Avengers star Don Cheadle will be serving as executive producer on 10-episode comedy series Black Monday. The series will air on Showtime and be co-produced by Sony Pictures Television, the network announced Thursday. Cheadle will also star in the series alongside Andrew Rannells and Regina Hall.
Black Monday, which was created by the duo of David Caspe (Happy Endings) and Jordan Cahan, will take place in the 1980s and focus on the worst stock market crash in the history of Wall Street. The network’s synopsis of the series is “It’s the story of how a group of outsiders took on the blue-blood, old-boys club of Wall Street and ended up crashing the world’s largest financial system, a Lamborghini limousine, Don Henley’s birthday party and the glass ceiling.” Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will also serve as executive producers, and are set to direct the show’s pilot episode.
Black Monday is an actual historical event; On October 19, 1987, stock markets around the world crashed. The series puts its characters at the forefront of this event by making them the cause of it. Cheadle’s character is Rod “The Jammer” Jaminski. He’s in charge of a firm considered to be “the L.A. Raiders of corporate raiders.” THR describes his character as “a self-educated, self-made, self-destructive master of the universe.” Hall plays Dawn Darcy, the first female head trader, who rides the second wave of feminism while dealing with both the sexist behavior and sexual advances of her male colleagues and clients. Rannells’ character is Blair Shmerman, a kindhearted trading prodigy who will see his nice ways challenged by the Wall Street game.
Cheadle is perhaps best known for his role as Tony Stark’s best friend James Rhodes in the Avengers franchise, although he’s had quite the enviable career. He also previously starred in the Showtime series House of Lies as Marty Kaan. The role earned him four Emmy nominations, and a Golden Globe award for “Best Actor in a Television Series Musical or Comedy.” As such, this role seems perfect for him and his repertoire.
His co-stars are also not new to the comedic world. Regina Hall’s latest film role was in the 2017 comedy Girls Trip, and she also starred in the Scary Movie series as Brenda Meeks. Rannells might be more accustomed to the stage, due to his role in Broadway’s Book of Mormon as Elder Prince, but he has also guest starred on Girls as Elijah Krantz. Showtime’s President David Nevins calls Black Monday, “a scathing comic commentary on the excess of the ’80s." Interestingly, the show will be the second of the network’s originals to be set on Wall Street; the drama Billions is also set there. In fact, the series was formerly titled Ball Street, but it’s not too hard to imagine why that name didn’t stick. Look for Black Monday to air in 2019.
More: Avengers 4: Gwyneth Paltrow Hints That Don Cheadle Will Return
Source: THR
