Thursday, 29 September 2011

'Fringe' Producers, 'Shield' Scribe Sell Western to Fox

John Hlavin Hot writer John Hlavin is boarding the small screen's Western train. Fox has picked up an untitled Western script from The Shield scribe Hlavin that will explore the origins of Wyatt Earp, chronicling the well-known incidents in his life -- including the Gunfight at the OK Corral -- as well as details about his brothers bringing order to a lawless frontier. PHOTOS:18 Familiar Faces of Fall TV Hlavin has sold the project to the network through 20th Century Fox Television, which brought in Fringe's Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci through their studio-based K/O Paper Products to executive produce the project. K/O Paper Products president Heather Kadin will also executive produce alongside Hlavin, whose TV credits include Trust Me, Daybreak and E-Ring. Hlavin, who has the Western The Gunslingerin development at Warner Bros. Pictures, is currently penning Risk for Sony Pictures and working with DreamWorks on his untitled heist film. His big-screen credits also include penning the fourth installment in the Underworld franchise for Screen Gems. PHOTOS: Fall TV Preview 2011: The Returning Shows Kurtzman and Orci inked a three-year overall deal with 20th Television last year and had drama pilots Locke & Key and Exit Strategy set up at Fox that didn't get the series pickup in May. This is their second project this development season; CBS picked up a female-fronted drama revolving around a congresswoman who fights for the underdog. Overall, the Hlavin project continues the Western trend this development season. EXCLUSIVE Q&A: Fox's Kevin Reilly on 'X Factor' Ratings, 'Terra Nova' and the Future of 'Glee' TNT recently gave pilot orders to Gateway, an action-adventure set in 1880s Colorado from The Pacific's Bruce C. McKenna. ABC is developing Gunslinger from Detroit 1-8-7's David Zabel and Hogtown, a procedural pitch set in the Wild West from Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore. CBS and GoodFellas' Nicholas Pileggi also are prepping Ralph Lamb based on the 1960s adventure of the cowboy-turned-Las Vegas sheriff; while NBC has Shaun Cassidy's 1840s-set The Frontier as well as a Western project told from a female perspective from Friday Night Lights' Peter Berg. STORY: Saddle Up! TV Westerns Hot AMC's Union Pacific Railroad 1860s Western Hell on Wheels,meanwhile, is first out of the gate, premiering Nov. 6. Hlavin is repped by UTA and Jackoway Tyerman Wertheimer Austen Mandelbaum Morris & Klein. Email: Lesley.Goldberg@thr.com; Twitter: @Snoodit The Shield Roberto Orci Alex Kurtzman TV Development

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Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Roald Dahl's BFG To Hit The Big Screen

Human beans rejoice!Back in 1989, now defunct children's TV animation studio Cosgrove Hall made a film version of The BFG, starring David Jason as the Big FriendlyGiant himself and Amanda Root as Sophie, the miniature-by-comparison herione.It arrived on TVscreens on Christmas Day that year, and now, 22 years later, ETwriter Melissa Mathison, veteran super producer Frank Marshall and Dreamworks itself are planning on making a live-action version.Mathison, as you might have guessed, is on writing duties, but no director or actors have been announced, though we're sure the rumours will start flying about the internet soon enough.It seems like a sensible move from Dreamworks, with Dahl stories proving to be a rich vein for directors over the years, from Nic Roeg's The Witches to Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr.Fox.And as it's live action, we're interested to see who exactly the BFGis going to be, so, you know, big and friendly. Hmm.No release date has been earmarked yet for The BFG, but we'll let you know as soon as we find out.

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MPAA's Chris Dodd to deal with Society of movement Picture and tv Engineers Conference

Sen.Chris Dodd, chairman and Boss from the Film Association of America, will address the impact of digital content thievery in the approaching Society of movement Picture and tv Engineers (SMPTE) Annual Technical Conference & Exposition.our editor recommendsMPAA's Chris Dodd: Piracy Is 'Single Greatest Threat We Face being an Industry'Peter Lude, Wendy Aylsworth Named to Society of movement Picture and TV Engineers Board "The film and also the TV industries aren't nearly large galleries and stars. A lot more than 2.two million hard-working, middle-class people in most 50 states rely on the entertainment sell for their jobs. They work behind the curtain in production, as well as in smaller businesses like equipment rental, transportation, construction and food service," Dodd stated. He added, "Millions more and more people operate in theaters, video stores, retail, restaurants along with other companies that rely on entertainment. Its these employees as well as their families, content thievery means decreasing earnings, unemployment and reduced health insurance and retirement benefits." The SMPTE conference is going to be take place October 25 - 27 in the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel & Health spa. A pre-conference symposium is going to be created by SMPTE and also the American Society of Cinematographers. Related Subjects MPAA Chris Dodd

