Pilot Season: NBC Accumulates Projects from Jason Katims and Dick Wolf

Jason Katims, Dick Wolf NBC has acquired two new aircraft pilots: County, a medical series from Jason Katims, along with a firemen drama from Dick Wolf. County involves on the morally compromising and underfunded La hospital. Katims will write and executive-make the drama with Jason Ritter mounted on star. Ritter presently guest-stars on Katims' Being a parent. Obtain the latest news on all of the pilot pick-ups here Chicago Fire follows the lives from the males and ladies within the Chicago Fire Department. Law & Order boss Wolf will executive-produce alongside Michael Brandy, Derek Haas, Danielle Gelber and Peter Jankowski. NBC formerly purchased dramas Beautiful People, Frontier, Night time Sun and Don' Harm.

Mark Webber searching for 'Arranged Marriage'

Mark Webber will star in indie romantic comedy "The Arranged Marriage of Moonbeam" from this level Now Prods. and Metaphoric Films. Project was introduced Thursday, with producers striving to start production inside the late spring. Metamorphic's Teresa Zales will produce with Matt Sprague. Mollie Engelhart and Tim Ryan composed the script. Engelhart will direct and professional produce with Webber. The Makepeace Brothers and sisters may even appear, that has a lot more cast bulletins later on. Here Now's headed by Webber, Engelhart and Ryan. Its first pic, "The Erection dysfunction of love,In . is within the dramatic competition at Sundance. "After finishing 'The Finish of Love' with Mark, and configuring it ready for Sundance, we understood we wanted to dive straight into another project," Engelhart mentioned. Story follows Janie Sophistication, initially named "Moonbeam" by her hippie parents, as she lives her existence just like a straitlaced youthful lawyer. When the latest in their string of disastrous associations crashes and burns, Moonbeam's free-love, hippie family decides to setup her marriage. Bernard Edwards Junior. has signed onto score the film. Webber is repped by Innovative Artists. His attorney is Ira Schreck at Schreck, Rose Dapello Adams and Hurwitz. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com

Movie magic trumps reality

Rin Tin TinCleopatra cost seven times its original budget, but Fox sold off its Century City acreage for other reasons.Sundance begins Jan. 19, showcasing 36 feature-length documentaries. The TV networks are airing dozens and dozens of reality series, including plenty of midseason ones. Apparently Hollywood loves to serve up "real life," but "real" is an elusive concept -- especially when showbiz is talking about itself.Some of films' most immortal lines -- "Luke, I am your father," "Play it again, Sam," "Greed is good" -- were never actually spoken. But these misquotes have been repeated so often that most people think they're the actual dialogue. And they're often better than the real thing.And so it is with Hollywood events. In many cases, the facts are prosaic, and the legends are much more colorful. So myth often seems more real than reality.Four examples from various decades:Vidgames are luring young'uns away from films and TV.According to a 2011 report from the Entertainment Software Assn., the average age of a vidgame player is 37. Women aged 18 and older account for 37% of users -- compared with males 17 and under, who make up a lowly 13%.This may come as a shock to the half of Hollywood that believes vidgames are the domain of teenage boys. (The other half of Hollywood are vidgame junkies themselves.)Bottom line: We'll have to find another excuse for declines in B.O. and TV ratings.'Cleopatra' forced Fox to sell land that became Century City.Lensing of the film ran from 1960 through '62, delayed by weather, a change in directors, Elizabeth Taylor's near-fatal illness, etc. On Jan. 9, 1963, Variety's Abel Green pronounced the production cost as $35 million, or seven times the original budget. Others have put the tally even higher.The truth: Fox sold 176 acres before "Cleo" began. On Nov. 28, 1958, Daily Variety reported the sale to William Zeckendorf and his real-estate company Webb & Knapp; the price was estimated at $56 million.At dedication ceremonies for the new Century City (Daily Variety, May 26, 1959), Fox prexy Spyros P. Skouras crowed that movie "attendance is the best it's been since the competition of television began."That's a positive spin on the real culprit for the sale of Fox's acreage: TV. Movie attendance dropped in the 1950s due to television, and fewer films were made (often on location, rather than on the lot). The 1959 story concluded that the remaining 80 acres was enough for Fox's production needs.This is not to imply that "Cleopatra" was benign. The studio canceled many planned productions and stayed afloat thanks to the mega-success of 1965's "The Sound of Music."Still, the legend persists that cost overruns forced Fox to sell. It's more fun to blame a movie star and an overbudget film than to cite the amorphous shift in consumer habits.Moviegoing thrived during the Depression.The craze for sound movies -- or "talkers," as Variety termed them, as opposed to the earlier "wordless" films -- boosted B.O. for a few years, but the Depression took a toll. A June 21, 1932, Variety story reported that theater operators and distributors "complain that grosses are off 39% to 40% and in the same breath charge that Hollywood is doing nothing through its studios to balance the situation."A technology craze temporarily inflating B.O., while exhibitors battle with studios! Wow, what are the odds of that ever happening again?Oscars are going to the dogs.In Susan Orlean's terrific "Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend" (Simon & Schuster), she says the Warner Bros. star received the most votes for actor at the first Academy Awards. "But members of the Academy, anxious to establish the new awards as serious and important, decided that giving an Oscar to a dog did not serve that end, so the votes were recalculated "It's a delicious doggie tale, but Academy officials are dubious.In the AMPAS archives, Robert Cowan (whose brother Lester was assistant secretary of the Academy at the time) says Warner Bros. topper Jack Warner did in fact vote for the pooch. "Somebody at the Academy told Lester to mail another ballot to Jack Warner, and if he didn't fill it out correctly, to mail it back with his resignation."Contempo AMPAS researchers havelocated Warner's original vote, but most of the other ballots are (to use another Hollywood metaphor) gone with the wind.This canine caper points up a bigger truth in all these stories.Ms. Orlean -- a responsible journalist and a swell gal, by the way -- pointedly uses the word "legend" in her book's title. It's appropriate because showbiz has always celebrated the blending of myth and reality.We'll never know exactly how many votes Rinty got. The Acad's version seems more plausible, but Orlean's is more fun. (And the pooches' work in "Beginners" and "The Artist" were more nuanced than some human performances in 2011.)Still, believe what you will: Do you want facts or do you want magic?Nobody can prove or disprove religious parables, but those stories were always told not as history, but to teach lessons. And what is Hollywood, if not a religion? Contact Timothy M. Gray at tim.gray@variety.com

