HBO Greenlights Comedy Pilot From Mike Judge, ‘King … 
UBS Confab Wrap-Up: Is Big Media Losing Its Mojo? 
Warner Bros Grasps ‘Boston Strangler’ Pitch For … 
Jennifer Love Hewitt Developing Movie For Lifetime Inspired … 
OSCARS: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Gives Sony Early … 
BREAKING: ‘Lincoln’ Invited To Screen To U.S. … 
Glenn Beck & Vince Vaughn Join For Online Reality … 
ABC Orders Paranormal Investigation Drama Series … 
‘Dr. Phil’ Tops November Sweep Among Syndicated … 
National Board Of Review Best Film: ‘Zero Dark … 
‘Dancing With The Stars’ Contributed To … 
Disney Springs For Johnny Depp-Produced Don Quixote Pitch 
‘Justified’s Timothy Olyphant Takes Aim At … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Victoria’s Secret’, … 
Netflix Exec Calls Disney Deal A “Game … 
‘Skyfall’ Becomes UK’s Highest-Grossing … 
Ryan Seacrest Buys Controlling Stake In NYC-Based Marketing … 
Deadline Awards Watch With Pete Hammond, Episode 3 
Will Disney’s Deal With Netflix Spoil Liberty … 
Disney-Lucasfilm Deal Cleared By Feds 
CAA Signs Omar Sy Mark Wahlberg Calls On Canada To Restore Film Tax Incentives
Mark Wahlberg is urging the Canadian government to restore federal tax incentives for film production. “We are really trying to encourage the government to reinstate these tax incentives to bring film and cinema back to Canada,” Wahlberg told The Globe And Mail in Toronto. Wahlberg, who has made seven movies in Canada, says a steady reduction in government tax subsidies means fewer Hollywood projects will be made there. Wahlberg’s Canadian-shot films include Fear, Shooter, The Big Hit, and Max Payne. READ MORE »
Global Showbiz Briefs: Mark Wahlberg On Canadian Film Tax Incentives, Shine Group & Adrian Steirn, Australia’s Ten Network, Prime TV New Zealand
Warner Bros, Disney, Roadshow & MGM Dissolve Aussie Pay TV Movie Partnership
Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney.
The seven Movie Network channels owned by Warner Bros, Disney, Village Roadshow and MGM will go dark on January 1 following a decision today to dissolve the partnership. The end of the service, which was a mainstay in Australia pay-TV since its inception, follows the inability of TMN to negotiate a new deal with the dominant platform Foxtel as the current contract expires December 31. A Foxtel spokesman confirmed the TMN channels will disappear from its service on January 1. Foxtel wants to launch a single movie service in 2013 after buying the other major movie service Showtime from Paramount, NBCUniversal, Fox, Sony and Liberty Media in October. The Foxtel spokesman told Deadline that negotiations are continuing with individual studios, adding, “Our preferred position is to have a single service with improved quality for viewers.” He said a new line-up of movie channels and repricing would be announced soon.
Related: Deadline Looms For US Pay Movie Channels In Australia Read More »
Michelle Obama & Bill Clinton Get Grammy Nominations; Ellen DeGeneres, Rachel Maddow, ‘Smash’ & ‘The Voice’ Coaches Too
They both campaigned with President Obama to help him secure a second term. Now both First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Bill Clinton have landed Grammy nominations. Both are up in the Best Spoken Word Album category for the audio version of their books American Grown (Michelle Obama) and Back To Work: Why We Need Smart Government For A Strong Economy (Bill Clinton). Clinton won the category in 2005 for his autobiography My Life. Obama and Clinton are facing two top TV personalities in the Best Spoken Word Album field — Ellen DeGeneres (Seriously… I’m Kidding) and Rachel Maddow (Drift: The Unmooring Of American Military Power). Television’s presence on the Grammy nominations list extends to the Best Song Written For Visual Media category, which features the tune Let Me Be Your Star from the pilot for NBC’s Smash, along with four songs from movies, including the Oscar-winning Man Or Muppet From The Muppets. (Nashville producer T Bone Burnett, who is behind the music on the freshman ABC drama, scored 2 noms for songs from The Hunger Games). The score soundtrack field includes Oscar winner The Artist.
