‘Big Brother’ Stars Pitch Veterans Season After Casting Calls Are Canceled Across The Country

Big Brother veterans think a casting call cancellation over COVID-19 fears could be a sign that it’s time for an all-stars season.

Just one week after host Julie Chen Moonves posted a casting call announcement for the CBS summertime reality show, an update on the official Big Brother Instagram page revealed that all casting calls for Big Brother 22 have been postponed until further notice.

Casting calls were originally supposed to take place in San Antonio, Chicago, and New Orleans — among others — before ending in San Diego on April 4. In the cancelation message, producers urged wannabe Big Brother housemates to apply for the show online.

In comments to the post, however, past Big Brother players suggested this would be a good time to roll out an all-stars or veterans season.

“Damn. Guess you’ll just have to do a veterans season,” wrote Big Brother 21 runner-up Holly Allen. ” I guuueeeessss I volunteer as tribute.”

“Sooooo does this mean we should just do BB21 2.0? ” added her boyfriend and Big Brother 21 winner Jackson Michie.

“I agree with [Holly Allen],” chimed in Season 21’s Christie Murphy. “I think this is the Universe’s way of trying to say ‘bring back some vets!'”

Other stars, including Big Brother 20’s Tyler Crispen and last season’s houseguest Tommy Bracco urged fans to submit their audition tapes.

“Get your videos in people!!!! THEY REALLY DO WORK!!!!!” Bracco wrote.

Big Brother host Julie Chen has not publicly commented on the casting call delay, although producer Robyn Kass shared the bad news on her own Instagram page.

The COVID-19 crisis has already caused production delays for several other CBS reality shows, including Survivor and The Amazing Race, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Over at ABC, it has also been reported that the upcoming season of The Bachelorette will likely be filmed entirely in the United States and production may not even leave the state of California.

Big Brother is unique in the fact that the chosen houseguests would remain safely sequestered once inside the CBS summertime house, thus making virus spread highly unlikely. But the casting process itself clearly has producers of the long-running reality show worried, with open casting calls being a particularly high-risk move right now.

The Big Brother cast usually moves into the CBS summertime house in late June, so there is still plenty of time to get a new cast in order if the producers decide not to create an all-star or veterans cast.