Hot 'Buffy' Rumor: Chase Sui Wonders Joining Sarah Michelle Gellar in Hulu’s 'Vampire Slayer' Reboot

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Unless, of course, you work at Paramount.

Having been laid off several times before, my heart goes out to everyone whose jobs have been negatively affected by this $8 billion merger, though at least everyone had enough notice, in this case. Hopefully, they’ll be able to line up other jobs while reaping the rewards of generous severance packages.

But yes, the pink slips are coming, the pink slips are coming to the studio, where David Ellison has been busy installing his Skydance team, including former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell, who will serve as President.

Skydance veteran Dana Goldberg and former Sony exec Josh Greenstein will serve as co-chairs of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Films, while Goldberg will serve as the Chair of Paramount Television and Paramount Television Studios, which will be led by Skydance’s TV head Matt Thunell. Paramount Television Studios will absorb both Skydance Television and Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, meaning it’s absorbing Taylor Sheridan’s deal with MTV, which runs until 2028.

Keyes Hill-Edgar, who most recently served as COO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios, has announced he’s leaving after 25 years at Paramount. Liza Burnett Fefferman, who serves as EVP and Head of Communications for Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks, is also departing.

Former Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks has survived the merger, and he’ll serve as Chair of TV Media (which means he’ll oversee South Park), while Skydance’s strategic advisor Cindy Holland will serve as Chair of Direct-to-Consumer (so she’ll oversee Paramount+).

Elsewhere, Don Granger, the third leg of Ellison’s Skydance tripod alongside Goldberg and Thunell, will lead the Film division under Goldberg and Greenstein.

His appointment left no room for Michael Ireland, who exited with an offer of a producing deal at Paramount — an offer he’s still reportedly weighing while he sticks around a while longer to consult during the transition. Ireland previously held positions at 20th Century Fox and Leonardo DiCaprio’s company Appian Way.

Meanwhile, Jane Wiseman and Efrain Miron, who worked with Holland at Netflix and later, Sister, are expected to join her team at Paramount.

As Ellison and his various Chairpeople build their new teams, a number of longtime Paramount execs are leaving, and that includes Nina L. Diaz, who recently served as President of Content and Chief Creative Officer for Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios.

Finally, Paramount’s new board will include Ellison and Shell, as well as RedBird Capital founder Gerry Cardinale and chairman John L. Thornton, Oracle CEO Safra A. Catz, Paramount COO Andy Gordon, and former Paramount CEO Sherry Lansing, along with three others.

With his team now in place, Ellison plans to invest in gaming and Paramount’s streaming service, as Holland was one of the architects behind Netflix’s original programming. Some say that Ellison may have his eye on merging with Warner Bros. next, though I can’t imagine he’s in any rush to deal with SEC regulators again.

For now, he should be focused on rebooting the Transformers and Star Trek franchises, and figuring out Top Gun 3, which I understand is being prepped for a 2028 release. Ellison (and Cheeks) will also have to repair relations within the talent community after canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

For Ellison’s full senior leadership team at New Paramount, click here.

The box office wasn’t great this weekend, with The Fantastic Four: First Steps suffering a huge drop en route to a second weekend of $40 million, indicating that it will likely come in under Superman. I’ve heard that Matt Shakman will likely return to direct a sequel, which Marvel execs think will perform better once its First Family appears in the two-part Avengers finale.

Elsewhere, Paramount’s slapstick comedy The Naked Gun and Neon’s horror movie Together performed in line with expectations at $17 million and $11 million, respectively, while The Bad Guys 2 outperformed its tracking, taking in $22 million stateside. This weekend, New Line’s horror-thriller Weapons is tracking for a $40 million debut on the strength of rave reviews from critics.

Today, you’ll read about the latest addition to the cast of Hulu’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, and the shakeup among the creative team of Will Ferrell’s Netflix series Golf, which ditched Ramy Youssef in favor of David Gordon Green, among others.

Plus, there are items about Timothee Chalamet’s new heist movie, Sony’s latest animated Spider-Man movie, the new Star Wars villain, additions to the cast of Luca Guadagnino’s Open AI movie, Universal’s new Lego movie, a reboot of the William Shatner series T.J. Hooker, and my thoughts on the trailer for Noah Baumbach’s new Netflix movie Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler.

Paid subscribers can enter the Sneider-Verse to read more…

Hot Buffy Rumor: Chase Sui Wonders Joining Sarah Michelle Gellar in Hulu’s Vampire Slayer Reboot

Hot off her turn in Sony’s reboot of the Sarah Michelle Gellar movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, Chase Sui Wonders has joined the cast of another reboot — Hulu’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I’m told that Wonders will guest star in the pilot, at the very least, though character details are being kept in a coffin somewhere in Sunnydale.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong is playing the young new slayer alongside Gellar’s signature character, Buffy Summers. They’re joined by Sarah Bock, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Daniel Di Tomasso, Ava Jean, Faly Rakotohavana, and Kingston Vernes.

Oscar winner Chloé Zhao is directing the pilot, which hails from writers Nora and Lilla Zuckerman (Poker Face), as well as 20th Television and Searchlight TV. If the pilot is picked up to series, production is expected to start in March, and additional scripts are already being written in anticipation of a series order.

