Rueben's Ramblings

Hey There,

Here are the news items for the past week:

RENEWALS/CANCELLATIONS

The USA Network has renewed Queen of the South for a fifth season. (Variety)

The Lifetime drama American Princess has been cancelled after only one season. (Variety)

NEW SERIES NEWS

Executive producer Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) has taken on her next new project. She will write and executive produce the Netflix series Chasing Hilary, based on the best-selling book by Amy Chozick, which centers on four female journalists who follow every move of a parade of flawed presidential candidates, finding friendship, love, and a scandal that could take down not just the presidency but our entire democracy along the way. Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter will executive produce. (Variety)

CASTING NEWS

Actress Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder) will play former First Lady Michelle Obama in a series titled First Ladies, a new series in development at Showtime. The network has given the prospective one-hour drama a three-script commitment, with novelist Aaron Cooley on board to write and executive produce. The series will peel back the curtain on the personal and political lives of First Ladies throughout history, with season one focusing on Eleanor Roosevelt, Betty Ford and Michelle Obama. The series will turn it lens on the East Wing of the White House, as opposed to the West, where many of history’s most impactful and world changing decisions have been hidden from view, made by America’s charismatic, complex and dynamic First Ladies. (Variety)

Actress Cote de Pablo will appear in four episodes of NCIS when it returns for its 17th season on CBS on September 24. (The Cheat Sheet)

Actress Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls) has joined the cast of the upcoming mid-season NBC dramedy Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. She will play Joan, the boss of Jane Levy’s (Suburgatory) titular computer coder. The series will follow San Francisco-based Zoey who, after an unusual events, begins hearing the innermost wants and desires of the people around her through songs. She initially questions her own sanity, but soon realizes this unwanted curse may just be an incredibly wonderful gift. (TV Line)

Actor Manu Bennett (Arrow, Spartacus and The Shannara Chronicles) and actress Charisma Carpenter (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Veronica Mars) will be showing on the summer sci-fi series Pandora, airing on The CW. Bennett will play Leone Vokk, an intergalactic bounty hunter sent by the malevolent Parallax Corporation to capture Jax (Priscilla Quintana) and gain the secret of portal technology. But Vokk will need to face off against Jax’s allies, who will sacrifice anything to protect their friend. Carpenter will play a mysterious woman named Laura, who might have all the answers to Jax’s questions about her origins, but who also might be Jax’s most dangerous enemy yet. (ComicBook.com)

Actress Lela Loren (Power) has joined the cast of Netflix futuristic series Altered Carbon. She will play Danica Harlan, the charming and ambitious governor of planet Harlan’s World. She has the support of the people, but keeps an uneasy grip on the political players who surround her. The second season of Altered Carbon will air sometime in 2020. (The Hollywood Reporter)

This Is Us has announced a number of new cast members, who will joining the show’s upcoming fourth season, which will debut on September 24. They include (but are not limited to) Timothy Omundson (Psych), Omar Epps (House and Shooter), Nick Wechsler (Roswell and Revenge) and even director M. Night Shyamalan. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Actress Abby Brammell (9-1-1 and The Unit) will have a recurring role in the upcoming sixth season of the Amazon streaming series Bosch, which stars Titus Welliver as homicide Detective Harry Bosch. She will play Heather Strout, a tough, smart, blue-collar woman who may or may not be mixed up in some of her husband’s issues. (Deadline)

Actress Garcelle Beauvais (The Magicians) has joined the cast of the second season of the CBS All Access fairy-tale drama Tell Me a Story, which will center on a trio of fairy-tale princesses from the classic tales Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beautyand Cinderella. Beauvais will recur as hard-charging businesswoman Veronica Garland, who marries a widower and wastes no time in pushing aside his Cinderella-esque daughter to be played by actress Ashley Madekwe (Revenge).. (Deadline and TV Line)

MOVIE CASTING NEWS

Actor Himesh Patel (Yesterday) will star alongside John David Washington (that would be Denzel’s son) in the box office movie Tenet, an action epic evolving from the world of international espionage. The cast will include Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Kenneth Branagh. (Variety)

Actor Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf and The Maze Runner franchise) will star alongside Mark Wahlberg and actress Sophie Cookson (Kingsman) in the box office movie Infinite, based on the novel The Reincarnationist Papers by D. Eric Maikranz that centers on the Cognomina, a secret society of people who possess total recall of their past lives. A troubled young man haunted by memories of two past lives stumbles upon the centuries-old society and decides to join their ranks. Ian Shorr is adapting the story for the screen. Details of O’Brien’s role have not been revealed. (Variety)

That’s it. Enjoy!