Several superhero TV series filmed in Vancouver, including The Flash and Arrow, have been renewed for another season.
Good news, TV viewers: many of your favourite TV series have been renewed for another season. Which also means that many of your favourite TV stars will be returning to Vancouver for filming. Double win!
Okay, so now the bad news.
While nothing has been confirmed yet, there are a handful of series whose future is yet undetermined.
We’ll take a look at all of those, as well as a Chinese feature film visiting here for a week, and a TV series about one of the biggest medical disasters in Canadian history.
Freddie Highmore
First up, let’s start off on an encouraging note.
Back on March 10, ABC announced that it has renewed The Good Doctor for a second season.
The series shot Season 1 in Vancouver from July 26, 2017, to March 1 of this year.
Freddie Highmore (Bates Hotel) stars a surgeon with autism and savant syndrome who has relocated from the countryside to a city’s high-profile surgical unit.
The cast also includes Richard Schiff, Antonia Thomas, Nicholas Gonzalez, Chuku Modu, Beau Garrett, Hill Harper, and Tamlyn Tomita.
The doctor is in for a SECOND season! Congratulations to #TheGoodDoctor!!! 🎉🎉🎉 pic.twitter.com/2qTiDhiERO
— The Good Doctor (@GoodDoctorABC) March 7, 2018
Meanwhile, the CW has more good news for fans of a number of Vancouver-filmed TV series.
Riverdale
As if there was any doubt, the hit teen drama series Riverdale has been renewed to film a third season.
All of the CW’s superhero series filmed in Vancouver have been renewed.
Arrow (Season 7), DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (Season 4), The Flash (Season 5), and Supergirl (Season 3) will all be back in action for another season of production.
The future looks bright! DC's #LegendsOfTomorrow is renewed for Season 4 on The CW! pic.twitter.com/82eHE24c8R
— DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (@TheCW_Legends) April 2, 2018
There's no catching him now. #TheFlash is renewed for Season 5 on The CW! pic.twitter.com/LO2OSjrQcL
— The Flash (@CW_TheFlash) April 2, 2018
The neverending story otherwise known as Supernatural, starring Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, will also be back for Season 14.
Jensen Ackles stars in Supernatural
Meanwhile, the future of several locally shot series are in doubt.
That includes cancer dramedy Life Sentence (Season 1), starring Lucy Hale; zomcom-drama iZombie (Season 4), starring Rose McIver; and post-apocalyptic drama The 100 (Season 5), which all wrapped up production their latest season in January.
As these series weren’t named in the list of those that were renewed, we’ll have to wait to see if these ones get a chance to continue on for another year or not.
Zhang Jingchu
Meanwhile, a new Asian feature film is breezing through town this week.
The Chinese-language crime-thriller Wings Over Everest shoots in B.C. for only one week, from today (April 9) until Sunday (April 15).
The film, directed by Yu Fei, follows a talented Chinese climber, portrayed by Zhang Jingchu (Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation), who discovers that the rescue mission she’s on is actually operated by murderous arms dealers who are putting her team at risk.
Zhang was previously in Vancouver in July 2017 when she was filming Project Gutenberg (also known as Unparalleled) with her costars Chow Yun-Fat and Aaron Kwok.
Yashuko Koji. Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson
Japanese actor Koji Yakusho (13 Assassins) plays the team’s captain.
The film began shooting in Beijing in January, and will also shoot in the Himalayas in Nepal. Vancouver’s Raymond Massey is the film’s coproducer.
Sarah Wayne Callies
Also starting today (April 9), production on Season 1 of the CBC and Sundance TV medical drama TV series Unspeakable gets underway.
The historical drama is set amid the rise of HIV and Hepatitis C in the 1980s. When thousands of people were infected by tainted blood, this medical disaster prompted a federal inquiry and a groundbreaking lawsuit.
The eight-part series continues filming until June 29.
The cast includes several stars who are no strangers to the local industry: Sarah Wayne Callies (Colony), Shawn Doyle (Frontier), and Vancouver actors Michael Shanks (Stargate SG-1) and Camille Sullivan (The Man in the High Castle).
That’s it for this week but check back in again with us next time for more on what’s shooting in Hollywood North.
