Tag Archives: Lethal Weapon

Rise of the celebrity showrunner

March 23, 2017DQ TV, SHOWRUNNERAndrew Marlowe, Boardwalk Empire, Carol Flint, Castle, Clyde Phillips, Corinne Brinkerhoff, Designated Survivor, Dexter, Empire, Eric Newman, Glen Mazzara, Graham Yost, Homeland, Howard Gordon, Ilene Chaiken, Jon Bokenkamp, Les Bohem, Lethal Weapon, MacGyver, Maggie Friedma, Masters of Sex, Matt Miller, Michelle Ashford, Narcos, No Tomorrow, Oliver Goldstick, Peter Lenkov, Shawn Ryan, Shut Eye, Sneaky Pete, Terence Winter, Terri Miller, The Blacklist, The Collection, The Shield, The Walking DeadDQ

They were once just a name on the credits roll, but showrunners have gained celebrity status over the past decade and are now considered the major creative force behind every television drama.

This DQ show examines the showrunner’s rise to power and why it can be one of the most satisfying jobs in Hollywood.

In the first of a two-part programme, DQ hears from leading showrunners about the challenges of this all-consuming position.

Contributors include Shawn Ryan (The Shield), Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire), Ilene Chaiken (Empire), Glen Mazzara (The Walking Dead), Clyde Phillips (Dexter), Eric Newman (Narcos), Terri Miller and Andrew Marlowe (Castle), Maggie Friedman and Corinne Brinkerhoff (No Tomorrow), Jon Bokenkamp (The Blacklist), Les Bohem (Shut Eye), Michelle Ashford (Masters of Sex), Graham Yost (Sneaky Pete), Howard Gordon (Homeland), Matt Miller (Lethal Weapon), Peter Lenkov (MacGyver), Oliver Goldstick (The Collection) and Carol Flint (Designated Survivor).

Part two will be available from Wednesday March 29.

tagged in: Andrew Marlowe, Boardwalk Empire, Carol Flint, Castle, Clyde Phillips, Corinne Brinkerhoff, Designated Survivor, Dexter, Empire, Eric Newman, Glen Mazzara, Graham Yost, Homeland, Howard Gordon, Ilene Chaiken, Jon Bokenkamp, Les Bohem, Lethal Weapon, MacGyver, Maggie Friedma, Masters of Sex, Matt Miller, Michelle Ashford, Narcos, No Tomorrow, Oliver Goldstick, Peter Lenkov, Shawn Ryan, Shut Eye, Sneaky Pete, Terence Winter, Terri Miller, The Blacklist, The Collection, The Shield, The Walking Dead

Lethal Weapon, Westworld start strongly

October 14, 2016Hit & MissAmerican Horror Story, Fox, FX, HBO, Lethal Weapon, Mipcom, Netflix, Public Enemy, Sky Atlantic, The Expanse, Westworld, Zodiak RightsAndy Fry

Lethal Weapon's first season will now comprise — Lethal Weapon’s first season will now comprise 18 episodes

Fox will go to Mipcom in Cannes next week with a spring in its step thanks to Lethal Weapon, its TV reboot of the classic movie franchise.

Now three episodes into its first season, Lethal Weapon is one of the US fall season’s top-performing shows. It’s currently pulling in 7.3 million same-day viewers, a figure that rises to 11.5 million after a week’s catch-up viewing is added in.

The network has responded to the show’s strong start by giving it an additional five episodes, taking the total for season one to 18. This is less than the traditional 22-episode US network model, but Fox is still describing it as a full-season order – something that may reflect a wider trend towards shorter-run scripted series.

Commenting on the award of the extra episodes, announced this week, Fox Entertainment president David Madden said: “Lethal Weapon delivers an explosive and wildly entertaining core relationship between two cops, with dynamic performances by Damon Wayans and Clayne Crawford, surrounded by cinematic action, endearing humour and true heart. It has proven to be a self-starter and solid companion to Empire.” (Lethal Weapon directly follows Fox hit series Empire in the schedule.)

Another movie reboot that has got off to a strong start is HBO’s Westworld. Blessed with a talented cast, a strong creative team and cult name recognition, the first episode attracted 3.3 million for the first showing via cable and streaming. The second episode dipped to 2.7 million, but some of this decline has been put down to competition from the second US presidential debate.

Strong ratings in the US were mirrored in the UK, where Sky Atlantic reported a record-breaking performance for the show’s first episode.

A statement from Sky said: “After being watched by an overnight audience of 458,000 on Tuesday October 4, more than 1.38 million viewers have taken advantage of catching up on the show flexibly over the following seven days [i.e. 1.84 million total].”

HBO will be encouraged by the fact the show has attracted a strong 9.2 rating on IMDb. However, it is early days for a series that is thought to have cost US$100m to produce. HBO would like Westworld to build the same kind of momentum as Game of Thrones, but it is built on a much sparser mythological foundation. For this reason, it is difficult to prejudge how much traction the show will gain with the audience. The true potential of the franchise should become clearer around episode six or seven.

