Author: Lesley Goldberg, Michael O'Connell

September 30, 2016 3:00pm PT by Lesley Goldberg, Michael O’Connell

Photofest

‘The O.C.’ grads Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage will oversee the revial of the ABC soap.

The CW is leaning hard into the soap genre.

The network, home to Jane the Virgin, is teaming with The O.C. creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage to reboot Dynasty, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

The drama, which is in development, is based on the soap of the same name that aired for nine seasons on ABC and was created by Richard and Esther Shapiro and executive produced by Aaron Spelling. Both the Shapiros are attached to The CW reboot, which is being penned by Sallie Patrick (Limitless, Revenge), Schwartz and Savage. All three will exec produce. Fake Empire’s Lis Rowinski will co-exec produce.

Here’s the logline: “The Rolls Royce of all primetime soaps, returns in a modernized reboot that follows two of America’s wealthiest families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, as they feud for control over their fortune and their children. The series will be told primarily through the perspectives of two women at odds: Fallon Carrington — daughter of billionaire Blake Carrington — and her soon-to-be stepmother, Cristal — a Hispanic woman marrying into this WASP family and America’s most powerful class. In an age where dynasties appear everywhere — from reality TV to the polling booths — this epic drama features the one percent in all its glitz and gloss, while exposing the dark underbelly: a corrupt world built on backroom deals, betrayal, and, in some cases, murder.”

The drama hails from CBS Television Studios and Schwartz and Savage’s Fake Empire (The O.C., Gossip Girl). 

From 1981-89, Dynasty was one of the most successful primetime soap operas on TV. The ABC drama, a direct response to CBS hit Dallas, became one of mega producer Spelling’s biggest contributions during the 1980s. Set in Denver, Colo., and following a group of 1 percenters (the Carrington family), Dynasty was the No. 1 show in America in 1985. The cast included, most notably, John Forsythe, Linda Evans and Joan Collins.

The revival comes as five years after Collins said Esther Shapiro had been prepping a revival of the series that ultimately did not come to pass. The cast most recently reunited in 2015 for a Hallmark one-off in which they shared memories and more. ABC attempted to create a spinoff, The Colbys, with Spelling and the Shapiros attached but the series lasted only two years. 

This is not the first primetime soap of yesteryear to get a reboot of late. TNT resurrected Dallas in 2012, with much of the original cast, to initial ratings success. But interest in the show quickly lagged and the death of star Larry Hagman, the center of both the 1978 original and the remake, prompted the network to pull the plug after just three seasons. 

TV Development The CW

August 11, 2016 2:19pm PT by Lesley Goldberg, Michael O’Connell

 Patrick Ecclesine/Showtime

“The thought is, do a live special… Colbert unfettered”

Showtime Networks CEO David Nevins had the distinct honor of closing out the 2016 TV critics press tour, meeting with reporters on the 16th afternoon of the marathon conference. “It’s a plum spot,” he joked before announcing a wave of news including a live Election Night special with Stephen Colbert.

Recent visits to the Television Critics Association have seen Nevins touting plans for a more year-round schedule, premiering shows one at a time and not in pairs, but there have been a few roadblocks to that plan. Comedies House of Lies, Episodes and Penny Dreadful all recently announced their 2016 seasons would be their last, and network flagship Homeland was delayed from its typical fall premiere to Jan. 15, 2017. (This year will pass without a single new episode from the Emmy winner.)

It was likely with this in mind that Nevins front-loaded his presentation with talk of future projects, showing a trailer for comedy I’m Dying Up Here, teasing much-hyped Daniel Craig starrer Purity, announcing pilots for Saturday Night Live castoffs Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah and assuring the crowd that 2017 will finally bring the long-awaited Twin Peaks revival. The seventh and eighth seasons of Homeland were also finally confirmed, after Nevins essentially announced them in June. 

There is also the matter of Roadies. Showtime’s biggest swing of late, with filmmakers Cameron Crowe and J.J. Abrams producing, has underperformed with critics and viewers. The most recent episode of the show saw its original telecast only nab 465,000 viewers in live-plus-three day returns, though Showtime admittedly draws its biggest stats from gross views across encores and platforms.

Joined by programming president Gary Levine for the Q&A, Nevins addressed these matters and more. 

