFICE CASTING NEWS

Actor Esai Morales will replace Nicholas Hoult as the villain in the upcoming Tom Cruise “Mission: Impossible 7. Hoult had to leave due to scheduling issues. It’s unclear when the film will resume production as are details about the film. What is known, however, is that Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, and Vanessa Kirby are all returning with Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Shea Whigham joining the cast. (Variety)

Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage and Jason Momoa are set to star in the action adventure film Good Bad and Undead. Dinklage will play Van Helsing, last in a long line of vampire hunters. He develops an uneasy partnership with a vampire (Momoa) who has taken a vow never to kill again. Together they run a scam from town to town, where Van Helsing pretends to vanquish the vampire for money. But when a massive bounty is put on the vampire’s head, everything in this dangerous world full of monsters and magic is now after them. (Deadline)

RENEWALS

FOX has renewed Prodigal Son for a second season; and the network has also given a fourth season renewal to The Resident. (TV Line and Variety)

Freeform has renewed Motherland: Fort Salem for a second season and announced that the new drama Cruel Summer (formerly Last Summer) will debut in 2021. Actress Olivia Holt (from Freeform’s defunct Cloak & Dagger) will star in the show that takes place over three summers in the ’90s when a beautiful and popular teen goes missing, and a seemingly unrelated girl transforms from a sweet and awkward outlier to the most popular girl in town, eventually becoming the most despised person in America. (Variety)

STREAMING SERVICE NEWS

Apple TV+ will debut the Tom Hanks box office movie Greyhound on the small screen instead, but an official airdate has yet to be announced. The film is set in the early days of World War II as an international convoy of 37 Allied ships, led by Capt. Ernest Krause (Hanks), crosses the treacherous North Atlantic while being hotly pursued by wolf packs of Nazi submarines. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past three weeks:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

Westworld has been renewed for a fourth season by HBO. (Variety)

CBS has renewed the following dramas: All Rise, Blue Bloods, Bull, FBI, FBI: Most Wanted, MacGyver, Magnum P.I., NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, S.W.A.T. and SEAL Team. CBS has already renewed Evil, but they pulled the plug on Tommy. (Variety)

The USA Network has cancelled Dare Me after one season. (The Hollywood Reporter and The Futon Critic)

The History Channel has cancelled both Knightfall and Project Blue Book after two seasons (for each show). (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

PICK-UP ORDERS

CBS announced they have picked up the following new shows:

Equalizer, starring Queen Latifah as an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Chris Noth, Lorraine Toussaint, Tory Kittles, Liza Lapira and Laya DeLeon Hayes also star.

Clarice stars Rebecca Breeds as Clarice Starling, as she returns to the field in 1993, six months after the events of “The Silence of the Lambs.” Kal Penn, Nick Sandow, Michael Cudlitz, Lucca De Oliveira and Devyn A. Tyler also star. (Variety)

TV Land is eyeing a potential spin-off series for Younger set to star Hilary Duff. (The Hollywood Reporter and The Futon Critic)

The 8-episode scripted series The Right Stuff, adapted from Tom Wolfe’s best-selling non-fiction account of the early days of the US space program will debut on Disney+ after being developed for National Geographic. The cast includes Patrick J. Adams (Suits), Jake McDorman (Limitless), Colin O’Donoghue (Once Upon a Time), James Lafferty (One Tree Hill) and Michael Trotter (Underground) [among others]. (TV Line)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Laura Sohn has been promoted to series regular for season 8 of The Blacklist. She has been recurring as FBI Agent Alina Park this season. (TV Line)

Actress Carrie Coon (Fargo) has replaced Amanda Peet in the upcoming HBO drama The Gilded Age from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. The shows takes a look at life of millionaires living in New York during the 1800s. Coon will star as Bertha Russell, who comes from the ordinary middle class. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

MOVIE CASTING

Actor Chris Pine is expected to star in a reboot of The Saint, based on the 1920’s book series. The movie follows Simon Templar, better known as The Saint, a Robin Hood-esque criminal and thief for hire who goes on a globetrotting adventure. (Variety)

