Two casting items you should know about…

First, Leonard Roberts has been cast VH1‘s Drumline 2: A New Beat, the sequel to the 2002 feature film that starred Nick Cannon, although he won’t be starring in the sequel. The upcoming film will tell the tale of a Brooklynite named Dani Bolton, who
comes from an upper class background, and who decides to attend the
fictional New Orleans university that’s the backdrop for the story,
where she hopes to join, and shake-up, their once prominent drumline.
Getting in her way are, upperclassmen, a new romance with a band-mate,
her chief rival, and the school’s crosstown rivals.

Roberts has been cast to play the role he played in the first film – Sean Taylor, the percussion leader, who begins to grow weary of Devon’s (Cannon’s) cocky attitude.

The first Drumline (a
fish-out-of-water comedy about a talented street drummer from Harlem
who enrolls in a Southern university) was a success for Fox, grossing close to $60 million on a $20 million budget; it was directed by Charles Stone III from a script penned by Tina Gordon Chism (who made her directorial debut with We The Peeples last year), and starred Cannon, as well as Zoe Saldana.

Stone will not be returning to direct this sequel; Instead, VH1 has tapped Billie Woodruff to direct Drumline 2: A New Beat, from a script penned by Karen Gist. 

Also worth noting, the film is being packaged as a possible back-door pilot to a potential Drumline series on the network.

I’d expect Drumline: A New Beat (the movie/backdoor pilot) to premiere during the 2014/2015 TV season.

Second, Gary Dourdan has join the growing cast of the second season of BET’s Being Mary Jane, in a recurring role, playing a character named Sheldon Armstrong, who is described as a handsome retired civil trial attorney who made a fortune suing corrupt corporations. He’s coming out of retirement to pursue charitable endeavors. Famous for never giving interviews, he simply can’t resist Mary Jane’s (Gabrielle Union’s) request for an interview, as he is quite taken with her.

Dourdan is one of a few new actors added to the series’ season 2 cast, including Mike Epps who will play a family man named Chris Warren, a husband and father in a great marriage – one that Mary Jane envies; and Salli Richardson-Whitfield who will appear in at
least five episodes during the upcoming second season of the series,
playing an old friend of Mary Jane’s.

Dourdan has also booked a guest-starring role on Glee, playing a character named D’Shon, who is Mercedes’ (Amber Riley’s) record producer.