Among the singing competition series, NBC’s The Voice was once again the top dog, with two of its coaches, Maroon 5′s Adam Levine (2) and Blake Shelton (1) getting noms. (Last year all four coaches were nominated). For a second consecutive year, the music stars of Fox’s American Idol and The X Factor were … Read More »
OSCARS: ‘Anna Karenina’ Score
David Mermelstein is an AwardsLine contributor.
For Dario Marianelli, who has scored all but one of Joe Wright’s five films, Anna
Karenina presented exciting challenges. Wright’s fragmented telling of Tolstoy’s great novel afforded the composer new opportunities for musical expression—even as the film hewed to the story’s period setting.
“There were huge opportunities by the film not being literal,” says Marianelli, who recently spoke by phone from England. “But because those opportunities were opened up, they had to be taken, and that’s hard work. I can’t remember a film where I worked so hard and so long. For more than a year, on and off.”
Beyond that, Wright’s film was heavily choreographed, so Marianelli’s music had to be ready especially early. “It was a lot of work up front, written before the script was even finished, particularly the two waltzes. I had to write them first, then adjust them when they were shot and then adjust them again during the editing. It was an inordinate amount of work, but all worth it.”
Related: OSCARS: Filmmakers Say ‘Anna Karenina’ Was A Calculated Risk Read More »
HBO Greenlights Comedy Pilot From Mike Judge, ‘King Of The Hill’ Duo & Scott Rudin
EXCLUSIVE: HBO has picked up to pilot Silicon Valley, a single-camera dark comedy from King Of The Hill co-creator/executive producer Mike Judge and fellow King Of The Hill executive producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. The three wrote the live-action project, which is executive produced by Scott Rudin as part of the overall deal he had at the pay cable network. Silicon Valley is set in the high tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success. Judge will direct the pilot, which is slated to film in the spring. Judge, Altschuler and Krinsky executive produce with Rudin and 3 Arts’ Michael Rotenberg and Tom Lassally. Following the 2010 end of Fox’s King Of The Hill after 13 seasons, Judge, Altschuler and Krinsky, repped by WME and 3 Arts, worked together on MTV’s revival of Judge’s 1990s animated staple Beavis and Butt-Head. While he has been focused primarily on animation, Judge has ventured into live-action comedy before, including writing and directing the cult 1999 feature Office Space, a live-action adaptation of his animated short.
HBO has ramped up comedy development this year with several green lights, pilots Hello Ladies, which has already been picked up to series, Getting On and Silicon Valley as well as Christopher Guest’s Family Tree, which received a straight to series order.
UBS Confab Wrap-Up: Is Big Media Losing Its Mojo?
The 40th annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference wrapped up today, and I can’t recall when I’ve seen so little energy at this industry institution. Sessions highlighted the growing fissures between pay TV distributors and programmers. But the debates weren’t filled with passion. There was little gossip about potentially big deals, mostly because companies aren’t making them at a time of so much uncertainty. Big Media execs didn’t even try to dazzle attendees with clips from their upcoming productions. (The movie business seemed to be an afterthought amid the discussions about changes in technologies, business models, and the health of the economy.) There also were several important no-shows at UBS: Comcast, Sony, and Lionsgate didn’t make it. And while Joel Klein provided an enlightening presentation about his new education initiative at News Corp, investors would have appreciated hearing more about what’s happening at a company that’s undergoing a major transition. It may be that CEOs are just exhausted; they now make presentations at investor confabs throughout the year.
Still, several stood out. Here are some of the highlights:
CBS’ Les Moonves: He delivered the week’s funniest line when he referred to actor Angus T. Jones as “that kid on Two And A Half Men who’s getting paid $300,000 per episode to talk bad about me.” (Jones recently called on people to stop watching the show due to its “filth.”) Media’s chief salesman says that ad sales are strong at his broadcast network. Auto and retail companies are helping to drive scatter prices up by mid to high teen percentages over the upfront market, and the Super Bowl is almost sold out with spots going for as much as $4M. Once lawmakers deal with the so-called fiscal cliff, Moonves expects the economy to take off. He also forecasts that ads soon will be sold based on the number of people who watch up to seven days after they air — up from three.
