Studio Briefs & Project Development Briefs – Mar 14-15, 2015

by

14 Mar 2015

We will be providing briefs of what comes out of the studios or independent project development on a daily basis and summarizing them in daily posts.   These will be a quick way to attempt to keep everyone updated on movement of projects.   This post is updated throughout the day.  So check back for the latest updates.

 

NON-SPECIFIC (NOT SPECIFIC TO A GIVEN ENTITY

ABC/DISNEY/AMC FAMILY/LIFETIME

  • THR Box Office:  Cinderella Tops Friday with a Bewitching $23M
  • At SXSW Jimmy Kimmel talked about how the first year of Jimmy Kimmel Live! wasn’t easy for him.   He revealed that he had wanted ABC to cancel the show early on, stating”I was burnt out, exhausted, terrified. I wanted them to cancel it, so I didn’t have to quit.”  There were days where literally hours before the show was supposed to go live, he would be without a guest. Along with interviewer Kevin Ryder, host of KROQ morning show Kevin and Bean, where Kimmel got his start, share memories with the audience.   Kimmel talked about his recent guest, President Obama brought in more than 12 million views already on YouTube, yet “there are still some people that won’t do it” he said about guest starring on the show.  “I think it’s more their publicists saying they won’t do it.” Kimmel, while in Austin will be taping Jimmy Kimmel Live! from there and already have confirmed to appear Kevin Hart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Kanye West.
  • THR Box Office:  Cinderella Lives Happy Ever After with $132.5M Global Debut

AMC NETWORKS/AMC ENTERTAINMENT/A&E

 

CBS/CW/CBSFILMS/SHOWTIME/Pop

 

DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION (AOL, AMAZON, HULU, NETFLIX, YAHOO)

 

 

DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS (DISCOVERY CHANNEL)/TLC

  • Having just premiered at SXSW, Netflix has just bought global rights to Hannah Fidell’s drama 6 Years, which stars Tarissa Farmiga and Ben Rosenfield as young lovers at a crossroads.    6 Years was produced by the Duplass Brothers Productions, Kelly Williams, Jonathan Duffy and Andrew Logan in association with Arts & Labor.  Additional cast members include Lindsay Burdge, Joshua Leonard, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Jennifer Lafleur and Peter Vack.

DREAMWORKS /DREAMWORKS ANIMATION

 

FOX ENTERTAINMENT GROUP/FOX SEARCHLIGHT/NEW REGENCY

  • THR Review:  Spy: SXSW Review
  • American Horror Story‘s Paley Fest tour revealed that Matt Bomer and Cheyenne Jackson will join Lady Gaga in Season 5 of the FX anthology entitled American Horror Story: Hotel. Bomer is excited to reunite with Ryan Murphy on the project stating, “I love collaborating with Ryan Murphy.  It feels liek this world where there are no bounds.”   Bomer worked with Murphy not only on The Normal Heart but guest starred on Season 4’s Freak Show and played Darren Criss’s character’s older brother in Glee.  Jackson is no newcomer to Murphy’s work either.  Jackson also guest starred on Glee.  Season 5 will begin production in late summer for an October premiere on FX.

    On the flip side, Jessica Lange announced that she will not be returning for Season 5 and joining Lady Gaga, Bomer and Jackson.  “We’ve had a great run here. I mean, I absolutely love doing these four characters, and in all the madness, I love the writers and Ryan (Murphy) and the insanity of shooting it,”Lange told a packed audience at the Dolby Theater where Paley Fest audience piled in to hear the latest on American Horror Story.

LIONSGATE

 

MGM, ORION, UNITED ARTISTS

  •  The producers of the new Bond film Spectre are receiving up to $20 Mi in incentives for rewrites that depict positive aspects of Mexico.   Tax analysts.com, a website that covers tax news and analysis reported the news that MGM and Sony who produce the film will receive at least $14Mil and up to $20 Mil for script rewrites that portray “modern Mexico City buildings” and a favorable image of the country.   Also as part of the request, the villain cannot be Mexican. Spectre is filming this month in Mexico City.  What changes were requested?   Some include changing the target of an assassination attempt not be the Mexico City Mayor, but instead be an international ambassador; Mexican police should be depicted as a “special force”; and that the production cast a Mexican actress as a Bond girl, which the production did announce that Stephanie Sigman, a Mexican actress, was cast in the film.
  • Variety PopPolitics:  Why Politicians Need Late-Night Talk Shows (Listen)

NBC/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS/USA NETWORK/COMCAST/E!/SyFy

  • Trainwreck, directed and produced by Judd Aptow and also produced by Barry Mendel, and written by Amy Schumer who starred in the lead role, premiered at SWSX as a “work in progress” project.   With audience cheers and laughter, the story is about a lost thirty-something journalist (Schumer) who drinks, sleeps around and doesn’t want any of her flings to spend the night until she encounters a charming doctor (Bill Hader). “This is pretty much me looking at what’s going on with me,” Schumer said.  The film is set in New York, where Schumer grew up.

