Joe Manganiello Exits Fox's SCREAM QUEENS, Oliver Hudson Steps in

According to Deadline, TRUE BLOOD alumn Joe Manganiello has withdrawn from Fox's SCREAM QUEENS, the upcoming comedy-horror series from GLEE creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan. NASHVILLE's Oliver Hudson will step in for Manganiello as one of the series' male leads.

SCREAM QUEENS is a new genre-bending comedy-horror anthology series which revolves around a college campus which is rocked by a series of murders.

Hudson will join previously announced stars Emma Roberts, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lea Michele, Abigail Breslin, Keke Palmer, Skyler Samuels, Diego Boneta, Nasim Pedrad, Glen Powell, Billie Lourd, as well as guest stars Ariana Grande and Nick Jonas.

FOX has ordered 15 one-hour episodes, which are scheduled to begin production in the spring and premiere in Fall 2015 on FOX. New settings and storylines will be featured in subsequent seasons of the anthology series, like in Murphy's other series.

Manganiello, a native of Pittsburgh, played Alcide Herveaux on HBO's critically acclaimed True Blood and appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sam Worthington in David Ayer's film Sabotage. His other film and television credits Steven Soderbergh's wildly successful Magic Mike, Peter Parker's nemesis Flash Thompson in the Spider-Man trilogy directed by Sam Raimi, How I Met Your Mother, One Tree Hill, Two and a Half Men, White Collar, and ER. His theatre credits include Terrence McNally's Unusual Acts of Devotion (La Jolla Playhouse, directed by Trip Cullman; Ojai Playwrights Festival, directed by Leonard Foglia), A Streetcar Named Desire (West Virginia Public Theatre), Drinking Games (finalist, HBO's Aspen Comedy Festival), Gloria Calderon Kellett's Wounded, and most recently, Tennessee Williams's Small Craft Warnings with William H. Macy(HERO Theatre benefit reading, Santa Monica). His first book, Evolution, will be published by Simon & Schuster in December. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and resides in Los Angeles.

Photo by Walter McBride