TNT has given the green light to Night and Day, a pilot from 24 co-creator Joel Surnow and Todd Robinson says The Hollywood Reporter. The fast-paced, gritty drama about the life of an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms marks Surnow’s first series project since he departed “24″ in February after seven years.
Christina Ricci has signed on for a multiepisode arc on TNT’s drama Saving Grace. Ricci will play a young detective who temporarily partners with Grace, whose current partner, Ham Dewey (Kenneth Johnson), is going on a leave of absence. She is set to appear in three episodes of the drama.
Scott Bakula has been tapped to star opposite Ray Romano and Andre Braugher in TNT’s drama pilot Men of a Certain Age. Additionally, Emmy winner Scott Winant has come aboard to direct the pilot, from Romano and Mike Royce. The show explores the bonds of male friendship through the eyes of three college buddies, Joe (Romano), Owen (Braugher) and Terry (Bakula), who are in their 40s. Terry is a handsome, intelligent but struggling actor. Also cast is the pilot is Richard Gant as Owen Sr.
Turner Broadcasting announced Wednesday it will try to extend its winning streak in scripted dramas on TNT with a group of series in development from such players as George Clooney, Donnie Wahlberg and “24″ co-creator Joel Surnow. Four of the TNT series revealed Wednesday at Turner’s upfront presentation at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City are cop-themed.
Among the cop shows, Delta Blues is about a Memphis policeman who is also an Elvis impersonator. It’s executive produced by Clooney, Grant Heslov, Abby Wolf-Weiss, Liz Garcia and Josh Horto, from Warner Horizon Television and SmokeHouse. Morse Code is set in Boston and stars Wahlberg as a DEA agent, as previously reported. It is produced by Wahlberg, Jon Avnet and Walon Green with Warner Horizon Television. Surnow’s project is yet to be titled, focusing on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent. Surnow is the executive producer with Todd Robinson and also the writer. Angel City is an Adam-12-like drama written by L.A. cop Will Beall and Barry Schindel with Mandalay Television.
Continue reading TNT Announces More Original Programming For 2008-09
TNT has ordered 13 episode of the drama Truth in Advertising, starring Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanagh. They play highly creative ad executives whose professional partnership and friendship are put to the test when one is named creative director of their firm. Monica Potter, Griffin Dunne and Sarah Clarke co-star. Truth in Advertising, which will premiere in 2009, is the third of TNT’s four 2007 drama pilots to be picked up to series, following orders for Raising the Bar and Leverage. The fourth, The Family Man, is not going forward.
Ray Romano is looking to return to television as a slightly neurotic, divorced father on cable network TNT’s pilot Men of a Certain Age. The character-based project will take a wry look at what it means to be a guy approaching midlife while also exploring the bonds of male friendship, all through the eyes of three college buddies who are in their 40s. Romano will play Joe, who had dreams of being a pro golfer but instead owns and runs a party store. His two best friends are Owen, an overstressed black husband and father who is a car salesman at his dad’s dealership, and Terry, an offbeat, handsome, intelligent and still struggling-to-make it actor. Romano wrote the script with Mike Royce, a writer-producer from Everybody Loves Raymond.
Turner Broadcasting’s TNT and TBS have signed a deal for network rights to several of Warner Brothers high-profile titles, most of which haven’t been released to theaters yet. Movies in the package include 10,000 B.C., The Dark Knight, Speed Racer, Get Smart, Yes Man and the Leonardo DiCaprio-Russell Crowe vehicle Body of Lies. The Warners/Turner deal goes well beyond just prebuys; six other pictures already released in theaters round out the deal, one of the biggest in the last few years: I Am Legend, Fred Claus, The Bucket List, Fool’s Gold, TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and the animated Ant Bully.
Warner Brothers is, in effect, selling an entire slate of movies to Turner in the network window. The studio pitched the Dark Knight package to USA and FX, the two other aggressive buyers of theatrical movies in cable, but Turner stepped up, at least in part because its rivals had engineered some recent major prebuys. USA bought Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from Paramount and Sex & the City: The Movie and Semi-Pro from New Line. FX locked up a batch of titles from Sony/Columbia, including two Judd Apatow movies, one of which, Step Brothers, stars Will Ferrell.
TBS will be able to start running Ant Bully in June; TNT will get TMNT in October 2009. The rest of the movies will trickle in to the two networks throughout 2010 and 2011. Before the titles get to TBS and TNT, HBO will get them in the pay-TV window as part of the network’s theatrical-output deal with Warner Brothers.
TNT has picked up Dean Devlin’s action drama pilot Leverage to series. The cable network has ordered 13 episodes of the project starring Timothy Hutton and executive produced by Devlin and John Rogers. Leverage, from Devlin’s Electric Entertainment, follows a team of thieves, hackers and grifters who take revenge against those who abuse power. Devlin directed the pilot for Leverage, which was written by Rogers and Chris Downey. Leverage marks the second series pickup for TNT this year, following the 10-episode order for Steven Bochco’s Raising the Bar last month.
variety is reporting that TNT has bought the cable-exclusive rights to Bones, the Fox series about a female forensic anthropologist that’s now in its third year. TNT will air multiple weekly runs of Bones in fall 2009. But beginning Tuesday at 10 p.m., TNT will also run Bones as a weekly series, part of a clause that calls for a repurposing of the episodes, starting with the first hour that kicked off on Fox in September 2005. Bones stars Emily Deschanel as the forensic expert and David Boreanaz as an FBI agent. The self-contained episodes frequently play on the sexual tension between the two.
TV Guide is reporting that TNT has given a 10-episode order to Raising the Bar, a new legal drama from Steven Bochco. Raising The Bar will star Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a public defender. Gloria Reuben (ER) has been cast Gosselaar’s boss and Malcolm In The Middle’s Jane Kaczmarek will portray an erratic judge.