Small Screen: ‘The Young And The Restless’ Temporarily Recasts Denise Boutte As Imani Benedict; STARZ 'Power’ Sequel Renewed For Season 3, Trailer For Netflix Series ‘Wednesday’ Released
Denise Boutte - David Livingston
Broadcast: It was announced that due to scheduling conflicts, actress Denise Boutte (of BET’s Family Business and Terror Drive) will temporarily step into the role of Imani Benedict on CBS’s The Young And The Restless. Leigh-Anne Rose currently plays Imani but has to step away due to a commitment to another project. Boutte’s run on the show starts September 6th and will continue for reportedly only a few episodes.
Another new face to hit Genoa City is Zuleyka Silver, who debuts her new Y&R character, high-powered executive Audra Charles, on September 23rd.
Eva De Dominici, who plays Nadia Morales on the Fox series The Cleaning Lady, has been upped to series regular for the second season. Her character’s marriage to Las Vegas club owner Arman Morales (played by Adan Canto) is threatened when he becomes involved with star Élodie Yung’s Thony De La Rosa, a former doctor from Manila who becomes Arman’s cleaning lady in order to save her ailing son. De Dominici’s Nadia will turn the tables in season two by asking a former lover with intentions to win her back for help. The drama series, which was developed by Miranda Kwok, who also executive produces with showrunner Melissa Carter (Queen Sugar), Shay Mitchell, David Dean Portelli, Rose Marie Vega, and Paola Suarez, will have its second season premiere on September 19th.
MeKai Curtis - Matt Winkelmeyer/GA
Cable: Broadway’s Sasha Hutchings will play a recurring character in the upcoming sci-fi comedy Damascus on AMC. The sci-fi comedy has cast Hutchings as Buddha Banks, the tech-savvy girlfriend of Okieriete Onaodowan’s Damascus. The show, created by writer and co-showrunner Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, centers on a 33-year-old Black man who goes on a journey of self-discovery by delving into the world of digital psychiatry and using an innovative new technology that allows him to experience different versions of his own life. The Run the World star joins a cast that also includes Janet Hubert, Caleb Eberhardt, and Shakira Ja’nai Paye.
The Starz drama Power Book: Raising Kanan has received an early renewal for the show’s third season. The drama series is a prequel to the original Power series starring Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and tells the origin story of his character Kanan Stark (now played by MeKai Curtis) and his mother Raquel Thomas (Patina Miller) who’s the head of the family’s drug empire. The third season is executive produced by returning showrunner Sascha Penn, Power creator Courtney A. Kemp, Jackson through G-Unit Film and Television, Mark Canton through Atmosphere Entertainment MM, Chris Selak, Kevin Fox, Santa Sierra, and Natasha Gray.
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, and Peaky Blinders star Daryl McCormack will star in a new series set to air on both BBC One and Showtime called The Woman In The Wall opposite The Affair’s Ruth Wilson. Inspired by Ireland’s controversial Magdalene Laundries (asylums for “fallen women”), the gothic thriller centers on a woman named Lorna Brady (Wilson), plagued by fits of sleepwalking, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her house and no idea as to who the person is or how they got there. McCormack will play Detective Colman Akande, who is on Lorna’s tail for a crime seemingly unrelated to the dead woman in Lorna’s house. The Woman In The Wall will begin shooting later this year.
Ramy Youssef - Daniele Venturelli
Streaming: Apple TV+’s upcoming series Lessons In Chemistry starring Brie Larson has added seven names to its ensemble cast, including How To Get Away With Murder’s Aja Naomi King and Gaslit’s Patrick Walker. Larson stars as Elizabeth Zott, an aspiring scientist in the early 1960s who must put her dream career on hold when she becomes pregnant and ends up taking a job as a host on a TV cooking show. Based on the best-selling debut novel by Bonnie Garmus and created by Unbelievable’s Susannah Grant, the drama series will premiere globally on AppleTV+ in 2023.
The Sandman’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste has been tapped to star opposite Colin Farrell in Sugar, a new private detective series for Apple TV+. First ordered to series in June, this is the second offering from Simon Kinberg and production company Genre Films, the first being the 2021 sci-fi drama Invasion. Kinberg will executive produce with writer Mark Protosevich, director Fernando Meirelles, Farrell, Audrey Chon, Scott Greenberg, and Chip Vucelich. No details of the plot have been released but Sugar has been described as “a genre-bending contemporary take on the private detective story set in Los Angeles.”
Apple TV+ has also added Glynn Turman to the cast of the limited series The Big Cigar. Turman, an Emmy winner for his guest role on HBO’s In Treatment, will be playing the ailing father of Black Panther leader Huey P Newton (played by André Holland). The series is based on a Playboy magazine article by Argo‘s Joshuah Bearm that detailed the friendship between Newton and Hollywood producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola). It comes from Warner Bros. Television with showrunner Janine Sherman Barrois, a pilot by Winning Time’s Jim Hecht, and actor Don Cheadle, who will direct the first two episodes.