HOLIDAY MOVIE CASTING

Veteran actress Betty White has signed on to star in a Lifetime Christmas movie. In the untitled film, White’s character helps ready would-be Santas for the holidays. But a mystery looms: Is she actually Mrs. Claus? The network also plans to have Kelly Rowland star in Merry Liddle Christmas Wedding, a sequel to last year’s Merry Liddle Christmas. Melissa Joan Hart will direct the tentatively titled Feliz NaviDad, starring alongside Mario Lopez, who will play a widowed father whose daughter helps him rediscover the holiday spirit. (Entertainment Weekly)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past two weeks

ANNOUNCEMENT

For the first time in 50 years Comic Con International has cancelled San Diego Comic Con due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Variety)

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

FOX has given a renewal to both 9-1-1 and 9-1-1: Lone Star (Variety)

Freeform has cancelled Party of Five after only one season. (Variety)

God Friended Me has been cancelled after two seasons. A two-hour series finale will air on April 26. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage) will star as Lana Lang in the DC series Superman & Lois that is set to air on The CW. The series follows the world’s most famous superhero (to be portrayed by Tyler Hoechlin) and comic books’ most famous journalist (Elizabeth Tulloch) as they deal with all the stress, pressures and complexities that come with being working parents in today’s society. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actress Annie Ilonzeh will not be coming back to Chicago Fire as Emily Foster, as the character announced she wanted to go back to med school and had even reapplied to Northwestern. (TV Line)

MOVIE NEWS

Universal Pictures and Amasia Entertainment are working to develop a film based on the classic characters of The Green Hornet and Kato, which originated as a radio show during the 1930s based on the vigilante Britt Reid character; which was then followed by the 1966 TV series and then the Seth Rogen 2011 The Green Hornet box office film. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

It’s been a few weeks since I brought my weekly updates to a temporary halt, but there have been a few news items of worth to share.

Here we go:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

Netflix has canceled both Messiah and V Wars after only one season. (TV Line)

Netflix has given a second season order to Locke & Key. (Variety)

FOX has cancelled Deputy after only one season. (Deadline and TV Line)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Jasika Nicole, who plays Dr. Carly Lever on The Good Doctor, will not be a series regular moving forward. (TV Line)

Nicole Kidman is set to play one of the two leads in an Amazon adaptation of the forthcoming Janelle Brown novel Pretty Things (coming to bookshelves on April 21) that centers around two brilliant, damaged women who try to survive the greatest game of deceit and destruction they will ever play. When a reluctant grifter befriends a wealthy “influencer” on the shores of Lake Tahoe, her ultimate con devolves into a raw, treacherous game of long-awaited payback. It’s unclear which character Kidman will play, however. (Variety)

Actor Christopher Meloni will be reprising his long-term role of Elliot Stabler in a new Law & Order: SVU series centered around the fan-favorite detective, who will be the boss in a SVU spinoff set in the organized crime division of the New York City Police Department. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actor Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck) will be a series regular in the upcoming DC drama Superman & Lois coming to The CW that will star Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch in the title roles. The series revolves around the world’s most famous superhero and most famous journalist as they deal with all the stress, pressures and complexities that come with being working parents in today’s society. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

As everyone knows by now, Hollywood has been ground to a halt due to the pandemic with nearly all movies and TV shows halting production and filming; and all of the major events like SXSW, WonderCon, Paley Fest and Cannes have either been cancelled or postponed. Sporting events have been cancelled too.

RENEWALS

Netflix has renewed Lost in Space for a third season. (Variety)

ABC has renewed Station 19 for a fourth season. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Chris Sullivan (This Is Us) and AnnaSophia Robb (The Act and The Carrie Diaries) will join Jamie Dornan (Once Upon a Time and 50 Shades franchise), Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater, in the upcoming NBCU limited series Dr. Death, which is based on the popular podcast of the same name that tells the true story of Dr. Christopher Duntsch (Dornan), a flourishing Dallas neurosurgeon who left a trail of permanently maimed or dead patients. As victims piled up, two fellow physicians, Robert Henderson (Baldwin) and Randall Kirby (Slater), set out to stop him. Sullivan will play Jerry Summers, Duntsch’s life-long friend and No. 1 fan whose blind devotion lands him under Duntsch’s knife. Robb will play Michelle Shughart, a bright, young Assistant District Attorney in Dallas who teams up with Henderson (Baldwin) and Kirby (Slater) to take down “Dr. Death.” (TV Line)

Enjoy!

