The CW President Mark Pedowitz Offers Updates on Battle Royale, Supernatural, The Selection, and More
Deadline
http://www.deadline.com/2012/07/cws-mark-pedowitz-on-selection-battle-royale-development-plans-digital-route-with-comedy-shorter-drama-orders-tca/
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The Television Critics Association’s summer press tour is under way, and The CW’s president Mark Pedowitz has shed more light on new projects “The Selection” and “Battle Royale” along with passing on some news that should make “Supernatural” fans happy.
First things first: Pedowitz said that Misha Collins (aka everyone’s favorite angel Castiel) is signed for a minimum of eight episodes of “Supernatural” Season 8, which begins airing on Wednesday nights beginning October 3rd.
With regard to the cancelled Sarah Michelle Gellar series “Ringer”, Pedowitz noted that “22 episodes a season may be too many” for a heavily serialized drama (the new CW series “Cult” will have a 13-episode first season), but keep the faith, “Buffy” fans; The CW has invited Gellar to come back to the network as an actress or producer.
Last season the network developed the Hunger Games-esque “The Selection”, an adaptation of Kiera Cass’ book. The project went to pilot but didn’t make the cut to series. “I’m a big believer (in the concept)”, said Pedowitz. “The producers did a very good job, but it wasn’t where we wanted to be tone-wise, we wanted it to have a Hunger Games/’Game of Thrones’-type tone.” Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, who wrote the original pilot, are back rewriting it.
As for that series version of the 2000 cult Japanese movie Battle Royale we reported on a few days ago, Pedowitz stressed that talks are very preliminary. Asked about the rationale behind going after such a violent premise involving school-age kids shooting and killing other kids, especially in the current environment, Pedowitz said, “We’re not planning anything that we cannot get on the air; we won’t go in that direction.” [Whatever that means!]
Regarding Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day and will make its television debut on The CW on Tuesday, October 9th, Pedowitz admitted he was proactive and reached out to Whedon after first trying to acquire the rights to the online musical when he ran ABC Studios.
Lastly, he provided those assembled for the TCA event with a few laughs as follows:
Q: Why didn’t “The Secret Circle” connect like “The Vampire Diaries” did?
A: Not enough good-looking men, not enough sense of humor. Women do love men.
Q: Did The CW pass on its zombie project because zombies are too gross for broadcast TV?
A: The CW dead look a lot better than those on “The Walking Dead”. You can’t believe how good they look.
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