Small Screen: ‘AZNBBGRL’ Lead Cast Announced; Kali Reis To Star Opposite Jodi Foster In ‘True Detective: Night Country’; Hulu Cancels ‘Woke'
The CW
Broadcast: The CW show Tom Swift, a Nancy Drew spinoff that premiered on May 31st, has been canceled. It starred Tian Richards, who first appeared as the re-imagined Black, gay billionaire Swift in the second season of Nancy Drew. The spinoff saw the character thrust into conflict with a mysterious global cabal following the sudden disappearance of his father. The CW will air the rest of the episodes from now until the final on July 19th.
Fat Joe - Johnny Nunez
Cable: The lead cast of the new coming-of-age series AZNBBGRL from Freeform and 20th Television has been announced. Cathy Bui, Lynn Kim Do, and Jazelle Villanueva are set to star in the teen drama set in the Vietnamese neighborhood of Little Saigon in Orange County. Bui (All I Ever Wanted) plays Anh, Kim Do (FBI: Most Wanted) plays Jenny, and Villanueva (Valets) plays Dang-Dang: three young women who end up becoming involved with a dangerous street gang. Other cast members include Quentin Nguyen-Duy (Law & Order: SVU), Alejandro Akara (Dark Harvest), Audrey Huynh (The Boss Baby: Back in Business), and Cat Ly (Owl and the Sparrow). Natalie Chaidez, Dinh Thai, Kai Yu Wu, and Melvin Mar will executive produce the series along with Jake Kasdan for The Detective Agency, with Wu serving as showrunner and Thai directing.
Freeform has also ordered a new scripted series called The Watchful Eye, with Mexican American actress Mariel Molino set to star as Elena Santos, a live-in nanny for an affluent Manhattan widower and his young son. It is created by Julie Durk and had been ordered to pilot at the network back in September 2021 with Andrea Londo (Narcos) as Elena. Other cast members include Jon Ecker (Firefly Lane), Lex Lumpkin (All That), and Aliyah Royale (The Walking Dead: The World Beyond).
Hip hop star Joseph “Fat Joe” Cartagena is developing a show based on his life with Showtime and BET Studios. The Book Of Jose will detail Fat Joe’s nearly three-decades-long journey from a public housing project in the South Bronx to becoming a Grammy-nominated musician, producer, and actor. The pilot is written by Jorge A. Reyes of Queen Of The South who will executive produce along with Cartegna, Black*ish creator Kenya Barris, E. Brian Dobbins, and pilot director Jessy Terrero. Barris’ Khalabo Ink Society is producing through an overall deal with BET Studios and in collaboration with Cinema Giants, Buffalo Kid Films, and Artists First.
Professional boxer Kali Reis has just been cast opposite Oscar winner Jodie Foster in the new season of True Detective for HBO. Reis will portray Detective Evangeline Navarro, who partners with Foster’s Detective Liz Danvers as they try to solve the mysterious disappearance of six men from the Tsalal Arctic Research Station in Alaska. The fourth season, titled True Detective: Night Country, is the singular vision of Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid), who serves as writer, director, executive producer, and showrunner.
Also in HBO news, Robin Thede, the creator, and star of the Emmy-nominated comedy series A Black Lady Sketch Show has just inked a three-year overall deal to develop exclusive content for the network, its streaming platform HBO Max, and Warner Bros Television, expanding upon her previous overall deal with Warner Bros. TV alone that would have expired at the end of August. In addition to the fourth season of A Black Lady Sketch Show which was just announced this month, Thede is also set to star in HBO Max’s Perfect Strangers reboot currently in development.
Streaming: Hacks actress Poppy Liu will guest star as the magical Princess Iron Fan in the upcoming Disney+ series American Born Chinese. The show is based on Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel and tells a story of identity, transformation, and ancient Chinese deities, centered around two teenagers (played by Ben Wang and Jim Liu). Other cast members include Michelle Yeoh, Yeo Yann Yann, Daniel Wu, Chin Han, and Ke Huy Quan. Produced by 20th Television, American Born Chinese is written by Kelvin Yu, who also serves as showrunner and will executive produce with Yang, Melvin Mar, Jake Kasdan, Asher Goldstein, Erin O’Malley, and Destin Daniel Cretton.
After two seasons, Hulu canceled the series Woke, which starred Lamorne Morris as Keef, a Black cartoonist based on artist Keith Knight. Woke was developed by both Knight and Barbershop scribe Marshall Todd, and combined live-action and animation to show Keef becoming more and more conscious of racism in his everyday life. The Sony Pictures Television and ABC Signature-produced show also starred T. Murph, Blake Anderson, Sasheer Zamata, and Rose McIver and reportedly struggled during the filming of the eight episodes of its second season due to COVID 19.
