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New Marvel and Assassin’s Creed series are in the works, first-look images at costumes for the new Batwoman and Titans‘ Red Hood, In Treatment returns with new cast, Jon Stewart scores Apple TV+ deal, and more of the week’s top TV and streaming news.
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Is Oscar Isaac trading his place in the Star Wars universe for life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Maybe, as the actor who plays X-wing pilot Poe Dameron in the Star Wars sequel films is reportedly in talks to lead the cast of the new Disney+ series Moon Knight, about the Marvel comics Batman-ish superhero. Like The Caped Crusader/Bruce Wayne, Moon Knight/Marc Spector is a billionaire who uses his wealth to find cool crimefighting gadgetry and is a super sleuth. Moon Knight, unlike Batman, also has superpowers.
Clash director Mohamed Diab has signed on to direct the series, Deadline reports, while Jeremy Slater, who developed and wrote the Netflix adaptation of The Umbrella Academy, will develop and head the writing staff on Moon Knight, which will join a pair of other recently announced new Marvel series on Disney+, including She-Hulk, starring Tatiana Maslany, and Ms. Marvel, starring newcomer Iman Vellani.
Isaac already has another series lined up, meanwhile; he’ll reunite with his A Most Violent Year co-star (and Julliard classmate) Jessica Chastain in HBO’s limited series remake of Scenes from a Marriage. Chastain replaces Michelle Williams, who had to drop out of the project because of a scheduling conflict.
Netflix and Ubisoft are officially teaming up to develop a live-action #AssassinsCreed series. pic.twitter.com/2VFXT3YHUy
— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) October 27, 2020
Netflix is teaming up with Ubisoft for a live-action series adaptation of Assassin’s Creed, the internationally bestselling videogame. The live-action story will be first, but the collaboration between the streaming service and the videogame producer will also include animation and anime projects.
“We’re excited to partner with Ubisoft and bring to life the rich, multilayered storytelling that Assassin’s Creed is beloved for,” said Netflix executive Peter Friedlander. “From its breathtaking historical worlds and massive global appeal as one of the bestselling video game franchises of all time, we are committed to carefully crafting epic and thrilling entertainment based on this distinct IP and provide a deeper dive for fans and our members around the world to enjoy.”
Since its 2007 release, Assassin’s Creed and its sequels have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. The game series has already hit the big screen, in the 2016 movie starring Michael Fassbender.
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Feast your eyes on these, the super cool new outfits worn by new Batwoman Ryan Wilder in the second season of the CW’s Batwoman series, and Red Hood’s new threads in the HBO Max DC Comics drama Titans.
New Batwoman Ryan Wilder, played by new series star Javicia Leslie, will initially be seen in the suit worn by Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) in season 1, but by the third episode of the new season, she’ll reveal her redesign of her outfit, signifying she’s really fitting (ha, literally!) into her new superheroine role.
(Photo by Ben Mark Holzberg/HBOMax/Courtesy of Warner Bros.)
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Red Hood, a.k.a. Jason Todd (Curran Walters) will be sporting a bold red and black hooded (duh) outfit that will be the first time an individual Red Hood costume has been seen in a live-action production. Seasons 1 and 2 of the series will be available Nov. 1 on HBO Max.
(Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon / © Paramount Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection)
Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Tim Burton is shopping a new live-action TV series version of the The Addams Family, the classic cartoon that’s already been adapted as several TV series and movies. The original TV series aired on ABC from 1964-66; Burton’s reboot would be set in present time, and told from the perspective of the family’s teen daughter Wednesday Addams, the character so brilliantly played in the Addams movies by Christina Ricci.
Smallville producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are set to write the pilot, serve as showrunners, and act as executive produce alongside Burton, who also plans to direct the whole series, which would be his first major primetime series. (Deadline)
The Midnight Sky is the post-apocalyptic story of a lonely Arctic scientist who is trying to stop a group of astronauts from returning to Earth after a mysterious global calamity, starring and directed by George Clooney. The film also stars Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, David Oyelowo, and Demián Bichir and is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Premieres Dec. 23 (Netflix).
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• The Crown season 4 features the stories of Diana (Emma Corrin) before she was princess and the administration of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson). Olivia Colman returns as British monarch Queen Elizabeth II. Premieres Nov. 15 (Netflix).
