Netflix has resumed production on of House of Cards. And, while former series star Kevin Spacey isn’t coming back for the streaming political drama’s final season, two new big-name actors are on board.
Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear will join the cast of the award-winning streaming series, according to Netflix, which cut ties with Spacey in November in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against the actor. Netflix had already suspended production of the popular series last fall after the allegations against Spacey first surfaced, and there were initially questions over whether or not the show would ever return with new episodes.
The company confirmed to Coins2Day that production on the series resumed on Wednesday. The Baltimore Sunreported last week that a TV series filming in Joppa, Md., where House of Cards films, had sent out casting notices for background performers.
Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos confirmed in December that House of Cards would return without Spacey and his Frank Underwood character to “bring closure of the show for fans.” The final season, which will also star Robin Wright (who plays Underwood’s wife, Claire), will consist of eight episodes after the previous five seasons all featured 13 episodes each.
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The company did not release any details about the plot of the final House of Cards season on Wednesday, or about the characters to be played by Lane (Unfaithful) and Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine). However, Variety reports that the actors will play siblings on the show.
When Netflix announced its latest quarterly earnings results earlier this month, the company reported a $39 million write-down for the fourth quarter that reportedly included the delayed final season of House of Cards as well as another former Spacey project, a Gore Vidal biopic, that Netflix scrapped as a result of the actor’s scandal. While Netflix has not confirmed any reports of money lost on Spacey-related projects, it stands to reason that the streaming giant would be eager to salvage what it can from a popular TV series that was one of the first true breakout hits at Netflix when it debuted in 2013.
Over five seasons, House of Cards earned a large following of fans while also becoming the first online-only series to earn an Emmy nomination on its way to winning seven Emmys in total (Spacey was nominated five times for his role on the show, but never won.) Spacey has denied actor Anthony Rapp’s accusations that Spacey made sexual advances on him when Rapp was underage.