Small Screen: ‘P-Valley’ Renewed For Season 3; Marvel Star Simu Liu Heads Up ‘Seven Wonders’ For Amazon
Nicey Nash - MICHAEL TRAN
Broadcast: ABC has ordered nine additional episodes of the police drama spinoff The Rookie: Feds, giving it a full first season. It premiered on September 27 with solid numbers and has increased its viewership to 6.4 million across linear and digital platforms. The series stars Niecy Nash-Betts as the oldest rookie in the FBI, Simone Clark, and features Frankie R. Faison, James Lesure, Britt Robertson, Felix Solis, and Kevin Zegers. Feds is co-created by Alexi Hawley and Terence Paul Winter, who serve as showrunners and executive produce along with Nash-Betts, Mark Gordon, original The Rookie star Nathan Fillion, Michelle Chapman, Bill Norcross, Corey Miller, Michael Goi and Bibby Dunn.
Uzo Aduboa - ANGELA WEISS
Cable: HBO’s hilarious A Black Lady Sketch Show has begun production on its fourth season, which will feature new cast members but will not include core cast member and writer Ashley Nicole Black. The Emmy-winning HBO series from creator Robin Thede will have three new featured players: TikTok star DaMya Gurley, former Voice contestant Tamara Jade and stand-up comedian Angel Laketa Moore joining remaining cast members Thede, Gabrielle Dennis and Skye Townsend. Black was a writer/producer for the latest season of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and will next be seen on the streamer in the series Bad Monkey by Ted Lasso co-creator Bill Lawrence.
Emmy winner Uzo Aduboa will executive produce and star in a one-hour limited series drama based on Wanda M. Morris’ bestselling novel All Her Little Secrets for Showtime. Developed by Deniese Davis’ Reform Media Group and CBS Studios, along with Evil co-executive producer Aurin Squire (who wrote the pilot). The series follows Aduba as Black female lawyer Ellice Littlejohn, as she gets caught up in an affair and a mysterious conspiracy on her ascent up the corporate ladder. The novel written by Morris was lauded by the Amazon Book Review, L.A. Times, and New York Times, and the prequel, Anywhere You Run, is set to be published this month.
The popular Starz drama P-Valley has officially been renewed for a ten-episode third season. The strip club drama from creator, showrunner and executive producer Katori Hall saw its characters dealing with the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic in season 2, which averaged nearly 10.3M viewers across linear, VOD and streaming platforms. It delved deeper into the lives of the employees and patrons of The Pynk, a strip club in the fictional Mississippi town of Chucalissa, portrayed by Nicco Annan, Elarica Johnson, along with Brandee Evans, Shannon Thornton and J. Alphonse Nicholson. Hall stated that she was “blessed beyond measure for this opportunity to write the next chapter of P-Valley” and described the show as “a love letter to marginalized communities in the American South who rarely see themselves reflected on screen.”
Simu Liu - ANGELA WEISS
Streaming: Marvel’s Shang-Chi Simu Liu has been tapped to star in a series adaptation of the Ben Mezrich novel Seven Wonders for Amazon. Adam Cozad will write and executive produce the series currently in development and Justin Lin is set to direct and executive produce via Perfect Storm Entertainment. According to the official logline, Liu stars as “brilliant botanist-adventurer Dr. Nate Grady” who “teams up with the slippery international fixer, Sloane Seydoux, on a breathless race to solve an ancient mystery tied to the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World.”
Seven new cast members have been added to the second season of the Amazon original series Harlem. The comedy tells the story of four girlfriends as they leave their twenties and embark on the next phases of their lives in Harlem. Stars Meagan Good, Jerrie Johnson, Grace Byers and Shoniqua Shandai will be joined by The Craft’s Rachel True, Charmed’s Courtnee Carter and S.W.A.T.’s Luke Forbes in recurring roles, with Rick Fox, Sherri Shepherd, Countess Vaughn and Lil Rey Howery appearing in guest roles. Produced by Amazon Studios and Universal Television in association with Paper Kite Productions, Harlem season 2 is executive produced by creator/ writer Tracy Oliver, Amy Poehler and Kim Lessing alongside 3 Arts’ Dave Becky, Britt Matt, Linda Mendoza, Pharrell Williams and Mimi Valdés from i am OTHER.
