Category: News

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/14/14

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
by munchman

  • Malcolm Gladwell (numerous New Yorker pieces) & Glenn Gordon Caron (MEDIUM) are writing the pilot for the Fox medical drama, THE CURE, about “a young, impulsive, African-American neurologist who takes the law into her own hands in the cause of tackling a deadly disease.” (Here’s hoping the series is better written than the blurb. A genuine munchprize awaits the first reader to name all the problems in that silly partial sentence. For reals. I’ll send ya something. Promise.)
  • Alex Sulkin & Julius Sharpe (DADS) are also writing a Fox pilot. This one’s a comedy called ALL TOGETHER NOW about a group of friends in their late 20s who vow to hang together as real people, sans their mobile electronics. (To which yer munchie one scoffs, “It’ll never work.” And by “it” I mean both the premise and the show. Cuz let’s face it, the only people who want to see a series that craps on our current interweb culture are folks so out of it that they don’t watch TV anyway…and certainly don’t buy the products that the sponsors are trying to sell.)
  • DJ Nash (GROWING UP FISHER) is developing the NBC sitcom THE CATCH, about a single dood who “for the first time in his life…[is]…sharing an apartment with a woman he’s not sleeping with. (What’s that? You caught me yawning at this? Um, erm, oh hell – damn straight you did. Funny how little interest I can muster for, like, the ’80s sensibility. How ’bout y’all?)
  • Speaking of ancient sensibilities, Claudia Lonow (HOW TO LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE is adapting Bob Morris’s book of the same name about “two half siblings who take care of their father.” (Cuz anybody over 40 is obviously an incontinent idiot no longer capable of running his/her own life. Just ask the development apes who commissioned this out of their needs to avenge themselves on parents who, yer muncho supposes, just didn’t wuv their babies enough.

That’s it for now. Write in and tell munchilito what you’ve sold today. TVWriter™ can’t wait to brag to all your friends. (And, more importantly, enemies. Hehehe….)

Why Danish TV is Better than US TV

Cuz wonderful, inventive, and controversial filmmakers not only have emerged from Danish television production. They often go back to it. Behold a magnificent case in point:

Lars von TrierLars von Trier returns to TV: what can we expect?
by Graeme Virtue

Good news for fans of the phrase “enfant terrible” – on Monday, Lars von Trier, the puckish provocateur of European arthouse cinema, broke his self-imposed media silence by Skype-ing the Venice film festival. Nominally it was to promote an extended cut of his sex diptych Nymphomaniac, but Louise Vesth, Von Trier’s producer since Melancholia, dropped a juicier exclusive by confirming the writer/director’s next project: an English-language TV series for Danish broadcaster DR (The Bridge/The Killing), with the working title The House that Jack Built. Had Vesth simply pulled the trigger, or jumped the gun? Von Trier hasn’t even finished writing the script and the earliest filming date would be 2016, but here’s what we might expect.

He Has Impressive TV Cred read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/7/14

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
by munchman

  • Chris Long (THE MENTALIST) has a new development deal at Warner Brothers. (And, yes, he’s still helping run THE MENTALIST, so if you know him now’s a good time to, you know, buddy up. Chris’ career is moving steadily upward, and it never hurts to hitch your wagon to a star. In other words, congrats, Chris Dood!)
  • Michelle Morgan (THE GIRL MOST LIKELY) has sold her comedy pilot script, THE BRAIN, to CBS. It’s about “an unintelligent guy who suffers head trauma and turns into a genius.” (Hilarity, of course, ensues. Cuz smart guys aren’t necessarily funny and neither are dumb guys, but formerly dumb guys who become smart guys to the utter astonishment of their dumb friends and family are, well, not funny either but network development peeps often don’t get that.)
  • Andrew Marlowe (CASTLE)’s never seen character, Derrick Storm (the hero of a series of books written by the title character in CASTLE) is overseeing the development of a series about said hero written by said title character. The writer will be Gregory Poirier (NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS). (And Yer Friendly Neighborhood muncher is looking forward to seeing how this baby turns out. Will Castle be a character in Derrick Storm’s series? The writer of Storm’s favorite fictional detective or maybe even that self same fictional detective? I love how this already is messing with my head.)
  • Dana Klein (FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES) is writing the pilot THE BAD STANLEYS, a Fox comedy about two competitive brothers. (okay, I’ve gotta stop here and ask a question. Has anybody out there ever heard of, let alone seen, a series called FRIENDS WITH BETTER LIVES? Or THE GIRL MOST LIKELY? I gotta tell you that I feel like half these announcements come from another dimension. Which, come to think about it, may explain why I can’t sell anything. I’m stuck in the wrong universe!

    • Write in and tell me what you’ve sold today. TVWriter™ can’t wait to brag to all your friends. (And, more importantly, enemies. Hehehe….)

    WGAW September 2014 Calendar of Events

    wgaw_calendar_bannerwgawsept14calendarCapturewgawsept14calendarCaptureawgawsept14calendarCapturebGo to the clickable version

    Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/3/14

    Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
    by munchman

    • Michael Seitzman (INTELLIGENCE) is developing a CBS series called CODE BLACK in which, well, from the P.R. description, it seems that we’ll be seeing and even harder, edgier version of E.R. (Cuz why come up with something new when there’s a whole new generation of TV viewers who haven’t seen what’s old? Which almost sounds logical. No, not creative but…logical.)
    • Lindsey Shockly (TROPHY WIFE) has an overall deal to develop series and work on staff for ABC Studios. (And, why not? She has network TV experience on TROPHY WIFE and HELLO LADIES, and yer munchero here is absolutely sure that the fact that they tanked had nothing to do with Ms. Shockly’s contributions.)
    • Max Borenstein (GODZILLA) is writing the pilot for a TV version of MINORITY REPORT. (Which makes this particular Philip K. Dick fan flash a major kinda smile. Yes, it’s true, this is one deal methinks I can like.)
    • Sarah Watson (PARENTHOOD) is writing the pilot for an untitled CBS medical series about – ooh, you’ll never guess – “a controversial, outrageous, young tech titan who opens his own hospital with a cutting-edge approach to medicine.” Gotta admit – I’d rather watch that than another version of E.R. But it’s hard to imagine CBS doing anything with “cutting-edge” tech.)

    Write in and tell me what you’ve sold today. TVWriter™ can’t wait to brag to all your friends. (And, more importantly, enemies. Hehehe….)