TVLine Items: Lifetime’s Gabby Petito Movie, Percy Jackson Casting and More
Thora Birch is taking on The Gabby Petito Story (working title) for Lifetime.
The actress will make her directorial debut with the movie, in addition to playing Gabby’s mom, Nichole Schmidt, our sister site Deadline reports.
The movie — premiering later this year as the anniversary of Gabby’s disappearance and murder approaches this fall — will explore Gabby and her fiancé Brian Laundrie’s “complicated relationship and what may have gone wrong during their cross-country trip that resulted in Gabby’s tragic murder.”
Birch is best known for her roles in the films Ghost World, Hocus Pocus and American Beauty. On the TV side, she recurred on The Walking Dead as Gamma/Mary.
Ready for some more recent newsy nuggets? Well…
* Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series has cast Aryan Simhadri (Disney’s Spin) and Leah Sava Jeffries (Empire) as Percy’s (Walker Scobell) friends Grover and Annabeth, respectively.
* The syndicated talker The Steve Wilkos Show has been renewed for Season 16.
* Taraji P. Henson will return as host of the BET Awards, airing live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 26 at 8 pm ET (and tape-delayed PT).
* The Voice‘s Blake Shelton and Carson Daly will star in and exec-produce the celebrity game show Barmageddon for USA Network. Hosted by Nikki Bella, each episode finds two celebs competing in a series of bar games (in Shelton’s Nashville-based bar, Ole Red) to win a prize for a viral Internet sensation each has chosen to support.
* Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman will return for Season 4 on Friday, May 20, with guests Cardi B, Kevin Durant, Billie Eilish, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ryan Reynolds and Will Smith. (All episodes were filmed prior to March 2022, in case you’re wondering.)
* Prime Video has released a teaser trailer for the YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty, featuring the debut of Taylor Swift’s “This Love (Taylor’s Version).” The show premieres with all episodes on Friday, June 17.
Which of today’s TVLine Items pique your interest?
Good casting for Annabeth.
Leah Sava Jeffries is a talented young actress. Looking forward to this series, another family friendly show to watch with my daughter.
I really enjoy David Letterman’s Netflix show. He does it differently than other interviewers (although Covid may have changed it some) and he goes into interesting directions.
30+ years later. They’re still making these TV movies without family input. And yet I still watch.