In the Trades Today

Writer Beware Kicks Butt

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The Bookseller reports that a judge has thrown out a lawsuit by so-called "literary agent" and vanity press "publisher" Robert Fletcher against Writer Beware and ordered him to repay Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin  all of their legal costs. 

Judge Thomas Connolly, who ruled that Fletcher and his company were liable for the costs, said: "The plaintiffs have exhibited extreme bad faith in bringing this frivolous lawsuit for the sole purpose [of] causing great expense and harassment to Crispin and Strauss… The court concludes and finds that this case was brought in bad faith by the plaintiffs."

The judge added that Fletcher's purpose was "not to prevail in the lawsuit but just to bankrupt the defendants".
[…]Fletcher claimed the blogs "alleged fraud, misrepresentation and dishonesty towards authors" and were "defaming and libeling" by "publishing warnings to potential authors of the fraudulent practices of LAG and Fletcher". Fletcher operates a fee-charging literary agency/writers' consultancy under a variety of names.

I hope this will serve as a warning to others like Fletcher, and there are many of them out there, who think they can intimidate Writer Beware and prevent them from warning writers about deceptive publishing practices. 

It's also my hope that more organizations will join the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Mystery Writers of America in sponsoring Writer Beware…and that the support of major writers' organizations will frighten off scammers from filing frivolous lawsuits against the site.  

More Lit Detectives Coming to British TV

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Broadcast Magazine reports that author Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks is coming to television…in two-hour movie for the UK's ITV network from Left Bank Pictures, the same folks responsible for the fine WALLANDER series. The first book to be filmed, which will serve as a pilot for more, will be AFTERMATH. Meanwhile, the same company is producing three  movies based on Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels RATKING, VENDETTA, and DEAD LAGOON for the BBC…as well as a second season of WALLANDER tales.

Who is the Clueless Moron now?

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Back in 2004, under the heading "Clueless Morons," I blogged about a group calling themselves the Colonial Fan Force, who took out a full-page ad in Variety clamoring for a BATTLESTAR GALACTICA movie starring the original cast. The ad read, in part: 

Millions of fans still dream of seeing the Battlestar Galactica roam the heavens once more in a big screen continuations of the epic story that began in 1978 with the original cast and characters leading a new generation of warriors

I wrote:

Yeah, right… there are millions, no TENS of millions, of fans clamoring for the return of Herb Jefferson, Laurette Sprang, Dirk Benedict, and Richard Hatch (who is not nearly as powerful an actor as the nude guy of the same name on "Survivor"… nor as successful). I suspect the real audience is about 100 fat guys in their 40s, who at this very moment are busily duping all their Heather Thomas videos onto DVD..

[…]I am always amused by the losers who spend their comic book money on pointless ads like this (or, worse, the ones who publish a synopsis of, or excerpt from, their unsold screenplays)

[…] the folks at "The Colonial Fan Force" urge the readers of Variety (most of whom are entertainment industry professionals) to write writer/producer Glen A. Larson and Tom DeSanto, a guy who once tried to launch a movie version of the TV show. This shows just how little the people who paid for this ad understand about how the business works…and even sillier when you consider the SciFi Channel is already in the midst of shooting a new "Battlestar Galactica" TV series from NBC/Universal Studios with an all-new cast led by Edward James Olmos.

And that was the nicest thing I had to say about the Colonial Fan Force. 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the joke is on me. Today Variety reported that Universal, Glen A. Larson, Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto are mounting a feature film version of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA that will be a "complete re-imagining" that is unrelated to the recently wrapped series.

While this isn't the reunion the Colonial Fan Force was clamoring for, and it's happening after the end of the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series, and it isn't the result of a letter-writing campaign, it is a feature film and it's likely to be closer to the original series than the SciFi Channel series was.

So who is the clueless moron now? It looks like it is me.

ROCKFORD Revived

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Variety reports that HOUSE creator/showrunner David Shore has been tapped by NBC/Universal and Steve Carrell's production company to revive Stephen J. Cannell's THE ROCKFORD FILES. It's no surprise that they approached Shore for the coveted gig…he's a TV A-lister who tried to spin-off a Rockf0rd-esque character from HOUSE last season.

"It's one of the shows that made me want to become a writer," Shore said. "I had no interest in adapting any old stuff, but this was the one exception."

Shore's just starting to think about an approach to bring "The Rockford Files" into the present day, but he intends to stick with the basic foundation of a private eye in L.A. just trying to make a living.

"What makes 'Rockford' timeless is that he's vulnerable, he's flawed. He's used to hustling and getting hustled," Shore said. "Sometimes he's a hero and sometimes he runs away."

