The Criminal Minds update at Paramount+ is adding to its cast — and to its title.
The series has cast Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights, Midnight Mass) in a key recurring role. The revival of the long-running CBS crime drama has also added a subtitle and will be known as Criminal Minds: Evolution.
Paramount+ gave a series order to the revival in July. Six long-time members of the show’s cast — Joe Mantegna, Kirsten Vangsness, Adam Rodriguez, A.J. Cook, Aisha Tyler and Paget Brewster — and showrunner Erica Messer are on board for Evolution, while former regulars Matthew Gray Gubler and Daniel Henney won’t return.
Unlike its CBS predecessor, where most cases were resolved by the end of an episode, Criminal Minds: Evolution will be more serialized. Per the show’s logline, “the FBI’s elite team of criminal profilers come up against their greatest threat yet, an UnSub who has used the pandemic to build a network of other serial killers. As the world opens back up and the network goes operational, the team must hunt them down, one murder at a time.”
Gilford will have a season-long arc as Elias Voit, an analyst for a cyber-security firm who has a dark side and an obsession with death.
Gilford will next be seen in Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher, from Midnight Mass creator Mike Flanagan. His recent credits also include Flanagan and Netflix’s The Midnight Club, NBC’s Good Girls and Spectrum’s L.A.’s Finest.
Messer will serve as showrunner for Criminal Minds: Evolution. She executive produces with fellow writers Breen Frazier and Christopher Barbour, director Glenn Kershaw, and Mark Gordon. ABC Signature and CBS Studios produce.
Source: Hollywood
