Paramount Television Studios has closed an exclusive overall deal with The Wheel of Time creator/showrunner Rafe Judkins to create, develop, and produce original scripted series for the studio. The pact at Paramount’s streaming-focused studio comes amid an effort by the new regime at sibling Paramount+ to find a platform-defining world-building genre series.

Paramount Television Studios President Matt Thunell highlighted Judkins’ experience in the area.

“I have long been a fan of Rafe’s extraordinary writing and producing and am grateful he chose Paramount as his new creative home,” Thunell said. “We are amazed by his ability to build immersive worlds, craft action-packed stories, and realize vibrant characters. We cannot wait to build with him.”

Thunell and his team pursued Judkins for the deal, which reunites the writer-producer with Chris Parnell who is leading genre development for Paramount+ under Head of Originals Jane Wiseman. As Sony Pictures Television Co-President, Parnell developed The Wheel of Time, calling Judkins “a brilliant visionary” in the 2018 announcement of the project’s series order by Prime Video. The Wheel of Time, based on the novels by Robert Jordan and co-author Brandon Sanderson, ran for three seasons.

“Right now is a time to take risks and be ambitious in television with the kind of stories we tell and the way we tell them, no matter how big or small,” Judkins said. “That’s the kind of television I want to make, and I feel lucky to have found partners at Paramount who are also looking to expand, take risks, and create something new. I’m honored and excited to be in at the ground floor for what Matt and his team are building.”

Starz has released the first trailer (above) for Outlander: Blood of My Blood for Season 2, setting up a journey back in time to 1700s Scotland and the start of the Jacobite uprising. New episodes of the prequel series debut on Friday, September 18, with new episodes dropping weekly on Fridays only on Starz.

Everyone has their own war to fight in Season 2, with devastating effects as the series’ two young couples desperately try to find their ways back to each other amid brutal battles, shifting loyalties, clan politics, and the unknown elements of traveling through the infamous standing stones of Craigh Na Dun.

Season 1 of Outlander: Blood of My Blood introduced viewers to the two different love stories featuring the parents of Claire and Jamie as they met and fought to be together against all odds.

In the second season of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, the two couples are separated once again as
the Scottish Highlands are split in two by the 1715 Jacobite Rising, thrusting the clans into war
and forcing them to choose a side in the rebellion. With the fiery crosses lit, Brian and his cousin Murtagh must return to Castle Leathers and pledge to fight beside his father, the scheming Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat.

Ellen reluctantly returns to Castle Leoch to find her brothers, Colum and Dougal, feuding over how to respond to the call to arms. She cleverly devises a plan to protect Clan MacKenzie from the Crown regardless of the outcome of the uprising. Meanwhile, Henry and Julia Beauchamp, finally reunited after their unexpected journey back in time left them lost and separated, are ready to return to their time and their daughter, Claire.

When their plan goes horribly awry, the couple is parted once again. Separated from his love and
hope, Henry must grapple with his mental health, as he fights to find his way back to Julia, who
is forced to return to Castle Leathers and contend with her sinister husband, Lord Lovat.

The series stars Jeremy Irvine as Henry Beauchamp and Hermione Corfield as Julia Beauchamp, Claire’s parents; and Jamie Roy as Brian Fraser and Harriet Slater as Ellen MacKenzie, Jamie’s parents. In addition, the cast also includes Tony Curran as Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat; Séamus McLean Ross as Colum MacKenzie; Sam Retford as Dougal MacKenzie; Rory Alexander as Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser; and Conor MacNeill as Ned Gowan.

Watch the trailer above.

Anna Louizos, a prolific, three-time Tony nominated Broadway scenic designer whose work brought vivid life to such productions as Avenue Q,  Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, School of Rock, Steel Magnolias and the 2012 revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, died Wednesday, May 25, in New York City of multiple myeloma. She was 69.

Her death was announced by her wife, producer Robyn Goodman, who noted that Louizos’ death followed a series of health challenges stemming from a horseback riding accident while on vacation in Greece last year.

Born June 24, 1957, in Marysville, California, Louizos moved to New York City to pursue a degree in acting at NYU. As her talent for the visual arts emerged, she shifted her studies to Scenic Design, graduating with an MFA from Tisch School of the Arts.

One of her first major assignments was to serve as art director of the Tony Awards telecast in 1993, for which she received an Emmy Award nomination. Her early years as associate scenic designer on Broadway during the 1990s and early 2000s included such shows as The Red Shoes, Scarlett Pimpernel and, under the tutelage of her beloved mentor Tony Walton, Taller Than a Dwarf and Uncle Vanya.

She was the principal scenic designer on the 2003 breakout hit and surprise Tony winner Avenue Q, and her designs would continue with the show as it moved to Off Broadway, London, Las Vegas and on tour. Her design of a rundown outer borough NYC city block would become a visual staple of Avenue Q, and can currently be seen in the West End revival.

Louizos was nominated three times for the Tony Award – High Fidelity (2006), In The Heights (2008) and The Mystery of Edwin Drood (2012). For those productions, she created, respectively, an old-school vinyl record store, the vibrant streets of contemporary Washington Heights, and a 19th Century English cathedral city.

In a social media post, Miranda, wrote, “I will never forget the first time [his wife] Vanessa saw the set of In The House, tears streaming down her face: ‘How did you get MY block on that stage?’ It was a refrain I would hear again and again from Washington Heights residents AND people all over the world: That’s MY block. That’s MY home. That was the gift of Anna Louizos, our unforgettable and brilliant set designer and friend….She built us a set and a home so real that it still reverberates in every production since.”

He added, “And I’m looking out my window this morning, on the same block where my wife grew up, still in awe that she got it all on that stage. She built our home. Thank you, Anna. Alabanza. Para siempre.”

Her other Broadway credits included included fairy tale glamour of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Cinderella, Honeymoon in Vegas, Curtains, White Christmas, Steel Magnolias, Holiday Inn, Golda’s Balcony, The Performers, Dames at Sea, All About Me, Baby It’s You, To Be Or Not To Be and It Shoulda Been You, all during the first two decades of the 2000s.

She also was art director in 2003 for several episodes of Sex and the City.

Louizos also designed for regional theater and Off Broadway, including Jonathan Larson’s Tick, Tick…Boom!, Sons of the Prophet, Olive and Charles Busch’s The Bitter Herbs, Crimes of the Heart and The Foreigner.

Most recently Louizos designed the set for the Broadway-bound musical Regency Girls in its world premiere this year at the Old Globe in San Diego. Other recent regional productions include Fiddler on the Roof with Jason Alexander, West Side Story, Peter Pan and 18 shows at Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania

In 2011, Louizos created the Broadway Design Exchange, a space where artists, designers, artisans and craftspeople of the entertainment community could share their work. The organization paid tribute to Louizo on its Instagram page: “Fifteen years ago, Anna had a dream: to create a place where the incredible artists, designers, artisans, and craftspeople of our entertainment community could share their work with the people who love it. That dream became Broadway Design Exchange. But Anna created so much more than a marketplace. She created a community. A place where designers could be celebrated for the extraordinary work that so often happens behind the scenes. A place where fans and collectors could own a little piece of the magic. And, perhaps most importantly, a place that felt like family.

“Anna was our fearless leader,” the statement continues, “our champion, our creative force, and our friend. Her generosity, humor, talent, and enormous heart touched so many people. We are devastated by this loss.”

Louizos and Goodman, a couple for 29 years, were married in 2013. In addition to her wife, Louizos is survived by mother Diana Louizos, brother Nikolas Louizos and sister Justina Woltman.