• Saved by the Bell, season 1, finds the original Bell gang – including California Governor Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) going back to Bayside High to deal with a new group of teens, including Zack’s very Zack-like son. Premieres Nov. 25 (Disney+).
• Crazy, Not Insane is a documentary directed and produced by Alex Gibney and narrated by Laura Dern, about the work of psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, who studies the psychology behind murder, including those committed by Ted Bundy. Premieres Nov. 18 (HBO).
• Black Narcissus is a three-episode series, based on the novel of the same name by Rumer Godden, about a nun (Gemma Arterton) who leads a mission to a remote part of the Himalyas, where she is tempted by her feelings for a local war veteran. Alessandro Nivola, Aisling Franciosi, the late Diana Rigg, and Jim Broadbent also star. Premieres November 23 (FX).
• Selena: The Series, season 1, stars Christian Serratos in the story behind the rise of beloved Tejano superstar singer Selena Quintanilla. Premieres Dec. 4 (Netflix).
• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, season 4, is the final run for Kiernan Shipka’s teenage witch, who, when we last saw her, had split herself into two people in an effort to save the world. Premieres Dec. 31 (Netflix).
• The Liberator is an animated limited series about a World War II military officer who returns to the battle field after nearly being killed in battle. The series tars Bradley James, based on the book The Liberator: One World War II Soldier’s 500-Day Odyssey by Alex Kershaw. Premieres Nov. 11 (Netflix).
• Run is a movie thriller about a tragic mother and daughter, starring Sarah Paulson and Kiera Allen. Premieres Nov. 20 (Hulu).
• A Teacher is a drama about a teacher who has a devastatingly destructive affair with her student. Starring Kate Mara and Nick Robinson. Premieres Nov. 10 (FX).
For all the latest TV and streaming trailers, subscribe to the Rotten Tomatoes TV YouTube channel.
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Orange Is the New Black and Mrs. America Emmy winner Uzo Aduba will star in the fourth season of HBO’s In Treatment, with a scheduled 2021 premiere. She will play Dr. Brooke Lawrence, the lead therapist in the return of the series that debuted on HBO in 2008.
Divorce and Wings alum Thomas Haden Church has signed on to star in and executive produce the Fox comedy The Texanist, based on the Texas Monthly magazine column about an Austin radio show host who doles out advice about the Texas way of doing things to natives and newcomers to the state. Emmy winner Church is a current resident of Texas who also grew up there.
The Get Down alum Jaden Michael will play young Colin Kaepernick in Netflix’s Colin in Black & White, the six-episode series created by Kaepernick and Emmy winner Ava DuVernay. Emmy nominee Michael Starrbury writes the series and serves as executive producer, alongside DuVernay and Kaepernick, who will appear as himself as narrator of the autobiographical series.
Allison Tolman and Nick Frost will star in the second season of the CBS All Access dark comedy anthology series Why Woman Kill. The new season will feature a new ensemble cast and storylines set in 1949, exploring the lengths one woman will go to in order to finally belong. Tolman will play Alma, a timid and awkward housewife who’s hopeful about her future, until her life is disrupted when she learns about her husband’s secret hobby. British actor, writer, and director Frost will play Bertram, Alma’s kind, good-natured veterinarian husband whose secret hobby is darker than his jovial nature would suggest.
Rosario Dawson has joined the cast of Hulu’s opioid crisis drama Dopesick, playing tough DEA agent Bridget Meyer in the eight-episode series that stars Michael Keaton and is written by Danny Strong. (TV Line)
The Office alum Craig Robinson will host Fox’s new celeb reality series The Masked Dancer, which premieres in December. He’ll be joined by panelists Ken Jeong, Paula Abdul, Brian Austin Green, and Ashley Tisdale as the show does for famous types willing to shake their groove things while wearing head-to-toe silly costumes what The Masked Singer does for crooning celebrities.
Marilyn Manson, Ali Larter, C. Thomas Howell, Ryan Kwanten, Denise Crosby, Breckin Meyer, Ted Raimi, and Kevin Dillon are among the cast for the second season of Creepshow, the hit Shudder horror series from The Walking Dead director, producer, and special effects whiz Greg Nicotero.
