Oklahoma actor Christian Kane will reunite with his “The Librarians” co-star Noah Wyle in a planned reboot of the cult-favorite TV series “Leverage.”
Deadline reports that Dean Devlin, John Rogers and Chris Downey’s 2008 crime-drama Leverage is coming back with Wyle as the new lead. IMDb TV, Amazon’s free, ad-supported streaming service, has ordered the “Leverage” reimagining.
It marks the first major original series for IMDb TV, whose content team recently moved under the Amazon Studios umbrella.
The reimagining will bring back original “Leverage” cast members Kane, revisiting his role as “Hitter” Eliot Spencer; Beth Riesgraf, reprising her character “Thief” Parker; and Gina Bellman, back as “Grifter” Sophie Devereaux, as series regulars, with Aldis Hodge, who will return as “Hacker” Alec Hardison, in a recurring role.
Hodge’s participation will be subject to his availability from the Showtime series “City on a Hill,” which Deadline notes will likely be filming its Season 2 at the same time as the “Leverage” comeback.
Filming is tentatively slated to begin in late June or early July in Louisiana, following safety protocols to protect the cast and crew from the coronavirus pandemic.
Wyle will be swapped into the “Leverage” lead in place of Timothy Hutton, who recently faced sexual assault allegations, according to Deadline.
For Wyle, the “Leverage” reboot will be a reunion with Rogers and Devlin after the TNT series “The Librarians,” in which he starred alongside with Kane and Rebecca Rebecca Romijn. Before that, Wyle worked with Rogers and Devlin in “The Librarian” telefilm franchise.
Wyle and Kane has excellent chemistry on “The Librarians,” which aired on TNT from 2008 to 2012.
A five-time Emmy nominee, Wyle also will direct two of the 13 episodes of the new “Leverage,” according to Deadline. The original series, which aired from 2008-2012 on TNT, followed a team of reformed criminals who turned their talents to helping everyday people find justice when they were taken advantage of by powerful forces like governments and corporations.
The original series’ executive producer and director, Devlin, of Electric Entertainment, is spearheading the revival. He is executive producing with “Leverage” creators Rogers and Downey returning as consulting producers. Additional executive producers for the reimagining include Marc Roskin, Rachel Olschan-Wilson and Kate Rorick.
“Since the day it was cancelled, I’ve longed to return to the world of ‘Leverage.’ The show, the characters, the cast and the people who made it happen all hold a very special place in my heart,” Devlin said, per Deadline. “Our new series with Amazon Studios and IMDb TV is a re-imagining of the original premise. While ‘Leverage’ centered on a crusade to avenge the death of a child, this series is propelled forward as a redemption story of misdeeds that need amends. I could not be more excited and fired up about returning to the world of Hitter, Hacker, Grifter, Thief!!”
The pickup of the new “Leverage” installment follows the success of the original series on IMDb TV, where it has been a popular title since its July 2019 launch.
As previously reported, this will be the second reunion since “The Librarians” ended for Devlin and Kane, who was born in Dallas and grew up in Norman.
Kane currently stars in Electric Entertainment’s new tropical crime drama series “Almost Paradise,” which has its inaugural season airing at 9 p.m. Mondays on WGN America and streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
“Almost Paradise” stars Kane as Alex Walker, who was the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s top undercover operative until his partner’s betrayal and a life-threatening bout with hypertension forced him into early retirement. Looking for a more relaxed lifestyle, he buys a tiny gift shop on a pristine beach in the Philippines, but the island’s luxury resort draws the rich and powerful, including high-end international criminals. Despite his plans for a less stressful existence, he finds himself fighting crime alongside a pair of local cops (Arthur Acuna and newcomer Samantha Richelle).
“He cast me in ‘Leverage’ and then he wrote the role for me in ‘The Librarians’ – literally wrote the role for me. He had this one in his pocket for about 10 years. He came up with it on his honeymoon and just kind of sat on it for a bit. When he asked me to do ‘The Librarians,’ we had lunch that day, and he asked me, said, ‘You want to do “The Librarians?”‘ and I said, ‘Hell yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Man, I’ve got something else that you’re perfect for, but you’re just not old enough for it yet. You’re too young to play this guy.’ And when ‘The Librarians’ got finished up, he goes, ‘I think you’re ready.’ And we moved right into this, and we were working on it for almost a year before we started filming,” Kane told me in a recent interview.
“We do, we have a really good rapport. And especially with the genre that I love – and especially all the action – I couldn’t ask for a better boss. That’s right up his alley with (the movies) ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Godzilla’ and ‘The Patriot.’ … He just loves blowing stuff up – and I love being there when he does it.”
IMDb TV is available as an app on FireTV and a free channel within the Prime Video and IMDb apps across hundreds of devices. It currently features a range of TV and film library titles and has no direct link to Amazon Prime Video originals, according to Deadline.
-BAM
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