Tagged: HBO

‘Rome’ Leaps from HBO to Silver Screen

  • News
  • December 4, 2008

"There is talk of doing a movie version," Bruno Heller told The Hollywood Reporter about Rome. "It’s moving along. It’s not there until it is there. I would love to round that show off."

The show, which starred Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson, ran for just two seasons on HBO but was deemed too costly a project to continue despite reasonable ratings. The network counted the beans and effectively canceled the series before the second season could even air in spring 2007. To the premium channel’s surprise, the series earned four Emmy Awards for the first season plus seven more awards and remarkably good ratings for the second.

With HBO now admitting their mistake, Heller is at work on a feature when not working on CBS’ The Mentalist, the one sure fire ratings hit among freshman series. As for McKidd’s Lucius, who died at the end of the series, "It was very deliberate that we saw him drifting away but didn’t see him atop a funeral pyre," Heller said.

The original series bible called for the third season to feature the “hedonistic Roman leaders to deal with the rise of a certain problematic rabbi — a story line that would have put a whole new spin on the Greatest Story Ever Told and potentially bring Rome a larger audience.”

"I discovered halfway through writing the second season the show was going to end," Heller said. "The second was going to end with death of Brutus. Third and fourth season would be set in Egypt. Fifth was going to be the rise of the messiah in Palestine. But because we got the heads-up that the second season would be it, I telescoped the third and fourth season into the second one, which accounts for the blazing speed we go through history near the end. There’s certainly more than enough history to go around."

Should the movie get a green light, rounding up the cast may be tough as the lead actors have all found other work. McKidd can be found on Grey’s Anatomy with Stevenson next seen this Friday in The Punisher: War Zone and Polly Walker set for Sci Fi Channel’s Caprica.

‘True Blood’ Concludes First Season Tonight

  • News
  • November 23, 2008

trueblood-2-1903424HBO’s adaptation of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels, True Blood, reaches its first season finale tonight.  A second season has already been green-lit and in production for fall 2009.

With vampires all the rage, as witnessed by this weekend’s explosive box office for Twilight and other vamp tales getting optioned, the timing seemed serendipitous for the premium channel, which needed a hit.

The series, starring Anna Paquin, has seen its viewership rise by 66 percent since its debut in September, now averaging 6.8 million viewers.

"After Six Feet Under, where as an artist and a person I got to explore my whole relationship with grief for about five years, I just felt, OK, I don’t really need to spend any more time staring into the abyss," series creator Alan Ball told the Associated Press.

His pitch was readily accepted by HBO and the series quietly went into production. A viral marketing campaign, centering on Tru Blood, the synthetic blood substitute that allows vampires to come out of the closet, so to speak, launched over the summer and got mild buzz.

The series aired to good reviews but smaller than anticipated audiences. Yet, the numbers have been slowly but steadily growing with execs noting that despite airing throughout the week, the peak numbers have skewed towards the Sunday at 9 p.m. debut. This is the first series to generate that sort of attention in the timeslot since Sex and the City and The Sopranos.

Since then, the network has failed to create a show with similar cache.

"You start worrying," Michael Lombardo, HBO’s chief of West Coast operations said. "You see other networks putting on important programs on Sunday nights and you worry, `can you bring them back?’ What has been fantastic is to see the subscribers have been waiting for a Sunday night show they can make appointment viewing again."

Fortunately, the first season largely adapted the first novel with six more in print and another on the way. All feature Sookie, a southern girl who possesses ESP, making her unique in a world with vampires trying to integrate into society. The world also features shape-shifters and humans sipping on vampire blood get a better high than from any pharmaceutical. The core of the series revolves around the romance between Sookie and Bill Compton, a vampire returning to his homestead and played by Stephen Moyer.

HBO Orders ‘Game of Thrones’ Pilot

  • News
  • November 12, 2008

The trades are reporting that HBO has finally given a pilot order to A Game of Thrones, the first in George R.R. Martin’s bestselling A Song of Fire & Ice series. The television version will be executive produced by David Benioff (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and D.B. Weiss (Halo).

HBO picked up the rights on January 17, 2007 with Variety describing the series as "an epic struggle for power set in a vast and violent fantasy kingdom." Which is putting things mildly. Martin, called by Time as an American Tolkien, has created a sprawling saga with dozens of characters currently projected to be seven volumes long and is a modern day epic fantasy which would be challenging for even premium cable to adapt.

 “Fantasy is the most successful genre in terms of feature films given the incredible popularity of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies,” Benioff told The Hollywood Reporter. “High fantasy has never been done on TV before and if anybody can do it, it’s HBO. They’ve taken tired genres and reinvented them — mobsters in The Sopranos and Westerns with Deadwood.

