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In a big week of TV news and casting announcements, The CW’s live-action Powerpuff Girls got its cast, Dakota Fanning stepped into some big – and stylish shoes – in Ripley, and we finally got the answer to the question: What does Paul Bettany do next? See the full breakdown of the biggest TV and streaming news below.
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(Photo by Zuchnik/Getty Images, Priscilla Grant / Everett Collection)
If you loved The Powerpuff Girls cartoon as a kid, The CW has just the thing for you: a Powerpuff live-action series, with the angsty former superheroes not so thrilled about having been forced to fight crime during their formative years. Chloe Bennet (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Dove Cameron (Descendants), and Yana Perrault (Jagged Little Pill on Broadway) will play the live-action heroines in the CW pilot.
The Diablo Cody–written and executive produced series catches up with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup when they’re in their twenties and feeling very resentful about being working children, according to EW. In spite of that, the world needs their badassery more than ever, which may lead them to put their feelings aside for a reunion.
Bennett, who just ended seven seasons playing Skye on S.H.I.E.L.D., will play Blossom Utonium, the perfect little superhero who was left with anxiety because of trauma she suffered during her crime-fighting days. Now she wants to become a leader again, “this time on her own terms.”
Cameron will play Bubbles Utonium, the sweet child who’s now tougher and funnier than we might remember her. She initially wants back into the crimefighting biz for the fame.
And Broadway star and singer Perrault plays Buttercup Utonium, the most rebellious of the trio as a kid, and the one whose tried to leave her Powerpuff Girls past furthest behind as an adult.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: come for the buddy comedy banter of Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, stay for the stellar MCU movie action. Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan star, and Kari Skogland directs. Premieres March 19 (Disney+).
More trailers and teasers released this week:
• The latest Kung Fu reboot revolves around Nicky Chen (Olivia Liang), a young Chinese-American woman who leaves college to move to a Shaolin monastery and learn martial arts to return to her San Francisco home and take on local criminals while also looking for the murderer of her mentor. Premieres April 7 (The CW).
• Lupin Season 2’s five new episodes find Assane’s quest for revenge tearing his family apart, as he puts himself in new danger to enact a new plan to go after Hubert Pelligrini. Stars Omar Sy. Premieres summer 2021 (Netflix).
• The United States of Al is the new comedy about the friendship between a Marine combat veteran struggling to return to life in Ohio and his interpreter, who moves to America to start his life over, too. Stars Parker Young and Adhir Kalyan, created by Chuck Lorre. Premieres April 1 (CBS).
• Made For Love is a dark comedy about a woman who flees her billionaire husband after she finds out he implanted a chip in her that allows him to monitor her every move. Stars Cristin Milioti, Ray Romano, and Billy Magnussen. Premieres April 1 (HBO Max).
• Family Reunion continues with guest stars Anika Noni Rose, Kenya Moore, Brandi Glanville, Mark Curry, and Willie Gault. Stars: Loretta Devine and Tia Mowry-Hardrict. Premieres April 5 (Netflix).
• This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist is a four-episode docuseries about a 1990 art heist in which a half a billion dollars worth of Rembrandts and other works were stolen from a Boston museum. Premieres April 7 (Netflix).
• The Wedding Coach is a reality series in which comedian and author Jamie Lee and her comedian friends help couples get past their wedding drama to enjoy their special day. Premieres April 7 (Netflix).
• The Serpent is a BBC limited series about the crimes of serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who killed young tourists is the mid-’70s. Stars Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman. Premieres April 2 (Netflix)
• In Manifest season 3, are we about to find out that Ben is the key to the puzzle surrounding the mystery of Flight 828? Starring Josh Dallas and Holly Taylor. Premieres April 1 (NBC).
For all the latest TV and streaming trailers, subscribe to the Rotten Tomatoes TV YouTube channel.
(Photo by Priscilla Grant / Everett Collection, Phil Bray / ©Paramount)
Dakota Fanning has joined the cast of Showtime’s Ripley, which stars Fleabag’s Andrew Scott as the titular Tom Ripley, from Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling novels. Fanning will play Marge Sherwood – the character played by Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley – an American living in Italy who suspects darker motives underlie Tom’s affability. Johnny Flynn (Lovesick and Genius) also stars, as Dickie Greenleaf.
Sopranos Emmy winner Edie Falco has signed on to star as Hillary Clinton in FX’s Impeachment: American Crime Story, based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President. Clive Owen is playing Bill Clinton, Beanie Feldstein is playing Monica Lewinsky, Sarah Paulson is playing Linda Tripp, Annaleigh Ashford is Paula Jones, and Billy Eichner is playing Drudge Report founder Matt Drudge. (Collider)
Emmy winner Mandy Patinkin will join the cast of The Good Fight for Season 5 at Paramount+. He’ll play Hal Wackner, a man who opens a court in the back of a copy shop, despite having no legal training (and that it’s a copy shop!). His (non-legal) legal judgements wreak havoc at Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart.