SONY/TRISTAR/COLUMBIA

 

TIME WARNER/WARNER BROS./HBO/ CNN/TURNER/TNT/TBS/NEWLINE

  • THR Review:  Steve Jobs:  The Man In The Machine:  SXSW Review
  • Variety SXSW Film Review:  Steve Jobs:  The Man In The Machine
  • The subject of HBO’s new documentary series The Jinx, Robert Durst was arrested in New Orleans Saturday in connection with the investigation in Los Angeles of an unsolved killing of a woman 15 years ago.   Durst has quite a past, growing up in an affluent New York environment and a real estate heir, he had been suspected in the 1982 death of his wife, Katherine Durst, has been tried in 2001 for the murder of neighbor Morris Black, whom Durst admitted ot dismembering, claiming he killed Black in self-defense.   But the arrest in New Orleans was over the death of Susan Berman who was killed around Christmas 2000, shot dead execution-style.  While he had previously been a suspect, the gun found in his car with a bullet fired was compared with the bullet that killed Berman and proved inconclusive.

    The documentary The Jinx on HBO aired last week an episode that helped bring more attention to the case.   In The Jinx, a letter was revealed from the Berman case which was from Durst which appeared to mirror the writing and style on an anonymous letter sent to the authorities in Beverly Hills  tipping them off to Berman’s death years ago.  In both letters the word Beverly was misspelled to “Beverley”.

    We simply cannot say enough about the brilliant job that Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling did in producing ‘The Jinx, ‘ ” HBO said in a statement. “Years in the making, their thorough research and dogged reporting reignited interest in Robert Durst’s story with the public and law enforcement.”  Durst is being held without bond.

    HBO and The Jinx producers are not offering a comment, but Jarecki was promoting the show at the TCA press tour last January and made this comment, “I will tell you that by the time you get to the end of this series, you are not going to be scratching your head. You are going to have a clear view of what you think happened.”

  • Deadline:  Bart & Fleming:On Alex Gibney’s HBO Scientology Documentary and Tom Cruse.
  • After just premiering at SXSW Film Festival, CNN Films have sold the North American rights of the Alex Gibney new documentary, Steve Jobs:  The Man in the Machine.   Vinnie Malhorta and Amy Entelis executive produced for CNN Films along with Stacey Offman and Gaby Darbyshire for Jigsaw.  Gibney directed the film and this will be the seventh film of his sold to Magnolia Pictures.
  • Variety Exclusive:  Furious 7 to Debut At SXSW In Surprise Screening

VIACOM/COMEDY CENTRAL/PARAMOUNT/MTV

 

INDIE

  • Variety SXSW Film Review:  The Final Girls
  • Variety SXSW Film Review:  Hello, My Name Is Doris
  • Writer/Director Paul Dalio debuted his film Mania Days at the SXSW Film Festival which stars Katie Holmes who plays a bipolar poet who falls in love with a man that shares her disorder.   Dalio said that the drama was based on his own experiences after he was diagnosed with manic depression as a teenager. Spike Lee executive produced the project.   Holmes researched her character vy consulting with a doctor and talking to Dalio about his own struggles as a bipolar man, and poured over books written by those who had lived iwth the disorder, including Kay Redfield Jamison’s “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Mood and Madness.”   Dalio feels Holmes’s performance in Mania Days is her must vulnerable turn in years; “I do think people will take her very seriously when they see this performance,” Dalio said. “I genuinely think it’s going to open a lot of possibilities for her.”  When asked about her crisscrossing between studios and indies, Holmes said “I just get excited by great characters and great stories.”

 

 

Posted in: ABC, AMC, CBS, Film, FOX, NBC, Televsion ⋅ Tagged: abctag, , , foxtag, nbctag,

Comments are closed.

Post Navigation

← Previous Post