PS: I will be putting my updates on hold for the most part for next couple weeks as we all deal with this pandemic.

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

Almost Family has been cancelled by FOX after only one season. (Variety)

Truth Be Told has been renewed for a second season at Apple. (Variety)

The Syfy series The Magicians will be ending with its currently airing fifth season. The series finale will air on April 1. (Variety)

Showtime has pulled the plug on the series The Rook after only one season. (TV Line and The Futon Critic)

TV CASTING NEWS

Veteran actor Christopher Lloyd (best known for the Back to the Future franchise) will appear in an episode of NCIS, playing Joe Smith, a 95-year-old former Navy sailor who served on the USS Arizona when it was attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Determined to have his ashes laid to rest with his fellow sailors when he dies, the sharp, spry and unapologetic curmudgeon”becomes the focus of an investigation and confounds Gibbs and the entire team, who are not sure if they can believe him. (TV Line)

It’ll be a family affair on the March 23 episode of Supernatural when the actress wives of leads Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki – Genevieve Cortese Padalecki and Danneel Harris Ackles reprise their respectively roles of demon Ruby and Sister Jo/Angel Anael. The two will have a face off in the episode. (TV Line)

Actor Jeff Pierre (Once Upon a Time) has joined the cast of the upcoming reboot of Walker, Texas Ranger on The CW that will star Supernatural star Jared Padalecki and The 100 actress Lindsey Morgan. Pierre will play Trey Barnett, the boyfriend of Micki (Morgan’s character), an Army medic recently back from his deployment. (Deadline)

Actor (and The Good Doctor executive producer) Daniel Dae Kim (Lost and Hawaii Five-0) will recurring on the NBC medical drama New Amsterdam, as new head trauma surgeon Dr. Cassian Shin. (Deadline)

Actor Beau Mirchoff has been promoted to series regular for season 3 of Freeform’s drama Good Trouble. (Deadline)

Actress Kayla Compton, who plays Allegra Garcia, and actor Brandon McKnight, who plays Chester P. Runk, have both been promoted to series regular for season 7 of The Flash. (Deadline)

Mac is back. Actress Catherine Bell (Good Witch and Army Wives) will once again reprise her JAG role of Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie on NCIS: Los Angeles this spring. (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

CANCELLATION/RENEWALS

Hawaii Five-0 is finally coming to an end after 10 seasons, airing its two-hour series finale on CBS on April 3. (Variety)

NBC has given Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and all three One Chicago dramas: Chicago Med, Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D., three additional seasons each. (Variety)

TV RELOCATION

The planned Love, Simon TV series will be moving from Disney Plus over to Hulu and will now be called Love, Victor. The series, based on the box office movie, focuses on Victor (Michael Cimino), a new student at Creekwood High School on his own journey of self-discovery, facing challenges at home, adjusting to a new city, and struggling with his sexual orientation. The 10-episode first season will debut in June. (Variety)

TV CASTING NEWS

Actor Mekai Curtis will take on the lead role of Kanan Stark (played by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson in the recently defunct series Power) in the spin-off series Power Book III: Raising Kanan. The series revolves around his mother, Raq (Patina Miller), who raised him by herself. She is his everything. At the same time, he is beginning to get a sense of not only the world around him, but his place in said world. Kanan wants to be just like his mother and that’s the problem. He’s young and wide-eyed and doesn’t know how the hustle works. And even more importantly, his mother is not nearly as keen as he is for him to follow in her footsteps. (Variety)

Actor Coby Bell (Burn Notice and The Gifted) has joined the cast of the Walker, Texas Ranger reboot that will star Supernatural alum Jared Padalecki in the lead role. Bell will play Larry James, a Texas Ranger Captain, who is a trailblazer in his division, as the only African American man in the Austin headquarters and one of only a few in the entire Ranger division. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actor Rick Hoffman (Suits) will recur in the new season of Billions that is set to begin on Showtime on May 3. He will play Dr. Swerdlow, a medical man with unorthodox methods. (TV Line and Deadline)