Apple TV+’s international drama Pachinko, which will be told in Korean, Japanese and English, has announced its cast. The series, based on the bestselling novel by author Min Jin Lee, chronicles the hopes and dreams of four generations of a Korean immigrant family, and will star Min Ho Lee, Jin Ha, Anna Sawai, Minha Kim, Soji Arai, and Kaho Minami. Soo Hugh (The Terror and The Killing) is creator, writer, executive producer, and showrunner on the project.
Amazon’s ranch-set mystery drama Outer Range, starring Josh Brolin, has added Lili Taylor, Tom Pelphrey, and Tamara Podemski to the cast. Taylor will play Cecilia, the wife of Brolin’s rancher owner Royal Abbott, while Pelphrey is Perry, the oldest Abbott son, and Podemski plays Joy, the first gay, Native American county sheriff candidate. (Deadline)
(Photo by Jay L. Clendenin/Courtesy Apple TV+)
Jon Stewart is coming back to TV on a regular basis: The Daily Show alum has signed a deal with Apple TV+ that will include a new current affairs series, a multiple season, one-hour, single-issue show that will explore topics that are currently part of the national conversation and his advocacy work. The topic of each season will be further explored in a companion podcast. Apple also has a first-look deal Stewart on projects to be produced and developed for the service.
Stewart’s Big Daddy co-star Adam Sandler will star in Netflix’s adaptation of Czech author Jaroslav Kalfar’s novel Spaceman of Bohemia. Chernobyl miniseries director Johan Renk will direct the story, about an astronaut (Sandler) whose marriage is falling apart while he’s on an eight-month space mission. When he thinks he has befriended a giant talking space spider, it may actually be a sign that he’s having a mental breakdown. (THR)
Ava DuVernay is developing an NBC drama, Sovereign, about an Indigenous family trying to maintain control of their tribe’s future in the face of threats within and outside the family. Navajo Nation member Navajo Nation member Sydney Freeland co-wrote the pilot based on a story from DuVernay, who will executive producer the series with Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache Tribal Nations member Bird Runningwater. (TV Line)
Netflix has picked up the thriller Born to Be Murdered, starring Tenet star and Ballers alum John David Washington. The movie, expected to debut in 2021, is the story of a couple (Washington and Alicia Vikander) who, while on vacation in Greece, become involved in a “violent conspiracy.” Call My By Your Name director and producer Luca Guadagnino produced the story. (THR)
Netflix also picked up the Toronto Film Festival standout Concrete Cowboy, the drama starring Idris Elba and Stranger Things and The New Edition Story star Caleb McLaughlin, for a likely 2021 release. The film, which also features When They See Us Emmy winner Jharrel Jerome, follows 15-year-old Detroit native Cole, who’s sent to live with his dad Harp (Elba) in Philadelphia, where he learns about the urban cowboy culture. Lorraine Toussaint and Method Man also co-star/ (THR)
Dick Wolf and former showrunner of The Chi, Ayanna Floyd Davis, are in early talks with Peacock to develop a reboot of Wolf’s ‘90s cop drama New York Undercover. The original 1994-99 series, which aired on Fox and starred Malik Yoba and Michael DeLorenzo, will be written by Floyd Davis and is a “re-examination of the original, reflecting the current times,” according to Deadline.
Olympic bronze medalist figure skater and Dancing with the Stars champ Adam Rippon is developing a figure skating comedy for NBC. Rippon will act as an executive producer on the series, which will “tackle the oversized ambitions, underwhelming talent, and boundless heart as one woman fights her family, failing knees, and every other skater on the ice.” (Variety)
Emmy-winning Sopranos writer Terence Winter is adapting the book Friends of the Family: The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case as a drama series. The book, by Tommy Dades and Mike Vecchione, tells the true story of a pair of NYPD detectives who were secretly working for the mafia. (Deadline)
It’s a Neighbors reunion: stars of that film, Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen, will reunite with the movie’s director, Nick Stoller, for the Apple TV+ comedy series called Platonic, about a pair of childhood friends who reconnect as adults, repair the rift that separated them as children, and engage in an all-consuming friendship.
HBO Max and Cartoon Network are rebooting the 1990-92 Steven Spielberg-produced series Tiny Toon Adventures as Tiny Toons Looniversity, which will find Babs, Buster Bunny and their friends going off to the titular institution of “hijinx” learning. Spielberg will return as an executive producer.
If you really, really love the Unsolved Mysteries theme song, Netflix has a Halloween treat for you: a five-hour version of the tune.
