http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/jason-p ... xs-powers/


Jason Patric has been tapped as the male lead in the FX drama pilot Powers. Based on the graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, the project, written by Charles H. Eglee and to be directed by Michael Dinner, is a police procedural set in a world where superpowers are relatively common. It centers on two detectives, Christian Walker (Patric) and Deena Pilgrim (Lucy Punch), in a Homicide department that deals with cases involving "powers" (people with superpowers). Eglee, Dinner, David Engel and Bendis are executive producing for Sony Pictures TV and FX Prods. Filming is slated for mid-summer in Chicago. If Powers goes to series, it will mark Patric's first regular series gig. Last year, he co-starred in the HBO comedy pilot Tilda. In features, Patric, repped by ICM and Untitled, was most recently seen in The Losers.
Patric fand ich bisher zwar nur in schmierigen Rollen richtig gut, aber das ist schon eine vielversprechendere Wahl als Camilla Parker Bowles. Zum Glück kein klobiger Eisenschädel.
http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/spike-l ... ons-youth/


HBO is about to give a pilot order to a drama series from Doug Ellin, John Ridley and Spike Lee that is loosely inspired by Mike Tyson's early years in boxing.
Project, dubbed "Da Brick," was penned by Ridley, who will serve as showrunner. Lee is onboard to direct the pilot and exec produce, along with Ellin, the steward of HBO's "Entourage," as well as Tyson and Ellin's producing partner, Jim Lefkowitz. Tyson's wife, Lakiha Tyson, will co-exec produce along with Azim Spicer.
"Da Brick" will be produced through Ellin's overall deal with HBO. As "Entourage" winds down its eight-season run on HBO this year, Ellin has been looking to branch out as a producer. "Da Brick" marks the first project from Ellin's Fly the Coop Entertainment banner that he did not write.
The connection with Tyson came about after the boxer did a guest shot last season on "Entourage."
"He said to me, 'Why don't you do with my life what you did with Mark (Wahlberg's) life" with "Entourage," Ellin told Variety.
Ellin and Lefkowitz met with numerous writers before settling on film and TV vet Ridley as the one to translate Tyson's story. The series will not be a straight bio vehicle but will follow the rise of a young boxer in present-day Newark, N.J. ("Da Brick" refers to Newark being known as "the brickyard city.")
"The initial idea was 'Entourage meets The Wire', an edgy story about an up-and-coming boxer and his crew that is much more dramatic than Entourage."
Ridley and Ellin spent a lot of time with Tyson during the past year gathering material. Ridley in turn helped recruited Lee to the project.
"John wrote an amazingly intricate script," Ellin said. "There's lots of places it can go. It won't just focus on boxing."
HBO has a casting director searching for a thesp with some boxing chops.
In addition to "Da Brick," Ellin is set to begin lensing in October the pilot for the half-hour HBO dramedy "40," which he penned about a group of male friends in Gotham. Ed Burns is set to star (Daily Variety, March 2).
Nach Lights Out hätte ich nicht gedacht, dass sich so schnell wieder ein Sender für das Box-Milieu interessiert. Vielleicht funktioniert es ja als Teil einer größeren Welt. Aber da HBO zur Zeit wieder am Fließband Ideen einkauft, ist es noch ein weiter Weg, um überhaupt eine Pilotorder zu erhalten.
http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/fox-pil ... comic-con/

With its gigantic promotional platform, Comic-Con has become the place for TV studios and networks to introduce their new genre series to fans through screenings of their pilots and panels with creators and cast. But showcasing pilots that didn't go to series is unprecedented. It will happen this year with Fox's Locke & Key, a suspense thriller based on the graphic novel by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. A Locke & Key session will be held on July 22 at 10:30 AM and will include a screening of the pilot, followed by a panel discussion featuring Hill, Rodriguez, the pilot's writer/executive producer Josh Friedman and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Behind the event is the publisher of the Locke & Key comic, IDW Publishing. IDW asked the pilot's producer, 20th Century Fox TV, for permission, and with the studio's blessing, it moved to book space for the screening. Because the convention is so packed, there was some juggling involved, so the screening will be in Room 8, and the panel next door in Room 9. "This one-time-only screening of the entire pilot will show you just what a void there will be on your TVs this fall," IDW's ad materials say. Locke & Key, directed by Mark Romanek and starring Miranda Otto and Nick Stahl, was one of the highest-profile pilots this past season. It was given an early pilot order and was originally envisioned as a summer series before it was switched to fall consideration. Despite its great pedigree and top auspices involved, the pilot didn't make the cut at Fox, and, after shopping the show to cable networks, the studio, faced with mounting costs of keeping the production alive, decided to pull the plug while signing Friedman in an overall deal. With rare exceptions (the failed Aquaman pilot was made available on iTunes), all pilots that don't go to series die a quiet death and are rarely shown to the general public. While IDW will no doubt use the the footage to drum up interest for the next chapter in the comic book series, it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction the pilot will get. Can the power of the Comic-Con crowd make network chiefs change their mind?
Da die Sets schon abgerissen sind, wird das wohl keinen Umschwung mehr bringen und außer vielleicht einer wackligen Handykamera-Variante dürfte auch nichts an die Öffentlichkeit gelangen. Bestenfalls regt es zu einem neuen Versuch an.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118038892?refCatId=14

