Hulu renews The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives / Anthony Anderson to host Star Search / Guy Fieri sidelined after his quad exploded filming Food Network show
PLUS: Amazon’s Barbershop taps Roy Wood Jr., Punkie Johnson, Brett Gray and E.J. Bonilla to star alongside Jermaine Fowler.
Hulu renews The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives for Season 4
The hit reality show has been picked up 20 episodes that will likely be split into Seasons 4 and 5. The renewal comes after cast members Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt competed on sibling show Dancing with the Stars, while Taylor Frankie Paul is set as the next Bachelorette. The renewal also comes two weeks after Season 3 premiered on Nov. 13. Executive producer Jeff Jenkins says the cast is ready to film Season 4. “If the appetite from the subscribers on Hulu remains high for this franchise, then we’ll probably be shooting chunks of 10 episodes, kind of quasi back-to-back, with that one- or two-month break in between,” he tells Deadline. “We’re very lucky to have an ensemble, like Jessi’s been carrying the ball in (Season 3) with her really intense divorce drama. Taylor Frankie Paul carried the ball in the season before that, so there’s always someone who’s got big story breaking.”
Anthony Anderson to host Netflix’s Star Search reboot when it premieres in January
The former Black-ish star and former Emmys host will helm Netflix’s Star Search series, which premieres Jan. 13 with episodes airing live Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT with real-time voting. “The talent is bigger, the stakes are higher, and the format is more interactive than ever,” reads the official logline. “Each episode will spotlight the best up-and-coming performers across numerous categories – music, dance, variety, comedy, magic and juniors – as they compete head to head for their shot at stardom. With an arced competition structure and weekly eliminations with real-time global voting, the series builds dramatic momentum, making every live episode an unmissable event.” ALSO: Watch Star Search’s teaser.
Amazon’s Barbershop taps Roy Wood Jr., Punkie Johnson, Brett Gray and E.J. Bonilla to star alongside Jermaine Fowler
Prime Video’s Barbershop series based on the MGM movie franchise stars Travis “Trav” Porter as a barber who is following in the footsteps of his legendary barber grandfather. According to Deadline, “Wood Jr. will play Robert, an ex con-turned-barber. Johnson will play Stella, a no-nonsense barber who is skeptical of Travis’ return. Gray will play the flamboyant and outspoken Kofi. Bonilla will play Fernan, a Bronx-born barber who becomes an ally to Travis.”
Joe Buck will have a marathon day next Monday, guest-hosting Good Morning America and calling a Monday Night Football game
Buck will guest-host GMA live at 7 a.m. ET. in New York City on Monday. He’ll then head to Massachusetts, where he’ll call that night’s Monday Night Football game between the New York Giants and New England Patriots that will likely end shortly before midnight ET. “The GMA team welcoming me back is easily the biggest surprise of the day,” says Buck. “Experiencing that routine just a few times a year reminds me why sports will always be my main job. I appreciate GMA letting me be a small part of the show again—and a salute to our Monday Night Football team who are the real stars of our production holding down the fort in Foxboro.”
Guy Fieri is in a wheelchair after his quad exploded while filming Food Network’s Flavor Town Food Fight
Fieri tells Fox News Digital he was recently rushed to emergency surgery after missing a set of steps and tearing his quad muscle in half, leaving him in a wheelchair and using crutches. “(I) slipped down a set of steps and one foot went forward and the other foot got caught on the threshold,” he says. “So, you know, it extended me out. I looked like I was probably doing the splits, but when my right leg compressed into itself the giveaway point and the doctor said he’s never seen — you know, in 20 years — he hasn’t seen a tear in the biggest, thickest part of your quad in half. Yeah, it sucked.” Fieri expects to be off his feet for eight weeks.
Toby Wallace is the first actor cast on Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed live-action series
The former Pistol and The Society star “is said to be playing the co-lead in Assassin’s Creed, a high-octane thriller centered on the secret war between two shadowy factions — one set on determining mankind’s future through control and manipulation, while the other fights to preserve free will,” according to Deadline. “The series follows its characters — said to be different from the games — across pivotal historical events as they battle to shape humanity’s destiny.”
