Category: By TVWriter.Com

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/15/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Diablo Cody (UNITED STATES OF TERRA) is writing a Fox teen drama pilot called PRODIGY, about a home-schooled teenage genius who enters public high school, upon which, well, all hell breaks loose. (We aren’t Diablo Cody fans, but she does seem to know how to write high school kids – JUNO, remember – so here’s hoping.)
  • Shana Goldberg-Meehan & Scott Silvari (FRIENDS) & David Mandel (SEINFELD) are writing an NBC comedy pilot about a couple with grown children. (Yeppers, really, that’s the logline. So the next time somebody tells you TV only goes for “high concept” you can tell them to…heh, you know.)
  • Justin Spitzer (THE OFFICE) is adapting the ancient comedy film THE MONEY PIT into an NBC sitcom. (Proving that NBC has deftly targeted the geriatric demo. This definitely will give my grandparents something to live for.)
  • Jon Sherman (FRASIER) is writing an untitled TVLand comedy about “a 30-something woman as she navigates the executive ranks among her old-school male counterparts while her 20-something male assistant tries to make it amid his female-dominated peers. (Cuz…oops, sorry, turns out we can’t think of one single reason, real/fake/serious/funny for going with a premise like this. Maybe Jon’s related to somebody important?)

  • Neil Goldman & Garrett Donovan (COMMUNITY) are writing the pilot for an ABC project to star comedian Kevin Hart. (Well, not actually to star him. He’s just the producer but says that if the network really, really, really wants him he might be willing to play a recurring role. Don’tcha love it when stars you’ve never heard of have so much leverage?)

  • Ehren Kruger (TRANSFORMERS) is writing the NBC pilot TIN MAN, about a fugitive robot accused of murder and the young woman public defender forced to fight for his cause. (LB’s praying for the success of this one cuz he’s already counting the money from a plagiarism suit based on the fact that one of his first published short stories was about a robot accused of murder too. We, frankly, are dubious about both possibilities.)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/14/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Aaron Stockard (GONE, BABY, GONE) is writing the ABC drama pilot CONVICTION, about a woman convicted of murder who, it appears, refuses to accept that and, um, “sees no alternative but to take matters into her own hands.” (And if that slim description doesn’t capture the tone of the U.S. today – for better or for worse – we don’t know what does.)
  • Paul Downs Colaizzo (TV/film newbie) is writing the drama pilot JUST REWARDS, about a bankrupt divorcee and her millennial neighbors who make ends meet by solving crimes and collecting the rewards, for ABC. (Sounds cool, but we gotta warn you: It comes from Shonda Rimes’ company, which could mean – soap! So we suggest lowering the ole expectations a tad.)
  • Roman Coppola (THE DARJEELING LIMITED) & Jason Schwartzman (MOONRISE KINGDOM) & Alex Timbers (PETER AND THE STARCATCHER) have sold the comedy MOZART IN THE JUNGLE to Amazon Studios. (Is this a good thing or a bad one? Discuss.)
  • Jeremy Garelick (THE BREAKUP) & Jon Weinbach (sorry, we don’t know which of the many famous Jon Weinbachs this is) have also sold a comedy to Amazon, the not-so-originally titled, THE OUTLAWS. (Good thing? Bad? We really want to hear from you on where you think Amazon will take, you know, TV.)

  • Brad Garrett (yeppers, that Brad Garrett) & Chuck Tatham (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT) are adapting Brad’s upcoming bestseller, When The Balls Drop into an ABC comedy series about surviving middle age. (It would’ve been about surviving old age, of course, but Brad’s still insisting he’s 35.)

  • Brian Bradley & Steven Cragg (HAPPY ENDINGS) are writing the pilot for WINNERS, a comedy about three “overly ambitious” siblings who crater their lives, for Fox. (We’d like to point out that the announcement emphasizes that the sibs are “millennials” – as does the JUST REWARDS announcement above – cuz, hey, being under 30 is, you know, hot. Um, we millennials are under 30 still, right? Please?)
  • The self-same duo of Bradley & Cragg is also writing an NBC comedy. It’s called THE BRIGHT SIDE is about a man whose wife leaves him with their young son and a business that was her dream, not his. (So the lead here definitely isn’t a millennial cuz everybody knows that our generation’s distinctive trait is our utter selfishness and sense of entitlement, and the guy here is sorely lacking. C’mon, NBC, give us a hero we can all related to, willya?)

The Writers Guild of America, West Kicks Nickelodeon’s Ass

Oo-rah!

WGANickelodeonCaptureOh yeah, we loves us our WGAW e-mail.

Go team, go!

Top TVWriter™ Posts for the Week Ending 10/11/13

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Here they are, the most viewed TVWriter™ posts for the past week:

Peggy Bechko: Writers Writing For Pleasure read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/11/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Richard Kramer (THIRTYSOMETHING) is writing the pilot for THESE THINGS HAPPEN, based on his comic novel of the same name, for HBO. (We’d tell you more, but the description we saw was so convoluted that we couldn’t make heads r tails of it. Which probably says enough all by itself.)
  • Dan Fogelman (THE NEIGHBORS) is developing ABC’s musical comedy series GALAVANT. (Which is basically INTO THE WOODS without being INTO THE WOODS. Oh, ABC, you’re so darn clever that way!)
  • Will Forte (SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE) is writing a Fox comedy pilot about the last couple left on earth having to learn to put aside their differences and, you know, repopulate the place. (Cuz the survival of the human race has become quite a joke, right? Who’d a thunk?)
  • Josh Siegal & Dylan Morgan (30 ROCK) are developing an untitled CBS comedy about a dysfunctional investigative team. (And we double dog dares ya to come up with how in hell it’ll be different from all the CBS dramas about the same thing.)

  • Michael Lisbe & Nate Reger ($#*! MY DAD SAYS) have sold an untitled spec comedy-mystery pilot about five, um, young people to CBS. (Which is bigger news than you might think at first cuz “young people?” At CBS?)

  • Time for one more comedy. Pete Huyck & Alex Gregory (THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW) are developing THE PRO, about a former tennis great now reduced to teaching and hustling as a tennis and golf club pro. (Rob Lowe is attached to star which means, hey, we believe in this premise cuz we definitely believe him as anything that, you know, hustles.)