Tag: Chris Fedak

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/27/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Colin Wilson’s ancient novel, The Space Vampires is being adapted into a TV series pilot to be called LIFEFORCE as soon as Ringleader Studios finds a writer. (So get them on the horn ASAP and let ’em know how great it would be if we whoops, you could get the gig.)
  • Barbie Kligman (PRIVATE PRACTICE) is the new showrunner of ABC’s upcoming adaptation of the Australian crime drama SECRETS & LIES, so she’s somebody you should get in touch with pretty damn soon too. (We love the title of this series and also just happen to have complete faith in all women named Barbie – cuz…Barbie, you know? – so we figure this could be a long and successful staff gig for all those who get it.)
  • New network WGN America is putting together THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (about you know what) as a ten part series. Bruce Cohen (SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK) is producing. Why not pick your favorite commandment and give him a call? (And don’t forget to tell him TVWriter™ sent you cuz…cuz…waitaminnit, we’ll figure out a reason eventually….)
  • Chris Fedak (CHUCK) is developing THE WOODS, a haunted house drama, for Syfy. (Haunted? Like with ghosts? But where are the zombies? And the vampires? Ya gotta have zombies and vampires cuz they’re hotter n’ even Satan His Shiny Self now, no?)
  • Angela Ruhinda (interweb hero!) has sold her spec interracial love story pilot, IMAN & ANDY to ABC. (Well, actually, Whoopi Goldberg and Ben Silverman did the selling, but they aren’t writers so fuck ’em. Good luck, Angela! You really are an interweb hero to us.)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/31/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Aaron Buchsbaum & Teddy Riley (newbs!) are developing a CBS comedy called ON THE FENCE about “the shifting dynamic  of friends as they navigate their late twenties.” (At last, our life brought to the wee screen Oh, wait, although we definitely are part of a shifting dynamic and are in our late twenties, we don’t – sob – have any friends. Why does this series have to mock us? Why?)
  • Ryan Shiraki (AWKWARD) is writing a Fox comedy about a working class family in Bakersfield. (This show is billed as “based on Shiraki’s real-life upbringing in Hawaii….” Of course. Bakersfield-Hawaii. Everybody knows they’re practically the same.)
  • Greg Malins (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) has sold ODD COUPLE FAMILIES, a comedy about people who have to spend way too much time with their kids’ friends, to Fox. (Where, evidently, none of the D-Peeps has kids cuz let’s get real here. How much time does any parent ever spend with the parents of their kids’ pals? Nada, right? Unless – oh God – my parents weren’t like everybody else?)
  • Chris Fedak (CHUCK) is writing an untitled NBC drama pilot about people who get a new chance at normal lives because of an anonymous organ donor. (This better be a horror project about the donor being a strangler/mass murderer cuz otherwise we’re heading to Netflix whenever this show is on.)
  • Keenan Ivory Wayans (if you don’t know who he is, fuhgeddaboudit) is writing the pilot for a comedy series about “what happens when the whitest guy in  America marries into a…close-knit African-American family.” (What happens? What happens? Why, hilarity happens, of course. Cruel, mocking derisive Wayans humor…which we just happen to luv.)
  • Rebecca Sinclair (90210) is developing a surfer drama set in 1961 for The CW. (Cuz all us kids born after 1985 have a great big bone on for Malibu life back when our mommies and daddies were toddlers. Wow, talk about can’t miss!)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/22/12

“California dreamin’, on a winter’s day…” (In other words, yes, dammit, you have to live in L.A. to write for Major League TV!)

  •  Chris Fedak (CHUCK) is writing the pilot for a Fox drama based on Midnighters, Scott Westerfield’s Young Adult trilogy about, um, creepy kids. (This is the third try at such a project and as such is subject to competing superstitions about what happens with 3 chances. Good luck, Chuck Chris!)
  • Rob Thomas (VERONICA MARS) is writing the pilot for METROPOLIS, a CW drama based on a UK series about recent college grads trying to adjust to the real world. (Has the CW ever set a series in the real world before? Maybe they should make this a sitcom?)
  • Liz Garcia & Josh Harto (creators of MEMPHIS BEAT) have a sold a pilot called THE INFERNO to NBC. (NBC is calling this a “dark drama about two New York restaurateurs who hire a mysterious Italian chef,” which makes a lot of sense when you hear that Gordon Ramsay is producing. )
  • Moira McMahon (GREY’S ANATOMY, PRIVATE PRACTICE) is writing the pilot for NBC’s MADDOX, a “supernatural medical drama. (We’re not gonna mock this one because the People’s Pilot winner just a couple of years ago was a similarly themed show. We are, however, suggesting that the PP winning writer check into this because, oh, you know…)
  • Moe Jelline (YOU AGAIN) will write the pilot for DIRTY GIRLS, an ABC sitcom about a group of women friends and their dirty little secrets. (What interests us here is that this is the 6th project so far this season that producer Mark Gordon has sold to ABC, which tells us that all of you out there should be calling his company instead of reading this right now!)

Today’s TV Writing Deals Dept – 10/10/12

…And then there was the young actress who was so dumb (how dumb was she?) she screwed a writer.

  • Jon Robin Baitz (BROTHERS & SISTERS) is writing a limited run drama series based on the Australian series THE SLAP for NBC. (Although we doubt it’ll get on the air – no cops, no perps, no life or death; how can U.S. TV handle that?)
  • Neil Cross (LUTHER) is adapting The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard into a 10 episode series for NBC. (Sorry but we can’t think of anything snarky to say about the guy who created LUTHER. Well, except that we thought his novel based on the show was, um, badly written. Guess TVWriter™ will have to run a review of it sometime.)
  • Chris McKenna (COMMUNITY, THE MINDY PROJECT) is writing a sitcom about a family of orphans being raised by their oldest brother, the black sheep, for NBC. (Can’t snark about this either because…orphans? black sheep brother? who even cares…?)
  • Michael Questa (HOMELAND) and Gerald Questa (his brother) are writing SECOND SIGHT an adaptation of a British series about a detective who goes blind, for CBS. (So much room for snark on this easy target that we’re just not going to go there. We need a challenge, you know?)
  • Chris Fedak (CHUCK) is adapting Scott Westerfeld’s Midnighters book trilogy for Fox (Hey, we liked CHUCK, so we’re happy to congratulate Chris on finally getting another gig. That isn’t snarky at all, right?)