Category: News

Starz CEO Chris Albrecht Plans More Original Programming

Chris Albrecht re Starz Originals Capture

Here’s the skinny about Starz upcoming original TV programming plans from the man who knows ’em best cuz they were created right there in his incubator-like cranium. Gather ’round, gang, to see and hear The Word from the only network executive our BLLB himself respects. (Well, except for that beating up on his girlfriend business that went down awhile ago. But, hey, what’s past is past, right?)

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Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/21/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Matt Greenberg (1408 ) is writing a version of some old manuscript called BEOWULF for Syfy. (And all we can do is…hmm, come to think of it, there’s absolutely nothing we can do, or even say. This idea doesn’t even rouse us enough to shrug. How about you?)
  • Christopher Hampton (DANGEROUS LIASONS) is turning his Oscar winning screenplay for said project into a TV series at the BBC. (Which hopes to get it onto U.S. TV cuz…$$$. (Are we looking forward to a series about an evil couple who spend all their time corrupting/debauching innocents? Should we be? Gotta admit that our answer to one of those questions is, “Yeppers!” Can you guess which one?)
  • Bob Brush (THE WONDER YEARS) is writing STAR CRAZY, a drama abut a young Latina singer as she rises from poverty to fame and fortune for The CW. (Does this mean that Selina Gomez has conquered the world and become a mythic character all by her lonesome? Without the Bieb? Ain’t life grand?)
  • The brotherly writing team of Roberto Benabib & Kim Benabib are writing the pilot for THE BRINK an HBO comedy about dirty politics and stuff like that. (HOUSE OF CARDS with episodes that only take half as long to watch? If so, our hat is off to Netflix for starting what could be an interesting trend? Or is this doomed to end up just another same-old, same-old? Whatcha think?)
  • Katie Ford & Jane Ford’s Canadian series, WORKING THE ENGELS, is coming to the U.S. via NBC in what’s billed as “the first sitcom collaboration between a U.S. and Canadian broadcaster.” (Our experience with comedy is Canada urges us to label this an impending disaster, but we’re happy to be corrected by anyone out there with a good sense of humor. Canadians, of course, need not apply cuz…comedy, y’know? Are we gonna get in trouble for this?)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/20/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Shane Dawson (Newb Who’s a Big Deal on Youtube, bitches! ) has sold a comedy series, LOSIN’ IT, to NBC, and Darlene Hunt will write the pilot based on their story. (The show is a workplace comedy about a weight loss center, which to us means that it’ll get a huge tune-in for the first episode. But will its viewers then be able to keep to their LOSIN’ IT diet? Or will NBC screw it up?)
  • Ricky Blitt (THE FAMILY GUY) is developing a comedy called HERE’S YOUR DAMN FAMILY for Fox. (And we don’t care what its about or how well – or badly – it’s executed, we’ll watch the series out of absolute, unconditional love for the title.)
  • Melissa Rosenberg (DEXTER) is writing JESSICA JONES for ABC, based on the Marvel Comics 2nd – maybe even 3rd – tier character. (But the important thing here is that it’s a superhero adventure series centered on a woman, and that’s huge in both the TV and comics industries, where discrimination has always been solidly entrenched. Fingers so crossed for this one.)
  • Joe Hill (LOCKE & KEY comic book) is writing a reboot of TALES OF THE DARKSIDE. (Which is good news even to re-boot hating TVWriter™, mainly cuz we’d thought Team Mediocrity AKA Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, were going to have that gig. Yeah, we know, calling those guys mediocre is actually giving them the benefit of the doubt. But that’s us…kind to a fault!)
  • Tim Kring (HEROES) & Gideon Raff (HOMELAND) are writing DIG, a 6 episode action series for USA about an FBI agent in Jerusalem who discovers a 2000 year conspiracy that’s about to come to fruition. (You know the rest, world-shaking danger ensues…with each episode becoming more tedious than the one that preceeded it until, at the end, only about 1/5 of the original audience is there to see how it ends. Cuz…HEROES and HOMELAND, you know?)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/19/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Robert Kirkman (THE WALKING DEAD) has sold OUTCAST, an exorcism drama based on his upcoming comic book of the same name, to Cinemax. (Cuz you really can’t put all our eggs in one zombie. And everybody knows that exorcists are gonna be the Next Big Thing. What? You didn’t? Oh well…)
  • Jeffrey Lieber (NECESSARY ROUGHNESS) is writing and showrunning a Fox “event series” called EVEREST about, you know, mountain climbing. (He’s putting the finishing touches on his writers room even as we, um speak, so getcher agent on the phone. Pronto!)
  • Salim Akil (THE GAME) is creating, writing, directing, starring and, of course, showrunning MR. DIRECTOR, an HBO comedy that’s reputedly just like CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM only – aw, you guessed it – about “Black Hollywood.” (Silly us. We thought all of Hollywood was black. Black-hearted anyway. And no, we do not mean “Black at heart.” That would be considerably different. And hipper.)
  • Akiva Goldman (A BEAUTIFUL MIND) & Jeff Pinkner (FRINGE) are co-writing a pilot based on the 1990 hit GHOST, about – maybe – this dead guy who’s trying to protect his beautiful wife but… (Yeppers, we love the film. But how’re they gonna do it without Patrick Swayze? Unless…oh, wait, he’s already a ghost, no? So…)
  • Drew Goddard (LOST) will be writing and showrunning DAREDEVIL in its new direct-to-Netflix web/TV adventures. (Which we find genuinely exciting cuz…Daredevil done by the man who directed THE CABIN IN THE WOODS just screams with awesome.)

DOCTOR WHO Writer’s Son Sues BBC over Tardis Copyright

…Cuz he can.

Enjoy, bullshit lovers:

tardis-doctor-whoAccording to the Independent. “Mr Coburn’s son [Stef Coburn] claims that the BBC has been in breach of copyright since his father’s death in 1977. He has demanded that the corporation either stop using the Tardis in the show or pay his family for its every use since then. Stef Coburn claims that upon his father’s death, any informal permission his father gave the BBC to use his work expired and the copyright of all of his ideas passed to his widow, Joan. Earlier this year she passed it on to him.” read article