Category: News

Love & Money: Recent TV Writing Deals 10/2/12

Our new sorta permanent image for deal announcements. Work for you?
  • Evan Daugherty (SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN) is re-tooling a drama pilot based on the comic Midnight Mass for NBC. (because feature credits are the best way to break into TV…but if you have a solid feature film career why would you want to?)
  • Michael Cooney (IDENTITY) is writing the pilot for GASLIGHT, a soft, steampunk (!) drama, for ABC. (Um, yes, another feature writer type. Getting the pattern here?)
  • Dana Stevens (CITY OF ANGELS) is writing the pilot for RECKLESS, a drama about the complicated relationship between two opposing lawyers for CBS. (Yes, Ms. Stevens is a feature writer.)
  • Matthew Carlson (MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE, THE WONDER YEARS) is adapting the feature film, ABOUT A BOY, into a series for ABC. (Okay, so he isn’t a feature guy – but would this be in development if it hadn’t been a popular film?)

Lotsa writing deals were announced over the past week. We’ll be back soonish with more of them. (And our groovy “love/money” pic. Well, we think it’s groovy anyway. But then, we’re the kind who think the word “groovy” is groovy so what do we know?)

More About ELEMENTARY from its Showrunner

The big push is on as CBS tries desperately to make us sample – and love – ELEMENTARY, their quasi-Sherlock Holmes quasi-adaptation. We’ll have our own review up today or tomorrow, but, till then:

How Elementary Won’t Go There with Sherlock and Watson – by Natalie Abrams

Millions of Sherlock Holmes fans can rest easy; CBS’ Holmes adaptation Elementary will pretty much never suffer from theMoonlighting curse (and here’s hoping that is the last time we’ll ever mention those two ideas in the same sentence). read article

Writer Deal Time!

They’re everywhere! With everybody! (Okay, almost everybody. We don’t see our names below…dammit.)

Thinking of making this the permanent image for our deal announcements. That work for you?
  • Ricky Gervais’s new series, DEREK, will be a Netflix production, and we think it’s safe to predict that it will be much better/more successful than Netflix’s opening salvo in its attempts to become a kind of faux network, LILLYHAMMER. (Unless it’s set in, you know, Iceland.)
  • Ron Moore (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) is adapting A KNIGHT’S TALE for ABC on the theory that jousting is cool. Well, maybe it is. (And maybe not.)
  • Esteemed feature director Alfonso Cuaron (HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN)will be directing a J.J. Abrams-Mark Friedman script for an unnamed spiritual world type pilot about a girl who is developing super powers and the tough guy who’s released from prison to protect her.Whatever.
  • Garry Marshall (HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE & SHIRLEY, et al) is co-writing GOLDEN GUYS, a sitcom about a down on his luck rich guy with his son, Scott Marshall (um, son of the writer/producer of HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE & SHIRLEY, et al). Does this mean ole Gar’s down on his (feature film) luck now too?
  • Ilene Chaiken (THE L WORD) is writing a crime drama pilot, SOLVE FOR X, for CBS, about a game developer who consults with the San Franciso PD. Cuz, you know, San Francisco is so hip the cops actually think gaming is, um, for smart people. Or something like that. Oh, the edginess of it all!

munchman: McDonald’s is Creating Its Own TV Channel

Well, more like an intranet kind of thing really. It’ll be called the M Channel and play new content on TV sets in about 700 McDonald’s. Do they really think that’s going to make uswant to eat that crap?

Stuff my mouth and call me speechless!

Big wheel keeps on turnin’. Proud Mary keeps on burnin’. Kee-ryst!

Red Dwarf X Clip

If you know RED DWARF, then the headline above is all we need to say. If you don’t, then you probably aren’t reading this far anyway. Which is too bad because this show is all kinds of wonderful nuttiness. Enjoy!

The show returns to TV October 4th. And, as a warning so you’ll understand just what kind of wacky this is: read article