Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

BOX OFFICE MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Sam Heughan (Outlander) will star as Paul Newman in the untitled biopic about Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl. Bodyguard actress Keeley Hawes will play American actress Neal while Downton Abbey alum Hugh Bonneville will play British children’s author Dahl. (Deadline)

RENEWAL/CANCELLATION NEWS

Starz has cancelled Sweetbitter after two seasons. (Deadline)

The Netflix drama Virgin River, based on the book series by Robyn Carr, has been renewed for a 10-episode second season. (Deadline)

TV CASTING NEWS

Actress Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black) will star opposite Us star Lupita Nyong’o in the HBO Max 10-episode series Americanah based on the best-selling novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The limited series follows the story of Ifemelu (Nyong’o), a self-assured young woman raised in Nigeria, who as a teenager falls in love with her classmate Obinze. Living in a military-ruled country, they each depart for the west. Ifemelu heads for America, where she finds academic success, but is forced to grapple for the first time with what it means to be black. Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead begins living undocumented in London. Aduba will play Aunty Uju, Ifemelu’s young aunt and confidant. A highly intelligent doctor, Uju left Nigeria under tumultuous circumstances and has resettled in America to build a better life for herself and her son Dike. The Walking Dead and Black Panther/Avengers franchise actress Danai Gurira wrote the pilot and will serve as showrunner. (Variety)

Actress Jessy Schram (Falling Skies) will appear in a multi-episode arc on Chicago Med, playing Dr. Hannah Asher, a brilliant gynecological surgeon with a secret drug addiction. (Deadline)

Actor Baily Chase (Longmire) will recur in the CBS drama S.W.A.T., playing Owen, an ex-Army Ranger who is in the process of launching a high-end private security firm. (Deadline)

Actress Morfydd Clark (His Dark Materials and the upcoming box office movie Saint Maud) has been cast in lead role in Amazon high-profile Lord of the Rings TV series, which explores new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Clark will play young Galadriel (played by Cate Blanchett in the box office franchise). (Deadline)

Actress Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck) will appear in an upcoming episode of The Blacklist, playing Cassandra Bianchi, a shrewd criminal who is on the verge of the score of a lifetime, who has a connection with Reddington. (TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

EPIX has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to Jerusalem’s Lot, a drama based on the short story by Stephen King that will star Adrien Brody. Set in the 1850s, the series follows Captain Charles Boone (Brody), who relocates his family of three children to his ancestral home in the small, seemingly sleepy town of Preacher’s Corners, Maine after his wife dies at sea. However, Charles will soon have to confront the secrets of his family’s sordid history, and fight to end the darkness that has plagued the Boones for generations. The show is expected to premiere in the fall of 2020. (Deadline)

A one-hour drama called The Beach, based on the book Beach Lane by best-selling author Melissa de la Cruz, has been put into development at HBO Max with Life Sentence creator Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith at the helm along with Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries). The series will follow three local teens who work in the Hamptons’ lavish estates, exclusive beach clubs, and breath-taking boats over one magical summer as their lives and hearts become increasingly intertwined with wealthy families who swoop in from the city for the summer season. (Deadline)

Once Upon a Time and Lost EP’s Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis are shepherding a new ABC series called Epic that is set within the Disney fairytale universe. Written by Brigitte Hales the anthology series will take place in a Disney-like Enchanted Forest. (Deadline and TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the few news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

ABC has cancelled Reef Break after one season. (Variety)

A week after the third season debuted, Amazon has renewed Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for a 4th season. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Desmond Chiam (Reef Break and The Shannara Chronicles) and actress Miki Ishikawa (The Terror: Infamy) have joined the growing cast of the upcoming Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that is set to star Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan in their box office roles. Details on who they will play in the streaming series have yet to be announced, but the series is set to debut in August of 2020. (Deadline)

Actor Alberto Rosende (Shadowhunters), who has been recurring on the NBC series Chicago Fire as Blake Gallo has been upped to series regular. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Peter Sarsgaard has joined the cast of The Batman that will find former Twilight star Robert Pattinson taking over the lead role. Saarsgard will appear as, well, that hasn’t been released yet; but Zoe Kravitz will play Catwoman, Andy Serkis will play Pennyworth, Paul Dano will play The Riddler and Colin Farrell with be the Penguin with Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon. (Deadline)