Actress Bella Heathcote (The Man in the High Castle) and Toni Collette (Unbelievable) will star in the upcoming Netflix series Pieces of Her based on the best-selling book by Karin Slaugther. The 8-episode series is about an act of violence that rocks a sleepy Georgia town as well as the bond between a mother and her daughter (Heatchote and Collette) (Deadline and Twitter)

Actress Ryan Michelle Bathe (Army Wives and This Is Us and Mrs. Sterling K. Brown) will recur on All Rise as Rachel Audubon, a brilliant and fearless high-profile, take-no-prisoners litigation attorney whose charm is her superpower. (Deadline and The Futon Critic)

Actress Juliet Landau (Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Bosch) will play in the 4th and final season of Claws, playing Cordelia, a socialite in the community and protective of her father’s wealth. (Deadline)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Live Schreiber and Susie Abromeit will star in the Will Smith bio-pic King Richard that tells the story of Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams, who will be played by Saniyya Sidney (Fences and Hidden Figures) and Demi Singleton (Godfather of Harlem), respectively. Schreiber will play tennis coach and Abromeit will play a New York Times reporter. The movie is the true story of the hardscrabble but iron-willed father of Venus and Serena Williams, who had a plan to make his daughters the greatest tennis players in the world. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

The Paramount Network has renewed Yellowstone for a fourth season. (Variety)

The Blacklist has been renewed for an 8th season by NBC. (TV Line)

CASTING NEWS

Actors Keegan Allen (Pretty Little Liars) and Mitch Pileggi (The X-Files) has joined the cast of the upcoming Walker, Texas Ranger reboot that will air on The CW. Walker will star Supernatural alum Jared Padalecki in the lead role. Allen will play Liam Walker, the younger, gay and conservative brother of Cordell Walker, who has been recently promoted to assistant DA while Pileggi will play Bonham Walker, Cordell and Liam’s father, a third-generation Texas rancher. (Variety and Deadline)

Actor Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) is among seven new cast members joining the second season of the Netflix series The Witcher. Hivju will play the role of Nivellen. (TV Line)

Actress Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Picard) will appear in the CBS drama MacGyver, in a season-long arc, playing the title character aunt, Gwendolyn Hayes, the sister of his late, beloved mother, an ex-DXS agent who was presumed dead and is also believed to be the head of Codex, the organization that the Phoenix has been hunting this season. (TV Line)

Actress Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy and Killing Eve) will star in the upcoming Netflix drama The Chair. The six-episode half-hour series centers on the Chair of an English department at a major university, which will be played by Oh. (Variety)

Actor Delroy Lindo has opted to leave the series Good Fight at the end of the show’s upcoming fourth season. (TV Line)

Actor Skeet Ulrich and actress Marisol Nicholas are both set to exit Riverdale at the end of the show’s current season. (TV Line)

Actress Patina Miller (Madam Secretary) has joined the spin-off seies Power Book III: Raising Kanan that will follow the early years of Kanan Stark. Miller will play Raquel “Raq” Thomas, a cold, hard, fierce, successful and deadly woman taking names in a man’s world. (TV Line)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Mahershala Ali (Green Book, Moonlight and The 4400) will produce and star in the genre-bending drama feature Swan Song on Apple TV Plus, which is set in the near future, exploring how far someone will go, and how much they’ll sacrifice, to make a happier life for the people they love. (Variety)

Actor Brian J. Smith (Stargate Universe, Sense8 and Treadstone) has joined the cast of Matrix 4. His role in the flick is being kept under wraps. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for the past week:

CANCELLATIONS/RENEWALS

The Good Doctor has been renewed for a 4th season. (Variety)

Netflix has cancelled Insatiable after two seasons. (TV Line)

Amazon has renewed Bosch for a 7th and final season. (Variety)

Netflix is in talks to pick up Lucifer for another season beyond its upcoming 5th season. (TV Line)

CSI just might be coming back to CBS. The network is eyeing a potential event series revival for the long-running drama. The idea would be to release the new installment in time for the show’s 20th anniversary in October, but no deals are in place as yet. (Variety)