Related: Les Moonves Says Cable Operators Should Pay Up For Popular Networks: UBS Confab Read More »
Sports TV Class Action Against Comcast, DirecTV, MLB & NHL Still In Play
Major League Baseball, the NHL, Comcast and DirecTV failed today in their team effort to get an antitrust class action suit against them dismissed in a New York District Court. “Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that the 
NHL and MLB have used their monopoly power to restrict the broadcast of television programming in a manner that harms competition,” said the ruling (read it here) from U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin on Wednesday. The ruling means the class action instigated in the spring can go forward. The various plaintiffs claim that the leagues, regional sports networks and the cable and satellite companies have created monopolies over the airing of games on TV and online by dividing up territories and instating blackouts. In a response this summer, the defendants said the plaintiff’s claims were “meritless” and sought to have the case tossed. While the judge rejected the notion that self-proclaimed “middlemen” DirecTV, Comcast and the regional sports networks actively conspired to monopolize individual markets, Sheindlin kept everyone on the hook for their collective actions. “The notion that the exhibition of league games on television and the Internet is clearly a ‘league issue’ is contrary to long-standing precedent that agreements limiting the telecasting of professional sports games are subject to antitrust scrutiny,” Scheindlin wrote in the 53-page ruling.
A conference hearing in New York has been scheduled for December 18.
Read More »
Sullivan Stapleton & Ryan Kwanten Set For Aussie Crime Thriller ‘Cut Snake’
Don Groves is a Deadline contributor based in Sydney.
EXCLUSIVE: Sullivan Stapleton and Ryan Kwanten will play ex-cons who set fire to a
nightclub, killing 15 people in Cut Snake, an Australian thriller to be produced by Matchbox Pictures. Also attached is Rachael Taylor, who will play the girlfriend of Kwanten’s character. Matchbox’s Tony Ayres, who was the series producer on the TV drama series The Slapand is an exec producer on the U.S. remake, will direct. The script by Blake Ayshford is inspired by a real-life incident in 1973 when Brisbane’s Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub fire was torched, killing 15 people. EOne will handle international sales and its Australian subsidiary eOne Hopscotch will release in Oz. Producer Trevor Blainey, who is co-producing with Michael McMahon, tells Deadline shooting will start in mid-2013 and they are in the latter stages of assembling the financing. Read More »
Warner Bros Defends ‘Hobbit’s Barf Beef
We’ve all seen movies that made us want to puke–especially during the summer–but Warner Bros is taking exception to a silly spate of reports that the revolutionary 48-frames per second format of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had left some audience members nauseous and dizzy, even complaining of migraines. This seems to have all the veracity of those rumors that Entertainment Tonight‘s Mary Hart was creating seizures among watchers prone to them (the rest of us just felt our brain cells atrophy listening to her inane, gushy sweet celeb coverage). Here is Warner Bros’ statement:
“We have been screening the full-length HFR 3D presentation of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY extensively and feedback has been extremely positive, with none of thousands who have seen the film projected in this format expressing any of the issues described by two anonymous sources in media reports. We share the filmmakers’ belief that by offering filmgoers the additional choice of HFR 3D, alongside traditional viewing formats, they have an opportunity to be part of a groundbreaking advancement in the moviegoing experience and we look forward to having audiences everywhere share in this new way of storytelling.”
Warner Bros Grasps ‘Boston Strangler’ Pitch For Casey Affleck
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has acquired Boston Strangler, a thriller pitch about the desperate search for the murderer who terrorized the Boston area during the early 1960s. Kevin McCormick‘s Warner-based Langley Park shingle will produce, and the pitch was bought from Casey Affleck and fellow Boston native screenwriter Chuck Maclean. Affleck hopes to star as one of the detectives who were part of the Strangler Squad responsible for solving the crime, and he will be exec producer.
