News Shorts: People's Weather Explores More Of The Wildlife With City Beasts, The Good Doctor Ends With 7 Seasons On M-Net And Selena Gomez To Play Linda Ronstadt In New Biopic

City Beasts is coming to People's Weather

Join Adventurist and Wildlife Filmmaker Josh Crickmay on his journey to uncover the wildlife lurking in the streets of Cape Town.  City Beasts is the story of an enthusiastic game ranger (and self-proclaimed intrepid adventurer) on a mission to find proof that humans and animals can coexist in harmony. He shares his experiences of discovering these animals in a fun and educational way, and his enthusiasm for nature is truly inspiring. 

Through tracking, trap cameras, stakeouts, and by following the tales from the locals, he indeed encounters the beasts of the city. 

Through honest and genuine encounters with animals like penguins, sharks, porcupines, genets, and even otters, he proves his theory that not only do people coexist with wildlife in the Mother City, but he also discovers the remarkable impact it has on the locals. Josh sees City Beasts as a way to give back to Mother Nature - as she literally saved his life when he was a lost and suicidal teenager. Josh's curiosity, sheer bravery, and clever sense of humour make him an endearing character, and his passion is undeniably authentic and palpable throughout the series.

Another one bites the dust

The upcoming seventh season of ABC's The Good Doctor will be the final chapter of the medical drama starring and executive produced by Freddie Highmore.

The Good Doctor, from Sony Pictures Television and ABC Signature, is the second long-running ABC drama coming to an end this season, joining Station 19, and the latest series that premiered during the 2017-2018 season to wrap with its upcoming seventh season, along with Station 19 and CBS’

Young Sheldon, S.W.A.T. and SEAL Team.

Selena Gomez stars in a biopic

The pop singer and “Only Murders in the Building” star teased the role Tuesday night by posting a picture of Ronstadt’s 2013 memoir “Simple Dreams” on her Instagram story.

Ronstadt is a country, rock ‘n’ roll and Latin music legend, with her 1970s albums “Heart Like a Wheel” and “Simple Dreams” reaching critical and commercial success and showcasing her versatility across genres. Throughout her career she has won 11 Grammys, and she was honored by both the Recording Academy and the Latin Recording Academy with Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Ronstadt and Gomez are both of Mexican descent. The latter has been nominated twice for a Golden Globe for her performance on Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,” which she executive produces and stars in alongside Steve Martin and Martin Short. Gomez broke out as an actor on Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place” and achieved success as a music artist with hits like “Lose You to Love Me” and “Love You Like a Love Song.”

Roundups #88: The Good Doctor Getting A Female Led Spinoff, Young Justice Reportedly Not Moving Forward At HBO Max And King Kong Series In Development For Disney+

The Good Doctor spinoff in development

ABC is developing “The Good Lawyer,” a legal spinoff of the medical drama “The Good Doctor” which stars Freddie Highmore as Dr. Sean Murphy, a surgeon with autism.

“The Good Lawyer” will be introduced as a backdoor pilot during Season 6 of “The Good Doctor,” which is set to premiere in October. Sean finds himself in legal trouble and seeks the services of Joni, a twentysomething defense attorney who has OCD. Joni, relatively new to her law firm, is funny, eager, self-aware and anxious. She is a skilled lawyer and doesn’t want to be treated differently by others, though her OCD symptoms affect her personal and professional life. At one point, her firm tries to fire her, after which she is forced to threaten to sue for a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

One higher-up at the firm involved in the firing attempt is Janet, a highly-regarded attorney and partner at the firm who has represented Dr. Glassman (Richard Schiff) in several legal matters throughout the years. Glassman turns to her to represent his protégé Shaun, and when Shaun chooses Joni to represent him, the cynical Janet is forced to reconsider her assessment of Joni.

Young Justice cancelled on HBO Max

It appears that Young Justice has been canceled for the second time in its run as HBO Max is reportedly not bringing the beloved DC animated series back for season 5. August has been a turbulent month for Warner Bros. Discovery following their massive merger earlier this year. The studio made major headlines with the shocking decision to cancel HBO Max's Batgirl movie, starring Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon. Despite principal photography having completed in late March, Warner Bros. Discovery shelved Batgirl while also revealing plans to have HBO Max and Discovery Plus become one streaming service next summer.

With the shake-up going on, it was also revealed during the Warner Bros. Discovery earnings call that animation would be part of a "restructuring" for the new version of the studio. This put the popular series Young Justice in question regarding if it will get a season 5. Despite having already finished airing season 4, subtitled Young Justice: Phantoms, HBO Max, or Warner Bros. TV have yet to announce a renewal for the series, which originally began on Cartoon Network. Concerns have been high ever since Young Justice showrunner Greg Weisman confirmed on social media that they have yet to learn about a potential season 5.