“It’s not a story with a million Orcs charging across the plains,” Weiss said. “The most expensive effects are creature effects and there’s not much of that.”

Ever since the option was announced, the producers have insisted that each season would adapt just one of the thick novels.  Martin was also committed to writing at least one episode per season.  He began working on the pilot in 2007, completing a first draft in August.  A second draft was announced as being completed in June 2008. HBO exercised their option on the series in September before yesterday’s announcement.

A Game of Thrones was released in 1996 and won critical acclaim, earning the Locus Award for Best Novel (Fantasy) while earning nominations at the World Fantasy and Nebula Awards.

The other books in the series are A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000), and A Feast for Crows (2005). Announced but not yet delivered, written or scheduled are A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter, and A Dream of Spring.  The saga has also led to three novella and act as prequels to the first novel.

Martin actually was at work on Dragons when he realized things were not working and he tossed out much of the work and announced at the Millennium Philcon in 2001 that he was writing a different book to continue the story before resuming Dragons. That became Crows which tightened its focus on a handful of characters while the next book would shift the spotlight to others. An anticipated 2008 publication date came and went and Bantam is hopeful it will receive the manuscript in time for a spring 2009 release.

The one obstacle left is being better than the ten other projects in development at the cable network. Although six are expected to get the series go-ahead, HBO can be choosy under its new regime which jettisoned several other projects already, including Preacher.

Martin plans seven books in the series. The producers intend for each season to span one novel.

THR notes, “Combined with True Blood, this also suggests an interesting, AintItCoolNews-targeted direction for the network. Less edgy-PBS, more R-rated Comic Con.”
 

MICHAEL DAVIS: Fade To Black

  • News
  • June 22, 2007

michael-davis100-3637577I fully realized that the article I wrote last week was at some times petty and juvenile. I was furious and I forgot that the best way to make a point is a well thought out lucid argument. At one time I may have suggested some people in the Genarlow Wilson case were racist and because of that I wrote that “white women love me.” This was simply not right.

I was wrong and I apologize. In my attempt to strike a nerve with the people in the case I lashed out but I was totally wrong to say that. I was wrong and I hope that those people I lashed out at will forgive me.

The fact of the matter is white women don’t love me…they REALLY love me!

Dudes! I can’t keep them off of me! I’m thinking of changing my name to Mandingo (they love that) and seeing if there’s any money in this!

Yeah, I’m still a wee bit bitter over the whole Genarlow Wilson and Paris Hilton thing. To all my friends’ black and white, all jokes aside I’m just trying to get those morons in Georgia to lose some sleep at night. That way they can share in a little of what Genarlow Wilson is enduring.

I was going to write this particular column last week but I got caught up in the Genarlow Wilson and Paris Hilton debacle so here it is a week later and I hope it’s still relevant.

By now we have all seen or heard about The Sopranos series ending show. The vast majority of the world hated that ending. Me? I thought it was a cop-out UNLESS they are planning a movie. Then I get it. If they are not planning a movie then HBO should change its name to simply B.O., because that ending stunk.

HBO is a funny little network. No one doubts that they do GREAT TV. In fact The Sopranos would not (could not) have been done on any other network. If the show were picked up by ABC then Tony Soprano would have been played by Tony Danza or some such actor. It was The Sopranos that really lit the fire under the rest of the TV world. I remember NBC did a Soprano rip. It was called Kingpin. Everybody in that show looked like supermodels. Even the hit men were wearing Hugo Boss suits. That show went bye bye faster than Barry Allen. Why? Because as I have said a million times: Americans are not the idiots some TV executives think.

Rather or not you like the ending or not it sure did make an impact, this morning I watched a Hillary Clinton parody of the ending on the Today show.

Wait a moment.

Did I just say that Hillary Clinton, the front-runner in the race for President did a Sopranos parody? Love or hate the ending (or love or hate Hillary) you have to respect the power of a television program that can do that. As I said in my very first column my readers would always know where I stand so let me be clear: I hated the ending but I love Hillary. Why do I love Hillary? Well if we elect her we get Bill as a bonus! Why did I hate the Sopranos ending? Because unless there is going to be a Sopranos movie then that was not an ending. It was a big slap in the face of America by a great producer who wants to be considered an artist.

For the most part television is not an art form. It is an entertainment medium. Yes there is great TV and yes there can be some shows, movies etc. that can be considered artistic but TV is not an art form.

Art by definition is an individual who creates something for no other reason except to see it created. They do it because they have a desire to share their vision with the world. Anytime someone pays you to create a product where the sole purpose is to garner ratings, that is not an art.

(more…)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks