Tag: TVWriter.Com

Today’s TV Writing Deals Dept: 10/7/12

Old TV writing joke: “Know why TV writers brag about their deals? Cuz that’s all they have.” Think about it:

  • Tyler Perry (TYLER PERRY’s HOUSE OF PAYNE, MEET THE BROWNS) is writing and producing 2 new shows for OWN, in return for which he now has a very large ownership stake in the net. (Jeeze, nobody ever told us we had to buy our way into TV…and yet it definitely makes sense. Depressing sense, but sense.)
  • Douglas Segal (THREE KINGS) is writing a supernatural drama about a devil trying to save “compromised souls” for the CW. (Let that be a lesson to us all: No compromise! No surrender! Oh, that isn’t what it means?)
  • M. Night Shyamalan (THE SIXTH SENSE) & John Glenn (EAGLE EYE) are writing the pilot for LOST HORIZON for NBC. (Strangely, LOST HORIZON isn’t based on the book of the same name but on MOBY DICK. We figure somebody misread their high school reading list and still hasn’t been corrected.)
  • Ryan Murphy (GLEE, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, THE NEW NORMAL) is writing the pilot for MONTAUK, a conspiracy thriller, for Fox and an unnamed sitcom for NBC. (Yes, it’s true. We don’t even know this guy and we hate him. We really do. And if that isn’t the essence of showbiz, what is?)
  • Charley and Vlas Parlapanides (IMMORTALS) are writing THE CENTURIAN, about a Marine working with the angel of his best friend for CBS. (The way we hear it, the original pitch was about a Marine working with “the agent” of his best friend, but something got lost in the translation and who’s going to argue with a “Yes?”)
  • GIRLS creator Lena Dunham will be getting over $3,500,000 for her book of essays, Not That Kind of Girl, (because she’s got herself a very hot, in, and trendy series and why should she settle for less?)

The Doctor Puppet on Baker Street

He’ll tell you his side of the story after the pic. But ours is that he’s looking for Stephen Moffett.

I’ve been told that there’s a man in London who’s more clever than even me. Of course I couldn’t resist dropping by his flat on Baker Street, but no one was in. At St. Bart’s Hospital I looked high and low for the man, but never found him. Sherlock Holmes – we will meet one day!

See more pix

Today’s TV Writing Deals Dept: 10/6/12

The rich get richer. Ain’t life grand?

  • Baz Luhrmann (MOULIN ROUGE, THE GREAT GATSBY) has signed a 2-year deal with Sony Pictures Television to develop TV projects. (This is a man who began his career as a playwright, then switched to directing Oscar-winning films. Will nothing stop his downward spiral?)
  • Jay Baruchel & Jesse Chabot (GOON) will co-write GOON 2. (We know this is a feature film and not TV. Just trying to raise the TVWriter™ tone a bit.)
  • Noah Haley (BONES, THE UNUSUALS) is writing the pilot for a TV series version of FARGO for the Coen Brothers (everything cool and funny that you’ve ever watched) and FX (which, evidently, wants to be cool and funny, which is, you know, cool in itself.)
  • 30 ROCK will be history soon, but Tina Fey will be hard at work at Universal Television for the next 4 years creating new projects (because, evidently, she really is the greedy bitch Alec Baldwin has claimed…and what’s not to love about that?)

David Fincher! Kevin Spacey! Netflix! What Can Go Wrong?

Sorry, kids, but we aren’t being snarky. We actually mean that question. Yesterday, the Netflix blog announced that HOUSE OF CARDS, a new series made just for them, will debut February 1, 2013, with not just the first, nor the first and the second, but all 13 episode springing to life on the website at once.

Writers include Beau Willimon, who wrote the pilot based on a novel by Michael Dobbs, and, we’re guessing several others who Netflix hasn’t bothered to name, probably for the usual reasons. (“Writers? These shows are written? By humans?”) read article

The Pros Have Spoken: “Undisciplined” Thinking Ain’t So Bad After All

After all the years my parents busted their bums trying to make me into a more disciplined person, they aren’t going to like this. Not one little bit:

The Importance of Undisciplined Thinking – by Edward Burger

“This course made me realize that there are two ways to view myself and my life: From the outside looking in (how others see me), and from the inside looking out (how I see myself). Now that I’m aware of these two perspectives, I think about everything differently.” read article