Luis Gerardo Méndez, Debby Ryan Among Seven Cast in Peacock Comedy Series ‘The Resort’

EXCLUSIVE: Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Studios has acquired worldwide rights to Japanese series We Can’t Work Together and is developing an English-language remake of the project in partnership with Japanese company Akimoto Project as part of their strategic alliance.

EXCLUSIVE: Michael Rapaport is set for a recurring role opposite Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez on the upcoming second season of Hulu’s hit comedy series Only Murders in the Building.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe upcoming FX limited mystery series “The Retreat” has added 10 new cast members, Variety has learned.Clive Owen, Harris Dickinson, Alice Braga, Jermaine Fowler, Joan Chen, Edoardo Ballerini, Raul Esparza, Pegah Ferydoni, Ryan J. Haddad and Javed Khan have all joined the series.

FX has set its cast for Retreat, a limited series from The OA creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij. Oscar nominee Clive Owen (Closer, The Knick) Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats, The King’s Man), Alice Braga (Queen of the South, The Suicide Squad), Jermaine Fowler (Coming 2 America, Judas & the Black Messiah), Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks), Raul Esparza (Law & Order: SVU, Candy), Edoardo Ballerini (The Sopranos, Dinner Rush) Pegah Ferydoni (Turkish for Beginners, Drama Women Without Men), Ryan J. Haddad (The Politician, Hi, Are You Single?) and Javed Khan (The Bay, Gangs of London) join Corrin in the series, along with previously announced Marling.

Former Saturday Night Live writer Julio Torres, co-creator and star of HBO’s Los Espookys, has signed a first-look deal with HBO and HBO Max. Under the two-year pact, he has two half-hour comedies in the works: Little Films (working title), written, executive produced and headlined by Torres, which has received a series order by HBO; and Lucky, co-written and executive produced by Torres, which is in development at HBO.

Actress Rashida Jones is likely best known for her work in the comedy realm with the hit series “Parks & Rec” and most recently co-starred with Bill Murray in the Sophia Coppola-directed dramedy, “On The Rocks” that landed at Apple TV+. She’ll be reuniting with Apple for her next high-profile gig after landing a crucial part in their dystopian series “Wool.” Variety reports that Jones is set to lead a new dark comedy series, “Sunny,” produced by A24 Films, and will air on Apple TV+ as the streaming service continues to seek original content and continues their ongoing relationship with the indie studio.

EXCLUSIVE: Katie McGrath (Supergirl), Ray McKinnon (Rectify) Adam Shapiro (Never Have I Ever), Mark Musashi (Fear of the Walking Dead) and Marina Mazepa (Malignant) have been cast opposite Colin Woodell and Mel Gibson in Starz’s The Continental, the prequel to the Keanu Reeves film series John Wick. The Continental will be presented as a three-night special-event TV series, produced for Starz by Lionsgate Television.

Kristen Wiig is taking on a new role!

Joe Otterson TV ReporterApple has ordered the dark comedy series “Sunny” with Rashida Jones set to star, Variety has confirmed.The 10-episode series is based on the book “Dark Manual” by Colin O’Sullivan. In the half-hour show, Jones stars as Suzie, an American woman living in Kyoto, Japan, whose life is upended when her husband and son disappear in a mysterious plane crash. As “consolation” she’s given Sunny, one of a new class of domestic robots made by her husband’s electronics company.

EXCLUSIVE: Apple TV+ has handed a formal 10-episode series order to Sunny (fka Dark Manual), a half-hour darkly comedic drama starring and executive produced by Rashida Jones, from Katie Robbins (The Affair, The Last Tycoon) and A24. Lucy Tcherniak (Station Eleven, The End of the F***ing World) is attached to direct.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe upcoming “American Born Chinese” series adaptation at Disney Plus has found its main cast, Variety has confirmed.Ben Wang, Michelle Yeoh, Yeo Yann Yann, Daniel Wu, Chin Han, Ke Huy Quan, Jim Liu, and Sydney Taylor will all star in the series, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang.The series follows Jin Wang (Ben Wang), a teenager juggling his high school social life with his immigrant home life. When Jin meets a new foreign exchange student (Jim Liu) on the first day of school, their worlds collide as Jin becomes entangled in a battle of Chinese mythological gods.

EXCLUSIVE: Filming is underway in Alicante, Spain, on Guy Ritchie’s untitled action-thriller, starring Oscar nominee Jake Gyllenhaal.

