Tag: writer deals

Writer Deal Time!

They’re everywhere! With everybody! (Okay, almost everybody. We don’t see our names below…dammit.)

Thinking of making this the permanent image for our deal announcements. That work for you?
  • Ricky Gervais’s new series, DEREK, will be a Netflix production, and we think it’s safe to predict that it will be much better/more successful than Netflix’s opening salvo in its attempts to become a kind of faux network, LILLYHAMMER. (Unless it’s set in, you know, Iceland.)
  • Ron Moore (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) is adapting A KNIGHT’S TALE for ABC on the theory that jousting is cool. Well, maybe it is. (And maybe not.)
  • Esteemed feature director Alfonso Cuaron (HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN)will be directing a J.J. Abrams-Mark Friedman script for an unnamed spiritual world type pilot about a girl who is developing super powers and the tough guy who’s released from prison to protect her.Whatever.
  • Garry Marshall (HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE & SHIRLEY, et al) is co-writing GOLDEN GUYS, a sitcom about a down on his luck rich guy with his son, Scott Marshall (um, son of the writer/producer of HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE & SHIRLEY, et al). Does this mean ole Gar’s down on his (feature film) luck now too?
  • Ilene Chaiken (THE L WORD) is writing a crime drama pilot, SOLVE FOR X, for CBS, about a game developer who consults with the San Franciso PD. Cuz, you know, San Francisco is so hip the cops actually think gaming is, um, for smart people. Or something like that. Oh, the edginess of it all!

More Deals!!!

Cuz no writer ever gets tired of writing meetings money! Wait, if you’re doing it for the money there are better businesses with better incomes. Like plumbing contracting, or banking. So it’s not the money either? Hmm. Must be…love!?

  • Paul Redford (THE WEST WING, DIRTY SEXY MONEY) is rewriting HAMLET, by an old guy named Shakespeare (KING LEAR et al) with a family/political drama called AMERICA’S SON for Fox Network. (Yeah, that’s gonna work as well as that show based on King David’s problems awhile ago. You know, where they rewrote, um, an even older dood named God (THE BIBLE)?)
  • Ben Falcone (HAPPY ENDINGS, UP ALL NIGHT, husband of MIKE & MOLLY star Melissa McCarthy, who is producing this project) and Larry Dorf (THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW) are writing a comedy for CBS about a group of friends who find their lives changed by death at an earlier age than they expected. (Nowthat’s funny, right?)
  • Guillermo del Toro’s best selling vampire book trilogy, The Strain, is being turned into a series for FX, directed by del Toro and co-written by him and his co-writer of the books, Chuck Hogan (PRINCE OF THIEVES). (Well, we need more vampire shows, don’t we? Why so negative? Sheesh!
  • Peter Berg (HANCOCK, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) will write and direct a spy pilot, M.I.C.E, for NBC. (We can’t think of a single negative thing to say about Berg except that as an actor he looks kinda snarky. Damn.)
  • David Shore (HOUSE) is writing an untitled legal drama for Fox, featuring an ex-cop lawyer with personal demons who’s trying to get back with his ex-wife. (Hmm, Shore loves that House-Cuddy stalker dynamic, doesn’t he?)
  • Guillermo del Toro (see above) is adapting another book, NUTSHELL STUDIES by Corinne May Botz, for an HBO series, this time co-writing with novelist Sara Gran (SOUTHLAND). (Well, he needs another writer to, you know, actually type in the words, right?)

So the secret to getting into TV is to write a book Guillermo del Toro likes, huh? ‘Scuse us while we throw ourselves into Chapter 1…

Recent Series Pilot Deals

We saved them up this time for a gangbang clusterfuck one Acme Mountain O’ Writerly Praise:

  • Adam F. Goldberg, creator of BREAKING IN, has a pilot production commitment from ABC for HOW THE F—am I NORMAL?, a sitcom set in the ’80s.
  • Ben Ripley, writer of SOURCE CODE, has a pilot script deal with NBC for VANISHING POINT, a legal drama starring Angela Bassett.Danny Jacobson, co-creator of MAD ABOUT YOU, has a pilot script order from Fox Network for LOVELAND, a sitcom about a Las Vegas wedding chapel.
  • Howard Gordon, co-developer of HOMELAND, is co-writing the pilot, LEGENDS, with Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Mark Bomback for TNT.
  • Shonda Rhimes, creator of GREY’S ANATOMY among others, is co-writing an FBI drama, UNDER THE GUN, with Peter Nowalk for NBC.