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Emmys: Comedy Farewells
2 hours ago
Ray Richmond is an AwardsLine contributor. A pair of long-running NBC comedies — 30 Rock and The Office — will be attempting a rare feat this year: They’ll be trying to win a top series Emmy in their final season. Both have tasted victory in the Outstanding Comedy Series race before, The Office taking the prize in 2006 and Rock in 2007, ’08 and ’09. But winning as a last hurrah is a whole other ballgame, though it’s happened four times before: The Mary Tyler Moore Show snared the comedy series prize in 1977, Barney Miller took it in 1982, Everybody Loves Raymond carted off the comedy trophy in 2005, and The Sopranos earned the top drama series statuette in 2007. Many other long-running series have tried to generate Emmy love in their last year. A few, like Seinfeld, have even been favored. (Seinfeld lost in its final season in 1998 to Frasier, which earned its record fifth statuette in a row. »
- THE DEADLINE TEAM
HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ Will Go Camping With Cincinnati Bengals Again
2 hours ago
In the 12-year, eight-season history of HBO’s Hard Knocks, only one franchise – the Dallas Cowboys, often cited as “America’s Team” – has been featured twice. Make that two. The premium network on Monday officially tapped the Cincinnati Bengals to star on its popular series chronicling life at an NFL training camp. The Bengals first were featured in 2009, with the season earning a pair of Sports Emmys. Last year’s Hard Knocks showcased the Miami Dolphins, and plenty of screen time was devoted to aging former All-Pro wide receiver, who was known as Chad Ochocinco when he was onscreen with the ’09 Bengals. The show began in 2001 with then- and current defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, followed by the Cowboys in 2002. But that was the last Hard Knocks until the Kansas City Chiefs in 2007. Since then it has aired every year expect 2011, when the series went dark because no team »
- ERIK PEDERSEN
Emmys: ‘Modern Family’ Scribes
3 hours ago
Diane Haithman is an AwardsLine contributor. How many writer-producers does it take to make an Emmy-winning comedy? In the case of Modern Family, it’s a staff of 12 including co-creators/executive producers Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd. Like many series creators, Levitan and Lloyd mostly tapped colleagues from comedies they had either created or worked on to assemble a writers room where the team speaks the same language. Before creating Modern Family, Levitan and Lloyd worked on three comedies together: Wings, Frasier and the short-lived Back To You, which the pair co-created. Most members of Modern Family’s creative family are descendants of those three shows and/or two other comedies created by Levitan: Just Shoot Me and Stacked. AwardsLine has ventured deep into sitcom history — stripping the banana peel all the back way to 1990 — to trace the writing roots of Modern Family. Please note that this is not intended »
- THE DEADLINE TEAM
Emmys: ‘Big Bang Theory’s Science
3 hours ago
Diane Haithman is an AwardsLine contributor. Undergrads from UCLA’s Honors Physics 1B — who take this class because ordinary physics just isn’t difficult enough — were in for a surprise when they took a field trip to Warner Bros. Studios to be part of the live studio audience for CBS’ The Big Bang Theory. The set always features whiteboards marked up with dizzyingly complex equations. And it took awhile for any student to notice that today’s equations were the solutions for the midterm exam they’d taken that day. As Big Bang physicist Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) might say: Bazinga! This visual gag was a lot like the continual pranks of Sheldon and his geeky pals on the show. But the man behind this in-joke was their professor, particle astrophysicist David Saltzberg, who also serves as science adviser on Big Bang. Related: Emmys: Comedy Series Overview He’s the »
- THE DEADLINE TEAM
‘Client List’ Season 3 Pickup In Limbo Over Storyline Standoff With Jennifer Love Hewitt
5 hours ago
Exclusive: Last night marked the second-season finale of Lifetime‘s drama series The Client List. Last year, the network renewed the show a month into its freshman run, upping the order from 10 to 15 for Season 2. This time around, the show had a quieter run despite the recent flurry of publicity surrounding star Jennifer Love Hewitt‘s pregnancy announcement. Last night’s finale pulled 2 million viewers, down from the 2.7 million who watched the Season 1 closer. Still, I hear the ratings dropoff is not the reason for the holdup and the main issue factoring in Lifetime’s decision whether to order a third season. The network and the series producers are figuring out how to deal with Hewitt’s pregnancy creatively and logistically. (Hewitt announced two weeks ago that she was three months along.) I hear a major sticking point has been demands from Hewitt, who serves as an executive producer on the series, »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
