Justified Rebooted: Timothy Olyphant Returns for Limited Series Based on Elmore Leonard Novel

The talent behind FX hit Justified will return for a new Elmore Leonard story. It’s the week’s highest profile reboot news of many. Plus, the Oscars will have a host, Bel-Air drops its first trailer, Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie join the limited series adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller All The Light We Cannot See written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), and more of the week’s biggest TV and streaming news.

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New Justified Limited Series at FX Will Be Based on the Late Elmore Leonard’s Crime Novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit

(Photo by Prashant Gupta / © FX Network / Courtesy: Everett Collection)

It’s the best TV news of the admittedly short new year so far: Emmy nominee Timothy Olyphant will reprise his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in a new Justified limited series on FX: Justified: City Primeval, based on the novel City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit from the late, great crime novelist Elmore Leonard. 

Also returning for the reunion of the series that ran for six seasons on FX and won a Peabody Award in 2010: Dave Andron and Michael Dinner as showrunners, writers, and executive producers; Dinner as director; Olyphant as star and EP; Graham Yost, Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly as executive producers, alongside Peter Leonard, Taylor Elmore (writer), and Chris Provenzano (writer); Walter Mosley as consulting producer; and V.J. Boyd, Eisa Davis and Ingrid Escajeda as writers. The series will be produced by Sony Pictures Television and FX Productions.

The story for City Primeval as per FX’s description: “Having left the hollers of Kentucky eight years ago, Raylan Givens now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl.  His hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier, and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind.

“A chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway sends him to Detroit. There he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent, sociopathic desperado who’s already slipped through the fingers of Detroit’s finest once and aims to do so again.  Mansell’s lawyer, formidable Motor City native Carolyn Wilder, has every intention of representing her client, even as she finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well. These three characters set out on a collision course in classic Elmore Leonard fashion, to see who makes it out of the City Primeval alive.”

No other casting news has yet been announced for City Primeval, but please let there be an opportunity for a Walt Goggins return and a Raylan and Boyd Crowder reunion. And we’re guessing Jere Burns’ Wynn Duffy might be crawling around the Detroit area now, too?

Before the Justified team reunites on television, they will reunite in June at the ATX Television Festival in Austin.

Peacemaker Opening Title Sequence Is an Unmissable Treat

You may not love Peacemaker — especially after his actions in James Gunn’s 2021 Certified Fresh hit movie The Suicide Squad — but you’ll love the opening credits of Gunn’s HBO Max series about the anti-hero. Peacemaker season 1, which launched on Friday, is also Certified Fresh with a 94% Tomatometer score.

Winter Television Critics Association 2022: When the Oscars Return to ABC in March, So Will a Host

(Photo by Temi Coker/ABC)

ABC kicked off the still virtual TCA sessions this week, and during the executive session from Craig Erwich, president of Hulu Originals and ABC Entertainment, Erwich announced that this year’s Oscars telecast — assuming there is one — will include the return of a ceremony host for the first time since Jimmy Kimmel helmed the awards show in 2018.

Erwich declined to give any additional details about who the host might be for the telecast, currently scheduled to air on ABC on March 27, but speculation about who will/should host has become a hot topic, including everyone from The Rock and Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to Chris Rock and Pete Davidson, but we’re 100 percent in agreement with Judd Apatow’s suggestion: the “pure joy” of Martin Short and Steve Martin.

In other ABC news:

• The final season of Black-ish will include guest stars, Simone Biles, Magic Johnson, Babyface, Vivica A. Fox, Daveed Diggs, Stephen A. Smith, and Reid Scott.
• American Idol’s upcoming season 5 (and the overall 20th season since the series began) will be minus mentor Bobby Bones, but series host Ryan Seacrest said during AI session that he hopes to see Idol alums return to fill Bones’ shoes. “I want to see every one of them come back, way back from the beginning,” Seacrest said. “I remember a moment with Clay(Aiken) and Ruben (Stoddard), I want to see Carrie (Underwood) again, I love seeing Jennifer Hudson. I can remember standing next to them looking at their faces and reactions in moments of success and challenge.”
• There’s a new twist for the Hollywood round, too: Three contestants received a platinum ticket, which allowed the advantage of choosing which of their fellow contestants they want to duet with, instead of having the judges choose for them. “They get to basically observe from the box seats at the theater one day. They get to rest their voice, strategize, check out the competition and select who they want to duet with,” judge Katy Perry said.

Fox TCA

• The network launches its comedy Welcome to Flatch on March 17, and on the same day, Hulu will stream the first seven episodes of the series, which is based on the British mockumentary This Country, and is produced by Paul Fieg (The Office and Arrested Development) and Jenny Bicks. Seann William Scott stars in the comedy, about a documentary crew chronicling the lives of the quirky residents of a small midwestern American town. The network hopes the strategy, which they’ve never tried before to launch a series, will help them build word of mouth for the comedy by the time the eighth episode airs on Fox.

Disney+ TCA

• Disney+ is producing a series sequel for The Santa Clause movie, and Tim Allen will star in and serve as an executive producer on the limited series, reprising his role as Scott Calvin. The project will also reunite him with Last Man Standing creator Jack Burditt, who will be EP and showrunner on The Santa Clause series.