TV CASTING NEWS

Disney Plus has ordered an hour-long series based on the Tom Hanks comedy flick Turner & Hooch, starring Disney alum Josh Peck as Scott Turner, an ambitious, buttoned-up U.S. Marshall who inherits a big unruly dog, who soon realizes the pet he didn’t want may be the partner he needs. The series has received a 12-episode order. (Variety)

Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw will appear in the Disney Plus streaming series Loki in an undisclosed role opposite Tom Hiddleston. (Variety)

Quite a lot of names have joined the upcoming Kevin Smith animated series Masters of the Universe, including Mark Hamill, Lena Headey, Chris Wood and Sarah Michelle Gellar. The series will focus on the unresolved storylines of the iconic characters in the He-Man universe, picking up where they left off decades ago with Hamill voicing villainous Skeletor; Headey playing Skeletor’s right-hand woman, Evil-Lyn. Wood will voice Prince Adam/He-Man while Gellar and Liam Cunningham play He-Man’s cohorts Teela and Man-at-Arms, respectively. Other voices will be provided by Stephen Root, Diedrich Bader, Alicia Silverstone, Justin Long, Kevin Conroy and Harley Quinn Smith [among others.] (The Hollywood Reporter)

BOX OFFICE MOVIE NEWS

Actress Zoe Saldana will star in the sports drama Fencer. The film is inspired by Jasmine McGlade’s (writer and director of the film) experiences as a national champion fencer, who lead her Harvard University team to the school’s first-ever NCAA Championship title. (Variety)

Actor Rufus Sewell will play Vernon Presley, Elvis Presley’s reserved and soft-spoken father in the upcoming Baz Luhrmann film Elvis that has Austin Butler in the lead role. (Variety)

Actresses Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson and Jessie Buckley and actor Peter Sarsgaard will appear in The Lost Daughter, the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal. The film tells the story of a college professor (Colman), whose own psychological trauma begins to resurface after meeting a woman (Johnson) and her young daughter while on summer vacation. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hi All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

CONGRATULATIONS

Congrats to all the Oscar winners, including (but not limited to) Brad Pitt, Toy Story 4, Parasite, Taika Waititi, Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix, Renee Zellweger and director Bong Joon Ho.

CANCELLATIONS

Showtime has pulled the plug on the Showtime drama Ray Donovan after 7 seasons on the air. The news comes just weeks after the series concluded its latest season on January 19. (Variety)

Netflix has canceled the drama Spinning Out after only one season. (Press Release)

The fifth season of If Loving You Is Wrong at OWN, which premireres on March 10, will be its last. (The Hollywood Reporter)

PICK-UP ORDERS

Starz has official ordered three shows set within the world of Power, which comes to an end tonight. In addition to Power Book II: Ghost that was previously announced, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, Power Book IV: Influence and Power Book V: Force have all be commissioned. Raising Kanan is a prequel set in the ‘90s during the early years of “Power” character Kanan Stark. Influence will follow Rashad Tate in his pursuit of political power while Force centers on Tommy Egan after he cuts ties and puts New York in his rearview mirror for good. Larenz Tate will reprise his role as Rashad Tate in Influence, while Joseph Sikora will return as Tommy for Force. Ghost will pick up where the original series leaves off, starring Mary J. Blige, Method Man, and several members of the original Power cast. (Variety)

MOVIE NEWS

The Broadway hit Hamilton will be coming to the big screen. Disney is bringing a film of the musical sensation to theatre in the US starting on October 15, 2021. It’s not an adaptation, but a live caption of a stage performance. (Variety)

Neil Meron (producer on Hairspray Live and Peter Pan Live – just to name a few), will be working on a movie adaptation for Netflix of the Broadway musical 13, which follows Evan Goldman, a young boy who moves from New York City to Indiana after his parents get divorced. Once in the small town, he has to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah, while navigating the social circles at his new school. (Variety)

Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal will play Glady Presley, the King of Rock and Roll’s mother, in Baz Luhrmann’s upcoming bio-pic Elvis, starring actor Austin Butler (The Shannara Chronicles) in the title role and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker. (Variety)

TV CASTING NEWS

Actress Toni Collette will star in the upcoming Netflix thriller Pieces of Her. The eight-episode series is based on a novel by Karin Slaughter, which centers on Andy Oliver and her mother, Laura (Collette). A random act of violence in their Georgia hometown sets off a chain of events that leaves Andy desperate for answers. She embarks on a dangerous journey that draws her toward the dark, hidden heart of her family. (Variety)

