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HBO has picked up Veep, a D.C.-set comedy pilot about a female Vice President of the U.S. from British comedian, writer and director Armando Iannucci. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is in talks for the lead in the project, set “very near the White House” and centered on former Senator Selina Meyer who finds being Vice President is nothing like she expected and everything everyone ever warned her about. Iannucci co-wrote and will direct the pilot as well as executive produce with Chris Godsick and Frank Rich under the New York Times columnist’s deal with HBO. Iannucci has long political satire experience. His popular and BAFTA-winning British comedy series The Thick of It satirizes the inner workings of the British government. (Ianucci wrote Veep with one of his top writers on that series, Simon Blackwell). The Thick of It spawned the 2009 feature spinoff In the Loop starring Tom Hollander and James Gandolfini that earned an Oscar nomination for its script, co-written by Iannucci and Blackwell. ABC attempted to adapt the series during the 2006-07 development cycle with Mitch Hurwitz. The project went to pilot, which was directed by Christopher Guest and starred John Michael Higgins and Oliver Platt. After ABC passed on the pilot, several other networks, including HBO expressed interest, and Iannucci had conversations with the pay cable channel. By his reaction to the ABC pilot, he appears much better suited for cable. “It was terrible…they took the idea and chucked out all the style. It was all conventionally shot and there was no improvisation or swearing,” he said of the ABC version. He won’t have any problem with swearing on HBO.
Seinfeld alumna Louis-Dreyfus has been in high demand after her CBS comedy The New Adventures of Old Christine ended its 5-season run in May, with a number of writers courting her to star in a new series project. She has had a steady presence at HBO where she has recurred on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm playing herself. Iannuci and Louis-Dreyfus are repped by CAA. In addition to Veep, HBO has been close to picking up another female-centered comedy pilot, Kate Robin’s Fall/Spring starring Tea Leoni.
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UGH- can’t this woman just retire? She’s not funny
But she is Hot as hell
Why is HBO recycling ABC shows now? Wasn’t this called Commander in Chief with Geena Davis? Oh wait, she was actually the President, not the VEEP. So I guess that makes it original.
When’s Showtime going to start development on SOTHOR, about a female Speaker of the House of Reps, starring Sigourney Weaver?
Maybe google Iannucci before panning this idea, you idiot. “The Thick of It” was the West Wing of political comedy. A lot of people like it better than “The Office.”
Iannucci also co-created “I’m Alan Partridge” starring Steve Coogan. The first series is brilliantly funny. Check out his other comedy shows too. The main is seriously talented.
Wow. Can you really comment on a Hollywood blog and be so ignorant about Iannucci’s tone? It’s like saying Studio 60 and 30 Rock are the same thing.
When Christoper Guest is involved your project becomes his project.
Any wit or humor is sucked right out of it. Thank God someone saw
the light with this and CG attached. That it didnt make the light of day we should all be grateful. Now do something that is deserving of the HBO moniker, old chap.
BTD
I agree. She’s not funny. The only reason her latest sitcom stayed on the air so long is because she’s got some magic spell cast on the powers that be. Everyone in Hollywood loves her even if the audience says “No thanks.” It’s absurd.
Lets see, there’s talk of Hillary replacing Biden on the 2012 ticket. I wonder if that has anything to do with this.
Julia is up there with Lucille Ball in my opinion. The first few seasons were especially funny. Watch the episodes with Blair Underwood as her kid’s teacher. Or are you judging it by the un-funny CBS promos? The producers of New Adventures made the best of the tired sit-com format. I wonder if any of you have actually seen the show?
Julia is hilarious — she was better in Seinfeld than New Adventures, but nonetheless an absolute talent!
However any project with Frank Rich attached is destined for failure.
Rich – not a man of the theater like Walter Kerr was – spent a decade telling everyone what was good or not using his college education – and his trips to the theater as a kid – as his expertise. The NYT is so enamoured with him that they gave him an opinion column and in all the years he’s been there, he hasn’t broken one story nor explicated any stories in an original way. His contacts in Washington seem to be nil, nothing of the caliber of Safire or Reston or even Krock. What is it that HBO now sees in him? Maybe he was always a showbiz wannabe and now he’s going for the gold.
I laughed when I saw Frank Rich’s involvement. Mediocre film critic, mediocre theater critic and a shallow, mediocre columnist.
But I’m sure he’ll do a great job on this show.
