I can’t really justify my curiosity about Hannibal, the NBC series that will act as a prequel to films like Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs. (It will act as a new prequel, that is, since we’ve already had a feature film prequel called Hannibal Rising.) We’ve seen this story before. We’ve seen it done pretty well. There’s no real reason to have it told again, now, other than the fact that this sort of thing is popular on TV. And yet I’m curious to see what comes of it, and given that I’m probably not the only one, that curiosity is likely exactly why NBC is game to order the series.
We know that Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies) is writing and producing the show, which skipped the pilot stage and went straight to a thirteen-episode order. There is no casting for Hannibal ‘the Cannibal’ Lecter at this point, but now the show has cast Hugh Dancy as Will Graham, the FBI profiler who was played by William Peterson in Manhunter and Ed Norton in Red Dragon, the other film based on the book that spawned Manhunter. Read More »
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We still don’t know who will play the TV incarnation of Hannibal Lecter, but we do know that he won’t even have to deal with the traditional pilot stage that is part of a new television show’s road to airtime. NBC has given a thirteen-episode direct to series order to Hannibal, the show pitched by Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies) based on the character created by Thomas Harris and made famous thanks to Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar-winning performance in The Silence of the Lambs. Skipping the pilot stage was mentioned as a possibility when the show landed at NBC; evidently the network brass really liked Fuller’s ideas. Read More »
When last we left Bryan Fuller‘s reboot/re-imagining/overhaul of the classic Sixties TV show The Munsters, it was being described as a mix of True Blood and Modern Family. While difficult to imagine exactly what that means, at least it sounded encouraging. The latest update sounds less encouraging. TV Line is reporting the show has been renamed from The Munsters to Mockingbird Lane, after the street the family lives on. Read more after the jump. Read More »
Tim Burton has two movies coming out in 2012, Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie, but what he does after that is very much up in the air. The Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Alice in Wonderland director is attached to several different projects but, as of this moment, his interest is mostly on something new: a live-action version of the classic Carlo Collodi book and Disney film Pinocchio. And he’d like Robert Downey Jr. to play the woodcarver who makes a real life boy. Read more after the jump. Read More »
Posted on Monday, December 12th, 2011 by Angie Han
Each December since 2004, studio executive Franklin Leonard has compiled the best unproduced screenplays of the year, as voted by hundreds of execs, agency guys, and high-level assistants. Titled The Black List, the compendium highlights both established screenwriters and up-and-comers, and has served as a launching pad in the past for projects like Juno, Lars and the Real Girl, and (500) Days of Summer. Last year’s list included Margin Call, Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Hunger Games, and Snow White and the Huntsman.
It should be noted that the headline is somewhat misleading — some of these screenplays have already been acquired and are already in development, though according to Leonard none will have entered principal photography by December 31, 2011. Also worth pointing out is that, as in previous years, there have been rumors that some of the participants have been accused of using the Black List to promote their own clients or friends. Finally, as Leonard reminds us each time, “The Black List is not a ‘best of’ list. It is, at best, a ‘most liked’ list.”
Regardless, we can always rely on the Black List to stir up conversation among both industry insiders and outside spectators alike, so without further ado, hit the jump for the complete 2011 list.
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Posted on Monday, December 5th, 2011 by Angie Han
We’ve been following Bryan Fuller‘s reimagining of The Munsters for NBC with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation ever since it was first announced over a year ago. On the one hand, another reboot of the beloved ’60s series seems totally unnecessary, and there’s always the fear that the new version won’t do the old one justice. On the other, if someone has to do it, the guy who brought us Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me seems like a pretty good pick. Our hopes crept up just a little bit higher when Bryan Singer boarded the project last week to produce and direct the pilot. Now we have more details on the project, and while it doesn’t sound bad, it doesn’t sound exactly like the Munsters we remember, either. Read on after the jump.
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In 2010 when talk first started to surface about a new version of The Munsters, it was to be a collaboration between Guillermo del Toro and Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies). The show stalled out and when NBC eventually asked Fuller to rework the pilot script into something edgier, Guillermo del Toro was already moving forward with Pacific Rim.
A new name from the roster of geek-friendly film directors has joined the production, however. Bryan Singer will now act as executive producer of the new Munsters, and he’ll direct the pilot, too. Read More »
Posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 by Angie Han
We’ve got a lot of the usual news bits about casting, renewals, and so on in today’s TV Bits, but first, don’t you want to read about a possible racial slur in a decades-old episode of Fraggle Rock?
After the jump:
- A Texas man reports an offensive slur in a 1984 episode of Fraggle Rock
- Fox’s J.J. Abrams-produced Alcatraz changes showrunners
- NBC picks up Bryan Fuller’s The Munsters pilot
- Comedy Central renews South Park for like the next million* seasons
- Becki Newton heads to CBS’ How I Met Your Mother
- Lone Star actor James Wolk lands on ABC’s Happy Endings
* And by “million,” I mean “five.”
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