‘Ironheart’: Shakira Barrera Joins Marvel Studios’ Disney+ Series

EXCLUSIVE: NBC’s has added Martin Sensmeier (1883, Yellowstone) to its Season 2 cast in a recurring role. Season 2 premieres on September 28.

Manori Ravindran International Editor Vice Studios global president Kate Ward is joining BBC Studios to oversee its factual portfolio, Variety can reveal. Ward has been appointed to the role of managing director for factual at BBC Studios Productions, where she replaces Tom McDonald, who left the company earlier this year to join National Geographic. With her new role, the well-respected executive — who most recently served as president of global studios and Pulse Films for Vice Media Group — will take on one of the most significant production portfolios in the U.K. industry, spanning the BBC’s Natural History Unit, Documentary Unit and Science Unit. She will also oversee relationships with BBC Studios’ roster of production companies, including Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions, David Olusoga’s Uplands TV and James and Soleta Rogan’s Rogan Productions.

EXCLUSIVE: With Matt Shakman boarding as director, Marvel Studios has now find its writers to deliver the new Fantastic Four pic. Sources tell Deadline that Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer are on board to write the script for the film.

Logan Lerman will star alongside Joey King in Hulu’s developing limited series “We Were the Lucky Ones,” based on Georgia Hunter’s best-selling novel, TheWrap has learned.Lerman will portray Addy, a Polish and Jewish 25-year-old who lives in Paris as an engineer, but who also builds his musical composing career. Addy is the middle child in his family, and he is able to mediate conflict between people with differences.

Season 19 of The Bachelorette may come to a dramatic end for both Gabby Windey and Rachel Recchia.

EXCLUSIVE: Vince Marcello (The Kissing Booth trilogy) is set to showrun and executive produce Diva, a new drama series inspired by the exploits of real-life French heroine Julie d’Aubigny, from iGeneration Studios. Marcello co-created the series with Max Benitz — who will serve as its head writer — and will also direct a portion of its episodes.

EXCLUSIVE: Rashida “Sheedz” Olayiwola (South Side) has joined the cast of the Marvel Studios Disney+ series in an undisclosed role, Deadline has learned.

Rodrigo Santoro (Westworld) is set as a lead opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in Paramount+’s upcoming Teen Wolf offshoot series, Wolf Pack, from MTV Entertainment Studios.

“Westworld” actor Rodrigo Santoro will star opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar in the upcoming “Wolf Pack” series for Paramount+, the streamer announced Wednesday. Santoro will play Garrett Briggs, a Los Angeles park ranger dedicated to protecting the environment, and adoptive father to two remarkable teenagers. “Wolf Pack” follows the story of a teenage boy and girl whose lives are forever changed when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature, per a logline from the streamer.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Jason Priestley (“Beverly Hills, 90210”) has joined the cast of Viaplay’s English-language series about NHL ice hockey legend Börje Salming. Currently filming in Sweden and Canada, the biopic series stars Valter Skarsgård (“The Playlist”) as Salming and is created and directed by Amir Chamdin, winner of the Best Series Award at Canneseries 2020 for “Partisan.” The show is written by Martin Bengtsson, who previously wrote “Tigers,” which was Sweden’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2022 Academy Awards. Priestley portrays Gerry McNamara, the legendary Toronto Maple Leafs talent scout who discovered Salming and fellow Swede Inge Hammarström and helped launch their North American careers.

She said she was leaving and didn’t want to take any more of it on season one of FX’s hit summer Hulu streaming series The Bear. 

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor If the past few years and months have proven one thing, it’s the importance of voting in the United States. While Census Bureau’s estimates confirmed that 2020 voter turnout was the highest in nearly 30 years — 66.8%, 5 points higher than 2016 — the forthcoming midterm elections, which traditionally have much lower turnout than presidential ones, are vitally important as well. In that spirit, Lizzo, who released her stellar second major label album “Special” over the summer, has joined forces with the nonprofit, non-partisan voter-engagement organization HeadCount to encourage her fans to get out to the polls and make their voices heard this election season.

Better Call Saul alum Michael Mando is set to star opposite Brian Tyree Henry in Apple TV+’s crime drama series Sinking Spring, from Top Gun: Maverick writer Peter Craig. The series is directed and executive produced by Ridley Scott via his Scott Free Productions.

Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae is set to star in Disney+’s upcoming Star Wars series.According to Deadline, Lee is set to star as the male lead in Disney+’s The Acolyte. The series, which promises to depict the dark side of the Force’s rise to power during the final days of the film franchise’s High Republic era, marks the South Korean actor’s first leading role in a television series since starring in Squid Game.As of writing, specifics about Lee’s role in the series have yet to be released.

As of right now, “Ironheart” won’t release on Disney+ until after several other MCU shows, “Echo” and “Loki” Season Two among them. But casting news will help tide over the wait until late 2023 for the show’s release.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Fox’s “Bloom County” animated series has signed “The Simpsons” writer Tim Long as co-showrunner on the project, Variety has confirmed. Long will write, executive produce and showrun the comedy, which is still in the development stage at Fox, alongside original “Bloom County” comic strip creator Berkeley Breathed. Per Fox, “Bloom County” centers on a collapsed lawyer, a lobotomized cat and an overly-carbonated penguin immigrant living in the world’s last boarding house in the world’s most forgotten place deep in the dandelion wilds of FlyWayThe@%!#OVER country. To wit, today’s America at a glance.

Emiliano De Pablos Launched early May, the Spain Audiovisual Bureau acts as a facilitator for the production sector, attending enquiries about international markets, handling information about processing filming permits and providing tax incentives information. A ground-breaking development in Spain, the Bureau marks a first-ever effort to coordinate public and private entities related to the international presence of the Spanish film and TV production industry. The Spain Audiovisual Bureau represents an innovation of the Spain AVS Hub, an initiative launched in March 2021 by the Spanish government with a €1.6 billion ($1.6 billion) budget to power up local film and TV production and encourage big foreign players to shoot and set up production centers in the country.

Chadwick Boseman was honored at this year's Creative Arts Emmys with an award for his voice acting performance in Marvel's  animated series for Disney+.The awards were handed out at a ceremony on Saturday, and the celebrated actor received the posthumous Emmy in the Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance category.Boseman lent his voice to his beloved Black Panther character T'Challa — only in an alternate  timeline in which the iconic Wakandan took on the role of Star-Lord, the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy.Boseman's wife, Simone Ledward Boseman, accepted the award on her late husband's behalf, and delivered a moving speech in his memory.«When I learned that Chad was nominated for this award, I started thinking about everything that was going on when he was recording,» she told the audience, per The Hollywood Reporter, «everything that was going on in the world and in our world and just being in such awe of his commitment and his dedication.»«And what a beautifully aligned moment it really is that one of the last things he would work on would not only be revisiting a character that was so important to him and his career and to the world, but also that it be an exploration of something new, diving into a new potential future,» she continued. «Particularly with everything he spoke about purpose and finding the reason that you are here on the planet at this very time.»You can’t understand your purpose unless you’re willing to ask, ‘What if?’ Unless you’re willing to say, ‘What if the universe is conspiring in my favor, what if it’s me?'" she shared.

EXCLUSIVE: After signing on to the highly-anticipated project earlier this year, Craig Gillespie has now lined up an all-star cast that features some faces that all too familiar to the director. Sources tell Deadline, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Sebastian Stan and Pete Davidson are set to star in Black Bear Pictures Dumb Money, an adaptation of the Ben Mezrich’s The Antisocial Network with Gillespie directing. Rebecca Angelo & Lauren Schuker Blum are adapting with Ryder Picture Company’s Aaron Ryder, Black Bear’s Teddy Schwarzman and Gillespie producing.