Small Screen: Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr To Star in Father-Son Comedy Series; Netflix Announces Price And Launch Date For New Ad-Supported Service
Brian Tee - Paul R. Giunta
Broadcast: CBS is developing a multi-camera comedy that will star the father and son team of Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. The still-untitled project, co-written by Damon Wayans and former Last Man Standing executive producer Kevin Hench, will feature the elder Wayans as a divorced talk radio host and the junior Wayans as his man-child of a son who is about to hit 40. The sitcom will be executive produced by father and son, along with Hench, for CBS Studios. Both Wayans had appeared together previously as father and son in an episode of the CBS series Happy Together.
Chicago Med actor Brian Tee is leaving the NBC drama after eight seasons. The actor’s final episode as Dr. Ethan Choi is in the season’s ninth episode, which will air on December 7, but he will return for episode sixteen to make his directorial debut. Tee has appeared in 131 episodes since Chicago Med premiered in 2015, missing most of the show’s seventh season to film the upcoming Amazon series Expats.
Walter Perez - Michael Kovac
Streaming: BET+ has acquired the animated superhero series from Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson titled Trill League, based on the Anthony Piper webcomic. Previously in development at Quibi, the series is written by Piper with Ted Lasso, co-executive produced by Leann Bowen and produced by Jackson’s G-Unit Film & Television, 3 Arts Entertainment and Lionsgate Television. Trill League follows a team of Black superheroes “battling against each other’s self-indulgences in order to combat the villains of today’s cultural conflicts and protect society” and will be executive produced by Jackson, Piper, Bowen, and 3 Arts’ Jermaine Johnson.
Queen Sugar’s Walter Perez has been cast in a recurring role on the Paramount+ series Fatal Attraction. Perez will play DDA Jorge Perez in the upcoming series from writer Alexandra Cunningham, which is a reimagining of the 1980s psychosexual thriller film starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. Perez joins a cast that includes Joshua Jackson, Lizzy Caplan, Amanda Peet, Wanda De Jesus, Alyssa Jirrels, Toby Huss, Reno Wilson and Brian Goodman.
Kindred, an FX drama based on the Octavia E. Butler novel, is now set to stream exclusively on Hulu beginning December 13. It was announced at New York Comic Con that all eight episodes of the series will be available on the premiere date. Kindred stares Mallori Johnson as Dana James, a young Black woman and aspiring writer who is pulled back and forth in time between present-day Los Angeles, where she has just relocated, and a 19th-century plantation linked to Dana and her family. Johnson stars along with Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown, and Sheria Irving. The book is being adapted to screen by writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who executive produces the series with Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, Darren Aronofsky, and Ari Handel of Protozoa Pictures, Courtney Lee-Mitchell, Jules Jackson, Ernestine Walker, and director Janicza Bravo.
Hulu has ordered ten episodes of a drama based on the award-winning book Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. In development since 2020, the series from 20th Television will star Jimmy O. Yang (Love Hard, Silicon Valley) as Willis Wu, a background character on a police procedural who a becomes a witness to a crime and begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown. Yu also serves as showrunner and Taika Waititi will direct the pilot. The two will executive produce with Dan Lin, Lindsey Liberatore, Elsie Choi for Rideback, Jeff Skoll for Participant, Miura Kite, and Garrett Basch for Dive.
The Peacock series Bel-Air has changed showrunners for the third time, with Carla Banks Waddles now taking over for TJ Brady and Rasheed Newson, who have departed the series over creative differences. The two were named co-showrunners on the show’s first season following the departure of Diane Houston, who had taken over from the show’s original showrunner, Chris Collins. The dramatic reboot of the beloved Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is preparing for its second season. Produced by Universal Television with Westbrook Studios, it stars Jabari Banks in the Will Smith role, alongside Adrian Holmes, Cassandra Freeman, Olly Sholotan, Coco Jones, Akira Akbar, Jimmy Akingbola, Jordan L. Jones and Simone Joy Jones.
