With shooting due to begin any day now, the pilot for the long-mooted Tremors series has added five more names to its cast. A reboot of the 1990 cult classic, the show takes us back to the remote town of Perfection, where Kevin Bacon’s Valentine McKee and Fred Ward’s Earl Bass battled monstrous subterranean worms dubbed ‘Graboids’ 25 years ago.
The new additions to the cast are P.J. Byrne (The Gift, The Wolf of Wall Street), Hunter Parrish (TV’s Weeds), Ebonée Noel (TV’s Wrecked), Brandon Jay McLaren (Tucker and Dale vs Evil), and Haley Tju (Bella and the Bulldogs). The casting news was reported by Deadline, who also provided the following handy breakdown of their characters.
“Byrne [pictured in Vinyl] will play Melvin, a survivor of the original Graboid attack and real estate developer obsessed with reinventing Perfection, all fueled by jealousy he holds for Valentine McKee.
Parrish is Arthur Brandt, a young, magnetic leader of the pot-growing, earth-worshipping tribe of Millennials who’ve moved to Perfection to soak in its unique spiritual energy.
Noel will portray Zoe, a truth-seeker possessed with deep, sensual intuition and mystic power, Zoe’s connection to Mother Earth is aided by Perfection’s unique energy and provides her with visions of events to come.
McLaren is Toby, a likable guy who nobody likes; he’s the public liaison to a data storage company in Perfection that failed to create any local jobs. He’s hanging around to facilitate the company’s transition from staffed to unmanned operation.
Tju will portray Jai, a dirt-biking drug smuggler and Perfection’s resident badass.”
Also starring in the show are Shiloh Fernandez, Vinyl’s Emily Tremaine, Megan Ketch (Under the Dome, American Gothic) and Castle’s Toks Olagundoye, as well as Bacon, reprising his role as Valentine. The project hails from Jason Blum’s Blumhouse TV and Universal Cable Prods. Cube/Splice director Vincenzo Natali will direct the pilot for SyFy, from a script by Andrew Miller, who also serves as showrunner, and executive produces along with Bacon, David Schiff and Jessica Rhoades.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)