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[08/14/15 - 11:29 PM]
Development Update: Friday, August 14
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!


ANIMAL KINGDOM (TNT/WHT; W: Jonathan Lisco; D: John Wells) - Shawn Hatosy ("Southland") has signed onto the drama pilot, about 17-year-old Josh (Finn Cole), who moves in with his wild, free-wheeling relatives in their Southern California beach town and is pulled into their life of indulgence and excess. He'll play Pope, "fresh out of prison, and the oldest and most dangerous of the Cody Boys. A volatile man, Pope did time for a bank robbery in which he was the only one captured, and the time he spent inside has made him harder and angrier, and even less predictable." Ellen Barkin, Jake Weary and Scott Speedman also star. (Deadline.com)


BLOOD WILL OUT (TNT, New!) - Walter Kirn's autobiography is being developed as an eight-hour limited series at the cable channel. Said effort, subtitled "The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade," revolves around "the 15-year friendship between Kirn and German con artist Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, who went by the name Clark Rockefeller." Kirn and Sheldon Turner will pen the script for TriStar Television with Vendetta Productions' Jennifer Klein also executive producing. (Deadline.com)


BUMBLEBERRY LANE (NBC, New!) - Gary Janetti ("Vicious") has scored a put pilot commitment from the Peacock for a new single-camera comedy "set behind the scenes of a racially diverse, politically correct children's puppet program where everyone and everything is incredibly, politically incorrect." Said effort is set up at Warner Bros. Television. (Deadline.com)


DEBT (WGN America, New!) - Actor Vincent Kartheiser, writer Ian MacDonald and director Neil LaBute have set up a potential drama at the network about "a man who, having lost everything important to him, decides to partner with the head of a somewhat-fraudulent collection agency and get back at the rich who steal from the poor." The project is up for straight-to-series consideration with a penalty attached if it doesn't move forward. Christina Wayne, Jennifer Kennedy and Bradley Walsh will also executive produce alongside said trio for the Endemol Shine Studios-based Assembly Entertainment. (Deadline.com)


FOR NOW (ABC, New!) - YouTube staple Connor Hines is developing a new comedy at the Alphabet about "a group of twentysomethings living in New York City and explores dating, friendships and finding yourself." He'll write, direct and star in the project, the result of a blind pilot script deal with ABC last summer. No studio was given. (Variety.com)


POWERLESS (NBC, New!) - Ben Queen ("A to Z") has landed a pilot production commitment from the Peacock for a new single-camera comedy "set at one of the worst insurance companies in America - with the twist being that it also takes place in the universe of DC Comics." He'll write and executive produce for Warner Bros. Television. (Deadline.com)


RED (NBC, New!) - Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner's comic book-turned-movie franchise - about "a group of REDs (Retired Extremely Dangerous operatives) who return to action after the CIA sends assassins after one of them" - is being developed as a drama at the Peacock. The film's screenwriters Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber as well as producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian are behind the project, which is set up at Lionsgate Television and Di Bonaventura Pictures Television. Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Helen Mirren and Karl Urban toplined the features. (Deadline.com)


SNOWFALL (FX/FXP; W: Eric Amadio & John Singleton; D: John Singleton) - Arturo Del Puerto is the latest addition to the pilot, a one-hour drama set against the infancy of the crack cocaine epidemic and its ultimate radical impact on the culture as we know it. The story follows three characters on a violent collision course: Franklin Saint (Damson Idris), young street entrepreneur on a quest for power; Gustavo Zapata (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), a Mexican wrestler turned gangster in search of his American dream; and Logan Miller (Billy Magnussen), a prominent family's "black sheep" desperate to escape his father's shadow. He'll play Rico Santiago, "Logan Miller's right-hand man as they venture into the L.A. cocaine trade." DeRay Davis and Malcolm Mays also star. (Deadline.com)


AND IN OTHER NEWS... - Syfy has axed its late-night entry "Reactor" (@huntsbergerjunk); Rachel DiPillo is the latest series regular cast on NBC's "Chicago Med" as Dr. Sarah Reese, "an emergency room intern who's fresh out of medical school" (Deadline.com); Julian Acosta will recur on "Madam Secretary" as "President Dalton's (Keith Carradine) confidant and ambitious new National Security Advisor" (Deadline.com); Richie Sambora will drop by FOX's "Grandfathered" as "a bandleader performing at a birthday party for baby Edie" (TVLine.com); and ABC Studios is "in the very early stages of developing" a half-hour comedy adaptation of Garry Marshall's 1984 film "The Flamingo Kid" (TVLine.com).






  [august 2015]  
S
M
T
W
T
F
S
      


· A TO Z (NBC)
· ANIMAL KINGDOM (TNT)
· BLOOD WILL OUT (TNT)
· BUMBLEBERRY LANE (NBC)
· CHICAGO MED (NBC)
· DEBT (WGN)
· DEVELOPMENT UPDATE (TFC)
· FOR NOW (ABC)
· GRANDFATHERED (FOX)
· MADAM SECRETARY (CBS)
· POWERLESS (NBC)
· REACTOR (SYFY)
· RED (NBC)
· SNOWFALL (FX)
· SOUTHLAND (TNT)
· VICIOUS (PBS)





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