Rich was a truly excellent theater critic — easily the equal of Walter Kerr. He earned the lasting high regard of the theater community — witness the series of lectures he recently did with Sondheim. Despite his occasional negative reviews of Sondheim’s work, there was deep mutual respect between them.
As an op-ed columnist, his job is not to break stories but to provide intelligent comment and analysis. He does exactly that at an incredibly high level week after week. Disagree with his politics if you want, but be honest enough to acknowledge his accomplishments.
I can’t decide if I should vomit or just die at the comment comparing JLD to the great Lucille Ball. No words.
Julia is wonderful and I think this could be a great show.
Are you asking us to choose for you?
I can’t help but wonder if anyone at HBO has actually seen The Thick of It (or anything else Ianucci has done). I think it’s one of the best TV programmes of the last 10 years but cannot imagine how the minds behind it will come up with a pilot for JLD. Can she really be a female Malcolm Tucker? For those who think there’s no problem with swearing at HBO, um, just watch.
There is a uniquely British sensibility to Ianucci’s work and I am intrigued to see how that translates across the ocean.
In response to your question “Can she really be a female Malcolm Tucker?” presumably, as the Vice President, she would be playing a Hugh Abbott or Nicola Murray character? You know, a politician? Rather than the character of a Spin Doctor? Am I the only one who remembers that Malcolm Tucker was more effective as an occasional walk-on part? The impact of that persona has is inversely proportional to the amount of time it appears on-screen (see also: Ari Gold).
And no more of that “The British have a really brilliant and particular sense of humour which no-one else can replicate” stuff, I beg you! There’s a massive invisible membrane over the Atlantic which filters out crap travelling either way so Americans only get the best of what we produce – the upshot of this is that British TV seems much better than it really is. Furthermore, British humour is not this extremely specialised field. Not all, but a lot, of British stuff that people rave about, like “Coupling” (awful BTW) obviously owes a massive debt to American programmes, in this case, “Friends”. As “Skins” is also clearly indebted to the movie “Kids” and the films of John Hughes. And the “Inbetweeners” to “American Pie” and “Super Bad”. As for “The Thick of It”- “The Larry Sanders Show” pre-dates it by 12 years.
I don’t see stories like this as a general endorsement of British TV either, the sad fact is that if more Americans had a second language they probably wouldn’t look so frequently to the second largest, developed, English-speaking nation on the planet for new writers and formats…
I said “uniquely British”, not better. I think comedy generally is far harder to translate across national and cultural boundaries, which is why so many US dramas do well in the UK compared to comedies.
Well, no one can accuse her of doing it cause she needs the money.
Iannucci is brilliant. No matter what you think of Dreyfus, watch In The Loop and you won’t even care. We need the kind of satire in this country that Iannucci has been making for Years in Britain.
I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus and thought she was brilliant in both “Seinfeld” and “Old Christine”. This sounds like it would be something different for her, which I am all for. I’d like to see her handle more satiric comedy!
yawn
Why does everyone who posts on this sight just shit on everything. Every post is just a negative dump. Most people post about how shitty it is by reading a blurb or a description, and not even having read the script or see the project. For someone to compare Iannucci to Commander In Chief – or call it a rip off – get a clue. And to say JLD can’t pull of The Thick Of It. Well last I checked this script was not called The Thick of It. I feel like this sight has become a place for people just to take giant whacks at others’ projects with nothing to back it up or without having any real knowledge of what they are posting on.
I agree! I’ve read the comments on every article talking about JLD and this pilot, and they’ve been nothing but positive. Meanwhile, if someone were to come here first, you’d think that from the comments JLD was a pathetic actress instead of a 2-time Emmy winner, and that Iannucci should be writing pamphlets instead of pilots.
While I love Deadline and think that it does the best entertainment reporting online, I couldn’t disagree with the comments more!
JLD should pass on this project and hold out for the Christine O’Donnell biopic
I’m glad for Iannuci, who’s been making brilliant stuff for years (esp the epic ‘Except for viewers in Scotland’). I hope this doesn’t mean he’s ignoring the coalition though. It needs cleverer treatment than David Cameron’s gay jokes and continual whining by Rory Bremner about how he can’t do a convincing Clegg.
Because Gena Davis played a President and this has JLD as VP, a comment author thinks there’s a similarity worth mentioning between Commander in Chief and Veep?
