Hey All,
Here are the entertainment news items for this past week:
SAYING GOODBYE
The streaming service Freevee, formerly IMDbTV, is being shut down with its content heading to parent company Amazon Prime. (Variety)
CROSSOVER EVENT
Five years ago, the NBC franchise series Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago P.D. staged an epic three-show crossover. The franchise will be doing that again later this season in a storyline that will center on a massive explosion in an office building that upends the entire city, above and below ground. (TV Line)
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
It looks like Universal Television is working on a reboot of Friday Night Lights with multiple bids coming from the lies of Peacock, Netflix and Amazon. (TV Line)
TV CASTING NEWS
Never Have I Ever mom Poorna Jagannathan has joined the cast of the upcoming HBO series Lanterns, which will star Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as Hal Jordan and John Stewart, respectively, two of the best-known characters in the DC Comics’ long history. Jagannathan will recur as Zoe, an effortlessly confident and poised woman in any setting, and as composed and cunning as the influential men around her. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Singer-songwriter Lady Gaga will make a cameo appearance in season 2 of Wednesday over on Netflix, but what role she will play is being kept under wraps. (Variety)
Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender over on Netflix will include new cast members Hoa Xuande from The Sympathizer, Justin Chien from The Brothers Sun, Chin Han from the box office movie Skyscraper and Rekha Sharma from Yellowjackets and Battlestar Galactica [among others]. (Variety)
Haley Lu Richardson (The White Lotus and Five Feet Apart) will star opposite Game of Thrones alum Emilia Clarke in the upcoming Peacock series Ponies, which is an espionage thriller set in Moscow in 1977. “Two ‘Ponies’ (‘persons of no interest’ in intelligence speak) work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy. That is until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in the USSR, and the pair become CIA operatives. Bea (Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. Her cohort, Twila (Richardson), is a small-town girl who is as abrasive as she is fearless. Together, they work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy and solve the mystery that made them widows in the first place. (Variety)
Amazon Prime is working on a Tomb Raider series, and it appears that Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones and Joan) is in negotiations to play the protagonist. (Deadline and TV Line)
The upcoming HBO limited series Task which will star Mark Ruffalo as an FBI agent leading a task force investigating a string of drug-house robberies in the Philadelphia suburbs has added Martha Plimpton and Mireille Enos to the cast. Plimpton will play Kathleen McGinty, a career FBI agent who recruits Tom (Ruffalo) to head up the task force, just as she learns that she is being forced to retire. Meanwhile, Enos will play Susan Brandis, Tom’s wife and the heart and soul of their family. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Yancey Arais (Bosch) will recur in season 4 of the FOX drama The Cleaning Lady, playing Neto, a hitman and high-ranking member of the cartel. (TV Line)
BOX OFFICE NEWS
Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike and Sir Anthony Hopkins will appear in the upcoming Guy Ritchie box office flick Wife & Dog that is being described as a return to the colorful, back-stabbing world of the British aristocracy Richie explored in The Gentlemen film and TV series. (Deadline)
Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o will star alongside Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Anne Hathway in the upcoming Christopher Nolan film, but the movie has no title yet and has been shrouded in secrecy. It will also not be released until July 2026. (Variety)
That’s it. Enjoy!
Rueben's Ramblings 