{blackbabes} The CW Casts Its 'Beast', Adds To 'First Cut'

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In his U.S. debut, Australian actor Jay Ryan has landed the male lead opposite Kristin Kreuk in the CW drama pilot Beauty And The Beast. Loosely based on the 1980s CBS series, CW's Beauty And The Beast is described as a modern-day romantic love story with a procedural twist.  It centers on Catherine (Kreuk), a tough-minded NYPD homicide detective haunted by witnessing her mother's murder nine years ago and the killers' quick demise at the hands of a Beast. After years of searching, Catherine finally finds the Beast, Vincent Koslow (Ryan), the survivor of a military experiment that went disastrously wrong, and becomes the protector of his secret life as a superhero. Gary Fleder is directing the pilot, written by Jennifer Levin and Sherri Cooper. Levin and Cooper are executive producing with the creator of the original series, Ron Koslow, the original series' producers Paul Junger Witt & C. Anthony Thomas, as well as Bill Haber. Ryan, who spent 3 years on Australia's popular soap Neighbours, did an arc on the first season of Fox's Terra Nova, which filmed Down Under.

Aja Naomi King has been cast in the CW's Jennie Snyder Urman medical drama pilot aka First Cut, about a newly minted female doctor working at a hospital. King, repped by Gersh and The Group, will play a surgical intern.