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‘Reacher’ Gets Early Season 6 Renewal Shortly After Season 4 Wraps

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Prime Video is picking up the pace on its Reacher renewals, handing its flagship drama starring Alan Ritchson a Season 6 pickup just 12 days after the Season 4 finale and four months after the early Season 5 order — the first time the show has received two renewals in the same year.

The expediency helps the series, developed by Nick Santora based on Lee Child’s books, to stay on an yearly cadence. Season 5, which already had been largely written at the time of the May green light, started production in late July in Toronto, ahead of Season 4’s Aug. 12 premiere. It is based on “Make Me,” the 20th book in Child’s series. It has not been determined yet which novel will serve as source material for Season 6. (Ritchson, who also is an executive producer on Reacher, recently revealed on social media that “Die Trying” is his favorite book in the franchise, and that “I had it approved until someone got re-elected”)

The renewal comes as Season 4 of Reacher has amassed 66 million viewers globally in its first 28 days on Prime Video, per Amazon, defying the recent downward streaming viewership trend by surpassing the Season 3 performance.

Seasons 2, 4 and 3 of Reacher (in that order) rank as the top 3 most-viewed returning seasons of all time on Prime Video, with Seasons 2 an 4 among the top 5 most-viewed seasons of any original series in the platform’s history alongside the first seasons of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Fallout.

Per Amazon, more than half (58%) of Reacher’s Season 4 audience is based internationally, with outsized performance in the U.K., Germany, and Brazil.

The season has been big in the U.S. too; it just logged its fifth consecutive billion-minute weekly viewership tally on Nielsen’s weekly streaming rankings with 1.18 billion minutes, finishing No. 1 in four of the five weeks.

“Reacher hits hard,” Peter Friedlander, Head of Global Television, Amazon MGM Studios, said. “What Lee Child has built and Nick Santora and his creative teams have brought to life is, simply, incredible. Alan Ritchson is Jack Reacher — he’s delivered a performance that has captivated audiences around the world. Together with our partners at Paramount Television Studios, we couldn’t be more excited to continue this journey. Reacher is a truly iconic series, and we’re thrilled to be on the ride with this extraordinary cast and crew for Season Six.”

Produced by Paramount Television Studios and Amazon MGM Studios, Reacher is written by Santora, who executive produces and serves as showrunner. In addition to Santora, Child and Ritchson, the list of executive producers include Don Granger, Scott Sullivan, Mick Betancourt, Lisa Kussner, Sam Hill, Amy Pocha & Seth Cohen.

In Season 4, based on Lee Child’s “Gone Tomorrow,” a chance encounter with a distraught stranger on a subway goes horribly wrong, drawing Jack Reacher (Ritchson) into a complex and deadly game that pits him against ruthless foes from the highest echelons of power. The season’s cast includes Chris Marquette, Sydelle Noel, Agnez Mo, Anggun, Kevin Weisman, Marc Blucas, Kevin Corrigan, and Kathleen Robertson.

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Johnny Kastl Poised To Return To ‘Scrubs’, Scott Foley Preview & More

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EXCLUSIVE: Scrubs executive producer/showrunner Aseem Batra got most of the OGs on her wishlist for Season 2 of the ABC revival which she shared with Deadline at the end of Season 1 in April.

“Well, we’ve got Johnny Kastl, we’ve got Scott Foley, we would love to have him back, and, of course, Ken Jenkins,” Batra told Deadline at the time. “We want to see more of Neil Flynn. So we have quite a wishlist.”

Flynn’s Season 2 return as The Janitor for multiple episodes after his appearance in the Season 1 finale was confirmed in July, and Deadline in August broke the news that Foley will reprise his recurring role as Sean Kelly from the original series next season.

Now, Deadline can reveal that another Scrubs standout, Kastl, also is expected to be back for Season 2 in his first acting gig in almost two decades. Batra shared the probability of Kastl reprising his heavily recurring role as the highly inept Dr. Doug Murphy during an interview with Deadline tied to Scrubs‘ Sept. 30 Season 2 premiere.

“That that is my plan,” Batra said. “We’ll see how it all shakes up but we’re writing two more [episodes], and we have him planned in one of those last two.”

This week, Scrubs is slated to do a table read for Episode 8 of its 10-episode second season, which will film next, with Batra and her writing team still working on the scripts for Episodes 9 and 10.

What would make Kastl’s return particularly notable is the fact that he quit acting in 2009 as he wrapped his eight-episode arc on Scrubs to go to law school and has worked as an attorney and business executive since, most recently VP of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships for Acorn Finance.

Johnny Kastl on ‘Scrubs’

Dean Hendler/Disney General Entertainment Content

Kastl could guest star on Scrubs alongside Foley who may appear in the Season 2 finale (More on that later).

Foley’s marine biologist Sean butted heads with J.D. (Zach Braff) while the former was dating Elliot (Sarah Chalke), resulting in one of Scrubs‘ signature lines, “Nobody cares, Sean,” which jealous J.D. frequently used on Sean.

“We wanted the fun of those dynamics again, he and J.D. have such a fun dynamic of not liking each other, but it’s like, have they grown a little? What’s going on there?,” Batra said about the idea behind bringing Foley back. “We look for chemistry in our cast, and they’ve always had great chemistry with Scott Foley. So bringing him back for some fun, and the challenges of dating after divorce; people are looking for different things now, and just seeing some of that come out too.”

In a recent interview with Deadline, Chalke provided another reason for Foley’s return.

“The writers were like, ‘How do we bring back Elliot’s neuroses?’,” she said. “And so they thought that Scott would be a good way to do that because now that Elliot’s more comfortable in her job and feels super confident as a doctor, this is kind of what shakes her and brings back a lot of her neurotic days.”

