The slow news cycle has ended – at least for some of the main MacGyver cast who provided us with news over the last few weeks.
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The Abandons with Lucas Till
Filming for Netflix western series The Abandons started May 14 in Calgary. There hasn’t been much BtS material, so let’s check what we know so far (which isn’t much):
- Season 1 has 10 episodes.
- Lucas plays Garret Van Ness. Gillian Anderson plays Constance Van Ness, the matriarch of the wealthy Van Ness family. Aisling Franciosi plays Trisha Van Ness.
- The director of the pilot episode is Otto Bathurst.
- Filming for Season 1 will end mid-October; meaning they have about two weeks per episode.
- The series will premiere on Netflix in 2025.
Showrunner Kurt Sutter posted on Instagram on Day 1, but the font is probably not the one they will use for the promo material. As part of their Upfronts, Netflix scheduled a First Look Presentation event for May 23, but they will probably promote only material for the shows airing this year.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die with Levy Tran
In July 2023, Levy Tran did an episode of the Poddywood Podcast. The host joked that she’s mostly good for sequels; especially the 4th one in a franchise. They even mentioned “Bad Boys 4”. When I went to check it out, I couldn’t find any official news about it and there wasn’t anything to find when following up on it a few weeks later, so I forgot about it.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die will premiere on June 7 in the US. The movie was partially filmed in Georgia and Florida; and some of the crew and several stunt people also worked on the MacGyver Reboot. We got a first Official Still of Levy a few weeks ago. As far as I know, she didn’t make it into the trailer and she’s not listed on the IMDb entry yet.
What are Cast and Crew up to?
Most of the Upfronts (where the networks present their upcoming Fall and Midseason Shows) are done. As far as I know, there haven’t been any official TV show casting news for the rest of the regular main cast.
On April 3, Levy Tran talked about her struggles with alcohol and her role of Desi on MacGyver on the Reel Rolling Podcast. She said that she has been auditioning a lot lately, but that it’s hard to book a job. It seems to have worked out, though: Levy was tagged twice in Instagram posts regarding action comedy Trouble Man, which was filmed in Atlanta last November.
She was a bit more active on social media too; posting about winning in her Jiu Jitsu category at the Atlanta Spring International Open or uploading a few photos of her visit at the Renaissance Fair.
ICYMI: Episode 2×01 of The Wingfeather Saga with Henry Ian Cusick was released on April 5. So far, he’s listed for four episodes of Season 2. He was also in the two-parter series finale of NCIS: Hawaii.
Last November, Tristin Mays filed a trademark for her production company Black Sheep Productions in the UK. I recently noticed that the filing has been withdrawn. Interestingly, she changed the handle of the Instagram account to Black Magic Productions while the YouTube and TikTok accounts and also the website still have the old name.
A Wedding and a Baby for Lucas Till
While Lucas Till has been noticeably absent on social media, we did get little bits of information through Skyler Samuels:
- In June 2023, she flashed an engagement ring while doing promo for her first movie of the Aurora Teagarden Series.
- In March 2024, she referred to Lucas as her “now-husband” in Episode 43 for the Wizards of Waverly Place Podcast.
- In April 2024, director Jessica Harmon posted an Instagram Story of Skyler and an Aurora Teagarden co-star with the caption “Two new moms trying to make it to lunch”.
- In April 2024, Skyler was announced as the new brand ambassador for jewelry company Charles & Colvard. The first campaign video was released for Mother’s Day promo.
On April 21, Skyler posted photos of herself with the baby; dedicating the post to “all my fellow mamas out there”. People Magazine posted an online article about it.
On May 8, Heavy released a new interview with Skyler. She talked about finding a rhythm between work and “mom life”:
Samuels also said that she and Till are figuring out a work-life balance as they go, joking that while she was filming the latest “Aurora” movies, her husband “was like Mr. Mom 24/7 while I was at work.” When her shoot was done, she took over full-time with the baby, she said, and he went to film a new series.
Heavy, May 8, 2024
She also did an interview with OK Magazine. There might be some more information when she has to do promo for her upcoming Aurora Teagarden movies.
Upcoming Projects for the main MacGyver Cast
Several main cast members of the MacGyver Reboot have movies waiting to be released, but there’s barely any news on most of them. Most of the smaller movies have been sitting in “post-production hell” with no distributors lined up yet. Some are inching towards a release date hopefully:
- Fluxx with Henry Ian Cusick will be screened at Malibu Film Festival on May 25.
- A first poster has been uploaded to IMDb for The Comic Shop with Tristin Mays.
Other MacGyver-related News
Original MacGyver Richard Dean Anderson attended German Film and Comic Con in Dortmund (May 4 and 5). You can find some photos of the event here. He also came to Basingstoke Comic Con (London, May 10 to 12) where he signed autographs until 1am because the organisation of the event was chaotic. You can finde photos here.
The exclusive BluRay box set of the Original MacGyver series in Germany was released on May 16. You can find all information here.
Other MacGyver-related news you might have missed:
- Half Baked: Totally High with Justin Hires was released on BluRay and Tubi on April 16.
- David Dastmalchian started the podcast Grave Conversations where he talks to his guests while both are in a coffin.
- The next conventions scheduled for Richard Dean Anderson are Washington Summer Con (June 22 and 23) and Metro Comic Con (Melbourne, July 13 and 14). You can find his full schedule here.
- Tate Donovan will attend Galaxy Con (Oklahoma City, May 24-26).
- The Collective with Lucas Till is still available on several streaming services (e.g. Hulu and Paramount+ in the US). The first official trailer by US distributor Quiver Distribution has almost 657’000 hits by now.
Dashboard On Fire 