In the Trades Today

Hooray For Gayle

by

Variety reports today that CBS is making a mini-series out of  "Robert Ludlum’s Covert One: The Hades
Factor," a book that was co-written by my friend Gayle Lynds. The four-hour miniseries will star
Mira Sorvino, Stephen Dorff and Anjelica Huston.

Larry Sanitsky ("The Last Don") and Paul Sandberg ("The Bourne Supremacy")
are aboard to exec produce the project, which will lense in Toronto, Paris and
Berlin. Project will be available for broadcast later this season, though CBS
has not yet determined an airdate.

Elwood Reid ("Blind Justice") wrote the script for "Covert One: The Hades
Factor," adapting it from the 2000 novel by Ludlum and Gayle Lynds.

Sanitsky and German producer Tandem announced plans for "Hades" in spring at
MIP,  but no network, stars or helmer were attached (Daily Variety, April
12).

Ludlum’s bestselling series of "Covert One" novels revolves around a secret
intelligence agency consisting of political and tech experts who fight
corruption and conspiracy, reporting directly to the U.S. president.

Dorff will play Col. Jonathan Smith, a disease specialist and ex-agent of
Covert One whose fiancee has been killed by an Ebola-like virus spreading around
the world. When it turns out the virus may have been deliberately spread, the
president — played by Huston — orders a cover-up.

Sorvino will play Rachel Russell, a Covert One agent who goes missing after
killing two men.

Colm Meaney ("Star Trek: The Next Generation") will play a former spy and
friend of Smith’s, Blair Underwood ("LAX") the No. 2 official at Covert One.

Coming to a Computer Near You

by

Back in 2001, Andre Morgan announced production of a 22-episode, hour-long  TV series shot in Shanghai called FLATLAND, starring Dennis Hopper (what, you thought E-RING was his first TV series? Don’t believe everything you read). Morgan didn’t have a buyer or distributor for the project at the time but claimed to be in discussions with several networks. Now, four years later,  the show may finally be premiering…on a cell phone or computer near you. Variety reports the show is being shopped at Cannes, where it’s being sold in groups of
50 two-minute episodes by Intl. Program Consultants for broadcast on mobile phones and over the Internet.

"Exotic locations, elaborate CGI and high-definition technologies will
generate literally hundreds of … serial episodes," said exec producers Ruddy
and Morgan.

IPC topper
Russell Kagan added: "RMO, a leading independent company in TV and film
ventures, now will be one of the first leaders in mobile and broadband
video."

Channel Surfing

by

Lots of interesting TV news in Variety today…

Steven Bochco replaced COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF creator/exec producer Rod Lurie…and has wasted no time making the show his own. Five of the original eight writer/producers have been booted.  Staying on are Dee Johnson, Scoop Cohen and Stuart
Stevens who will be joined by Bochco veterans Alison Cross and Joel Fields. Variety says Bochco wanted a smaller staff and doesn’t plan to hire any more writers. Reportedly, big staff changes are also in the works at GHOST WHISPERER on CBS. It’s ironic that the two highest rated new series of the season are undergoing such internal turmoil.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, NBC has picked up SURFACE for the full season.

Cartoon Network has ordered 26 episodes of  a new animated revival of the 60s cult classic GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE.  They haven’t said whether it will be "re-imagined" or not.

And ABC has ordered a pilot called COLE TRACER PI, about the star of a cancelled TV detective series who teams up with the show’s technical advisor to solve crimes. It’s being directed by Joe & Anthony Russo, who are three-for-three when it comes to directing pilots that get series orders (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, LUCKY, and LAX).

Another Bond Movie

by

Variety reports that Warner Brothers is making another Bond movie…only this one will be about 007 creator Ian Fleming.

"Fleming," meanwhile, tells the story of how the author’s own experiences
with womanizing and spying shaped his signature secret agent creation.

Born into a privileged English family, Fleming began as a comparative
underachiever until a stint as a journalist covering the Soviet Union led him to
begin spying on that country for the Foreign Office. Fleming was the mastermind
of numerous clever spying schemes, some deemed too outlandish to use. He dreamed
of becoming a daring secret agent and adapted his own womanizing feats and the
stories he heard to craft the Bond novels.

TRIAL goes to Court

by

Lotbjpreview02Variety reports that Dick Wolf’s LAW AND ORDER: TRIAL BY JURY, cancelled after 12 episodes (one never aired), won’t disappear into oblivion with DEADLINE, FEDS, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and L.A. DRAGNET just yet. Court TV is playing $5 million for the 13 episodes…and will promote the airings by having Wolf appear on Catherine Crier’s show, among others.  While it’s unusual for a cable net… or any net…to pay so much for reruns of such a short-lived show, there are some other unusual aspects to the deal:

Court TV is ponying up $400,000 an episode for exclusive four-year cable-TV
rights to nine of the 13. For the four other episodes, Court TV will pay closer
to $300,000 apiece, with TNT shelling out the rest, because the four featured
the late Jerry Orbach, who had shifted over from the original "Law & Order"
series.