The upcoming Marvel Studios series Ironheart has cast Paul Calderón in an undisclosed role. The actor/writer/director will join cast members Anthony Ramos, Shakira Barrera, Manny Montana, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Rashida “Sheedz” Olayiwola, Shea Couleé and Zoe Terakes in the six-episode series created by Chinaka Hodge that stars Dominique Thorne as genius inventor Riri Williams. Thorne’s character will be introduced to the MCU in the upcoming Black Panther sequel from director Ryan Coogler who executive produces Ironheart with Hodge, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum and Zoie Nagelhout.
The Book of Boba Fett star Temuera Morrison has been cast in the Apple TV+ limited series Chief of War. Morrison is set to play King Kahekili, the King of Maui, in the eight-episode drama from Fifth Season and Chernin Entertainment opposite Jason Momoa, who also serves as writer and executive producer. Telling the story of the colonization of Hawaii from an indigenous point of view, Chief of War reunites the Morrison and Momoa, who play father and son in the 2018 film Aquaman and again in the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Other executive producers include creator Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, Francis Lawrence, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Erik Holmberg, director Justin Chon and Doug Jung who also serves as showrunner.
BET+’s upcoming dark comedy series Average Joe has cast several series regulars in addition to already announced star Deon Cole. Joining Cole are Tammy Townsend, Malcolm Barrett, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams and Ashley Olivia Fisher among others in the upcoming series from Robb Cullen and McG. Based on Cullen’s life Average Joe centers on a plumber in Pittsburgh named Joe Washington (Cole) who discovers his recently deceased father stole millions of dollars from dangerous people who now think Joe can lead them to the missing dough. Townsend will play his wife Angela, Fisher plays their teenage daughter Jennifer, while Barrett and McWilliams play a local hardware store owner and his wife. Slated to premiere in 2023, the series is written by Cullen, who executive produces alongside McG, as well as Mary Viola and Corey Marsh for Wonderland Sound and Vision.
Oliver De La Hoz - Allen Media Group
Industry: Renard Jenkins of Warner Bros Discovery is now the first Black Board President of The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). In a statement following his election, Jenkins said he looked forward to “respecting the Society's past while working with my colleagues to build a sustainable future” and the board would focus on “innovative technology, innovative tools, and diverse perspectives and ideas.” The other newly elected members include Richard Welsh of Deluxe Media as executive VP, Michael Zink, also of Warner Bros. Discovery as education VP and Lisa Hobbs as secretary-treasurer.
Fox and Altice USA have reached a deal to allow continued carriage of Fox programming via Optimum TV just shy of its deadline. Though financial terms and other details have not been disclosed, the agreement will give Altice's Optimum cable subscribers access to local Fox stations, cable channels FS1, FS2, Fox News Channel, Fox Business News and Big Ten Network airing fall sports programming, which includes college football on Saturday, NFL games on Sunday and the upcoming MLB playoff games. The two entities were demanding “fair deals” in terms of fees and terms.
Fox Corp chairman, 91-year-old Rupert Murdoch, has reached out to Fox’s board of directors about combining the TV company with his newspaper company News Corp. According to a statement from Fox “the Special Committee has not made any determination at this time, and there can be no certainty that the company will engage in such a transaction.” The companies split in 2013 into two entities, 21st Century Fox for TV and movie assets and News Corp, which covered publishing. Murdoch then sold 21st Century Fox to Disney minus Fox TV network, TV stations, Fox News, and Fox Sports, which then all became Fox Corp.
AMC Networks has formed a partnership with the Harlem Festival of Culture and announced it will be sponsoring a series of HFC screenings leading up to a multi-door outdoor musical festival in the summer. The new iteration of the 1969 Harlem Festival of Culture (the same event featured in Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s award-winning documentary Summer of Soul) was launched in April as a celebration of Black culture through live music and entertainment. It will also feature the Mart 125 Marketplace, highlighting Black-owned Harlem-based businesses, all of which will be supported by AMC.
Oliver De La Hoz has been hired to the new position of Chief Financial Officer for Byron Allen’s Allen Media Digital Group. Previously the CFO at ITV Studios, De La Hoz will now oversee financial planning, accounting and business operations for Allen digital properties including Local Now Sports, The Weather Channel and TheGrio. Allen Media recently announced a long-term strategic relationship with Google to bolster Allen Media Digital platforms and its new streaming products and is adding to its number of executives as the company continues to expand.