Tony Gonzalez Signs with United Talent Agency

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Tony Gonzalez has new representation…

The 48-year-old part-Mexican American former American football tight end and Pro Football Hall of Famer has signed with United Talent Agency (UTA).

Gonzalez will continue to represented by SMAC Entertainment and Jill Fritzo PR.

Gonzalez is considered one of the greatest tight ends in National Football League (NFL) history. He played in the league for 17 seasons, primarily for the Kansas City Chiefs and then for the Atlanta Falcons for his final five seasons in the league. He’s the NFL’s all-time-leader in touchdowns and yards by a tight end as well as consecutive starts and Pro Bowl appearances by a tight end.

After retiring in 2013, he began working as an analyst for The NFL Today and other NFL programming at CBS. He currently co-hosts Thursday Night Football for Amazon Prime Video.

Gonzalez has branched out into acting in recent years. He’ll guest star in the seventh episode of Season 6 of the CBS comedy series The Neighborhood. He will appear in the episode as Derrick, Calvin’s (Cedric the Entertainer) new physical therapist. Season 6 of the series launched on February 12 after being delayed due to the double writers’ and actors’ strikes.

He also appeared in the Amazon film The Underdoggs opposite Snoop Dogg and Tika Sumpter, the Paramount+ film Fantasy Football, and the Spectrum Originals drama series Long Slow Exhale.

His other credits include XXX: The Return of Xander Cage and multiple episodes of NCIS.

Gonzalez is active in philanthropy as well, working with organizations such as Boys and Girls Clubs, Shadow Buddies, Scholars’ Hope and Give Power.

Justina Machado to Star in Netflix’s First Original Medical Procedural “Pulse”

Posted on March 1, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Justina Machado’s pulse is on the rise…

The 51-year-old Puerto Rican actress has been cast as the first series regular on Pulse, Netflix’s first medical procedural original.

Hailing from first-time creator Zoe Robyn, who serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside veteran.

The show’s first two episodes will be directed and executive produced by Kate Dennis.

Pulse will feature a mix of medical cases and office romances. In it, while the staff of Miami’s busiest Level 1 Trauma Center navigate medical emergencies, young ER doc Dani Simms is unexpectedly promoted to Chief Resident amidst the fallout of her own provocative romantic relationship.

Machado plays Natalie Cruz, a brilliant and politically-savvy doctor, who oversees both administration and medicine in her role as the Chair of Surgery and Emergency Medicine.

Bradley Gardner, Emma Forman and Michael Klick also executive produce the series, which is slated to begin production in March in Albuquerque.

The greenlight for Pulse comes after Robyn and Cuse worked with a writers room last year to craft scripts.

Machado recently starred in the Amazon/Blumhouse series The Horror Of Dolores Roach based on the popular Spotify podcast of the same name.

She previously headlined Netflix/Pop’s acclaimed One Day At a Time reboot and recently guest starred on NBC’s Lopez vs. Lopez.

Machado will next star in the independent feature The Throwback from director Mario Garcia.

Diego Boneta to Star in “El Gato,” Based on Richard Dominguez’s Comic Book Series “El Gato Negro”

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Diego Boneta has landed a purr-fect role…

The 33-year-old will lead the newly greenlit bilingual series El Gato (working title), based on the comic book series El Gato Negro by Richard Dominguez.

Production is expected to begin this spring in Mexico.

Boneta was previously attached to a project based on the same comic book titled El Gato Negro: Nocturnal Warrior from MGM Television and Mark Burnett in 2019 that stalled.

In El Gato, Boneta will play Frank Guerrero, the black sheep of his family, who finds himself at the center of a vast conspiracy when he discovers his father was the titular ‘70s vigilante. Frank, who returns home to Mexico after the death of his father and finds himself neck-deep in a nest of vipers – his estranged family – who are vying for control of his father’s business empire.

But Frank’s grief is interrupted when he learns his only inheritance, a seemingly worthless parcel of land on the border, sits atop the lair of a famous costumed vigilante. His father was “El Gato.” Now, Frank is in the crosshairs. To survive, he’ll have to solve mysteries decades in the making and unravel the truth about his father’s connections to a modern-day terror plot.

Eric Carrasco created the series and will showrun and executive produce along with co-showrunners Turi Meyer and Alfredo Septién.

“This is a pulp thriller,” Carrasco said in a statement. “It’s a family drama, it’s everything I love about spies and masks and secret identities. A lot of us on this team – Diego, Andrew Mittman, Steve Stark and Carla Gonzalez Vargas, and I – have been at this for a long time now, and it’s a genuine thrill to finally make the show with MGM Television and Prime Video.”

