At long last, Showtime has announced a Ray Donovan movie that will be co-written by its star, Liev Schreiber, who will once again feud with Jon Voight‘s rascally deadbeat dad Mickey Donovan.
The new film picks up where Season 7 left off, with Mickey in the wind and Ray determined to find and stop him before he can cause any more carnage. It will also weave together the present-day fallout from the Donovan-Sullivan feud with Ray and Mickey’s origin story from 30 years ago.
The latter note is especially interesting, as James Woods played Patrick “Sully” Sullivan back in Season 1, so I wonder if he’ll appear in flashbacks. The only other confirmed cast member at this point is Kerris Dorsey, who plays Ray’s daughter, Bridget, but you have to imagine that Ray’s three (possibly four) siblings will be back in some capacity as well — not to mention his late wife, Abby (Paula Malcomson).
Veteran showrunner David Hollander will direct the Ray Donovan movie and co-write the script alongside Schreiber, and the two of them will also executive produce the film along with Mark Gordon, Bryan Zuriff and Lou Fusaro. Production is expected to begin later this year in New York.
“When Ray Donovan went off our air after seven great seasons, we heard from so many of its loyal fans that they were not ready to say goodbye to Ray and the wonderfully dysfunctional Donovan clan, and so, for them, we are delighted that Liev and David are creating a thrilling new chapter of this iconic series,” Showtime‘s Gary Levine said in a statement.
Over the course of 82 episodes, the hit drama won Voight a Golden Globe for his turn as the Donovan family patriarch, if you will, while Schreiber earned five Globe nominations as well as three Emmy noms for his bruising turn as the title character, who always seemed to keep a baseball bat nearby, just in case.
The Ray Donovan movie comes on the heels of Showtime‘s 10-episode revival of Dexter, and I think it’s only fair that if the network is giving Michael C. Hall 10 hours to fix his show’s disappointing series finale, Schreiber deserves two hours to end Ray Donovan the right way. I’m also encouraged by the fact that he’s co-writing the script, as I loved his adaptation of Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Ray Donovan is just a show that your Dad watches on Sunday nights. And my Dad does too. But I’ve been with the show from the beginning myself, and there have only been a few times where it felt a little long in the tooth. I feel like Season 7 left a little something on the table, as the cancellation did seem to catch its cast and crew by surprise, and I’m wicked glad Showtime is giving everyone — especially audiences — the opportunity to say goodbye to these characters the right way.
There’s no word yet on when the Ray Donovan movie will hit Showtime, but don’t worry, we’ll keep you posted.
via Collider