Rueben's Ramblings

Hey All,

Here are the news items for this past week:

RENEWAL/CANCELLATION

Netflix has renewed the Katherine Heigl-Sarah Chalke drama ‘Firefly Lane’ for a second season. (TV Line)

The NBC drama Debris has been cancelled after only one season. (TV Line)

CASTING EXIT

Emily Wickersham has confirmed her exit from NCIS, as her character, Eleanor Bishop, embarks on a covert, undercover mission. (TV Line)

TV CASTING NEWS

Rupert Evans (Charmed and The Man in the High Castle) has joined the cast of the Netflix period drama Bridgerton, playing Edmund Bridgerton, the loving and devoted husband of Violet Bridgerton. (Netflix Twitter Account)

After appearing in the short-term recurring role of Phillip on This Is Us, Chris Geere has been promoted to series regular for the drama’s final season. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Freddie Stroma (Bridgerton and the Harry Potter movie franchise) will take over the role of Adrian Chase aka Vigilante in the HBO Max spin-off of James Gunn’s Suicide Squad movie that stars John Cena in that role. This straight-to-series order will explore the origins of the character. (Deadline)

Victor Webster (Matchmaker Mysteries movie franchise) will recur on the second season of the Freeform fantasy series Motherland: Fort Salem. Webster plays Blanton Silver, vice president of the United States. When his daughter is discovered to be a witch, Silver tries to adjust to her newfound identity. (Deadline)

9-1-1: Lone Star has promoted Brianna Baker to series regular for the show’s upcoming 3rd season. Baker portrays paramedic Nancy Gillian, who works at the 126 under Captain Tommy Vega (Gina Torres). (TV Line)

The Good Doctor has promoted cast members Noah Galvin and Bria Samone Henderson to series regular for the show’s upcoming 5th season. They play Drs. Wolke and Allen. (TV Line)

Lucien Laviscount (Katy Keene and Scream Queens) will join the cast of the Netflix dramedy Emily in Paris for the show’s 2nd season, playing Alfie, a sarcastic and charming cynic who refuses to speak French or immerse himself in French culture. He and Emily (series lead Lily Collins) have an antagonist relationship that evolves into something more as the season progresses. (TV Line)

DEVELOPMENT NEWS/PICK-UP ORDERS

The Netflix series Sandman, based on the DC comic book series by Neil Gaiman, which follows the people and places affected by Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), the Dream King, as he mends the cosmic — and human — mistakes he’s made during his vast existence. Some of the new cast member include Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Veronica Mars Season 4), who will play Death, Dream’s wiser sister; Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who), who will play Johanna Constantine, a haunted exorcist and Occult Adventuress for Hire; Joely Richardson (Nip/Tuck), who will play Ethel Cripps, a master thief and woman of a thousand identities; David Thewlis (Harry Potter franchise), who will play John Dee, Ethel’s son; Stephen Fry (Gosford Park), who will play Gilbert, the debonair protector of the character Rose Walker and Patton Oswalt (The King of Queens), who will provide the voice of Matthew the Raven, Dream’s trusted emissary. The series is already set to star Gwendoline Christie, Boyd Holbrook and Charles Dance [among others]. (Variety)

The NBC streaming service Peacock has given a 10-episode, straight-to-series order to Mrs. Davis, a new TV drama from Damon Lindelof (the EP of Lost and Watchmen) and Tara Hernandez (writer on The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon. Plot details for the new drama are being kept under wraps, but the show is expected to be an exploration of faith versus technology and an epic battle of biblical and binary proportions. (Variety)

Another Peacock drama is in development with Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels and The Hunger Games franchise) set to not only co-star, but also direct and executive produce. The series – Red Queen – is based on the best-selling novel by Victoria Aveyard, and is set in a future America where democracy is replaced by a monarchy led by a group of humans with superpowers who rule with an iron fist over those without powers. The story centers on a poor young woman named Mare who discovers that she, too, has powers, which catapults her to become the face of a revolution for the oppressed while searching for the truth behind the greatest mystery of all: how she became so powerful in the first place. Beth Schwartz (EP of Arrow) co-wrote the pilot with author Aveyard and Schwartz will also serve as showrunner.  (TV Line)

Showtime has ordered an anthology series called Super Pumped; with its first season set to focus on the rise of the ride-sharing app Uber with Joseph Gordon-Levitt set to star. Each season will explore a story that rocked the business world to its core and changed culture. (Variety)

Bassett Vance Productions, the production company from Angela Bassett and Courney B. Vance) are teaming up with MTV Entertainment Studios to develop a limited series about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which left hundreds of Black people dead and entire homes and businesses destroyed. The series will tell the story of the Greenwood district in Tulsa, which at that time was the wealthiest Black community in the United States and known as “Black Wall Street.” (Variety)

STREAMING SERVICES MOVIE

Believe it or not, but Lindsay Lohan is coming back to acting in the yet-to-be-titled Netflix holiday rom-com, playing a newly engaged, spoiled hotel heiress, who gets amnesia after a skiing accident and finds herself in the care of a handsome, blue-collar lodge owner and his precocious daughter in the days leading up to Christmas (think a Christmas-themed version of Overboard). The rest of the cast has not yet been announced. (Variety)

BOX OFFICE NEWS

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver, will headline Kraven the Hunter, who has connections to Spider-Man. (Variety)

Victoria Pedretti (You and The Haunting of Bly Manor) will star as Love Quinn in the box office adaptation of the 1999 memoir Lucky from “The Lovely Bones” author Alice Sebold. The film will focus on the 18-year-old Alice, then a burgeoning writer in her freshman year at Syracuse University. After being viciously beaten and raped by a stranger in a tunnel near her college campus, the story explores how the traumatic experience shaped the rest of her life. (Variety)

Timothee Chalamet will play the world’s most famous chocolatier in Wonka, a musical based on the early life of Willy Wonka, a prequel film that will explore the upbringing of the man who later created the famous house of confectionary treats. Reps for Chalamet confirm he will be singing and dancing in the movie. (Variety and Deadline)

That’s it. Enjoy!