The studios and networks are asking their producers to save money on their shows.  ABC yesterday ordered a 2% across the board cut for all their prime time programming.  Other networks have ordered similar trims as the economy makes the advertising revenue iffier.

The alphabet network also trimmed their orders for two midseason replacement series indicating they have excess inventory for the second half of the current season.  Rather than the usual 13 episodes, Castle, with Nathan Fillion as a crime author, and The Unusuals have had their orders cut down to ten.  This follows Samantha Who?’s order being cut to 20 rather than the normal 22 episodes comprising a full season. They also canceled the midseason comedy Single With Parents over creative problems.

ABC is negotiating to sign actress Reiko Aylesworth (24) for a “major recurring role” on Lost, according to The Hollywood Reporter. If signed, she would portray Amy, described as a smart and successful professional woman with a love for the outdoors who is looking for the right man.” The role is envisioned as a four-episode assignment.

Amy Price-Francis (Californication) has also found a recurring role but on Fox’s 24. The six-episode story arc would have her playing a ruthless attorney working for Jonas Hodges (Jon Voight).

Director Sam Mendes chatted briefly with Empire Magazine about adapting Preacher for the screen.

He is a lot less far along than one would imagine based on his comments. “This is a typical Variety announcement,” Mendes told the British publication. “‘Mendes to direct Preacher’ – I wish! Basically they should have written, ‘Mendes in development with Preacher’. What I’m doing is, I’ve gotta find a script. I’ve just got to get it written.”

Mendes is drawn to the story of Jesse Custer, a Texas preacher who was given the Word of the Lord but seeks out the Creator who apparently has abandoned his post in Heaven. He’s accompanied by a former killer, Tulip, and Cassidy, an unrepentant vampire. The series ran over five years for Vertigo, written and drawn by the team of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. All the covers were painted by Glenn Fabry.

A feature film or television series has been in development for years and recently HBO dropped their plans which allowed Columbia to obtain the rights and sign the director of American Beauty.

“It’s brilliant, it’s an incredible twisted vision,” he said. “There’s so much of it you couldn’t possibly fit it all into one movie. It’s just about what you keep and what you leave out, and how you structure the story. But just to have that toy set again, being able to paint on a big canvas and to say ‘I am gonna do crazy crane shots and massive action sequences again because I want to,’ it’s exciting.”

It’s been a good election, you all deserve a reward:

And with that, let’s close some windows:

• Robert Grandt, a librarian at Brooklyn Technical High School, was fined $500 for violating ethics codes by recommending his daughter Eve’s Shakespeare’s Macbeth — The Manga Edition as the book of the month.

• This one’s for Amy: Seth Green talks about comics, movies, Robot Chicken, and The Freshmen. And amazingly, he doesn’t want to direct.

• And speaking of Freshmen: Freshman for Life brings us the 24-hour comic, Blotchmen.

• Fundamentalists shaken by election losses have taken to writing science fiction.

• Wendy Everett, inspiration for Daredevil.

• I complain when I have to retouch a few dozen pages for reprints. Rich Keene has done almost 12,000.

• A bit late on this one, but ComicMix alumni Rick Marshall interviews various comics writers about who their characters would vote for. Oddly, none of them voted for Stephen Colbert.

• And finally, there’s nothing more surreal than reading a blog and finding out you’ve been laid off from a company you co-own.