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[07/28/15 - 11:32 PM]
Development Update: Tuesday, July 28
By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)

LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:

Looking to keep track of all the various projects in development? Click here to visit our signature "Devwatch" section. There visitors can view our listings by network, genre, studio and even development stage (ordered to pilot, cast-contingent, script, etc.). It's updated every day!


ICON (NBC, New!) - Robin Bissell (The Hunger Games) is set to team with Cindy Crawford for a new fictionalized drama which "revolves around the modeling wars in the '80s that occurred between Ford Modeling Agency and Elite Model Management." Anne Heche and James Tupper also serve as executive producers on the project, which is set up at Universal Television. Crawford however won't have an on-camera role. (Variety.com)


PARADISE PICTURES (USA/UCP; W: Rick Muirragui; D: John Dahl) - Georgina Reilly, Daren Kagasoff and Matthew Del Negro have all signed onto the drama pilot, about ambitious people striving to get to the top in 1940s Hollywood, when the dream factory was at its peak. Little do they know the challenges they're about to face: the end of studio monopolies, the blacklist and the new disruptive technology of television. Reilly will play Gretchen Whalon, "a successful screenwriter at rival film studio RKO Pictures and ex-girlfriend of the head of production at Paradise Pictures, Tom Kirby (Morgan Spector)"; with Del Negro as Ray Aberdeen, "the head of security at Paradise Pictures, and Kirby's right-hand man"; and Kagasoff as Wyatt Osborne, "an assistant in the studio's editing department whose real goal is to be a director." Denyse Tontz and Duane Henry also star. (Deadline.com)


UNTITLED MICHELLE LAWLER/PAULA PELL PROJECT (HBO, New!) - Paula Pell and Michelle Lawler have sold a new comedy at the pay channel about "a fallen Olympic figure skater who returns home to Massachusetts to confront her former bullish coach and narcissistic mother who have cashed in on her success." Pell and Sue Naegle are the executive producers with Lawler as a co-executive producer. (Deadline.com)


UNTITLED TIG NOTARO PROJECT (Amazon, New!) - Comedian Tig Notaro is set to star in a new semi-autobiographical comedy at the streaming service in which "Tig Notaro has just recovered from an abdominal disease that has left her gaunt, wasted, exhausted and pretty much stripped of everything except her finely honed sense of the absurd. Abruptly summoned home to Pass Christian, Miss., to take her ailing mother off life support, Tig finds herself dealing with her clingy girlfriend, her dysfunctional Gulf Coast family and the loss of the one person who held everything together." Diablo Cody (Juno) will co-write the half-hour alongside Notaro with 3 Arts Entertainment's Dave Becky and Pig Newton's Louis C.K. and Blair Breard also executive producing for FX Productions. Said effort was previously set up at FX itself. (THR.com)


AND IN OTHER NEWS... - Syfy has greenlit a sequel to Saturday's original movie "Lavalantula" entitled "2 Lava 2 Lantula!" (Deadline.com); Frank Langella has been cast as Senator Richard Russell in HBO's Bryan Cranston-led "All the Way" (Deadline.com); Brent Sexton has booked an arc on Amazon's "Bosch" as "a former police detective who was shoved out of the department by internal affairs and who has a long history with Bosch" (Deadline.com); Ben Koldyke is bound for "Masters of Sex" as "an ex-football star who now coaches youth football and has recently moved into the house next door to Bill and his wife Libby" (Deadline.com); Terry O'Quinn has signed onto season two of "Secrets & Lies" as "Eric's (Michael Ealy) father, John Warner, a charming and lovable finance magnate and the adoring father of three children" (Deadline.com);

Drew Powell's Butch Gilzean has been named a series regular on "Gotham" (Deadline.com); Dora Madison's Jessica "Chili" Chilton likewise has been promoted to series regular on "Chicago Fire" (THR.com); Sakina Jaffrey and Ajay Mehta have been cast as Mindy Kaling's TV parents on "The Mindy Project" (EOline.com); Ben Mendelsohn's Danny Rayburn will return as a series regular on season two of Netflix's "Bloodline" (TVLine.com); Brad Turner has signed on as an executive producer/in-house director on FOX's "The Frankenstein Code" (Variety.com); and Shelley Fabares won't reprise her role as Christine on NBC's "Coach" revival due to health issues, prompting the producers to say her character "passed away at some point during the intervening 18 years" (TVLine.com).






  [july 2015]  
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· 2 LAVA 2 LANTULA! (SYFY)
· ALL THE WAY (HBO)
· BLOODLINE (NETFLIX)
· BOSCH (AMAZON)
· CHICAGO FIRE (NBC)
· COACH (NBC)
· DEVELOPMENT UPDATE (TFC)
· GOTHAM (FOX)
· ICON (NBC)
· LAVALANTULA (SYFY)
· MASTERS OF SEX (SHOWTIME)
· MINDY PROJECT, THE (HULU)
· ONE MISSISSIPPI (AMAZON)
· PARADISE PICTURES (USA)
· SECOND CHANCE (FOX)
· SECRETS & LIES (ABC)
· UNTITLED LAWLER & PELL PROJECT (HBO)





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