Another US series that merits a mention is FX’s long-running American Horror Story anthology franchise, which this year is sub-titled My Roanoke Nightmare. Four episodes in, the show is averaging 3.58 million viewers. The figures are on a slight downward curve but they are similar to last year’s series Hotel, suggesting the show has a pretty robust core audience.

American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare

This year’s series takes the Roanoke Colony in North Carolina as its storytelling starting point. During the 1590s, the colonists vanished. Moving to the present, a couple’s new home near the settlement is full of paranormal activity. The cast includes Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr, with a special guest appearance from Lady Gaga (who also appeared in Hotel).

Away from the US, Zodiak Rights is reporting strong sales for Public Enemy, the Belgian drama that won the inaugural MipDrama Screenings Buyers’ Coup de Coeur Award in April.

Produced by Belgium’s Entre Chien et Loup and Playtime Films for RTBF Belgium, the 10-part drama centres on the story of Guy Béranger, a dangerous child murderer at the end of his prison sentence. His release on parole to the custody of the monks at Vielsart Abbey leads to an outcry from the nearby small village and to the rest of the country. Then when a young girl disappears on the outskirts of the Abbey, the entire village is in uproar.

The French-language show was a ratings hit for RTBF Belgium, securing an audience share of more than 25%. Now Zodiak has sold it to Sky Atlantic in the UK and Germany; free-to-air broadcaster TF1 in France; Movistar Series Xtra and Movistar VOD in Spain; and Ale Kino Channel (Canal+ Group) in Poland. It will also air on Scandinavian broadcaster C More’s linear and premium SVoD services in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

Producer François Touwaide of Entre Chien et Loup said: “Public Enemy is the result of a great initiative launched by Wallonia Brussels Federation and RTBF in 2013 to develop Belgian talent across TV series. After a significant success in Belgium, we are happy with the international response to the show and the great job done by the Zodiak Rights team. Zodiak Rights believed in the show from the beginning and has been a great support.”

Caroline Torrance, head of scripted at Zodiak Rights, added: “The demand for innovative, globally relevant drama that works across platforms continues to be very strong and we expect these deals to be the first of many for this compelling series.” The sales also underline the promotional value of the new MipDrama award.

Still on the subject of distribution, SVoD platform Netflix has acquired global rights to Syfy space drama The Expanse. Season one will be available to Netflix members outside North America and New Zealand from November 3, with a second run due in 2017.

The Expanse is set 200 years in the future, after humanity has colonised the solar system. It follows a tough detective and a rogue ship’s captain who stumble across a huge conspiracy while looking for a missing woman.

The Expanse has been picked up by Netflix

The first series aired on Syfy in 2015 and didn’t rate especially well, starting at 1.19 million and dropping to 0.55 million. The show is a good indication, however, of the new economic model that exists in the Netflix era, where modest ratings on a US host channel don’t necessarily result in automatic cancellation because of the opportunity to secure a secondary revenue stream from an SVoD partner.

More generally, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings warned this week that the chance of the SVoD service entering China “doesn’t look good.” The company has been plotting an entry into China for a couple of years but seems to be suffering the same barriers to entry as other US brands. “Disney, which is very good in China, had their movie service shut down. Apple, which is very good in China, had their movie service closed down. It doesn’t look good,” he said at the New Yorker TechFest conference last week.

tagged in: American Horror Story, Fox, FX, HBO, Lethal Weapon, Mipcom, Netflix, Public Enemy, Sky Atlantic, The Expanse, Westworld, Zodiak Rights

US network shows prepare for lift-off

September 16, 2016Hit & MissABC, Bull, CBS, Conviction, Designated Survivor, Fox, Frequency, Lethal Weapon, NBC, The CW, The Pitch, This Is Us, TimelessAndy Fry

The autumn season has just started in the US – which means TV executives around the world will be watching with interest to see which new dramas live up to their pre-launch hype. This week, we look at some of the network shows that are buzzing.

Lethal Weapon: Movie reboots didn’t fare very well last year, with Rush Hour and Minority Report adaptations among those canned. But the buzz around Lethal Weapon has been pretty positive since the LA Screenings in May. Based on the iconic Mel Gibson/Danny Glover action franchise, the show centres on two cops with very different problems. The elder is returning to the job after a heart attack, while his new partner is reckless and borderline suicidal after the deaths of his wife and their unborn child. Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans in the lead roles appear to have developed a good on-screen chemistry. The show premieres on Fox on Wednesday, September 21.

Designated Survivor: What’s not to like about a show that stars Kiefer Sutherland (24) as man who unexpectedly becomes president after an attack wipes out the US administration? Distributed globally by eOne International, this ABC show was created by David Guggenheim (Safe House) and hails from The Mark Gordon Company (Grey’s Anatomy, Ray Donovan, Quantico, Criminal Minds). Sutherland will be at Mipcom in Cannes next month to give a keynote speech, which should increase the show’s buzz on the international market. It premieres on Wednesday September 21.