I completely understand the interests/needs of capitalism in the endeavor that is DH, and so also understand why lots of readers and attention from visitors outside the industry is necessary, and why inviting/luring the plethora of RW conservatives and Tea Party types cruising the internet are an important part of that. But as is their wont to do when the subject is the Constitution, the economy or myriad other political issues, their eagerness to share uninformed, ignorant remarks – and with such hubris makes these comment pages more annoying to read with each passing day, and dramatically devalues them, and the site as a whole.
When it was less popular, I could visit DH and certainly find opinions with which I bitterly disagreed, but at least they were coming from readers who had a clue what they were talking about, folks who’d actually read scripts, assessed ratings, worked in SOME capacity in the industry, or at LEAST were fans with a modicum of knowledge. Alas, what was once an opportunity for discourse and commentary from people who had a clue what they were talking about (and often did so with some wit) is quickly becoming akin to plopping next to any longtime denizen of the corner stool at Andy’s Neighborhood Tap (or any other tavern catering largely to a nearby chicken processing factory, or insurance call-center)and having to hear who THEY think should have been cast as Lisbeth Salander. (Morgan Fairchild seems to be a popular pick.)
Between the predictable screeds and snark against perceived liberals and supposed liberalism offered up routinely, and comments that are thinly-disguised declarations of “I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I LOVE talking about it all in caps!” I believe the “insider” appeal to DH is rapidly vanishing, and I’m finding other sources for both the stories and more intelligent commentary.
The revenues brought in by new visitors, page views and ad clicks may make that trade-off well worth it to you, Nikki. Maybe that’s why my previous notes (most of them much shorter) about this same trend have not been published. But I’m asking once again for you and any others involved to PLEASE consider the steady dilution of one facet that brought many to DH in the first place. OK, so you can’t (and shouldn’t) stop them from coming here, and you can’t restrict circulation of links to your site only to folks who know the business, and literature, and their as from their elbow. But at LEAST you can refrain from passing the microphone to some of these folks, no?
Yeah, Commander in Chief and Veep are the same, just as “Hogan’s Heroes” kept coming to mind while I watched “Band of Brothers.” (With no offense intended to either CiC, nor Veep.)
Couldn’t agree more with this post. While DH is doing a great job breaking stories and beating the trades and THEWRAP consistently, it also feels as if it unfortunately panders to the same 10, bitter fringe malcontents who comment without any context or thought. If you want to pose as a Hollywood insider, read the scripts, do your homework and say something that makes sense. Otherwise, put your fingers on the keyboard and write your own damn script. Sorry that it’s harder than tearing everyone down for a secret, anonymous thrill.
Before I continue, let me mention that HBO audiences are much too savvy to fall for a “marquee” principal actor. They want solid acting and a true character actor.
Sue Naegle — Please note:
The entire cast of “Seinfeld” is washed-up, in my opinion. Yes, Dreyfuss had her day as the formidable Elaine, but gee, she has failed repeatedly. Did anybody see the short-lived “Watching Ellie”? What a disaster that was. And “Old Christine” was pretty stale, too, of a traditional multi-cam format that no longer appeals to many audiences (yes CBS kept it on the air because, well, they’re pretty much the only network that really stands behind the sitcom). I don’t even think she’s all that funny on “Curb.”
Why can’t we get past a one-time ensemble of actors with chemistry? The actors on the “show about nothing” had their time — but not one of them (including Jerry) has the longevity or the “staying power” to helm an expensive primetime show.
If I were to executive this show, I would look to an assortment of different actors (it just depends on the script and how they perform a table read).
Agents: I would start preparing sides for (in no particular order):
Laurie Metcalf
Cheryl Hines
Molly Shannon (I know she’s typically thought of as being too goofy, but with the right direction, I’d be really interested to see what this talented actor can do)
Jeffrey — HUH? Last I checked JLD won an Emmy for Old Christine. As for Watching Ellie. It was one show. Some of the greatest actors of our generation have a bad show on their credits. To then go and reference Cheryl Hines or Molly Shannon who while both are great – actually have – wow – failed shows on their credits as well. And it is not like you yourself with your creative genius came up with some new and brilliant ideas, instead some actresses who again while great have done failed pilots for YEARS. Why don’t people watch the show with an actress – who even from this article has not been cast yet – before they start crushing her and the project. People are just snarky to be snarky. If you don’t like JLD or don’t like the show – then don’t watch. Others just might. And as for that bad credit – I dont see people going on boards flaming you for the bad choices you made in your life.