However, Woke Executive Producer Aeysha Carr is the creator of the David Oyelowo-led series Government Cheese which will be picked up by Apple according to reports. It will mark the actor’s second series with the streaming service after the adaptation of Hugh Howey’s post-apocalyptic Wool novels, which were announced in September of 2021. Government Cheese is a dramedy based on her co-creator Paul Hunter’s short film of the same name and follows Oyelowo’s character Hampton Chambers as he tries to rebuild his life and win back his family after being released from prison, all while processing moments of divine intervention that seem to happen with increasing frequency. Carr, Hunter, and Oyelowo executive produce with Charles D. King, Marta Fernandez, Jelani Johnson, and Ahmadou Seck of MACRO Television Studios, a co-studio with Apple on the series.
Apple TV+ has just released a trailer for the new series Surface starring Loki’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The psychological thriller premieres on July 29th and stars Mbatha-Raw as a woman who has suffered a traumatic head injury from a supposed suicide attempt that has left her with extreme memory loss. Produced by Apple Studios and Hello Sunshine, the show was created by Hulu’s High Fidelity executive producer and showrunner Veronica West, with a cast that also includes Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House), Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk), Ari Graynor (I’m Dying Up Here), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies), François Arnaud (I Killed My Mother) and Millie Brady (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Moses Ingram will take over the role of Cleo Sherwood in the Apple limited series Lady In the Lake. We reported earlier that Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o had left the show in which she was playing opposite Natalie Portman. Ingram joins Portman, Y’Lan Noel, Mikey Madison, and Brett Gelman in this adaptation of Laura Lippman’s novel set in 1960s Baltimore about a housewife trying to investigate an unsolved murder.
Xelia Mendes-Jones and Aaron Moten are joining Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and the newly announced Kyle MacLachlan in the Amazon TV series adaptation Fallout. Based on the popular video game, Fallout takes place in the aftermath of a global nuclear war and will begin production later this year, produced by Amazon Studios and Kilter Films, in association with Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks.
Showrunner Nahnatchka Khan is developing an American adaptation of the Australian comedy series Laid for Peacock with Sally Bradford McKenna. They will serve as writers and executive producers on the show about a woman whose former lovers are all dying in unusual ways. Khan will executive produce the show via Fierce Baby Productions along with Jennifer Carreras, John Davis, and John Fox of Davis Entertainment, and Liz Watts, Marieke Hardy, and Kirsty Fisher of Porchlight Films, who created and produced the original series.
Rosalind Chao of FX’s Better Things and Showtime’s The First Lady has been added to the cast of the new Netflix show 3 Body Problem. She joins the sci-fi drama series along with Tony winner Jonathon Pryce and Ben Schnetzer in this adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning novel of the same name by author Liu Cixin (the first Asian author to win the best novel in 2015). Derek Tsang (director of the Oscar-nominated Hong Kong film Better Days) will direct multiple episodes and serve as co-executive producer of what is described as “an ambitious tale about what happens when humanity discovers that they are not alone in the universe.”
Francisca X. Hu - Luke Fontana
Industry: Actor Idris Elba is in discussions to make a $1..2 billion dollar bid with Marc Boyan, founder, and CEO of marketing and communications collective, The Miroma Group for U.K. Broadcaster Channel 4. Nadine Dorries, U.K. Culture Secretary, confirmed Channel 4 would be up for sale in April of this year and other rumored bidders include British public service broadcaster ITV, Comcast’s pay-TV operator Sky and Paramount, which operates U.K. broadcaster Channel 5.
Tehmina Jaffer, president of business affairs and operations at entertainment company Anonymous Content, will succeed Adina Savin as the executive vice president of business affairs at Disney Branded Television. Jaffer was previously a senior vice president of business affairs for Disney+ and has also held roles in business affairs at Netflix and NBC Universal, as well as the ABC Studios legal affairs team. Jaffer will report to Disney Branded Television President Ayo Davis and lead all aspects of business affairs, negotiations, and contract administration for Disney Television Animation and Disney Branded Television live-action content created for Disney+, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior.
Writer-producer Francisca X. Hu who’s worked on such shows as Sleep Hollow, Tales Of The Walking Dead, and Warrior, has signed an overall deal with UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, to develop and produce projects for a variety of television platforms. A graduate of the 2022 WGA Showrunner Training Program, Hu has said she is “truly looking forward to diving in and telling propulsive, character-rich stories from unique perspectives and building interesting worlds in my new creative home!”
Ukonwa Ojo is leaving her role as Chief Marketing Officer for Amazon Studios and Prime Video. For the past two years, Ojo was an instrumental part of the campaign for the hit Amazon series The Boys, which just launched its third season. Mike Hopkins, SVP of Prime Video & Amazon Studios wrote a note to staff regarding Ojo’s departure that said “we will use this transition period to evaluate our organizational needs as we continue on our path to becoming the most-loved video subscription service and the preferred entertainment hub of curated content that engages our customers worldwide. I’ll be reaching out to senior marketing team members in the coming days on how we best move forward” and asked for “patience as we work through this period.”
There have been a number of actors who have reached new deals regarding representation including Mimi Keene, who appears on the Netflix show Sex Education, and has signed with UTA; Sarah Shahi, star of the Netflix drama Sex/Life, who has signed with WME; and Corrine Massiah of the Fox show 9-1-1, who has signed with Alchemy Entertainment.