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Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
- Theresa Rebeck (SMASH) is writing the pilot for Bravo’s drama series FORTUNE, an adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ Bleak House. (Fortunately for the budget – and just possibly for viewer interest as well – it’s going to be set here and now so we can better appreciate it as some spoiled rich people fight over an inheritance. Yeppers, spoiled rich people as protagonists. We don’t think we’d be out of line in saying that somebody is not paying attention to the temper of the times.)
- Bruce Lee (yeppers, that Bruce Lee) has written something that’s being interpreted as the basis for a new TV series and CAA, which represents the production company, PERFECT STORM ENTERTAINMENT, is looking for a showrunner. (The time to get your people on this with CAA’s people is now. Cuz you’ve always wanted to work, um, with the world’s coolest martial artist, right? “WATAAAAW!”)
- Looks like another showrunner gig is up for grabs. Rene Echevarria has stepped down as showrunner of the upcoming CBS series INTELLIGENCE, leaving a gap for some enterprising TVWriter™ reader to exploit. (Of course, this being Hollywood, the major qualification for the gig is that the writer neither want nor need it, which really makes the executives salivate. So if you don’t really care about running INTELLIGENCE – insert joke here – then have your agent call CBS and tell them they can’t have you and you’ll get it for sure. Um, WTF did we just say?)
Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
- Graydon Sheppard & Kyle Humphrey (NEWBS) have made a deal with Style Media to develop their Twitter/Web series, SH*T GIRLS SAY, for Style Network, an NBCUniversal production company. (To which we can only add, “See, you lazy motherfuckers? Your insane interweb ideas can get you the love and money you want, you just have to, you know, write the damn things!” Yep, that’s what we say.)
- John McLaughlin (THE BLACK SWAN) has written the pilot for a drama series to be based on James Patterson‘s book series, PRIVATE, and some actor name of Robert De Niro is pitching it all over town. (Well, actually, Bobby isn’t the one who does the pitches. His genius – we mean it – production partner, Jane Rosenthal, handles that end of things, which means you can bank on getting to see the series on the air somewhere important soon.)
- Nigel Trantor’s historical novels about Scottish heroes William Wallace and Robert the Bruce are being adapted into a miniseries for Discovery Channel. No word on the writer, so have your people talk to Discovery’s people ASAP. (And if you know Ridley Scott and/or David W. Zucker, who are executive producers of the project, well, that can’t hurt, can it?)
- Michael Green (HEROES) is adapting Alan Moore‘s LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN series of graphic novels into a series for Fox Network. (The good news: It’s bound to be better than the feature film version. The bad news: Nobody’s telling us how Alan Moore feels about this project.)
Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
- Jeff Greenstein (WILL & GRACE) has a new agency: CAA. (So if you’re also a CAA client tell you point man you want to be part of the next package they put together for Jeff!)
- NBC is putting together AD: BEYOND THE BIBLE, a drama mini-series about the days after Jesus’ death. (So if you’re a firnd of Mark Burnett or his lovely wife Roma Downey, time to hit one of ’em up for a writing gig.)
- Speaking of getting your agents in motion, word is out that the search is on for a writer to adapt Declan Hill’s book The Fix for international TV. (Whoa, 2 potential UK gigs in a row. What can this portend?)
- Jill Soloway (SIX FEET UNDER, THE UNITED STATES OF TARA) has optioned an untitled half-hour dramedy to Amazon Studios. (And what this portends is pretty clear: Amazon is continuing to make moves designed so that it will appear to be a viable playa…even though so far it’s anything but.)
Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
- Jennie Snyder Urman (EMILY OWENS, MD) is adapting JANE THE VIRGIN, a drama based on a Venezuelan telenovela, for the CW. (Hmm, if the GOP is so smart, why isn’t it trying to make big money from the Latino market, the way the TV biz is.)
- Ben Aaronovitch (REVENGE OF THE DALEKS) has optioned his urban fantasy series, Rivers of London to London’s Feel Films. (This is the same Ben Aaronovitch who swore he’d never write for TV again. Well, maybe he’ll just supervise this time, which means, English TVWriter™ visitors, start your agents’ engines!)
- Speaking of getting your agents in motion, word is out that the search is on for a writer to adapt Declan Hill’s book The Fix for international TV. (Whoa, 2 potential UK gigs in a row. What can this portend?)
- Lauren Iungerich (AWKWARD) is leaving the show, which she’s been producing since creating it 3 years ago. (The way we hear it she was upset because MTV passed on her latest pilot and is showing the net a thing or two. Maybe she’ll move to Britain and kick RIVERS OF LONDON butt?)
- Chris Crowe (LAST OF THE MOHICANS feature film) is writing the FX limited series, LAST OF THE MOHICANS. (Because the film did so well…oh, wait, that isn’t how it went down at all. Okay then, how about this: Because FX knows how much everyone likes to see a good, heartwarming Indian massacre? No? Well how about…?)
Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
- Austin Winsberg (GOSSIP GIRL) is writing the pilot for an untitled Showtime comedy about “high-profile music managers, which will be produced by music, um, guy John Legend. (Proving that if you call yourself a legend Showtime will buy into it and make you a big deal. Hey, it’s worth trying.)
- Bob Boyett & Robert Horn (FULL HOUSE) are writing an as yet untitled FX series set to star Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence. We say that they’re writing the series because FX has already given a go to 10 episodes, with a back end of 80 to come if things work out. (So if you or your agent know Bob and Robert (?), now’s the time for him to talk to them about your future.)
- Frank Spotnitz (THE X FILES) is developing SAM HUNTER, a spy drama with a female lead, for Cinemax. The series is a spinoff of Cinemax’s HUNTED, a show we’re supposed to know about but don’t. Sorry. (We were very cool with the “female lead” thing till we read this patronizing description of the character as “a gutsy agent…who must work as a freelance spy to find out who wants her dead – and how it connects to the murder of her own mother.” How original. Ugh.)
- The TV adaptation of Locke & Key, a comic book series written by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez, has been passed on, but it’s no biggie: Universal has picked up the premise as a feature film to be written by its go-to team of Alex Kurtzman & Robert Orci, whose credits we won’t bother mentioning because they’ve already became household names in writerly households. Sigh…