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After playing Harry Bosch for a decade on Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, Titus Welliver is taking on a new leading character for a TV crime drama. Welliver and Juani Feliz (Harlem) have been tapped as the two leads of CBS‘ potential spinoff of The Equalizer.
As Deadline reported exclusively last month, the Queen Latifah procedural will introduce the two new characters in Episode 516 this season that could anchor their own series.
Welliver will play Hudson Reed, a former top CIA operative with a dark secret who is connected to Robin McCall (Queen Latifah) by an old mentor. Feliz plays Samantha Reed who has been trained by her father to be a weapons expert, skilled martial artist and true chameleon all while hiding a mysterious past.
Both Welliver and Feliz have been cast as guest stars with series regular options for the potential spinoff.
Episode 516, written by Joseph C. Wilson who will serve as executive producer on the potential series, will air in the spring. It is not designated as a backdoor pilot. CBS has been taking a more informal approach with its planted spinoff efforts, introducing potential lead offshoot characters in storylines integrated into regular episodes of the mothership series, something the network has done twice now on Fire Country, first with Morena Baccarin, whose offshoot was picked up to series, and more recently with Jared Padalecki.
In addition to Fire Country, The Equalizer is looking to join other multi-series drama franchises currently on CBS such as NCIS and FBI.
A reimagining of the classic series, The Equalizer stars Queen Latifah as Robyn McCall, an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills as a former CIA operative to help those with nowhere else to turn.
If the offshoot goes forward, its two-hander format would be a departure from the original 1985 Equalizer series, the current CBS reboot as well as the movie franchise, all of which had a single lead, male (first series and movies) and female (the Queen Latifah version).
The Season 5 cast also includes Tory Kittles, Adam Goldberg, Liza Lapira, Laya DeLeon Hayes with Lorraine Toussaint.
Fom Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with CBS Studios, The Equalizer is executive produced by Joseph C. Wilson, Dana Owens (Queen Latifah), Debra Martin Chase, Shakim Compere, John Davis, John Fox, Loretha Jones and Rob Hanning.
The series airs Sundays at 9 PM, moving to 10 PM on Feb. 18.
Known for his role in the Bosch franchise for Amazon, Welliver will next be seen in the indie film Ricky, which premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. He is repped by UTA and Leverage Management.
Feliz recurs on Tracy Oliver’s Amazon television series Harlem, currently airing its third season. Her credits also include series Fleishman Is In Trouble and DMZ and the upcoming A24 feature Civil War and AMC’s The Terror: Devil In Silver. She is repped by Buchwald and Brookside Artist Management.