The first trailer and premiere date for Oscar-winner Guillermo Del Toro’s Netflix series Cabinet Of Curiosities have been released. It will premiere on October 25th and two all-new tales will debut daily through October 28, when the entire collection of eight stories will be available to Netflix subscribers around the world. The eight-part, four-day Halloween season event was written and directed by a team chosen by del Toro (who also wrote two of the stories and serves as host) and promises to be “a collection of genre-defining stories meant to challenge our traditional notions of horror.”
Netflix released another macabre trailer recently for its Tim Burton-helmed reimagining of The Addams Family that focuses on daughter Wednesday. Jenny Ortega stars as the titular character, with Luiz Guzmán as Gomez, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, and Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley. The show is described as a dark, supernatural, coming-of-age mystery that follows Wednesday’s years as a student at Nevermore Academy. Other members of the cast include Victor Dorobantu, George Burcea, Gwendoline Christie, Jamie McShane, Percy Hynes White, Hunter Doohan, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Naomi J Ogawa, Moosa Mostafa, Georgie Farmer, and Riki Lindhhome, with Christina Ricci (who played Wednesday in the 90’s films) making an appearance as a new character.
The premiere of the third season of Hulu’s acclaimed series Ramy has been set for September 30th. Written, directed, executive-produced and starring creator Ramy Youssef, the acclaimed series follows an Egyptian-American and his family as they navigate spirituality in their politically-divided New Jersey neighborhood. It’s reported that in the 10-episode third season, Ramy all but abandons his spiritual journey, instead dedicating himself to him and his uncle’s diamond business. The A24-produced series also features Laith Nakli, Hiam Abbass, Amr Waked, May Calamawy, Dave Merheje, Mohammed Amer, and Steve Way.
Paramount+ has announced the cast of its upcoming YA drama series School Spirits, with Kristian Flores of Reboot and Rainbow Wedell of The Wilds among its list of stars. Based on the upcoming graphic novel by Nate and Megan Trinrud and Maria Nguyen and produced by Awesomeness Studios, School Spirits focuses on a teen (played by Peyton List) who’s stuck in the afterlife and decides to investigate her mysterious disappearance alongside a group of other students who are also stuck in limbo at their high school.
Constance Wu - Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
Industry: American-Nigerian twins Adamma and Adanne Ebo has signed a multi-year overall deal with 20th Television and 20th Television Animation. The duo behind the new film Honk For Jesus, Save Your Soul with Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown will develop, create, and produce live-action and animated series for all platforms, including their current animation project Supashawty Girls, Funkamatic Bangbang for Freeform. The duo’s other credits include the upcoming Mr. And Mrs. Smith series for Amazon starring Donald Glover and pilot spec Supply, 40 with Gloria Sanchez and MRC. According to 20th Television executive vice president Carolyn Cassidy, “their talent and original storytelling as comedy creators and directors is undeniable and aligns perfectly with our vision to develop and bring innovative and dynamic comedic stories to all of our platform partners. It was a bonus to find out they’re also longtime Disney fans!”
Denise Dowse, who appeared on Beverly Hills 90210 and Insecure, has passed away at age 64. According to her sister Tracey, Dowse had recently fallen into a coma brought on by a virulent form of meningitis. The actress was born in Hawaii and her many other credits included episodes of Seinfield, Full House, Murphy Brown, Touched by an Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chicago Hope, ER, The West Wing, House, and Castle. She is most known for her recurring roles as therapist, Dr. Rhonda Pine on Issa Rae’s HBO comedy Insecure, and as vice principal Yvonne Teasley on the original Beverly Hills 90210.
Canadian multinational entertainment company Entertainment One will produce Natural Beauty, a series based on the debut novel of the same name by writer and concert violinist Ling Ling Huang. Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu and Yellowjackets executive producer Drew Coming will produce the series. The book will be published by Dutton in April of 2023 and tells the story of a virtuoso pianist who is recruited to work at an elite wellness company after her future is derailed by a family tragedy. It’s described as “a mix of the horror and social commentary of Get Out and the intoxicating company culture of The Dropout set within the world of beauty & wellness.” The search is currently underway for a writer to adapt the book into a series.
Seth Carr has signed with Gersh for representation.
SAG-AFTRA has two new exclusivity agreements being voted on for approval, one with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and the other with Netflix. Union leaders say their lobbying for bill AB 437 or the Let Actors Work (LAW) Act limiting exclusivity deals for TV actors in the California legislature is what prompted the move on these deals. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, SAG-AFTRA spent $1,097,586 for “political activities and lobbying” in support of legislation this year. Some of the highlights of the Netflix agreement include: Netflix can no longer refuse to allow a series regular to appear on another program because that program is made for pay television, a streaming service, or a linear channel that has the right to stream the program within 30 days and Netflix can no longer refuse to allow a series regular to appear on another program because another series regular appeared on the same season of that series. There is also a three-month deadline now for the first time for starting a series regular’s services for a subsequent season of a series and/or commencing payment to them for those services.