“Sharing El Gato with audiences around the world is a dream come true,” Boneta shared. “This has been a passion of mine since I started Three Amigos. Eric Carrasco and the entire team have built a character and universe that honors the superhero genre and still feels completely epic and original. It is an absolute honor to play Frank and produce this with my amazing partners at Amazon, MGM, and all other producers on this epic story. Get ready for a wild ride.”

In addition to Carrasco, the series is executive produced by Boneta, Meyer, Septién, Steve Stark of Toluca Pictures, Mittman of 1.21, and Gonzalez Vargas; and co-executive produced by Kai Dolbashian, Marilu G. Carranza and Joel Novoa–Schneider. The series is being produced by MGM Television, a division of Amazon MGM Studios.

Boneta and his company Three Amigos, under an overall deal with Prime Video, are currently in production on the upcoming film Follow, directed by Gonzalo Tobal and starring Boneta and Martha Higareda for Prime Video. This is the first project under Three Amigos’ overall deal with Prime Video.

Last year, Boneta starred in two limited series for Prime Video – Stanley, directed by Beto Hinojosa and La Liberación directed by Alejandra Márquez Abella.

Raúl Castillo to Star in Paramount‘s “Smile” Sequel

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Raúl Castillo has a new reason to smile…

The 46-year-old Mexican American actor has been cast in Paramount‘s Smile sequel.

Castillo is among a list of new cast additions that includes Miles Gutierrez-Riley, who starred in The Wilds.

The film’s plot and character details are being kept under wraps.

The duo joins the previously announced cast: Naomi Scott, Lukas Gage, Kyle Gallner, Rosemarie DeWitt and Dylan Gelula.

Smile writer and director returns for the second installment to again direct from his own script, with Temple Hill producing.

Smile 2 is currently slated for release on October 18, 2024, when it will go up against a still-unnamed title from Universal Pictures.

Going on to gross over $217M in theaters, even if it was initially set up for release on Paramount+, Smile was one of the great, unexpected box office successes of 2022. One of several original studio horror films of late to expand into a franchise, it tells the story of Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), a psychiatrist who becomes increasingly convinced she is being threatened by an uncanny entity, after witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient.

Castillo most recently starred in the Amazon film Cassandro opposite Gael Garia Bernal. He’s set to appear in HBO‘s Mark Ruffalo-led series, the Untitled Brad Ingelsby Task Force Project (w/t), currently in pre-production.

Prior television credits also include HBO’s Looking, Starz’s Vida and Netflix’s Atypical to name a few; Army of the Dead, Cha Cha Real Smooth, Knives Out and We The Animals are among his film credits.

Gutierrez-Riley made his TV debut in the second season of Prime Video’s The Wilds, where he portrayed Ivan. In September 2022, Miles he starred in Paramount’s film adaptation of On The Come Up, which made its world premiere on the opening night of TIFF. Next up, he will star opposite Corey Fogelman in Tommy Dorfman’s directorial debut I Wish You All the Best, premiering at SXSW in March. It has also been announced that Gutierrez-Riley will star in Disney+’s WandaVision spinoff, Agatha: Darkhold Diaries.

Laz Alonso Signs with Independent Artist Group for Representation

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Laz Alonso is going independent…

Independent Artist Group has signed the 49-year-old Afro-Cuban American actor for representation.

Alonso is best known for starring on the hit Amazon series The Boys, centering on vigilantes’ efforts to take down a group of corrupt superheroes, which returns for its fourth season this year.

On the show developed by Eric Kripke from the same-name comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, Alonso portrays the vigilante Mother’s Milk, sharing the screen with Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty and more.

He’s also currently voicing the title character on Netflix’s animated series My Dad the Bounty Hunter,.

Alonso’s past television credits include A&E’s cult hit Breakout Kings, Starz’s Power Book II: Ghost, TNT’s Southland, NBC’s Deception and The Mysteries Of Laura and Spectrum Originals’ L.A.’s Finest.

On the film side, he’s been seen portraying the villain Fenix opposite Vin Diesel in multiple Fast & Furious titles, also appearing in James Cameron’s Avatar. Other notable big screen credits include the Jason Statham action thriller Wrath of Man, Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit, Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna, Stomp the Yard, Jarhead and Constantine.