Orbach had inhabited the role of Det. Lennie Briscoe from the 1992-93 season
to the 2003-04 season of "Law & Order." Dick
Wolf Prods. series is one of TNT’s bellwether programs,
consistently one of the highest-rated rerun series on cable TV. Because Court TV
will take more runs of the Orbach episodes of "Trial by Jury," it will pay more
in license fees than TNT.

Court TV plans to run "Trial by Jury," which stars Bebe Neuwirth and Fred
Dalton Thompson, Saturdays at 7 p.m. in a two-hour block beginning in December.
There’ll even be one U.S.-premiere episode that never saw the light of day on
NBC.

Shake-Up at COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

by

According to the Hollywood Reporter, there’s been a major shake-up behind-the-scenes of the season’s most successful new series. Steven Bochco is taking over as commander-in-chief of the ABC series COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, replacing creator/showrunner/director Rob Lurie, who is moving on to develop other series. This is one of the few times that someone of Bochco’s stature has taken over a series he wasn’t associated with before… a common rescue operation usually left to journeyman showrunners, not Emmy-winning writer/creator/prod co. chiefs who usually work in their own lucrative kingdoms. This would be like David E. Kelley taking over JUST LEGAL or  John Wells taking over INCONCEIVABLE though that isn’t entirely, um,  inconceivable. Wells was brought in by ABC a few seasons back in a desperate bid  to save their troubled series THE COURT, a show he previously had nothing to do with.

The End of Sex

by

Deniserichards1That got your attention, didn’t it? UPN has shut down production on the Denise Richards series  SEX LOVE AND SECRETS after only one airing and with just eight of the show’s 13 episodes shot. Daily Variety reports that the network will air the seven remaining episodes  and then re-evaluate the show’s future (yeah, right). Barring a miraculous, sudden surge in ratings, the show is dead.  NBC’s fertility clinic drama  INCONCEIVABLE and FOX’s police procedural KILLER INSTINCT may be the next shows smothered in their sleep.

With ""Inconceivable"
going nowhere at 10 (prelim 1.5/5 in 18-49, 4.6 million), and Fox, with "Killer
Instinct" a distant fourth at 9 (prelim 1.5/5, 4.6 million), were well behind
CBS with a 1.6 average in 18-49. Both almost certainly will make sked
changes before November sweeps.

Meanwhile, Bob Saget is returning to television…no, not in yet another season of AMERICA’S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS, but as the star, producer and co-writer of EDDIE’S FATHER,  which Variety described as an "R-rated version of ‘The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.’"

Saget will play a divorced dad who works as a gynecologist in Phoenix. Show will
focus on the character as he balances raising a 14-year-old son while trying to
lead as active a social life as possible.

"The show is my son and I going through adolescence at the same time," Saget
explained. "What makes it exciting is that because I’m working with HBO, I’ll
get to use the same language in the show that I use with my own kids, which is
just very honest and real."

Crimetime Television

by

From Variety today…

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES creator Marc Cherry is teaming up with CHUCKY creator Don Scardino to develop an "hour-long suspense" drama for ABC called KILL/SWITCH (which features a "dead heroine").  Cherry is also mulling a DH spin-off called VICIOUS CHEERLEADERS.

24 creators  Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran are developing a private eye series for FOX. The series is described as a modern-day LA CONFIDENTIAL and will track a single case for 13 episodes.

Surnow said he and Cochran were also inspired by everything from "The Maltese
Falcon" to Raymond Chandler.

"We’re going to steal from as many movies as possible," Surnow quipped.
"There’s a wonderful, visual style to it that we haven’t really seen on TV. What
we like about film noir is it’s very sexy – we hope to do to that genre what we
did with the spy genre."

Meanwhile, things aren’t looking good for the critically savaged E-RING, which was fourth in it’s timeslot, and the ratings for CSI:NY were down 37% compared to last season.

More on Bond

by

Lkc2SamVariety reports that screen tests are ongoing this week for the new James Bond. The latest front-burner names, as reported here a few days ago, are Daniel Craig and Henry Cavill, with a couple new faces thrown in the mix: ER’s Goran Visnjic and Aussie actor Sam Worthington. The lack of stars in the running (like Clive Owen) is due, Variety reports, to the producers’ unwillingness to pay gross points to their leading man. They want to snag their next 007 for a fraction of the $25 million paid to Pierce Brosnan.