GrunkleBitcoin on Nostr: # Weekly Development Bulletin **Week ending September 26, 2026** ### Landmark Casting ...

# Weekly Development Bulletin

**Week ending September 26, 2026**

### Landmark Casting

**The Last of Us — Season 3 — HBO**
*Status: In Casting*

John Goodman, Ian Alexander, and Laura Bailey have joined the Season 3 cast of HBO's The Last of Us — with Alexander and Bailey having previously voiced the very characters they now orbit in the live-action series (Lev and Abby respectively in the video game). Patrick Wilson, Peter Sarsgaard, Clea DuVall, and Jason Ritter were also previously announced. Season 3 is widely expected to be the final season, with showrunner Craig Mazin understood to have planned it as the concluding chapter.

**Theme:** The franchise's most brutal and divisive arc — Abby's story — brought to screen with the original voice cast now watching their characters live on. The convergence of game mythology and prestige television reaching its most emotionally loaded point yet.

**Key creatives:** Craig Mazin serves as sole showrunner for Season 3 (Neil Druckmann steps back from day-to-day). Premieres 2027 on HBO.

*Sources: [1]*

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### Near-Future Political Thriller

**Army of Shadows — Channel 4 / Canal+**
*Status: In Production*

Filming is underway in Paris and London on Army of Shadows, a near-future thriller set in an authoritarian Britain, from MobLand and The Day of the Jackal creator Ronan Bennett. Susan Sarandon and Olivia Colman have joined a cast already including Paddy Considine, America Ferrera, Alex Hassell, and Kit Harington. Lisa Gunning (Black Doves) directs all six episodes. Studiocanal handles worldwide sales.

**Theme:** Britain slipped into authoritarianism — the question of how ordinary people become complicit, resist, or disappear in a state that has quietly turned on its citizens. Bennett's most politically urgent project yet.

**Key creatives:** Written by Ronan Bennett. Directed by Lisa Gunning. Co-produced by Studiocanal and Two Cities Television. Commissioned for Channel 4. Canal+ releases across Europe, Africa, and Asia.

*Sources: [2]*

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### Crime Thriller

**Rules of Prey — MGM+**
*Status: In Production*

MGM+ has greenlit an eight-episode adaptation of John Sandford's Rules of Prey — the first novel in the long-running Prey series — with Jensen Ackles starring as Lucas Davenport, a brilliant and unconventional former Minneapolis detective drawn out of seclusion to track a serial killer who has designed the murders as a personal message to him. Production began this month in Toronto. Daniel Sackheim (Game of Thrones) directs the first two episodes.

**Theme:** The cat-and-mouse procedural elevated by equal-matched adversaries — a killer who operates by his own moral code versus a detective whose methods sit just outside the law, both of them playing a game only they fully understand.

**Key creatives:** Created and showrun by Bruce Terris. Jensen Ackles stars and executive produces. Daniel Sackheim directs episodes 1–2 and executive produces. From MGM Television and Take 5 Productions.

*Sources: [3]*

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### Dark Thriller

**Witch Hunt — Netflix**
*Status: Announced*

Happy Valley's Sarah Lancashire is returning to dark, complex female-led drama for Netflix in Witch Hunt, a thriller about a woman released from prison after 30 years — convicted of drowning her three young daughters — who comes home to a community that doesn't want her back. When a modern-day witch hunt appears to be triggered by her return, the police must turn to her last surviving daughter to help find the killer. Written by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Suffragette), produced by Sister.

**Theme:** The unstable ground between guilt and innocence — a woman the public has already convicted being made to help catch someone new, in a town where the verdict never really closed. Lancashire at her most morally unresolvable.

**Key creatives:** Written by Abi Morgan. Produced by Sister. Starring Sarah Lancashire. Announced at Netflix UK Upfronts.

*Sources: [4]*

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### Medical Thriller

**Beat the Reaper — Apple TV+**
*Status: In Casting*

J.K. Simmons has joined Will Poulter in Apple TV+'s Beat the Reaper, based on Josh Bazell's cult novel. Poulter plays Dr. Peter Brown, a hospital intern with a talent for medicine and a dangerous past — when a patient recognizes him, he has eight hours to outrun the mob, government agents, and his own history. Simmons plays an incompetent surgeon at the same hospital. Tim Van Patten (Boardwalk Empire, Masters of the Air) directs the pilot.

**Theme:** The hospital procedural turned inside out — a doctor whose survival instincts come not from medical school but from a life he desperately wants to leave behind, with one shift threatening to collapse everything he's built.

**Key creatives:** Showrunner and executive producer: Sam Catlin. Directed by Tim Van Patten. Produced by Apple Studios and New Regency. Arnon Milchan executive produces.

