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[08/30/12 - 11:04 PM]
Development Update: Thursday, August 30
By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)

LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:

Looking to keep track of all the various projects in development? Click here to visit our signature "Devwatch" section. There visitors can view our listings by network, genre, studio and even development stage (ordered to pilot, cast-contingent, script, etc.). It's updated every day!


THE CRAZY ONES (CBS, New!) - The Eye is in talks to land a new single-camera comedy from Oscar-winner Robin Williams and 10-time Emmy-winner David E. Kelley "set in the world of advertising and would star Williams as a brilliant ad executive working alongside his daughter." The potential half-hour, which Kelley wrote on spec, comes from 20th Century Fox Television with Bill D'Elia executive producing alongside Kelley. (Deadline.com)


DOUBLE FELIX (ABC, New!) - Pamela Davis ("Common Law") has snagged a script order from the Alphabet for a potential drama about "a family man who after suffering from a traumatic brain injury attempts to regain his memory and discovers he may have been part of a domestic terrorist plot." ABC Studios is behind the hour with Junction Entertainment's Jon Turteltaub also serving as an executive producer and Dan Shotz and Karim Zreik as co-executive producers. (THR.com)


THE HOUSEWIVES (ABC, New!) - Actresses/writers Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael have booked a put pilot order at the network for a multi-camera comedy about three female friends in 1954. Raphael is in negotiations to play one of the three leads in the project, which is set up the Sony Pictures Television-based Olive Bridge Entertainment. Wilson and Raphael then will executive produce alongside Will Gluck with Richard Schwartz serving as a co-executive producer. (Deadline.com)


MY LIFE, DELETED (ABC, New!) - Scott Bolzan's bestselling memoir, about his dealings with permanent retrograde amnesia, is being developed as a potential drama at the Alphabet. Megan Holley ("Sunshine Cleaning") is attached to pen the hour, which will center on "a successful businessman who suffers a head injury that wipes away all of his memories." ABC Studios-based Gross Entertainment is behind the project with the company's Matthew Gross executive producing with Holley. (Deadline.com)


ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (Netflix) - Taylor Schilling ("Mercy") has scored the lead role in the Netflix original, about Piper, "an engaged Brooklynite whose decade-old relationship with a drug-runner in college results in her arrest and multi-year detention in a federal penitentiary." Jenji Kohan and Liz Friedman are behind the 13-episode, hour-long series, which is based on Piper Kerman's memoir, subtitled "My Year In a Women's Prison." Lionsgate Television is producing. (Deadline.com)


PATRON SAINTS (ABC, New!) - Jeffrey Bell ("The Protector") has landed a script order from the Alphabet for a "mystery thriller about a covert group who help people in lost, desperate and impossible circumstances." Said hour is set up at ABC Studios-based Di Bonaventura Television with Bell and the company's Dan McDermott and Lorenzo di Bonaventura executive producing. (Deadline.com)


PUNCHING THE CLOWN (Showtime, New!) - Gregori Viens's 2009 film of the same name - about singer-songwriter Henry Phillips, "a hapless modern troubadour whose dumb-luck fame and fortune quickly goes bust" - is being developed as a comedy at the pay channel. Viens, Phillips and Chuck Martin will co-write the TV incarnation, which sees Phillips "living with his struggling-actor brother and dealing with various romantic entanglements." Sarah Silverman and David Permut are also on board to executive produce alongside the trio. (THR.com)


TRENDING DOWN (A.K.A. UNTITLED SHALOM AUSLANDER PROJECT) (Showtime) - Casting has reportedly begun on the Shalom Auslander-penned project, a dark comedy set in the world of modern advertising, in anticipation of a pilot order. Ken Kwapis and Alexandra Beattie's In Cahoots banner are behind the half-hour, which focuses on Thom Payne, who's facing his own obsolescence at 35 as his company is being taken over. (Deadline.com)


WITCHES OF EAST END (Lifetime) - Emmy-winner Julia Ormond ("Temple Grandin") is the first to be cast in the drama pilot, which centers on the adventures of a mother and her two adult daughters - both of whom unknowingly are their family's next generation of witches - who lead seemingly quiet, uneventful modern day lives in Long Island's secluded seaside town of North Hampton. She'll play said matriarch, Joanna Beauchamp, "a sexy, warm, artistic, tough, ethereal beauty." Maggie Friedman is behind the Fox 21-based hour, which is based on Melissa de la Cruz's best-selling novel of the same name. (Deadline.com)


UNTITLED JOSH FRIEDMAN PROJECT (NBC, New!) - Josh Friedman ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles") has booked a futuristic drama at the Peacock about the first robot-on-human murder and the lead detective who must not only solve the case but "investigate a growing robot rebellion while dealing with the impact on his own fractured family." 20th Century Fox Television-based Teakwood Lane is behind the hour with the company's Howard Gordon and Hugh Fitzpatrick executive producing alongside Friedman. (Deadline.com)


UNTITLED TODD HARTHAN PROJECT (ABC, New!) - Todd Harthan ("Psych") has sold "gritty medical vehicle" to the Alphabet about "doctors working at an urban hospital." Harthan and Mandeville Films's David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are executive producing the hour, which is set up at ABC Studios. No other details were given. (Variety.com)


AND IN OTHER NEWS... - David Harbour will guest on "Elementary" as "a brilliant surgeon who becomes an unlikely ally to Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock" (TVLine.com); Mike Schur will reprise his role of Dwight's (Rainn Wilson) cousin Mose on "The Office's" backdoor pilot spin-off "The Farm" (TVLine.com); Laura Vandervoort is bound for two episodes of "Haven" as "a highly intelligent and beautiful woman who is driven to the brink of madness by the loss of a loved one" (TVLine.com); Shelley Long's Dede Pritchett will return to "Modern Family" this season (TVGuide.com); Guillermo Diaz's Guillermo Garcia Gómez is likewise due back on "Weeds" for its final three episodes (TVGuide.com); Kelly Overton and Jeremy Glazer will both guest on The CW's freshman entry "Beauty and the Beast" (TVGuide.com); and Tamara Braun will visit "Castle" as "a sexy bar owner and city council woman who was seen with the victim of the Hamptons' first homicide investigation" (THR.com).






  [august 2012]  
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· BEAUTY & THE BEAST (CW)
· CASTLE (ABC)
· COMMON LAW (USA)
· CRAZY ONES, THE (CBS)
· DEVELOPMENT UPDATE (TFC)
· DOUBLE FELIX (ABC)
· ELEMENTARY (CBS)
· FARM, THE (NBC)
· HAPPYISH (SHOWTIME)
· HAVEN (SYFY)
· HOUSEWIVES, THE (ABC)
· MERCY (NBC)
· MODERN FAMILY (ABC)
· MY LIFE, DELETED (ABC)
· OFFICE, THE (NBC)
· ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (NETFLIX)
· PATRON SAINTS (ABC)
· PROTECTOR, THE (LIFETIME)
· PSYCH (USA)
· PUNCHING THE CLOWN (SHOWTIME)
· TEMPLE GRANDIN (HBO)
· TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES (FOX)
· UNTITLED JOSH FRIEDMAN PROJECT (NBC)
· UNTITLED TODD HARTHAN PROJECT (ABC)
· WEEDS (SHOWTIME)
· WITCHES OF EAST END (LIFETIME)





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