The script will be written by Maclean, whose script Bridges On The Fort Point Channel made the 2011 Black List and who is writing Storming Las Vegas for Summit. With a tone similar to Se7en and Zodiac, they will cover the most haunting unsolved serial murder story in U.S. history. While Albert DeSalvo was convicted of crimes unrelated to the Boston Strangler case, the public was spun to believe he was the man behind the 13 gruesome murders of women in Boston for over a year and a half. There is still belief that more than one killer was involved, and that DeSalvo was a pawn in a bigger conspiracy. Read More »
Marc Buckland To Direct NBC Comedy Pilot ‘The Gates’
EXCLUSIVE: Sought-after pilot director Marc Buckland has been tapped to helm The Gates, NBC‘s recently picked up single-camera comedy pilot from writers Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith, Kapital Entertainment and 20th Century Fox TV. The project, which was given an early green light, is based on the British series of the same name that premiered on Sky Living in August. It is an adult ensemble comedy set at the front gates of an elementary school drop-off and revolves around the parents, school staff and 15-minute social minefield they have to navigate at the beginning and end of each school day. Yuspa and Goldsmith wrote the script and executive produce with Kapital Entertainment’s Aaron Kaplan as well as Laurence Bowen and Philip Clarke of Feelgood Fiction, the UK production company behind the original series. Read More »
Jennifer Love Hewitt Developing Movie For Lifetime Inspired By Derfwad Manor Blog
EXCLUSIVE: Lifetime has put in development Mrs. G’s Bigger Love, an original movie project executive produced by Jennifer Love Hewitt. Written by Julie Golden, the film is based on an entry in Heather Gatticio’s blog Derfwad Manor. In the post, Gatticio, a happily married mother of two, 
muses hypothetically about becoming a female polygamist, marrying the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem. The Lifetime project follows a bored Seattle housewife’s fictional day-in-the-the-life-of-a-female-polygamist blog. 
When the blog attracts the attention of a book agent and she realizes the fame, money and validation she so craved during her bored and frustrated housewife existence, she finds herself forced to cover up her “normal” life in order to perpetuate the myth. Hewitt executive produces with Jeanie Bradley, executive at her Fedora Films. Mrs. G.’s Bigger Love stems from Fedora’s first-look deal with Lifetime. It joins a drama Hewitt has in the works at the cable network, an adaptation of her book The Day I Shot Cupid. Golden is repped by APA.
‘Go On’s Allison Miller Joins ‘There’s Always Woodstock’
Allison Miller is heading to Woodstock. The Go On series regular will play the lead role of Catherine Brown in the Rita Merson-directed romcom. There’s Always Woodstock follows would-be songwriter Brown as she returns to her dead parents’ home in Woodstock, New York for the summer. This is Merson’s directorial feature debut. Merson, Sunrise Pictures’ Peter Schafer as well Jenny Hinkley are producing There’s Always Woodstock. Joe Dain and Jim Klock are executive producers with manager David Guillod serving as Co-Executive Producer. Formerly on Fox’s now cancelled Terra Nova, Miller currently stars alongside Matthew Perry on his new NBC comedy. The actress also has created Michael Bolton’s Daughter Is Destroying My Life, which ABC has put in development. How I Met Your Mother producer Tami Sagher is writing the comedy pilot with the singer himself starring. Miller is repped by ICM Partners and managed by Thruline Entertainment.
Decker Anstrom Joins Discovery Board
The former president of Landmark Communications, and chairman of The Weather Channel, was picked by Advance/Newhouse which controls more than 25% of Discovery’s voting shares and has the right to name three board members. Anstrom replaces Larry Kramer who left in June after he was named publisher of USA Today. Discovery says in an SEC filing that Anstrom likely will serve on the board’s Audit Committee. Once the cable industry’s chief lobbyist, Anstrom was a member of Comcast’s board for a decade ending September 2011 when the company said he left “in order to satisfy other professional commitments that, among other things, will involve significant foreign travel.”
OSCARS: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Gives Sony Early Awards Heat, But Will It Last?
With its one-two punch now of Best Film and Best Director wins from the first two voting bodies on the so-called critics
awards circuit — the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Review — Sony‘s Zero Dark Thirty directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal is establishing itself as a powerful and promising early force in the race and only stands to add to the total as a tsunami of critics awards are unleashed over the next couple of weeks (including LA, Boston, etc, later this week). In many recent years critics groups have tended to follow each other like lemmings, and sometimes — especially if it is a nearly unanimous choice like Bigelow and Boal’s The Hurt Locker in 2009 (although NBR virtually ignored that one) – it can definitely have an impact on Oscar voters. Academy voters at the very least will be rushing this year to see everything they think they should see in time for the earlier voting period starting December 17 through the holidays to January 3rd. Big early wins like this won’t go unnoticed.
