Editorial Staff
Patriot
Amazon Prime Original Series ”Patriot” has cast three-time Academy Award and Emmy nominated Debra Winger (”Terms of Endearment”, ”An Officer and a Gentleman”) as a series regular for its second season debuting next year on Prime Video. Winger will play Bernice Tavner, mother to lead John Tavner (Michael Dorman, ”Wonderland”), and a high-ranking federal government official whose obligation to her country requires distance from her son’s complicated work, while her son’s worsening mental state requires the close care of a mother.
Recently nominated for a Critics Choice Television Award for Best Comedy Series, the second season of Patriot is executive produced by show creator Steven Conrad (”Wonder”, ”The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”), who also writes and directs on the series, James Parriott (”Grey’s Anatomy”), Glenn Ficarra (”Crazy Stupid Love”, ”This Is Us”), John Requa (”Crazy Stupid Love”, ”This Is Us”), Charles Gogolak (”This is Us”), and Gil Bellows (”Temple Grandin”).
In the new season of ”Patriot”, as John (Dorman) works to salvage a deteriorating covert mission in order to rescue his brother Edward (Michael Chernus, ”Orange is the New Black”), their father Tom (Terry O’Quinn, ”Lost”) orders a failsafe: to assassinate the pro-nuclear Iranian presidential candidate in a heavily-guarded Paris compound. Meanwhile, too many people have come to know too much – John’s team of allies has grown but so has his field of adversaries, and his efforts to navigate these forces come with a heavy cost. Allegiances are tested as Agathe (Aliette Opheim, ”Sandor slash Ida”) turns her attention to a more ambitious target. And John is not alone in the crosshairs anymore.
Nightflyers
SYFY today announced a series pickup for “Nightflyers”, based on author George R.R. Martin’s novella and the 1987 film of the same name. Jeff Buhler (“Jacob’s Ladder”) wrote the adaptation for television and will executive produce alongside Daniel Cerone (“The Blacklist”) who will also serve as showrunner. Martin will also executive produce, along with Gene Klein (“Suits”), David Bartis (“Suits”) and Doug Liman (“Live. Die. Repeat”) of Hypnotic; Alison Rosenzweig (“Jacob’s Ladder,” “Windtalkers”) and Michael Gaeta (“Jacob’s Ladder”) of Gaeta Rosenzweig Films; Lloyd Ivan Miller and Alice P. Neuhauser of Lloyd Ivan Miller Productions. Robert Jaffe (“Nightflyers,” – 1987) will produce. Andrew McCarthy (“Orange is the New Black”) will be a producer-director on the project. Mike Cahill (“I Origin”) will direct the pilot.
The series will be produced by Universal Cable Productions. Netflix will co-produce and have first-run rights to the series outside of the U.S.
Gretchen Mol (“Boardwalk Empire”) is set to star as Dr. Agatha Matheson, alongside Eoin Macken (“The Night Shift”) as Karl D’Branin, David Ajala (“Fast & Furious 6”) as Roy Eris, Sam Strike (“EastEnders”) as Thale, Maya Eshet (“Teen Wolf”) as Lommie, Angus Sampson (“Fargo”) as Rowan, Jodie Turner-Smith (“The Last Ship”) as Melantha Jhirl and Brían F. O’Byrne (“Million Dollar Baby”) as Auggie.
“Nightflyers” follows eight maverick scientists and a powerful telepath who embark on an expedition to the edge of our solar system aboard The Nightflyer – a ship with a small tightknit crew and a reclusive captain — in the hope of making contact with alien life. But when terrifying and violent events begin to take place they start to question each other — and surviving the journey proves harder than anyone thought.
The series, produced in Ireland, is moving forward with the support of the Government of Ireland, through the Minister for Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht and the Irish Film Board.
Kidding
“Superman Returns”‘ Frank Langella has joined the cast of the Jim Carrey Showtime half-hour comedy ”Kidding”.
Per Deadline, “the 10-episode Kidding centers on Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles (Carrey), an icon of children’s television, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America’s impressionable young minds and the parents who grew up with him – who also anchors a multimillion dollar branding empire. But when this beloved personality’s family (wife, two sons, sister and father) begins to implode, Jeff finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through this crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: A kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.
“Langella will play Seb, the man who built Jeff’s show from a school project to a nationally syndicated cultural touchstone with a multimillion-dollar merchandising empire. He must balance a growing concern for Jeff with the need to keep his onscreen persona from radically changing.”