Actors Matthew Macfadyen (Succession and Pride & Prejudice) and Tom Wilkinson (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and actress Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey) will star with Colin Firth and Kelly Macdonald in the WWII drama Operation Mincemeat, which will be set in 1943, following two brilliant intelligence officers, Ewen Montagu (Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Macfadyen) who conceived a plan that was dubbed Operation Mincemeat. They would trick the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece rather than Sicily. Their plan was to get a corpse, equip it with misleading papers, then drop it off the coast of Spain where Nazi spies would take the bait. (Deadline)

STREAMING SERVICE CASTING NEWS

Actor Finn Jones (Game of Thrones and Iron Fist) and Pico Alexander (Home Again) will star alongside actress Hailee Steinfeld in the second season of the Apple TV+ series Dickinson. Jones will Samuel Bowles, an energetic and magnetic newspaper editor while Alexander will play Henry “Ship” Shipley, a dropout of Amherst College and a boarder with the Dickinsons. (Deadline)

Actor Will Yun Lee will be back in the second season of Altered Carbon. He played the original version of Takeshi Kovacs in the streaming show’s first season, but it is unclear who will play in the show’s second. (Deadline and TV Guide)

TV CASTING NEWS

Actress Hilarie Burton (One Tree Hill and White Collar) has landed a recurring role in the upcoming NBC mid-season drama Council of Dads that follows loving father of five Scott Perry, who calls upon his most trusted friends to step in as back-up dads after an unexpected health scare. Burton will play Margot, a funny, intelligent foodie and restaurant group executive manager who becomes a love interest for Clive Standen’s character Anthony, who is Scott’s oldest pal. Council of Dads will debut in March 2020. (TV Line)

Actor Iwan Rheon (Game of Thrones) has been cast as a new leprechaun in American Gods, following the departure of Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney in the show’s second season. (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the few news items from this past week:

CANCELLATIONS

CBS All Access has cancelled Strange Angel after two seasons. (Deadline)

The Canadian series Anne With an E, which has been airing on Netflix (season 3 premieres on the streaming service on January 3, will come to a close after season 3. (Deadline)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Goran Visnjic (ER and Timeless) will appear in the upcoming season of Doctor Who, plaing “one of [his] favorite people in history, but no other details are available. (TV Line)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS/PICK UP NEWS

A spin-off of the History Channel series Vikings will be happening on Netflix. Viking: Valhalla will pick up 100 years after the events of the original series, dramatizing the adventures of the most famous Vikings who ever lived – Leif Erikson, Freydis, Harald Harada and the Norman King William the Conqueror (who was a Viking descendant). (TV Line)

Marvel’s Runaways to end on Hulu after season 3. (Variety)

Amazon has already given an extremely early season 2 renewal to its forthcoming Lord of the Rings series before the first season has even gotten underway. (Variety)

The CW will be adding another DC superhero series to its roster: Stargirl, which won’t debut until later in 2020 on DC Universe. The series will air on The CW the day after it goes live on the streaming service. (Entertainment Weekly)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Riley Keough (The Girlfriend Experience and grandchild of Elvis Presley) will have the lead role in the upcoming Amazon series Daisy Jones & The Six, based on the novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid that is a musical drama detailing the rise and fall of a renowned rock band in the 1970s. (Variety)

Season 4 of The Crown has just recently gotten underway with Oscar winner Olivia Colman portraying the Queen, but she will be replaced soon enough – in seasons 5 and 6 – by actress Imelda Stanton, who will take on the role of Queen Elizabeth II. (TV Line)

Harrison Ford will be taking on his first regular TV role in the docuseries The Staircase that will detail the trial of American novelist Michael Peterson, who was accused of murdering his wife in 2001. The project is currently being shopped to networks and streaming services. (Variety)

