HBO has added to its growing slate of 2008 pilots. The cable network handed out orders to three projects: Treme, a post-Katrina-themed New Orleans drama from The Wire creator David Simon and Eric Overmyer; The Washingtonienne, a D.C.-set comedy based on Jessica Cutler’s book that Sarah Jessica Parker is executive producing; and a drama from Terry Winter and Martin Scorsese set in 1920s Atlantic City. The Winter-Scorsese pilot, based on the book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, is set to shoot in January.
Stephen Root has signed on for a three-episode arc in HBO’s upcoming drama True Blood. He will play Eddie Gautier, a lonely vampire smitten with Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis). Root’s co-stars include Canadian/New Zealander Anna Paquin as telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and Britisher Stephen Moyer as vampire Bill Compton. Carrie Preston also stars.
HBO is adding additional runs of its drama In Treatment on two other HBO channels says The Hollywood Reporter. The half-hour drama, whose 45 episodes are airing five nights a week, centers on therapist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne). Each episode shows a session with one of his patients who returns for another session on the same weekday every week. Beginning Monday, February 18, HBO2 will run the first four episodes of that day’s patient back-to-back all week. Beginning Sunday, Feb. 24, HBO Signature will present the five weeks’ worth of episodes consecutively over five nights.
HBO is canceling Inside the NFL after more than 30 years on the air. The highlights show that is a collaboration of HBO Sports and NFL Films is being dropped by HBO because there are plenty of other places to see those highlights today in a world of 24-hour cable, the Internet and the NFL Network.
The NFL said Wednesday that it will continue with Inside the NFL on another network. There have been discussions with three or four other unnamed outlets, though no deal has been made. The show will kick off again in the fall, regardless. Inside the NFL has been the longest-running show on cable TV and is anchored by HBO and NBC host Bob Costas as well as football analysts Dan Marino, Cris Carter and Cris Collinsworth.
David Milch is returning to his roots with his third drama pilot at HBO in three years. Last of the Ninth deals with rampant NYPD corruption in the 1970s. Milch co-wrote the pilot with fellow NYPD Blue executive producer Bill Clark, a former New York homicide detective. Milch is a cop drama veteran, having received his start on Steven Bochco’s Hill Street Blues before moving on to co-create ABC’s Emmy-winning NYPD Blue with Bochco.
Milch tackled similarly tough themes in his dark Western Deadwood, which ended its three-season HBO run in 2006. Last of the Ninth stems from Milch’s development deal with HBO, which was extended in August, following the network’s cancellation of John From Cincinnati after its first season.
Ron Shelton has been set by HBO Films to direct a movie about San Francisco Giants home run hero Barry Bonds that will air on HBO, says Variety. Bonds ended a season in which he broke baseball’s all-time home run record only to be indicted on federal charges for perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying under oath when he told a grand jury he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.
HBO Films has acquired rights to Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports, a book by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the San Francisco Chronicle reporters who broke numerous stories about the nutrition company accused of distributing illegal steroids to athletes including Bonds, Oakland A’s and New York Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi and Olympic gold medal sprinter Marion Jones. Shelton will write the script with his Tin Cup writing partner John Norville as soon as the writers strike ends.
Kevin Weisman, formerly of Alias, has signed on for a guest role on NBC’s new hit spy comedy Chuck. Weisman will play a poisonous bad guy in the November 12 episode which is titled “Chuck Versus the Truth.”. There is no word on if this is a one time shot or multiple episode gig. Weisman currently has a supporting role on CBS’s vampire crime drama, Moonlight.
HBO is developing Intelligence, a comedy series project starring Bradley Cooper and Patton Oswalt. The project, created by Michael Patrick Jann, is a workplace comedy about an elite counter-intelligence unit hidden undercover as disgruntled civil servants. Jann will write “Intelligence” and is on board to direct. He will executive produce alongside Cooper and Oswalt.
HBO has renewed the hit comedy series Entourage for a fifth season and Flight of the Conchords for a second season, it was announced by Carolyn Strauss, President, HBO Entertainment. Currently debuting new episodes back-to-back on Sunday night, both series conclude their current season September 2, and will return with new episodes in 2008. “Entourage is a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, and Flight of the Conchords has quickly become a show to watch,” said Strauss. “I’m delighted that we’ll be bringing new seasons of these distinctive series to our subscribers.”
Variety is reporting that HBO and Deadwood creator David Milch are prepping what could be his next project - a NYPD police drama. Sources say the project will follow a Vietnam veteran who returns to the U.S. in the early 1970s and joins the New York City police force. With Milch’s John From Cincinnati now officially canceled, the cops project has now been revived.