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HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:15 pm
by Nordic
HBO Picks Up Aaron Sorkin Series About Cable TV News

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Aaron Sorkin is a man who likes getting deep inside high-pressure work environments – see his résumé, which includes the television series “Sports Night” and “The West Wing,” and his Academy Award-winning screenplay for “The Social Network.” And his latest project should offer plenty of opportunities for the verbal fireworks and walk-and-talk tracking shots he favors. HBO said on Thursday that it had picked up a new series from Mr. Sorkin set in the competitive world of cable-television news.

In a news release the show (which does not yet have a title or a premiere date) is described as chronicling a television anchor and his staff as “they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements.” Jeff Daniels (whose films include “The Squid and the Whale” and “Good Night, and Good Luck”) will play the fictional news anchor Will McAllister; Emily Mortimer (“Our Idiot Brother”) will play his executive producer, MacKenzie; and Sam Waterston (“Law & Order”) will play their boss, Charlie.

Other cast members, who will play their crew, include Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr., Olivia Munn, Dev Patel and Thomas Sadoski. Mr. Sorkin will be an executive producer on the series and wrote the script for the pilot episode, which is directed by Greg Mottola (“Adventureland”). Scott Rudin and Alan Poul will also be executive producers for the series. HBO did not say how many episodes were ordered or when production would begin.


http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/ ... e-tv-news/

I know people who worked on the pilot. Not quite sure what to make of this. Emily Mortimer appears to be the "bad guy", the corporate dick who dictates what Jeff Daniels says on the air.

Hopefully it will be scathing, but you never know.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:02 pm
by norton ash
The West Wing will always be my favourite sci-fi/fantasy series.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:31 pm
by Simulist
Good line, Norton. And true.

My guess is that Sorkin's new series will be scathing-enough to garner plenty of attention, but not scathing-enough to jeopardize said attention. In short, it will probably be a lot like The West Wing. (See Norton's comment for details.)

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 6:03 pm
by Nordic
FWIW this show got picked up and is being shot right now for HBO. It might have a new title. Jeff Daniels seems to be the lead. Sam Waterson is in it too and Emily Mortimer, and I heard Jane Fonda was going to be joining them.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:42 am
by Nordic


Just out. Have to say it looks pretty damn good.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:09 pm
by MinM
'The Newsroom' Caught Up In A Partisan Divide
Image
In Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama, The Newsroom, producer MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) and anchorman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) tackle real hard-hitting news stories and call out those who don't tell the truth.

If anyone in Hollywood wears his idealism like a boutonniere, it's Aaron Sorkin. As The West Wing made clear, Sorkin loves telling stories about principled individuals — especially liberals — struggling with institutions that might compromise their integrity.

He's at it again in The Newsroom, a breezy, preachy, exasperating new HBO series set inside an imaginary cable network. Jeff Daniels stars as crusty but decent Will McAvoy, a once-Olympian anchor who's begun playing it so safe he's known as "the Jay Leno of news." ...

Now, if you're a news junkie like me, The Newsroom could hardly appear more alluring, for it promises to do two fascinating things: take a smart look at how someone might try to do serious news in our current, unserious culture; and explore the complex lives of the men and women who try to do it.

I'd like to say that the show lives up to this promise, but after seeing the first four episodes, I have my doubts. Yes, Sorkin knows how to write sharp, highly watchable scenes. Yes, Daniels is believable as Will, who physically resembles that shambly bear Chris Matthews. And yes, the cast boasts some terrific young actors — in particular Alison Pill, John Gallagher and Thomas Sadoski as producers who get caught up in a romantic triangle.

Yet for all its virtues, The Newsroom often feels shockingly dated, as if Sorkin had never seen shows like The Wire, Mad Men, or Girls, shows that have raised the level of the TV game. Far from portraying his reporters and producers as adults with rich, dark, complicated souls, Sorkin turns them into overgrown teenagers...

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/21/155501538 ... san-divide

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:37 am
by justdrew
The Villagers seem to be out in force to poo-poo this as much as possible before it even airs, got to get their preordained narrative started early dontchaknow.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/22/c ... news-show/

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 2:28 pm
by Belligerent Savant
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Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 4:13 pm
by MinM

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 5:30 am
by Elvis



I only watched the "Supercut" above and was reminded...I hate television. Maybe just American television---because Canadian TV seems to consistently outshine US TV. (and I'm 'Murkin.)

Have you seen Canadian Ken Finkleman's work on Canadian TV? He's made some of the best TV I've ever seen, particularly, in this context, The Newsroom, which I guess was shown in the US on PBS (I only received Canadian TV at the time).


Ken Finkleman (born 1946) is a Canadian television and film writer, producer and actor.[1]

Finkleman was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In Canada, Finkleman is best known as the writer, creator and producer of the CBC Television series The Newsroom, in which he starred as television news producer George Findlay. He later produced a number of other series for Canadian television as well, including Married Life, Foolish Heart, Foreign Objects, More Tears, Good Dog, and Good God. Each of these series also included Findlay as a linking character; according to The Globe and Mail Finkleman describes Findlay as his vehicle for exploring issues that both intrigue him and tick him off.[2] His 2006 series At the Hotel was his only television project to date not to include George Findlay as a character.

Finkleman also wrote the screenplays for a number of Hollywood films in the 1980s, including Grease 2, Airplane II: The Sequel and the Madonna film Who's That Girl. His television productions are seen, in part, as a reaction to his experiences in the mainstream Hollywood studio system.

His brother, Danny Finkleman, is a longtime radio personality on CBC Radio One, who retired as host of Finkleman's 45s in 2005.


I left that last line in because I was a big fan of Danny's Finkleman's 45s on CBC radio.

I could go on....e.g., who is America's Rick Mercer? Is there one? That they let on the airwaves?

O, Canada.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:34 am
by Luther Blissett
Well, at least Emily Mortimer isn't the villain. The closest we have thus far is...Jane Fonda. Or maybe the Koch brothers, who are essentially characters.

I hope they get pushier, more Wire-like.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:24 am
by Nordic
Yeah I was wrong about that.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:24 pm
by sunny
I like it. It's so..alternate universe wish-fulfillment. And funny.

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 1:41 pm
by MinM

Re: HBO orders Aaron Sorkin series about cable news network

PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 12:06 am
by justdrew
also, Bigfoot is real. :rofl2

I note this site on cnbc is running a design element that says "mermaids are real!" (not sure how long they've had that)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41491193/