FX has greenlit a single-camera pilot called The Comedians that will star Billy Crystal as a veteran joke teller who is paired with a younger and edgier performer for a late-night sketch show.
The pilot, which will begin shooting this summer, is based on a Swedish format of the same name from Stockholm-based Efti AB. Larry Charles (Seinfeld) will direct and executive produce the pilot. Other EPS are Matt Nix (Burn Notice), Ben Wexler (Community, Arrested Development) and Crystal.
“It truly is an honor to be in business with Billy Crystal and Larry Charles, two of the all-time greats in comedy,” said FX Topper John Landgraf in a statement. “We have also wanted for some time to be in business with Matt Nix, who has done such an amazing job creating and running Burn Notice. They, along with Ben Wexler, are an unbeatable team and we’re incredibly excited about this project.”
It’s a sad day in Zombieland-land: Franchise creator Rhett Reese — who co-wrote both the 2009 movie and the Amazon pilot that that movie has become with Paul Wernick — tweeted that the series “will not be moving forward on Amazon. Sad for everyone involved.”
The pilot has been available online for a month. Our Chris Nashawaty said, “There are a few yuks and also a pleasantly high body count. [But] the actors feel like bargain-basement knockoffs of Harrelson, et al. … You feel like you’re watching a smudged Xerox of what was a pretty hilarious movie.”
You know the space at your local Barnes and Noble where the graphic-novel section bleeds into the young-adult section? This is the place where The CW lives. I like to imagine that the network has installed surveillance cameras in the spines of all those unsellable copies of Chris Ware’s Building Stories so its execs can spy on their target audience, see what their buying, and develop accordingly. The geeky, young, female-skewing weblet announced today that it will add three new dramas and reorganize its schedule to use existing successful franchises like Arrow and Supernatural to build hits and stronger nights.
The CW knows its brand and knows its audience and is committed to giving them more of what they like. Hence, despite lots of attitude, fresh faces, and cosmetic weirdness, The CW’s picks feel as risk-averse and unsurprising as those of its half-sibling, CBS. While the new shows technically belong to different genres, there is such a sameness to all of them. It’s like every show on The CW is actually a different subplot of the same swoony-romantic dark-fantasy soap opera that’s on every night, every hour — a sigh-fi Cloud Atlas. Which sounds kinda cool, actually.
THE ORIGINALS
A spin-off of The Vampire Diaries, The Originals follows bloodsucker/werewolf hybrid Klaus (Joseph Morgan) as he moves from Mystic Falls to New Orleans, where underworld power games — and a not-yet born child, conceived with Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) — await. Joining him are siblings Elijah (Claire Gillies) and Rebekah (Claire Holt). For the record, I have never seen an episode of True Blood LiteThe Vampire Diaries. I am open to considering the possibility that I’ve been missing out on something decent: Morgan’s Klaus seems pretty damn compelling in this clip.
THE TOMORROW PEOPLE
From Greg Berlanti, who developed Arrow for the network, comes another superheroish epic starring an Amell (Robbie, cousin to Stephen), this one loosely based on a cult-classic British show from the 1970s. (Dig the trippy credits sequence.) The more likely comparison for The CW’s target audience will be to X-Men, Heroes, I Am Number Four, etc.: Kids everywhere start developing extraordinary abilities; various secret agencies, sinister or otherwise, take an obsessive interest in them. I am hoping the show can be as cool as its title and offbeat/imaginative as the original from whence it derived, and not just Generic Show About Super-Powered PYTs. The clip suggests a healthy special-effects budget and that Mark Pellegrino will be a compelling bad guy. I’m not sure it suggests much more than that.
REIGN
Talented up-and-comer Adelaide Kane plays Mary, Queen of Scots in The CW’s most unusual new offering, an attempt at historical fiction. Call it: Tiny Tudors. The clip kinda lays there until the dude with the beard gets all spooky-intense. Meh.
THE 100 (midseason)
Newsflash! In the near future, we’re going to raze civilization with nuclear weapons, and about 100 years after that, the surviving members of humanity — living on space stations parked in deep space — will send about 100 juvenile delinquents, young adults and assorted others back to Earth to see it can be recolonized. The clip tries to capture your imagination with that moment in which the kids land, open the doors, and behold a planet that has been reclaimed by nature. But can they trust what looks like paradise? Dunno. Just like I don’t know if I can trust this new gloss on the post-apocalyptic genre to be any good.