King Kong is coming to Disney+

An iconic monster is headed to Disney+. Disney Branded Television is in very early development on King Kong (working title), a series for Disney+ tracking the original story of the famous ape. Deals have just closed for the project, from James Wan’s Atomic Monster, which would mark the first live-action series set in the Kong universe.

Written by Paper Girls creator Stephany Folsom, King Kong is a serialized action-adventure drama that brings the classic monster story into the modern age, with a return to Skull Island and the dawn of a new Kong. The series will explore the mythology of King Kong’s origin story and the supernatural mysteries of his home based on IP from Merian C. Cooper’s original books and the new King Kong novelizations by Joe DeVito.

A live-action series, King Kong Skull Island, was in development at MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television five years ago with a different creative team, also based on Cooper’s King Kong and DeVito ArtWorks’ Skull Island, with Festa executive producing. It did not come to fruition.

The Four Faces Of The Good Doctor

A while back, I did a story on Can Love Become Money's Turkish counterpart As Die Skoen Pas and the point I made in all of this it's not about hating a duplicate but more on awareness to one's surroundings and as mentioned not everyone will like the same things or at least in a certain structure.

On today's agenda we have Mucize Doctor (Miracle Doctor known to South Africans as Dokter Ali) is a 2019 medical drama that follows the antics of a doctor who suffers from autism. As a child, he was discovered to have a genius-level memory and keen spatial skills which gave him the title of Miracle Doctor.

 

But the story was inspired by none other than KBS's The Good Doctor (Gut Dakteo) which won many accolades during its run in 2013 for Best Actor, Best Couple, Best Drama and even got plaque of recognition for creating awareness about autism and how socially challenged individuals can contribute to society.

The success lead to several regional adaptations including America's The Good Doctor from ABC which is one of the longest adaptations currently in its fifth season with a sixth scheduled for release in future. This version was produced by David Shore who went on to create the medical drama, House.

 

 

Other adaptations include the one currently seen on eExtra, the Japanese adaptation Guddo Dokuta and most recent Hong Kong series, The People I Have Loved for the character Dr. Koo Hei-sun.

In the end, The Good Doctor's legacy lives on with these regional versions and it doesn't seem like the journey for this autistic doctor will be stopping anytime soon.

Until Further Notice
DStv customers have until the end of May to tune into Dokter Ali on eExtra thereafter they'll either have to get Openview or wait to view them on e.tv. As far as replacements go HONEY and Via duplicate channel could be added on Family and Access packages.

As mentioned earlier, eExtra's offering is regarded as local at this point if MultiChoice were to redirect audiences to kykNET and Mzansi Wethu for something "similar".

Roundups #44: Mr. Bean Returns With A New Series On Netflix, Blair's Witch Might Be Getting A Reboot And The Goldbergs Renewed For A Tenth Season On ABC

Rowan Atkinson and Netflix partner up on new series

Netflix has teamed up with the legendary Mr Bean star Rowan Atkinson for a mini-series titled Man vs. Bee. The streaming giant shared the first poster of the highly anticipated series, which will feature the British comedy giant in the lead, and it is set for global release on June 24, 2022. The series will also reunite Atkinson with William Davies as writers; the two have previously worked together in Atkinson’s Johnny English trilogy.

The series has been directed by David Kerr, who was also the director of Johnny English Strikes Again. His other directorial credits include Fresh Meat, Inside No. 9, Webb Look and That Mitchell.

 

 

The series’ synopsis reads: “A man finds himself at war with a bee while housesitting a luxurious mansion. Who will win, and what irreparable damage will be done in the process?” The 10-part mini-series will have a runtime of only 10 minutes per episode.

Lionsgate reportedly rebooting Blair's Witch

One of the most iconic horrors of the last half-century, 1999's The Blair Witch Project kick-started the ever-creepy found-footage genre and redefined movie marketing strategies while it was at it.

Grainy, hand-held videotaping aside, most terrifying of all about The Blair Witch Project was that it was promoted as being real-life footage left behind by missing film students, meaning 90s audiences thought what they were witnessing in cinemas was 100% real.

What’s more, the hair-raising flick was filmed on a budget of around $20,000 but recouped approximately $250,000,000.

 

As is often the way, later Blair Witch reboots were less successful, with both 2000’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and 2016’s Blair Witch being panned by critics.

The Goldbergs shocking renewal

The Goldbergs, which recently hit the 200-episode mark, will keep going as ABC has renewed the family comedy for a 10th season.