Friday, 23 September 2011

Jennifer Salke, 'Chuck's' Zachary Levi to Be Honored at Operation Smile Gala

They took him away. People were all over him. Just hovering around him. I couldn't see his face at all." NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke is recalling the tense moments following her son Henry's birth. "My husband was leaning over him like this," she says, hands cupping her head in imitation. "I remember thinking to myself, 'Oh my God, there's something mortally wrong with my child.' " She continues, a now 12-year-old Henry seated beside her in her Universal City office, "When they turned and came toward me, I had one of those moments where all of the sound dropped out." She pauses. "I thought to myself, 'These people are going to say something to me right now that's going to change my life forever.' " What the doctors shared with her that day did change her life, but not for the reason she thought it would. Henry was born with a cleft lip, a birth defect so common worldwide that every three minutes a child is born with that or a cleft palate. Fortunately for Jennifer, who for nearly a decade served as a high-ranking executive behind such hits as Glee and Modern Family at 20th Century Fox TV before joining NBC this summer, it was a relatively easy fix: Two early surgeries erased any real trace. (She then had twin daughters who do not have cleft conditions.) It isn't so easy for victims elsewhere in the world, where one in 10 children born with a cleft condition will die before their first birthday, often from malnutrition. Since 1982, Operation Smile has made this its cause, providing more than 200,000 free and fairly simple surgeries to those with these and other facial deformities in developing countries. Looking for a way to do more, Henry created a fund-raising page on the Operation Smile website in 2009. In a matter of months, he had raised $20,000, and he and his parents were introduced to Smile founders William and Kathy Magee through mutual friend and Smile board member Billy Bush. In the two-plus years since, Henry has become one of the charity's most active youth ambassadors. "He comes to us with a pad of paper and starts listing all of these ways to raise more money for surgeries," says Kathy Magee, ticking off examples such as T-shirts and DJ benefits (his moniker is DJ Smile). After a couple of years of stateside fund-raising -- Henry's second round raised $48,000, his third recently began -- and multiple speaking engagements, mother and son journeyed to Rio de Janeiro for their first nine-day Smile mission. (Operation Smile hosted more than 150 missions in 2010, providing on-location surgeries and care for cleft victims.) In Rio, they spent time with patients, educating them and their families. Jennifer traveled with a picture of Henry as a cleft-lipped baby, which she showed often as a reminder of what these doctors would be able to do. The pair spent time in the operating rooms, which Henry admits was "a little scary." On Sept. 23, Jennifer and Henry will be honored alongside Zachary Levi, Sue Tsao and Giuliana and Bill Rancic at the annual Operation Smile Gala in Los Angeles. From there, the Salkes will begin planning their next trip: a Smile mission to Africa. Related Topics Zachary Levi Philanthropy Chuck NBC Entertainment

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12 Burning TV Questions Answered (Kind Of)

