Jennifer Love Hewitt joins ‘9-1-1’ season 2
‘SHIELD’ renewed for season 6
LOS ANGELES, May 15, (RTRS): Jennifer Love Hewitt has been cast in Season 2 of the Fox drama “9-1-1,” Variety has confirmed.
Her casting comes after the exit of Season 1 series regular Connie Britton, who only had a one-year deal on the series. Hewitt will play a new character named Maddie, the sister of firefighter Evan “Buck” Buckley (Oliver Stark), who is starting her life over as a 911 operator.
This will mark Hewitt’s first television role since her one season turn on “Criminal Minds.” She has also starred on shows like “Ghost Whisperer” and “Party of Five.” She is known for her roles in films like the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” franchise, “Heartbreakers,” and “The Tuxedo.”
She is repped by Gersh, Untitled Entertainment, and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof & Fishman.
Britton is set to star in the first season of the upcoming Bravo anthology series “Dirty John.”
The series-from creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Tim Minear-explores the high-pressure experiences of police officers, firefighters and emergency operators who are thrust into the most frightening, shocking and heart-stopping situations. It stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause, Stark, Aisha Hinds, Kenneth Choi, and Rockmond Dunbar. It scored an early Season 2 renewal in January.
“9-1-1” is produced by 20th Century Fox Television in association with Ryan Murphy Television and Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision. Murphy, Falchuk, and Minear are creators, executive producers and writers on the series. Bradley Buecker is an executive producer and directed the series premiere. Alexis Martin Woodall and Bassett also serve as executive producers.
“Agents of Shield” has been renewed for Season 6 at ABC.
The sixth season will consist of 13 episodes. In the Marvel series’ fifth season, Coulson discovers that some, but not all, of his SHIELD colleagues were taken with him and placed onboard a mysterious space ship. As they come in contact with some of the vessel’s inhabitants, it becomes abundantly clear that something has gone terribly awry, and the team will need to figure out their role and delve deeper into this nightmarish mystery to try to right what has gone incredibly wrong.
The series stars Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May, Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leo Fitz, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Henry Simmons as Agent Alphonso “Mack” MacKenzie and Natalia Cordova-Buckley as Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez. It was co-created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, and Maurissa Tancharoen, who also serve as executive producers along with Jeffrey Bell, Jeph Loeb, and Jim Chory. The series is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.
ABC moved the show to Fridays for its fifth season, pairing it with fellow Marvel show “Inhumans,” which was not renewed for a second season.
“SHIELD” joins a roster of returning shows that includes “Black-ish,” “Fresh Off the Boat,” “Modern Family,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Station 19,” and “How to Get Away With Murder.”
“Project Runway” is headed back to Bravo. Bravo host Andy Cohen made the announcement at NBCUniversal’s upfront presentation in New York on Monday. The popular reality competition series aired on Bravo from 20042008 before moving to Lifetime in 2009.
Lifetime had renewed the series for three additional seasons in 2016, as well as renewing “Project Runway All Stars” two seasons and “Project Runway: Junior” for a third season.
But after only one additional season of “Project Runway” had aired, A+E Networks scrapped plans to air the remaining seasons. The move came in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, as the Weinstein Co. owns “Project Runway” and its spinoffs. In a court filing, A+E alleged the Weinstein Co. had failed to operate a workplace within the bounds of the law, failed to notify A+E of potential legal claims, and failed to abide by A+E standards and practices.
“Project Runway” returns to Bravo through an agreement between Bravo Media LLC and Lantern Entertainment LLC, whose bid to acquire the assets of The Weinstein Company, was approved by the Delaware bankruptcy court on May 8. The deal is subject to Lantern closing that acquisition.
In addition, Bravo and Lantern have agreed to develop other unscripted projects for Bravo and other networks in the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment portfolio.
“We are beyond excited to reboot ‘Project Runway’ at the network where it all began. Leaning into the creative process in an entertaining way has always been part of Bravo’s DNA, and ‘Project Runway’ perfectly captures that,” said Frances Berwick, president of Lifestyle Networks for NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. “This franchise will be an important cornerstone to complement Bravo’s original premium scripted and unscripted slate, and we expect it to drive the same level of fan-dom and passion as we experienced last time it was on Bravo.”
A+E Networks has secured a raft of new sales deals for its TV movie “Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance,” the global media company announced Monday, just days ahead of the royal wedding. More than 30 broadcasters around the world have now acquired the two-hour movie.
Lifetime has taken rights in the UK, Canada, South Korea, Israel, Poland and South Africa. A+E has also secured US distribution with AFRTS.
In Europe, new deals have been signed with M6 in France, RTL2 in Germany and RTI Mediaset in Italy, as well as in a number of smaller territories. These include SBS and VIJF (Belgium), SBS (Netherlands), TV2 (Norway), SIC (Portugal), Romanian Television (Romania), JOJ Plus (Slovakia), Pop TV (Slovenia), Mesimvria (Cyprus), Star (Greece), RTL (Croatia), ETV (Estonia) and Modern Time Group (Latvia). In the Box TV has taken rights for Vietnam.
“We are pleased with the continued enthusiasm among international buyers for our newest TV movie and look forward to fulfilling the needs of our broadcast partners with an increased volume of productions such as this in the future,” said Richard Tulk-Hart, managing director of international content distribution and co-productions at A+E Networks.
The latest deals follow previous sales on the title announced in April with Channel 5 (U.K.), TF1 (France), ATRES (Spain), SBS (Benelux), Seven Network (Australia), Sky (New Zealand), Corus Entertainment (Lifetime Canada), Lifetime (Latin America) and Lifetime (Asia).
The TV movie has been produced for day-and-date delivery to broadcasters ahead of the royal wedding this Saturday. “Harry & Meghan: A Royal Romance” captures the highly publicized courtship between Britain’s Prince Harry and US actress Meghan Markle (“Suits”).