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Posts tagged as “Movies”

Crazy whorish money

Did you click because of the title?

Unfortunately for you, there ain’t no hos here dog.

But rest assured that this week, the madness never ends.
And that’s 2 crazies this week if you’re keeping tabs.

Let’s continue.

Remember that Argonaut Version 9.0 I was talking about yesterday?
Well the guys over at WB are making their own kind of Greek mythology adaptation.

Remember Troy?
I hope you don’t.

Yesterday was announced that Brad Pitt was going to star in another Homer adaptation, directed by George Miller (Mad Max).
This will be an all new take on Homer’s The Odyssey.
And by new, I mean futuristic.
Literally.
They are planning to take the story far into S-F territory.
God no.

Halfway around the world, Canal Plus is going to do, after their “Brit Week” earlier this year, an “American Week”.
And guess when.
The first week of November (election anyone?).
The week will be full of docs around the U.S., including one on H-Wood, with Antoine de Caunnes’ “Allez a LA!”, among others.
Also during the week will be showings of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
Not to mention that C+ inked a deal earlier this week with… Dan Rather.
Yes.

Is C+ pimping itself out to get deals?

Meanwhile, I have news for you, Mad Men speccer.
Rest assured that your smooth spec is staying alive for a while. A third season is already optioned by AMC.
Although talks are still taking place between Lionsgate and Weiner…
Money money money.

Oh, and Sarah Palin is indeed guesting this Saturday on SNL.
Sad.

But hey, it’s the week-end.
Hooray!

Fight to the ratings

First, some general TV/Movie news:

Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, from this show called “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (what the hell is that show anyway?), are signed to co-create and write a CBS sitcom (yes, you read that right) about the cooking world, Jones being a celeb chef and Bee one of the two women running his cooking empire (So like Bree’s Andrew?).

Also, Jonathan Prince (creator of A&E’s The Cleaner) has inked a first-look 2-year contract with CBS Paramount TV where a first series is already planned, centered around “bright and self-confident 22-year-old college grads who enroll in a medical school with an unusual program that forgoes years of book study to throw the youngsters into the trenches at a teaching hospital where they’re faced with life-and-death situations”.
I may jump out on a limb here, but isn’t that like Grey’s Anatomy without the “steamy” romance?

And what the hell is this news about Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2?

Now down to business.

I have been known to talk on occasion about ratings and how they might relate to, you know, the survival of a show.
THR put up today a couple of article around ratings, cable and DVRs.

The first is this one, a basic comparison between cable and broadcast ratings.


As the article says:

The cable networks are making their biggest push yet into fall with original scripted programming, but whether they can hold their own against the broadcasters remains to be seen.

I tend to agree with what Kimberly Nordyke notes.
That cable networks can win over the Summer is now obvious. After all, the Big Five are just starting to realize that original content works, even during hiatus, and they are now trying to put that content on air, during “hiatus season” for instance. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the idea of round-year original TV content is happening, whether the major networks want it to happen, or not.
Now, the main question is whether or not cable can keep its momentum going during fall and perhaps even winter. They could even take the sweeps in the (very) long run…But probably not.
Still, although the fact that the Big Five’s ratings are declining is undeniable (due to various circumstances -read “technology and cable”-), I’m not sure of a viable scenario where cable would outperform either CBS, NBC, FOX or ABC (they wouldn’t have a problem with The CW) when fall season is in its full swing.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see…On our DVRs.

Speaking of DVRs, the other THR article I was talking about is this one (technically a blog post). It’s all about DVRs boosting premiere ratings…although not by much it seems.

TV is being revolutionized.

In other, totally unrelated, news, I think I found the coolest website of the week.