Foley is expected to make his return in Episode 203.

“It’s a short arc,” Batra said, adding, “That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t love to bring him back as much as possible. But it’s different telling stories in 10 episodes than it was telling stories when we had 20 plus,” a reference to the original series, which produced 22-25 episodes a year for its first six seasons.

“So things start to feel a little more compacted, and that’s why,” Batra continued. “But we hope that we’re playing the fun and the comedy in a way that people will enjoy with him.”

Foley has done two episodes so far.

“He may make another appearance, we just love him,” Batra said. “As you’re writing the finale, you kind of see how you might weave guest stars that you love back into the show.”

One guest star Batra and the rest of the Scrubs producing team love but have not been able to bring back in Season 2 is Ken Jenkins.

Batra in April confirmed the plan Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence had shared with Deadline in February to have Jenkins reprise his character as Dr. Kelso in the ABC revival’s second season.

That didn’t pan out, and Jenkins will not be in Season 2, Batra confirmed to Deadline.

“We all have to remember that when we reboot a show, we have to go with where people are in their lives and in their health and the things that are happening in their life,” she said. “So it’s not it’s not anything he can control or we can control, it’s just simply the situation. He’s doing great, but let’s all remember that, because we try to bring people back that we love, and it can’t always work with schedules or things happening in people’s lives.”

Scrubs star/executive producer Braff had a similar reaction when asked recently whether Jenkins, who is 86 and retired from acting, would return.

“The fans want this so much, and I so respect that, we do too, but I think we just also need to be respectful of his age,” he said. “I’ll keep trying, but I think, for currently where he’s at, it’s a bit of a big ask, I’ll just say that.”

Scrubs Season 2 launches on Sept. 30 with a two-episode premiere on ABC and streaming next day on Hulu.

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‘Miami Vice ’85’ Movie Adds Andrew Schulz To Cast

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EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Schulz is set to join Universal and Joseph Kosinski’s Miami Vice ’85 pic starring Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler. Kosinski is directing the pic which also stars Whitney Peak, Alden Ehrenreich, Camila Morrone, John Leguizamo and Danny Ramirez.

Miami Vice ’85, with a screenplay by Dan Gilroy, explores the glamour and corruption of mid-1980s Miami in an all-new version of Miami Vice, inspired by the pilot episode of the landmark 1984-90 NBC series. The movie will be filmed for Imax and is set for release on May 19, 2028. Production will begin this year.

The film is produced by Dylan Clark/Dylan Clark Productions and Kosinski. Gilroy’s script is based on characters created by Anthony Yerkovich from the series he executive produced with Michael Mann; Eric Warren Singer wrote an earlier draft of the screenplay. EVP Production Development Sara Scott and Creative Executive of Production Development Christina Hoffrogge oversee the project for the studio.

Schulz as had himself quite a year as his acting slate has heated up. He has a role in the upcoming live-action adaptation of Street Fighter, and his credits include Netflix’s comedy series Tires, MGM’s Underdoggs alongside Snoop Dogg, The Thicket with Peter Dinklage, Netflix’s You People with Eddie Murphy and Jonah Hill and White Men Can’t Jump with Jack Harlow.

He also recently wrapped production on the Apple sports pic Running.

Schulz recently completed his sold-out global Life Tour, an arena run that included back-to-back sellouts at Madison Square Garden; Los Angeles’ Kia Forum and Crypto.com Arena; two nights at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena; and more than 70 arenas and theaters across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. The tour culminated in his latest Netflix special Life, filmed at New York City’s Beacon Theatre.

In the podcast world, Schulz co-hosts Flagrant, the culture-shifting podcast that has generated more than 1.5 billion YouTube views. He also co-hosts the long-running Brilliant Idiots with Charlamagne Tha God.

Schulz is repped by CAA, manager Dov Mamann, and Cary Dobkin and Gregg Gelman at Yorn Levine.

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MTV Video Music Awards Scores Big For CBS

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The MTV Video Music Awards may not have the same meaning as it did in the 1990s but it’s clear that this year’s event had more juice than in a number of years.

Per Nielsen’s fast nationals, the ceremony hit an 11-year high and was up over 50% over the numbers from last year.

Obviously, the fact that it now airs on CBS as well as MTV means that it’s not a real comparison. But it was also up against Sunday Night Football on NBC that saw the Denver Broncos narrowly defeat the LA Rams.

The show, which featured an opening set from Madonna with Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX, record 8.43M viewers across CBS and MTV (and a repeat on MTV). This was up 51% from last year, which saw 5.5M viewers tune in for its first ever appearance on CBS. It peaked with over 15M viewers on the broadcast network and cable station.

Breaking it down, it was watched by 7.61M people on CBS, up from the 5M that tuned in last year, with MTV seeing 686,000 viewers and 142,000 viewers tuning in to the repeat.

The numbers are an 11-year high for the show, which was hosted by Snoop Dogg and broadcast live from LA’s Peacock Theater. It was the best same-day audience since the 2015 for the VMAs when it received 12.73M viewers, which was hosted by Miley Cyrus.

Taylor Swift took home the night’s top honor, Video of the Year, for her video of The Fate of Ophelia and there were tributes to both Dolly Parton (Kacey Musgraves singing I Will Always Love You) and George Michael (featuring the likes of Sombr, Raye and Adam Lambert).

Nirvana also received the Video Vanguard Award with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear. Bassist Novoselic paid tribute to singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain, calling him “one of the greatest artists of all time”, while Smear lit a cigarette on stage, in his own tribute to Cobain.

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