- Still bringing home the more interesting bacon. Sarah Michelle Gellar, whose hubbie Freddy Prinze, Jr. recently joined the creative team for World Wrestling Entertainment, returns to TV with a half-hour project set up at HBO from screenwriter Charles Randolph. Set in Gotham, “The Wonderful Maladys” ensembler revolves around the dysfunctional lives of three adult siblings who lost their parents at a young age. An edgier Party of Five? HBO recently bought the script and is aiming to shoot the single-camera pilot early next year. Gellar and Randolph will serve as exec producers should the project go forward, along with Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
[via Variety]
- The way to swing my vote when deciding between two remakes on the same topic… In this case, a reimagining of Sherlock Holmes. One a laffer from Columbia Pictures, produced by Judd Apatow and with a reported cast of comedic 1-2 punch Will Ferrell + Sacha Baron Cohen, the other a Guy Ritchie drama from Warner Bros. starring whathisfaceIronMan Robert Downey, Jr. + adulterousnolongerinterestingorallthatattractiveanymore Jude Law… is Rachel McAdams. She’s recently been cast in the latter as Downey’s love interest. Heck, I’ll probably donwload/watch online see both. I can’t resist anything Apatow-related.
[via HR]
- Bravo has tapped Aimee Viles VP of new media. Viles will supervise Bravo’s wireless, interactive TV, gaming and other emerging media initiatives. She previously served as director of creative services for Ensequence, a provider of Internet TV products that works with NBC, Bravo, MTV, Nickelodeon and ESPN, among others.
[via Variety]
- Just a nice little piece about the changing landscape of the prevalence/presence of “working stiff families” on (mainstream) network TV:
Where are the Roseanne Connors, the titular character on ABC’s long-running “Roseanne,” who went through a series of bad-to-worse jobs and family cash-flow crises? Where are the Norm Petersons, who rode out most of the ’80s unemployed on a bar stool on “Cheers“?
Social commentators point to the pop culture worship of celebrity and the push for conspicuous consumption in a countrywhere individuals as well as institutions are maxed out on their credit cards. Who wants to become involved with characters fretting about losing their homes when there’s fresh dirt on Britney or a celeb-gone-wild vid to seek out on YouTube.
Biz veterans say the trend in scripted entertainment has less to do with rampant elitism in Hollywood than the harsh reality of trying to program for mass appeal in a 200-channel, multiplatform universe. With viewers having so many more entertainment options, major network shows need a high-concept hook that is easily marketed as something different.
“If you came in to pitch ‘Cheers’ today, I think the networks would say, ‘There’s not a lot of sizzle there. It’s just people in a bar,’ ” says comedy writer Ken Levine, whose long resume includes that classic NBC sitcom.
Working-class folks are more easily found as contestants on reality shows, where they’re always vying for a pot of gold to change their lives. Or if their jobs are exotic or yucky enough, they might wind up on an episode of a docu-reality shows like Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs.”
Levine points to the overall dearth of comedy as another factor in the invisibility of blue-collar folks on TV. Going back to the days of Ralph Kramden on “The Honeymooners,” the half-hour form was the prime vehicle for allowing the vast expanse of viewers to laugh at the predicaments of folks more or less like themselves.
[via Variety]
- Luke Wilson and porn: “Luke Wilson and Giovanni Ribisi will star in indie drama “Middle Men,” a chronicle of the birth of the Internet porn industry. Script centers on a straight-and-narrow businessman who builds the first online billing company dealing exclusively with adult entertainment and finds himself in the middle of a whirlwind filled with starlets, conmen, Russian mobsters, federal agents and international terrorists — all while trying to hold on to his marriage and family.”
[via Variety]
- Analysts are predicting that Amazon’s Kindle, an electronic book reader, could be a $1 billion business by 2010.
[via Variety]
- An article about syndicated TV and money and stuff. Too lazy to go into it right now.
[via Variety]