 

The renewal caps a trying year for The Goldbergs, which follows the challenges, ups, downs, twists and turns in the life of the chaotic but loving titular family during the Reagan era. In the past 13 months, the comedy lost two core cast members: George Segal, who died in March 2021 of complications from bypass surgery, and Jeff Garlin, who exited in December following multiple misconduct allegations and HR investigations.

The Goldbergs opened its current ninth season with the TV family paying tribute to late Albert “Pops” Solomon, who was played by Segal.

The Count Of Monte Cristo: The Story That Inspired eMedia's Is'phindiselo, Telemundo's The Boss And ABC's Revenge

Edmond Dantès, a handsome, promising young sailor, skillfully docks the three-masted French ship, the Pharaon, in Marseilles after its captain died en route home. As a reward, Dantès is promised a captainship, but before he can claim his new post and be married to his fiancée, Mercédès', a conspiracy of four jealous and unsavory men arrange for him to be seized and secretly imprisoned in solitary confinement in the infamous Chateau d'If, a prison from which no one has ever escaped. The four men responsible are:

 

1. Fernand Mondego, who is jealous of Mercédès' love for Dantès;
2. Danglars, the purser of the Pharaon, who covets Dantès' promised captainship;
3. Caderousse, an unprincipled neighbor; and
4. Villefort, a prosecutor who knows that Dantès is carrying a letter addressed to Villefort's father; the old man is a Bonapartist who would probably be imprisoned by the present royalist regime were it not for his son's, Villefort's, influence. Villefort fears, however, that this letter might damage his own position, and so he makes sure, he thinks, that no one ever hears about either Dantès or the letter again.

For many years, Dantès barely exists in his tiny, isolated cell; he almost loses his mind and his will to live until one day he hears a fellow prisoner burrowing nearby. He too begins digging, and soon he meets an old Abbé who knows the whereabouts of an immense fortune, one that used to belong to an immensely wealthy Italian family.

Dantès and the Abbé continue digging for several years, and from the Abbé, Dantès learns history, literature, science, and languages, but when at last they are almost free, the Abbé dies. Dantès hides his body, then sews himself in the Abbé's burial sack. The guards arrive, carry the sack outside, and heave the body far out to sea.

Dantès manages to escape and is picked up by a shipful of smugglers, whom he joins until he can locate the island where the treasure is hidden. When he finally discovers it, he is staggered by the immensity of its wealth. And when he emerges into society again, he is the very rich and very handsome Count of Monte Cristo.

Monte Cristo has two goals — to reward those who were kind to him and his aging father, and to punish those responsible for his imprisonment. For the latter, he plans slow and painful punishment. To have spent fourteen years barely subsisting in a dungeon demands cruel and prolonged punishment.

As Monte Cristo, Dantès ingeniously manages to be introduced to the cream of Parisian society, among whom he goes unrecognized. But Monte Cristo, in contrast, recognizes all of his enemies — all now wealthy and influential men.

Fernand has married Mercédès and is now known as Count de Morcerf. Monte Cristo releases information to the press that proves that Morcerf is a traitor, and Morcerf is ruined socially. Then Monte Cristo destroys Morcerf's relationship with his family, whom he adores. When they leave him, he is so distraught that he shoots himself.
To revenge himself on Danglars, who loves money more than anything else, Monte Cristo ruins him financially.

To revenge himself on Caderousse, Monte Cristo easily traps Caderousse because of his insatiable greed, then watches as one of Caderousse's cohorts murders him.

 

To revenge himself on Villefort, Monte Cristo slowly reveals to Villefort that he knows about a love affair that Villefort had long ago with the present Madame Danglars. He also reveals to him, by hints, that he knows about an illegitimate child whom he fathered, a child whom Villefort believed that he buried alive. The child lived, however, and is now engaged to Danglars' daughter, who is the illegitimate young man's half-sister.

Ironically, Villefort's wife proves to be even more villainous than her husband, for she poisons the parents of Villefort's first wife; then she believes that she has successfully poisoned her husband's daughter by his first marriage. With those people dead, her own son is in line for an enormous inheritance. Villefort, however, discovers his wife's plottings and threatens her, and so she poisons herself and their son. At this point, Dantès is half-fearful that his revenge has been too thorough, but because he is able to unite two young people who are very much in love and unite them on the Isle of Monte Cristo, he sails away, happy and satisfied, never to be seen again.

Xtreme Football League Founded By WWE's Very Own Vince McMahon Returns In 2023 And WWE Nearly Sold To FOX

The revived XFL series commence in 2023

Xtreme Football League (XFL) is a professional American football league founded by wrestling executive Vince McMahon in 2018, as a reboot and successor to the league of the same name he founded in 2001.

