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[02/24/17 - 11:46 PM]
Development Update: Friday, February 24
By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC) |
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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!
A.P. BIOLOGY (NBC) - Mary Sohn (The Boss) and director Osmany Rodriguez are both bound for the comedy pilot, about a hilariously cynical Ivy League professor who loses out on his dream job and goes to work as a high school biology teacher where he imposes his unorthodox teaching style and uses the kids to plot out revenge on those who wronged him. She's set as Mary, "a loud and sassy art teacher at Whitlock High, the kind of teacher who tells her students to draw a flattering picture of her to take home to their dads. She has a way of ripping people open where they don't know it's happening and often talks in street slang." (Deadline.com)
BERLIN STATION (Epix) - Keke Palmer has joined the cast of the show's second season as April Lewis, "the newest and youngest case officer assigned to Berlin Station on her first field assignment after making her mark as an analyst at Langley. With a bracing combination of millennial intrepidity and old-fashioned sass, April brings a new-guard mentality often at odds with her old-guard colleagues in a system struggling to preserve its besieged identity. But she is no less determined to make her mark in Berlin as she did back home at headquarters." (Deadline.com)
BLACK LIGHTNING (The CW) - Cress Williams has booked the title role on the drama pilot, about Jefferson Pierce, who hung up the suit and his secret identity years ago, but with a daughter hell-bent on justice and a star student being recruited by a local gang, he'll be pulled back into the fight as the wanted vigilante and DC Comics legend Black Lightning. (Deadline.com)
BLUEGRASS/BLOOD RED (ABC) - Saamer Usmani and W. Earl Brown have both booked roles on the drama pilot. The former will play Tag Fayad, "a young FBI agent of Middle Eastern descent, is sent to help Ruby (Reba McEntire) solve a horrific crime. Fayad is met with suspicion and hostility by the local populace. A brilliant man, he can be fairly snarky and disdainful to those he sees as intellectual inferiors." Brown then is set as Deputy Joe Paul, "who works under Ruby and shares immense tension with Fayad." (Deadline.com)
CROSSING, THE (ABC) - Sandrine Holt and director Rob Bowman have both signed onto the drama pilot, about refugees from a war torn country who start showing up seeking asylum in an American town with the twist being the war they are fleeing is hundreds of years in the future. She'll play Emma Peralta, "a federal customs agent who is all business, and her keen mind is always processing its surroundings, which allows her to perpetually exude control amongst chaos. Heavily skeptical of the refugees' story and the concept of time travel, she nonetheless is sympathetic enough to find the truth due to her rough past as an immigrant herself." (Deadline.com)
DYNASTY (The CW) - Robert Christopher Riley is the latest to board the netlet's reboot of the 1980s soap as Culhane, "the Carrington family's well-paid chauffeur." (Deadline.com)
EL JEFE (CBS) - David Castaneda (Sicario) is the first to be cast in the drama pilot, about the multi-generational members of a Mexican-American family with deep roots in San Diego intertwine personally and professionally due to their powerful careers in law enforcement. He'll play Bembe Medina, "Chief Medina's son, a cop in Tijuana who works his beat with Yuni, his twin brother." (Deadline.com)
FOR GOD & COUNTRY (NBC) - Demetrius Grosse and Hadi Tabbal are the latest additions to the drama pilot. The former will play Anthony "Juice" Carter, "the third member of ISA Special Operations Group Unit 7. The team's computer and communications expert and all-around tech badass, Juice is a lethal MacGyver." The latter then is set as Amir Al-Raisani, "who, before joining Dalton's (Mike Vogel) team spent nearly six years as a lone wolf penetration agent in ISIS, yet managed to retain his humanity during 72 months of horrors and bloodshed." Additionally, Brad Anderson has been confirmed as directing. (Deadline.com)
GOOD DOCTOR (ABC) - Freddie Highmore and Nicholas Gonzalez have both been cast in the drama pilot, about a young surgeon with Savant syndrome who is recruited into the pediatric surgical unit of a prestigious hospital. Highmore will play said role, Shaun Murphy, "a young man with autism, awkward at the best of times, not good with social interaction but possessed of an engaging honesty and directness." Gonzalez then is set as Neil Melendez, "the boss of the surgical residents at the hospital." (Deadline.com)
HOUSEHOLD NAME (ABC) - Timothy Omundson is bound for the Carol Burnett-led comedy as Edward Von Glimpse, "Vivian's longtime, gay best friend. Edward's her confidant, hype man, and apologist - sometimes all within the span of a single sentence. He's droll with a dry wit and seen-it-all attitude, a throwback to a more civilized, elegant time." (Deadline.com)
INSATIABLE (The CW) - Erinn Westbrook and Michael Provost will both join Debby Ryan-led drama pilot as Azalea, "a stunning, smart, confident and manipulative beauty queen who hires Bob to be her pageant coach"; and Brick, "a seemingly typical High School jock who is a little more complicated underneath the surface." Additionally, Andrew Fleming (Nancy Drew) is slated to direct. (Deadline.com)
