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Diablo Cody teams with Steven Spielberg: Garbage seeks its own level

June 5th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Juno meets Jew, yes…Yes…YES!!!

A stripper turned screenwriter cause celebre is teaming with a manchild mogul who never saw a girl naked until he was forty for a new pay cable sitcom about a dysfunctional family.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Showtime has picked up 12 episodes of United States of Tara, a comedy series to be overwritten by Diablo Cody (Juno) and produced by Steve Spielberg.

The show stars Toni Collette as a wife and mother with a dissociative identity disorder family and John Corbett, who plays her husband. It’s expected to enter production in Los Angeles in the summer.

On the basis of one film and a stack of teleplays, Showtime president of entertainment Robert Greenblatt fawned over “Diablo Coby’s vision.” Single-camera comedy does not a visionary make. Her characters, who don’t shut their mouths for two seconds, are too busy blabbing to worry about seeing.

“It’s a very provocative idea,” said Greenblatt, “and there’s a combination of humor and real drama. It’s a unique show that seems to be right up our alley.”

Cody will continue to serve as a writer; she also will exec produce with Spielberg, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank of DreamWorks TV and Alexa Junge. Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) directed the pilot.

Greenblatt expexts the show to debut early next year. He had originally hoped he might be able to launch it earlier, but the writers strike and Collette’s pregnancy delayed the shooting of the pilot.

The series kickoff focuses on a pregnant, unwed and underage concentration camp victim (who owns nothing more than a little red latex dress) saved from the gas chambers by a band of renegade space aliens that magically appear in the final reel to extinguish Hitler’s inferno.

Loads more spielberg hating here.

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Oscar advertisers fear downbeat films will bring low ratings

February 21st, 2008 by Scott Marks

oscar-gold.jpg

Now that those pesky writers have been satisfied, it’s time for television to get back to doing what they do best: coddling their advertisers.

This year’s crop of downbeat and obscure best picture nominees have advertisers wringing their hands. Instead of tuning in for quality, they are hoping viewers, fatigued after months of reruns, will award the Academy with high ratings.

According to the New York Post, of the five nominated films, Atonement, No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood and Juno, only one took in over $100 million at the box office.

Atonement is an exquisite, handsomely directed melodrama that is as demanding as it is devastatingly depressing. No Country is filled with graphic violence and enough clever plotting to keep general audiences away. There Will Be Blood is dank, character-driven and far too long to gain wide acceptance. Even fans of George Clooney are staying away from his earnest, duty-bound Michael Clayton.

The overwritten sitcom Juno glamorizes teen pregnancy and for my money is the darkest and most contemptible film of the bunch. It’s also the only one to ascended the box office ladder and reach the sacred $100 million mark. So much for my being in sync with the American public.

If the ratings tank it won’t be because the competition placed any roadblocks in the Academy’s path to success. Opposite the Oscarcast are reruns of Cold Case, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and The Simpsons.

The telecast, second only to the Super Bowl as TV’s biggest annual event, has been slipping in the ratings for years. Last year, 40 million people tuned in, up marginally from 39 million the previous year. Blame it on the glut of useless awards shows and and the hundreds of satellite channels vying for viewers’ attention.

Advertisers pay an average of $1.8 million for a 30-second spot.

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