Industry: Netflix has announced its new subscription tier, Basic with Ads, which will cost $6.99 a month and launch in the U.S. on November 3. This entry-level price is less than half the cost of the most popular tier, Standard, which is $15.49 a month, and will have four to five minutes of ads per hour, with both series and feature films being interrupted by spots, though Netflix COO Greg Peters clarified that new movies coming to the service “will just have a pre-roll” of spots before the feature plays without interruption and that “a limited number of movies and TV shows won’t be available” on Basic with Ads “due to licensing restrictions, which we’re working on.” Another notable difference is that downloads will not be allowed in Basic with Ads and the resolution is 720p, not as sharp as the 1080p of Netflix’s Standard plan. They are set to compete with Disney+’s upcoming ad-supported version, which launches December 8 and will cost $7.99.
Netflix has hired Billy Wee of HBO Max as its new Director of Adult Animation Comedy Series and has also promoted SVP of Comedy and Animation Jermaine Turner to Director of Adult Animation Action Series. The two are replacing the former Director of Adult Animation, Mike Moon, who left the streamer in July, and both will report to the VP of Animation Series, John Derderian. Netflix’s animation slate includes BoJack Horseman, Big Mouth, Inside Job, The Midnight Gospel and Entergalactic.
Bound Entertainment is developing a series with author Ann Liang based on her debut YA novel If You Could See the Sun. Based in both Los Angeles and Seoul, Bound Entertainment was founded by veteran entertainment executive and producer Samuel Ha (Okja, Time to Hunt) to develop and produce television, film and digital media with diverse stories “that can reach global audiences for all platforms with a focus on talent, resources, and stories from and about the Asian diaspora.” Liang will executive produce the project based on her novel, which tells the story of Alice Sun, the only scholarship student at an elite Beijing international boarding school who starts uncontrollably turning invisible.
KeKe Palmer is preparing to launch KeyTV, a digital network that will spotlight a new generation of diverse creators and provide an avenue for them to be highlighted both on and off-screen. The Nope star, who signed an overall television deal with Entertainment One (eOne) in March of 2021, announced the channel will launch on November 3.
ABC Entertainment has hired MRC’s Felicia Joseph as Senior Vice President of casting. Joseph will oversee casting for all ABC pilots and series as well as unscripted casting for Hulu and other WDTV brands while reporting to the Executive Vice President of casting for Walt Disney Television, Sharon Klein. As the Senior Vice President of casting at MRC, Joseph worked on shows like Ozark, The Terminal List, and Poker Face, and as served on the CSA board as Co-Vice President of Advocacy since 2021.
Nielsen has told the Federal Communications Commission that it could assist with diversity data collection across various distribution platforms using a product that analyzes "behind the camera" as well as on-screen diversity. Nielsen’s metadata subsidiary, Gracenote, already helps thousands of companies "gather, compile, check, analyze, and organize" data relevant to on-screen diversity and inclusion and it is now using its metadata to develop a new product that will provide metrics for off-screen diversity. This is in response to a push from advertisers who want to ensure they are "investing equitably in content that includes diverse creators, casts, and themes.”
New York Television Week celebrated its 40 Under 40 in September and among the honorees were Denise Bailey-Castro, the Head of Finance who manages all financial aspects of BET Networks across a portfolio that includes BET, BET Plus, and BET Studios; Brian Lin, the Senior VP of Product Management and Advanced Advertising who heads up product management within TelevisaUnivision’s ad sales organization; Christy Smith, the Director of Social Creative Strategy at Nickelodeon, as well as a member of Nickelodeon’s Inclusivity Council; Sapna Vyas, VP of Scripted Content for Lifetime, spearheading Lifetime’s holiday movies series and shows like Devious Maids; and Simon Wong, and Executive VP at the minority-led and founded the ad-tech company, Sabio Holdings.