CBS wins evening as 'Bachelor' declines

Could "The Bachelor" phenomenon be diminishing?Monday's season premiere from the longtime ABC reality skein -- now in the 16th cycle -- came a couple.4 rating/6 be part of the 18-49 demo, based on early estimations from Nielsen. As a whole audiences, the show attracted 7.7 million.In comparison towards the season premiere last year, the demo is lower 18% contributing to 1.3 less audiences were watching Monday evening.Granted, there is nfl and college football bowl games that may have introduced over some audiences from broadcast to cable -- the runover in the Rose Bowl and also the Fiesta Bowl were both on ESPN in primetime -- but most individuals football audiences were males, and "The Bachelor" is clearly a lady-skewing program.With "The Bachelor" lower, CBS had little problem using the evening. Ought to be fact, four Eye comedies along with a drama were the very best five shows Monday and taken every timeslot.CBS built on every half-hour, from 8 o'clock to 9:30 p.m. "The Way I Met Your Mother" (3.9/9, 10.2m) and "2 Broke Women" (4.3/10, 12m) brought in to the evening's top program, "2 . 5 Males" (4.4/10, 13.7m).There is a small drop-off for "Mike & Molly" (3.8/9, 11.9m) before CBS closed the evening with "Hawaii Five-" (2.9/7, 11.7m). Around the good side for ABC, the internet could be happy the debut of "Celebrity Wife Swap" came the same 2.4/6 as "The Bachelor," meaning there is no demo drop-off at 10 o'clock. However, the 6.two million tuning in meant single.5 million reduction in total audiences from "The Bachelor."NBC broadcast all original programming, and finest for that Peacock was the 9 p.m. "Fear Factor" (2.4/5, 5.9m), which increased 23% from the first half-hour to the second. Lead-in "Who's Still Standing" (1.5/3, 5.5m) and lead-out "Rock Center With John Williams" (1.2/3, 3.8m) weren't any match for CBS and ABC. The 3 shows were in line with their last original airings at the end of December.Fox elected to choose a set of "House" repeats (1.2/3, 3.6m and three.8m) while CW broadcast reruns of "The Key Circle" (.3/1, 992,000 and 790,000).Preliminary 18-49 earnings for that evening: CBS, 3.7/9 ABC, 2.4/6 NBC, 1.7/4 Univision, 1.6/4 Fox, 1.2/3 CW, .3/1.As a whole audiences: CBS, 11.9 million ABC, 7.two million NBC, 5.a million Univision, 3.7 million Fox, 3.7 million CW, 891,000. Contact Stuart Levine at stuart.levine@variety.com

