Casting Coups: Peter Dinklage, Amy Adams, Ben Stiller, 'Legally Blonde' and 'Dexter'

Good morning. They’re really trying to ensure that Dexter: Resurrection is a hit over on Paramount+/Showtime, bringing in Peter Dinklage as a series regular. He’ll play Leon Prater, a billionaire venture capitalist—which already sounds like a serial killer to me. He joins Uma Thurman, who was cast a few weeks ago as the head of security for Dinklage’s character.

This is fun. Ben Stiller, in between seasons of directing Severance, will return to acting in a music industry dramedy called The Band, where he’ll play a Simon Cowell-like figure. Like Cowell, his character will be assembling a band. It’s currently being pitched to HBO.

I don’t know enough about The Big Bang Theory to have any idea who John Ross Bowie’s character — a plasma physicist named Barry Kripke — even is. But that character is getting a Big Bang Theory spin-off from Chuck Lorre, which will also star Kevin Sussman (Stuart Bloom), Brian Posehn (Bert Kibbler), and Lauren Lapkus (Denise), all of whom were on the original series. I’m happy for those actors, who will now have steady paychecks. That’s the nicest thing I can offer about this project.

Amy Adams, who has not had great success in the film world of late, is heading back to television, where she thrived in Sharp Objects (where is Gillian Flynn, anyway?). Adams will star opposite Javier Bardem in a Cape Fear remake for TV, which sounds … you know what? Honestly, not that appealing. I liked the movie, but I can’t imagine stretching it out over eight or ten episodes. I do like Bardem and Adams, though. With Nick Antosca, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg behind it as producers, it’s described as a tense, Hitchcockian thriller and an examination of America’s obsession with true crime. That does sound appealing! But I’m still skeptical.

Lexi Minetree (left) and Madison Wolfe (right) have emerged as the two finalists to play Elle Woods in the Legally Blonde television series. Minetree is from Tubi’s Hot Take: Murdaugh Murders, and Wolfe is from The Mayfair Witches, among others. The series is being developed by Amazon MGM and produced by Reese Witherspoon.

HBO is putting together another Silicon Valley series set “amid misguided corporate cultures, moony innovation labs, and cutthroat private high schools.” The cast is coming together nicely, too. Sarah Goldberg of Barry fame and Billy Magnussen — a B-movie type of actor who is awesome in everything he’s in — have joined the cast so far. Magnussen will play an “‘inventor of the future’ tech CEO,” while Goldberg will play his “performance psychologist” after a scandal erupts due to a data breach.

Finally, Sean Bean has joined the cast of MGM+’s Robin Hood series as the Sheriff of Nottingham, which means he will not die in the first episode. Probably. Good for him. (Our Sean Bean death reel from 13 years ago is still up on YouTube! We miss you, Harry Hanrahan.) Bean will star opposite Jack Patten, who will play Robin Hood. The catch? Nottingham isn’t actually evil — he just believes in the rule of law. So, it’s clearly a fantasy series.