STAR-CROSSED (midseason)
An alien race known as the Atrians comes to Earth and spends the next decade interned in a camp. A smalltown high school becomes ground zero for a fraught attempt to integrate the ETs into human society. All of them are extremely attractive young people with interesting looking tattoos on their faces. Naturally, they are irrationally, ridiculously hated. But a Romeo and Juliet-style romance between an Atrian named Roman (Matt Lanter) and a human named Emery (Aimee Teegarden) blooms. Blah blah highly metaphorical cornball blah blah blah. Watch it work. Only on Sigh-Fi!
Who says CBS doesn’t make bold programming moves? Oh, that’s right: Everyone. But everyone would be slightly wrong! At yesterday’s upfront presentation, the nation’s most-watched — if least-interesting — broadcast television network surprised reporters by revealing that it was not green-lighting two high-profile potential series: A small screen revival of Beverly Hills Cop from executive producer Shawn Ryan (The Shield) starring Brandon T. Jackson as the son of Axel Foley and a recurring Eddie Murphy; and NCIS: Red, starring John Corbett and Kim Raver. Beverly Hills Cop might find a home elsewhere, while NCIS: Red was deemed unworthy of the franchise’s creative standards. (Why are you giggling?)
CBS also made news with some bold scheduling swaps and shifts. Mike & Molly is being held for midseason (but received a full order of 22 episodes); Hawaii 5-0 is sailing to Friday; and Person of Interest is relocating to Tuesday, joining NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles to form a blockbuster night of brawny drama. Thursday now has two hours of comedy, a mirror to its Monday night block of powerhouse yukkers. With few holes to fill and (quoting network president Nina Tassler) “limited shelf space,” CBS ordered just eight new shows, five of which will premiere this fall. Here, CBS was true to form: All have potential to be watched by a broad audience, and very few seem all that creatively daring. To be fair, it’s hard to glean meaningful insight from the preview videos released by the network, comprised of select scenes, behind the scenes footage, and rah-rah interviews with actors and producers. And while CBS may not have leveraged its position of great strength to take a chance on innovation, I found something commendable about each of its new offerings. READ FULL STORY »
Blair Underwood is returning to NBC to help revive a classic TV show.
NBC has ordered to series a remake of Ironside, the ’60s drama that starred Raymond Burr as a wheelchair-bound detective.
Underwood will play the title role in the new version from Michael Caleo, David Semel, Teri Weinberg, John Davis and Jon Fox. Here’s the network description: “A tough, sexy but acerbic police detective relegated to a wheelchair after a shooting is hardly limited by his disability as he pushes and prods his hand-picked team to solve the most difficult cases in the city.”
The original series, which is owned by the Peacock’s parent company, ran on NBC from 1967 to 1975.
In 2010, Underwood played the president in NBC’s shortlived actioner The Event.
NBC will announce its complete fall schedule to advertisers on Monday in New York.
NBC continued its series orders today by placing an order from Undateable, a new comedy from Bill Lawrence (Cougar Town) that stars Chris D’Elia and comedian Brent Morin.
Here’s the official logline from the network: “When confident slacker Danny Beeman (D’Elia) takes Justin (Morin) on as a roommate, Danny unwittingly inherits Justin’s group of romantically challenged friends. Seeing himself as the ultimate player, Danny decides to teach the crew (who he dubs ‘The Undateables’) everything he knows about “the game of love.” For their first lesson, Danny takes the guys to an event hosted by his sister, Leslie (Bianca Kajlich), who is a single mom with dating difficulties of her own. At first, Danny’s advice seems to pay off big-time: The shy guy talks to a girl, the no-filter dude learns it’s never OK to ask a woman when she’s due, and his nebbish roommate, Justin, goes home with a mystery woman. It’s not until the next day that they figure out it was Leslie! Talk about a bunch who just can’t get lucky!”
On Thursday, NBC began making series orders in preparation for its fall presentation to advertisers Monday. Among the pickups: About A Boy, which is a comedy starring David Walton and Minnie Driver which centers on a bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility until he meets a geeky young boy; and Believe, a J.J. Abrams joint about an unlikely relationship develops between a young girl with a gift and a man sprung from prison who has been tasked with protecting her from the evil elements that hunt her power. Johnny Sequoyah, Jake McLaughlin, Delroy Lindo will star. Photos of the new shows here.
After yanking shows like Deception on Thursday and the much-deserved Animal Practice earlier this season, NBC began making series orders this morning in preparation for its fall presentation to advertisers Monday.
