Pilot Season: Networks Announce Casting for New Shows – Part 2
In our next round of announcements for pilot season, we have new cast members for shows in development at the networks, plus changes to lineups already announced.
Click here for Sharknado 4 casting news.
UNTITLED CW WILLIAMSON PROJECT
The show still doesn’t have a title, and already has a casting change. We reported February 27th, that Bailey Chase would play parapsychologist Clark Patterson. Having been disgraced and reduced to performing at ghost conventions, Patterson encounters Jasmine Lacroix (Gossip Girl‘s Jessica Szohr), who’s trying to figure out the paranormal phenomena she’s beginning to experience.
Chase posted to Twitter that he had dropped out of the project, and Deadline reports this happened following a table read with the cast and crew. Not an unusual happening (Elizabeth Shue dropped out of the Fox pilot Pitch, replaced by Heroes alum Ali Larter).
Aloha peeps! Sad to report I have dropped out of the #Paranormal pilot for @TheCW but they're an awesome bunch. More soon…
— Bailey Chase (@Bailey_Chase) March 10, 2016
Instead, Patterson will be played by Matt Passmore, who spent two years on USA’s Satisfaction, with four seasons of The Glades on A&E before that.
TIME AFTER TIME
The remake of the movie, in which H.G. Wells is on the hunt for Jack the Ripper, has added singer/actress Jordin Sparks to the cast. She’ll have a recurring role as New York stylist Jesse Givens, roommate and bestie for Jane Walker (Genesis Rodriguez). Walker is the museum curator who fascinates Wells (Freddie Stroma) upon his arrival in modern New York.
The series will adapt from the original 1979 novel by Karl Alexander as well as the 1979 film starring Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen.
PROTOTYPE
NCIS fans will rejoice at the news that Cote de Pablo is finally returning to series television… that is, if this deal solidifies. Deadline reports that she’s in talks to join the cast of Syfy’s Prototype opposite Jack Davenport (the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Smash, Kingsmen: The Secret Service).
De Pablo would play Laura Kale, mother of two and very excited about the machine they’ve developed. They’re on the cutting edge of something that could change the nature of quantum physics, and she’s motivated by the chance at fame.
Oscar nominee Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Esposados) will direct the pilot, written by Tony Basgallop (24: Live Another Day), and the two will executive produce with Taylor Latham (Freeheld).
BLACK MIRROR
British actor Malachi Kirby will appear in an episode of the new season of Black Mirror, an anthology series from Charlie Brooker. The Netflix series, which originally aired on Channel 4 in the UK in 2011, is a collection of stories exploring themes of techno-paranoia.
The original run in 2011 was seven episodes. This new season on Netflix will be twelve episodes, with Brooker and Annabel Jones both returning as executive producers.
SPARK
Another up-and-coming British performer, Antonia Thomas (Misfits), has joined the cast of Spark, which brought on Lena Olin and Tom Brittney back in March.
The series will deliver a 2016 with a Steampunk motif, an alternate reality where everything is powered still by gas and coal. Thomas will play Pin, a rebellious inventor who works to bring back electricity. She’s the element that could topple two rival family empires battling for power.
Olin plays Hazel Stockton, philanthropic (but still power hungry) matron of the Stockton Coal Company. When sabotage starts to kill people across the city, her son Aiden (Brittney) investigates as Captain of the Investigative Division of the Watch (hope there’s an acronym on the patch…).
Ian Sander and Kim Moses are producing the story from writer Michael Cooney.
MAKING HISTORY
Gossip Girl alum Leighton Meester returns to series TV opposite Adam Pally on Making History, the time-travel comedy from Fox.
Meester will play Deborah, a self-educated colonial woman (as in pre-Revolutionary War) with progressive ideas in a regressive time. Her notions of gender and racial equality are decidedly out of place in 1775. No word on how the character will interact with Pally’s Dan, the computer science professor who stumbles upon time travel.
THE EXORCIST
As we reported on our sister site, Horror4Me, Geena Davis has joined the cast of the Exorcist reboot going to Fox. She’ll play Angela Rance, a woman of faith with family struggles. Trying to stay positive despite the stress in her life, she begins having nightmares about a demon.
RIVERDALE
The new adaptation from Greg Berlanti’s team — described as “subversive” and exploring “the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade” — now has Reggie, Moose, and Dilton.
Ross Butler will play Reggie Mantle, Archie’s rival for the affections of Veronica Lodge. He’s also got an eye on Moose’s girlfriend Midge (at least in the new comics reboot) and is a practical joker.
Daniel Yang will portray the brilliant Dilton Doiley, and Cody Kearsley will appear as Riverdale’s resident jock Moose Mason.
No announcement yet on the Kevin Keller character.
