Starz’s upcoming TV spinoff of the 2018 film “Blindspotting” added four to its main cast to star alongside Jasmine Cephas Jones, who reprises her role from the film.
Recording artist Benjamin Earl Turner, Atticus Woodward (“Shameless”), Jaylen Barron (“Free Rein,” “Shameless”) and Candace Nicholas-Lippman fill out the main cast. Production started today in Oakland.
Cephas Jones starred as Ashley in film, which was distributed by Starz’s parent company Lionsgate. The film’s co-stars and co-writers Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal will write and executive produce the TV adaptation. Casal will serve as showrunner, as well as return as Miles in a recurring role. In addition to starring in the show, Cephas also serves as a producer. Seith Mann will executive produce and direct the first two episodes.
Ashley was Miles’ partner in the film. Starz’s TV spinoff will follow Ashley, following Miles’ sudden incarceration, as she is forced to move in with Miles’ mother and half-sister.
“Diggs and I are thrilled to continue our partnership with Lionsgate by expanding the ‘Blindspotting’ world as a series on Starz,” Rafael Casal said. “This story, the incredible cast and the production are a dream. We are making the kind of show we have long hoped to see on television, centered around just some of the amazing kinds of characters the Bay Area has to offer.”
Lionsgate Television will produce the half-hour dramedy.
The 2018 film centered on Collin (Diggs) who needs to make it through his last three days of probation for a chance at a new start, but his fast-talking childhood friend, Miles (Casal), is a magnet for trouble. When Collin’s final countdown is interrupted by a life-changing missed curfew, their friendship is forced out of its comfortable buddy-comedy existence and onto a spiraling collision course.
Jess Wu Calder and Keith Calder of Snoot Entertainment, reunite with Casal and Diggs as executive producers on the series after the quartet spent almost a decade working to bring the feature film to life. Also serving as executive producers are Emily Gerson Saines, Ken Lee, and Tim Palen of Barnyard Projects.