Development News - February 20, 2015
ABC's Broad Squad, Family of the Year & Mix; CBS' LFE, Life in Pieces & Supergirl; FOX's Untitled Todd Harthan; HBO's The Devil You Know; Lifetime's The Clan of the Cave Bear; NBC's Blindspot & Take It From Us; and USA's Evil Men.
CBS' LIFE IN PIECES
- Thomas Sadoski (The Newsroom) and Angelique Cabral (Enlisted) have been cast on the comedy pilot starring Colin Hanks and Betsy Brandt. Sadoski will play middle sibling Matt Short, who can't catch a break, the most recent being a failed career that has forced him back home with his parents. Cabral will play Colleen, the woman Matt has just fallen in love with who is stuck in a messy breakup with her ex-fiancé.
ABC's FAMILY OF THE YEAR
- Jay R. Ferguson (Mad Men) has landed a lead role on the comedy pilot written by David Windsor and Casey Johnson. He will play Pat O'Neal, the family patriarch, a good-natured, affable cop with the Chicago police department.
CBS' LFE
- Ana Kayne (Rescue Me) has joined the cast of the drama pilot written by Paul Downs Colaizzo. She will play Mae, a quirky, lovable every-girl who is determined to be a good person and live a good life, but sometimes finds it difficult, despite her best efforts.
HBO's THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
- HBO has given a pilot order to drama The Devil You Know written by Jenji Kohan, Bruce Miller and Tracy Miller. Gus Van Sant is set to direct. Executive producers are Kohan, Van Sant, Bruce Miller and Tara Herrmann. Mark Burley is a co-executive producer, with Tracy Miller as supervising producer. Lionsgate Television will produce. The project is a provocative period drama that explores the circumstances around one of the most compelling chapters in American history where intolerance and repression set neighbor against neighbor and led a town to mass hysteria.
USA's EVIL MEN
- USA continues to make decisions on its current batch of pilots, with the network opting to pass on the drama Evil Men starring Dallas Roberts and Clifton Collins Jr. The pilot was written by Daniel Taplitz and directed by Gary Fleder. Taplitz and Fleder executive produced with Mary Beth Basile and Eric and Kim Tannenbaum. The project centered on an upstanding, middle-class family man (Roberts) whose life is turned upside down when he is approached by a frighteningly powerful entity and commanded to kill "evil men" or see his family and his city utterly destroyed. Parminder Nagra, Jessalyn Gilsig and Daniel Zolghadri co-starred.
FOX's UNTITLED TODD HARTHAN PROJECT
- Morris Chestnut has been tapped to play the lead on the drama pilot (formerly Rosewood) written by Todd Harthan. He will play Dr. Beaumont Rosewood, Jr., a gifted and charismatic private pathologist who can read living and dead bodies like a book. Chestnut's casting on the pilot means he will be exiting TNT's Legends as a series regular early in its upcoming second season.
NBC's TAKE IT FROM US
- Stacy Farber (Degrassi: The Next Generation) will play the female lead on the comedy pilot written by Greg Malins & Barry Schwartz. She will play the 20-something version of Alyson in the 1990s. Coming from a semi-prominent family, she was told her whole life that if she just followed the rules - get straight As, don't get into trouble, go to a good college, find a good guy with a good job - she'll be happy and successful. So she did all that, only to find out it's not true. Now, she's looking to change her life in a big way.
ABC's BROAD SQUAD
- Charlotte Spencer has landed a lead role on the drama pilot written by Bess Wohl. She will play Molly, a new patrol officer whose dad was a notorious criminal working with Whitey Bulger who disappeared when she was young forcing her to grow up with her three delinquent brothers.
LIFETIME's THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR
- Hal Ozsan and Johnny Ward will co-star opposite Millie Brady on the drama pilot. Ozsan will play Brun, the leader of his Clan. Ward will play Broud, the son of Brun.
CBS' SUPERGIRL
- Tony winner Laura Benanti (Nashville, Go On) has been cast in a recurring role on the drama pilot starring Melissa Benoist. She will play Alura Zor-El, the birth mother of Kara (Benoist). A strong noblewoman, Alura sends Kara to Earth to escape Krypton's destruction. Her wisdom and guidance echoes across space and time, proving invaluable on Kara's journey toward becoming Supergirl.
ABC's MIX
- Camille Guaty (Cake) has joined the cast of the drama pilot written by Jennifer Cecil. She will play Lola, the eldest daughter in the family, a perfectionist model-turned-photographer whose cool judgmental attitude keeps others at bay. She resents her younger half-sister Remy and devotes her energies to raising her recently adopted 9-year-old Ethiopian son.
NBC's BLINDSPOT
- Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Broadchurch) has boarded the drama pilot starring Jaimie Alexander and Sullivan Stapleton. She will play FBI Assistant Director Bethany Mayfair, who heads the main investigation.