Actress Inbar Lavi (Imposter, Lucifer and Prison Break) will appear in 3 upcoming episodes of Stumptown, playing Max, a thrill-seeking car thief, who is part of an auto theft ring. (TV Line)

Actor Chord Overstreet (Glee) will guest star in an upcoming episode of The Bold Type, playing Jane’s type-A older brother Evan. (Entertainment Weekly and TV Line)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actress Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy) has joined the cast of the next Mission: Impossible film. (Variety)

Actor Idris Elba (Thor franchise and Luthor) will appear in the Netflix movie The Harder They Fall that follows outlaw Nat Love (Majors), who discovers that the man (Elba) who killed his parents two decades ago is being released from prison and decides to reunite with his gang to track his enemy down and seek his revenge. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Trying to figure out what to watch tonight? Be it new episodes of the TV season, reairs of cable series or a movie, here are some suggestions:

6 PM:
The Sweetest Christmas movie on Hallmark Channel (Reair)

6:26 PM:
Dublin Murders on Starz (Encore)

7 PM:
Nostalgic Christmas movie on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (Encore)
Top Gun movie on CMT
Furious 7 movie on FX

7:10 PM:
Back to the Future, Part II movie on Encore

7:45 PM:
The Blind Side movie on Freeform

8 PM:
NCIS on CBS (NEW)
The Flash on The CW (NEW)
His Dark Materials on HBO2 (Encore)
Christmas a la Mode movie on Lifetime (Encore)
Christmas Made to Order movie on Hallmark Channel (Reair)
The Bourne Identity movie on AMC

9 PM:
Arrow on The CW (NEW)
This Is Us on NBC (NEW)
Dublin Murders on Starz (Encore)
Christmas Bells movie on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (Reair)

10 PM:
Emergence on CBS (NEW)
NCIS: New Orleans on CBS (NEW)
New Amsterdam on NBC (NEW)
Picture a Perfect Christmas movie on Hallmark Channel (Encore)
Fast & Furious 6 movie on FX

10:01 PM:
Treadstone on USA Network (NEW)

10:03 PM:
Dear Secret Santa movie on Lifetime (Reair)

10:40 PM:
Watchmen on HBO (Encore)

Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS

Titans has been renewed for a third season at DC Universe. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Goliath has been renewed for a fourth and final season at Amazon. (Variety)

The Witcher has been renewed for an 8-episode second season before the first season has given started on Netflix. (Variety)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Newcomer Jonah Hauer-King (the TV mini-series Little Women and Howard’s End) will play Prince Eric in the upcoming box office movie Little Mermaid. (Variety)

SERIES ORDER NEWS

Amazon has given a series order to an adaptation of the William Gibson novel The Peripheral with Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy set as executive producers. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

Mayans M.C. has been renewed for a third season. (Variety)

FOX is not moving forward with a second season of BH90210. (Variety)

Apple TV+ has given second season renewals to its four scripted dramas: See, For All Mankind and Dickinson. (Variety)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

CBS has given a pilot production commitment to a new version of The Equalizer that would star Queen Latifah as an enigmatic figure who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Castle EP’s Andrew Marlowe and Terri Miller will serve as writers, executive producers, and showrunners on the new series. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actor Paul Blackthorne will return to Arrow for the final season, appearing in multiple episodes. (TV Line)

Actress Julianna Margulies and actor Corey Stoll will each have recurring roles in the fifth season of the Showtime series Billions, which will premium in 2020. Margulies will play Catherine Brant, an Ivy League sociology professor and best-selling author while Stoll will play Michael Prince, a business titan with roots in small-town Indiana. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actor Courtney B. Vance will appear in the third season of the National Geographic anthology series Genius that will focus on Aretha Franklin, who will portrayed by Broadway actress Cynthia Erivo. Vance will play Aretha’s father C.L. Franklin. (Variety)

Actor Eric Balfour (Haven) will recur on Charmed as Julian, a tech guru-turned-social activist who forms a bond with one of the sisters. (Deadline and TV Line)

