Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
Amanda Brotchie (Australia’s LOWDOWN) is writing the pilot for a U.S. version of the comedy project on E! (Considering how much we’ve enjoyed another Australia-to-U.S. comedy, WILFRED, we’re gonna look forward to this one.)
Drew Goddard (CLOVERFIELD) is developing DAREDEVIL for Netflix. (And considering that he also wrote and directed THE CABIN IN THE WOODS we find ourselves looking forward to this one too. A horror movie style Daredevil? You know it’s awesome.)
Al Gough & Miles Millar (SMALLVILLE) are adapting Terry Brooks’Sword of Shannara books into a series for, of all places, MTV. (Two hits and then this obvious miss. Sword of Shannara? Worst inadvertent fantasy pastiche evah! SMALLVILLE? Most mind-numbing comic book adaptation evah! MTV committing to a majorly scripted series? Worst idea for a network push evah! Oyyy! Guess we’ve made ourselves clear here, huh?)
Alice Hoffman’s historical novel, The Dovekeepers, is being adapted into a CBS miniseries about “four extraordinary women whose lives intersect in a fight for survival at the siege of Masada.” (For us, this is a definite Pee-yoo cuz, well, for one thing we know going in that these women ain’t gonna survive because Masada=everybody dies; for another thing what happened to the men?; and for yet another thing…it’s being produced by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. Which means that we know damn well that if we even tried to watch we’d never survive the first act.)
Chris Mundy (LOW WINTER SUN) has segued from his AMC series failure (by which we mean LOW WINTER SUN) to an overall deal with that very same network. (Cuz you know the old TV development saying, “Better the worst known quantity than the best unknown.” Yeppers, this is risk avoidance at its peak nadir.)
Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are
Time to put your hat in the ring, gaming fans, at least if you want to write the live-action TV series version of XBox game HALO. Some newbie name of Steven Spielberg is producing. (Don’t just sit there, bake the dood a cake, send him a stripper. something!)
Mike Gagerman & Andrew Waller (they teamed up on upcoming feature ROAD TO NARDO) are writing a pilot for FX that will star Ray William Johnson, host of the snarky YouTube series #3. (Whoa, does this mean that if your name is now known – for anything – you’re not only automatically qualified to write, you’re also qualified to star? The times are a ‘changin’ after all.)
Lee Eisenberg & Gene Stupnitsky (THE OFFICE) have made an overall deal with ABC Studios, where they’ll be running two new shows, TROPHY WIFE and HELLO LADIES. (As fans of THE OFFICE, we think this is terrific…but what do we know?)
Jon Vitti (KING OF THE HILL) is moving to feature films and writing the screenplay for – get ready – the 3D film version of ANGRY BIRDS. (We’d really like to find a way to snark the hell out of this, but just the fact that it’s happening lends a whole new depth to the meaning of the S word all by itself.)
Miles Millar & Alfred Gough (SMALLVILLE) just settled their $100 million lawsuit against Warner Bros Television, only a couple of weeks before it was due to go to trial. The claim was that Warner’s made sweetheart deals with itself for various ancillary licenses resulting in the two writers ending up with a much smaller piece of the pie than they were due. (Since we’ve never heard of that not happening, we’re hopeful that Millar & Gough scored huge.)
Peter Ocko (FAIRLY LEGAL) has written the comedy pilot, DIVIDE & CONQUER, for USA. (Because this is TV, where nothing succeeds like failure. Let that be a lesson, kids!)
