Amazon Revives Former Pivot Series ‘Fortitude’ With New Season Pick-Up
Arctic thriller adds Dennis Quaid to the cast
Tony Maglio | February 27, 2017 @ 7:07 AM
Last Updated: February 27, 2017 @ 7:43 AM
Amazon has picked up a new season of Arctic thriller “Fortitude,” which originally ran on the now-dead Pivot TV.
Dennis Quaid has been added to the cast for this run, starring opposite Richard Dormer. Sofie Gråbøl, Luke Treadaway, Darren Boyd, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Mia Jexen, Alexandra Moen, Verónica Echegui, Sienna Guillory, Ramon Tikaram, Parminder Nagra, Michelle Fairley, Robert Sheehan and Ken Stott are also counted among the cast.
“In ‘Fortitude,’ our customers will experience Dennis Quaid in a remarkably compassionate role, joined by an ensemble cast that has resonated with audiences globally,” said Joe Lewis, head of Comedy, Drama and VR, Amazon Studios. “We’re excited to add such a beautiful and captivating series to our originals slate.”
“Amazon is the perfect home for ‘Fortitude’ in the U.S.,” added Jane Millichip, managing director, Sky Vision. “‘Fortitude’ is high-end, addictive viewing and perfectly suits Amazon’s scripted portfolio. Amazon has been a keen supporter of the series from the outset, having taken an SVOD window on Season 1. We’re delighted to now extend the relationship and make Amazon the home of our most successful returning Sky Atlantic original drama series.”
“Fortitude”follows Sheriff Dan Anderssen (Dormer) of Fortitude, a small isolated community with a captive population in an environment that is undergoing change and upheaval due to parasite and pathogen activity. After shooting the woman he loved, Dan becomes consumed with guilt, disappears into the wilderness and was presumed dead. Without a sheriff, the people of Fortitude begin to wonder whether Deputy Eric Odegard (Haraldsson), who has spent the last few weeks desperately searching for Dan, can fill his shoes.
A new body is discovered on the other side of town and Eric must step up and lead this horrific investigation. As his own police team is trying to figure out who would have killed a man for no apparent reason, Dan suddenly reappears — a violent broken ruin of a man and wild to the point of feral. Quaid stars as Michael Lennox, a fisherman and patriarch of a family living in Fortitude, who is struggling to come to terms with his terminally ill wife, and will try anything to find a cure.
“Fortitude” is now an Amazon Original Series in the U.S. and Sky Original Production in the U.K., produced by Fifty Fathoms. The series is created and written by Simon Donald, and executive produced by Donald, Faye Dorn and Patrick Spence.
Trevor Hopkins and Susie Liggat serve as producers.
The show will premiere on Prime Video in the U.S. later this year.
7 Things Amazon's 'Good Girls Revolt' Gets Totally Wrong About the '60s (Photos)
Creative liberties? Amazon takes a few in its new series "Good Girls Revolt," about a group of women who sue over their treatment at a male-dominated newsweekly in 1969-70.
Genevieve Angelson plays Patti, a young journalist seen in the pilot marching to work through midtown Manhattan ... past a fairly large anti-Vietnam War protest. In December 1969? We can't find any record of such a protest during that month. However, six months later, in May 1970, New York was shaken by the Hard Hat Riot, when hundreds of construction workers attacked students protesting the shooting deaths at Kent State.
Patti works at a magazine called News of the Week. Of course, there never was a major weekly by that name. But there was and is a magazine called Newsweek, which is where the real-life women described in the story (based on the book by Lynn Povich) worked. (Newsweek's print edition ended in 2012 but was revived two years later.)
Jim Belushi plays Wick, the cranky newsroom boss, who in the pilot, after a lot of arguing and hand-wringing, orders his staff to cover the violence at the Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont track in California. Small problem: Newsweek didn't cover the Stones' concert at all at the time, according to a 1970 piece in Rolling Stone (and neither did much of the rest of the mainstream media).
Mick Jagger and the Stones performed at Altamont on Dec. 6. That was a Saturday, which means the news of the violence would have broken over the weekend, and not on a busy workday, which is when the staff on "Good Girls" breathlessly discusses Altamont as if it's happening in real time.
But then chronology just isn't a strong suit for "Good Girls." Wick at one point says that the indictment of Charles Manson happened the day before Altamont. Wrong again. Manson and his fellow cult members were indicted on Dec. 8, two days after Altamont.
Well, at least we have a solid character in Nora Ephron (Grace Gummer), the late writer-director who, it turns out, really did work at Newsweek. Except, oops, Ephron worked there in the early 1960s, and in the mailroom, not as a writer. She had nothing to do with the gender-equality action the show dramatizes. But "Good Girls" does get one detail right: Ephron really did go to Wellesley College.
Even the small details on "Good Girls" require some skepticism. At one point, a character says her boyfriend is going to take her to the "Mark Rothko Retrospective at the Guggenheim." Nice! Except that art show was a cool thing to do ... in 1978, nearly a decade later. Oops, time for a cigarette break.
Guess what? Newsweek didn’t even cover the Rolling Stones’ fateful Altamont concert – and that’s just the start
Creative liberties? Amazon takes a few in its new series "Good Girls Revolt," about a group of women who sue over their treatment at a male-dominated newsweekly in 1969-70.
