A Florida Drama With Moral Dilemmas 

Edgar Ramirez is making his mark on Netflix. The billion-dollar streaming site has ordered the new series Florida Man, created by Donald Todd and starring Ramirez.  

The eight-episode series, described in the same vein as Body Heat and Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight, revolves around a struggling ex-cop who returns to his home state of Florida to find a Philly mobster’s runaway girlfriend. His gig becomes a spiraling journey into buried family secrets and moral dilemmas about wrong and right.

Ramirez currently stars in Netflix’s Yes Day alongside Jenna Ortega and Jennifer Garner. The Venezuelan actor recently starred in HBO’s The Undoing as detective Joe Mendoza. His upcoming credits include Borderlands by Eli Roth and Disney’s Jungle Cruise where he’ll join stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. The actor has also joined Universal’s spy thriller 355. He has been nominated for the Golden Globe twice for his performances in Carlos and American Crime Story. Todd, who will serve as an exec-producer and showrunner of the hour-long drama, is known for creating the Christina Applegate comedy series Samatha Who? for ABC. He has won a Writers Guild Award for his work on Ugly Betty and has been nominated for an Emmy, Writers Guild Award and Golden Globe for This Is Us.

Jason Bateman and Michael Costigan are exec-producing for Aggregate under their first-look deal at the streaming service.

A New, Modern Fantasy Island

Roselyn Sanchez is set to star in Fox’s update of Fantasy Island.

The straight-to-series drama is a modern update of the former ABC entry that takes place at a luxury resort where literally any fantasy requested by guests is fulfilled, though it always comes with a twist. Each episode will tell emotional, provocative stories about people who arrive with dreams and desires and depart enlightened and transformed through the magical realism of Fantasy Island.

The Grand Hotel and Devious Maids alum will play a descendant of Ricardo Montalban‘s Mr. Roarke. Sanchez’s Elena Roarke is described as a woman who set aside her own ambitions and the love of her life to uphold her family’s legacy. Sophisticated, insightful and always charming, Elena’s calm exterior masks the challenges of the responsibilities she has assumed as a steward of this mysterious island.

Sanchez toplines a cast that also includes John Gabriel Rodriquez (Rosewood) as pilot Javier, who also is the head of island transportation and a jack of all trades, and Kiara Barnes (The Bold and the Beautiful) as Ruby Okoro, a young woman with an old soul who arrives on Fantasy Island with a terminal illness and is given a new lease on life there.

The Puerto Rican actress’s film credits include Rush Hour 2, Boat Trip, The Game Plan and Act of Valor. Sanchez is also known as a singer-songwriter and was nominated for a Latin Grammy for her single “Amor Amor” in 2003. She first grew to international fame after she won the title of Miss American Petite in 1993. 

Production on the new Fantasy Island is already underway in Puerto Rico. The new take is exec produced by Liz Craft and Sarah Fain (The Shield). Sony Pictures TV, Gemstone Studios and Fox Entertainment are the studios on the co-production.

All seven seasons of the original Fantasy Island and the late ’90s reboot are available on Fox’s free-streaming platform Tubi, allowing viewers to familiarize themselves with the predecessor before the new series airs on August 10.

Sanchez is repped by APA, Alchemy Entertainment and Hirsch Wallerstein. 

Another Showrunner Joins Popular HBO Series

Natalie Chaidez is boarding the extended HBO Max drama The Flight Attendant. 

Chaidez will serve as co-showrunner alongside Steve Yockey for the second season of the drama series starring Kaley Cuoco. The Flight Attendant was initially intended to be only a limited series but it was expanded due to its popularity.

Natalie Chaidez, who was previously exec producer of USA Network’s Queen of the South, is joining the series as co-showrunner alongside Steve Yockey for its second season.

She will exec produce alongside showrunner Yockey, Cuoco, Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter. 

There are other changes. Meredith Lavender and Marcie Ulin, who were co-showrunners of season one, will depart.

The series, based on the book of the same name by author Chris Bohjalian, centers on alcoholic, globe-trotting flight attendant Cassie Bowen (Cuoco) who get caught in the middle of an espionage plot following her affair with a first-class passenger that winds up murdered after their night together.

The series has rated relatively highly amongst critics holding a 7.1 score on IMDb and 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

The series also stars Michiel Huisman, Rosie Perez, Zosia Mamet, Michelle Gomez, T.R. Knight, Colin Woodell, Merle Dandridge, Griffin Matthews and Nolan Gerard Funk.

