‘Rick and Morty’ Season 5 to Debut on Adult Swim in June

Joe Otterson TV ReporterHenry Lloyd-Hughes and Thalissa Teixeira will star alongside Lucy Hale in the AMC-Alibi series “Ragdoll,” Variety has learned.The six-episode show, which was ordered to series back in February, is set to begin production on April 19 in London.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterCall it the pilot season that wasn’t. One year later, the COVID-19 pandemic is still casting a long shadow over the new crop of broadcast shows.Across the Big Five networks, the majority of the pilots in contention this year are holdovers from 2020. The backlog is still being sorted out, underscoring the disruption of last spring when the public health crisis shut down work for months just as pilot production would have normally reached its peak.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe “Castlevania” series at Netflix will end with its upcoming Season 4, Variety has confirmed.Season 4 of the animated series will debut on May 13 and will consist of 10 episodes.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterJohn Ortiz has been cast in a leading role of the ABC drama pilot “Promised Land,” Variety has learned.The show is described as an epic, generation-spanning drama about two Latinx families vying for wealth and power in California’s Sonoma Valley. Ortiz joins previously announced cast members Christina Ochoa and Mariel Molino.Ortiz will star as Joe Sandoval, the patriarch of the Sandoval family, a wealthy vineyard-owning family in the Sonoma Valley.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterAnika Noni Rose has been cast in the “Let the Right One In” pilot at Showtime, Variety has learned.She joins previously announced cast member Demián Bichir. The series centers on Mark (Bichir), a father and his 12-year-old daughter, Eleanor, whose lives were changed forever 10 years earlier when she was turned into a vampire.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Warrior” has been renewed for Season 3, with the show moving from Cinemax to HBO Max, Variety has learned.The first season of the show aired in 2019, with the second having debuted in October 2020. The series is based on the writings of Bruce Lee.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Animal Kingdom” is adding four recurring stars to its cast for the TNT drama’s sixth and final season.Jasper Polish, Kevin Csolak, Darren Mann, and Stevie Lynn Jones will all join the show alongside stars Shawn Hatosy, Ben Robson, Jake Weary, Finn Cole, Leila George, Rigo Sanchez, and Jon Beavers.Polish (“Forces of Nature,” “Locked In”) plays young Julia, described as beautiful, intelligent, and edgy.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterMcKenna Grace and Lexi Underwood will star in their own standalone episodes of the upcoming Disney Plus anthology series “Just Beyond,” with Nasim Pedrad set to join Grace in a guest starring role.The horror-comedy series is based on the RL Stine graphic novels of the same name. Disney Plus ordered eight episodes of the show last year.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterShowtime has ordered the anthology series “Cinema Toast” from creator Jeff Baena and executive producers the Duplass brothers.The series is described as a post-modernist reinvention of older movies that turns pre-existing imagery from the public domain on its head to tell brand new unique stories. It will feature the voices of actors like Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Fred Armisen, John Early, Christina Ricci, Megan Mullally, Chloe Fineman and Chris Meloni.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter“Bridgerton” Season 2 at Netflix is officially adding four new cast members.Charithra Chandran, Shelley Conn, Calam Lynch, and Rupert Young will all star in the new season of the popular Shondaland series at the streamer.Chandran will play Edwina Sharma. Edwina has been taught by her older sister Kate to be the perfect debutante.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe “Station Eleven” series currently in the works at HBO Max is rounding out its cast.Lori Petty and Daniel Zovatto have been cast as series regulars, while Andy McQueen, David Cross, Enrico Colantoni And Julian Obradors will recur. They join previously announced cast members including Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel, David Wilmot, Nabhaan Rizwan, and Philippine Velge.Based on the book of the same name by Emily St.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterA docuseries based on “The 1619 Project” from New York Times Magazine’s and Nikole Hannah-Jones has been ordered at Hulu.Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams will produce and oversee the series under his One Story Up production banner with producing partner and co-executive producer Geoff Martz. Williams will also direct the first episode.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterIn a competitive situation, Mike Scully and Julie Thacker Scully have signed with Verve, Variety has learned exclusively.The husband and wife duo most recently co-created the Fox animated series “Duncanville” with Amy Poehler, on which they also serve as co-showrunners. Poehler also provides the voice of the lead character on the show and serves as an executive producer along with Scully and Thacker Scully.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe “4400” reboot at The CW has cast Joseph David-Jones and Khaliah Johnson, Variety has learned.The reboot was ordered to series at The CW in February. In the show, 4400 overlooked, undervalued, or otherwise marginalized people who vanished without a trace over the last hundred years are all returned in an instant, having not aged a day and with no memory of what happened to them.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterJohn Waters has joined the cast of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 4 at Amazon, Variety has learned exclusively.Waters will be appear in a guest starring role in the fourth season of the critically-acclaimed series, with the exact nature of the character he is playing being kept under wraps.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterNaomie Harris has signed on for a lead role in “The Man Who Fell to Earth” series at Showtime, Variety has learned.Harris joins previously announced series lead Chiwetel Ejiofor. The show is based on Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel and the 1976 Nicolas Roeg film that starred David Bowie, both of the same name.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterBen Hardy has been cast in the upcoming BBC One, HBO Max series “The Girl Before,” Variety has learned exclusively.Hardy joins previously announced cast members David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Jessica Plummer. The four-episode series is based on the book of the same name by J.P.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterPatrick Coker and Adam Wiesen have been named the new head writers of the BET series “Tales” going into the show’s third season, Variety has learned exclusively.The series is a scripted anthology of “song stories” weaving classic and current hip-hop songs into visual narratives from the lyrics of some of hip-hop’s greatest hits.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterJane Lynch has been cast in a lead role in the ABC multi-cam comedy pilot “Bucktown,” Variety has learned.Lynch joins previously announced cast members Shannon Woodward and Nicole Richie.In the multi-cam sitcom, after being dumped by her boyfriend and kicked out of her apartment on the eve of a big promotion, Amy (Woodward) finds refuge at her mom’s (Lynch) house in the blue-collar neighborhood where she grew up.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterFX has ordered a half-hour pilot from Christopher Storer, Variety has learned.“The Bear,” as the show is called, is about a young chef who returns to Chicago to run the family restaurant. Storer will write, direct, and executive produce the pilot.