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Reasons to be excited for the final season of Better Call Saul just keep growing — now add Breaking Bad stars to the list. Joseph Gordon-Levitt joins Natasha Lyonne for Rian Johnson drama Poker Face, The Witcher season 3 casts Robbie Amell, that Stranger Things season 4 trailer, and more of the biggest news in TV and streaming from the past week.
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(Photo by Frank Ockenfels/AMC)
Better Call Saul’s final season premieres Monday with a doubleheader of episodes, bringing Saul Goodman closer to the timeline of Breaking Bad, the series that spawned him. And the season will also bring a pair of very special guests for season 6: Bad Emmy winners Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, who will reprise their roles as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman.
Co-creator Vince Gilligan first hinted at the news during the show’s season 6 premiere event on April 8. The next day co-creator Peter Gould announced at PaleyFest that Cranston and Paul would reprise their roles, THR reported.
“I think it would be odd if Walt and Jesse didn’t make an appearance. So I’m excited that we did and how we did,” Paul told THR.
How they did it hasn’t yet been revealed. Fans will just have to watch the new season of Saul, starting on April 18 on AMC.
Related: Better Call Saul Final Season First Reviews: ‘Still Razor Sharp’ and ‘Riveting,’ Critics Say
(Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Vulture)
Rian Johnson’ upcoming Peacock drama Poker Face will reteam him with friend and past colleague Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has signed on to co-star with Natasha Levitt in Johnson’s upcoming Peacock drama Poker Face.
Variety reports details are hush hush about Gordon-Levitt’s character and the number of episodes he will appear in. He and Johnson previously worked together on the 2005 movie Brick, Johnson’s feature directorial debut, and reunited when Gordon-Levitt played a mob hit man who came to a shocking discovery in the 2012 Johnson-written and directed Looper. Gordon-Levitt also had small cameos in Knives Out and The Last Jedi, also both written and directed by Rian Johnson.
Gordon-Levitt is currently starring as former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick in the Showtime limited series Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.
Lyonne, who was already attached to Poker Face, will play a character who is tasked with solving a new murder in each installment. She is also an executive producer on the project. The 10-episode series will reportedly follow a procedural format.
Meanwhile, Stephanie Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) has also joined the cast of Poker Face, though details about her character are also being kept under wraps.
Stranger Things season 4 will soon be upon us, as will the uber creepy creature terrorizing the good folks of Hawkins. Also, horror legend Robert Englund joins. Premieres May 27. (Netflix)
Read More: Everything We Know about Stranger Things Season 4
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• Grace & Frankie season 7 will set the record as Netflix’s longest-running original series. Stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen, Sam Waterston, Ethan Embry, and Peter Gallagher. Premieres April 29. (Netflix)
• Senior Year is a Netflix comedy in which Rebel Wilson is a cheerleader who falls off a pyramid and into a 20-year coma. She wakes up as a 37-year-old woman, ready to return to high school, regain her status and claim the prom queen crown that eluded her. Also stars Justin Hartley, Alicia Silverstone, and Sam Richardson. Premieres May 13. (Netflix)
• We Own This City is The Wire co-creator David Simon’s new drama, starring The Walking Dead alum Jon Bernthal as a member of a corrupt Baltimore police department in a fact-based limited series. Also stars Jamie Hector and Josh Charles. Premieres April 25. (HBO)
• Girls5eva returns for a second season and the chance to become two-hit wonders. Starring Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell, and Renée Elise Goldsberry. Premieres May 5. (Peacock)
• The Lincoln Lawyer is David E. Kelley’s series adaptation of the Michael Connelly book that was a Matthew McConaughey movie about Mickey Heller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), a Los Angeles lawyer who runs his business from the back of his car. Premieres May 13. (Netflix)
• Candy is the fact-based limited series about Candy Montgomery (Jessica Biel), the Texas housewife who murdered her friend and romantic rival with an ax. Also stars Timothy Simons, Melanie Lynskey, Pablo Schreiber, and Raúl Esparza. Premieres May 9. (Hulu)
• The Kids in the Hall revival will feature all five original stars and be accompanied by the docuseries The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks. Stars Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson. Premieres May 20. (Prime Video)
• Hacks Season 2 will find Deborah (Emmy winner Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) hitting the road to create new material for Deborah.
Comedian Susie Essman and Devon Sawa have joined the cast for the new season. Premieres May 12. (HBO Max)
• David Spade: Nothing Personal is the comedian’s first original Netflix comedy special. Premieres April 26. (Netflix)
For all the latest TV and streaming trailers, subscribe to the Rotten Tomatoes TV YouTube channel.
(Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
Robbie Amell is joining the cast of The Witcher for season 3, where he’ll play Gallatin, the leader of a group of fighters who eventually clash with Francesca. Meng’er Zhang, Hugh Skinner, and Christelle Elwin also join the Netflix series.
Oscar nominee Frank Langella has been fired from Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher, where he was playing the lead role of Roderick Usher in the eight-episode adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s works. The Americans alum was fired after he was the subject of an investigation that he was involved in “unacceptable conduct: on set, involving an inappropriate joke and touching of a castmate. Nearly half the series had been shot, so the actor’s replacement will have to reshoot Langella’s scenes. (Deadline)
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey star Dominique Fishback will play a “Beyonce-like figure,” the lead role in Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ upcoming untitled Amazon series. (Variety)
LeVar Burton, Katlynn Simone, Tamera Tomakili, and Tim Chantarangsu are joining the cast of Starz’ Blindspotting for Season 2.
Jessica Alba will star in Confessions on the 7:45, is a Netflix adaptation of the book of the same name by author Lisa Unger, a psychological thriller about a single mom who meets a stranger on a train who wreaks havoc on her life.
