Freeform is switching issues up with its newest TV sequence.
Deadline is reporting that the Jessica Biel-produced thriller Final Summer season, which the cabler ordered final 12 months, has been re-titled Merciless Summer season.
It sounds significantly extra ominous, proper?
To sweeten the deal, Olivia Holt has snagged the lead position in a recasting.
The sequence hails from Bert V. Royal, Jessica Biel, and eOne, with Cloak & Dagger grad Holt added as one of many two lead characters, Kate, “the embodiment of teenage perfection whose life is one to be envied till she mysteriously disappears.”
Mika Abdalla took on the position within the present’s pilot episode.
Merciless Summer season takes place over three summers–’93, ’94, ’95–in a small Texas city when an exquisite common teen, Kate, is kidnapped and, seemingly unrelated, a lady, Jeanette, goes from being a candy, awkward outlier to the most well-liked lady on the town and, by ’95, essentially the most despised particular person in America.
Each-hour episode is advised fom the POV of one of many two most important ladies.
It sounds paying homage to Showtime’s The Affair, which advised occasions from completely different views, with viewers left to surprise who was telling the reality.
It makes for a enjoyable storytelling approach.
The information comes simply days after it was introduced that equally themed drama Shut Up from Learn how to Get Away With Homicide creator Pete Nowalk and Mary Rohlich.
The cabler has been struggling to make lots of its exhibits break by way of in conventional rankings, with Holt’s earlier sequence Cloak & Dagger being canceled regardless of comparatively first rate rankings.
Freeform just lately canceled Party of Five after a single season.
The community has renewed Grown-ish and Good Trouble with the fates of Siren, Motherland: Fort Salem, All the things’s Gonna Be Okay, and The Bold Type nonetheless up within the air.
What are your ideas on the title change and Holt nabbing the lead position?
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Paul Dailly is the Affiliate Editor for TV Fanatic. Comply with him on Twitter.