TV News Wrap-Up: ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Ending, Pedro Pascal in ‘The Last of Us,’ ‘The Best Man’ Limited Series

Movies, reboots, and popular franchises coming to television, Issa Rae’s next HBO series, and a fan-favorite announces its end.

Strap in for this week’s news!

‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Ending with Season 8

• The last Halloween heist is upon us, as NBC has announced Brooklyn Nine-Nine is ending with Season 8.
• The comedy originally premiered on Fox in 2013, then was canceled in 2018. NBC picked it up, and Season 6 debuted in 2019.
• Andy Samberg leads an ensemble centered around the shenanigans at the 99th police precinct in New York City.
• The ten-episode eighth season has been delayed by the pandemic and episode rewrites following protests over police violence against Black communities.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season 8 is currently set to premiere in the Fall.

Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey Lead HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’

• The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal has joined another high profile series. He’s signed on to play Joel in HBO’s adaptation of video game The Last of Us, per Deadline.
• He will co-star alongside Bella Ramsey, known for her breakout role of Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones, as Ellie.
• Like the game, the series takes place “twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal, heartbreaking journey, as they both must traverse across the U.S. and depend on each other for survival.”
• Pascal, most recently seen as Max Lord in Wonder Woman 1984, is also set to co-star with Karen Gillan, Keegan-Michael Key, and David Duchovny in Netflix’s Judd Apatow comedy The Bubble.

Issa Rae Doing ‘Rap Sh*t’ for HBO Max

• Issa Rae is sticking with HBO. The Insecure creator/writer/star has received an eight-episode order from HBO Max for her new comedy Rap Sh*t, per The Hollywood Reporter.
• The project is about “two estranged high school friends from Miami who reunite to form a rap group.”
• Rae is writing the pilot, and executive producing.
• She recently announced that Insecure’s upcoming fifth season would be its last.

Ruth Negga to Star in Josephine Baker Limited Series

• Ruth Negga is set to star in and executive produce a limited series about legendary jazz singer and activist Josephine Baker.
• Deadline reports, Josephine is in development at ABC Signature, with LeBron James’ The Springhill Company among its executive producers.
• Baker lived a remarkable life, finding success as a singer and dancer following her move to France. She was a spy during WWII, and was part of the civil rights movement.
• She was notably played on screen by Lynn Whitfield in the 1991 HBO movie The Josephine Baker Story. A performance for which she became the first Black woman to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Special.
• Negga’s latest project is the film Passing, which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be on Netflix later in the year.

 

‘The Best Man’ Limited Series Coming to Peacock

• Popular movie franchise The Best Man is headed to Peacock as a limited series, per Deadline.
• The Best Man: Final Chapters follows “the eight main characters as their relationships evolve and past grievances resurface in the unpredictable stages of midlife crisis meets midlife renaissance.”
• The Best Man and The Best Man Holiday’s star-studded cast, which includes Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Melissa De Souza, and Regina Hall, are all slated to return for the series.
• Writer/director Malcolm D. Lee will also be back to write and executive produce the 10 episode series.
• “Here we go! The band is back together! I am very excited to bring these iconic characters back to the fans who have supported us through this franchise,” said Lee to Deadline. “We are thrilled to deliver everything one would expect from this group of friends in The Best Man universe and take them through their final chapters. We can’t wait! I told you it wouldn’t be 14 more years.”

CBS Orders ‘True Lies’ Reboot Pilot

• CBS is considering an Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster for its action lineup.
• TV Line reports, the network has ordered a pilot adaptation of the 1994 film True Lies.
• The movie stars Schwarzenegger as computer salesman Harry, whose underappreciated, bored wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds out Harry is actually a spy. She is then unexpectedly drawn into his mission. Tom Arnold co-stars as Harry’s partner and Eliza Dushku plays their daughter.
• Matt Nix, creator of Burn Notice, wrote the pilot, with McG directing. James Cameron, writer/director of the film, will also executive produce through his Lightstorm Entertainment, alongside Nix and McG.

‘The 4400’ Reboot, Live-Action ‘Powerpuff Girls’ Among Pilots Ordered by The CW

• Continuing its early planning for the 2021-22 TV season, The CW has ordered three new pilots and given a straight to series order to a reboot of The 4400.
• According to Variety, the network’s pilots include a live-action Powerpuff Girls, a religious dramedy about two millennial nuns, and Ava DuVernay’s DC Comics project Naomi.
• The 4400 originally aired on USA Network for four seasons and included Mahershala Ali, Billy Campbell, and Megalyn Echikunwoke among its cast.
• The new version features “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. As the government races to analyze the potential threat and contain the story, the 4400 themselves must grapple with the fact that they’ve been returned with a few upgrades, and the increasing likelihood that they were all brought back now for a specific reason”
• Naomi “follows a teen girl’s journey from her small northwestern town to the heights of the multiverse. When a supernatural event shakes her hometown to the core, Naomi sets out to uncover its origins, and what she discovers will challenge everything we believe about our heroes.”
• The network’s untitled religious dramedy features “two millennial nuns – a devout true believer, and a new arrival who has yet to take her final vows – who start as strangers and become sisters on a funny, spiritual journey to understand their own faith and place in the Catholic church.”
• The updated live-action Powerpuff Girls follows “the pint-sized superheroes as disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime-fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?” 
• Tell us which new series you’re most likely to watch in the comments!

HBO Max Orders Three New Animated Series

• HBO Max announced its lineup of adult animation projects, which includes a Clone High reboot and a Velma Dinkley series starring Mindy Kaling, per Variety.
• Velma is set to “unmask the complex and colorful past of one of America’s most beloved mystery solvers.”
• Kaling will voice Velma and executive produce the 10 episode series.
• Clone High follows clones of famous historical figures who are now in high school. It aired in Canada on Teletoon between 2002 to 2003 and in the U.S. on MTV between 2003 to 2004.
• Original creators Phil Lord and Chris Miller will write and executive produce, while co-creator Bill Lawrence will also executive produce.

New Jenny Han Series at Amazon

• Jenny Han, the author behind Netflix’s To All the Boys franchise, has another of her books set as a series at Amazon.
• Variety reports, Amazon has given an eight-episode order to The Summer I Turned Pretty.
• Han wrote the pilot and will be executive producer/co-showrunner alongside Gabrielle Stanton (The Flash, Grey’s Anatomy).
• “‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ is many years in the making, and I’m so excited to tell Belly’s story in 2021,” said Han to Variety. “For the longtime book fans, I think it will have been worth the wait. For those newly discovering the Summer series, I hope you fall in love with these characters and this place that is so dear to my heart.”

What news item are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments below!

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