This Is Us: A different kind of show to the above pair, This Is Us follows the stories of a group of people who share the same birthday. Critics have responded warmly to the opening episode and are comparing it to Parenthood, which ran for six seasons on NBC. Variety had some reservations about the show’s sustainability but still said: “This Is Us manages to both craft an intimate series of portraits and stitch them together. The result is an episode that allows the viewer to marvel at the beauty and mystery of life – at the surprising little grace notes of fate and commonality that bind us together – while getting to know the major characters and their difficulties.” The show was created by Dan Fogelman, whose credits include Tangled, Cars and Crazy, Stupid, Love. He also created the 2015 series Galavant. This Is Us is an NBC show that will premiere on Tuesday September 20.

Bull: CBS’s new line-up hasn’t attracted a particularly enthusiastic response from critics. But in a market starved of procedurals, Bull is a show to watch out for. It stars Michael Weatherly as a psychologist who runs a trial consulting firm and can read the minds of a jury and influence their verdict. Weatherly starred in NCIS for 13 years before switching to Bull, which means it will probably debut well. It is also regarded as a good fit for CBS. If it starts strongly, expect European buyers to be interested. The show debuts on Tuesday September 20.

Timeless: AdAge does a report each year with TV Guide listing the upcoming shows audiences are most excited by. It’s pretty accurate, with top-ranking shows generally getting picked up for a full season by networks. One that is showing up strongly this year is NBC’s Timeless, the latest in a flurry of time-travel shows. In this one, a criminal steals a time machine and tries to destroy America by altering past events like the Hindenburg disaster. A soldier, a history professor and a scientist try to stop him. Some critics have hammered the logic of the plot, but are predicting it will appeal to the same audience as Blindspot. There’s just a chance, though, that it will be this year’s Minority Report. Timeless will debut on NBC on Monday October 3.

The Pitch: Fox has led the way in on-screen diversity and The Pitch follows that pattern. It tells the story of pitcher Ginny Baker, who becomes the first woman to play in the major leagues (for the San Diego Padres). This column has previously discussed the problem of authenticity in sports dramas, but the good news here is that Major League Baseball has backed the show by allowing the use of its teams and logos in the story. Adweek said: “One of fall’s most ambitious pilots is also one of its best, with a compelling show that could appeal to both sports fans and viewers who like female-centric dramas. With Scandal delayed until midseason, this could resonate with fans of that show looking for an alternative on Thursdays at 21.00.” Interestingly, The Pitch was co-created by Dan Fogelman, who could find himself with two hits on his hands this year. It debuts on NBC on Thursday September 22.

Conviction: The highly regarded actor Hayley Atwell is back on TV after a couple of seasons as Marvel’s Agent Carter. Now she’s a brilliant but wayward lawyer who is given the job of running New York’s ‘conviction integrity unit,’ which investigates cases where innocent people may have ended up behind bars. Atwell may pull some Marvel fans over to this show, but it is generally regarded as a pretty safe procedural. If it rates well, however, it will be of interest to international buyers. The Conviction premieres on Monday October 3 on ABC.

Frequency: Inevitably, most of the pre-launch hype surrounds shows on the Big Four networks. But network number five, The CW, also has an interesting show on the way. Based on the 2000 movie, Frequency is another time-travel series in which a female cop discovers she is able to speak to her dead father via his old ham radio. Her attempts to save his life change the present in unforeseen ways. To fix the damage, she has to work with her father across time to solve a decades-old murder case. The AdAge/TV Guide survey rates this as a decent prospect. Premiere is Wednesday October 5.

Footnote: We decided to focus on the positives this week, but shows that already seem to have storm clouds overhead include ABC’s Notorious, CBS’s MacGyver and Fox’s The Exorcist. These seem the best tips for early cancellation at present.

tagged in: ABC, Bull, CBS, Conviction, Designated Survivor, Fox, Frequency, Lethal Weapon, NBC, The CW, The Pitch, This Is Us, Timeless

Fox targets sure-fire hit with Lethal Weapon series

August 4, 2016IN FOCUSFox, ITV, Kevin Lygo, Lethal Weapon, Matt Miller, Sasha BreslauDQ

As Fox reloads classic movie franchise Lethal Weapon for the small screen, DQ finds out why the show is already being described as one of the best new series of the year.

Movie-to-TV adaptations have had an uneasy ride in recent years. While they are seen as a way to create an immediate fanbase for a show and bring big ratings to a network, these spin-offs can flounder if the format isn’t built for television or is simply seen as a lesser version of the big-screen original.

Limitless, Damien, Rush Hour and Minority Report have all been cancelled after a single season in the past 12 months, while Ash vs Evil Dead, Bates Motel and Fargo have enjoyed more success.

This year, the trend continues as NBC takes on The Wizard of Oz with Emerald City, while Fox hopes to take small-screen horror to terrifying new levels with its own version of The Exorcist, among others.

However, another Fox movie remake is already being talked up as one of the best new shows coming out of the US in 2016/17.