Actress Melissa George (Alias and Grey’s Anatomy) has joined the cast of the upcoming Apple TV+ drama Mosquito Coast that will star Justin Theroux. Based on the novel by Paul Theroux (Justin’s uncle), the series follows an idealistic inventor named Allie (Theroux) as he uproots his family and takes them to the jungles of Central America to start a new life. George will play Allie’s wife Margot. (TV Line)

STREAMING SERIES NEWS

Sandra Bullock will star in an untitled drama on Netflix about life after prison. Her character is released from prison after serving time for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past. Facing severe judgment from her former friends and peers, her only hope for redemption is finding the estranged younger sister she was forced to leave behind. (Variety)

Actresses Zoe Saldana and Reese Witherspoon will team to adapt the Tembi Locke memoir From Scratch as a limited series on Netflix. The series is described as an autobiographical romance that follows an American woman as she falls in love with a Sicilian man while studying abroad in Italy then builds a life with him in the United States. When she unexpectedly loses him to illness, she is challenged to pull herself through grief so she can raise their daughter as they would have raised her together: with hope, joy and infinite love. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

EPIX has renewed Pennyworth for a second season. (TV Line)

AMC has cancelled Lodge 49 after two seasons. (Variety)

NBC has cancelled The InBetween after only one season. (Variety)

The USA Network has pulled the plug on the Suits spin-off series Pearson after one season. (Variety)

The Netflix sci-fi series Another Life has been given a second season order. (Vital Thrills)

ABC has given a full season order to both the new series Stumptown and the second season of The Rookie. (Variety)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS

HBO has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon that will be set 300 years before the events of the original series, telling the story of House Targaryen. (Variety)

A new series at Netflix from Shonda Rhimes about con artist Anna Delvey has been given 10-episode order. The show will follow a a journalist (Anna Chlumsky) with a lot to prove who investigates the case of Anna Delvey (Julia Garner), the Instagram-legendary German heiress who stole the hearts of New York’s social scene – and stole their money as well. Anna and the reporter form a love-hate bond as Anna awaits trial and the reporter fights the clock to answer the biggest question in NYC: who is Anna Delvey? The cast will incoude Laverne Cox and Katie Lowes. (Variety)

The new dramedy Big Shots from David E. Kelley is expected to air on Disney+, starring John Stamos as a tempermental college basketball coach, who gets fired from his job and must take a teaching and coaching job at an elite all-girls private high school. Also part of the cast is Shiri Appleby (Roswell and UnReal) as Holly, the good-humored and down-to-earth assistant basketball coach and Yvette Nicole Brown (Community) as Sherilyn, the no nonsense dean of Westbrook School for Girls. (Variety)

HBO Max has picked up a serialized sci-fi series from Ridley Scott called Raised by Wovles that will star Travis Fimmel (Vikings), which centers on two androids tasked with raising human children on a mysterious virgin planet. As the burgeoning colony of humans threatens to be torn apart by religious differences, the androids learn that controlling the beliefs of humans is a treacherous and difficult task. The series was originally set up at TNT. (Deadline)

The CW is developing a new series about Superman and Lois Lane that would star Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch, who have been playing those roles in Supergirl. The potential series would follow the world’s most famous super hero and comic books’ most famous journalist as they deal with all the stress, pressures, and complexities that come with being working parents in today’s society. (Variety)

Netlix is working on a romantic drama based on the best-selling novel The Last Letters From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes, which follows Ellie (Feliciy Jones), a young journalist in contemporary London who uncovers a series of love letters recounting a star-crossed affair in the 1960s. That romance between Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) and Anthony O’Hare (Callum Turner) is so intense that Ellie becomes obsessed with finding the couple and discovering how their story ended. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Emily Bett Rickards will be back on Arrow for the show’s series finale. (TV Line)

As viewers of A Million Little Things saw in Thursday’s episode, actress Sutton Foster (Younger) will guest star as Chloe, the deceased fiance of Eric (Jason Ritter). (TV Line)

Actress Annie Wersching (24, Marvel’s Runaways and Timeless) will show up on The Rookie as Rosalind Dyer, a serial killer on death row who takes a special interest in Officer John Nolan (Nathan Fillion). (TV Line)

