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[07/29/15 - 11:21 PM]
Development Update: Wednesday, July 29
By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)

LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:

Looking to keep track of all the various projects in development? Click here to visit our signature "Devwatch" section. There visitors can view our listings by network, genre, studio and even development stage (ordered to pilot, cast-contingent, script, etc.). It's updated every day!


ANIMAL KINGDOM (TNT/WHT; W: Jonathan Lisco; D: John Wells) - Ellen Barkin and Scott Speedman are the first to be cast in the drama pilot, about 17-year-old Josh, who moves in with his wild, free-wheeling relatives in their Southern California beach town and is pulled into their life of indulgence and excess. But after Josh discovers that it's all being funded by criminal activities, it suddenly becomes clear to him that joining the family comes with more danger and excitement than he might be ready to handle. Barkin plays Janine "Smurf" Cody, "a working-class mom with what appears to be a picket-fence lifestyle who is actually the boot-tough matriarch of an organized crime family and has enough authority to make even the most dangerous men tremble in her presence"; while Speedman is set as Cody's son and Josh's uncle Barry "Baz" Brown, "adopted by the Cody family when he was 12, Baz now leads the group in their armed robberies, but he also thinks of breaking away from a life of crime." (Deadline.com)


DARK MATCH (FX, New!) - Newcomer Alexis C. Jolly has set up a potential drama at the cable channel "dealing with the families at the center of the origin of professional wrestling." Color Force's Nina Jacobson also serve as an executive producer on the project. (Deadline.com)


GODS & SECRETS (HBO, New!) - Directors Adi Shankar and Stewart Yost have set up a new project at the pay channel set "in a world in which superheroes exist, personal foibles and the resulting celebrity culture are front and center. In the story, tragedy has struck the superheroic team Guardians of Justice, and in its aftermath secrets are revealed, lives are changed, and the war to end all wars begins." Jenni Powell and Shawn Deloache co-wrote the script alongside Shankar with Diamond Dallas Page, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Sharni Vinson and Andy Milonakis already attached to star. Rathbone will also serve as a producer for Discourse Media. (Deadline.com)


LITTLE WOMEN (The CW, New!) - Newcomer Alexis C. Jolly has sold a new drama to the netlet billed as "a hyper-stylized, gritty adaptation of the 1868 novel by Louisa May Alcott, in which disparate half-sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy band together in order to survive the dystopic streets of Philadelphia and unravel a conspiracy that stretches far beyond anything they have ever imagined - all while trying not to kill each other in the process." CBS Television Studios-based Solar Drive Productions is behind the hour with the company's Michael Weatherly executive producing and Tiffany Grant producing. (Deadline.com)


SON OF ZORN (A.K.A. SON OF ZAHN) (FOX/20th; W: Eli Jorne & Reed Agnew; D: Eric Appel) - Jason Sudeikis, Cheryl Hines, Tim Meadows and Artemis Pebdani have all joined the cast of the high-concept comedy pilot, in which an animated Barbarian father finds that reconnecting with his moody, live-action teenage son, Alan (Johnny Pemberton), and ex-wife while suffering a mundane office job and the banality of suburban life is harder than waging actual war in his distant, animated world." Sudeikis voices Zorn while Hines is Edie, "Zorn's ex-wife and Alan's mother"; with Meadows as Craig, "Edie's live-in boyfriend"; and Pebdani as Linda, "Zorn's superior at Sanitation Solutions, his new place of work." (Deadline.com)


AND IN OTHER NEWS... - Melina Kanakaredes, Nancy Miller, Vlas Parlapanides and Charlie Parlapanides are developing "Stolen for Good," a potential drama from Dynamic Television starring the former (Deadline.com); Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger have signed a two-year overall deal at 20th Century Fox Television where they'll join the studio's "Grandfathered" as supervising producers (Deadline.com); Michael Gaston will recur on NBC's "Blindspot" as a CIA Deputy Director who assists the FBI team (Deadline.com);

Katie Stevens will appear on the series finale of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" as Catherine Willows' (Marg Helgenberger) daughter, Lindsey Willows, succeeding Madison McReynolds and Kay Panabaker (THR.com); Kunal Nayyar will drop by "The Mindy Project" as "a charming hedge fund manager that Mindy's parents are considering for an arranged marriage to their daughter" (TVInsider.com); and recording artist Shawn Mendes will appear on "The 100" as "a scrappy young Ark survivor who gets into a tricky situation and uses his particular talents to get out of it" (EOnline.com).






  [july 2015]  
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· 100, THE (CW)
· ANIMAL KINGDOM (TNT)
· BLINDSPOT (NBC)
· CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION (CBS)
· DARK MATCH (FX)
· DEVELOPMENT UPDATE (TFC)
· GRANDFATHERED (FOX)
· GUARDIANS OF JUSTICE, THE (NETFLIX)
· LITTLE WOMEN (CW)
· MINDY PROJECT, THE (HULU)
· SON OF ZORN (FOX)





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