Showtime’s Ray Donovan movie starring Liev Schreiber and Kerris Dorsey sets early 2022 release date, picking up where season 7 left off.
Showtime has announced that the Ray Donovan movie will debut in early 2022 on the network. Ray Donovan stars Liev Schreiber as a “fixer” who helps cover up crimes and misdemeanors by high-profile clientele, but struggles to keep his own life in order. The show ran for 7 seasons on Showtime, from 2013 – 2020. Along with Schreiber, the show has featured a cast that includes Jon Voight, Susan Sarandon, Paula Malcolmson, Eddie Marsan, Dash Mihok, Kerris Dorsey, Steven Bauer and guest spots including James Woods, Ian McShane, Katie Holmes, Alan Alda, and many more.
Ray Donovan was canceled after its seventh season, which sent fans into a fervor, especially with so many loose ends left to tie up. Season 8 was meant to be the final season of the show, leaving a season’s worth of showrunner David Hollander’s storytelling untold. After the backlash over the cancelation, Schreiber took to social media to let fans know that their support had earned them the opportunity to complete a 2-hour Ray Donovan movie to close out the story.
Filming on the Ray Donovan movie began earlier this year, and TCA shared that it will be released this winter, which was later clarified by Showtime President of Entertainment, Gary Levine (via Deadline), to be the first quarter of 2022. The film will debut on the network and will pick up where season 7 left off. The movie is written by Hollander and Schreiber and is said to be a “graceful” finale to the series. Read what Levine had to say below:
“We did hear from fans, and we are nothing if not responsive to our audience. I think this Ray Donovan two-hour movie will go a long way to making that landing more graceful.”
What shocked fans the most about Ray Donovan wasn’t so much the cancelation, but the fact that it happened so abruptly and without warning. While shows are often canceled for a myriad of reasons, including many getting the axe of late due to Covid-19 pandemic-related issues, such as Netflix’s GLOW, many are taken off air due to budget and performance. Ray Donovan enjoyed a cult-status appeal that seemed to grow throughout the years, which certainly helped rally fans to see it properly completed. A similar situation arose with Dexter, which is getting a new 10-episode season after the disastrous reception to its own finale.
This isn’t the first time fans have helped get a project finished or even started, and it likely won’t be the last. From Zack Snyder’s Justice League to Dexter to Sonic: The Hedgehog, studios are absolutely listening and taking into account what fans have to say, even if they don’t always like it. At the end of the day, Hollywood is a business and if a large enough group of people can really get behind a project, it often gives the right amount of incentive to finish, change, or simply make what the fans are asking for. Of course, there are sometimes negative aspects to this type of campaigning, but when it comes from a good place, the results are typically positive. Fans will find out if the juice was worth the squeeze when the Ray Donovan movie releases this winter.
Source: screenrant.com