‘Cookies & Milk’: Disney Developing Animated Series Based On Shawn Amos Novel, Laurence Fishburne To EP Via Cinema Gypsy Banner

Laurence Fishburne (John Wick: Chapter 4) and Clifton Collins Jr. (Nightmare Alley) have signed on to star in the upcoming film Frank & Louis, which Petra Volpe is directing for Participant, Zodiac Pictures and Tyler Perry’s Peachtree & Vine Productions.

Angelique Jackson Participant, Zodiac Pictures and Tyler Perry’s Peachtree & Vine Productions have teamed up to produce “Frank & Louis,” starring Laurence Fishburne and Clifton Collins Jr.Directed by Petra Volpe, the film follows a man serving a life sentence who takes an in-prison job caring for aging and infirm prisoners suffering from memory loss diseases. As the project’s official logline explains, “What starts as a self-serving mission for parole turns into a deep emotional and transformative relationship, offering a glimmer of redemption in an otherwise unforgiving place.”Participant, whose company mission is dedicated to entertainment that stands at the intersection of art and activism, is producing the film with Zodiac Pictures’ Reto Schaerli and Lukas Hobi, and Perry and Tim Palen of Peachtree & Vine Productions.

“To work with Laurence Fishburne and Clifton Collins, Jr. on this intimate and emotional story is an absolute dream come true,” said Volpe in a statement.

Ahead of its Season 3 premiere, Disney+ has ordered a fourth season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The eight-episode third season will premiere on July 27, with each episode streaming weekly on Wednesdays, exclusively on Disney+. The streamer also released a first-look clip of Season 3 (see above).

EXCLUSIVE: Alanna Ubach (Euphoria) has joined Seth MacFarlane’s comedy Ted, rounding out the main cast for the Peacock series based on his popular film franchise.

Tanya Saracho, who created the Starz series Vida which ran for three seasons, has set a new project at the streamer. Saracho is currently developing the half-hour drama Lovesong, it was announced on Thursday.

Sacha Baron Cohen has partnered with Greg Daniels and Mike Judge of the newly formed Bandera Entertainment, as well as Michael Koman on the family-oriented animated special, Chelm: The Smartest Place on Earth for HBO Max and Cartoon Network.

Ava DuVernay’s Wings of Fire, an animated series adaptation of the family fantasy books which had been in development at Netflix since 2021, is the latest victim of animation cuts at the streamer, sources close to the project confirm to Deadline. We hear several other projects are not moving forward as well.

TelevisaUnivision revealed a barrage of projects are in development for both linear and streaming via Vix. An animated series from Sofia Vergara and a Selena Quintanilla tribute concert is a sampling of the upcoming programming announced during the network’s Upfronts presentation on Tuesday.

1996s “Irma Vep” saw Olivier Assayas contribute to a rich tapestry of meta cinema stretching back to Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece “8½.” Itself drawing upon François Truffaut’s metafictional “Day For Night” as a direct source, the film followed René Vidal, an over-the-hill film director whose recent output has descended into alienating pseudo-intellectualism, and his attempt to remake the classic French film serial, “Les Vampires.” Introducing veteran of Hong Kong cinema, Maggie Cheung, to a western audience, playing herself as an actress cast in the fictional director’s film as Irma (keeping up?), Assayas’ film contemplated the nature of the creative process, using its verité aesthetic to capture the mania of a film set while also providing a broader meditation on the state of modern French cinema.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+ has ordered Eva the Owlet, a new animated kids and family series based on Rebecca Elliott’s bestselling Scholastic book series Owl Diaries.

Married… With Children series is on the way that will reunite the iconic sitcom’s original cast.According to Deadline, Ed O’Neill, Katey Sagal, Christina Applegate, and David Fausti will all reprise their roles as the apathetic Bundy family for an animated revival that is currently being pitched to networks and streamers.The new take on the 1987 sitcom – which aired its final episode on June 9, 1997, and is one of the longest-running live-action sitcoms in television history – will be written by Family Guy executive producer Alex Carter, who also serves as showrunner.Sony Pictures Television, which owns the series, has already closed deals with the show’s original stars.Although no network or streamer has picked the animated series up yet, Fox (which aired the original), and Hulu and Peacock (which show re-runs of the show) are reportedly interested.Created by Michael G. Moye and the late Ron Leavitt, Married… With Children follows the lives of Chicago natives Al Bundy (O’Neill), a woman’s shoe salesman; his lazy wife, Peggy (Sagal); and their children, Kelly (Applegate) and Bud (Faustino).A number of follow-up series have been discussed over the years, but they often fell apart due to the busy schedules of the stars.In 2020, O’Neill wrapped his final episode of Modern Family, which like Married… With Children also ran for 11 seasons.

Given that Francis Ford Coppola‘s independently-financed $100 million-plus budgeted passion project film “Megalopolis,” is one he’s been talking about for over two decades at least—a project he once abandoned and only recently came back to —when news arrived that Oscar Isaac had ultimately passed on the lead role, it made lots of cinephiles dying to see the project very nervous. Well, chalk that set back up to a blip as the director of “The Godfather” trilogy and “Apocalypse Now” has not only found a new leading man, but a whole new supporting cast as well.

More than 20 years in the making, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis has set its star cast. Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones and Fast X), Jon Voight and Laurence Fishburne have been set for the main roles. Fishburne began his career with Coppola at the tender age of 14 in Apocalypse Now. Legend has it he was of legal age when the film got released.

AMC has thrown its hat into the ring of video game adaptations, with a seriesbased on the action-adventure game Alan Wake in the works.

Jennifer Lopez is taking on a new project!

There’s a limited series based on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s  in the works from Jennifer Lopez‘s Nuyorican Productions, Skydance Television, and Concord Originals. The project is an original take on the musical to be written by Rachel Shukert (GLOW, The Baby-Sitters Club) who will also executive produce and serve as showrunner.

FX continues to add some really interesting genre television projects with a revival of “Justified” on the way, Noah Hawley‘s “Alien” prequel series expected to begin shooting next year, and the “OA” creative team is reuniting for the murder mystery show “The Retreat.” Yet another high-profile genre show is on the way that will see the network reboot “Never Let Me Go.” According to Variety, FX is developing a series based on the dystopian sci-fi novel by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro that focuses on three friends at an isolated boarding school that is revealed to have a dark secret.

EXCLUSIVE: HBO is developing Sula, a limited series based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s novel. The project comes from writer Shannon M. Houston (Station Eleven), who has an overall deal at HBO, and Stephanie Allain’s Homegrown Pictures, under the company’s first-look deal with Warner Bros. Television Group and HBO.

EXCLUSIVE: A podcast about the disappearance and murder of a number of Grateful Dead fans is the latest audio series to be adapted for television.