Small Screen: Amir Arison exits 'The Blacklist' for Broadway; 'Mandalorian' fans get sneak peek at 'Ahsoka'; 'Grey's Anatomy' star Loretta Devine joins 'Days Of Our Lives: Beyond Salem'
POC STUDIOS
Broadcast: After nine seasons, actor Amir Arison is leaving NBC’s The Blacklist. The series regular, who played FBI Special Agent Aram Mojtabi, announced he was taking time off in preparation for his upcoming Broadway debut in The Kite Runner at The Hayes Theater opening this July. Laura Sohn, who joined the show in its seventh season as FBI agent Alina Park, is also leaving to pursue other projects. Both characters departures did leave the door open for possible future guest appearances.
Yet another star is departing an NBC drama: Anthony Anderson, who returned as Detective Kevin Bernard for the recently revived Law & Order had a one-year deal and will not be coming back next season. He first appeared as Detective Bernard in 2008 and was able to return to Law & Order once his ABC sitcom Black-ish wrapped after eight seasons. He was the first former cast member to return, followed by longtime cast member Sam Waterston, who stars as District Attorney Jack McCoy.
POC Studios and NorthStar Thailand Studio are teaming up with Japanese writer-producer Ryoichi Wada and his company Hairu Entertainment to develop and produce an original animated series titled Ninja Masx. Wada gained notoriety when his play Ghost In The Box became the inspiration for the 2017 hit zombie film One Cut Of The Dead. The Ninja Masx series is said to be based on an original manga concept by Wada combining ninja lore, apocalyptic genre, music, dance, and dynamic anime action. Labid Aziz of PoC Studios also announced a new partnership with SOLIS Studios and SOLIS Labs, the feature film and blockchain divisions of media and technology collective SOLIS and that Ninja Masx will be the partnership’s first project. It’s being co-developed and executive produced by Andrew Cosby (writer of the 2019 Hellboy) along with fellow executive producers Ray Sefo, Sirisak Koshpasharin, and Isaac Wu.
Omar Shy - Andreas Rentz
Cable: Omar Sy, the star of Netflix’s French-language series Lupin, has signed a first-look series development deal for HBO Max. The actor, who was the first Black actor to win the César Award - the French Oscar - for Best Actor for his role in the film The Intouchables, stated “I am very happy to be partnering with HBO Max who share my dreams of developing globally appealing content for audiences around the world, including French speaking Africa, France and the United States.” This comes after Sy’s production company Korokoro, based in both Paris and Los Angeles, struck a multi-year deal with Netflix last year that will showcase Sy both starring in and acting as executive producer on projects.
Matthew Lopez - Cindy Ord
Streaming: This year’s Star Wars Celebration at the Anaheim Convention Center featured a panel for the popular Disney+ series The Mandalorian titled “Mando+: A Conversation with Jon Favreau & Dave Filoni” that also consisted of Mando himself, Pedro Pascal, and a number of other cast members including Giancarlo Esposito and Temuera Morrison. Pascal alluded to a number of surprises to come in the third season, set to air on the streaming channel in 2023. Attendees also got a sneak peek of the new Ahsoka series starring Rosario Dawson, viewing early footage showing Natasha Liu Bordizzo, last seen in the Amazon Original movie The Voyeurs, portraying the character of Sabine Wren. Dawson appeared at the end of the panel to talk about the live-action spinoff, which had just completed its third week of filming. She was joined onstage by Bordizzo, after which the two talked about what it feels like to be a part of the Star Wars franchise. The new series takes place during the same time as the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and focuses on Ahsoka Tano, who is Anakin Skywalker’s padawan apprentice during his time as a Jedi, before becoming the powerful Sith Lord, Darth Vader.
It was announced that Aurora Perrineau, best known for playing Detective Dani Powell on FOX’s Prodigal Son, has been cast in the starring role of Riddy in the new Netflix series Kaos. The 10-episode drama from creator Charlie Covell (writer of The End of The F**cking World) is described as a modern-day contemporary retelling of Greek and Roman mythology. Perrineau, who is the daughter of Lost actor Harold Perrineau, will be portraying a character tied to the story of legendary Greek musician and prophet, Orpheus.
The award-winning actress of stage and screen, Loretta Devine, is one of many actors joining the cast of Peacock’s limited series spinoff Days Of Our Lives: Beyond Salem. Devine, who alongside Jennifer Holliday and Sheryl Lee Ralph appeared as Broadway’s original Dreamgirls, is probably best known for her Emmy award-winning portrayal of Adele Webber on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. Other actors of color joining Devine and appearing as their daytime characters in the five-episode season are Remington Hoffman (Li Shin), Camila Banus (Gabi Hernandez), and You’s Christopher Sean (Paul Narita). The first installment of Days Of Our Lives: Beyond Salem debuted last September and the second will stream from July 11-15.
Another Broadway darling, Matthew López, will adapt the Eric Cervini bestseller The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual Vs. The United States of America into a limited series for Amazon. López, the first Latino playwright to win the Tony Award for Best Play for The Inheritance in 2019, signed an overall television development deal with Amazon Studios in October 2020 and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment will produce the series, which tells the story of LGBTQ civil rights leader Frank Kameny, a Department of Defense astronomer in the 1950s who sues the federal government after being fired for being gay. Supposedly López is also currently working on a remake of the 1992 Kevin Costner - Whitney Houston vehicle The Bodyguard for Warner Bros and a musical adaptation of the 1959 Billy Wilder classic Some Like It Hot.