NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 24: Actor JK Simmons attends "The Front Runner" Photo Call at Crosby Street Hotel on September 24, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

J.K. Simmons Joins Hulu’s Veronica Mars Revival Series

November 15, 2018

Following the casting news of Clifton Collins Jr. and Izabela Vidovic earlier this week, TVLine reports that Academy Award-winning actor J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) has officially been cast for a recurring role in Hulu’s forthcoming Veronica Mars revival.

Simmons is set to play the role of Clyde Prickett, an ex-convict who served 10 years for racketeering. After Clyde got out of prison, he became Big Dick Casablanca’s fixer. Simmons’ character is described as a someone who’s smarter and more dangerous of the pair, and he has a network of fellow ex-cons he can count on to keep his own hands clean.

Simmons is best known for his role as a strict jazz instructor in the 2014 film Whiplash, which earned him many awards and nominations including a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. He is also known as voice actor appearing in many animated series and films such as Kung Fu Panda 3 and Zootopia. Simmons will next be seen in the upcoming action film 17 Bridges starring alongside Chadwick Boseman, Sienna Miller and Taylor Kitsch.

The Veronica Mars revival has gotten a direct-to-series order for 8 one-hour episodes from Warner Bros. Television. As part of the deal, Hulu has also struck an agreement with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution for SVOD rights to all past episodes of the original Veronica Mars. Fans can stream seasons 1-3, as well as the 2014 feature film, beginning in summer 2019. The purpose of the shorter season is to work around Bell’s schedule on her hit NBC comedy The Good Place.

Spring breakers are getting murdered in Neptune, thereby decimating the seaside town’s lifeblood tourist industry. After Mars Investigations is hired by the parents of one of the victims to find their son’s killer, Veronica is drawn into an epic eight-episode mystery that pits the enclave’s wealthy elites, who would rather put an end to the month-long bacchanalia, against a working class that relies on the cash influx that comes with being the West Coast’s answer to Daytona Beach.

Kristen Bell will both star and executive produce, with Rob Thomas, Diane Ruggiero-Wright and Dan Etheridge also executive producing. Thomas will also pen the first episode.

Veronica Mars originally aired in 2004 on UPN, a forerunner of The CW, and it featured Bell as a teenager turned private detective. Veronica’s initial case involved solving her best friend’s murder. However, she also took on an assortment of smaller cases against the backdrop of the larger story. Veronica Mars ran for three seasons and 60 episodes before it was canceled. In 2013, Thomas, Bell, and most of the series original cast put their support behind a Kickstarter campaign to fund a Veronica Mars movie. It was subsequently released in 2014, with Bell portraying Veronica as she returned to Neptune and resumed her career as a private investigator.

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