Television News

ALL TELEVISION NEWS.

AMC is feeling a strong bout of confidence in their new series THE WALKING DEAD going ahead and renewing it for a second season, before the first even begins to air.

Fox has put in a 12-episode order of the new half hour sketch comedy series by Jamie Foxx tentatively called THE JAMIE FOXX PROJECT. The show will star Affion Crockett and other young, rising comedians, who will spoof pop culture related items. Foxx/King Entertainment and The Tannenbaum Co. are producing the series.

SyFy has picked up NEVERLAND, from writer/director Nick Willing with the plan to make it a four hour event mini-series, as it did with previous Willing projects ALICE and TIN MAN. The series will play as a prequel to J.M. Barrie’s PETER PAN.

NBC Universal has committed to a new drama project from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA producer, Ronald D. Moore. The new series is pitched as an adult HARRY POTTER where the world is ruled by magic instead of science.

Warner Bros. Television has snatched up the TV rights to Neil Gaiman’s comic book series “SANDMAN.” The series, has firmly established itself as one of the most renowned works in the medium, having been in some form of film development for almost 20 years (the series first began in 1989).

But, now WB, alongside DC Comics (who published the book via their “Vertigo” imprint and will produce the TV series) sees a very bright future in the series, and is in talks with Eric Kripke, the creator of the CW’s “Supernatural,†to possibly take a stab at adapting. While “Supernatural” and “Sandman” in my opinion are at opposite ends of the spectrum, I think the type of show I’d love Sandman to be, isn’t necessarily one that would rake in viewers, so I’ll wait to pass any judgement until we’re much farther down the road.

Prior to WB’s involvement on the TV side, DC was in talks with HBO and James Mangold to develop a show, with Mangold even meeting with Gaiman to discuss the series as a whole, but after a long dormant hiatus due to scheduling issues, that never came to be.

The story of “Sandman†began with Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming realm, a deity who personifies dreams, and could work and alter your dreams as he see fit. As he series continued we met the rest of his family, a group who were the bearers of a majority of humanity’s darker emotions; Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium, and Morpheus’ real name – Dream.

LOCKE & KEY has gone through almost every media platform before finding a home that has not only bought it (third sale) but has confirmed to shoot it.

As we reported a little over a week ago, the project, based on the Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son) graphic novel, was originally set up as a film. After busy schedules, and a sluggish move through development, the team decided on a new outlook, with producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman went for some heavies, bringing on Steven Spielberg to produce alongside them, and Josh Friedman to pen a TV pilot. And, lets be honest, any TV project with those 5 names on it, is already on a level echelons above any other spec pilot.

And that is precisely what Fox thought, snatching up the pilot today, with a commitment to shoot the pilot, and a hefty penalty if the series does not air.

So, ratchet the number of Steven Spileberg TV shows on Fox in 2011 to two, with LOCKE & KEY joining TERRA NOVA.

Hearing JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot is about to go out with a hot new drama spec called ALCATRAZ written by Elizabeth Sarnoff. The project is kept under wraps, but going off the title and previous Bad Robot projects, it’s bound to be about strange happenings on the island prison in the San Francisco Bay. Sarnoff, previously worked with Abrams’ in the last four years of LOST, writing or co-writing over 19 episodes.