Eva Green joins Wednesday as Aunt Ophelia
The French actress will play Ophelia Frump, the sister of Catherine-Zeta Jones’ Morticia Addams. “I’m thrilled to join the woefully twisted world of Wednesday as Aunt Ophelia,” Green said in a statement. “This show is such a deliciously dark and witty world, I can’t wait to bring my own touch of cuckoo-ness to the Addams family.”
Elle Duncan will leave ESPN to become the face of Netflix’s sports programming
There was some hope that Duncan, who anchors SportsCenter and was host of the WNBA Finals and women’s Final Four coverage, could stick around ESPN as she heads off to her new job at ESPN. But she will fully part ways with ESPN on good terms, according to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand.
Netflix is reportedly benching NBA docuseries Starting 5 after two seasons
Viewership for the docuseries that followed five NBA players over the course of the season was apparently disappointing.
Apple TV pulls French drama series The Hunt before its premiere, reportedly over plagiarism concerns
According to Apple Insider, The Hunt (AKA Traqués) was scheduled to premiere on Dec. 3 but was pulled last week plagiarism concerns that creator Cedric Anger wrote the series based on Douglas Fairbairn’s 1973 novel Shoot. Starring Benoît Magimel, Mélanie Laurent, Damien Bonnard and Manuel Guillot, The Hunt follows a group of friends going hunting who end up being attacked by other hunters.
Scarpetta, starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis, gets an Amazon premiere date and first-look images
Bobby Cannavale, Ariana DeBose and Simon Baker also star in the Patricia Cornwell adaptation in which Kidman plays medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, who returns to her hometown where she began her career and “resumes her former position while investigating a grisly murder,” per the official synopsis. “As Scarpetta pursues justice, she must navigate complicated relationships, including the fraught dynamic with her sister Dorothy Farinelli (Jamie Lee Curtis), confront long-held professional and personal grudges, and face secrets that threaten to unravel everything she’s built.” Scarpetta premieres March 11 on Prime Video.
Michael Rosenbaum recalls Smallville co-star Tom Welling negotiating raises separately
Rosenbaum discussed cast salary negotiations with Beverly Hills, 90210’s Brian Austin Green on his Inside of You podcast, revealing that Welling wouldn’t negotiate for a new contract with him so that they would have more leverage. “We had to do it separate and I had to wait until he was done,” Rosenbaum said, per Us Weekly, adding that he understood Welling’s perspective. “I remember going, ‘All right, it’s me, Tom and Kristin (Kreuk),” he said. “No, it’s not. Then I thought me and Tom? No. It should have been.”
Dancing with the Stars original Mirrorball Trophy was made up of lamp pieces and tape
“Literally, it was a piece of a lamp,” says longtime production designer James Yarnell, who shopped at Lamps Plus. “It was a big tall thing with all these pieces in it, and we unscrewed it … there were the two pieces that seemed to fit.” ABC worried, though, that Yarnell’s creation wasn’t tall enough, so Yarnell quickly added a roll of packing tape to the bottom to the cylinder to give it some much-needed height. “I covered it in gold foil,” says Yarnell. “We went on camera with this thing held together with a piece of a lamp and tape and that was it. It looked like shiny gold but you didn’t know what it was. I mean, nobody knew what it was.”
NCIS: Origins casts Shea Buckner to play young Dwayne Pride
The Only Murders in the Building vet will take on a younger version of Scott Bakula’s role on NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans. His official character description reads: “A former Sheriff’s Deputy, NIS Special Agent Dwayne Pride is a newly minted Probationary Special Agent from the NIS Panama office. He has a history with Gibbs (Austin Stowell), and the two must resolve their past tension as they go undercover on a case.”
Colin Jost and Michael Che pick their dream SNL hosts
On the ManningCast, Che said he’d love to see Denzel Washington host for the first time. ”I think Denzel, of all of the great movies that he’s done, we so rarely get to see him just be funny and silly,” he said. Jost, meanwhile, has three athletes in mind: Tiger Woods, Steph Curry and Michael Jordan, who hosted once in 1991.
ABC releases the first teaser for its Scrubs revival
Check out Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes and John C. McGinley back in the emergency room.
50 Cent-produced Netflix docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning gets a teaser and premiere date
50 Cent‘s bombshell four-part docuseries on his longtime nemesis Sean “Diddy” Combs debuts on Dec. 2.