NEW TRAILERS: Bel-Air: This More Dramatic Reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Finds Will in a Lot More Than One Little Fight

Bel-Air is the very much more dramatic reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, produced by Will Smith, and starring Jabari Banks as the Will who got in some very serious trouble that leads to his transplant to the West Coast and a swanky new life with his aunt, uncle, and cousins. But it’s a life that he may not want, and may not be able to charm his way around like the sitcom version of Will did in the 1990-96 sitcom original. Premieres Feb. 13. (Peacock)

More trailers and teasers released this week:

• Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy is a multi-part documentary about Kanye West, from his early days in the music business to his life now as a worldwide superstar. Premieres Feb. 16. (Netflix)
• Suspicion is the eight-episode thriller about a well-known media mogul whose son is kidnapped from a hotel, turning the lives of the suspected kidnappers upside down. Stars Uma Thurman, Noah Emmerich, and Kunal Nayyar. Premieres Feb. 4. (Apple TV+)
• Power Book IV: Force is the latest Power spin-off, this one set in Chicago and revolving around fan favorite Joseph Sikora, who plays Tommy, who’s looking to rebuild his life after falling out with the family of his late BFF Ghost. Also stars Sons of Anarchy alum Tommy Flanagan. Premieres Feb. 6.  (Starz)
• Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber is the anthology series that, in its first season, will find Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, whose fall from fame and success is chronicled. Also stars Kyle Chandler and Uma Thurman. Premieres Feb. 27. (Showtime)

• Inventing Anna is Shonda Rhimes’ limited series about the true-life story of Anna Delvey, a German heiress (or was she?) who charms people all around the world out of social relationships and lots and lots of cash, and the journalist who’s looking for a great story – and redemption from a past mistake of her own. Stars Julia Garner and Anna Chlumsky. Premieres Feb. 11. (Netflix)
• In Dollface season 2, Jules (Kat Dennings) and her best friends have survived the pandemic, heartbreak, and, almost, turning 30. Now reunited, Jules must keep them together as they navigate work, new love, and a deeper relationship. Also stars Brenda Song, Shay Mitchell, and Esther Povitsky. Premieres Feb. 11. (Hulu)
• The Offer is the behind-the-scenes look at the making of one of the greatest movies of all time, The Godfather. Stars Miles Teller, Matthew Goode, Juno Temple, Giovanni Ribisi, Dan Fogler, Burn Gorman, Patrick Gallo, and Colin Hanks. Premieres April 28. (Paramount+)

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CASTING: Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie Join Cast of Netflix’s All the Light We Cannot See

(Photo by Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for WarnerMedia)

Oscar nominee Mark Ruffalo and Emmy nominee Hugh Laurie have joined previously cast blind actress Aria Mia Loberti (making her acting debut) in the Netflix limited series adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller All The Light We Cannot See, written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and directed by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things). The 2014 novel, which has spent more than 200 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, tells the story of Marie-Laure, a blind teenager whose path collides with Werner, a German soldier, as they both try to survive the devastation of World War II in occupied France. Ruffalo will play Daniel, the the principal locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and Marie-Laure’s father, who wants to protect her, but also help her live as independently as possible, while Laurie plays Etienne, an eccentric shut-in and World War I hero suffering from PTSD, who records clandestine radio broadcasts as part of the French Resistance.

Aubrey Plaza has joined the cast of The White Lotus for season 2, playing Harper Spiller, a woman on vacay with her husband and his friends. The Parks and Recreation alum is the second confirmed cast member of the HBO comedy’s sophomore season, after The Sopranos Emmy winner Michael Imperioli.

More than 30 years after the 1991 movie Soapdish premiered, the film’s star, Whoopi Goldberg, will reprise her role as Rose Schwartz, the executive producer and head writer The Sun Also Sets, the movie’s fictional daytime soap, in a Paramount+ series reboot of the movie. The project is part of a partnership between the NAACP and CBS Studios. Good Sam executive producer Jennie Snyder Urman will write the soapy ensemble series. (TVLine)

Sharon Stone will play the mother of Kaley Cuoco’s Cassie Bowden in season 2 of The Flight Attendant on HBO Max. (EW)

Domhnall Gleeson will star with Steve Carell in FX’s The Patient, the 10-episode limited series from The Americans showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields. Carell plays Alexander Strauss, a psychotherapist who is held hostage by a serial killer (Gleeson) with an unusual demand: help him tap down on his homicidal urges, a request that brings out some of Strauss’s own repressed issues.

Martin Short has teased a few guest stars for the second season of Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building: Shirley MacLaine, Amy Schumer, and the return of Nathan Lane. (Deadline)

Anna Leong Brophy (as Tamar Kir-Bataar), Patrick Gibson (Nikolai Lantsov), Lewis Tan (Tolya Yul-Bataar), and Jack Wolfe (Wylan Hendriks) have joined the season 2 cast of Netflix’s Shadow and Bone, the fantasy series adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s bestselling Grishaverse novels, while Danielle Galligan (Nina Zenik), Daisy Head (Genya Safin), and Calahan Skogman (Matthias Helvar) have been promoted to series regulars for the sophomore season.

