‘Unprisoned’: Marque Richardson Joins Onyx Collective’s Comedy Series

Joe Otterson TV ReporterThe Netflix action-comedy series “Obliterated” from the creators of “Cobra Kai” has found its first two cast members, Variety has learned.Nick Zano and Shelley Henig are set to star in the series, which was picked up at Netflix in May after having originally been ordered to series at TBS.The show tells the story of an elite special forces team who thwarts a deadly threat to Las Vegas. After their celebratory party, filled with booze, drugs and sex, the team discovers that a bomb they deactivated was a fake.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterPeacock is developing an American adaptation of the Australian comedy series “Laid” with Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna.Khan and Bradford McKenna will serve as writers and executive producers on the project. It follows a woman who finds out her former lovers are dying in unusual ways. In investigating their deaths, she must come to terms with her complicated past.Khan executive produces the show via Fierce Baby Productions along with Jennifer Carreras.  John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment also executive produce along with Liz Watts, Marieke Hardy and Kirsty Fisher of Porchlight Films.

EXCLUSIVE: Marcia Gay Harden (The Morning Show), Halston Sage (Paper Towns), Andrew Richardson (The Independent) and Aidan Quinn (Elementary) have signed on to star in Daughter of the Bride (w/t), an indie comedy from MarVista Entertainment and Particular Crowd, which has entered production

Clayton Davis Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has a pair of exclusive tracks from composer Carlos Rafael Rivera’s Season 1 soundtrack for HBO Max’s Peabody and multi-Emmy Award-winning comedy series Hacks, which is set for digital release tomorrow via Lakeshore Records.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterRob Lowe and John Owen Lowe’s Netflix comedy series “Unstable” has added six new cast members, Variety has learned.Sian Clifford, Rachel Marsh, Emma Ferreira and Aaron Branch have all joined the show as series regulars, while Fred Armisen, Tom Allen and JT Parr will appear in recurring guest star roles.“Unstable” was picked up to series at Netflix in April, with the Lowes having created the series along with Victor Fresco. The show follows an introverted son (John Owen Lowe) who goes to work for his very successful, wildly eccentric father (Rob Lowe) in order to save him and his successful biotech company from disaster.

Vanessa Redgrave and the director Tony Richardson, who died in 1991, as well as her beloved late sister, the actress Natasha, who died following a skiing accident in 2009. “When I first started out, I didn’t like people talking about my family, partly because people always assumed what my life was like, yet they had no idea,” she tells me. “Everyone thinks we had this lavish lifestyle [Joely and Natasha spent their teenage years in Florida] but actually my mother gave away everything she had when we were growing up, so that wasn’t true at all.

EXCLUSIVE: CBS has put in development JumpStart, a multi-camera comedy based on Robb Armstrong’s long-running comic strip. Wayne Conley (The Best Man) will pen the TV adaptation, which hails from Aaron Kaplan’s Kapital Entertainment and CBS Studios.

EXCLUSIVE: Will Greenberg (Perfect Harmony) and John Gemberling (Broad City) are set to recur in Season 2 of Apple’s The Afterparty from Oscar winners Chris Miller and Phil Lord.

Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, have an exciting project in the works! ET spoke with the powerhouse couple on the 75th annual Tony Awards red carpet, and the two shared details about their upcoming Broadway revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterCarlos Valdes will star opposite Mae Whitman in the upcoming Hulu series “Up Here.”The series received an eight-episode order at Hulu back in January. It is described as a musical romantic comedy set in New York City in the waning days of 1999.

Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, have an exciting project in the works! ET spoke with the powerhouse couple on the 75th annual Tony Awards red carpet, and the two shared details about their upcoming Broadway revival of August Wilson's .LaTanya is putting on her directing cap for the revival, which she told ET will be «an exciting time and a good time had by all.»She also gushed about the production's star-studded cast, including John David Washington, Danielle Brooks, Michael Potts, Ray Fisher and, of course, Samuel himself. «All very difficult people,» Samuel joked.

Netflix has released the official trailer for Boo, Bitch, an eight-episode live-action YA comedy limited series from Erin Ehrlich (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, King of the Hill) and Lauren Iungerich (On My Block, Awkward).

EXCLUSIVE: Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow is forging Live at the Moth Club for UKTV, a comedy series from the legendary East London venue featuring major UK comedy stars such as Stath Lets Flats creator Jamie Demetriou and What We Do In The Shadows star Natasia Demetriou.

Clayton Davis Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

Clayton Davis Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

EXCLUSIVE: Ashley Holland, former TV lit agent and partner at WME, has officially joined Onyx Collective as SVP of Scripted Series. She is one of three new executive hires at Onyx as the brand is building up its scripted operation, along with producers Anil Kurian, who is coming from G-Unit Film and Television, and Janice Park, most recently at Made Up Stories, who will both serve as VP of Scripted Series. All three will report to Tara Duncan, president of Freeform and Onyx Collective, Disney’s content brand designed to curate a slate of premium programming by creators of color and underrepresented voices. 

Selome Hailu IFC has greenlit “Sisters,” a half-hour dark comedy from Sarah Goldberg and Susan Stanley.The six-episode series follows two women (Goldberg and Stanley), one born in Canada and the other in Ireland, who discover they are half-sisters and embark on a road trip to find their alcoholic father. Goldberg and Stanley, real-life best friends, co-created the series.“Sisters” was developed by Peer Pressure, Shaftesbury, RTÉ and Declan Lowney, who is set to direct the first three episodes.

Emmy, Grammy, and Tony winner Carol Burnett has joined the cast of Mrs. American Pie, the Apple comedy series starring Kristen Wiig, Ricky Martin, Josh Lucas, Allison Janney, and Leslie Bibb, among others.

Joe Otterson TV ReporterCarol Burnett has joined the cast of the Apple comedy series “Mrs. American Pie,” Variety has learned.Burnett joins previously announced series lead Kristen Wiig in the show, along with cast members Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, Josh Lucas and Ricky Martin.The 10-episode comedy follows Maxine Simmons’ (Wiig) attempt to secure her seat at America’s most exclusive table: Palm Beach high society in the early 1970s. As Maxine attempts to cross that impermeable line between the haves and the have-nots, “Mrs.