Stephen Colbert Is Likely Coming to Showtime on Election Night
Already home to election documentary The Circus, which Nevins called a groundbreaking effort in terms of turning around its content on a weekly deadline, Nevins is eyeing more election themed material. “We’re working very hard to do a live election night comedy special with Stephen Colbert,” Nevins said. “Stephen wants to do it, the studio wants to do it. The thought is, do a live special, Colbert unfettered. He promised me he’ll say a couple of curse words, which is important. We’re figuring it out. It’s something we’ve been trying to get him to do for a while.” Working in Showtime’s favor is the fact that Colbert has the night off from his CBS late-night show, which shares parent company CBS Inc. “It will be interesting to see what Colbert does with no commercial breaks, no language restriction,” Nevins told The Hollywood Reporter after his Q&A, adding that it will likely air at 10 o’clock and be taped in Colbert’s Ed Sullivan studio. “He’s kind of excited about it.”

Twin Peaks Is Coming In the First Half of 2017
Nearly two years after it was announced, David Lynch and Mark Frost have completed photography on Twin Peaks. For proof, Nevins offered a behind-the-scenes reel with interviews with some of the sprawling cast. Still up in the air? An official premiere date. “We don’t even know how many episodes there will be,” he said, laughing, with Levine adding that it’s a “fluid process.” Lynch is currently determining that in the editing room, as the project was filmed as a movie. And, unfortunately for fans of the long-dead show, the clip screened is not going online. As for how much of the episodes executives have seen, Nevins noted they have seen footage and are about to begin seeing cuts. Following his 30-minute session, the executive told a small group of reporters that everything about Twin Peaks’ release plan will be “unconventional.” “Unconventional in the handling of it and how we put it out in the world and how we market it,” he said while shooting down the notion of releasing all the episodes at once. “I think it is quite possible we’re not going to do a traditional release pattern. I’ve had a couple conversations with David. But I want to embrace the unexpectedness of it, so I could definitely see longer episodes or in terms of this question of how do we release it linearly and how do we release it for people who want to stream it; maybe there’s something different between the two.”

TCA | Television Critics Association

Associated Press

Bryan Cranston

CBS’s latest drama orders suffer no shortage of familiar names. The network has added a pilot from Bryan Cranston and David Shore — as well as an adaptation of James Patterson novel The Thomas Berryman Number from Rene Balcer and Robert DeNiro.

Sneaky Pete received a sizable production commitment from CBS when it hit the marketplace in late November. The drama is written and exec produced by Cranston and House creator Shore. It revolves around a thirty-something con man who, after leaving prison, takes cover from his past by assuming the identity of his cellmate. “Sneaky Pete” hides from the mob while working for the cellmate’s family bail bond business and takes down criminals worse than himself — discovering a family life he’s never had and love with a woman who sees through is nonsense.

Read More THR’s 2015 Pilot Guide

The drama hails from Sony Pictures Television where Breaking Bad alum Cranston and Shore are under an overall deal. The duo share a common colleague: Cranston starred for Vince Gilligan and Shore is currently teaming with the Breaking Bad creator for SPT’s midseason CBS drama Battle Creek. In addition to Cranston and Shore, Sneaky Pete will be exec produced by Cranston’s Moon Shot Entertainment banner’s James Degus and Shore Z’s Erin Gunn will be credited as a co-EP.

Pete marks Cranston’s first pilot order and comes in his first year as a producer. He also developed comedy Dangerous Book for Boys at NBC this season. That comedy, based on Conn and Hal Iggulden‘s guidebook, remains in contention at NBC and has a penalty attached.

Written by Balcer, For Justice centers on a FBI agent working in the criminal section of Department of Civil Rights — caught between her radical family she was born into and the professional life she’s made for herself. Based on Patterson’s book, the author also serves as executive producer alongside DeNiro, Jane Rosenthal, Bill Robinson and Leopoldo Gout. Berry Welsh is co-EP and the project comes from CBS Television Studios.

If For Justice does go, it will be the second Patterson-inspired series on the network. An adaptation of his novel Zoo nabbed a straight-to-series order in 2014, and will debut this summer. He signed an overall deal with CBS Studios shortly after the Zoo pact.