Based on the film franchise starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover that began in 1987, action drama Lethal Weapon promises to reinvent cop duo Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh for a new generation.

In the series, Clayne Crawford and Damon Wayans play odd couple duo Riggs and Murtaugh respectively as they work a crime-ridden beat in modern-day LA.

Family man and by-the-book LAPD detective Murtaugh is back to work after a near fatal heart attack and is paired with ex-Navy Seal-turned-detective Riggs, who has moved to California for a new start with the LAPD.

During the pilot episode, hot-headed Riggs drags reluctant Murtaugh on a high-speed chase and into a shootout with drug dealers, though Riggs later discovers why Murtaugh is so determined to get home safely at the end of each day – he has a family and a newborn baby. Murtaugh also finds out that his new partner lost his young wife and unborn child, resulting in a devil-may-care-attitude that hides his grief.

The cast also includes Kevin Rahm, Jordana Brewster, Keesha Sharp, Dante Brown, Chandler Kinney and Johnathan Fernandez.

The series is from Lin Pictures and Good Session Productions in association with Warner Bros Television, and is distributed around the world by Warner Bros International Television Distribution.

Matt Miller – who is an executive producer withJoseph McGinty Nichol (better known as McG), Dan Lin and Jennifer Gwartz – says the creative team wanted to take the spirit and tone of the original movies and bring them into the present day in a way that avoids comparisons with the source material.

He explains: “We’ve started off Murtaugh in a slightly different place compared with the movies, where he was turning 50 and was staring into the abyss because of that. Our Murtaugh is coming back to work having been off for six months because he suffered a triple bypass – he’d actually flatlined on the table and had been dead for a minute.

“The story starts on his first day back. He’s married, with two teenage kids and a six-month-old. He actually had his heart attack in the delivery room when the kid came out. So when our pilot begins, it’s Murtaugh’s first day back after having been gone for six months. So it’s not just about a guy that’s 50 and getting a little older, it’s about a guy who actually died. His wife in our version of the show is very successful, so the financial responsibilities of being a cop are taken away from him – so he doesn’t actually have to be there and he’s actually a little bit scared. It’s about a guy who needs to re-examine his life and decide whether this where he wants to be. And he’s frankly terrified of dying because he has died and he’s seen that there’s no white light.”

Straight-laced Murtaugh is juxtaposed with Riggs, a potential loose cannon who is still mourning his wife and child.

“That puts him in a headspace of actively wanting to die,” Miller notes. “So although he isn’t necessarily – for various reasons that we talk about in the pilot – going to sit at home and do it himself, he’s fine if he gets killed in the line of duty.

“We set these two characters up on a collision course where one guy’s actively looking to die and another is terrified of it – and that’s where they are in the pilot.”

Lethal Weapon stars Clayne Crawford (left) and Damon Wayans

Ultimately, the show is about “two broken guys” who, through the course of the first season, discover they actually need each other.

“Then something happens that rips the rug out from under them and puts them back on opposite tracks,” Miller reveals, “where once again Murtagh couldn’t be any further apart from where Riggs is emotionally, and we want to keep watching that relationship evolve so it doesn’t just feel like it’s static throughout the course of the season.”

At a time when new drama series are jostling for attention, a classic film franchise is the perfect springboard from which to launch a new show. But weeks ahead of its US debut on September 21, Lethal Weapon has already been described as the pick of the new US dramas airing this autumn after it was snapped up by UK broadcaster ITV following the annual LA Screenings event.

Kevin Lygo, ITV’s director of television, said: “It’s rare that we find an acquisition with that sweet-spot potential – the best production values and hugely entertaining drama – that we think can appeal to the biggest and broadest audiences and take up a place in ITV primetime. We saw Lethal Weapon and were immediately excited by what it could add to the ITV schedule, and we’re really looking forward to bringing the series to UK viewers.”

Sasha Breslau, ITV head of acquired series, added: “Lethal Weapon was a standout drama from this year’s Screenings, superbly rebooting a beloved franchise with the perfect mix of action, heart, humour and terrific chemistry between Wayans and Crawford as the iconic cop duo.”

If the series can capture the big-screen franchise’s blend of action and comedy, then like the beloved movies, this is a show that could reload for many seasons to come.

To see the full interview with Matt Miller, click here.

tagged in: Fox, ITV, Kevin Lygo, Lethal Weapon, Matt Miller, Sasha Breslau

Mercurio’s Duty calls for viewers

May 4, 2016The Writers RoomABC, Alex Cary, Amazon, BBC, David Guggenheim, Designated Survivor, Doctor Thorne, Fox, Han Sang-Woon, Jed Mercurio, Julian Fellowes, Lethal Weapon, Line of Duty, Matt Miller, NBC, Peaky Blinders, Taken, The Good Wife, tvNAndy Fry

Line of Duty has added viewers each season

BBC2 in the UK is having a great year in terms of its drama output. The first part of 2016 saw a solid performance for US acquisition American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson, while tomorrow sees the much-anticipated return of Peaky Blinders for season three.