THR's chief TV critic weighs in on the turmoil in television -- big bets on expensive shows, networks struggling to right themselves and risky new leads taking over aging hits.our editor recommends18 Familiar Faces of Fall TVFall TV Death Pool: Will 'Charlie's Angels,' 'Whitney' or 'How to Be a Gentleman' Be Axed First?Fall TV's 12 Most Anticipated ShowsFall TV Preview 2011: 10 Fresh Faces To KnowFall TV Preview 2011: The New ShowsFall TV Preview 2011: The Returning Shows Will Terra Nova and The X Factor deliver for Fox? These are big, big shows. The bet here is that Terra Nova will underperform but not fail, while X Factor might even exceed what Fox is expecting. Of course, if they both fail, there will be high-level job openings galore. Will Ashton Kutcher save Two and a Half Men? A lot of eyes will be on him. Of course, most of those eyes watched the show in the first place and still laughed, so it's not like standards are very high. The show's Sept. 19 premiere lured nearly 28 million viewers. Will FX's American Horror Story be the most-talked-about fall series, and will it live up to the hype? I thought Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's pilot was a gigantic, assaultive mess, but I eagerly await the next couple of installments to see if they can fix the confusing insanity. Here's a wild guess: The premiere breaks FX's ratings records, but the drop rate after that is precipitous. Will AMC wobble any more? Season two of The Walking Dead will be the starting point for those seeking clues. The guess here is that Walking Dead, despite working on a tighter budget, will do just fine and is in good hands even with showrunner Glen Mazzara stepping in for the fired Frank Darabont. But Mad Men fans have a long wait until its return, the pilot for the new Western series Hell on Wheels (Nov. 6) isn't very good, and fallout from The Killing's unsatisfying season finale is likely to linger. If Killing executive producer Veena Sud can't fix her plotting mistakes in season two, a larger viewer mutiny will be at hand -- and AMC will be left in panic mode. Will the faux Mad Men-inspired nostalgia of The Playboy Club and Pan Am mesmerize a mainstream audience? Guess: No. But the overt sexism, even if it was inherent during that era, will likely turn off female viewers (who won't buy the "empowerment" nonsense). If they avoid it in droves, these shows are dead. Will new entertainment president Bob Greenblatt turn the Good Ship Cinder Block at NBC around? Everybody knows the challenge in front of him, so the bar is rightfully low. I'm predicting he delivers much better than expected, though more work awaits. Will Desperate Housewives go out with a bang after eight seasons? And, perhaps even more important, will creator Marc Cherry's decision to pull the plug on the series be adopted by other showrunners on veteran dramas? Will they realize that the time has come to move on? Our eyes are on Grey's Anatomy, CSI: Anything, the Law & Order franchise and sundry CW shows. Nevermind Kutcher; how will Ted Danson do on CSI and James Spader on The Office? Guess: Well and not so well. Danson has always been intriguing as a dramatic actor, something he's been fine-tuning in recent years. While Spader can do funny, it might be less about him and more about Office just seeming played out, no matter who's the boss. What will happen to the graduating class of stars on Glee, and will anyone care? Or will there just be a spinoff? Or do they all become townies who hang around near the school? Will there be bigger hits in midseason than in fall? There certainly seems to be more excitement (especially from critics and, if you pressed them to reveal the truth, probably from network execs) about what's to come from January onward with such shows as NBC's Smash and Awake and Fox's Alcatraz. Will the programming experiment of the season -- CBS moving the comedy Rules of Engagement to Saturday (yes, Saturday, TV's graveyard) -- reinvigorate the night for scripted shows? Guess: No. But it's a valiant effort. Will people stay away from Prime Suspect if they were fans of the original? They shouldn't. It doesn't share any noticeable DNA with the original. About the only familiar trait is that, in the pilot, the sexism is painted on pretty thick -- sexism being one of the main things from which the original Jane Tennison suffered. But the producers have said they are going to backtrack on that -- it's less of an issue, but not extinct, in the current age. While it was a little disconcerting to hear them dismiss the content of the original series as dated, especially when the new one is really just a procedural that breaks no ground, there's a very strong reason to watch the new version: Maria Bello. Related Topics Fall TV Preview

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Thursday, 22 September 2011

Make Losing Profits Fun Using These 'Ghostbusters' Slots

Hey 'Ghostbusters' fans, you should to lower people proton packs pronto and acquire your butts to Vegas. Until March. 18, Ghostbuster-designed slots will probably be situated at MGM Resorts in Las vegas. Furthermore for the regular slots, gamblers may also get the opportunity to register in four different bonus models: the Ballroom Busters Pick Bonus, where you are in a position to inflate the ballroom to find ghosts the Stay Puft Free Games Feature, where chocolate buttons fall on the horizon enabling you to obtain more points the Are You Currently Presently Psychic? game, where taking a chance the best cards will enable you to get extra credits as well as the Paranormal Pick Bonus, where players can choose from some phantasm clouds to win the jackpot. So when that wasn't enough, that tricky ghost Slimer will probably be together with you completely, likely making fun people if you eventually lose. You can examine the entire photo in the video slot, plus a highlight video of the sport, below. To determine the whole news release in the machine, mind onto Movieline. [via Movieline]

Sunday, 18 September 2011

Warners trio clicks at int'l B.O.

Warner Bros. saw a powerful weekend overseas this frame, opening "Crazy Stupid Love" in nine areas to receptive auds. The laffer added $4.7 million to its worldwide tally a few days ago, including $1.5 million from France, a infamously difficult marketplace for American comedies. It bowed in second place behind local comedy remake "The War from the Buttons" that is in the soph sesh. The studio also folded out "Mannerherzen 2" in Germany along with other German-speaking areas where it opened up at No. 1 with $3.5 million including previews, and "Don Gato" which required first in Mexico with $3.4 million. The weekend's worldwide B.O. prize visited "The Smurfs" for that sixth consecutive time with $17.3 million, including to begin with openings in Italia ($3.7 million) and Australia ($3.75 million). Always a much better artist overseas compared to the U.S., Universal's latest Rowan Atkinson comedy "Johnny British Reborn" opened up in front of its March. 28 U.S. release, grossing $11.7 million for that weekend. "Johnny" results include $2.5 million for that top place in Russia along with a significant $2.six million bow around australia. Studio needs "Johnny British" to possess lengthy legs Here as 85% of scholars is going to be on school holiday this approaching frame, and Universal is going to be adding 48 more areas in coming several weeks. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com