Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Kiara Barnes and John Gabriel Rodriguez have been cast in Fox’s new version of Fantasy Island.

Both will be part of the permanent staff on the island, which, in this series, is run by Eleanor Roarke, a descendant of the character played by Ricardo Montalban in the original. (There is no mention of an equivalent to Herve Villechaize’s Tattoo,)

Barnes will play the warm and wise Ruby Okoro, a young woman with an old soul. She arrives on Fantasy Island with a terminal illness, but Roarke and the island give her a new lease on life.

Rodriquez will play the rugged, handsome and charismatic Javier, Fantasy Island’s head of transport — a pilot, mechanic and jack of all trades. While the island provides Javier refuge, as with everything else it offers, it may come at the price of a reckoning.

The new Fantasy Island got a direct-to-series order with Liz Craft and Sarah Fain writing and showrunning. There won’t be a connection to the Blumhouse reimagining.