A ‘Justified’ revival: Olyphant to reprise role in FX sequel
A ‘Justified’ revival: Have you missed watching a Stetson-clad Timothy Olyphant (“Santa Clarita Diet”) uphold justice week after week on TV? If so, FX has some good news for you: It’s bringing back “Justified” as a limited series, and Olyphant will be reprising his role as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens.
Reports of a revival first surfaced in March 2021, when Variety reported that several show writers — including creator Graham Yost (“Speed,” 1994) — were working on a new iteration of the drama series. FX has now officially greenlit “Justified: City Primeval,” which is based on the novel “City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit” by late crime novelist Elmore Leonard.
“City Primeval” is set eight years after the events of the original series, which won a Peabody Award and netted several Emmy nominations during its six-season (2010-15) run.
Givens is living in Miami now, where he’s trying to balance his life as a part-time dad and a U.S. Marshal. But after a chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway, the lawman is suddenly bound for Detroit, where he crosses path with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman. Mansell is a violent sociopath who has (so far) managed to elude justice, thanks in part to his formidable lawyer, Carolyn Wilder, who seems to have her own reasons for placing herself between cop and criminal. No news yet on who is to fill each of those roles.
In a statement, FX Entertainment president Eric Schrier said: “‘Justified’ was one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the past decade and an adaption of Elmore Leonard’s work that was so colorfully brought to life by Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens, Graham Yost and the entire team of producers, writers, directors and cast. To have this group come together again with Tim as Raylan in a new and different Elmore Leonard story is thrilling.
“I want to thank our showrunners Dave [Andron] and Michael [Dinner] and their fellow executive producers, Tim, Graham, Sarah [Timberman] and Carl [Beverly], the Elmore Leonard estate as well as our partners at Sony Pictures Television, for making this possible.”
Cast in ‘Mason’: The Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) -led “Perry Mason” revival delivered some strong viewer numbers for HBO in the summer of 2020 — in fact, its ratings were so strong the cable network went ahead and ordered a second installment before the first season had even finished airing.
We can expect Rhys to return in Season 2 as Mason, a
lowrent private investigator who is still haunted by his war experiences and a broken marriage. Also returning are Juliet Rylance (“The Knick”), Chris Chalk (“When They See Us”), Diarra Kilpatrick (“The Last O.G.”), Eric Lange (“Narcos”) and Justin Kirk (“Weeds”).
A few new faces have also joined the cast for Season 2 — including new series regular Katherine Waterston (of the “Fantastic Beasts” films), who joins the cast as Ginny Aimes, a model schoolteacher to Mason’s son — and a rumored love interest for Mason, too.
There are quite a few recurring players as well, including Hope Davis (“Your Honor”) and Jon Chaffin (“BMF”).
Sean Astin (“Stranger Things”) will appear as Sunny Gryce, who is described as “a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield that is dueling supermarkets in town” (per HBO), and it’s worth noting that Gryce is the type of client who wants to make sure he gets his money’s worth out of his legal representatives.
Tommy Dewey (“Pivoting”) will play Brooks McCutcheon, who’s eager to prove himself to his oil baron father, played by Oscar nominee Paul Raci (“Sound of Metal,” 2019). Jen Tullock (“Severance”) will also recur as screenwriter Anita St. Pierre, a potential love interest for Della (Rylance).
The second season of HBO’s “Perry Mason” is set months after the Dodson trial ended, when, according to Deadline, Mason has “moved off the farm, ditched the milk truck, he’s even traded his leather jacket for a pressed suit.”
In the worst year of the Depression, Mason and Della have set the firm on a safer path by pursuing civil cases rather than criminal ones, though there hasn’t been much work for Paul (Chalk). But when an open-and-closed case overtakes the city of Los Angeles, Mason’s pursuit of justice will reveal that “not everything is always as it seems.”
Apple’s Godzilla: Apple TV+ and Legendary Television have partnered up to unleash the full destructive powers of Godzilla and other Monsterverse creatures.
A new live-action “Godzilla” show was recently handed a series order, and while there is no official release date yet, fans are already speculating it will land sometime in 2023. The series is also without an official title right now, but Apple did include a synopsis in its official announcement: “Following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that levelled San Francisco and the shocking new reality that monsters are real, the series explores one family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch.”
Apple’s “Godzilla” series will be tied to Legendary’s Monsterverse and its movies, and since it will be set after the events of 2019’s “Godzilla vs. Kong,” expect a few references to the carnage already wrought by Godzilla, Kong and Mechagodzilla.
Series showrunner Chris Black (“Star Trek Enterprise”) and cocreator Matt Fraction (“Hawkeye”) will serve as executive producers alongside Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell of Safehouse Pictures, and Hiro Matsuoka and Takemasa Arita of Toho Co. Ltd.