I think you’re missing the point:
While I am referencing failed/canceled shows, it’s more about all the networks forcing the “Seinfeld” cast to succeed. I’m basically saying — give it up already.
Networks are trying to equate the creative success of “Steinfeld” to others — that’s why they’re always greenlighting shows for those “Seinfeld” alums …
Of course having a failed series is a weak argument. There are countless shows that feature brilliant actors that get canceled for a sleuth of reasons.
I mean look at Patrick Demsey. But Shonda Rhimes noticed something in him, thus he was really well cast. So it’s not about JLD failing, I’m simply denoting that she’s failing because she’s no stand-alone; her acting greatly depends on her ensemble.
Do you know what a character actor is?
Look, I liked “Old Christine” but JLD is all wrong for this role. Cheryl Hines, Laurie Metcalf or Molly Shannon are all brilliant suggestions.
Atlanta – You say that JLD is all wrong for the role and that Cheryl, Laurie and Molly are brilliant suggestions. First question, have you read the script? Secondly – those actresses all have different styles and some similar to JLD – so confused how she is all wrong and they are brilliant. Also curious as to whether you have read the script or just posting more thoughts that are not backed up with actual real information.
I think Hines is a good suggestion, and I love her on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but to say that she’s a better choice because Julia Louis-Dreyfus has had a failed show is a weak argument. Hines was in the failed “In The Motherhood”, which was much worse than “Watching Ellie”.
I’d manage to muster some excitement for Hines, but ONLY if Julia passes on the role. Honestly, I think Julia is perfect for the part. Maybe you’ll change your opinion of her involvement in “Veep” when you see her in the role, away from the traditional sitcoms that she’s been exclusive too?
I’ll be refreshing to see Julia in something a little more dramatic, that will let her explore her range.
David,
Absolutely — I would be willing to give it another shot and perhaps change my opinion. And I agree — she probably needs to expand her horizons (and portfolio) and look to something a little more dramatic rather than the traditional multi-cams she’s used to. But I find little excitement surrounding her being cast on HBO. As mentioned above, I really do think that audiences (and critics alike) will shred her.
I’m basically tired of all the hype and grand expectations. HBO deserves stand out female performances. Actors must deliver. I’m just afraid JLD doesn’t.
I’m typically not a fan of “stunt” casting either, and maybe I’m biased because of my love for JLD, but I truly believe that she could be brilliant in the role. Like you and I both have said, we’ve never seen her do a show like this before; she could be wrong for the part (like you’re predicting) or she could be terrific (like I’m predicting). Truth is, nobody knows what she’ll be like until we see it.
If this were a traditional sitcom and people were to judge her at this stage, they’d have validity because they’ve seen her do two traditional sitcoms before. But since we’ve never seen her do political satire, a single camera show (excluding “Watching Ellie), or on a cable network, her ability, or inability, to perform in the role is totally speculation.
Given good material, Julia can be funny, as opposed to say, Tracy Ullman, the least funny person on the planet(dead or alive).
I’ve never understood why several networks, HBO included, have given Ms. Ullman her own program. She’s as funny as a heart attack, or root canal, take your pick of cliches.
Watch JLD’s four episodes of Arrested Development and tell me she’s not a genius.
HBO used to be all about finding incredible actors and persuade them do television based on amazing material.
Now they are apear to be trolling for former network stars…don’t get it….are their scripts not as interesting …or has the taste level of the network changed that dramatically ?
You mean like Sarah Jessica “Square Pegs” Parker and Kim “mannequin” Catrall? or maybe you mean Lisa Kudrow, the little known actress from Friends, or maybe Gary Shandling, who had two fox shows behind him. Yes, oh for the good old days. This is the most ridiculous string of posts, starting with the guy who wants to cast the show with Laurie Metcalf and the other one who is upset about Lucille Ball.
Under your scenerio wouldnt that make Bryan Cranston (Malcolm In The Middle) a former network star – when he was cast in Breaking Bad – I bet people would have flamed it on this board. “How can the dad from Malcolm be cast as in this show? C’mon” – And what do you know? He wins the emmy multiple times and shows his range and his genius and has put up one of the best performances in one of the best shows in a decade.
Trolling for former network stars? What other former network stars are you talking about? Tea Leoni is the only one I can think of – but then again you must not be referring to her since she has been doing movies for the last 12 years- many of them successful. I would argue that LUCK for example is about the material attracting actors. A script which attached Michael Mann – and then Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. And beyond that former network star or movie star – how about if they are best for the role then great.