Okay, maybe that headline is extreme, but I left VAN HELSING pondering the current state of American movie-making. Most of the movie… and most of the characters…are CGI. Essentially, they are cartoons… lousy, unconvincing cartoons at that. And the big, climactic confrontation in the movie doesn’t happen between two actors, but between two lousy, unconvincing CGI characters (not to mention the mostly CGI and digital matte locations and backgrounds). In essense, the movie was a bloated cartoon with a few living actors inserted. The live-action characters weren’t much more convincing than their CGI counterparts. I never got invested in the characters, the story, or the big action set pieces. None of it seemed real… because it wasn’t. There was nothing engaging about the movie at all. When did studios start believing audiences were more interested in CGI than characters, story, and genuine emotion? Is this what movie-makers think audiences want? Are they right?
Film and Television
The New Face of James Bond
I’ve been reading the James Bond newsgroup, where there’s lots of talk about who will take over the license to kill when Pierce Brosnan turns his in. Hugh Jackman seems to be the big favorite…along with Orlando Bloom, Christian Bale, and Russell Crowe… though I am holding out hope for Clive Owen. He was great in THE CROUPIER and those DRIVER mini-movies from BMW. Perhaps he’ll get noticed in Disney’s KING ARTHUR tentpole this summer.
A friggin great show
It’s official…Deadwood is my favorite show on television right now. Unpredictable. Shocking. Offensive. Memorable. Hilarious. Ugly. Unexpectedly moving. The characters are fresh and surprising, the sense of place palpable, and the dialogue utterly original. I don’t think I have ever heard profanity used so effectively or, dare I say it, poetically. Watch this show are your peril…it’s addictive and hard to get out of your head.
Maintaining Integrity
Another true TV anecdote…
Bill Rabkin and I were in middle of writing an episode of “Spenser: For Hire,” which was airing at 10 p.m. on Saturday nights. In our episode, Spenser sees a woman jump off the roof of a building, so he begins to investigate why she wanted to commit suicide. He discovers she’s fleeing her brother, with whom she shared an incestous relationship. The network loved the story.
We get a call on a Friday from the network. They had just decided to move “Spenser For Hire” to 8 pm on Sunday, sandwhiched between “The Wonderful World of Disney” and “The Dolly Parton Show.”
Somehow our episode didn’t seem quite right for the Family Hour, unless your idea of family is rather twisted. But the network didn’t think it was quite as big a problem as we did.
“We love everything about the script, so all you need to do is take out the incest,” the network exec said, “but maintain the integrity of the story.”
Simple Notes
Another true story…
My writing partner William Rabkin and I had just turned in the seventeenth draft of a screenplay based on a novel I’d written. We were a few weeks away from pre-production on the movie. The producer called us in, saying he only had a few minor notes we could do in a few minutes on our computer.
“I just need a tiny polish,” the producer said. “Just a few little nips and tucks.”
”I’m ready,” I said, having already figured out where I was going to put the framed movie poster on my wall, and how I was going to spend my production bonus.
“I’d like you to flip Act Two and Act Three,” he said.
I laughed. He didn’t. “You are joking, right?”
“No,” he said. “It will be easy with your computer. Just flip the two acts, make Act Three Act Two, and make Act Two Act Three.”
“But you can’t do that,” I said.
“Why not?” He asked, genuinely perplexed.
I walked out and never came back. Bill stuck around and got the notes, though we never did the draft. Other writers came in (including Michael Blake, who would later win an Oscar for “Dancing With Wolves”). Not surprisingly, the movie didn’t get made.
NEW CAST ON “MISSING”
Justina Muchado has left our show and Mark Consuelos has stepped in. Production began this week on our second season…and just let me say, Vivica Fox rocks.
Lifetime’s ‘Missing’ finds Fox, Consuelos
FBI skein’s new season premieres in July
By DENISE MARTIN
Former sudser star Mark Consuelos is going primetime, joining the cast of the Lifetime drama “Missing.”
Casting of Consuelos comes in the wake of news that Vivica A. Fox (“Kill Bill”) has also come aboard the skein. Her character replaces that of original star Gloria Reuben in the second season of the show.
