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Halle Berry To Produce Legal Drama For CBS, ‘Extant’ Canceled

By Ny MaGee
Published on: 14:40 PST, Oct 10, 2015

Halle Berry’s summer sci-fi series Extant will not be back for a third season as she’s moving on to executive produce a new legal drama for CBS. Created by Mickey Fisher and executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Extant starred Berry as an astronaut who returns home inexplicably pregnant after spending a little over a year on a cosmic solo mission.

“I am so proud of what we accomplished on Extant,” Berry said. “This season seemed such a natural place to end Molly’s journey that I, along with CBS, felt it best served the story to leave it there. I’ve loved this experience working with such a talented cast and creative team.”

Extant initially received favorable reviews and the Hollywood Reporter notes how it was quite profitable for CBS thanks to a deal with Amazon that allowed the company to stream episodes four days after their debut. Ratings woes resulted in a Season 2 creative reboot, which saw Extant change showrunners and shake up casting.

“CBS, Halle Berry and the producers have decided to conclude the Extant story after last season’s exciting and fitting conclusion,” CBS Entertainment President Glenn Geller said. “Extant played an important role in expanding CBS’ lineup of original scripted programming in the summer. We are proud of the show’s success on the network, as well as its popularity on Amazon Prime Video. We also want to thank the incomparable Halle Berry for her commitment and support for the series, and look forward to working with her on our next project together.”

Halle will produce her next project for the network — a drama titled Legalease, which EW reports centers on “a biracial lawyer from Chicago who follows a case to New Orleans, where she finds herself partnering with a good ol’ boy white attorney while working in a justice system that will ultimately expose the biases that society harbors.” Steven Lichtman will write the drama and executive produce along with Berry, Dan Thomas, and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas.

Extant was Berry’s foray into TV, and she’s hoping to extend her small screen run through her production deal with CBS.

“It was my first foray into episodic television, and I’m excited to continue my relationship with CBS, producing more compelling stories through my 606 Films production banner,” Berry said.

Over the summer Halle explained to EW how she “never worked harder” in preparation for the space drama while raising her newborn baby at the time.

“I’ve never worked so hard in my life last year. And I was nursing, my baby was three months old, so I was doing drive-by nursings every two hours and I was over my head, the amount of scenes we shoot in a day, the things I had to memorize.”

Oscar-winning Berry married actor Olivier Martinez in 2013, and that same year they welcomed their son Maceo Robert. She shares daughter Nahla Ariela with former lover Gabriel Aubry. Halle married singer Eric Benet in 2001 and their union lasted until 2005. She was previously married to former baseballer David Justice from 1992-1997.

To fill the Extant void next summer, CBS has ordered another series from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, American Gothic. Ace Showbiz reports that the drama “centers on a prominent Boston family that is attempting to redefine itself in the wake of a chilling discovery that links their recently deceased patriarch to a string of murders spanning decades.”

Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether Halle Berry will have an onscreen presence in Legalease.

[Image courtesy Kevin Winter/Getty Images/Twitter]

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