#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Television Chronicles was a magazine made for TV geeks like me. It was chock full of interviews and episode guides on classic and not-so-class TV series. Sadly, the magazine disappeared from news stands a few years back. But I am very pleased to report that Television Chronicles has returned as an online magazine. The current issue has an indepth look at the making and demise of the Bill Bixby series THE MAGICIAN.
Alex Epstein’s CRAFTY TV WRITING is a terrific new book full of great advice about the craft of episodic writing and insights into the business of television (and I’m not just saying that because he quotes liberally from me and this blog). If I didn’t have a book of my own, SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING, to recommend, this is the one I’d tell every aspiring TV writer to buy. I’d also strongly recommend WRITING THE TV DRAMA SERIES by Pamela Douglas. Tell you what, buy all three. You’ll thank me later.
I was surprised to discover that the unaired, unsold WB pilot for AQUAMAN is available for download on iTunes. The pilot was from the folks who did SMALLVILLE and was passed over when the WB merged with UPN to become The CW. Being the unsold pilot freak that I am, I immediately downloaded it…but I haven’t watched it yet.
TV Critic Chuck Barney reports that the flop WB sitcom pilot NOBODY’S WATCHING, which got a lot of hype and thousand of hits when it was "mysteriously" posted on YouTube, has received an order for six scripts from NBC. The network will produce some original "webisodes" while they ponder whether or not to order the series. You can expect to see a lot more busted pilots "mysteriously" showing up on YouTube now…
Daniel Craig’s debut as James Bond in CASINO ROYALE is still several months away, but Nikki Finke reports that Sony has already announced that his license to kill has been renewed. He’ll be back as Bond in an untitled movie to be released in May 2008.
Writer/Director Kevin Smith talks in this YouTube clip from a speech at Clark University about his experience writing the aborted SUPERMAN REBORN. It’s very funny…and scary, too.
MAVERICK was an incredible TV series that was way, way ahead of its
time. This DVD sampler is nice… but it’s no substitute for a
feature-packed DVD boxed set produced by someone like Paul Brownstein
(who did the amazing GUNSMOKE, WILD WILD WEST and DICK VAN DYKE boxed sets).
But if Warner Brothers ever wants to do another MAVERICK sampler, let’s see one that
includes the "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" episode from the original
MAVERICK, the unsold ABC pilot THE NEW MAVERICK, the pilot from the CBS
series YOUNG MAVERICK, and the first and last episodes of the NBC
series BRET MAVERICK. Seeing "Shady Deal" and the last episode of BRET
MAVERICK (in which Jack Kelly makes a surprise appearance as Bart)
would make nice bookends to the entire MAVERICK saga.
My friend David Breckman wrote and produced a hilarious pilot for USA Network called UNDERFUNDED, about a spy for the Canadian Secret Service (yes, they have one). He’s still waiting to hear if USA is going to pick it up. But in the mean time, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (yes, they have TV networks up there) has announced that production has begun on INTELLIGENCE, a Canadian drama series (yes, they still have a couple shows of their own up there) about, you guessed it, Canadian spies (yes, they have them). The show is from Chris Haddock, the Canadian Steven Bochco, with financial help from every Canadian government entity except, it seems, the Department of Fish & Game.
“Intelligence takes place in the underworld where crime and
government meet. Part mystery, part thriller, all character and
conspiracy,” says Haddock. “It’s a new and volatile mix of gangster and
spy genres that should be pretty addictive. It’s gonna be a lot of fun
to watch.”Intelligence is a Haddock Entertainment production produced with the
financial participation of CBC, Telefilm Canada, the CTF – License Fee
Program, the Canadian Western Independent Program Fund, the Canadian
and British Columbian Production Tax Credit Programs and CBC
International Sales.
Kim Masters at Slate Magazine looks at the troubled production of the MIAMI VICE movie.
on Miami Vice things went so wrong that Foxx ended up
leaving in the middle of production, after a shooting (and we don’t
mean the kind with a camera) took place during filming in the Dominican
Republic. Foxx refused to return for any more work outside the United
States, meaning that Mann had to rewrite the ending, eliminating a
version that was to have been shot in Paraguay."The whole of
making this movie was filled with adversity," Mann says. But he adds
that whatever the crew might have endured, it was all in the service of
making a great film. "Sometimes folks are going to join this unit and
they may have a tough time," he says. "Guess what? They’re on the wrong
movie."
SUPERMAN RETURNS reminded me of THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE — I couldn’t get past Brandon Routh’s irritating and pointless Christopher Reeve impersonation. It struck me as a particularly stupid idea… it would be like doing a James Bond movie and hiring someone to do a Sean Connery impersonation. The imitation works for satire…but for a drama? I don’t understand the thinking behind it. Why couldn’t they just let Routh create his own, unique portrayal? At least Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth weren’t forced into imitating Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder (though the performances by Spacey and Bosworth are surprisingly bland).
By attempting to xerox the original SUPERMAN movie, all director Bryan Singer managed to do was force comparisons at every turn… and SUPERMAN RETURNS simply didn’t measure up on any level. I was constantly reminded how much better the first two movies were…and how genuine and charming Christopher Reeve’s portrayal was.