“Missing” revolves around FBI investigator Nicole Scott (Fox), who has teamed with a young psychic to help track down missing persons. Consuelos, husband of morning talkshow host Kelly Ripa, will play an FBI agent and former colleague of Fox’s character.
New season premieres in July.
Consuelos is a vet of the ABC soap “All My Children,” in which he starred opposite Ripa. He next appears in Miramax actioner “The Great Raid” with Benjamin Bratt and Joseph Fiennes. More recently, Consuelos did a multi-episode arc on NBC’s “Third Watch.”
“Missing” is produced by Lions Gate TV in association with CHUM TV. Glenn Davis, William Laurin and Debra Martin Chase are exec producers.
It’s a Mystery
I was reading the Publishers Weekly close-up on mysteries, which reminded me of a pitch meeting we had a few years ago at a basic cable network, before MONK burst on the scene. I pitched a mystery series, a blend of reality and scripted tv, to the new development exec. He interrupted me in middle of the pitch.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “You want to do a mystery every week?”
“Uh, yes,” I said.
“It can’t be done,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“I mean, you can’t tell a new mystery every week,” he said. “It’s just not possible.”
“Of course it is,” I replied. “I’ve done it. Diagnosis Murder was a mystery.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes, it was,” I argued.
“Nobody can do a mystery every week,” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”
“Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, CSI, those are all mysteries,” I said.
“No, they aren’t.”
“Okay,” I said. “What is your idea of a mystery?”
“Scooby-Doo,” he replied.
“That’s an animated Saturday morning cartoon,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
Turn Off Your Tv Week
I was unaware this was national turn off your TV week until Bob Sassone told me. They need a better publicist. Or maybe a good TV commercial. Anyway, the idea is you should stop watching TV and spend more time with your family and read more books. I’m all for those things naturally, but I think both are overrated. The last conversation I had with my wife and daughter involved my daughter musing about what colors the uniforms might be on her soccer team. And my daughter isn’t even on a soccer team yet. The last book I read was a mystery, that shall go nameless, and that was no better than an average TV show. So was I really better off having that conversation and reading that book than watching the latest episode of “law and order?” I don’t think it’s an either or question really. Turn off your TV week is just stupid. I’m not just saying that as someone who makes his living in TV and writes a lot of TV. The fact is television viewing is at an all-time low — at least among the major networks. I wonder if people are really watching as much TV is the anti-TV people think they are. And even if they are so what? Is TV worse for you than a bad book? Is TV worse for you than a video game, computer game, playing with your PDA, your blackberry, or your cell phone? There are a thousand things keeping us from wonderful wholesome family conversations and classic novels. Why single 0ut tv? I say let’s have a no Game Boy week, a no cell phone week, or no Internet week. Let’s see how that would fly!
ABC
I was reading about the exec shakeup at ABC this morning…
One of the sad things about the ABC situation is that they actually put some good shows on the air that probably would have been hits on other networks — like LINE OF FIRE, DRAGNET (SEASON 1) and KAREN SISCO. If any of these three shows had been on NBC, they might still be on the air now. Though, to be fair, the last three episodes of SISCO felt like the fifth year of a very tired show (they did the heros-are-hostages in bank heist episode for God’s sake). Still, there is a good reason ABC is mired at #4. Their dramas sucked. I dont think anybody is going to miss KINGDOM HOSPITAL, THREAT MATRIX, THE DA, or 10-8. Remember VERITAS, MDs, THIEVES, Push Nevada, miracles, that was then, the court, snoops, the beast, Dinotopia anyone? Plus, they never aired my special THE BEST TV SHOWS THAT NEVER WERE, making the show an ironic joke in and of itself. If they’d aired my show, they’d probably be at least #3 now.
Joys of Pitching 2
Before starting a pitch, I like to ask the execs what they are looking for. At a recent meeting at a network, the exec said:
“We’re wide open,” she said. “The only things we don’t want to hear are cop shows, science fiction shows, anything set in the past, military shows, buddy detectives or stuff with monsters.”
I could think of only one genre she left out. “What about a medical show?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “We don’t want those, either.”