Small Screen: Mindy Kaling Announces Cast For Animated Series ‘Velma’; Rapper Coolio Recorded Lines And Music For Hulu’s Upcoming ‘Futurama’ Revival
Anya Banerjee
Broadcast: ABC has lined up another musician to guest star on one of its shows. Hootie & the Blowfish singer Darius Rucker is set to appear in an upcoming episode of Big Sky: Deadly Trails with country singer Lyle Lovett. Rucker plays the hired gun of a tracking specialist played by Lovett on the Helena, Montana set series that stars Kylie Bunbury, Katheryn Winnick, Jensen Ackles, and Reba McEntire.
NBC’s The Blacklist has cast Anya Banerjee in the role of Siya Malik, daughter of Parminder Nagra’s Meera Malik, a CIA agent and early member of the Reddington Task Force who was assassinated in the first season finale. Siya is an active Intelligence Officer for the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6 in the upcoming tenth season, which takes place two years after the death of Megan Boone’s Elizabeth Keen. Other cast members for season ten include Diego Klattenhoff, Amir Arison, Hisham Tawfiq, Laura Sohn, and Harry Lennix.
Tamara Taylor - Marcus Ingram
Cable: Actress Tamara Taylor, known for Law & Order: Organized Crime and Bones, has joined the cast of the FX series Snowfall in an undisclosed role. The drama follows a young drug kingpin in 1980s Los Angeles when the crack epidemic brought in a lot of cash and ruined countless lives. Executive produced by John Singleton, showrunner Dave Andron, Eric Amadio, Thomas Schlamme, Michael London, Trevor Engelson, Leonard Chang, Walter Mosley, and Julie DeJoie, Snowfall is heading into its sixth and final season. The Blacklist is produced by Davis Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television Studios and Universal Television.
Mindy Kaling - Craig Barritt / Stringer
Streaming: The second season trailer for the Apple TV+ bilingual comedy series Acapulco has been released, with its first two episodes set to drop on October 21. The series follows Enrique Arrizon as Máximo Gallardo, a cabana boy at a resort in Acapulco, Las Colinas. It also stars Eugenio Derbez, Fernando Carsa, Dambián Alcázar, Camila Perez, Chord Overstreet, Vanessa Bauche, Regina Reynoso, Raphael Alejandro, Jessica Collins, Rafael Cebrián and Carlos Corona. Created by Austin Winsberg, Eduardo Cisneros and Jason Shuman, Acapulco is directed by Jay Karas, who executive produces with Derbez, Winsberg, Cisneros, Shuman, showrunner Chris Harris, Ben Odell, Sonia Gambaro, Eric and Kim Tannenbaum, and Jason Wang.
Futurama executive producer David X. Cohen revealed that rapper Coolio recorded lines and new music for Hulu’s upcoming revival of the animated series weeks before his death. Coolio reprised his role as Kwanzaa-bot, a counterpart to Robot Santa and the Chanukah Zombie who flies around distributing a book titled “What the Hell is Kwanza [sic]?” Coolio first played the character in Season 4 episode “A Tale of Two Santas” and appeared again in Season 7 episode “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular” and the film “Bender’s Big Score.” Hulu ordered the twenty-episode Futurama revival in February.
Netflix has added eleven new actors to the cast of the upcoming series Obliterated from Cobra Kai creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald. The Fall Of The House Of Usher’s Carly Lumbly and Avatar: The Way Of Water’s Keston Johnson are among the list of actors joining the upcoming Netflix show about an elite Special Forces team who thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas, only to discover during their celebratory party that the bomb they deactivated was fake. The real bomb is still poised to explode somewhere in the city. Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald also serve as executive producers with Dina Hillier for Counterbalance Entertainment.
Executive producer and star of the new animated series Velma for HBO Max, Mindy Kaling, announced the show’s cast at New York Comic Con on Thursday. Along with Kaling as Velma, the adult comedy series also stars Constance Wu as Daphne, Sam Richardson as Shaggy, and Glen Howerton as Fred. Also included in the large ensemble cast are Wanda Sykes, Melissa Fumero, Ken Leung, Yvonne Orji Nicole Byer, Ming-Na Wen, and Kuala Vilaysak, among others. Velma centers on Mystery Inc. member Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo, who was recently confirmed to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Kaling also confirmed that her Velma is South Asian in the re-imagined origin story.
Marc Velez - Universal Studio Group
Industry: Four finalists have been selected for the Thousand Miles Project, the Asian Pacific Islander writer's lab created by Pachinko showrunner Soo Hugh through Universal Studio Group’s Universal Content Productions division. Writer-director Ria Tobaccowala will lead David Loon, Manivone Nonthaveth, and writing partners Kelly and Kevin Luu in the six-month, paid lab to develop a pilot script and meet with managers, agents and producers. Loong is a Hong Kong- and U.K.-raised writer working towards his MFA in Writing for Screen and Television at USC. Nonthaveth is the child of Laotian refugees who lives in Brooklyn and is about to premiere her second short film, and the Luus are Vietnamese brothers from New Bedford, MA who previously participated as mentees in Ryan Murphy’s Half Initiative.
Media Res, the studio behind Pachinko, is set to adapt the debut novel from sci-fi author Silvia Park. Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer will executive produce the series based on Luminous, about three estranged siblings who live and work in a recently re-unified Korea where humans and robots coexist. Park is the recipient of the George R.R. Martin “Sense of Wonder” Fellowship to attend the Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writing.
UCP has hired Marc Velez, formerly the president of Lee Daniels Entertainment, as Senior Vice President and Head of Development, while Naketha Mattocks is now the Senior Vice President of Drama Development of Universal Television. Velez is taking over for Garrett Kemble, who left earlier this year for a role at Anonymous Content’s AC Studios. He will serve under Executive Vice President Jennifer Gwartz. Mattocks, who previously launched Netflix’s family division, will report to UTV’s Executive Vice President of Drama Vivian Cannon.
Hallmark Media has named Alice Rao as Senior Vice President of Publicity under Chief Communications Officer Annie Howell. Rao will oversee the Hallmark’s publicity team and head its campaigns that promote the company’s networks and services, programming, talent, executives, and more. Her duties also include liaises with corporate communications, talent relations and events, programming, and various internal and external parties to align efforts and provide strategic guidance. Rao previously worked as a Communications and Publicity Consultant with Netflix, HBOMax, Turner Networks, and MRC Media and as a Senior Executive for AMC Networks, Sony, NBCUniversal, and Discovery Networks.
Screenwriter, executive producer, and showrunner Monica Macer has signed a multi-year, overall deal with MGM Television to create, develop and produce original scripted programming. Macer’s writing and producing credits include Lost, Prison Break, Teen Wolf, Nashville, Deception, and The Breaks, while she served as executive producer and showrunner on shows like Gentefied, Macgyver, Queen Sugar, and Station Eleven. She serves on the Motion Picture Television Fund’s NextGen board, as well as the board of the Coalition of Asian Pacific (CAPE). Macer is also a co-founder of the Korean American Leaders in Hollywood.