Tag: TV writer deals

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/26/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Michael Chiklis (yeppers, the actor guy) is looking for a co-writer to help him adapt the comic book he co-created, Pantheon for TV. If you’re into ancient Greek gods battling for the future of earth, have your people give Michael’s people a call. (Word to the wise: It’ll help considerably if you happen to be a current or recent TV showrunner that all the networks are falling over themselves to do business with cuz the PANTHEON TV series really, really, really wants to get on the air.)
  • Walter Mosley (yeppers, the hard-boiled novel guy) is co-writing a pilot based on his series of novels featuring Socrates Fortlow with Patrick Charles (BONES). This one’s for HBO and will star Laurence Fishburne as Fortlow.  (Hmm, we’re thinking that maybe with Patrick on board we’ll finally get to see a Mosley story that seems at least half as interesting as its P.R.  Cool.)
  • Samuel Baum (LIE TO ME) is rewriting HBO’s Bernie Madoff movie. (We always wonder about the reason for rewrites so we’re putting this out there for original writer John Burnham Schwartz: Why’d they shitcan you, dude? TVWriter™ will be mighty happy to tell your side of the story so let us know, okay?)
  • Bryan Shukoff & Kevin Chesley (THE HARD TIMES OF R.J. BERGER) have written the pilot for NBC’s TWO TO GO, a comedy about single guys and how they deal with their friends’ kids. (Cuz the Millennial audience really gives a crap about people with kids, don’tcha know?)
  • Shonda Rimes (GREY’S ANATOMY) has a deal to write a memoir about her early days as a writer and, we assume, human being for Simon & Schuster. (To which we can only add a very non-snarky, “Congratulations, Shonda. And, listen, we know how busy you are with a zillion projects and your life, so if you need a ghost writer just email TVWriter™ and ask for munchman, okay? Aw, c’mon, gang, you can’t blame us for trying…can you?)

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/6/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Drew Chapman is adapting his conspiracy thriller, The Ascendant into a drama series for Fox. (“Conspiracy thriller?” Ooh, conspiracies always give us chills of delight…but we can say no more cuz, you know, it isn’t safe.)
  • Michael Horowitz (BURN NOTICE) is writing the pilot for another Fox drama series, ALLEGED, which we’re told is a drama about “three friends who find their up-and-coming battery start-up threatened by a lack of lithium and…use unconventional techniques to solve the problem….” (What? You don’t get it? Get what? We can’t help because we fell asleep after typing the first 8 words in the description.)
  • Arika Lisanne Mittman (DEXTER) is adapting Sara Shephard’s book series The Perfectionist” into a drama series for The CW. (No, we aren’t telling what it’s about. It’s the CW. So you already know what the series will be.)
  • Bret McKenzie (FLIGHT OF THE CONCORDS) is developing an animated comedy about NASA for Fox. (We always get excited about potential Fox animated comedies. Probably because our mom watched so much of THE SIMPSONS while we were still floating around in her womb. Yep, we come from that kinda family. Thanks, Mom.)
  • Sara Heyward (GIRLS) is writing the pilot for SISTER-IN-LAW, a comedy about a woman who has to find a way to get along with her whacky future sister-in-law. (A family where ignoring each other isn’t an option? What planet do they live on?)
  • Stephen Chin has sold a private eye show about a disabled detective to ABC. (But nobody’s telling us what the disability is…which usually means that by the time the show gets on the air – if it does – the disabled part will be gone, gone, gone cuz that’s how networks roll.)

TVWriter™ Top Posts for the Week Ending 11/1/13

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Here they are, the most viewed TVWriter™ posts for the past week:

Peggy Bechko: “Anyone With an Internet Connection Isn’t Writing Good Fiction?” Wha–? read article

Another Attempt to Prove H’wood Employs Women

We’re seeing this particular slant in articles about women who get writing gigs a lot these days. I admire the females being praised here, but c’mon, people , you only insult these talented individuals by emphasizing their gender instead of their writing chops.

Women Created and Centric TV Roundup – by Kerensa Cadenas (Indiewire.Com)

In women and television news, some more promising deals have been cropping up from NBC, The Hallmark Channel and MTV. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/25/12

“The best-kept secret in show business is that it’s a business.” (Paul Junger Witt, in Larry Brody’s Television Writing from the Inside Out)
  • Dave Goetsch (THE BIG BANG THEORY) is writing the pilot for CBS’ sitcom SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT. (You remember this one. It’s the show that Courtney Love is going to make a shitload off of via lawsuits.)
  • Greg Daniels (THE OFFICE) is writing the pilot for an NBC workplace sitcom about, presumably, things that happen in an office. (We predict Ricky Gervais won’t sue. Unless Courtney love gets to him about it.)
  • Jake Johnson (NEW GIRL) is writing THE B TEAM, a sitcom about “real-life” superheroes for Fox. (How many lawsuits will this one create? Just count the number of films/TV shows that already have done this same thing and then multiply by, oh, let’s say 10 to take into consideration all the writers of scripts entered into online writing competitions with this same premise in the past 4 or 5 years.)
  • Abby Gewanter (PUSHING UP DAISIES) has sold his spec sitcom pilot, DEAR MOM, HERE’S WHY I HATE YOU, to ABC with Jane Fonda set to star. (Watch. Courtney Love’s going to sue because she thinks the show is about her.)
  • Peter Murrieta (WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE) is writing the pilot for an ABC sitcom about a New York handyman and his relationship with a rich young woman. The handyman will be played by Mark Consuelos of Kelly Ripa fame, and the young woman will be played by Kelly Ripa, not coincidentally also of Kelly Ripa fame. (TVWriter™ predicts that by the beginning of Season 2, Murrieta will be filing a lawsuit of his own – trying to get out of this deal.)