Sandwiched between the two was the third season of Line of Duty, which has proven to be a huge hit for the channel. So successful, in fact, there are reports that season four, which is scheduled to air in 2017, will move to flagship channel BBC1.

As the dust settles on Line of Duty’s ratings, various claims are being made, but probably the most eye-catching is that the series is BBC2’s most successful drama in 15 years. With an average audience of just under five million per episode (live+7 day ratings), it even managed to outperform Wolf Hall, which was a strong performer in 2015 with an average audience of 4.4 million.

Line of Duty focuses on the activities of an anti-corruption unit led by superintendent Ted Hastings (played by Adrian Dunbar). It is the latest masterpiece from Jed Mercurio, widely acknowledged as one of the top talents working in British TV.

Mercurio actually started out as a doctor before breaking into the business with acclaimed medical drama Cardiac Arrest in the mid-1990s. Since then he has had pretty consistent success as a TV writer while also carving out a decent career as a novelist. Indeed, his second TV series was an adaptation of his first novel, Bodies.

He has proven particularly adept at creating procedurals with a twist. Aside from Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Line of Duty, for example, he also created Critical, a medical drama for Sky1 set in a fictional trauma centre.

He has also tried his hand at a number of other sub-genres of the scripted TV business. The Grimleys (1999-2001), for example, was a comedy drama, while Frankenstein (2007) was a modern-day re-imagination of Mary Shelley’s iconic gothic novel. He also set up Left Bank’s long-running action-adventure series Strike Back (2010) and adapted DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover for BBC1 last year.

Within the UK system, Mercurio is unusual in that he is more akin to a US showrunner than a European writer/auteur. Typically, he will write and produce his shows – sometimes directing as well. As a consequence of this level of control, Mercurio is well placed to ensure his creative vision hits the screen.

Mercurio recently gave a very insightful interview to Den of Geek in which he distinguished his work from procedurals that delve into the private lives of their protagonists. “Part of me isn’t that interested as a person and a viewer in people’s personal lives. I’m more interested in what people do in the workplace and what goals they set themselves. I guess that’s why I write a lot of precinct drama. (There’s often) an expectation, or pressure sometimes even, to feel that the way to succeed with drama is to see all sides of a character by going into their personal lives, even if you’ve got nothing to say.”

It’s interesting to note that Line of Duty’s ratings have been building across the first three seasons, giving it the feel of a show that slipped under the radar but is now attracting new swathes of fans. All of which augurs well for season four, regardless of the channel it airs on.

Liam Neeson starred in the Taken movie franchise

In the US, this is a critical time of year for the scripted business as the major networks decide which pilots to take forward to series. Most announcements will trickle through in the next few weeks, though a few new shows have already been given the go-ahead.

One of these is ABC’s Designated Survivor, which will star Kiefer Sutherland (24) and is being written by David Guggenheim (Safe House, Bad Boys 3). Another is Taken, a spin-off from the hit movie franchise. The TV version, for NBC, will be penned by Alex Cary (credits include Homeland, Lie To Me).

Not yet greenlit but looking good is Fox’s Lethal Weapon, another reboot of a movie franchise. This one is being scripted by Matt Miller, whose writing credits include ABC’s short-lived Forever.

Also, this week, DQ’s sister site C21 Media reports that long-running CBS drama The Good Wife is being adapted for the South Korean market by broadcaster TVN. The show, created by Robert and Michelle King, comes to the end of its seventh and final season in the US this week. All told, that means TVN will have 155 episodes to work with.

The Korean version of the show will be produced by Jung-Hyo Lee (I Need Romance, Heartless City) and written by Han Sang-Woon. Like the CBS original, it will centre on the complicated relationships of people in the legal system working against a backdrop of scandal and corruption.

The Good Wife is coming to an end in the US

Interestingly, this is not the first adaptation Han Sang-Woon has worked on. Last year, he wrote Spy for KBS2, based on Israeli drama The Gordin Cell. Previously, he wrote the movie My Ordinary Love Story. Commenting on the production, TVN parent company CJ E&M told C21: “For the Korean version of The Good Wife, we focused on the casting and were successful in casting Korea’s biggest actress, Jeon Do-Yeon – who has won many awards in her career, including best actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival – in the lead role, marking her return to television after 11 years.”