It is produced by Warner Bros. Television, Cuoco’s Yes, Norman Productions, and Berlanti Productions. Norman’s Suzanne McCormack is co-executive producer.

Chaidez is a veteran creator, executive producer and showrunner who works in both television and features. She exec produced and wrote Queen of the South, created and executive produced Syfy drama Hunters and wrote and produced series including 12 Monkeys, In Plain Sight, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Heroes.

The L.A. native is of Mexican descent and a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles’ School of Theater, Film and Television. 

She recently signed with CAA for representation in all areas and continues to be represented by Susan Solomon at Circle of Confusion.

The post Spotlight: Edgar Ramirez, Roselyn Sanchez and Natalie Chaidez first appeared on .

Written by Roberto Leal

Dateline: San Antonio, Texas

Speaking of island…

Yesterday, I was having lunch at the Sea Island Restaurant with a group of friends. I asked one of them, Millennial Millie, if she remembered the old TV show, Fantasy Island. She looked at me with that puzzled look that so many of her generation get whenever asked a historical or cultural reference question that goes back more than five years.

Well, old geezers like me, certainly remember Fantasy Island, the TV show, with Latino Legend, Ricardo Montalban, and his diminutive sidekick, Hervé Villechaize. Every Saturday from 1977 to 1984, Montalban, as Mr. Roarke, and Villechaize, as Tattoo would greet a plane load of guests to the resort island with Tattoo announcing their arrival by ringing the bell, pointing to the sky and proclaiming: “Ze plane. Ze plane.”

Then it dawned on me. Millennial Millie was born in 1984, so, of course, the iconic TV show never crossed her cultural radar screen or Smart Phone. But I was looking forward to the movie remake, which premiered today. My interest was piqued by a recent GQ Magazine article hailing the Sony Picture and Blumhouse production remake as “2020’s First Great Horror Movie.” Blumhouse is the studio that made us wet our collective movie-going pants with two recent horror hits: Us and Get Out. 

Fantasy Island  director, Jeff Wadlow had previously teamed up with writers, Jillian Jackson and Chris Roach on 2019’s Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, a spooky offering with a similar motif as this re-incarnation of Fantasy Island: a seemingly harmless and promising beginning turns horribly bad for the unsuspecting participants. Wadlow also directed the TV series, Bates Motel, so this creative team knows from scary.

But what about Mr. Roarke?

Michael Peña has been given the difficult task of resurrecting one of TV’s most memorable, enigmatic and mysterious TV characters: Mr. Roarke. For me, one of the most enduring mysteries about Mr. Roarke, was how the character, as played by Montalban, the suave, courtly Mexican with the cultured accent wound up with an Irish last name, running a resort for dreamers on a remote, tropical island. 

But Peña proves to be a good choice. The son of Mexican immigrants, Peña’s Mr. Roarke, retains that aura of mystery, but in a younger, cooler, hipper persona. Peña has an extensive and impressive filmography. I especially liked him in War on Everyone, (2016).

In a YouTube interview, Peña reflected on the challenge of playing Mr. Roarke and his approach to the part.

Back in the misty, prehistoric TV days of yore, Mr. Roarke would grant the guests their fantasies, with a price, of course. The episodes were frequently morality plays. The price of those fantasies was often a dark, unhappy ending for the guests.

However, in this updated rendition of Fantasy Island, Mr. Roarke grants each of the guests one fantasy, but they must follow the rules of the island. They must pursue their fantasy, no matter where they lead, to its logical conclusion. But when the fantasies inevitably turn into nightmares, the guests must solve the island’s mystery in order to escape with their lives.

The story follows the various fantasies as each one grows darker and creepier. Things start to get confusing as the fantasies overlap with each other and wind up merging. Eventually, after a series of hair-raising, often violent, sequences, the fantasies, in the end, reach a logical conclusion, with a surprise twist.

Fantasy Island is a fast-paced, action, adventure, horror, thriller, laced with moments of humor. The youthful, attractive cast headed by Peña, along with Lucy Hale, Maggie Q. and Portia Doubleday, will appeal to those younger movie-goers who don’t remember the original TV show.

So, to Millennial Millie: “Welcome to Fantasy Island“. To my fellow, aging, creaky, sometimes cranky, Baby Boomers, who loved the TV show: Welcome Back to Fantasy Island. But be careful what you wish for, in this version of Fantasy Island, you arrive on a plane, but you could leave in a body bag.

FANTASY ISLAND

Sony Pictures / Blumhouse

Rated PG-13

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Screenwriters: Jillian Jackson, Chris roach

FULL CAST

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