McMahon re-founded the XFL to create a league with fewer off-field controversies and faster, simpler play compared to the National Football League (NFL), as well as one without the professional wrestling–inspired features and entertainment elements of its predecessor.

The first season of XFL began on February 8, 2020. The league planned to have a ten-week regular season through April 12, with division championships April 18 and 19, with the XFL Championship scheduled for April 26.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the XFL announced that the league would be cancelling the rest of the season, ahead of the league's suspension of operations and bankruptcy filing a month later.

On December 2, 2021, it was revealed on Dany Garcia's Instagram page that the 2023 XFL season would start on February 18, 2023, along with Training Camp in January 2023, as well as a player combine in June 2022.

XFL was distributed by a lot of Disney stations including ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 with Fox, FS1, FS2 being retained by the FOX Corporation. Perhaps ESPN or SuperSport will pick up the new season in 2023.

WWE wanted to be purchased several years ago

Ex-WWE creative team member Freddie Prinze Jr told the media that FOX turned down the chance to buy the company outright back when they were negotiating terms to air SmackDown.

According to one of Prinze Jr's friends, who works as an executive at FOX, Vince McMahon's asking price was just too high - the network knocked back the chance to pursue a full purchase, and instead decided to license SmackDown for a still-hefty sum.

There had been chatter back in 2019 about FOX potentially moving to buy WWE, but it's incredible to hear that McMahon was so willing to cede control of his baby. Freddie also said that he'd been sitting on that story for a while, but couldn't resist telling it "because it has been long enough" since FOX were in the running.

Older wrestling fans may still struggle with the thought of Vince selling WWE. There was a time when that seemed impossible, but it's interesting to learn that he has a (rather high) figure in mind for the organisation.

That number was definitely too big for FOX.

You can also find me through the other platforms by pressing this link in brackets (Lnk.Bio).

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The Murder Of Dee Blanchard: From HBO To Telemundo Here's A List Of Brands That Documented Gypsy's Freedom From Her Abusive Mother

Dee Dee had been making her daughter pass herself off as younger and pretend to be disabled and chronically ill, subjecting her to unnecessary surgery and medication, and controlling her through physical and psychological abuse.

Gypsy Rose, daughter of Dee Dee is currently serving a 10-year sentence for second-degree murder while Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In 2017, HBO produced the documentary film Mommy Dead and Dearest directed by Erin Lee Carr about the murder and its relationship to Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The film includes interrogation footage and exclusive interviews with Nick Godejohn and incarcerated Gypsy Rose.

Later that year, The CBS network talk show Dr. Phil, episode "Mother Knows Best: A Story of Munchausen by Proxy and Murder" featuring interviews with Gypsy Rose, her father and step-mother.

In 2018, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) news and information series Good Morning America, segment "Mother of All Murders" aired an exclusive in-prison interview with Gypsy Rose. The ABC network other series 20/20, did an episode titled "The Story of Gypsy Blanchard".

The Sony Entertainment Television channel series CID aired an episode titled "Death on Social Media" on 13 August 2017, based on the case but the setting for the episode was changed to India; the characters Aria and Aanchal were based on Gypsy and Dee Dee Blanchard respectively.

The Investigation Discovery channel series James Patterson's Murder is Forever episode "Mother of All Murders", season 1, episode 2, premiered on January 29, 2018. Investigation Discovery also aired a two-hour-long special documentary titled Gypsy's Revenge.

Love You to Death aired on Lifetime in January 2019, dramatizing the case as "inspired by true events". Marcia Gay Harden starred as the fictionalized version of Dee Dee, Emily Skeggs starred as Gypsy Rose's counterpart, Brennan Keel Cook starred as Nick's counterpart, and Tate Donovan starred as Rod's counterpart.

In 2019, the streaming service Hulu announced the creation of the true crime series The Act. The 8-episode miniseries is based on Michelle Dean's 2016 BuzzFeed article. Dean is an executive producer and writer for the first season of the series.

Later that year, Netflix web television series The Politician, the characters Infinity Jackson, Ricardo, and Dusty Jackson are respectively based on Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Nicholas Godejohn and Dee Dee Blanchard. Telemundo's Decisions 13th episode "Amor de madre" was also used to tell the tale.

Gypsy Rose's case has been treated more as a child abuse as opposed to her fiancee case which is murder. Her actions garnered media attention as opposed to her mother whose family flushed her ashes down the toilet.

You can also find me through the other platforms by pressing this link in brackets (Lnk.Bio).

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