LIFE SENTENCE (The CW) - Brooke Lyons and Gillian Vigman have scored roles on the Lucy Hale-led drama pilot. The former will play Elizabeth, "Stella's sister/the type-A oldest child. Since Stella got sick, Elizabeth has always put her dreams aside to take care of her family, including having children to give her parents something positive to focus on - which she now realizes she might regret." Vigman then is set as Ida, "Stella's mother, the glue that held her family together, until she decides to shirk her maternal responsibility and follow her heart into a lesbian relationship with her best friend Poppy, the owner of a cheese shop called Brie Yourself." (Deadline.com)
LOPEZ (TV Land) - Rain Valdez will recur on the upcoming season as Coco, "a pretty and enigmatic transgender actress who is under contract at a network, whose executives are not sure how to cast her or even talk to her." (Deadline.com)
ME, MYSELF & I (CBS) - Brian Unger has scored a role on the comedy pilot, which examines one man's life over a 50-year span: as a 14-year-old in 1991, a 40-year-old in present day and a 65-year-old in 2042. He's set as Ron, "a commercial airline pilot and Alex's new stepfather. Although initially intimidating, Ron ultimately will become the guiding figure throughout Alex's life." (Deadline.com)
NCIS (CBS) - Bruce McGill will guest on an upcoming episode as decorated Vietnam War veteran Henry Rogers, who "visits D.C. as a guest of the Honor Flight Network, a nonprofit that transports veterans to the nation's capital, free of charge, to visit the World War II, Korea and Vietnam memorials." (TVLine.com)
PERFECT CITIZEN (CBS) - Lenny Platt has been cast in the drama pilot as Felix Reyes, "the self-proclaimed "Alpha Associate" at the firm. Felix is brilliant, and knows it." (Deadline.com)
REAL LIFE (CBS) - Rebecca Rittenhouse has been tapped as the female lead on the comedy pilot, which chronicles the relationship of two twentysomethings who go from being co-workers on opposite coasts to working in the same office. She'll play Nora, who's "smart, creative, funny and refreshingly honest. She works at Kenny & Kit's Groovy Snacks in LA and starts dating Drew's business school roommate, but she can't stop thinking about how much fun she has with her Skype buddy, Drew." (Deadline.com)
RESIDENT, THE (FOX) - Matt Czuchry has signed onto the drama pilot as Conrad Hawkins, a tough, brilliant and cocky senior resident who pulls the curtain back on all of the good and evil in modern day medicine. (Deadline.com)
REVERIE (NBC) - Kathryn Morris has scored a role on the drama pilot as Monica Shaw, "an official with the Department of Defense who has a vested interest in Alexis Barret's (Jessica Lu) virtual reality Reverie project. Very concerned when she learns that some users have gone into comas after refusing to return to their own reality, Monica works with Alexis' security chief, Charlie Ventana (Dennis Haysbert), to come up with a way to do some damage control and save the program - otherwise, DoD is out." (Deadline.com)
SACKETT SISTERS, THE (NBC) - Bradley Whitford and director Tristram Shapeero have each signed onto the comedy pilot, about two estranged sisters (one played by Busy Philipps) who perform a Sully Sullenberger-esque act of public heroism, then are forced to navigate their new found notoriety together. He will play Henry, their father. (Deadline.com)
SALVATION (NBC) - Paola Lazaro and Matthew James Thomas are the first to be cast in the drama pilot, a real time extreme event medical series that follows the nurses and doctors of an understaffed Brooklyn hospital that becomes the borough's last viable trauma center after a catastrophic hurricane wreaks havoc on the city. Lazaro will play Gloria, "a triage nurse at Our Lady Of Salvation"; with Thomas as Dr. Sam Carnahan, a "young doctor at Our Lady Of Salvation." (Deadline.com)
SEARCHERS (The CW) - Alex McGregor has been cast in a lead role on the drama pilot, about a pragmatic brother and free spirited sister who are forced to team up when they learn that their late mother's terrifying and bizarre stories may be a road map to discovering the great legends, myths, and unexplainable mysteries of the world. She'll play the latter, Fable, who's "strong, smart and soulful. She has never given up hope in the 10 years since her parents' disappearance and now, she'll break every rule in the book to discover the truth." (Deadline.com)
THIN ICE (FOX) - Trond Faus and Dan Gill are both bound for the Bridgit Mendler-led comedy pilot as Gunnar, "a bit of a wild man who fled his homeland for the McMurdo station in Antarctica after his heart was broken"; and Pete, "a medic who is something of a womanizer stationed in Antarctica after stints in Iraq and Afghanistan," respectively. (Deadline.com)
UNTITLED PAUL WILLIAM DAVIES PROJECT (ABC) - Hope Davis, Vondie Curtis-Hall and Regé-Jean Page have all landed roles on the drama pilot. Davis will play Jill Marcus: "Smart and savvy, Jill is the boss of all the newly minted public defenders, and she makes it clear to them from the moment they get their cases that they've got an uphill climb." Curtis-Hall then is set as William Byrne: "Intelligent, eloquent, formidable, seasoned, and fair, Judge Byrne is the chief judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who welcomes and swears in the newly minted prosecutors and public defenders." And Page will round out the group as Leonard Fox: "Arrogant, animated, with considerable swagger, a bit of an a**hole, intelligent, wants to win, Leonard is a new prosecutor taking his first case at the prestigious United States District Court for the Southern District of New York." (Deadline.com)
VALOR (The CW) - Charlie Barnett and director Michael M. Robin are both bound for the drama pilot, about a U.S. Army base that houses an elite unit of helicopter pilots trained to perform clandestine international and domestic missions. He's set as Ian Lewis, "Nora's on-again off-again boyfriend, a West Point graduate who works as a Special Ops intelligence officer." (Deadline.com)
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