Tag Archives: Twisted Metal

Rudy Valdez Signs with Inspire Entertainment

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Rudy Valdez is under new management…

The Latino Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker  has signed with Inspire Entertainment for management.

Rudy ValdezMost recently, Valdez served as director, executive producer and cinematographer of the six-part docuseries Choir for Disney+, as well as Carlos, the Carlos Santana doc from Sony Pictures Classics and Imagine Documentaries.

Both films were official selections of the 2023 Tribeca Festival, with Carlos earning a 2023 Critics’ Choice Documentary Award nomination for Best Music Documentary.

Valdez’s documentary short Translators, produced in partnership with U.S. Bank, also recently debuted as an official selection of LALIFF and the Tribeca Festival, winning the Tribeca X Award for Best Short Documentary.

The filmmaker’s breakthrough project was The Sentence, the HBO doc marking his directorial debut. Shot over the course of a decade, the film watches as Valdez unpacks the aftermath of his sister Cindy’s 15-year sentence for conspiracy charges related to crimes committed by her deceased ex-boyfriend. Following its world premiere at Sundance 2018, where it won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award, the doc went on to win an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, also securing Valdez a nomination for Best New Director at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.

Valdez is at the helm of Bluff Road Films, an independent production company focused on creating meaningful social, cultural, and political stories while championing equity both on screen and behind the camera.

Currently, the company is teaming with Inspire to produce the feature doc Places, centered on Pacific Northwest artist Ben Joyce and his personal journey to expand his horizons of art, people, and family. In addition to directing, Valdez is producing the pic alongside Jason Spire and Meghan Schale.

Founded in 2002, Inspire Entertainment is also known for its work on the hit Netflix pic Outside the Wire and Peacock/Sony’s video game adaptation Twisted Metal, which is currently prepping to shoot its second season, among other projects.

Diany Rodriguez to Star in “NCIS: Origins,” CBS’ “NCIS” Prequel Series

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Diany Rodriguez has found her origin(s) story…

The Latina actress joined the cast of NCIS: Origins as a series regular.

Diany RodriguezCBS’ prequel to the venerable procedural has a straight-to-series order for the 2024-2025 broadcast season.

In the CBS Studios-produced series, Rodriguez joins previously cast stars Austin Stowell, Mariel Molino and Kyle Schmid, as well as new addition Tyla Abercrumbie.

Executive produced and narrated by Mark Harmon, Origins begins in 1991, years prior to the events of NCIS, and chronicles Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ younger years. In the prequel, Gibbs (Stowell) starts his career as a newly minted special agent at the fledgling NIS Camp Pendleton office where he forges his place on a gritty, ragtag team led by NCIS legend Mike Franks (Schmid).

Rodriguez will portray Special Agent Vera Strickland, a no-nonsense, sharp-witted Brooklynite who’s tough as nails and never minces words. She’s spent her entire career being underestimated by misogynistic morons (as she calls them), but if it’s a fight those good ol’ boys are looking for, then it’s a fight they’re going to get.

Molino plays Special Agent Lala Dominguez.

Mark Harmon and his son Sean Harmon executive produce alongside David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal who are co-writing the premiere episode and serving as co-showrunners. Jason Kennedy, Krysti Baxter and Meredith Goble are the casting directors.

Rodriguez recurred as Weecha Xiu on NBC’s The Blacklist.

Her recent credits include an arc on Peacock’s Twisted Metal and a guest spot on CBS’ drama series The Equalizer.

Stephanie Beatriz to Star in the Sci-Fi Series “The Disco Ball”

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Stephanie Beatriz is heading to the disco…

The 42-year-old Colombian-Bolivian Argentine actress will star in the sci-fi series The Disco Ball.

Stephanie BeatrizBeatriz will star opposite Costa Ronin in the series from online storytelling platform StoryCo, with Halo showrunner Kyle Killen attached.

In the sci-fi-series, Beatriz will play Captain Alma Cooke, who leads a team of astronauts thrust into a journey to save the multiverse. Ronin also stars, with Lionel Boyce, Baron Ryan and Teddy Sears in supporting roles.

The first chapter launches today as the debut project on StoryCo, a collaborative online platform that allows creatives to create multimedia stories and build communities around them.

A multi-chapter arc will unfold over the next several months, with creators from around the world collaborating with Killen and others to expand and build on the story.

The Disco Ball will be produced through in part through ‘Co/Create’ initiatives, where artists, musicians, actors, producers, writers and other creatives are invited to key elements of the story alongside the core team. That work is integrated into the main narrative and rewarded with upfront compensation and a share of future profits through StoryCo’s ‘Profit Points’ system, which rewards meaningful contributions.

So far, the backstory of the antagonist was illustrated by Nigerian art student Okereafor Aanu, a supplementary character was developed by New York high school teacher Aaron Arm, a voice performance is provided by retired Disney Imagineer staffer Roy Berglund and a song that will feature in a later chapter comes from Arizona synth pop duo Fuzzle.

Killen is the writer. He’s known for creating Fox’s Lone Star, NBC’s Awake and ABC’s Mind Games during the 2010s. He also co-wrote the Jodie Foster-directed 2011 film The Beaver and Kevin and Michael Goetz’s Scenic Route.

More recently, he was showrunner and executive producer on Paramount+ sci-fi series Halo, and created Fox pilot The Last Police, which was passed over last year as we revealed at the time. Next year, he’s set to be showrunner on Netflix’s Man on Fire.

“The Disco Ball represents a new way to engage with fictional characters and worlds,” said Killen. “It’s an experience that leans into modern technology and all the powerful ways in which it can seamlessly aid global community, human connection, and the sharing of ideas.”

Beatriz is best known for her work on television in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She has also starred in Twisted Metal and the Disney film Encanto.

Stephanie Beatriz to Star in Peacock’s Live-Action Film Adaptation of “Twisted Metal” Video Game

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Stephanie Beatriz is getting things twisted…

The 41-year-old Colombian and Bolivian American actress will star in Peacock’s Twisted Metal, the live-action video game adaptation starring Anthony Mackie.

Stephanie BeatrizBeatriz will play the character of Quiet, a ferocious, badass car thief who acts purely on instinct – you couldn’t stop her any more than a manhole could stop a volcano. Coming from a community that oppressed her into silence, Quiet’s wish is to find her place in this dark, chaotic world. But when she becomes clouded by her need for revenge, Quiet forms an unlikely, antagonistic bond with John Doe (Mackie).

From Cobra Kai writer Michael Jonathan Smith, Twisted Metal is a half-hour, high-octane action comedy, based on an original take by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick about a motor-mouthed outsider offered a chance at a better life, but only if he can successfully deliver a mysterious package across a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With the help of a trigger-happy car thief, he’ll face savage marauders driving vehicles of destruction and other dangers of the open road, including a deranged clown who drives an all too familiar ice cream truck.

Alongside Mackie and showrunner Smith, executive producers also include Kitao Sakurai—who will also direct multiple episodes—Reese, Wernick, Will Arnett, and Marc Forman via their Electric Avenue production company, Jason Spire of Inspire Entertainment, Peter Principato of Artists First, Asad Qizilbash, and Carter Swan from PlayStation Productions, Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios.

The series is co-produced by Sony Pictures Television, PlayStation Productions, and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.

Beatriz most recently made a splash as the voice of Mirabel in Disney’s Encanto. Prior to that, she starred in Matthew Dunster’s hit theatrical production 2:22 on London’s West End and also played Carla in the Warner Bros. film adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical In The Heights.

Beatriz is best known for playing fan-favorite Detective Rosa Diaz in the NBC comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine throughout the show’s eight-season run.