Ahead of next year’s Scream, which will mark her return to the franchise as Gale Weathers, Courteney Cox is starring in a recently announced horror-comedy project for Starz titled “Shining Vale,” which has been ordered to series. Starz has given an eight-episode series order to “Shining Vale,” and we’ve got some more casting news via Deadline.
Emmy nominated actress Judith Light (“Who’s the Boss?”, “Transparent,” “The Politician”) has joined the cast of the series, reportedly in a “key role” alongside Cox.
Deadline notes, “Light will play Joan, Pat’s (Cox) Lithium-infused mother, who has long battled mental illness, and her daughter… (who she blames for her mental illness). Joan is vain and hyper-critical, taking any opportunity to recall her prized youth, or belittle Pat. Of all the horrors that Pat faces, becoming Joan is the most frightening– and most real.”
The half-hour series from Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan also stars Mira Sorvino, Greg Kinnear, Merrin Dungey, Gus Birney and Dylan Gage. Check out a first-look image below.
“Shining Vale” is a horror comedy about a dysfunctional family that moves from the city to a small town into a house in which terrible atrocities have taken place. But no one seems to notice except for Pat, who’s convinced she’s either depressed or possessed – turns out, the symptoms are exactly the same.
“Patricia “Pat” Phelps (Cox) is a former “wild child” who rose to fame by writing a raunchy, drug-and-alcohol-soaked women’s empowerment novel (a.k.a. lady porn). Fast forward 17 years later, Pat is clean and sober but totally unfulfilled. She still hasn’t written her second novel, she can’t remember the last time she had sex with her husband (Kinnear), and her teenage kids are at that stage where they want you dead. She was a faithful wife until her one slip-up: she had a torrid affair with the hot, young handyman who came over to fix the sink while Terry was at work. In a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, she and Terry cash in all their savings and move the family move from the “crazy” of the city to a large, old house in the suburbs that has a storied past of its own. Everyone has their demons, but for Pat Phelps, they may be real.”
“Shining Vale” is executive produced by Jeff Astrof from Other Shoe Productions, Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountford (“Motherland,” “This Way Up,”) from Merman, Aaron Kaplan (“The Chi,” “The Neighborhood”) and Dana Honor (“A Million Little Things,” “The Unicorn”) from Kapital Entertainment. Courteney Cox is producer. Astrof wrote the pilot teleplay, from a story by Horgan & Astrof. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Television and Lionsgate Television in association with Other Shoe Productions, Merman and Kapital Entertainment.
Dearbhla Walsh (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) directed and executive produced the pilot.
“Shining Vale”