Killing It,” streaming this April.Created by “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” producers Dan Goor and Luke Del Tredici, “Killing It” stars Craig Robinson (“The Office,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) as Craig, a man who competes in a state-sponsored python hunt in his quest to achieve the American Dream. The series co-stars Stephanie Nogueras as Craig’s ex-wife Camille, Jet Miller as his pre-teen daughter Vanessa and Rell Battle as his younger brother Isaiah. Claudia O’Doherty, Scott Macarthur and Wyatt Walter round out the cast.“We love all the ambitious, challenging, thematically-rich series that populate the current peak-TV landscape,” said Goor in a statement.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe “Tales of the Walking Dead” anthology series at AMC has added its first five cast members.Terry Crews (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), Poppy Liu (“Hacks”), Parker Posey (“Lost in Space”), Anthony Edwards (“Inventing Anna”), and Jillian Bell (“Rough Night”) have all joined the episodic anthology, which will consist of six standalone stories featuring both new and established characters from “The Walking Dead” universe. Details on the characters the five will play are being kept under wraps.“We’ve worked hard to create unique, interesting and unexpected characters for both old and new TWD fans, and I’m thrilled that these are the actors who will bring them to life. I can’t wait for you to see the depth, drama, terror and, yes, humor they bring to the screen,” said series showrunner Channing Powell.

FX has rounded out the cast of the Peter Tolan comedy pilot Belated. Joining lead Kal Penn are Ellie Taylor, Kaden Kearney, Amir Bageria and EaeMya ThynGi.

EXCLUSIVE: Hong Chau (Downsizing, Watchmen), DB Woodside (Lucifer, 24), Fola Evans-Akingbola (UK’s Call My Agent, Black Mirror), Eve Harlow (NeXT, The 100), Phoenix Raei (Clickbait, Stateless), Enrique Murciano (Bloodline, Father of the Bride 2) and Sarah Desjardins (Yellowjackets, Riverdale), have been cast as series regulars opposite leads Gabriel Basso and Luciane Buchanan in The Night Agent, Netflix’s political conspiracy thriller series created by Shawn Ryan based on author Matthew Quirk’s 2019 New York Times bestseller.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe climate change anthology series “Extrapolations” at Apple has added eight new cast members, Variety has learned exclusively.Murray Bartlett (“The White Lotus”), Yara Shahidi (“Grown-ish,” “Black-ish”), Diane Lane (“Unfaithful,” “Under the Tuscan Sun”), Heather Graham (“Boogie Nights,” “Wander”), Grammy Award-winner Ben Harper, Judd Hirsch (“Uncut Gems,” “The Goldbergs”), Hari Nef (“Transparent,” “You”), and Neska Rose (“Drama Club”) have all joined the series. This is the second Apple series role announced for Bartlett in recent days, as Variety exclusively reported he would also star in “Physical” Season 2.They join previously announced cast members Meryl Streep, Matthew Rhys, Marion Cotillard, Eiza Gonzalez, Tobey Maguire, Forest Whitaker, Edward Norton, Kit Harrington, Sienna Miller, Gemma Chan, Tahar Rahim, Daveed Diggs, David Schwimmer, Adarsh Gourav, Indira Varma, Keri Russell, Cherry Jones, and Michael Gandolfini.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterAdam Brody, Maxim Jasper Swinton, and Meara Mahoney Gross have all been cast in the upcoming FX limited series “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” Variety has learned.The trio joins previously announced cast members Jesse Eisenberg, Lizzy Caplan, and Claire Danes. Based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel of the same name, the series centers on recently separated forty-something Toby Fleishman (Eisenberg), who dives into the brave new world of app-based dating with the kind of success he never had dating in his youth, before he got married at the tail-end of medical school.

Guy Lodge Film CriticFor a few minutes at the very outset, “Home Team” threatens to be more interesting than it looks. Announcing itself in the opening credits as based on a true story, Charles and Daniel Kinnane’s film opens on the New Orleans Saints’ victory in the 2010 Super Bowl — an unlikely triumph for coach Sean Payton that was tainted two years later by his suspension over the Bountygate scandal, which saw the Saints accused of paying out bonuses to injure rival players.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentAmazon Prime Video has ordered its next French series original, “Darknet-sur-Mer,” (“On the Darknet”) a crime comedy series produced by Noor Sadar’s White Lion Films, a Mediawan Group company. The six-episode series, directed by Remy Four and Julien War (“On The Other Side of the Tracks”), has just started filming in the Charente Maritime region of Southwest France.