(Photo by Marvel Studios)
WandaVision star Paul Bettany and The Crown alum Claire Foy will star in season 2 of Amazon’s A Very English Scandal, as the series becomes an anthology. The season will unfold the real-life divorce of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, who was at the center of a scandal when her husband included Polaroids of her performing oral sex on another man in their divorce proceedings.
Schitt’s Creek and Kevin Can F**k Himself star Annie Murphy has joined the Season 2 cast of Netflix’s Russian Doll, though TVLine reports details of her role are under wraps.
Riley Keough will play elite triathlete Lauren Reece, the wife of Chris Pratt’s James Reece, in Amazon’s The Terminal List. Jeanne Tripplehorn has also joined the cast, playing Lorraine Hartley, the first female Secretary of Defense, reports Deadline.
Black Mafia Family, 50 Cent’s Starz drama about real-world drug kingpin brothers Demetrius “Big Meech” and Terry “Southwest T” Flenory has added Snoop Dogg to the cast, playing the brothers’ spiritual advisor. La La Anthony (Power) will play the wife of one of the Flenory brothers’ friends, and Empire star Serayah will play Big Meech’s girlfriend. (TVLine)
(Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o are starring in Apple TV+’s limited series adaptation of Laura Lippman’s book Lady in the Lake, about a 1960s Baltimore housewife (Portman) and single working mom (Nyong’o) whose fortunes cross when one of them tries to solve a murder.
Ray Liotta will play the father of Taron Egerton’s character in In With the Devil, the Dennis Lehane-written Apple TV+ limited series about a prisoner and the son of a cop (Egerton) who tries to get a fellow inmate (Paul Walter Hauser) to confess to murder.
Lost alum Josh Holloway will reunite with Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams in Duster, the HBO Max drama from Abrams and co-writer LaToya Morgan, about the getaway driver for a mobster. Holloway, who recently starred on Yellowstone, will play the driver.
Dominique Fishback (Judas and the Black Messiah) is joining Samuel L. Jackson in Apple TV+’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, playing a family friend who helps the 91-year-old Ptolemy (Jackson) as tries to regain his memories and solve his nephew’s death.
Brandy and Nadine Velazquez have joined the cast of ABC’s hip-hop drama Queens, joining Eve and Naturi Naughton. The show is about a ’90s musical group, called Nasty Bitches, which tries to reunite for a comeback.
(Photo by Jackson Lee Davis/Netflix)
In a holy pentagram of storytellers, Steven Spielberg will collaborate with Matt and Ross Duffer (Stranger Things) on a series adaptation of the Stephen King–Peter Straub book The Talisman, about a 12-year-old boy who goes on a road trip through two different realities to try to find a cure for his dying mother. The Duffer brothers will be showrunners on the Netflix project. (THR)
Fox is developing a romantic comedy anthology series based on the music of Huey Lewis. Hart of Dixie creator Leila Gerstein will write the still untitled series, which would blend a modern love story with a teen love story from the ’80s, with each season a self-contained comedy inspired by Lewis’ music. The Grammy-winning, Oscar-nominated musician is an executive producer on the series. (Deadline)
Wild Cards, the George R. R. Martin drama originally set to premiere on Hulu, will now find its home at Peacock. The story, based on Martin’s multiple-book series with input from various writers, was developed for two years at Hulu, but now a new writer will be assigned to the project as it continues to be developed at Peacock.
The Wire collaborators David Simon and George Pelecanos will adapt investigative reporter Justin Fenton’s book We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops and Corruption as an HBO limited series. The book tells the story of corruption, and how the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, an elite plainclothes unit, tried to clean it up. (Deadline)
The History Channel is producing the eight-part series The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek, a limited that will cover the stories pop culture history of all things Trek. (Deadline)
(Photo by Jason Smith/Everett Collection)
HBO, meanwhile, is teaming with Uncut Gems directors Benny and Josh Safdie and director Matt Wolf for a two-part documentary about the life and career of Paul “Pee-wee Herman” Reubens. (Deadline)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom director George C. Wolfe is talks to write and direct an adaptation of Toni Morrison’s National Book Critics Circle Award-winning 1977 novel Song of Solomon. (Deadline)
The adaptation NBC ordered of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, featuring the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, has moved to Peacock, where it will premiere with Succession star Ashley Zukerman as Langdon.
Comedian Nikki Glaser will host Comedy Central’s five-night Hall of Flame: Top 100 Roast Moments, a countdown of Comedy Central Roasts’ best insults, wrapping up with the hottest moment in franchise history. The event airs March 29-April 2 at 10pm each night.