Tom Cruise drove 'Protocol' previs

Previsualizing certain moments was response to aiding creating Paramount's 'Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol.'Tom Cruise has extended been known to like a leading guy and action movie hero, but rarely has he been known to love a technology pioneer.Yet this is actually the role the actor carried out on all "Mission: Impossible" films, mentioned David Dozoretz, senior previsualization supervisor on Paramount's "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol," which has cumed greater than $141 million in your area and $225 million overseas.Dodoretz, who done three in the pictures (he skipped "M:I2" while he was occupied while using "AlienInch prequels), mentioned that 1996's "Mission: Impossible," which launched the series, "was the initial movie that really used previs," your personal computer animation program that adds motion and graphics for the storyboard process and allows everyone around the picture -- from below-the-line department heads to top studio professionals -- to acquire funding sense of this type of scene might be prefer to have the ability to make informed production options.Dozoretz, who was simply then with ILM, recalls that round the first "M:I" Cruise as well as the producers preferred to carry out a sequence in which a train pulls a helicopter to the Funnel Tunnel."The studio wasn't really sure relating to this, and then we all made a decision to carry out a rough cartoon showing exactly what it seem like,Inch mentioned Dozoretz.Since that early application, which Cruise advised, previs remains utilized on hundreds of large-budget movies to assistance with your choice-making process and -- substantially -- to economize.When "M:I4" reaches development, Dozoretz grew to become a previs maven. He's one of the founders in the Previsualization Society, a trade group, as well as the past dozen years remains running Persistence of Vision, a previs speaking to shingle.Dozoretz was concentrating on the J.J. Abrams-directed "Super 8" because he got word that Abrams was was prone to result in the fourth "Mission" installment."They didn't have a very script yet, basically a tough treatment," Dozoretz appreciated. "One sequence would occur on top in the world's greatest building" -- the 160-floor Burj Khalifa in Dubai.Through The month of the month of january 2010, Dozoretz and also the team were aboard and labored continuously on "M:I4" for an additional 12 several days."It absolutely was really in the beginning,In . he mentioned. "I had been beginning round the Burja previs whilst J.J. was talking to (director) Kaira (Bird) inside the other room."Production designer James Bissell appreciated that pre-production on "M:I4" was "cut lower" consequently of protracted discussions one of the leading players behind the film. It needed some time before an entire script was available, "and then we were on three continents, filming second unit in Moscow and first models in Dubai and Prague, and additional locations in Vancouver."Previs, he added, was particularly useful such compelled conditions to have the ability to help Bird -- who had heretofore only helmed animated photos -- visualize difficult and complicated live-action sequences.Bissell while others given data to the previs personal computers, helping Dozoretz build several "M:I4" moments -- none more dramatic in comparison to film's signature sequence, through which Cruise increases within the Burj Khalifa's sleek surface 130 tales within the ground, rappelling from floor to floor to have the ability to access a good computer room outside.Greater than six several days before any shooting happened, Dozoretz created around "15 or 20" versions in the sequence for Bird."We'd show it to Kaira, and he'd say, 'This is less than working.'?"Bird will make strategies for acquiring the rate of interest in a few areas, slowing down lower it lower on other occasions. Your team would show the previs sequences for the studio and select how a shooting would occur.In those days the previs also got disseminated to a lot of the film's department heads. "They'd put the previs around the large monitor and undergo whole moments, one shot at any time,In . mentioned Dozoretz, "identifying how they would get certain shots, what they really want to accomplish at certain points throughout production and the way to rig for safety."But there's one factor nobody may have predicted. "Once we spent people first six several days concentrating on the succession, we believe it is all apt to be visual effects work," Dozoretz mentioned. "We figured they'll shoot plates and Tom will probably be devote digitally."But Cruise had other plans: He preferred to complete their very own stunts, also to suspend themselves in the harness 130 flooring within the ground while helis travelled around and Imax cameras recorded his vertigo-inducing moves up minimizing the medial side in the proven tower."Once we were creating the succession we thought we are able to perform anything whatsoever since it might be all digital," mentioned Dozoretz, "Nevertheless it switched to function as real Tom."So instead of creating a virtual world, the vfx artists ended up while using opposite task: They done live-action images of Cruise suspended in mid-air and completely removed wires, cables and experience in the crew inside the building's exterior. Contact Peter Caranicas at peter.caranicas@variety.com