Actors Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), Michael Trucco (Battlestar Galactica) Rahul Kohil (iZombie) and Hamish Linklater (Legion) and actress Kristin Lehman (Altered Carbon) are joining Netflix’s Hill House cast members Kate Siegel, Samantha Sloyan, Robert Longstreet, Annabeth Gish and Henry Thomas in the upcoming Netflix 7-episode thriller Midnight Mass that will center on an isolated island community that experiences miraculous events (and frightening omens) after the arrival of a charismatic, mysterious young priest. (TV Line)

Actress Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder) will play former First Lady Michelle Obama in the Showtime drama First Ladies that will peel back the curtain on the personal and political lives of First Ladies from throughout history. (Variety)

Actor O’Shea Jackson (Straight Outta Compton) has taken over for actor Winston Duke (Black Panther and Us) in the Apple drama Swagger, which is inspired by NBA champion Kevin Durant’s youth basketball experiences. The series explores the world of youth basketball, and the players, their families and coaches who walk the fine line between dreams and ambition, and opportunism and corruption. Jackson will star as Ike, a youth basketball coach and former star player. (Variety)

Actress Lindsey Morgan (The 100) has joined the cast of the upcoming reboot of Walker Texas Ranger that will star Supernatural alum Jared Padalecki in the lead role. The focuses on Cordell Walker, a widower and father of two with his own moral code, who returns home to Austin after being undercover for two years, only to discover there’s harder work to be done at home. He’ll attempt to reconnect with his children, navigate clashes with his family, and find unexpected common ground with his new partner (Morgan) — one of the first women in Texas Rangers’ history — while growing increasingly suspicious about the circumstances surrounding his wife’s death. (Variety)

Actor Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games franchise and Me Before You) will star opposite Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience and granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley) in the Amazon rock music drama Daisy Jones and the Six. The 12-episode series, based on the novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, chronicles the rise and fall of a renowned (fictional) 1970s rock band. Claflin will play Billy Dunne, the band’s charismatic frontman. His increasingly complicated feelings for bandmate and songwriter Daisy (Keough) threaten to upend every facet of his life. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Natalie Zea (Justified) will recur on 9-1-1: Lone Star as Zoe, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, who meets Owen (series lead Rob Lowe) at a beauty supply store and they immediately hit it off. (TV Line and The Futon Critic)

Actress Inbar Lavi will return as Eve on Lucifer for the show’s final season on Netflix. (Entertainment Weekly and The Futon Critic)

Actor Mark Feurstein (Prison Break and Royal Pains) and actress Kelli Williams (The Practice) will have recurring roles opposite Michael Chiklis (The Shield) in the upcoming Paramount Network drama Coyote. Chiklis will play Ben Clemens, a former border patrol agent whose balance of right and wrong gets shaken up. After policing the border for 32 years, Ben is forced to work with the very people he spent his career trying to keep out of America. The cast will include Natalia Cordova-Buckley (Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D), Jose Pablo Cantillo (Six and The Walking Dead) and Drew Powell (Gotham) among others. The show is set to debut in summer 2020. (Deadline)

Actress Amirah Vann (Underground) will appear in Star Trek: Picard, playing Zani, a member of the Qowat Milat, a fierce all-female Romulan religious order who live on the colony planet of Vashti. (Deadline)

Actress Jennifer Esposito (Blue Bloods and NCIS) will star opposite Julia Garner and Anna Chlumsky in the upcoming 10-episode Netflix drama Inventing Anna. The show is about a journalist (Chlumsky) with a lot to prove investigating the case of Anna Delvey (Garner), the Instagram-legendary German heiress who stole the hearts of New York’s social scene – and stole their money as well. Esposito will play Talia Mallay, the famous owner of a lavish lifestyle brand who excels at the social game. (Deadline)

Actress Medalion Rahimi has been promoted to series regular on NCIS: Los Angeles where she has been recurring as Special Agent Fatima Namazi, an all-American LA native from Beverly Hills who is a Middle East specialist and a kickass cryptological technican. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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