TV News Wrap-Up: ‘Killing Eve’ Season 4 Filming Delayed, Warner Bros. TV Sets Late-August Return Date for Vancouver-Based Productions, Hulu to Develop ‘Rodham’ to Series

We’re more than halfway through the summer, and four months into the coronavirus pandemic that’s brought much of the film and television production industry to a halt.

While Hollywood still hasn’t officially opened up, there are a few inklings that series are attempting to return to production, while some are delaying.

This week there have been second season pickups for some freshman shows, news that one studio is looking to return to production next month, and news of new series in development. 

Plus, with Comic-Con@Home happening this weekend, the news is likely to keep pouring out. 

Take a look at the highlights from this week in TV news.

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Amazon Prime has announced a Season 3 renewal of The Boys ahead of the Season 2 premiere.

• The renewal was announced at Thursday’s Comic-Con@Home panel where they also announced an after-show will be premiering when the series returns in September. 
• “The writers and I are hard at work in the (virtual) writer’s room, and we’re sad to say, the world has given us way too much material. We hope to be shooting in early 2021, but that’s up to a microscopic virus,” said Eric Kripke.
• Read more about The Boys Season 3 renewal right here.

Netflix has stopped production on its latest Turkish original If Only, amid pressure to remove a gay character.

• Deadline reports that the eight-part relationship drama was set to be made by Turkish production outfit Ay Yapim, with screen star Özge Özpirinçci leading the cast.
• Filming was scrapped after producers,  “…were refused a filming license because of the existence of a gay character.”
• Creator Ece Yörenç is quoted as saying, “Due to a gay character, permission to film the series was not granted and this is very frightening for the future.”
• Netflix remains committed to the other Turkish originals they have in production. 

HBO has renewed Perry Mason for a second season.

• The drama starring Matthew Rhys was the most-watched premiere for the cabler in nearly two years drawing in over 8 million viewers. 
• “It has been an exciting journey to work with the immensely talented team behind Perry Mason. Viewers have relished being transported back in time to 1930’s Los Angeles each week, and we are thrilled to welcome the show back for a second season,” said Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming told Deadline. 

Netflix announced that The Crown Season 5 will not premiere until 2022 as the series takes a filming break.

• Deadline reports that cameras won’t begin rolling for Season 5 until June 2021.
• This means that Netflix will be without one of its highest-profile shows in the next calendar year, but sources also stress that the filming break is not tied to the coronavirus pandemic, but has been planned.
• A similar break occurred as Claire Foy stepped down and handed the reign of Queen over to Olivia Colman. 
• Meanwhile, The Crown Season 4 is set to premiere later this year since the show finished wrapping before the production shutdown.  
• The Crown Season 4 will take the audience up through 1990 including the rise of Margaret Thatcher, played by Gillian Anderson. Season 4 will also feature the debut of Princess Diana, played by Emma Gorrin. 
• Earlier this month it was announced that The Crown would have a Season 6 as originally planned, reversing the January announcement that Season 5 would be the last.

Hulu is developing Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel, Rodham into a series.

• The alternative history imagines what Hillary Clinton’s life would have been like if she hadn’t married Bill.
• A Deadline report describes the novel as, “…A modern parable about choices, feminism, and why this country has such a complicated relationship to women in power… Rodham tells the story of an ambitious young woman, developing her extraordinary mind in the latter part of the 20th century, moving from idealism to cynicism and all the way back again.”
• The series hails from The Affair co-creator Sarah Treem, Fox 21 Television Studios and studio-based the Littlefield Company.
• This is the first major sale under the overall dream Treem signed with Fox 21. 

Netflix has ordered a second season of Sweet Magnolias.

• Joanna Garcia Swisher, Brooke Elliott, and Heather Headley are all set to return for the second season of the streaming series about lifelong friends who juggle relationships, family, and careers in the town of Serenity, SC.
• According to Deadline both Sweet Magnolias and Virgin River are part of Netflix’s push into the romance drama space.

Amazon orders Paper Girls graphic novel adaptation to series.

• A Deadline report states, “The project, from Legendary Television in association with Plan B, initially landed in development with a series commitment last year in a competitive situation.”
• The script will be written by Toy Story 4 co-writer Stephany Folsom, who will also act as co-showrunner with Christopher Cantwell, and Christopher C. Rogers.
• The series is described as being, “…[following] four young girls who, while out delivering papers on the morning after Halloween in 1988, become unwittingly caught in a conflict between warring factions of time-travelers, sending them on an adventure through time that will save the world. As they travel between our present, the past, and the future — they encounter future versions of themselves and now must choose to embrace or reject their fate.”

Killing Eve Season 4 filming has been delayed.

• Shooting on the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning series typically starts in August but production has now been postponed with no clear date to return.
• A Deadline exclusive report states, “The main reason for the delay is because Killing Eve is a jigsaw of European location shoots, many of which have been rendered difficult at this time due to the pandemic.”
• This will likely delay the usual April return date in 2021, even though the series tends to work on a fast turnaround, usually shooting from late summer to autumn.

Maria Bello announced she will be leaving NCIS.

• Bello joined the show during Season 15 as forensic psychologist Jack Sloane. 
• Deadline reports that Bello will depart eight episodes into the upcoming season, penciled in for this fall, after finishing a three-year contract.
• NCIS Season 17 was cut short by the coronavirus epidemic, and it’s reported that Bello is returning to finish out her character’s storyline. 

Warner Bros. TV has set a late-August production start date for Vancouver-based series.

• Deadline reports the casts of a number of WBTV series filming in Vancouver this week received letters from the studio, complying with a 30-day notice that actors need to be given before returning to work.
• Their services for the 2020-21 season will commence in August, subject to SAG approval.
• Expected to start filming in August are most of the Berlanti Prods. series.
• The Flash, Riverdale, and Superman and Lois are among the shows included in this list.
• This decision comes as the new guidelines for coronavirus sets are still being hammered out. Should guidelines be reached, more Vancouver-based productions could join them.

The Umbrella Academy’s Emmy Raver-Lampman is joining animated series, Central Park.

• Raver-Lampman is going to be voicing the mixed-race character previously voiced by Kristen Bell.
• “From the moment we heard her Molly, we knew she was the right choice. Her comedic chops, endearing spirit and other-worldly singing prowess have us jumping with joy at the possibilities of this already wonderful character moving forward,” Central Park’s creative team of Loren Bouchard, Josh Gad, Nora Smith, Halsted Sullivan, and Sanjay Shah in a joint statement obtained by Deadline.
• Bell and the creative team collectively decided that it was wrong for her to be voicing a mixed-race character in June with Bell saying that voicing the character, “shows a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege.”
• Bell will remain on the show, in a new role which has yet to be determined.

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What is your favorite bit of TV news from this week? Let us know in the comments below.

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