Gellar — spoiler alert! — appears briefly in the reboot of I Know What You Did Last Summer, so it’s fair to see that she recently worked with Wonders, which is how the 29-year-old Harvard grad found her way to Buffy.

She’s also red-hot off of Season 1 of Apple’s acclaimed comedy The Studio, which earned 23 Emmy nominations last month, and features Wonders as a development executive.

Wonders also starred in A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, and appeared in the HBO Max series Generation as well as Pete Davidson’s Peacock series Bupkis. She’s represented by UTA.

Shakeup on the Golf Course: Ramy Youssef Exits Will Ferrell’s Netflix Series, Which Adds Molly Shannon

Fore!

Or should I say “four,” since that’s how many executive producers have joined Netflix’s new Golf series starring Will Ferrell following a shakeup among the creative team that went down sometime last year.

When Golf was first announced, the series was to have been executive produced by Ramy Youssef, Josh Rabinowitz, and Andy Campagna, along with Ferrell. Youssef and Rabinowitz co-created the series with Ferrell and were going to serve as co-showrunners, while Campagna would’ve EP’d under Youssef’s company, Cairo Cowboy.

Youssef also would’ve starred opposite Ferrell, who plays a fictional golf legend.

However, at some point last year, Youssef, Rabinowitz, and Campagna departed the project following creative differences with Ferrell — a seemingly clear-cut case of how producers are more likely to exit a project than the big star it revolves around.

Ferrell has since brought in his own people, including his longtime collaborator Chris Henchy and his Will & Harper co-star Harper Steele, who wrote for Ferrell on Saturday Night Live. They’ll be joined by David Gordon Green and Andrew Guest, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Green winds up directing the pilot.

The show’s other EPs include Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman, and Nena Rodrigue of T-Street, as well as Jessica Elbaum and Alix Taylor of Ferrell’s Gloria Sanchez Productions banner.

Once the new EP team was in place, the series began casting, and this week, Ferrell recruited his SNL pal Molly Shannon for a major role. Shannon and Ferrell shared the Studio 8H stages from 1995 to 2001, and previously co-starred together in the 1999 movie Superstar.

Shannon went on to star in a number of TV shows, from HBO’s The White Lotus and Enlightened, both from Mike White, to the HBO Max series The Other Two, Showtime’s I Love That For You, NBC’s Will & Grace revival, and Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer limited series. She most recently starred in Season 4 of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu.

Shannon will soon be in new movies from solo directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly — Balls Up and Driver’s Ed, respectively — as well as Netflix’s adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation. She’s represented by UTA and Framework Entertainment.

As for Youssef, he’s developing an untitled Living Facility comedy at Netflix, so clearly, there aren’t any hard feelings between him and the streamer. He just wanted a mulligan on his pairing with Ferrell, and it’s better to voice that feeling early than get caught in a tricky sand trap once it’s too late and production is already underway.

Sometimes, “creative differences” really is an accurate way to describe these ego-driven Hollywood staredowns. Kudos to Netflix for spending a little extra on Golf in order to deliver a hole-in-one sports comedy series — a space that Apple TV+ has led as of late, thanks to Owen Wilson’s Stick and Jason Sudeikis’ Emmy-winning Ted Lasso, which will return to the pitch for a fourth season next year.

Bits and Bobs (A Daily News Roundup)

Trailer Time: George Clooney Plays an Actor on a Journey to Find Himself in Noah Baumbach’s Netflix Film Jay Kelly

I’m looking forward to seeing Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, which stars George Clooney as a movie star reflecting on his life choices, but I have to say that this trailer worries me a bit, as I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It feels a little flat, to be honest.

Jay Kelly is one of seven or eight Netflix titles that will likely factor into the awards race, joining films such as Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, the Joel Edgerton movie Train Dreams, and Rian Johnson’s latest Knives Out sequel — which I hear is much darker and far better than Glass Onion.

Baumbach co-wrote the script with Emily Mortimer (Doll & Em) after working with her kids on White Noise, a major disappointment for Netflix, which spent way too much money on the film.

Jay Kelly looks kind of expensive, too, as it follows Clooney’s title character and his devoted manager (Adam Sandler) as they “embark on a whirlwind and unexpectedly profound journey through Europe,” per Netflix. “Along the way, both men are forced to confront the choices they’ve made, the relationships with their loved ones, and the legacies they’ll leave behind.”

The director has assembled a dynamite ensemble, including Laura Dern as Clooney’s publicist, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Jim Broadbent, Stacy Keach, Riley Keough, Eve Hewson, Josh Hamilton, and Greta Gerwig, who plays Sandler’s wife.

Baumbach produced Jay Kelly with Amazon MGM’s new James Bond producers, David Heyman and Amy Pascal, and while the pedigree is certainly exceptional, I’m tempering my expectations based on this trailer, which feels like a cross between It’s a Wonderful Life and 8 1/2, but laced with the modern trappings of showbiz.

Jay Kelly will say his name a lot while looking in the mirror on Nov. 14, which is when the film hits theaters before arriving on Netflix on Dec. 5.

That’ll do it for me, folks! See you soon…

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