Amazon Orders Cop Drama Pilot Based On Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch Novels
5 hours ago
Exclusive: Amazon Studios is moving quickly to expand its original slate. After focusing on comedies and kids programming in its first batch of 14 pilots, five of which — two comedies and 3 kids shows — were picked up to series three weeks ago, the company is already setting its sights on the next target — launching a drama series. I’ve learned that the streaming service has greenlighted its first drama pilot, Bosch, a police procedural based on Michael Connelly‘s novels about Harry Bosch, a veteran police homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. I hear the pilot was written by Connelly and Treme co-creator/executive producer Eric Overmeyer, who are executive producing with Fabrik’s Henrik Bastin and Mikkel Bondesen. Bosch has been at the center of or featured in 20 novels by Connelly, starting with the 1992 The Black Echo and most recently, last fall’s The Black Box. This marks Fabrik »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
Third Point Raises Stake In Sony And Presses To Join Its Board
5 hours ago
The hedge fund’s CEO Daniel Loeb disclosed the change, and reiterated his desire for Sony to sell a minority interest in its entertainment assets, in a letter today to Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai. Loeb says that he now controls 70M shares or 6.9% of the total valued at $1.4B, up from the $1.1B stake at 6.4% he held last month. “Given our large stake, we reiterate our offer to serve on Sony’s Board of Directors,” he adds. Loeb believes that Hirai should chair Sony, and a board created for the movie, TV, and music properties if the company follows Third Point’s proposal to sell as much as a 20% stake in them to the public. The entertainment board should include “diverse individuals with deep knowledge of media, entertainment and digital technology, who value creative talent and can institute best practices of governance.” While the letter is respectful — not always a »
- DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor
ABC Executive Quinn Taylor Moves To NBC To Head Longform Programming
7 hours ago
Another veteran ABC executive is heading to NBC. I’ve learned that Quinn Taylor, Svp Movies, Miniseries and Acquisitions at ABC Entertainment Group, will be leaving the network after almost 20 years to join rival NBC, which is looking to restart a longform division. I hear his title will be Evp Movies, Miniseries and International Co-Productions. NBC has The Sound Of Music staging coming up, which would be right up Taylor’s alley as he has overseen a number of TV musicals at ABC, including Meredith Willson’s The Music Man starring Matthew Broderick. ABC is the only broadcast network that kept its longform division, headed by a high-level executive, while TV movies and miniseries dwindled on broadcast TV during the past several years. Given the longform drought, Taylor had been focused on lower-budget and acquired series recently, overseeing such ABC shows as this summer’s newcomers Motive and Mistresses and returning Rookie Blue. »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
Emmys: Comedy Series Overview
7 hours ago
Michael Ausiello is Editor-in-Chief of TVLine. The gap between Modern Family and the rest of the Emmy comedy field has been so wide that even an imperfect third season landed the ABC family comedy a third consecutive best series win last year. But Modern Family is wrapping another uneven season, and with its ratings slipping and challengers gaining on it, a fourth statuette is far from guaranteed. HBO’s Girls is coming off a Golden Globe win, there’s a growing sentiment that CBS’ Nielsen juggernaut The Big Bang Theory is past due to be recognized, and former best comedy series Emmy winner Arrested Development is back. Will Modern Family’s winning streak come to an end this year? Here’s our assessment of the show’s chances, as well as the rest of the contenders. 30 Rock An air of “been there, awarded that” might surround Tina Fey’s NBC »
- THE DEADLINE TEAM
John Hurt To Co-Star In FX Pilot ‘The Strain’
8 hours ago
