Small Screen: Patti LaBelle To Guest Star On ‘The Wonder Years’; Oprah Ends Deal With Apple TV+
Adjani Salmon - Dreaming Whilst Black/BBC
Broadcast: Singer Patti LaBelle will guest star on ABC’s reboot of The Wonder Years. The Grammy winner is currently signed on to play Dulé Hill’s mother Shirley Williams for two episodes during the comedy’s second season. This version from executive producers Saladin K. Patterson, Lee Daniels, and Bob Daily is set in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1960’s. The cast includes Hill as the father of Dean Williams, the show’s young central character played by Elisha “EJ” Williams, along with Saycon Sengbloh, Laura Kariuki, Julian Lerner, Amari O’Neil, Milan Ray, and Don Cheadle narrating as the adult Dean.
Lost Girl’s K.C. Collins is being cast in a key recurring role on the second season of Fox’s The Cleaning Lady. Collins will play Special Agent Tyler Jefferson, who leads an FBI task force on a high-profile drug case that used to be worked by Oliver Hudson’s Special Agent Garrett Miller. Developed by Miranda Kwok, The Cleaning Lady follows Thony (Élodie Yung) a doctor who comes to the U.S. for a medical treatment to save her ailing son and ends up becoming the cleaning lady for a mobster (Adan Canto) in Las Vegas. The show is produced in partnership between Fox Entertainment and Warner Bros Television, with Kwok, showrunner Melissa Carter, Shay Mitchell, David Dean Portelli, Rose Marie Vega and Paola Suarez all serving as executive producers.
Marlyne Barrett, one of the stars of NBC’s Chicago Med, has revealed she was diagnosed with uterine and ovarian cancer in July. According to Barrett, a large mass was discovered during a CT scan that occurred while she was struggling to recover from surgery to repair a hernia. Barrett’s character Nurse Maggie Lockwood recently battled breast cancer on the show, and she credits that and the resins from fans as her inspiration for the announcement. Sources have reported that Barrett will continue shooting the show’s eighth season.
The acclaimed BBC Three web comedy Dreaming Whilst Black will have a full season co-produced by A24 which will air in 2023. The six-part series will be co-produced by Big Deal Films, who produced the original pilot from web series co-creator Adjani Salmon. Dreaming Whilst Black is loosely based on true events, telling the story of aspiring filmmaker Kwabena (Salmon) who is “broke, black, and born into a Jamaican family who wishes he was an accountant.” The series was ordered by Director of Comedy Commissioning at the BBC, Jon Petrie, and Controller BBC Three, Fiona Campbell. Salmon also executive produces with Big Deal Films’ Managing Director, Dhanny Joshi, and Thomas Stogdon while Jermain Julien and Joelle Mae David will direct.
Nuha Jes Izman
Cable: Nuha Jes Izman has been cast in a recurring guest role in Showtime’s Yellowjackets for the show’s second season. The Malaysian actress will play Crystal, a member of the JV squad and a hard-core theater enthusiast. Season 2 of the series, from creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, started production late last month in Vancouver with Elijah Wood, Simon Kessell and Lauren Ambrose also joining the cast. Yellowjackets is produced for Showtime by eOne and is the channel’s second-most streamed series ever, earning seven Emmy nominations.
Another Showtime show, the upcoming epic drama King Shaka has added Charmaine Bingwa and Nkeki Obi-Melekwe to its list of series regulars. The show follows King Shaka (Charles Babalola) on his journey to become a legendary king and will also feature Tony Kgoroge, Sindi Dlatu, and Bahle Hadebe in recurring roles. Bingwa will portray a warrior named Isisa, while Obi-Melekwe will play a mysterious migrant tribe leader known as the Locust Queen. Production is scheduled to begin this month in King Shaka’s birthplace, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa. Created and executive produced by Olu Odebunmi and Tolu Awosikawill it will be fully shot in South Africa and is slated to debut on Showtime in 2023.
The main cast is now set for the FX comedy pilot English Teacher. It was written by Brian Jordan Alvarez, who stars as a gay high school English teacher in Austin, Texas named Evan, and joining him is Ramy’s Julian Sergi, Babylon’s Yissendy Trinidad, and Insecure’s Langston Kerman among others. Paul Simms, who is currently an executive producer on FX shows What We Do in the Shadows and Atlanta, will executive produce English Teacher with Alvarez.