Finally, continuing the writers-as-brands theme we discussed in last week’s column, Amazon is about to air ITV period drama Doctor Thorne in the US (May 20). When it does, it will call the series Julian Fellowes Presents Doctor Thorne, another indicator of the marketing leverage that leading writers increasingly possess.

tagged in: ABC, Alex Cary, Amazon, BBC, David Guggenheim, Designated Survivor, Doctor Thorne, Fox, Han Sang-Woon, Jed Mercurio, Julian Fellowes, Lethal Weapon, Line of Duty, Matt Miller, NBC, Peaky Blinders, Taken, The Good Wife, tvN

Networks bank on movie magic

February 22, 2016Greenlight20th Century Fox Television, A&E, ABC, Behind Enemy Lines, CBS, Cruel Intentions, Damien, Fargo, Fox, Friday the 13th, FX, Haywire, Lethal Weapon, Limitless, Minority Report, NBC, Rambo, Relativity TV, Rush Hour, Taken, The CW, The Exorcist, The Notebook, Time After Time, Training Day, Uncle BuckAndy Fry

limitless — Expect a renewal for Limitless

With reports this week that Sony Pictures Entertainment is planning a TV series based on the Angelie Jolie spy movie Salt, now seems as good a time as any to round up developments on the movie-to-TV adaptation front. At least 20 such projects are in production, development or distribution.

Limitless: Based on the 2011 movie starring Bradley Cooper, Limitless debuted on CBS in September 2015. After a strong start, CBS gave it a full season order of 22 episodes and started selling the show around the world. Currently 15 episodes in, the show is attracting around 6.4 million viewers on debut night and 9.8 million after time-shifting is factored in. This should be enough to guarantee renewal for season two despite being some way off the launch episode (14.2 million viewers including time-shifted).

Minority Report: A much-hyped but ultimately unsuccessful remake of the Tom Cruise movie that ran on Fox in autumn 2015. Initially awarded 13 episodes, the run was cut to 10 after poor ratings. It bowed out with an audience of around two million, but not before it had been sold to networks in the Middle East.

Rush Hour: Based on the popular movie franchise that paired Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, Rush Hour is another CBS reboot about an off-the-wall LAPD detective being required to work with a straight-laced Hong Kong police officer. The show will premiere on Thursday March 31 at 22.00 and has been picked up by E4 in the UK. CBS plans to give the show a big promotional boost by marketing it during the popular March Madness College Basketball tourney.

Training Day: Another CBS project, this is a reboot of the 2001 film that starred Denzel Washington as a corrupt narcotics cop and Ethan Hawke as his rookie partner. In the update, an idealistic young African-American police officer is partnered with an experienced but morally ambiguous Caucasian detective. This show, produced by WBTV and Jerry Bruckheimer, is currently moving towards a pilot, which will be directed by Danny Cannon.

uncle-buck-abc — The TV version of Uncle Buck

Uncle Buck: This is an ABC reboot of the 1989 cult comedy starring John Candy. In this version, which was given a greenlight to series in 2015, the cast will be black, with Mike Epps playing Uncle Buck, “a fun-loving but irresponsible guy who needs a job and a place to stay. By happy coincidence, his nieces and nephews’ nanny has just quit and his brother- and sister-in-law need his help. His unconventional personality just may make him the right fit for the family.” No details yet on launch date.

Lethal Weapon: The massive 1980s/1990s film franchise, starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, is being adapted for TV by Fox. In February 2016, Fox gave a formal pilot order to the show, which focuses on a former Navy SEAL who suffers the loss of his wife and baby and moves to Los Angeles to start anew as a cop. Matt Miller (Forever) will write the TV adaptation.

rambomovie — Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo

Rambo: Fox is planning a TV series entitled Rambo: New Blood, based on the iconic Sylvester Stallone-starring movie franchise. Stallone won’t be involved in the new project, which is from Entertainment One and Avi Lerner’s Millennium Films. There are no details yet as to where this is in terms of development.

Fargo: Based on the Coen Brothers movie of the same name, Fargo has already seen two critically acclaimed series aired on FX. In November 2015, midway through season two, FX ordered a third season from series creator Noah Hawley. “Year two of Fargo is an extraordinary achievement and, given Noah Hawley’s masterful storytelling, we can’t wait to see where the third, all-new version of Fargo takes us,” said FX Networks’ Eric Schrier.

Cruel Intentions: NBC is planning a remake of the cult 1999 movie that was loosely based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The show, which has now been taken forward to pilot, will pick up 15 years after the movie left off and will focus on the teenage son of two of the film’s main characters. The original writer and director of Cruel Intentions, Roger Kumble, is attached to the pilot episode as director.

Taken: Based on the surprise hit movie franchise starring Liam Neeson, Taken the TV series is a modern-day prequel in which we learn how CIA operative Bryan Mills developed his “particular set of skills.” Homeland executive producer Alexander Cary has been signed up to write, executive produce and run the Taken TV series. Perhaps not surprisingly given the success of the movie franchise, NBC has given this show a straight-to-series order.

Time After Time: Based on a 1979 movie (itself based on a book), ABC’s new Time After Time series imagines HG Wells pursuing Jack the Ripper forward in time using his famous time machine. The project is from Kevin Williamson and has now been taken forward to pilot. In a similar vein, The CW is backing a TV adaptation of 1990 sci-fi time travel movie Frequency. In the CW pilot, the central character becomes a female police detective.

Haywire: A 2011 action movie starring Channing Tatum and Gina Carano, Haywire is another movie reportedly getting a TV remake. The Steven Soderbergh-directed film tells the story of a secret agent on a revenge spree after her agency betrays her. This project is in early development with Relativity TV.