Exclusive: Oscar-nominated actor John Hurt has been tapped as the co-lead opposite Corey Stoll and Mia Maestro in FX‘s high-profile drama pilot The Strain, from Guillermo del Toro and Carlton Cuse, which is being eyed for a 13-episode pickup. The high-concept thriller, directed by del Toro from a script he co-wrote with Chuck Hogan based on their vampire novel trilogy, tells the story of Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Stoll), the head of the Centers for Disease Control Canary Team in New York City. He and his team are called upon to investigate a mysterious viral outbreak with hallmarks of an ancient and evil strain of vampirism. Hurt, who first worked with del Toro in his 2004 feature Hellboy, will portray Professor Abraham Setrakian, a holocaust survivor who immigrated to the U.S. after World War II and now runs a pawn shop in Spanish Harlem. As the outbreak spreads, he may »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
Future Of ‘Anger Management’ Co-Star Selma Blair In Limbo Over Falling-Out With Charlie Sheen
8 hours ago
The producers of FX‘s Anger Management and reps for Selma Blair are hunkered down today trying to patch things up following a scathing TMZ report posted in the middle of the night that series star and executive producer Charlie Sheen was dead set on firing his co-star over alleged complaints about Sheen she had made to other Anger Management producers. There is no official word on Blair’s status on the show with everyone involved keeping mum, but in a recent tweet posted on the show’s first day back from a monthlong hiatus for creative tweaking in light of the recent ratings slump, Blair was more than complimentary of Sheen: “Thanks for a great day back @charliesheen. You looked pretty darn handsome.“ This is a move brimming with irony, starting of course with the name of the show as the dismissal attempt reportedly stemmed from Sheen getting enraged »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
Returning Showrunner Dan Harmon Slams ‘Community’ Season 4 & Sony Bosses
9 hours ago
At Sunday’s taping of his Harmontown podcast, returning Community creator and exec producer Dan Harmon unloaded on the show’s fourth season, which carried on under writers David Guarascio and Moses Port after NBC replaced Harmon as showrunner last year. “It’s very much like an impression and an unflattering one,” he said. “It’s 13 episodes of ‘I’m Dan Harmon!’ I’m going back to work tomorrow morning and I’m just like, do I talk like that?” Harmon, who is heading back for Season 5 with writer Chris McKenna, compared catching up on the Guarascio and Port-led fourth season to “flipping through Instagram watching your girlfriend blow a million [people].” Related: Dan Harmon Reacts To His Dismissal As ‘Community’ Showrunner He also didn’t mince words when it came to describing Sony TV’s decision to remove him from the show in the first place. (Sony TV produces Community with Universal. »
- THE DEADLINE TEAM
Suit Over Origin Of ‘The Talk’ Dropped
9 hours ago
Author Angela Wilder had sued CBS, Sony TV and Relativity Media among others in October alleging that her idea for a talk show based on motherhood was the real inspiration for CBS’ The Talk. CBS immediately refuted the claim, a seven-count suit in which Wilder said she never actually met with anyone from CBS TV Studios or RelativityReal, the producers of the daytime talk show starring Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood, Aisha Tyler and Julie Chen. (CBS and RelativityReal were eventually dismissed as defendants.) CBS has always said that The Talk is based on an idea by Gilbert. Said Sony today of the dismissal, filed earlier this month (read the dismissal document here): “Ms. Wilder brought her case in good faith, but after seeing all of the evidence, she decided to voluntarily drop her lawsuit with prejudice. No payment is being made to Ms. Wilder. The Sony Pictures defendants, »
- DOMINIC PATTEN
Time Warner Cable’s Share Price Slips As Talk Of Merger With Charter Cools
10 hours ago
Investors like the consistent reports that Charter Communications is prowling for acquisition targets, especially now that it’s backed by Liberty Media which recently paid $2.6B for a 27% stake in the cable operator. But some are less sure than they were late last week that Time Warner Cable will be a target. Shares in the No. 2. cable company slid 2.5% to $101.29 today. That’s just a slight retreat after Friday’s 8.3% jump to a 52-week high of $104.13, which followed a CNBC report that Charter has its eye on a transformational deal with Time Warner Cable. Liberty Media CEO Gregg Maffei met with TWC chief Glenn Britt recently to talk about the benefits of of a merger of equals, CNBC’s David Faber reported. Although there was no offer, Faber said that TWC decided to “re-engage with longtime advisor Morgan Stanley and hire an outside PR firm in case it needed to »
- DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor
Emmys: Will “Arch Rival” Matt Damon Be Jimmy Kimmel’s Ticket To Finally Winning That Statuette?
