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That was fast.
After news broke that Saturday Night Live cast members Jay Pharoah and Taran Killam wouldn’t be returning to the late-night program after each had spent six seasons as part of the cast, both have landed pilots at Showtime, said Showtime President and CEO David Nevins at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Thursday.
“Our conversations had been with the actors, and it’s been happening over the last several weeks, probably over a month individually. We were prepared to work around their SNL schedules ... but our scheduling got easier when they ended up getting released from the show,” said Nevins.
Pharoah is starring in half-hour comedy White Famous, which is written and produced by Oscar winner-Jamie Foxx along with Californication showrummer Tom Kapinos. Pharoah will play a talented, young African-American comedian whose star is rising so fast that he’s verging on becoming “white famous.”
Killam will star in another half-hour comedy, Mating, executive produced by Friday Night Lights’ and Parenthood’s Jason Katim. Killam will star as a man who married young and is now divorced and completely unprepared for the new world of online dating. The show is intended as an anthology, with each season focusing on a different main character.
Nevins and Gary Levine, Showtime’s president of programming, also said that they were in conversations with Stephen Colbert, host of Showtime sister network CBS’ The Late Show, about hosting a live comedy special on Showtime on Election Night.
“We’re working very hard to do that, which would be excellent. I think you don’t just want to watch CNN and Fox News and MSNBC. Watch Showtime on election night and Colbert will tell you who won Pennsylvania and Iowa. That sounds fun, right?” said Nevins. “Stephen wants to do it. I want to do it. The studio wants to do it. So the thought is doing a live special and it will be Colbert unfettered. He’s promised he will say at least a couple curse words, which is important to me.”
In drama news, Showtime has renewed Billions, starring Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti, for season two, returning Sunday, Feb. 19 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Ray Donovan, starring Emmy-nominated Liev Schreiber and Emmy-winner Jon Voight, will return for season five, likely next summer although no premiere date was announced. The show will go into production next year. Ray Donovan was up by double-digits when it returned over the summer, said Nevins.
Multiple Emmy-winner Homeland, starring Claire Danes, is renewed for seasons six through eight and will return on Sunday, January 15, 2017, at 9 p.m. That’s a little later than usual, having come back in October for past couple of seasons. In season six, the show returns to American soil, after having spent season four in Pakistan and season five in Berlin.
Political docu-series The Circus—created, starring and produced by political journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann—will return to Showtime on Sunday, Sept. 11, in time to follow the presidential and vice presidential debates.
Sticking with docu-series, Showtime will premiere One & Done, following top NBA draft pick Ben Simmons, on Friday, Oct. 21, just days before the start of the NBA season. Simmons will start his career with the Philadelphia 76ers this fall.
Showtime also will debut documentary film Zero Days, from Oscar-winner Alex Gibney, on Saturday, Nov. 19. Zero Days tells the story of Stuxnet, a self-replicating malware that the U.S. and Israel unleashed on Iran in a bid to destroy the country’s nascent nuclear program, opening the Pandora’s Box of cyber warfare.
Below is the trailer for One & Done:
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