Additionally, Alonso has executive-produced titles including Alan Jacobs’ TIFF drama Down for Life, in which he starred alongside Danny Glover, and the indie thriller Detained co-starring Abbie Cornish. He heads up the production company Abundancia Pictures as CEO and continues to be represented by Authentic Talent and Literary Management and attorney Rick Genow at Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.

Wilmer Valderrama’s Allied Management Group Signs a Slew of Latino Writers

Posted on February 8, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Wilmer Valderrama is giving up-and-coming Latino writers their big break…

The 44-year-old Venezuelan & Colombian American actor’s Allied Management Group, which he set up with John Pollak, has signed a number of Latino writers to its roster.

The company has signed Luisa Leschin, Raphael Draccon & Carolina Munhóz, The Original Content Society’s Raúl Campos and Felix de Valdivia, and Daniel and Diego Ayala López.

The goal is for Allied to bring these Latino writers to networks, streamers and studios in the U.S English-language market.

Leschin has worked on nearly 500 episodes of television including Netflix’s Gentefied, where she was a co-exec producer on its second season, Max’s Head of the Class, where she was a co-EP and Hulu’s East Los High. She has also worked on series including Everybody Hates Chris and The George Lopez Show.

Draccon and Munhóz are a husband-and-wife writing team who showran The Chosen One and Invisible City for Netflix and have a first-look deal with Warner Bros. Discovery LatAm to work with Max. They have also written comic books for both Marvel and DC

Campos and de Valdivia are brothers, born in Mexico, who run The Original Content Society. They created, wrote, directed and produced the first YouTube Original sitcom in Latin America – Sobrevivi – as well as Spotify’s first original comedy series, El Grupo, and are co-exec producers for the third and fourth seasons of Amazon’s LOL starring Eugenio Derbez. In addition to producing and directing 24 Netflix comedy specials, they have a first look deal with ITV America, where they are developing an international comedy series called Güerita.

Daniel and Diego Ayala López, born in Colombia were behind Amazon series Manes, which was the most-watched series for Amazon Colombia, and Los Billis. They have worked with Colombia’s Caracol and are currently developing a number of projects with U.S. studios and production companies.

“These writers are currently helping to define the future of Latino story telling by creating universal stories that aren’t defined by borders or language, but instead reflect the modern content experience- groundbreaking storytelling that can be consumed by viewers in a global market,” said Pollak and Valderrama. “As the need for fresh stories and unique points of view continue to be the priority for Hollywood, these writers will lead the charge and redefine how premium content is created and Allied Mgmt Group is honored to be working alongside them.”

Jennifer Lopez Releases Official Music Video for “Can’t Get Enough” Remix Featuring Latto

Posted on January 30, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Jennifer Lopez just can’t get enough of her latest single…

The 54-year-old Puerto Rican superstar has released the summer-ready video for her remix of “Can’t Get Enough.”

The new visual cooked up by JLo and director Tanu Muiño for the bouncy first single from the singer/actress’ upcoming This Is Me… Now album features a guest verse from Latto, with both women taking it to the street in the dance-heavy clip.

In keeping with the narrative arc about love addiction in Lopez’s upcoming This Is Me… Now: A Love Story Amazon original film, the new video opens with Lopez getting harassed by a group of sharply dressed reporters bombarding her with probing questions. “’What are you chasing?’,” one asks, while another wonders, “‘What’s it all about?,’” and a third inquiring mind shouts, “‘Jennifer, what really matters to you?’”

Lopez’s answer, of course, is “Love.”

Cue the track and Lopez writhing in a gauzy white robe on a bed — with a killer view of the city through her giant picture windows — as she stares lustily into a mirror. The camera then follows Lopez outside, where she walks confidently onto a city street, loses her tan jacket and struts through the middle of traffic. This, naturally, leads to a literal Jenny From the Block dance routine, with Lopez and an impromptu group of male dancers busting moves in an intersection.

Lopez then slips under a dinner table on a night out with her man, crawling across the floor sensually while also walking toward Latto on a soundstage, with both women dressed in deep red, body-hugging dresses. “Call the doctor, I don’t see nobody but you/ Do I still love you? Baby, is the sky blue?/ Spoil a b–ch down and he faithful to me too/ You know you the reason why they hatin’ on me, boo,” Latto raps as Lopez rubs up on her.

The rest of the video appears to compile footage from the short film, much of it consisting of Lopez in various thong-baring outfits, including a sure-to-be-GIFFed sequence in which she takes an outdoor shower in a black string bikini for an audience of shirtless hunks floating in a reflecting pool.