Black-ish scene stealer Deon Cole will star in BET+’s dark comedy Average Joe, about Joe, a blue collar plumber in Pittsburgh who finds out his father, who recently passed away, lived a secret second life and stole millions of dollars from some dangerous people before he died. Those people think Joe knows where the cash is stashed, and he and the rest of his family have to go on a frantic search for the truth (and the money), lest their recent, bloody confrontation with the baddies will not be their last. (Deadline)
Delightful The Adam Project breakout Walker Scobell, who played the younger version of Ryan Reynolds in the Netflix movie, has landed the titular role in Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The live-action series finds 12-year-old Percy just finding out about his supernatural powers when he’s accused by the god Zeus of stealing his lightning bolt and forced to travel across America and find the bolt.
Good Girls alum Manny Montana has joined the cast FX’s Mayans MC, where his character stirs up trouble as a member of the Yuma Mayans. (Deadline)
Cobra Kai star Xolo Maridueña is set to play the lead in the HBO Max action series The Ledger, a half-hour series about a kid named Gabriel who travels around the country trying to help fix the lives of people harmed by the man who trained him. (Variety)
Live Schreiber, Bel Powley, and Joe Cole have been cast in Disney+’s limited series A Small Light, an eight-episode National Geographic scripted project about Miep Gies, who played a critical role in hiding Anne Frank and her family.
Giorgia Whigham, Max Burkholder, and Scott Grimes will join Seth MacFarlane as the lead voice in MacFarlane’s Peacock series adaptation of his hit movie Ted. MacFarlane will also direct, write, executive produce and showrun the series.
Paramount+ announced RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season 7 will feature the first-ever all-winners cast. Eight former “queens of all queens” will compete for another title and a $200,000 prize, including Jaida Essence Hall, Jinkx Monsoon, Raja, Shea Couleé, Monét X Change, Trinity The Tuck, The Vivienne, and Yvie Oddly.
Jesse L. Martin is leaving his regular role on The Flash and will star in NBC’s upcoming drama pilot The Irrational, about a respected professor of behavioral psychology who uses his abilities to help government agencies, corporations, and law enforcement teams with particularly tough cases. He will also make a few return appearances on The Flash.
The New Edition Story star Elijah Kelley will star in Lee Daniels’ Hulu limited series about Sammy Davis Jr. Based on the book In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr. by author Wil Haygood, which focuses on the singer and actor’s racial identity and his relationship with the Black community.
For All Mankind star Jodi Balfour will recur on the upcoming third season of Ted Lasso, playing a venture capitalist named Jack. (Deadline)
(Photo by Phillip Chin/Getty Images for Warner Brothers Television)
HBO Max has ordered the original DC drama Dead Boy Detectives, an eight-episode horror detective series born from DC’s The Sandman and Dead Boy Detectives comics. It’s a fresh take on a ghost story that explores loss, grief, and death through the lens of Edwin Payne and Charles Rowland, two dead British teenagers, and their very alive friend, Crystal Palace. It’s a lot like a vintage detective series, only darker and on acid. George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri star as Dead Boy Detectives Edwin Payne (Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Revri), and Kassius Nelson stars as Crystal Palace. Additional series stars include Briana Cuoco as Jenny the Butcher, Ruth Connell as the Night Nurse, Yuyu Kitamura as Niko, and Jenn Lyon as Esther. Supernatural writer Steve Yockey wrote the pilot and Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter are executive producers on the series.
Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas will co-star with Lisa Simpson in a Disney+ Simpsons short called When Billie Met Lisa, in which Lisa is looking for a quiet place to practice her sax and is invited by the Eilish sibs to jam with them at Billie’s studio. The short premieres on April 22.
Discovery and WarnerMedia closed their $43 billion merger last week, with the new media and entertainment company called Warner Bros. Discovery, which will eventually combine its HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming offerings.
Read More: What’s Next For DC Entertainment Under Warner Bros. Discovery?
Speaking of HBO Max, The Batman will premiere on the streaming service on April 18.
Mark Malloy (The Underdogs) will direct and Eddie Murphy is expected to return as star for Beverly Hills Cop 4 for Netflix, which has a one-time licensing deal with Paramount for the sequel. (Deadline)
HBO Max is also developing a one-hour dramedy based on DC’s Aqualad, from producer Charlize Theron. The story is based on the graphic novel You Brought Me the Ocean, by author Alex Sanchez, about Jackson Hyde, a gay teenager who lives in New Mexico. He loves the water and wants to leave the desert behind to move closer to an ocean, He finds he can breathe underwater and control water, and begins to fall in love with Kenny, the captain of his high school swimming team. (Variety)
IMDb TV has rebranded itself as Amazon Freevee, to better reflect its free, ad-supported streaming offerings. The rebrand takes effect on April 27.
Peacock made a straight-to-series order of the dark comedy thriller Based on a True Story, with Emmy-nominated Craig Rosenberg set to write, showrun, and executive produce, alongside fellow EPs Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan. The series is inspired by a bizarre true event, about a realtor, a plumber, and a former tennis star whose lives unexpectedly collide, exposing America’s obsession with true crime, murder, and the slow close toilet seat.
Larry David has apparently confirmed there will be a 12th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Here’s hoping Curb’s return will also include the return of guest star Tracey Ullman, one of the best ever additions to the outrageous comedy.
The nominations for this year’s Peabody Awards were announced this week, and the TV nominees include City of Ghosts, Colin in Black & White, High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America, Philly D.A., Bo Burnham: Inside, Dopesick, Hacks, Only Murders in the Building, Pen15, Reservation Dogs, Sort Of, Station Eleven, The Underground Railroad, We Are Lady Parts, YellowJackets, and The Wonder Years. A complete list of nominations is here.
