Another day, another crackie extravaganza. You know what my plans are this evening? My mom is going to pick up some food for me and we’
Tag Hour
20th Century Fox Acquires 'ESPN: Those Guys Have All The Fun'; Will Tell Story Of Sports Network Dynasty
EXCLUSIVE: 20th Century Fox is closing a deal for screen rights to the oral history ESPN: Those Guys Have All The Fun. The studio will develop a feature about the formation of the 24-hour sports network. The pic will be produced by Michael De Luca, Trigger Street’s Dana Brunetti and Julie Yorn. The book by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales follows a format similar to Live From New York, the oral history they wrote about Saturday Night Live. Here, they use the voices of past and present ESPN personalities and producers to tell the story of how a father and son maxed out their credit cards to scrape together the cash to reserve a satellite transponder so they could show sporting events nonstop on a 24-hour station. The book is a gossipy journey about how that venture turned from a 1970s joke that started with broadcasts of Australian rules football and rodeo, to a dominant brand in the sporting world that broadcast pro football and baseball games and become arguably the most profitable cable network ever created.
The book created a stir in the film community when ICM began shopping it in recent weeks. I’m told there is interest from scribes and directors, and the studio and producers will start right away looking for someone to figure out the movie. The drama of ESPN’s formation … Read More
'Terra Nova' Showrunner Rene Echevarria Signs Overall Deal With 20th TV
Terra Nova executive producer/showrunner Rene Echevarria has signed an overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV, the studio behind the upcoming pre-historic drama series, which recently scored high marks in network testings of the pilot. Under the two-year, seven-figure pact, he will continue to run Terra Nova, which is set to begin production on the remaining episodes of its 13-episode order on June 1 in Australia. The deal also includes potential development but, at least for the time being, he is expected to focus on Terra Nova full-time. With resume that features both sci fi and character-driven shows, 20th TV chairman Gary Newman called Echevarria “probably the perfect person to assume leadership of Terra Nova”, which he described as a compelling family drama with action and special effects. “This is the most ambitious special effect show ever done in television, which shoots on the other end of the world, so it requires somebody with the maturity, leadership and strength that Rene possesses,” Newman said.
Terra Nova, originally slated for midseason, was eventually pushed to next fall, with plans for a May preview scrapped to finish special effects and address some issues in the 2-hour pilot. While the first hour is considered very solid, in the second hour “there were scenes that didn’t play as well as we had hoped,” Newman said. To fix that, there will be 4-5 days of … Read More
'Children's Hour' Coming To TV Via GK-TV
The television division of Graham King and Tim Headington’
Conan Draws Viewers With 'Live Cam' Stunt
Conan O’Brien got a solid pre-launch sampling with the 24-hour broadcast of the Live CoCo Cam from the offices of the comedian’s upcoming late-night show on TBS. According to preliminary estimates, some 660,000 viewers tuned in to check out the live stream at some point during the 24-hour window, which ended earlier today. For comparison, that is the average audience TBS gets in the 11 PM hour with George Lopez, so this should be a promising sign for Conan’s debut on TBS on November 8. The average viewership at any time during the live CoCo Cam stream was 13,000, with thousands more watching the highlight clips on YouTube.
RATINGS RAT RACE: 'Smallville' Scores With 200th Episode, 'School Pride' Humbled
It’s not very often that the CW wins an hour of primetime among adults 18-49. The network accomplished just that last night with the 200th episode of Smallville, which led the competition at 8 PM with a 1.3/5, matching its season premiere demo number and hitting a season high in total viewers with 3.2 million. Supernatural (1.2/4, 2.8 million) was also strong, matching its season premiere numbers and finishing tied for second place in 18-49 at 9 PM behind CSI: NY (1.7/6, 9.5 million). CBS’ CSI: NY and Blue Bloods (1.7/6, 10.3 million) were both down from last week, by 11% and 6%, respectively, while Medium (1.2/4, 6.1 million) at 8 PM held steady to finish No. 2 in the hour behind Smallville. The third original offering at 8 PM, NBC’s new reality series School Pride (0.9/3, 2.9 million) had a poor start, getting beat by a repeat of ABC’s No Ordinary Family (1.0/4, 4.1 million) to finish fourth in the hour, barely edging a House rerun (0.8/3, 2.7 million) on Fox. From 9-11 PM, NBC’s Dateline (1.2/4 million, 4.9 million) was down 25% from the newsmagazine’s delivery from 8-10 PM last week. It finished tied for second place in 18-49 both at 9 PM (with Supernatural) and 10 PM (with ABC’s 20/20). At 10 PM, it improved by 33% on the performance of the cancelled new NBC drama Outlaw. Like NBC, ABC … Read More
NBC Cancels 1st Fall Series – From Conan
NBC today pulled the plug on legal drama Outlaw after putting the freshman series on production hiatus last week. It hails from Conan O’Brien’s once NBC-based production company Conaco. Conan and company were shocked when, in the middle of his fight with NBC Universal brass over The Tonight Show hosting gig last January, the network picked up their pilot. NBC gave Outlaw a solid sampling after America’s Got Talent but the series never took hold in its permanent Friday 10 PM time period where it was crushed by CBS’ Blue Bloods. Starting this Friday, NBC will air a second hour of newsmagazine Dateline in the time slot. (NBC had been airing a 2-hour Dateline from 8-10 PM, leading into Outlaw.) This Friday, the network will premiere new reality series School Pride at 8 PM, which will now be followed by a 2-hour Dateline.
