Actress Gina Rodriguez will board “Wild Blue” as a naval aviator … sooner or later. (Getty Images photo for Latina Magazine by Alberto E. Rodriguez)
A few days after casting a familiar face for a key male role, the producers of “Wild Blue,” a TV drama in development for Fox that will be set on an aircraft carrier, found their female lead … then put their entire cast on ice.
Gina Rodriguez, recently of “The Bold and the Beautiful,” will bring both those traits to the new project as Pilar “Maytag” Robles, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Three days later, THR reported the entire project would be pushed out of the traditional fall season pilot filming window, with producers failing to lure country singer and occasional actor Tim McGraw (“Friday Night Lights”) into a starring role. They also wanted to shoot the series on an actual carrier, THR reported, and no flattops were available for filming in the usual pilot time frame, which runs from now through May.
With the future of “Wild Blue,” in doubt, the CW Network’s “Company Town” and TNT’s “The Last Ship” are the remaining high-profile Navy-themed offerings that could find spots on the fall TV schedule. But even as the pilots go into production — which could include millions of dollars in salaries, sets and the occasional extra — they are not guaranteed a full-season episode order. “Wild Blue,” for example, would compete with eight dramas for a yet-to-be-determined number of spots in the fall Fox lineup, according to THR.