Related: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Debuts: Can It Overcome Controversy To Wow Oscar Voters?
Of course there can also be a great divide as we saw in 2010, when critics groups (including NYFCC and NBR) almost in lockstep chose Sony’s The Social Network right through to its victory at the Golden Globes (the HFPA often likes to go with a perceived winner). That film was then completely upended at the Producers Guild and subsequent industry awards by upstart The King’s Speech, which of course went on to win four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director for Tom Hooper.
Related: Deadline Awards Watch With Pete Hammond, Episode 3
Although Sony should be feeling very good about the way things are going right now, this studio which had high hopes based on that torrent of critics awards for Social Network was obviously none too happy as that season played out the way it did — especially since it looked so good in December and most of January. My guess is with that in mind they are going to grab this early momentum for Zero Dark Thirty and run with it. It recently hired Michael Kupferberg of Strategy PR as a consultant. Isn’t it ironic that again one of their major competitors is a Hooper film, Universal’s Les Miserables. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate Sony bummer if he were able to come along and again rain on the studio’s parade when the guild shows roll around? Read More »
‘Argo’ Behind The Scenes Featurette: Video
The Ben Affleck-directed period drama, which was just tapped to receive the Ensemble Performance Award at the Palm Springs festival in January, continues its awards push. Here’s a featurette that dropped today.
New Regency To Make ‘Splinter Cell’ With Tom Hardy
Related: Tom Hardy Set For ‘Splinter Cell’ Movie At Ubisoft
Ubisoft® and New Regency announced that they are partnering on the forthcoming Tom Clancy’s™ Splinter Cell® film.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the film and television division of Ubisoft, will develop the Splinter Cell movie in close collaboration with New Regency. Ubisoft also recently announced it attached award-winning actor Tom Hardy and up-and-coming screenwriter Eric Warren Singer (“The International”) to the film.
BREAKING: ‘Lincoln’ Invited To Screen To U.S. Senate By Majority Leader Harry Reid
UPDATE 5:36 PM: I’m now told that, within the hour, the screening date just moved to December 19th.
BREAKING… EXCLUSIVE: I’ve just learned that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has invited Steven Spielberg to screen Lincoln on December 19th 12th. But what’s different about this invitation is that Reid is offering to provide the U.S. Senate to Spielberg as the theatre. Reid’s invite only recently went out — and I’m told Spielberg will accept for his movie to play in the historic setting. No one is yet sure if this has ever been done by a movie before. (Of course, movies play at the White house all the time, and Lincoln is no exception: it screened November 15th for President Obama, Spielberg, cast and crew members at the executive mansion.) The film’s release was delayed until after the 2012 Election — but DreamWorks still scheduled a special extended 2-minute TV ad during the commercial break right after the first Presidential Debate. (Watch it here.) I’m told Reid, a Democrat, is a huge fan of the biopic about the most famous Republican president. The movie is playing well all across the country, primarily for adult audiences, but in red states as well as blue states. Politicos and pundits on both sides of the aisle have praised the film, which is Oscar-touted. Now it remains to be seen if Reid’s invite will be politicized — and if the attendance during this lame … Read More »
Glenn Beck & Vince Vaughn Join For Online Reality Series ‘Pursuit Of The Truth’
Glenn Beck and Vince Vaughn are going into the reality TV business together. The former Fox News host and the actor-producer will be executive producers of Pursuit Of The Truth, a competition series for Beck’s online network TheBlaze. Beck announced the deal on his radio show today. “That should make everybody’s head spin. What the hell is Vince Vaughn doing with a crazy man? I know, that’s what my friends say. Glenn, what are you doing with the crazy man Vince Vaughn,” said the host. TheBlaze, Vaughn’s Wild West Picture Show Prods 
and Go Go Lucky Entertainment will produce the show, which will see 20 contestants fight for the prize of financing and global distribution for their documentary feature. “Our goal is to create a powerful annual platform to help filmmakers tell important and engaging stories,” said Wild West’s Peter Billingsley. The series is currently taking applications online until January 31. Go Go will lead the production of the nine-episode Truth, and producers say the series will debut on TheBlaze in spring 2013. Read More »
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