The original version of “Can’t Get Enough” was released on January 10 as the first taste of Lopez’s long-awaited ninth studio album, which will be released on February 16. An accompanying film directed by Dave Meyers will hit Amazon Prime Video the same day.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro Joins CNN as On-Air Contributor & Panelist

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Lulu Garcia-Navarro is headed to CNN…

The Cuban and Panamanian journalist and podcast host has joined the cable news network as an on-air contributor and panelist on The Chris Wallace Show.

Garcia-Navarro is from The New York Times Magazine, where she is launching a new interview franchise.

She previously worked at NPR as a host and was a longtime international correspondent.

Her coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and her vivid dispatches of the Arab Spring uprisings brought Garcia-Navarro wide acclaim and five awards in 2012, including the Edward R. Murrow and Peabody Awards for her coverage of the Libyan revolt.

Her series on the Amazon rainforest was a Peabody finalist and won an Edward R. Murrow award for best news series.

She has previously appeared on The Chris Wallace Show, which launched in November on Saturday mornings.

She will be part of a rotating group of panelists.

Rolly Romero to Defend WBA 140-Pound Title Against Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz in March

Posted on January 26, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Rolly Romero is going on the defensive…

The 29-year-old Latino boxer has finalized a deal to defend his WBA 140-pound title against Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz on March 30 in Las Vegas, sources tell ESPN.

Romero-Cruz will serve as the co-feature to Tim Tszyu–Keith Thurman, Premier Boxing Champions‘ first PPV as part of its new deal with Amazon‘s Prime Video.

The development comes after Ryan Garcia claimed Wednesday evening on social media that he was fighting Romero on April 20. On Thursday morning after ESPN broke the news of Romero-Cruz, Garcia posted on X that he was “informed the deal was finalizing and it would be announced in the coming days.”

“Obviously that was a lie,” Garcia wrote. “My patience has been tested the last few weeks. … I’ll be looking forward to announcing my next fight. I’m not going to say anything until it’s actually signed and delivered.”

Romero (15-1, 13 KOs) is one of the most outspoken fighters in boxing. He won the title in controversial fashion with a ninth-round TKO victory over Ismael Barroso in May. Barroso dropped Romero in Round 3 and didn’t appear to be in serious trouble when the referee stopped the bout.

Romero, who fights out of Las Vegas, suffered his lone professional defeat in May 2022, a sixth-round TKO defeat to Gervonta Davis.

Cruz (25-2, 17 KOs) will move up to 140 pounds for his first full-fledged title shot. He challenged Davis for a secondary lightweight title in December 2021 and dropped a tightly contested decision.

The Mexico City native has won three bouts since the loss, victories over Yuriorkis Gamboa (TKO 5), Eduardo Ramirez (KO 2) and Giovanni Cabrera (split decision). Cruz hasn’t competed since the win over Cabrera in July.

Rosa Salazar to Star in Amazon MGM Studios Crime Thriller “Play Dirty”

Posted on January 18, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Rosa Salazar is ready to play.

The 38-year-old half-Peruvian American actress will star as the female lead in Play Dirty, Shane Black’s crime thriller for Amazon MGM Studios.

Salazar will star opposite Mark Wahlberg and LaKeith Stanfield in the project.

Details about her role are being kept under wraps.

In Play Dirty, Wahlberg plays professional thief Parker, who after being double-crossed and left for dead, sees his hunt for revenge bring with it a shot at the biggest heist of his career. But even with the help of his partner, actor-slash-con artist Grofield (Stanfield), he’ll still need to outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob and the world’s richest man if he hopes to stay alive.

Based on Donald E. Westlake’s Parker crime fiction novels, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, the film is the first project in a forthcoming Amazon MGM slate based on Westlake’s work, following a pact between the studio and Team Downey in 2022, which will also see titles adapted for television.

Black is directing from his script written with Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi.

Best known for starring in Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel, as well as Undone, an acclaimed rotoscoped series from Amazon, which she also produced, Salazar will next be seen in Captain America: Brave New World, which is due for release in theaters on February 14, 2025.

Previously, she has also been seen in Amazon MGM’s true-life astronaut drama A Million Miles Away, Netflix’s The Kindergarten Teacher, 20th’s Maze Runner franchise, and A24’s Oscar-nominated animated feature Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.

The actress co-produced and starred in Brand New Cherry Flavor for Netflix and will additionally be seen coming up in horror comedy Vampires of the Velvet Lounge.

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