*Sources: [5]*

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### Comedy

**Dig — Peacock**
*Status: Announced*

Amy Poehler and Parks and Recreation co-creator Mike Schur have reunited for Dig, a 10-episode comedy series dropping on Peacock on November 23. Poehler stars as lead archaeologist Elise alongside Hugh Laurie as an obsessive British professor. Four women archaeologists spending a summer at a Greek excavation site make a discovery that rewrites history — and triggers a high-stakes international conspiracy. Schur and his wife J.J. Philbin serve as co-showrunners.

**Theme:** Parks and Rec's civic warmth transplanted to ancient Greece and draped in conspiracy — Poehler's first starring scripted role in nearly a decade, doing what she does best: finding human comedy inside systems that have stopped making sense.

**Key creatives:** Created by Amy Poehler and Mike Schur. Co-showrunners: Mike Schur and J.J. Philbin. Stars Poehler, Hugh Laurie, Geraldine Viswanathan, and Antonia Thomas. Premieres November 23 on Peacock.

*Sources: [6]*

---

### Workplace Comedy

**New Money — Prime Video**
*Status: Greenlit*

Prime Video has ordered New Money, a half-hour workplace comedy set in the world of private equity, created by and starring Mekki Leeper (Jury Duty). The show follows a trust-fund baby-turned-(self-proclaimed)-mogul and his staff of misguided wannabes at Southern California's least successful venture capital firm. Joe Mande (Hacks, The Running Point) co-showruns. The series originated as a self-financed pilot called Fintech that Leeper took directly to buyers.

**Theme:** Finance-world satire from the bottom up — not the Masters of the Universe but the people failing upward beneath them, operating on delusion and parental wealth in a sector that rewards exactly that combination.

**Key creatives:** Created by, written by, and starring Mekki Leeper. Joe Mande serves as co-showrunner and executive producer. Rob Mac executive produces. Produced by Amazon MGM Studios.

*Sources: [7]*

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### Spy Thriller

**The Parsifal Mosaic — Hulu**
*Status: Developing*

Hulu is developing The Parsifal Mosaic, a drama series based on Robert Ludlum's bestselling Cold War espionage novel. Sam Worthington and Sofia Carson star and executive produce. Worthington plays CIA field operative Michael Havelock, ready to leave the game — until he discovers his partner and secret love Jenna Karas (Carson) has betrayed him, unravelling a global conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of power. Written by Wes Tooke. Produced by Legendary Entertainment.

**Theme:** The Ludlum tradition — the lone operative who discovers the conspiracy runs deeper than the agency, the government, and the people who sent him — updated for a streaming era that can finally do justice to the novel's scope.

**Key creatives:** Written by Wes Tooke. Starring and executive produced by Sam Worthington and Sofia Carson. Produced by Legendary Entertainment.

*Sources: [8]*

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## Citations

[1] ['The Last Of Us' Casts John Goodman, Ian Alexander & Laura Bailey For Season 3](https://deadline.com/2026/09/the-last-of-us-season-3-john-goodman-cast-1237114224/)
[2] [Susan Sarandon & Olivia Colman Join Ronan Bennett's 'Army Of Shadows', Filming Underway](https://deadline.com/2026/09/susan-sarandon-olivia-colman-join-army-of-shadows-1237110005/)
[3] [Jensen Ackles To Star In 'Rules Of Prey' Crime Thriller Series Ordered By MGM+](https://deadline.com/2026/09/jensen-ackles-rules-of-prey-series-mgm-plus-1237108451/)
[4] ['Happy Valley' Star Sarah Lancashire Leading Dark Netflix Series About A Modern-Day Witch Hunt](https://deadline.com/2026/09/netflix-sarah-lancashire-witch-hunt-abi-morgan-sister-1237112445/)
[5] [J.K. Simmons Joins Will Poulter In Apple TV's 'Beat The Reaper'](https://deadline.com/2026/09/j-k-simmons-cast-apple-tv-beat-the-reaper-1237109776/)
[6] [Peacock Quietly Ordered the Most Ambitious Comedy of the Fall](https://collider.com/peacock-dig-show-amy-poehler-hugh-laurie-excavations-book/)
[7] [Mekki Leeper Workplace Comedy 'New Money' Ordered To Series By Prime Video](https://deadline.com/2026/09/mekki-leeper-new-money-ordered-to-series-prime-video-1237112818/)
[8] [Sam Worthington & Sofia Carson To Star In 'The Parsifal Mosaic' At Hulu](https://deadline.com/2026/09/sam-worthington-sofia-carson-the-parsifal-mosaic-hulu-1237112897/)

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