Scott Rosenbaum sails with 'Royal'
'Shield,' 'V' alum takes reins of FX pirate drama
Coming off of ABC's "V," showrunner Scott Rosenbaum had plenty of offers to join upcoming primetime skeins.
He was close to committing to a project that was in need of major retooling when he got a call about a month ago for a meeting he couldn't pass up. Producers Gale Anne Hurd and Graham King wanted to talk to him about the pirate drama they were hatching atFX, "Port Royal."
After hearing Hurd's broad-strokes vision for the show about a subject that has fascinated her for years -- the buccaneers, merchants and other colorful characters that inhabited the Jamaican port city in the late 17th century -- Rosenbaum was in. And the fact that "Port Royal" was set up at the cabler where he cut his teeth as a scribe, working on "The Shield," only added to his eagerness to set sail with Hurd and King.
"With Gale and Graham involved, it'll assure that the show will be given the epic and expansive treatment it needs," Rosenbaum told Variety. "And I love the idea of going back to work with the FX team, because creatively this is the best home for this show."
Forget the camp of Capt. Jack Sparrow. Rosenbaum said they plan to play these pirates as straightforward characters, ruthless in their larceny but also governed by an unusually strict, surprisingly democratic code of conduct. Hurd has sent Rosenbaum a ton of books and articles that she's been collecting for years in anticipation of doing a project set among the real pirates of the Caribbean.
"What really attracted me to this show was the spectacle and the fact that the characters and the place in time really helped shape the evolution of the New World as we know it," he said.
Rosenbaum is now in the midst of working out the initial 13-episode arc for the show and then will focus on the pilot script. FX is high on the project, which marks a departure from the gritty contemporary fare that has been a hallmark of the cabler's drama series.
"Port Royal" hails from King's GK-tv, Hurd's Valhalla Entertainment, FX Prods. and Fox Intl. Channels.
Rosenbaum started his career as a staff writer on "The Shield," rising over six seasons to exec producer status. He served a stint as an exec producer of NBC's "Chuck" before he was recruited by Warner Bros. TV and ABC to take the reins of the struggling "V" shortly after the sci-fier debuted in 2009.
Rosenbaum is repped by UTA and attorney Michael Gendler.Rosenbaum is repped by UTA and attorney Michael Gendler.
Mal sehen, was er mit seiner ersten eigenen und von Beginn an betreuten Serie anstellt. Selbst wenn man ihm seine V-Zeit als negativ auslegen wollte (was ich bekanntlich nicht mache

), sollte man bedenken, dass z.B. auch ein Shawn Ryan in seiner Zeit als Lie to me Showrunner (Staffel 2) nicht mehr als Network-Durchschnitt abgeliefert hat. Die meisten Charaktere und der Erzählton sind halt geerbt und nicht erfunden. Die andere Serie, die major retooling braucht, war bestimmt Exit Strategy.
Im Rahmen eines Howard/Grazer Interviews gab es auch mal wieder ein kleines Lebenszeichnen zu
Dark Tower.
http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/qa-imag ... ore-141708

DEADLINE: You’ll soon know their capacity for risk taking when you find out if Universal will make The Dark Tower, whose trilogy and TV components make it the most ambitious project a studio has attempted since The Lord of the Rings. How important is it for a couple of guys who’ve been together for 25 years to take big swings?
HOWARD: If you’re not out there taking some risks, if you’re just coasting along with your wins, then you’re not really trying. But we never take risk for risk’s sake. The Dark Tower seemed like such a good idea to both of us that it became impossible not to try it. It’s impossible to live with ourselves if we don’t take the swing.
DEADLINE: Why does Dark Tower warrant three movies and two TV series in between?
HOWARD: The universe Steve King created is so dimensional and creative. It blends scope, sweep, and adventure with some very personal compelling stories. We could have tried to force all of it into one or two or three movies. It became clear to me that the medium of TV has become so bold and cool, we could use it to our advantage creatively and really fulfill the possibilities of this universe of characters King gave us to work with. We can use the intimacy of television when that’s appropriate, and the scope and scale of the big screen with the bigger fantasy ideas. We discovered elements that would probably never have a home either on the big screen or on TV, but would make fantastic narrative gaming opportunities that won’t rehash the movies or TV, but have its own material borne out of the books and graphic novels. We’ve got gaming designers and there is enthusiasm for that. It’s a way to use all the mediums at our disposal to try to fulfill what’s possible. Universal sees this as an asset that can benefit the company in a lot of different ways.
DEADLINE: Still, there were rumors last month that Universal might let The Dark Tower go. That hasn’t happened but they did push the start date to early next year. Why has it been so hard to get underway?
HOWARD: The first version represented a bold attempt to fast track, because of weather concerns. It was a little more dramatic to people on the outside than to us. We’d have liked to move forward on that fast track, but it was always Phase One. There was an understanding that if we couldn’t answer all the questions in a way that made sense to all the partners involved, then we would operate on a slightly more traditional timetable. Even if we go in March, that’s still moving quickly for something of this scale.
DEADLINE: You’ve been asked to bring down the budget. By how much?
GRAZER: I’m producing it with Akiva Goldsman, who wrote it to be sensitive to cost and is rewriting it to be more so. Without putting a number on it, the cuts aren’t that deep or that radical.
DEADLINE: Is Javier Bardem set to play the main gunslinger Roland Deschains?
HOWARD: Nobody is pay or play but he has said he wants to do it. We’ve spent a lot of time together. He’s fascinated by the character and has great instincts for Roland. I’m hoping when we go, he’s available and will join us.