‘Bad Boys’ Spinoff Brings on ‘Shameless’ Star Zach McGowan

NBC’s upcoming Bad Boys spin-off pilot has cast former Shameless star Zach McGowan in a main role.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, McGowan will be playing Ray Sherman, a nightclub owner and hustler. He will reportedly be a villainous character, but it is unclear if he will be the main villain of just the pilot or the entire series, presuming it is picked up.

McGowan joins Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba, who were both announced as being cast in the show earlier this year.

The spin-off does not yet have an official title, but it was previously reported that it will feature Union returning to her role as Syd Burnett, which she originated in Bad Boys II.

Alba will be playing a character named Nancy McKenna, an Army veteran and detective who gets partnered up with Union’s character.

McKenna has spent a large part of the last 10 years serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, but is now a working mom raising two adolescent step-children with her husband.

To Nancy, Syd’s freedom is a kind-of “the grass is greener on the other side” type of jealousy. Both women have completely opposite lives and approaches, but are “at the top of their fields in this action-packed, character-driven procedural.”

It was also recently revealed that Ernie Hudson will be joining the untitled Bad Boys spinoff pilot as as well.

Hudson, who was most recently seen on the Netflix original series Grace & Frankie, will be playing Syd’s father, Joseph Burnett, which means that he is likely also the father of Marcus Burnett, Martin Lawrence‘s character from the films, as Marcus and Syd are siblings.

Additionally, the plot of the show is said to follow Burnett who “has left the DEA and now has a fresh start in her new job as an LAPD detective.”

The pilot will be written by Brandon Margolis and Brandon Sonnier, the writers/producers of The Blacklist; however, there is no word on whether or not the two men will remain on if the series is ordered to season.

The first Bad Boys film came out in 1995, and starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, along with Téa Leoni and Joe Pantoliano. It was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay. It was a huge success, raking in over $140 million on a budget of under $20 million.

The sequel, Bad Boys II, came out in 2003, again with Smith and Lawrence in their original roles, as well as Pantoliano, but the cast this time added Union and Jordi Mollà as Cuban drug lord Hector Juan Carlos “Johnny” Tapia.

That film was not quite as well-received by critics as the first, but was still a financial success, accumulating over $270 million on a budget of $130 million.

A third film has been in “development hell” for many years, the studio most recently having tapped and subsequently lost The A-Team director Joe Carnahan.