Among the pickups: About A Boy, which is a comedy starring David Walton and Minnie Driver which centers on a bachelor whose primary goal in life is avoiding any kind of responsibility until he meets a geeky young boy; and Believe, a J.J. Abrams joint about an unlikely relationship develops between a young girl with a gift and a man sprung from prison who has been tasked with protecting her from the evil elements that hunt her power. Johnny Sequoyah, Jake McLaughlin, Delroy Lindo will star. Photos of the new shows here. READ FULL STORY »
The creative minds of Friday Night Lights and Lost are teaming up.
Peter Berg, best known for showrunning Friday Night Lights and directing last year’s Battleship, will produce and direct an HBO pilot written by Damon Lindelof (Lost, Prometheus), EW has confirmed. The show is an adaptation of 2011 novel The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, who is writing the pilot script along with Lindelof. READ FULL STORY »
EW has confirmed that actress Jackée Harry, best known to Gen Xers as 227‘s vampy, Emmy-winning Sandra and to Millennials as Sister Sister‘s flamboyant adoptive mom Lisa, will appear in the pilot episode of Girl Meets World. There’s no word yet on whether Harry appears as a guest star or as a potential recurring character, should the Boy Meets World spinoff be picked up to series.
So, will Jackée be playing a sassy teacher who works with Cory (Ben Savage)? A sassy lawyer who works with Topanga (Danielle Fishel)? A sassy neighbor who serves as little Maya’s (Rowan Blancard) answer to Mr. Feeny (William Daniels)? Disney’s keeping mum on details for now — so feel free to speculate wildly, and to dream up possible GMW roles for other TGIF alumni. There’s got to be a part here for Melissa Joan Hart!
How many scripted series can one man shepherd at the same time? For Ryan Murphy, at least, the answer may soon be “four.” EW has confirmed that the mastermind behind Glee, American Horror Story, and The New Normal has sold yet another pilot: Open, a “modern, provocative exploration of human sexuality and relationships” co-written with Dexter co-executive producer Lauren Gussis. HBO has ordered the pilot; Deadline first reported the sale Wednesday night.
This marks the cable net’s second project with Murphy. His TV movie adaptation of Larry Kramer’s play The Normal Heart will premiere in 2014, the same year that could also see the third installment of AHS (subtitled Coven), the fifth of Glee, and the second of The New Normal, assuming the latter two are picked up for additional seasons.
Leave it to Ryan Murphy to find another tantalizing subject that should satiate his devoted audience.
EW has confirmed that the co-creator of Glee, American Horror Story and The New Normal is busy shopping a new script with Dexter co-executive producer Lauren Gussis that Deadline describes as a modern, provocative exploration of human sexuality and relationships.
It’s likely the project will end up on cable, where all of the good hibity-dibity seems to be happening these days. And there’s already a bidding frenzy in the works.
In fact, steamy sex series could become the next rage. In September, Showtime is scheduled to premiere Masters of Sex, a new drama starring Michael Sheen and the captivating Lizzy Caplan that’s about the real-life pioneers of the science of human sexuality. And you can’t study sex without watching someone have sex, right?
The drama was created by Michelle Ashford (The Pacific) and is based on Thomas Maier’s biography Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson.
You already got a glimpse at the apocalyptic survivors in Amazon’s new Zombieland pilot, now we’ve got your first look at the zombies out to get them.
In the still above, Columbus (Tyler Ross) and Wichita (Maiara Walsh) try to avoid getting eaten by a zombiefied old lady. She’s one of many un-dead attackers they’ll encounter in the pilot.
“You will see plenty of violence and blood and gore like you did in the movie,” says Paul Wernick, who, along with co-writer Rhett Reese, penned the film and now pilot. “People can expect a lot of zombie attacks in Zombieland for sure.” READ FULL STORY »
Good news for NBC prime time, potentially bad news for Saturday Night Live fans: funny woman Nasim Pedrad has joined an untitled ensemble comedy pilot from standup comic John Mulaney and uber-producer Lorne Michaels.
Pedrad will play Jane, a smart but apathetic grade school teacher in the comedy that’s loosely based on Mulaney’s life. Martin Short and Elliott Gould have also been cast in the pilot.
Should the pilot go to series, Pedrad would leave SNL, where she’s worked with Michaels since 2009. Her forte on the late-night show is celebrity impersonations, like this one: READ FULL STORY »
