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.