There’s a lot of breaking news in Hollywood happening every minute. In the age of the blockbuster, it’s easy for some smaller movie and television news to slip through the crack. Last Week in Hollywood is our new weekly series highlighting all the interesting news from the last week that we thought didn’t warrant its own post, but was still worth mentioning. It’s less personal opinions and more a hearty roundup of what you might have missed.
Lilly Singh Joins New Muppets Show
Lilly Singh is the first human cast member to be announced for The Muppets Mayhem, a new 10-episode half-hour comedy series, which will star Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Singh will play Nora, “the junior A&R executive tasked with managing and wrangling Dr. Teeth, Animal, Floyd Pepper, Janice, Zoot and Lips.”
The series, which will stream on Disney+, “will take audiences on a music-filled journey as, at long last, The Electric Mayhem Band records its first ever album.” The series is being written by Adam F. Goldberg (The Goldbergs), Bill Barretta (The Muppets), and Jeff Yorkes.
Jack Harlow Joins White Men Can’t Jump Remake
Musician Jack Harlow is set to make his acting debut in 20th Century Studios‘ upcoming remake of White Men Can’t Jump. Harlow will step into the role played by Woody Harrelson in the original 1992 sports comedy.
Calmatic is set to direct a script by Kenya Barris and Doug Hall. The new take on the property will once again follow two street basketball hustlers who at first try to hustle each other, then team up for a bigger score.
Kal Penn Joins The Santa Clause Limited Series
Kal Penn has joined the cast of The Santa Clause, a new Disney+ limited series that will act as a sequel to the original The Santa Clause trilogy of films. Penn will play Simon Choksi, “an ambitious game inventor and product developer and a devoted single father. Simon can talk the tech-mogul talk but can’t walk the walk, and his dreams of being the next Bezos falls drastically short. But all that changes after a visit to the North Pole.”
Tim Allen and Elizabeth Mitchell are both back to reprise their roles as Scott Calvin / Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause from the previous films. In the sequel series, “Scott is on the brink of his 65th birthday and realizing that he can’t be Santa forever. He’s suddenly starting to lose his Santa magic, and more important, he’s got a family who could benefit from a life in the normal world, especially his two kids who have grown up at the North Pole. With a lot of elves, children and family to please, Scott sets out to find a suitable replacement Santa while preparing his family for a new adventure in a life south of the pole.”
Oppenheimer Cast Continues to Grow
Gustaf Skarsgård (Vikings), Matthias Schweighöfer (Army of the Dead), Harrison Gilbertson (Picnic at Hanging Rock), Emma Dumont (Licorice Pizza), Josh Peck (Drake and Josh), and Devon Bostick (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) are the latest actors to board Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer.
Skarsgård will play German-American nuclear physicist Hans Bethe, “who headed up the Theoretical division of the Manhattan Project and won the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics.”
Dumont will play Jackie Oppenheimer, “an economics student at UC Berkeley and active member of the Young Communist League who becomes engaged to and later marries Oppenheimer’s young brother, Frank, in 1936—against his older brother’s advice.”
Peck will play Kenneth Bainbridge, “a scientist who historically worked on the Manhattan Project, the code name used for America, the United Kingdom, and Canada’s research and development undertaking during the second world war to produce the first nuclear weapons.”
Bostick will play Seth Neddermeyer, “the physicist who discovered the elementary particle known as the muon and later championed the Implosion-type nuclear weapon while working on the Manhattan Project.”
No details have been released regarding who Gilbertson is playing. Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21, 2023.
Martin Freeman Back for Secret Invasion
Martin Freeman will reportedly reprise his role as CIA Agent Everett Ross in Secret Invasion. The news comes straight from the mouth of Samuel L. Jackson, who name-dropped Freeman as a member of the Secret Invasion cast during a live appearance at the Samuel L. Jackson: In Conversation With Josh Horowitz event in New York City. Someone on Twitter caught the moment on video You can watch it below.
Samuel L. Jackson on working with Olivia Colman in Secret Invasion:
“It was so glorious and such a ball…she’s so amazing and so effective in a scene..”
(Many thanks to @ashleylavaIle for capturing and sharing this!) pic.twitter.com/KVNvtN5BCy
— Mus (@musterde6) March 12, 2022
Lindsay Lohan Signs Two-Picture Deal with Netflix
Lindsay Lohan will be sticking around Netflix for a couple more films. The streaming service recently announced that it has signed a deal with Lohan for two more original films in which she’ll star.
Lohan has her first Netflix film, Falling for Christmas, slated to hit the streamer later this year. It is unknown if one of the two films in the new deal will be a Falling for Christmas sequel. All I care about though is that the Lohan-aissance is finally here.
More Casting Updates
- Will Forte and Lana Condor have joined the cast of Coyote vs. Acme, an upcoming Looney Tunes live-action/animated movie from Warner Bros. Forte will play Wile E. Coyote’s down-on-his-luck lawyer. It was not disclosed who Condor is playing.
- Sarah Hyland, Jameela Jamil, and Lera Abova have joined the upcoming Pitch Perfect sequel series as part of the regular cast. Production is about to get underway in Berlin. The show will follow Adam Devine’s Bumper Allen as he moves to Germany to revive his music career when one of his songs becomes big in Berlin. It will stream on Peacock.
- Alessandro Nivola (The Many Saints of Newark) and Christopher Abbott (Catch-22) are the latest actors to join Kraven the Hunter. Nivola will be playing an undisclosed villain in the movie. Abbott will play the Foreigner, an adversary of Spider-Man in the comics.
- Boy Kills World has added Famke Janssen (How to Get Away with Murder), Sharlto Copley (Ted K), Brett Gelman (Stranger Things), Quinn Copeland (Punky Brewster), and twins Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti (Big Little Lies) to its cast. The Sam Raimi-produced action thriller centers around “Boy (Bill Skarsgård), a Deaf-mute man in a dystopian landscape who seeks vengeance for his murdered family by accepting the aid of a mysterious stranger (Yayan Ruhian).”
- Randall Park has joined the cast of Strays, the upcoming comedy in which Will Ferrell voices a talking dog abandoned by his owner and bent on revenge.
That’s it for last couple of weeks. What projects mentioned are you interested in seeing once completed? Tell us down in the comments!