The hard part won't be getting the script right…it will be finding this generation's equivalent of  James Garner to the play the part. (Is George Clooney still a movie star?) 

Spy News

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Variety reports the very good news that Steven Spielberg's next movie might be a new adaptation of Donald Hamilton's MATT HELM books. The Paramount project has been in development at various studios for decades, but apparently a script by A-list screenwriter Paul Attanasio that's closer to Matt Damon's BOURNE IDENTITY than Dean Martin's campy 1960s Matt Helm movies has everybody excited. 

And in other lit spy-to-film news, Ron Howard has signed on to direct the movie adaptation of Robert Ludlum's PARSIFAL MOSAIC from a script by David Self.

More TV on the Big Screen

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It seems like every week someone is dusting off an old TV show and developing it for the big screen. Last week it was TJ HOOKER, this week it's THE BIG VALLEY. Variety reports:

The 1960s television Western that starred Barbara Stanwyck is being adapted into an independent feature by Kate Edelman Johnson and Daniel Adams through their Panther Entertainment banner.

Adams will direct the pic from his own script, whose storyline was developed with series creators Louis F. Edelman and A.I. Bezzerides. Plot borrows elements from the show’s pilot and several episodes.

I don't see the point of reviving the show…it's not as if it has a huge following. It would make far more sense to give the big screen treatment to more well known TV westerns like GUNSMOKE, HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, or BONANZA (which BIG VALLEY essentially ripped off).

What’s Next, Diagnosis Murder?

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I can think of a lot of TV shows that would make great movies, but TJ HOOKER isn't one of them. But Variety reports that director Chuck Russell, writers Brent Maddock & S.S. Wilson,  and series creator Rick Husky are mounting  a big screen remake of the cheesy, 1980s  William Shatner series, which ran for four seasons on ABC. Hey, maybe they can get Chris Pine to play Hooker.

Money Woes in UK TV Biz

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The Guardian reports that series cancellations and budget cuts at ITV are renewing fears about the precarious state of the UK TV Biz.

Having sent the dinosaurs back to extinction earlier in the week, ITV decided to banish the vampires on Friday, cancelling the Saturday evening show Demons only days after Primeval got the axe. A budgetary ice-age seems to be sweeping through UK television – raising fears about British broadcasting’s delicate eco-stystem.

The cuts are not a problem confined to commercial channels. The morning before Demons’ fate was confirmed, the BBC instructed all six of its television networks to find record efficiency savings of 7.5% – over the next five years the channels will lose £1bn from their budgets. And matters are little better at Channel 4. In March, head of programming Julian Bellamy said the broadcaster would like to commission more drama, but there was no money in the budget with which to do so.

[…]Despite ITV performing well in drama this year – it has broadcast the five highest-rating new dramas, Whitechapel, Above Suspicion, Unforgiven, Law & Order: UK and, ironically, Demons – rating success is clearly no longer a measure of survival at the broadcaster. But if ITV is getting rid of relative successes, what will it have left?

There is some good news. ITV renewed LEWIS for a fourth season, which comes as a relief, since early reports were that the hit series was doomed for financial reasons.

Diane Dives Into More Mind Games

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I was delighted to see in the trades today that Bruce Evans (MR. BROOKS) will direct DIVER, a thriller written by my friend Diane Ademu-John, with whom I worked on the TV series MISSING. The script is about an ex-cop who enters the minds of dead people to read their final thoughts and use them to solve crimes. Diane is no stranger to these kinds of mind games — after MISSING, about an FBI agent who has visions of missing persons, she went straight into several seasons on MEDIUM.

Congratulations Diane!

German Nets Abandon Local Drama

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Bad news for TV writers in Germany. The network RTL is shutting down their in-house fiction and comedy departments entirely after their slate of homegrown show flopped miserably in the ratings, according to the Hollywood Reporter. 

While imported U.S. series such as "House" and "CSI" continue to draw audiences for the channel, RTL has for years been unable to produce a new German-language fiction hit. Instead, it relies almost entirely on German adaptations of international reality formats such as "Supernanny" and "Pop Idol."
RTL has also been hit hard by the sharp drop in TV ad sales that have followed the economic recession. CEO Anke Schaferkordt has evidently chosen cheaper imports over the economic risk inherent with local production.

As someone at Pro7, another German network told me, they can buy three American series for what it costs to produce one original German show. And there's a lot less incentive to make German shows when they keep bombing.
The only consistent homegrown, scripted drama hit on RTL is ALARM FOR COBRA 11, made by my friends at Action Concept, and that's now in its 16th season. Action Concept has a new series for RTL called LASKO: FIST OF GOD that is premiering later this month. I'm hoping that LASKO will buck the trend and be a big hit.