Homeland star Rupert Friend has joined the cast of Wes Anderson’s Netflix adaptation of Roald Dahl’s short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. Anderson wrote the script and is directing the three-chapter project, which also stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley. Friend plays the lead in one of the chapters. (THR)

PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT: The Honeymooners, Life Goes On, Degrassi, and Quantum Leap Among the Latest Crop of TV Reboots

(Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images)

With Dexter: New Blood, the Showtime series that finally gave viewers a perfectly satisfying end to the titular serial killer’s story, becoming the most-watched series in the cable network’s history — and the aforementioned news of the Justified limited series reunion — it should come as no surprise that remakes and reboots will continue to populate the television landscape. Among the latest on the retro horizon:

• A CBS remake of The Honeymooners, executive produced by Damon Wayans Jr., about a couple who want to have a marriage that is equal in every way, a definite twist on the original 1955 Jackie Gleason classic, Black-ish and Mixed-ish EP Lindsey Shockley will write the series. (Deadline)
• ER alum Kellie Martin will star in NBC’s pilot for a sequel to the 1989–93 ABC drama Life Goes On, reprising her role as Becca Thatcher, the sensitive teen who’s now a successful doctor returning to her hometown. All American showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll will write and EP the series, which also starred Patti LuPone and Bill Smitrovich as Becca’s parents, and Chris Burke as Corky, Becca’s brother who has Down’s syndrome.
• NBC has given an pilot order to a reboot of Quantum Leap, the 1989-93 Scott Bakula time-travelling drama. Bakula is not yet attached to be involved with the series in any way, though he has had conversations about working on the new series in some capacity. (Deadline)
• And HBO Max has greenlit Degrassi, a new entry in the popular franchise of the Canadian teen drama. The 10-episode series will be set at a Toronto high school, and will be preceded on HBO Max by all 14 seasons of the 2001-15 Degrassi: The Next Generation

And then there’s the series titled Reboot; Hulu has given an order to the comedy series, from Modern Family co-creator Steve Levitan, the meta series is about Hulu rebooting an early aughts family sitcom, forcing its dysfunctional cast to reunite and deal with the many unresolved issues from their past. The satire of the industry’s obsession with rebooting hits of the past stars Judy Greer, Keegan-Michael Key, Rachel Bloom, and Johnny Knoxville.

And reboots of another kind: Fox has ordered a series adaptation of Yellowstone and 1883 creator (and Justified actor) Taylor Sheridan’s Oscar-nominated film Hell or High Water, while the 2010 graphic novel to film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is being adapted into an anime series at Netflix.

Netflix has announced the new comedy Murderville, starring BoJack Horseman star Will Arnett as senior homicide detective Terry Seattle. For Terry, every day brings a new murder case, with a very special twist: a very special celebrity guest star as his partner. But the guest famous will not be given a script, meaning they have no clue about the story that’s about to play out, meaning Arnett and his co-star will have to improvise their way through the case. The stellar lineup of Arnett’s guest co-stars: Conan O’Brien, Annie Murphy, Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani, Sharon Stone, and Marshawn Lynch. The series premieres Feb. 3.

FX has ordered an eight-episode series adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking novel Kindred, about Dana (Mallori Johnson), a young Black woman and aspiring writer who leaves family behind and moves to Los Angeles to focus on her own life. But, before she can get settled into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time to a nineteenth-century plantation with her family, with interracial romance threads running through her past and present, as she struggles to confront the secrets she never knew ran through her history. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen) will serve as showrunner and writer of the series and will executive produce along with Darren Aronofsky and The Americans showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields.

(Photo by JC Olivera/FilmMagic)

Hulu and Disney’s Onyx Collective have joined to produce The Plot, a limited series executive produced and starring two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, and adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz’s bestselling novel of the same name. The cat and mouse story revolves around struggling author Jake (Ali), who is willing to take any opportunity that might help revive his career. When a once in a lifetime chance presents itself, Jake commits an act of literary theft that changes his life irrevocably. Now, someone knows his secret and is threatening him, which reveals just how far Jake will go to protect himself and the life he’s built.

Saturday Night Live alums David Spade and Dana Carvey are launching “Fly on the Wall,” a podcast in which they will interview their fellow show alums, plus guest hosts, writers, musical guests, and present cast members about the storied series’ most memorable moments (including ones we don’t know yet).

Ethan Hawke will direct The Last Movie Stars, a CNN+ documentary series about the long Hollywood marriage of Oscar winners Joanne Woodward and the late Paul Newman. Martin Scorsese is an executive producer on the six-part series, which also includes George Clooney, Oscar Isaac, Zoe Kazan, Laura Linney, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Sam Rockwell reading original interview transcripts in the project.

Favorite Betty White Shout Out So Far

Buffalo Bills shared wide receiver Stefon Diggs’ tribute to Golden Girls star Betty White with  Betty-fied cleats.

Thank you for being a friend.@StefonDiggs is honoring late, great Betty White today. 🙏 #NYJvsBUF pic.twitter.com/wTd7e80mdS

— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 9, 2022

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