Behind Enemy Lines: In September, Fox announced plans for a series based on the 2001 movie of the same name, which starred Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman. Fox’s show will be a high-octane military thriller about an American flight crew shot down while on a secret mission over the jungles of Latin America. The show is from 20th Century Fox Television, Temple Hill and Davis Entertainment, which produced the original version. At time of writing there was no further news on the project’s status.

notebookmovie — Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in The Notebook movie

The Notebook: In August 2015, it was revealed that The CW had teamed up with author Nicholas Sparks to revive romantic movie The Notebook as a TV series (Sparks was the author of the original book, also a big success). A pilot is being written by Todd Graff, who will also executive produce alongside Sparks and Theresa Park. “The Notebook is a very well-received book and motion picture. It is going to be set after World War Two. At this point, the pilot is not done,” said CW president Mark Pedowitz in 2015.

The Exorcist: In January 2016, Fox ordered a pilot based on the 1971 novel/1973 movie of the same name. The one-hour drama pilot is described as “a propulsive, serialised psychological thriller following two very different men tackling one family’s case of horrifying demonic possession, and confronting the face of true evil.” Jeremy Slater is the writer-producer, with James Robinson, David Robinson and Barbara Wall on board as executive producers.

Damien (The Omen): Damien is an upcoming A&E series based on The Omen horror film series, which centres on a small boy born of Satan and adopted by an affluent US family. Scheduled to launch on March 7, the TV series follows Damien Thorn, now a 30-year-old war photographer who has forgotten his Satanic past. Ann Rutledge (Barbara Hershey), who has protected Damien all his life, will now help him embrace his antichrist destiny.

Friday the 13th: Continuing the trend towards horror movie remakes (remember that Scream is already up and running on MTV, with a second season coming on April 20), The CW is planning a TV version of iconic film series Friday the 13th. The series adaptation will be written by Steve Mitchell & Craig Van Sickle, co-creators of the 1996 NBC series The Pretender.

tagged in: 20th Century Fox Television, A&E, ABC, Behind Enemy Lines, CBS, Cruel Intentions, Damien, Fargo, Fox, Friday the 13th, FX, Haywire, Lethal Weapon, Limitless, Minority Report, NBC, Rambo, Relativity TV, Rush Hour, Taken, The CW, The Exorcist, The Notebook, Time After Time, Training Day, Uncle Buck

Televisa goes English

October 5, 2015GreenlightAmazon, BBC3, Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, CBS, Channel 4, Class, Dicte, Duality, Graceland, Hooten & The Lady, Lethal Weapon, Red Planet Pictures, Sky1, Televisa, TV2, USA Network, Walter Presents, ZooAndy Fry

Dougray Scott in Taken 3 — Dougray Scott (pictured in Taken 3) stars in Duality

Mexican media giant Televisa is the largest producer and distributor of Spanish-language content in the world. But now it wants to play in the English-language market.

Having recently announced plans for an English-language version of Spanish drama Gran Hotel (to be produced by its US-based Televisa USA division), it has now revealed plans to “greenlight production of multiple English-language series to fuel its own demands as well as those from the global on-demand and TV markets.”

The first title to be announced is Duality, starring Dougray Scott (Taken 3). Working with Vancouver-based Odyssey Media, Televisa says the show will be one of the first to utilise the 1991 Mexican-Canadian tax treaty for scripted series. Chris Philip, head of production and distribution for Televisa USA; Jorge Aragon; Eduardo Clemesha, Televisa´s general director of new content and formats; Odyssey film and television producer Kirk Shaw (The Hurt Locker); and Scott will executive produce.

According to Televisa, Duality will centre on an elite, top-secret team of State Department, CIA and Mexican intelligence agents within Mexico who wage war against the most dangerous villains operating in Latin America. The series, based on an original story from writer-producer Barry Schkolnick (The Good Wife, Law & Order), “depicts characters on dangerous missions while battling their own personal demons.”

The Lethal Weapon film franchise starred Danny Glover (left) and Mel Gibson

Clemesha added: “Televisa brings to this venture access to award-winning producers and directors; the economies of scale of shooting in Mexico with Televisa’s facilities and crew; as well as the latitude to adapt formats from both Televisa’s massive library and third-party rights holders.”

Elsewhere, UK pay TV channel Sky1 has ordered an Indiana Jones-style drama from Red Planet Pictures. Titled Hooten & The Lady, the 8×60’ series follows an adventurer called Hooten who teams up with the British Museum’s Lady Alexandra to track down lost treasures, including an Amazonian city, the Buddha’s missing scroll and the tomb of Alexander the Great. Filming will take place in Rome and Cape Town. Writers include Red Planet founder Tony Jordan, James Payne, Sarah Phelps, Jeff Povey and Richard Zajdlic. The show will be distributed internationally by Sky Vision.