ARDEN cHO - Swan Gallet
Streaming: Deborah Ayorinde, star of the first season of Amazon’s anthology series Them, is returning for season two and bringing Pam Grier, Luke James, and Joshua J. Williams with her. Other recurring roles will be filled by Carlito Olivero, Charles Brice, and Iman Shumpert among others. The second season is said to take place in Los Angeles County in 1991 and Ayorinde plays a police detective assigned to a gruesome murder. Grier plays the character’s mother and Williams portrays her teenage son.
Twenty actors have been added to the cast of Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series. The list includes George Takei, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Danny Pudi, Amber Midthunder, Momona Tamada, Thalia Tran, and Arden Cho. The adaptation is written by Albert Kim, who also serves as showrunner and will executive produce with Dan Lin, Lindsey Liberatore, Michael Goi, and Roseanne Liang. It will be directed by Goi, Liang, and Jabbar Raisani.
Netflix has decided not to move forward with Grendel, the series based on the Dark Horse comic book series by Matt Wagner. The series had an eight-episode order and was slated to star Abubakr Ali who would’ve been the first Arab Muslim male actor to portray a series lead in a comic book adaptation. Writer/producer Andrew Dabb could shop the series, which had not finished filming elsewhere despite Netflix’s first look deal with Dark Horse Entertainment, which gave the streamer its hit The Umbrella Academy.
Another name has been added to the cast of the HBO Max limited series Full Circle from Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon. CCH Pounder (The Shield, NCIS: New Orleans) is joining Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, Dennis Quaid, Jharrel Jerome, and Sheyi Cole in the six-episode series about an investigation into a botched kidnapping that uncovers long-held secrets between numerous characters in New York City. It comes to HBO Max from the trio of director Soderbergh, writer Solomon, and executive producer Casey Silver, who previously worked together on the film No Sudden Move.
The Apple TV+ series Sugar has added Miguel Sandoval and Elizabeth Anweis to its ensemble cast. Starring Collin Farrell, Sugar is described as an “L.A.-set contemporary take on a private detective story” and will be the second collaboration for Kinberg’s Genre Films and Apple TV+ and will stream alongside the second season of the global hit series Invasion. The two actors are joining Nate Corddry, Sydney Chandler, Jason Butler Harner, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Amy Ryan, Anna Gunn, James Cromwell, Dennis Boutsikaris, Alex Hernandez, and Lindsay Pulsipher to round out the cast.
Disney has set its lead cast for the fourth installment of the Disney+ and National Geographic’s period drama anthology series Genius. MLK/X will star Kelvin Harrison Jr., best known for It Comes at Night, Waves, and The Trial of the Chicago 7, who will play Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. while The Underground Railroad and Old star Aaron Pierre will play Malcolm X. Weruche Opia (I May Destroy You) plays Coretta Scott King and Jayme Lawson, who can currently be seen in The Woman King, will play Betty Shabazz. Channing Godfrey Peoples will direct the pilot which will film in Atlanta, and also co-executive produce the season with Imagine Television’s Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, Undisputed Cinema’s Reggie Rock Bythewood, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Francie Calfo, and showrunners Raphael Jackson Jr. and Damione Macedon among others.
Oprah Winfrey - Jon Kopaloff / Stringer
Industry: Oprah Winfrey has ended her multiyear content deal with Apple TV+, although the two will continue their collaboration on Oprah’s Book Club and will work together on a project-by-project basis. Signed in 2018, the deal encompassed film, TV, applications, books, and other content while still allowing Winfrey to continue as chief of Discovery Communications-backed cable network OWN. The documentary series The Me You Can’t See, a partnership with Prince Harry focusing on mental health, the discussion series The Oprah Conversation, as well as the recently released documentary about the life of Sidney Poitier all stemmed from the deal. However, one collaboration, a documentary that centered on a former music executive who accused Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct, did fall through when it was abruptly dropped by Winfrey.
As of midnight September 30th, Disney-owned television networks that carry ABC programming in addition to other cable networks including ESPN, FX, and The History Channel are no longer available on Dish and Sling TV. Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution’s deal with the carriers expired before a new agreement could be reached, with the conglomerate asserting that DISH, after months of negotiating “has declined to reach a fair, market-based agreement with us for continued distribution of our networks.” Disney also said in their statement that they are “committed to reaching a fair resolution” and urged DISH to work with them regarding their rates and terms.