Actor Malcolm Barnett (Timeless) will star alongside Broadway star Cynthia Erivo, who is also the star of the box office movie Harriet, in the upcoming National Geographic anthology series Genius, which will focus Aretha Franklin. Erivo will play the legendary singer while Barnett will play Franklin’s first husband and business manager Ted White. Genius will premiere in spring of 2020. (TV Line)

Actress Poppy Drayton (The Shannara Chronicles) is joining the cast of the second season of Charmed, playing a powerful and mysterious witch named Abigael. (TV Line)

Actress Elaine Hendrix is stepping into the role of Alexis Carrington on The CW reboot of Dynasty. Hendrix will star alongside Elizabeth Gillies, who was her co-star in the FX series Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. (TV Line)

Netlfix has announced another new series: the 8-episode The Stranger, adapted from the Harlan Coben book about the power and damage secrets can unleash, which will star Richard Armitage and Hannah John-Kamen (among others). (The Futon Critic)

STREAMING SERVICE MOVIE NEWS

Netflix has given the green light to a sequel to the 2018 film The Princess Switch that will find actress Vanessa Hudgens reprising her roles of Duchess Margaret and her lookalike Stacy as well as another lookalike Fiona. The sequel – The Prince Switch: Switched Again – finds Duchess Margaret unexpectedly inheriting the throne and hitting a rough patch with Kevin; so it’s up to Stacy to save the day before a new lookalike — party girl Fiona — foils their plans. (TV Guide)

BOX OFFICE CASTING NEWS

Actress Rachel Weisz will star as Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming film A Special Relationship that will explore Taylor’s journey from actress to activist, told through the lens of Taylor’s friendship with her assistant Roger Wall. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS/SERIES AND/OR PILOT PICK UPS

CBS has renewed Evil for a second season, and handed a full-season order to All Rise. (Variety)

The CW has given full season orders to both new Batwoman and Nancy Drew. (Variety)

Freeform has cancelled Cloak & Dagger after two seasons. (Variety)

Amazon has renewed Modern Love for a second season. (Variety)

Apple TV+ has picked a series based on the Isaac Asimov classic sci-fi book series Foundation that will star Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies and Guardians of the Galaxy) and Jared Harris (Mad Men and Chernobyl). The series is about a band of exiles who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from destruction is to defy it. Harris will play Hari Seldon, a mathematical genius who predicts the demise of the empire while Pace will play Brother Day, the current Emperor of the Galaxy. (TV Line)

The CW has given a pilot order to Jason Rothenberg for a prequel to his series The 100, that has been airing on the network since 2014 that is going into its seventh and final season starting next year. The untitled drama will be set 97 years before the events of The 100, starting with the end of the world and a nuclear apocalypse that wiped out most of the human population on Earth. It follows a band of survivors on the ground as they learn to cope in a dangerous world while fighting to create a new and better society out of the ashes of what came before. (The Hollywood Reporter)

The streaming service Disney+ will bring back Lizzie McGuire with cast members Hallie Todd, Robert Carradine and Jake Thomas joining Hilary Duff in the reprisal that will revolve around Lizzie (Duff) as she turns 30 and navigates life in New York City. (The Hollywood Reporter)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Lela Loren (Power) will have a pivotal recurring role on the third season of the Starz drama American Gods, playing Marguerite Olsen, a trusted reporter for the local paper,committed single mother of two, and a no-nonsense property manager. She is understandably wary of the pain vulnerability brings, but when Shadow moves into her building, he begins to chip away at her defenses and uncover a side to Marguerite she thought she’d locked away for good. (Deadline)

Actress Sophia Bush (Chicago P.D.) has joined the cast of the upcoming small screen adaptation of the box office film Love, Simon that is set to air on Disney+. The show will be follow 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. When it all seems too much, he reaches out to Simon to help him navigate the ups and downs of high school. Rachel Naomi Hilson co-stars as Mia, Victor’s whip-smart friend. Bush will play Veronica, Mia’s father’s new girlfriend. Chic and sophisticated, runs a non-profit devoted to helping women. Friendly and easy to like but can be strong-willed and tough when she needs to be. (Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!

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