Category: TV Writing Deals

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/25/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Timothy J. Sexton (CHILDREN OF MEN) has written the pilot for Lifetime’s THE LOTTERY, a drama that looks to us to be very similar to his s-f classic feature film. (Except it’s about the children of wimmens, see, cuz this is Lifetime and that’s how they hang roll.)
  • Scott Z. Burns (CONTAGION) is writing another one-word-starting-with-C drama pilot for NBC. It’s called CONSPIRACY and is based on Christopher MacBride’s indie film, THE CONSPIRACY. (Yeppers, they had to delete the “THE” cuz, you know, TV screens are smaller than those for feature films.)
  • Ben Queen (CARS 2) is adapting UNTHINKABLE, based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Sable & Julian Totino Tedesco. (The show’s about an FBI agent and a washed-up screenwriter who join together to, well, to keep America free. Or will the change the writer to a TV writer instead?)
  • Heather Hach (LEGALLY BLONDE: THE MUSICAL) is developing MY PARENTS ARE TOO FUCKING HAPPY, a sitcom about siblings who’ve been traumatized by their parents’ almost perfect marriage for NBC. (Yes, NBC is heavily into really awkward-sounding sitcoms about families these days, and we gotta tell ya: That’s traumatizing us.)
  • Jonathan Groff (HAPPY ENDINGS) has sold his fourth series of this pilot hustling season to CBS. It’s called THE 40s and is in the vein of Judd Apatow’s big, bad feature film about a married couple in their forties. (Except it has more than one couple and some non-couples. So nobody’s stealing from nobody no matter what it looks like, y’hear?)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/24/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

‘Tis the season for deals, deals, everywhere. But not a drop for…alack!…the poor minions slaving at TVWriter™:

  • Janet Tamaro (RIZZOLI & ISLES) is stepping down as showrunner of the TNT hit in order to develop new projects. (Ain’t nobody here gonna argue against that. Wonder how much longer the show can last without her, though.)
  • Becky Hartman Edwards (SWITCHED AT BIRTH) is writing the drama pilot FAR FROM THE TREE for Fox. (Yes, she’s noted for comedy, but even TV development execs can see that a show about the family of a terrorist – yes, that’s what this is about – won’t be funny. Well, not too funny anyway.)
  • Damon Lindelof (LOST) has gotten a 10 episode series pickup from HBO for his drama series THE LEFTOVERS about what happens to the people who didn’t make the cut after, you know, the Rapture thing. (Leave it to TV to cash in on the Rapture long after it’s lost any value it may ever have had. We humbly submit our suggestion for the TV development model: “Forward to the past!”)
  • Lauren Iungerich (AWKWARD), who seem to be talking about here all the time, has sold BITCH OFF THE OL’ BLOCK to NBC. It’s a comedy about a professional woman whose life is disrupted when her daughter, a younger version of herself, moves in with her and her roommates. (Didn’t we write about several other versions of this just yesterday? Oh, but they were at ABC, so this is all fine. Anybody know a smiley that means >shudder
  • Joe Port & LB’s former student Joe Wiseman (JOE, JOE AND JANE) are writing an untitled NBC comedy pilot about a 16 year old prodigy chef. (Cuz you know how much the TV audience loves teenagers and chefs and comedy. Well, at least NBC loves ’em – we hope.)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/23/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

‘Tis the season for deals, deals, everywhere. But not a drop for…alack!…the poor minions slaving at TVWriter™:

  • Ali Rushfield (PARKS & RECREATION) is writing the ABC pilot about a middle-aged woman who finally starts to grow up when she moves in with a couple of 21-year-olds. (Oh well, maybe that idea sounds funny to 21 year old ABC D-girls?)
  • Kristin Newman (THE NEIGHBORS) is also doing an ABC comedy pilot. This one’s called WOMEN & GIRLS and is about a middle-aged woman who moves in with her 20-something half sister. (Quick, somebody sell this one-note network another variation of the theme so we can all collect on the trifecta!)
  • Jordon Nardino (SMASH) is also developing an ABC project, this one a drama called PRINCESS – and, thankfully, not about different generations of women moving in together. Nosirree, instead it’s about a contemporary version of Princess Di. (Oh well, look at the bright side. At least we all know how it’s going to end. After all, nobody watches TV to be surprised, right?)
  • Michael Alaimo (MAJOR CRIMES) has sold a spec pilot called SPEC (how coincidental is that) to NBC. It’s a science fictiony drama based on something guru Deepak Chopra once said. (Which was along the lines that the universe is really a speck that can fit under a person’s fingernail. Get it? “Speck” got turned into “spec,” maybe because the execs were worried that nobody would know what to do with the extra K? Who says development isn’t stranger than the shows it develops?)
  • Casey Wilson & June Diane Raphael (HAPPY ENDINGS, BRIDE WARS) are writing DINKS, another comedy for ABC. (We could swear that we reported on another show with the exact same name and premise – “Double Income No Kids” a few months ago. Guess ABC wasn’t reading this column…then.)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/22/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

And the deals we didn’t get keep pouring in! Check out how your friends – and enemies – are doing:

  • Neil LaBute (THE SHAPE OF THINGS) is writing an NBC pilot for HARMONY HOUSE, a comedy about a mental institution. (We ask only one thing of this project – that it be as horrifying as it is funny. Cuz – and we aren’t saying how we know – that would make it, ahem, real.)
  • Kay Canon (PITCH PERFECT) is writing THE RUNT, a CBS sitcom pilot about a, um, late bloomer and the effect her success has on family dynamics. (Cuz the ancient demographic that is the CBS audience is probably the only age group left that, you know, actually remembers what family is, let alone cares.)
  • Glenn Gordon Caron (MEDIUM) will write the pilot for THE MIDDLEMAN, a Fox crime drama set in the ’60s. (Cuz God knows nobody wants to see anything taking place in the treacherous here and now we all live in. What? You think we’re exaggerating? Let us tell you a few things about life in 2013, mister…)
  • Aseem Batra (ANIMAL PRACTICE) is writing the pilot for an unnamed NBC sitcom based on his life. (Cuz, hey, the life of a guy who wrote ANIMAL PRACTICE must be chock full of laughs, don’tcha know?)
  • Craig Gerard & Matthew Zinman (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) are writing SEASON TICKETS, another NBC comedy pilot about, um, a guy who has season tickets to the Kansas City Royals games. (Wow, this has “winner” written all over it, no? So what if 98.5% of the population of, well, Kansas City for one place, doesn’t even know what sport the Royals play.)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 9/21/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Dylan Moran (Big Name Irish comic) has a deal to write an ABC sitcom. (That’s it. All the info we have. But this dude starred in and co-wrote one of the craziest Britcoms we’ve ever seen, BLACK’S BOOKS, so we’re looking forward to whatever emerges.)
  • Hank Nelken (SAVING SILVERMAN) is writing a CBS sitcom pilot called SISTER WHIPPED. (About, we assume, a nerd with sisters who’ve kept him from knowing what a, you know, guy should really be like. Anybody know if we’re in the ballpark here?)
  • Jim Agnew & Sean Keller (upcoming feature TOKAREV) are writing a pilot for THE THIRTEEN, which is described as “a contemporary drama [that] takes place in a world in which the colonies lost their bid for independence and [are] still fighting…for freedom.” (Whoa, a 250 year war? Those are some inept freedom fighters, no? Or are we going to see a bunch of Afghanistan metaphors?)
  • Greg Poirier (NATIONAL TREASURE 2) is writing the pilot for NBC’s WOLFE, a sort-of-a-spy-spoof about a fake CIA hero and the baddie who knows he’s a fraud. (We hope this gets on the air cuz we lurve, lurve, lurve to watch executive miscalculations that lead to new series that appear for 6 episodes and then vanish forever. Yeah, sure we do.)
  • Ken Biller (PERCEPTION) has a new overall deal with ABC Studios, under which he’ll continue as showrunner of PERCEPTION and also create tons of similar hits. (Or maybe not so similar, which to us chaos-loving types could be way better.)