This week has also seen the emergence of another movie-to-TV project, with Fox ordering a pilot from Warner Brothers based on the 1980s/90s hit movie franchise Lethal Weapon. If Warner Bros decides to stick close to the movie storylines then it will have a lot of content to work with. Aside from the original film, there were three sequels – and a fifth that never got out of development.

In other reboot news this week, reports suggest US network CBS is planning to revive 1980s TV series MacGyver.

Dicte is produced by Miso Films for TV2 Denmark

In addition to new projects, there have been a couple of interesting drama renewals this week. In Denmark, crime series Dicte is about to go into production on a third season. Produced by Miso Films for TV2 Denmark and written by Dorte W Høgh and Ida Maria Rydén, Dicte is a crime series that centres on journalist Dicte Svendsen, plus her family, friends, colleagues and sources within the police.

This season will have an international dimension, with part of the series taking place in Lebanon and Syria. “We are so happy to be able to present a new season of Dicte,” said Katrine Vogelsang, head of fiction for TV2. “Danish viewers love the character of Dicte and the series has performed fantastically in TV2’s primetime slot on Monday nights. In Denmark, we measure viewers’ evaluations of episodes and Dicte is at the top of all Danish TV series.”

Meanwhile, CBS has greenlit a second season of Zoo for summer 2016. Based on the bestseller by James Patterson, Zoo is a thriller about a wave of violent animal attacks against humans across the planet. “Zoo’s thrilling stories clicked with audiences each week during a very competitive summer,” said CBS Entertainment president Glenn Geller. “We’re excited for viewers to see where our writers and cast take them as the adventure continues to unfold during season two in the fight of man versus beast.”

Zoo is an interesting show, because it is part of a deal involving CBS and SVoD service Amazon Prime Instant Video. In a nutshell, Amazon helps fund the series and gets the right to stream the show in the US just a few days after it airs on CBS. The deal works for CBS because audiences are lower in the summer, so it is able to get a decent-quality drama at a relatively low price.

Zoo's second season will air next year — Zoo’s second season will air next year

CBS and Amazon first created this model for Under the Dome, which has just ended after three seasons, and also used it for Extant. Now, the two parties have extended the arrangement to cover the next three summer periods. This will give Amazon access to new seasons of Zoo and a new series called BrainDead. “Prime members have loved having access to series like Under the Dome and Extant just four days after broadcast, and we’re excited to continue to offer in-season availability of more great CBS summer series over the next three years,” said Brad Beale, Amazon’s VP of digital video content acquisition.

Another interesting commissioning story this week came from the UK, with the BBC announcing that it has ordered another spin-off from sci-fi drama Doctor Who. Written by Patrick Ness and destined for BBC3, Class (8×45’) will be aimed at young adults and centres on a London school where sinister enemies are “breaking through the walls of time and space.”

It is exec produced by Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffatt, Ness and Brian Minchin. Moffat said: “No one has documented the dark, exhilarating world of the teenager like Patrick Ness, and now we’re bringing his brilliant storytelling to Doctor Who.”

With autumn programme market Micom starting today, there has also been a lot of activity in terms of drama acquisition deals. The biggest story of the last week is that US cable channel Esquire has acquired the rights to ITV Studio’s new epic drama Beowulf. This follows a previously announced deal that saw Esquire acquire the Tandem production Spotless.

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands is a 13×60’ series that is being distributed internationally by ITV Studios Global Entertainment. It is set in the mythical Shieldlands, a dangerous place populated by humans and fantasy creatures. The first episode sees Beowulf return to Herot after many years as a mercenary warrior to pay his respects to the recently deceased Thane Hrothgar. But when Herot is attacked by the monster Grendl, Beowulf has no choice but to hunt the beast down.

Matt Hanna, EVP of development and production for Esquire, said: “Beowulf exemplifies our commitment to delivering well-produced, vivid and engaging programming. We’re thrilled to bring an impressive assembly of artists and visionaries to our line-up when the series unveils next year.”

Other acquisition deals this week include a raft of sales for German drama Naked Among Wolves, which has sold to Mediaset in Italy and KBS in South Korea others. There’s also been activity around Dori Media’s Ciega a Cita, a romantic comedy format that has been sold to AB Groupe in France.

On the service front, Channel 4’s new foreign drama on-demand service Walter Presents (launching in partnership with GSN) has acquired a number of Nordic dramas from Fremantle Media International, including Dicte and Acquitted. More deals are on the cards from Walter Presents at Mipcom this week. Meanwhile, Netflix has announced that it will launch in Spain on October 20, Portugal on October 21 and Italy on October 22.

Finally, there was news of a cancellation this week, with USA Network calling a halt to Graceland after three seasons. The Fox Television Studios-produced series told the story of a rookie agent who had to investigate his mentor. Reports suggest the show was iced because of low ratings.

tagged in: Amazon, BBC3, Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, CBS, Channel 4, Class, Dicte, Duality, Graceland, Hooten & The Lady, Lethal Weapon, Red Planet Pictures, Sky1, Televisa, TV2, USA Network, Walter Presents, Zoo