SkimIt
We're all entering the new year with high hopes, right? Let's pretend that all of these projects have a chance to be wonderful, even if one of them is a celebrity-based prank show featuring Tom Green...
From the Unbuttoned Mind of Conan
Late night talk show and ginger icon Conan O'Brien's production company, Conaco, is developing a new show for Fox. Fox has ordered a script of the insanely titled Bob's New Heart Show, about a hotshot young surgeon who gets a heart transplant and re-thinks his way of life, moving back to his old neighborhood to start a practice. Ben Wexler (The King of Queens, Community) is writing and executive producing the show. What's funny is that, other than the unlikely title (with its strained reference to classic television), it sounds like very standard sitcom fare.
O'Connell Last Piece of CBS Sitcom Puzzle
According to Deadline, CBS has cast Jerry O'Connell in the last major role in a new pilot from Rob Greenberg (How I Met Your Mother). O'Connell is coming off the failed pilot for The Munsters reboot Mockingbird Lane. This new, as yet untitled, sitcom is about a young man (Chris Smith of Paranormal Activity 3) who bonds with three older men he meets at his rental complex, played by Kal Penn, Tony Shalhoub and O'Connell. It's expected to start shooting at the end of this month. The logline doesn't sound like anything special, but that is certainly an interesting cast, so this might be worth a look.
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Punk'd Redux Redux (Redux?)
A new prank show, Who Gets the Last Laugh?, is taping for TBS later this month. Donald Faison (Scrubs) hosts the series, which pits three comics against each other to come up with outrageous pranks to play on the public in order to win cash prizes for their selected charities. It's yet another prank show from Ashton Kutcher and his Punk'd producing partner Jason Goldberg. Kutcher may not have a lot of tricks up his sleeve, but he's very busy lately, with starring in Two and a Half Men and the Steve Jobs biopic. It's a mixed bag of slated contestants, including Andy Dick, Tom Green, D.L. Hughley and Cheri Oteri. Faison's an appealing host, and when these shows go well, I find myself laughing hysterically at them. So if I'm being honest, I'd at least want to see what it's like.
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Starz Commits to Crime
Starz is teaming with Atlas Entertainment to finance a new drama series written by prolific screenwriter William Monahan, who won an Oscar for his script for The Departed. It's called Crime, vaguely enough, and details about the storyline are not available yet. But the setting is swinging '60s London, and Monahan claims the show will be "very, very funny." That sounds like it has a lot of potential.
William Monahan (Getty)
Fox Has a New Theory
Top Cow Comics does this thing called "Pilot Season," wherein they publish one issue of a comic book and have readers vote on which book they want to see more of. Theory of Everything by Dan Casey and Nick Nantell did not win, but that didn't stop 20th Century Fox from buying the rights. It's a hard science-fiction tale about an eccentric scientist, whose inter-dimensional travel device gets him and his beloved wife into all kinds of trouble. Dan Jinks (American Beauty, Milk) is producing, which might have something to do with the fact that Nantell was once a VP at Jinks's production company. No matter. It sounds like smart, brain-teasing science fiction along the lines of Looper, so I'm all for it.
Are you looking forward to any of these? Which one sounds the most intriguing? Please let me know in the comments below.
Nick Nantell (Getty)
