Lots of little bits of interesting entertainment news in the trades today:
- Michael Pitt continues in his attempts to be the next River Phoenix. The Hollywood Reporter (subscription required for full story) reports that he will star in Gus Van Sant’s next film. Last Days will deal with the Seattle grunge music scene and be produced by HBO Films, which also produced Van Sant’s Cannes-winning Elephant. Please all of you out there in LA, keep Pitt away from The Viper Room.
- The long in-the-works, on-again/off-again, live-action version of Fat Albert seems to be back on. Forest Whitaker was originally set to direct, but according to HR he and Bill Cosby apparently did not share the same vision for the characterJoel Zwick, still hot for directing indie blockbuster (not an oxymoron anymore) My Big Fat Greek Wedding will helm the script written by Bill Cosby, Lowell Ganz and Charles Kipps. Strangely enough, there is no mention of the contribution by Peabs, and I’m sure he probably wrote the whole script himself. The big news today, though, is that the title role has finally been cast, and will be played by Kenan Thompson, who got his start on Nickelodeon with ths hows All That and Kenan and Kel and is currently a “Featured Player” on Saturday Night Life on which he first appeared doing an impression of … Bill Cosby.
- The premiere episode of The Sopranos may have been less exciting than was hoped, but it had everyone watching. 12.1-Million viewers watched — that’s about 1/3 of all HBO households which is a huge share number, and more people than watched the Sex and the City finale. It came in first in the key demo of adults 18-49. Still, fewer people watched it than watched the fourth season premiere back in … when was that? I don’t … six or seven years ago? Now that they got the fifth season pilot out of the way, hopefully the episodes themselves will get up to par. Bringing in Steve Buscemi and Robert Loggia sure as hell doesn’t hurt.
- Now that Jon Cryer has managed to break his streak of cancelled television series and actually appear in a moderate hit, Patrick Dempsey seems to think he can do the same. According to Variety, he’s been cast in a drama pilot for ABC which is sometimes untitled and sometimes called Surgeons. He will play a — get this — surgeon and “attending physician who supervises the show’s interns.” Ahhh … so it’s a horror series. But I thought Kingdom Hospital was actually doing well.
- Both trades report that big-time YA author Judy Blume and Disney have come together in a deal to develop several of her novels, starting with “Deenie.”
- In case you haven’t heard, DISH Network subscribers have lost all their Viacom-owned channels including all the MTV Networks (MTV, VH-1, Spike TV, Nickelodeon, BET), Showtime and CBS owned-and-operated local affiliates. This reminds me of the little Disney-Time Warner tussle a few years ago in NYC when suddenly ABC/Channel 7 was gone, replaced by a scroll telling people to blame Disney for not acting fairly in the negotiations of retransmission rights. Disney wanted Time Warner Cable to carry The Disney Channel on its basic tier rather than charge a premium monthly rate for it, and withheld rights to it’s local ABC channel until the agreed. Viacom seems to be doing something similar to DISH, but there’s no way DISH comes out of this OK if it lingers.
- And finally, speaking of that old Disney-Time Warner animosity, this should help seal Michael Eisner’s eventual plank-walking: Variety reported today that Time Warner Entertainment and Networks head Jeff Bewkes is making a pitch to Pixar that Warner Bros. would be the ideal home for the top animation studio responsible for Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc. and both Toy Story films. If TW is able to grab what Eisner and Disney lost, that would probably seal Eisner’s fate. Of course, by “fate,” I mean some multi-million (100-Million?) dollar severance package and the ability to retire and sit on a beach in the Bahamas (or whever the hell he wants) uninterrupted for the rest of eternity.
Out of Focus 