10 hours ago
Poor Matt Damon. Damon’s tour de force one night “hosting” stint January 24th on Jimmy Kimmel Live was a real triumph, maybe the funniest and finest work by any guest on a variety (as talk shows are classified in the Emmys) series this season. Damon’s rep tells me they had been trying for a very long time to make this appearance possible and finally his schedule freed him up to do it. But as far as Emmys go, it doesn’t exist. Of course the whole show was one big gag based on Kimmel’s long standing show biz mock hatred of Damon. He’s ended virtually every episode of his decade-old talker by saying that unfortunately the show ran out of time for Damon’s appearance. Of course Damon was never really booked and it was all an elaborate running joke but finally it paid off when Damon supposedly kidnapped Kimmel, »
- PETE HAMMOND
Neil Patrick Harris Takes ‘Hedwig And The Angry Inch’ To Broadway
10 hours ago
Producer David Binder is thrilled to announce that Neil Patrick Harris will star in the Broadway premiere of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s musical Hedwig And The Angry Inch in the Spring of 2014. The remaining creative team members, additional casting, and the theatre will be confirmed at a later date. The announcement that Neil Patrick Harris will play ‘Hedwig,’ follows his recent triumphant engagement as the host of the 67th Annual Tony Awards® (the highest rated Tonys® broadcast in more than a decade). Harris said, “I am simultaneously ecstatic and terrified to be stepping into Hedwig’s heels. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime role and I can’t wait to begin the journey.” John Cameron Mitchell who wrote the book and starred in the original stage and film productions of Hedwig said, “Who better to pass the wig to but the finest entertainer of his generation?” and composer Stephen Trask said, »
- MIKE FLEMING JR
Paradigm Signs ‘Modern Family’s Ed O’Neill
11 hours ago
Exclusive: Modern Family star Ed O’Neill has signed with Paradigm, joining his longtime agent Iris Grossman who moved from ICM Partners to Paradigm earlier this month. O’Neill, who is managed by Brillstein Entertainment Partners, is the third major Grossman client to follow her from ICM to Paradigm joining Mandy Patinkin and Fraces Conroy. O’Neill stars as patriarch Jay Pritchett on ABC’s Emmy-winning comedy Modern Family, a role that has earned him two Emmy nominations. He is one of the highest-paid actors on TV as he also has ownership in the show. O’Neill’s previous series credits include Married… With Children, John From Cincinnati and The West Wing. In features and on stage, O’Neill has a decades-spanning affiliation with the Pulitzer-winning playwright David Mamet, appearing in his films The Spanish Prisoner, Spartan and Redbelt and stage productions of Lakeboat and Keep Your Pantheon. »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
‘True Blood’ Season 6 Premiere Draws 4.5 Million Viewers
11 hours ago
True Blood is keeping its title of HBO‘s flagship series… at least for now. Last night’s premiere of Season 6, the vampire drama’s first without Alan Ball at the helm, delivered 4.5 million viewers for the episode directed by star Stephen Moyer. That was down from the 5.2 million who tuned in for last year’s Season 5 debut, which did not face the NBA Finals as was the case last night. It was also up a notch from the 4.4 million viewers who watched the Season 3 opener of Game Of Thrones. The medieval fantasy series kept growing throughout the season, hitting a series of highs. It remains to be seen whether True Blood will follow a similar upward ratings trajectory. Regardless, this is a solid turnout for a series in its sixth season. »
- NELLIE ANDREEVA
Emmys: Netflix Serves Up ‘House Of Cards’ Fyc BBQ Campaign
11 hours ago
Here’s an enterprising awards campaign from the folks at Netflix during Emmy-voting crunch time. Or rather, lunch time. Today and Tuesday between 11 Am-3 Pm, the network’s House Of Cards is slinging grub in La from the Rollin’ Rib BBQ food truck (masquerading as Freddy’s BBQ, favored joint of Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood) free to card-carrying members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Deadline hears that some Emmy voters even received home deliveries. “I appreciate your vote,” Underwood menaces from the truck’s Fyc ad wrap. Ballots are due June 28. Will Academy members vote with their stomachs? »
- THE DEADLINE TEAM
Apple Defends Efforts To Protect Customer Privacy From Government Data Requests
12 hours ago
Tech companies had the wind knocked out of them a few weeks ago when leaked documents indicated that many provided information about customers to the National Security Agency’s previously secret Prism surveillance program. Now Apple has followed Microsoft and Facebook by providing, in a blog post, a few details about its policies and practices. Apple says that in the six months ending on May 31, U.S. law enforcement officials made “between 4,000 and 5,000″ requests for customer data. It adds that the requests identified “between 9,000 and 10,000″ accounts or devices. “The most common form of request comes from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer’s disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide,” Apple says. How often does the company comply? Not clear. Its lawyers evaluate each request and “only if appropriate” does it provide “the narrowest possible set of information” — and »
- DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor
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