The remaining 4 original episodes of Outlaw will air Saturdays at 8 PM over the next five week (preempted on October 30th for a previously scheduled Shrek special). The Jimmy Smits-starring Outlaw in its do-or-die airing this past Friday was only able to match its underwhelming 1.0 rating in adults 18-49 from the week before and drew 4.2 million viewers, down 11%. On the other hand, Outlaw’s lead-in, the two-hour Dateline (1.6/6) spiked 23% from the previous week, which probably helped NBC brass’ decision to stick with a 2-hour edition of … Read More
Lindsay Lohan Is Going Back To Rehab; Did Heroin?
News Of The World has printed blurry pictures of Lindsay Lohan allegedly doing heroin just days after her recent 14-hour jail stay. …read full story
Cline Dion Shows Off Her Ridiculously Huge Baby Bump
Celine Dion is pregnant again, finally. Hopefully this means we won’t have to see her on the final season of Oprah babbling like a mental case and never shutting up about in-vitro fertilization for a full hour. The 42 year old is expecting twin boys …read full story
If Lindsay Lohan acts like a crackhead again, shes going back to jail
Okay, so even though Lindsay Lohan got out of UCLA rehab last night, her lawyer still had to go into court today and discuss the terms of Lindsay’
Friday Box Office: 'Expendables' #1 Again
FRIDAY PM/SATURDAY AM: There was no consensus last night over which motion picture was No. 1 at the Friday box office. But this morning Sly Stallone’s action holdover The Expendables was declared the winner and should take the weekend for Lionsgate. It was followed closely by a newcomer, another of those cheap Fox spoofs Vampires Suck which opened Wednesday. In fact, the order of the entire Top 7 was in doubt. Some of the discrepancy had to do with factoring in just East Coast grosses vs including West Coast late shows. (That’s sometimes why I get these wild swings from hour to hour Friday night, in case you were wondering.)
In all, there were 5, count ‘em, new films opening in North America to almost close out the summer. Yet none of them probably can break $15M by end of Sunday. A lot of these titles are barely worth analyzing. Dimension/Weinstein Co’s horror pic Piranha 3D underperformed Friday even though that’s when it was going to have the most upside. Warner Bros’ urban comedy Lottery Ticket did much better considering its middling release. Same case for The Switch from Miramax: size does matter when it comes to theater count and box office order. Jason Bateman steals this rom-com which isn’t likely to stay in play long enough for people to even see his performance. For Working Title’s Nanny McPhee Returns, North America is one of the last markets to debut since Universal began opening it internationally in April to grosses over $62 … Read More
Report: Katy Perry And Russell Brand In Daily Relationship Therapy Sessions
Come on now! Every single day? That’s a bit… excessive. Don’t you think? Rumor has it that Russell Brand and Katy Perry call in for a therapy session every day.
The Daily Mirror is reporting that the couple conference in a therapist an hour a day to get through their troubles.
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Julia Roberts says men dont care what you look like naked
Julia Roberts maybe-probably gave a short interview to Star Magazine this week. Most of the questions are regurgitated from other interviews – Julia talks about eating eight slices of pizza in an hour, and how she gained ten whole pounds while filming in Italy, which we’
Amy Winehouse & Reg Traviss Ate Dinner at Shaka Zulu
Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin
Earlier in the week, Amy Winehouse went on a 16 hour alcohol binge.
During the 16-hour marathon she had visited two other pubs and two restaurants – at one point kissing model Mischa Barton and at another strolling with comic Russell Brand’s dad Ron.
“I was told Amy ordered champagne and the group tucked into it before starting on pink cocktails. They were having a great time,” Source
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Rush Hours Chris Tucker gets $11-million tax bill
[HMG] – As you know, Nicolas Cage had more than his share of tax problems recently, but now ‘Rush Hour’ star, Chris Tucker is becoming a serious challenge ‘
RATINGS RAT RACE: Solid Wednesday Debut for 'Big Brother', 'Talent' Tops Night
CBS’ Big Brother won the 8 PM in its Wednesday season premiere (2.3 rating/8 share in adults 18-49, 6.3 million viewers overall), which was up 10% from last year in the demo. It capped a solid return for the veteran reality series, which saw year-to-year gains for all 3 premiere episodes. Big Brother topped the first hour of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance (2.2/8) and NBC’s Minute To Win It (2.0/7), which was down 5% in its second week in 18-49 and won the hour in total viewers (6.6 million).
NBC’s America’s Got Talent (3.0/9, 11.2 million) at 9 PM [...]
UPDATE: NBC Cancels 'Heroes' As A Series But Plans Finale Event In Midseason
UPDATE: I toldja there were 3 ways NBC was going to go, and we’d know as soon as today if series cancellation was the option chosen, and it’s now official. But NBC sources now tell me that the network is “working on a way to wrap up the show. That will be determined after the upfront.” Other insiders explain to me that NBC will soon commit to that 2-hour or 4-hour special event in midseason to reward Heroes fans. (Previous: NBC Plans Finale For ‘Heroes’?)
Rihanna Performs “Rude Boy” w/ Robots @ 2010 Echo Music Awards
Photo Credit: Splash News Online
These were snapped last night in Berlin, Germany.
Check here for the red carpet photos from the award shows. Even though I find the sound slightly annoying (mainly because some stations & channels play it about eight times an hour), but I’m pretty sure it was awesome to watch it live. GO RIHANNA!
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Rihanna Performs "Rude Boy" w/ Robots @ 2010 Echo Music Awards
Photo Credit: Splash News Online
These were snapped last night in Berlin, Germany.
Check here for the red carpet photos from the award shows. Even though I find the sound slightly annoying (mainly because some stations & channels play it about eight times an hour), but I’m pretty sure it was awesome to watch it live. GO RIHANNA!
read more