CBS renews Ghosts and Fire Country / Marvel fires X-Men ’97 creator ahead of premiere / Al Pacino's memoir is coming this fall
PLUS: Curb Your Enthusiasm filmed Richard Lewis' final scenes three weeks before his death — he'll appear in the series finale.
CBS renews Ghosts and Fire Country
The two CBS hits have been picked up for a respective fourth and third season less than a month after launching new seasons in mid-February due to the Hollywood strikes. “Ghosts and Fire Country are proven viewer favorites on both broadcast and streaming thanks to exceptional storytelling, talented actors and an ever-growing fan base,” said Amy Reisenbach, president of CBS Entertainment. “We are elated to keep the momentum going and bring them back to CBS next season.” CBS says Ghosts is currently averaging 10.2 million viewers per episode this season, while Fire Country is averaging 9.2 million.
Marvel fires X-Men ’97 creator Beau DeMayo ahead of next week’s premiere
DeMayo, who was scheduled to attend Wednesday night's premiere promoting the March 20 launch of his new Disney+ animated series, was abruptly fired last week, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which adds that DeMayo "had completed writing duties" for Season 2 before his firing. "Early last week, Marvel and DeMayo suddenly parted ways. His company email was deactivated and cast and crew were informed he was no longer on the project," reports The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit and Aaron Couch. "DeMayo’s Instagram account, once a source for X-Men updates, was deleted. No reason for the firing was given. Marvel had no comment. DeMayo’s representatives did not return calls for comment and emails to the showrunner yielded no response. It was surprising turn of events on the eve of the show’s March 20 debut. Splitting with writers is a normal part of business for Marvel or any studio. However, it is unusual for a top creative on a Marvel project to miss a premiere or cancel press plans last minute, even if they’ve been shuffled to the side. Most Marvel premieres feature multiple screenwriters walking the red carpet, some of whom had been rewritten by other writers also walking the carpet."
Curb Your Enthusiasm filmed Richard Lewis' final scenes three weeks before his death — he'll appear in the series finale
Showrunner Jeff Schaffer says the writers' and actors' strikes pushed back the remaining filming on Curb’s 12th and final season to earlier this year. “Three weeks to the day before he passed, we shot with him,” Schaffer tells The Hollywood Reporter of the late comedian and actor, who died Feb. 28 at age 76. “He looked great. He was moving around way better than he was when we were shooting the rest of the season. He was just excited and it was great. It was a bit of a shock. I’d say his body may have betrayed him, but his wit never wavered the entire time.” Schaffer adds: “He couldn’t have been more excited. He looked great." Lewis will appear in two more Curb episodes: Episode 8 on March 24 and the series finale on April 7.
Daytime Emmys are moving back to June
The 51st annual Daytime Emmy Awards will air live on Friday, June 7, at 8 p.m. ET, with a tape delay for West Coast viewers. Last year's Daytime Emmys were pushed to December due to the Hollywood strikes. The 2024 telecast is the second year in a two-year telecast deal that the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences had set with CBS.
Al Pacino's memoir is coming this fall
The legendary Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor will write about his upbringing and acting career in Sonny Boy, due in October. In a statement, publisher Penguin Press described the book as a “memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels.”
Jenifer Lewis is headed to So Help Me Todd
She'll guest as the mother of Tristen J. Winger's Lyle, an international opera star known as “Jacqueline!” who is accused of murder.
Kate Micucci returns to acting tonight on Night Court, three months after lung cancer surgery
“This was a perfect way to get back into it,” the comedy actress and musician tells the New York Post. “I’m still dealing with (the after-effects of her surgery); I still get a cough, occasionally, like a little coughing fit, and I’m so fortunate that I’m OK. I was pretty much able to be myself (while shooting Night Court) and not be in too much trouble. Sometimes I would go outside and cough a little bit and come back in.”
CBS Sports' Greg Gumbel to miss the NCAA Tournament due to family health issues
Gumbel, who hosts the March Madness studio show, has been a fixture on NCAA Tourney coverage since 1998.
Picard's long-lost Star Trek: The Next Generation captain's chair will be handed over to CBS' Star Trek archives instead of going up for auction
Auction house Propstore, which stood to make $50,000 to $100,000 from selling the long-lost captain's chair, has agreed to return the chair to CBS 30 years since it went missing. has agreed to return the chair to CBS, 30 years since it went missing. “Through a valued partnership between Propstore Ltd. and CBS Studios Inc., an amicable agreement among all parties involved has been reached to restore Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s iconic Star Trek: The Next Generation captain’s chair to the Star Trek Archive,” Propstore said in a statement. “The chair will be preserved as a piece of science fiction history. While the whereabouts of the chair had been unknown for three decades, the Star Trek Archive is currently working on plans to showcase it for Star Trek fans to see firsthand in the coming year.”
Christopher Nolan's next movie may be an adaptation of 1960s British psychological spy series The Prisoner
Fresh off his Oppenheimer Oscar domination, Nolan is eyeing a movie remake of the 1967 British series created by and starring Patrick McGoohan, reports Variety. Nolan was previously attached to remake The Prisoner, but AMC released its own remake The Prisoners, a six-part miniseries led by Jim Caviezel as the ill-fated agent Number Six alongside Ian McKellen and Ruth Wilson.
Tim Allen on his ABC sitcom pilot Shifting Gears: "I'm very geeked to be given this opportunity"
"I am very excited," Allen tells E.T. of potentially returning for his third ABC series. "You know, I tried really hard with Home Improvement, and then Last Man Standing. Maybe three's a charm! Maybe I can finally make a statement with this. It was a big event for me, 'cause I really loved Home Improvement, (so) to do Last Man Standing was a big push, and then I love that family so much. But then ABC said, 'If you come up with an idea,' and I said, 'If I did it, it would be this.' And we came up with this idea, and we're getting there."
Check out SNL 1975's Lorne Michaels
Jason Reitman’s movie about the launch of Saturday Night Live has begun filming, with Gabriel LaBelle in the lead as show creator Lorne Michaels. ALSO: Kaia Gerber, Finn Wolfhard and Andrew Barth Feldman join SNL 1975.
Bowen Yang jokes he's "still a little straight" from SNL sketch with Sydney Sweeney and Gina Gershon
"I got to tell you guys something," Yang told Seth Meyers, who brought up the "Bowen's Straight" sketch on Late Night. "You know when, like, you have a head injury and you can’t see colors quite right? I feel like I got hit in the head by these two women and I'm still a little straight."
Disney+ unveils the trailer for Becoming Karl Lagerfeld
Daniel Brühl plays the titular iconic designer in the six-episode biographical series, premiering June 7.
Amazon releases the trailer for The Baxters, starring Roma Downey
Downey and Ted McGinley star in Prime Video's family drama series adaptation of Karen Kingsbury's bestselling book series. The Baxters premieres March 28.