Tag: Carlton Cuse

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/30/14

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Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are=&0=& (newbie winner of the 2012 Humanitas Prize New Voices Award) is writing the pilot for UNNATURAL SELECTION, a CW drama about Charles Darwin’s journey through the Amazon. (Explorers! “Controversial” theories! Jungles! C’mon, admit, this is the stuff daydreams are made of. And if the network can deliver what Adam writes…well, munchkin is in, in, and in.) The selfsame Adam Karp also is writing the script for a CBS pilot, MODERN GOTHIC, partnering with David Reed (SUPERNATURAL) on a series about a contemporary doctor (the character is named after Dracula‘s Van Helsing) investigates supernatural mysteries. (And, yeppers, I’m so onboard for that one as well cuz I keep thinking, “Wow, the protagonist in ye olde NIGHTSTALKER series…if he was cool. At least that’s how I’d write it…but what do I know?) =&1=& has turned his book, ZeroSeroZero, a thriller about international cocaine trafficking, into an English language series out of France and Italy. (Yer muncher will say this about that: At least it’s got the potential for action. “Watch the hero’s eyes glaze over. See the villain get all nuts over nothing.” I’m betting that this’ll be a big hit all over the world. But I don’t think I’ll watch it cuz…well, hell, kiddies, I can see that action in the apartment next door.) Carlton Cuse (BATES MOTEL) has a new overall deal at A&E. (Cuz he’s a writing rock star, he is. So if you’re the kinda person who knows how to stay in the good graces of a diva, I respectfully suggest you hitch our wagon to Carlton’s rising star. And remember: We’re all made of stardust. Neil Gaiman told me.)

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….)

Love & Money Dept – TV Pilot Production Deals for 1/29/13

producer sharksLatest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are – Because Their Pilots are Being Made

  • Robert Peacock (THE SOUL MAN) has gotten a 20 episode order from Nickelodeon for THE HAUNTED HATHAWAYS, a BRADY BUNCH meets a bunch of ghosts show for which he wrote the pilot. (Time to hit up your agents and get staffed, kids.)
  • Jon Bokenkamp (PERFECT STRANGER) is moving into production of his pilot THE BLACKLIST, a crime drama for NBC about the world’s most wanted man, who turns himself in to help the Feds…but there are certain conditions. (Uh-oh, we can’t think of anything snarky to say about this one. Does that mean it might actually, you know, work?)
  • Ryan Condal’s  THE SIXTH GUN, an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name, is going to pilot at NBC. Think “THE LORD OF THE RINGS’, um, rings only in the old west. (Hey, Carlton Cuse will be showrunner. If he brings his A-game this could be at least as good as THE BLACKLIST.)
  • Brian Gallivan (ARE YOU THERE, CHELSEA?) has a  pilot deal for THE McCARTHYS, a CBS comedy about sports-crazed Bostonians. (Ooh, sports. Guess they’ve written off the geek audience. Oh, wait, CBS…of course they have.)
  • Lee Eisenberg & Gene Stupinsky’s comedy PULLING, about 3 30-something women being zanily contrary is going to pilot at ABC.

BATES HOTEL’s Carlton Cuse Wants You

…To design the show’s opening “credits.” Well, the press release says “credits,” but we’re thinking it probably means “titles,” no?

Anyway, here’s the skinny. A &E Network has put out the call for fans to help create the opening title sequence for BATES MOTEL, a prequel to the Hitchcock-Joseph Stefano (hey, he’s the writer!) classic, PSYCHO. read article

What’s It Like to be a Showrunner/Celebrity? Carlton Cuse Knows

And, like any good celeb, he’s happy to tell all. And, because he’s a hell of a writer, he tells it very well indeed:

Carlton Cuse (right) with some dood named Damon Lindelof

Lost’s Carlton Cuse Relives Dealing With the Modern Celebrity of the TV Showrunner -by

There’s been a cultural change in television in the last few years. TV showrunners have become known entities to people who watch television in the way that movie directors have been known to filmgoers for a long time. When I started out as a writer and producer in television, I never had the slightest expectation that fame would be part of the job. There was a little bit of fandom that came from co-creating, writing, and producing my first series, 1993’s cult favorite The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. We were getting about 500 letters a week. They would show up in boxes, but they were addressed to the actors, or the show, or the “producers,” unnamed. It was vastly different from what would happen with Lost.

When Lost started, we were just trying to make a TV show that we’d watch, that we thought was cool. We truly had no idea people would become so engaged by it. By the end of the first season, Damon Lindelof and I had suddenly become the named, responsible parties for the show. I first noticed that something was different when a fan group that organized around a website called TheFuselage.com held a fund-raiser party at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, and they invited some of the actors and writers to attend. The fans that showed up were mostly interested in meeting each other, but some of them were actually very interested in meeting Damon and me. And that was really kind of shocking: Suddenly there were fans wanting to have their picture taken with us. I never expected that somebody would want to have his picture taken with a showrunner. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/13/12

Some news about our most beloved peers:

  • Ty and Duncan Burrell (Ty’s a star of MODERN FAMILY, Duncan’s his bro) will co-write an untitled comedy about – surprise! – their lives as kids for ABC (because if there’s one thing actors truly believe it’s that their lives are made-for-TV)
  • J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk (ALIAS) and a whole bunch more producers are prepping ELECTROPOLIS, a drama series about undercover cops lurking amid the hipsters who frequent late-night L.A. clubs for the CW. No word on who’s writing this one (probably because nobody who’s heard about the project can stay awake long enough to wait for the writer’s name.)
  • Carlton Cuse (LOST) & Ryan Condal (a newbie with a bunch of as-yet-unmade deals) are writing a pilot for NBC based on the graphic novel series The 6th Gun (not to be confused with, say, THE SIX GUN because the title of the book series is so much more, erm, clever. Yeah, clever. Right.)
  • Andrew Leeds & David Lampson (nope, no writing credits here, but as an actor Leeds did play a serial killer on BONES) are writing CONFESSIONS OF A BACKUP DANCER, a drama pilot based on the book of the same name by Tucker Shaw (and we really hope they get it right – this is the 3rd time the CW has tried to develop this series – because as a writer Leeds has to be less dull than he is was as last seasons “Big Bad” on BONES. )