A&E grows darker
Called Damien, the series was originally lined up for A&E’s sister channel Lifetime. But last week parent company A+E Networks decided A&E’s asylum would be a better home. At the same time, it revealed that the size of the series order was being bumped up to 10 episodes, having originally been planned as six.
The series is being written by Glen Mazzara, who is best known for being showrunner on series three of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Prior to that, he worked on Nash Bridges and The Shield.
Mazzara’s time on The Walking Dead didn’t end well. Despite the show achieving huge ratings during his watch, a difference of opinion about the programme’s direction saw Mazzara depart after just one series. So Damien is a big opportunity for him to really make his mark, building an ongoing scripted franchise from scratch. He is doing so via his own production company, 44 Strong Productions, which he launched after leaving The Walking Dead. Also involved is Ross Fineman, who developed the series concept with Mazzara.
The fact A&E has entrusted Mazzara with a 10-part series shows just how highly prized the alumni of hit series are. Reinforcing this point, US cable channel E! has just greenlit a project from Jonathan Abrahams, a writer who won a Primetime Emmy for his work on series four of Mad Men. Called The Arrangement, the new project tells the story of a young actress who is offered a part in a major movie on the condition that she has a relationship with the project’s male lead.
Mad Men, of course, comes to an end on May 17 after seven critically acclaimed seasons on AMC. Presumably, this means a wave of top script-writing talent will now be unleashed on the market. All told, eight people have been credited as writers on the final season, including the show’s creator Matthew Weiner.
Weiner has not given any indication what he plans to do after Mad Men. But he is undoubtedly going to be one of the most in-demand writers/showrunners in the US. If there is a career challenge for him, perhaps, it is to see if he can couple his creative talent to a higher-rating project. While other AMC shows such as The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul have delivered impressive ratings, Mad Men bumps along at around the two million mark.
Two other names closely associated with Mad Men are Andre and Maria Jacquemetton, who wrote numerous episodes before leaving at the end of season six. The husband/wife team was briefly attached to Zodiak Media’s lavish period drama Versailles, but ultimately their version was passed over in favour of a treatment by David Wolstencroft and Simon Mirren. As yet, there is no news of what the Jacquemettons are planning next.
An ongoing theme in the scripted TV world is the number of actors and directors coming over from film – and it seems writers are also tempted to make a similar move. A good example of this is Jeb Stuart, whose movie credits include late-night kebab and lager companion flicks Die Hard and The Fugitive.
Stuart has recently finished writing The Liberator for A+E’s History Channel, a miniseries based on the Second World War heroics of Colonel Felix ‘Shotgun’ Sparks, who fought his way up through Europe before liberating the Dachau concentration camp. History is obviously happy with Stuart’s work – he’s now writing a Vietnam drama for the channel. Called The Boys of ’67, the show is based on a book by historian Andrew Wiest and will tell its story from the point of view of an infantry division. It’s tempting to think Stuart might go on to round out a trilogy with an Iraq epic next.
While the US continues to be the world’s most dynamic drama market, Canada has built an excellent business on the back of demand for North American-style scripted shows. Canuck writers have benefited from this, with numerous shows created north of the border travelling into the US and other international markets. One Canadian writer in the news this week is Aaron Martin, whose credits include teen drama DeGrassi: The Next Generation. Martin is now writing a series called Slasher for NBCUniversal’s US horror channel Chiller and for Super Channel in Canada.
The show, which is being produced in Canada by Shaftesbury, is about a young woman who returns to the town where she was born, only to find herself embroiled in a series of horrifying copycat murders based on the gruesome killings of her parents. Sounds like a show that would also work on the new-look A&E…
tagged in: A+E Networks, Aaron Martin, AMC, Andre Jacquemetton, Canada, Damien, Glen Mazzara, Jeb Stuart, Jonathan Abrahams, Mad Men, Maria Jacquemetton, Matthew Weiner, Slasher, The Arrangement, The Boys of ’67, US