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CBS has handed a pilot order to Jonathan Nolan’s CIA drama Person of Interest, which is being executive produced by J.J. Abrams.
The project, from Warner Bros. TV and Abrams’ Bad Robot, is a crime drama centered on a CIA agent, presumed dead, who is recruited by a reclusive billionaire to wage war against violent criminals in New York City. Nolan, who shared a writing Oscar nomination with his brother Christopher for Memento, is executive producing with Abrams and Burk. This marks the TV debut for Nolan. Person of Interest is the second pilot order for Bad Robot this year, following the early pickup for Alcatraz at Fox.
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I love JJ, but I wish he’d expand his hiring of diversity writers. Com’on, JJ, spread the wealth!!!
Elia… it’s not 1960 anymore. There are plenty of writers/directors/producers of many colors out there, like myself, and plenty of opprtunities for more skilled writers of color to break through.
Please stop. Your posts make the rest of “us” look bad.
No, there isn’t. “You” look “bad” because you’re too mediocre (or scared or both) to allow a broadening of the field. How many Asian, Hispanic &/or African Americans do you work w/? If you’re actually telling the truth?
I thought so.
You’re just a token, you know it & you obviously relish it.
Please stop.
Preach, Teddy! Look at Shonda Rimes, she’ll have THREE shows on TV! As many as Chuck Lore!
All due respect, Teddy, do you really think there are “plenty of opportunities”? Do you really think the Industry has fair hiring practices?
life is not a meritocracy, Elia. get over it. and trust, it’s not just this industry. i personally have missed out on jobs because regardless of the fact that i was most qualified, they NEEDED to hire women or minority writers to make the room “look a certain way.” i have actually been told that to my face by the people doing the hiring. so you can continue to waa-waa-waa or you can do what you do, which is write. create your own opportunities. nobody’s gonna dislike your scripts because you’re a woman or you’re black. not with the name Elia on them. they’ll dislike your scripts because they suck or because they have no idea what good material is until somebody higher up on the food chain tells them. stop making excuses and get on with it. i have much love for you.
Or maybe your script sucked and that’s what they told you to make you feel better.
Or maybe your interview with the showrunner sucked and that’s what they told you to make you feel better.
And JUST MAYBE your script was actually good but you weren’t a good fit for the room.
A lot of people don’t get work in this town for a variety of reasons, never is it STRICTLY because you are white man. So stop making excuses and get on with it. I have much love for you.
@anonymous, are you really that obtuse that you’d believe someone would lie to me to my face in a way that they i could simply turn around and sue them for job discrimination? don’t let your bitterness get in the way of your good judgment. and schmuck, that’s my point: i don’t sit around making excuses. i can only take people for face value, i have no control over what the actual reasons may be. but it’s neither here nor there because regardless of the reason why i don’t get a job, i keep moving. i stay focused and do what i do, which is write. and i get a different job or i sell a pilot or get hired to write a movie. and i appreciate your love and i reciprocate, because i’m sure outside this post you’re probably a decent person. keep moving. but thanks for playing : )
Elia you are either misinformed, or a moron. Probably both.
JJ didn’t “hire” Jonah Nolan, the idea was brought to JJ by Jonah.
Even if JJ had hired him, it would make sense. Jonah is a very talented guy.
In closing, take your whiny bitch ass with its ignorant sense of entitlement and go play in traffic.
I think we could all benefit from that.
If they cast Victor Garber to play the agent I’m in.
I liked this the first time I saw it, when it was called Minority Report.
How does this show sound ANYTHING like Minority Report?
Sounds like a pretty easy decision. I’d watch a show about the daily activities of your grandmother if these guys were behind it.
This reminds me of Minority Report…
“Team up to prevent crimes before they happen”. Sounds awfully like Minority Report. I think Abrams has lost his magic touch.
Where are you guys getting the whole “preventing crimes before they happen” aspect? There’s nothing like that in the logline.
HOLY SHIT! Ya that’s the proper response. This will be awesome
Why? ‘Cause UNDERCOVERS was such a huge hit?
No, because THE DARK KNIGHT was…
This show is more like Batman without the cape.
Looks like he is spreading the wealth. Oh right, just not with the people you want him to spread it with. Sheesh, did someone turn down your project or something? You act like there are no non-white, non-male writers out there at all.
Are more white, male writers being hired? Probably, but I’d attribute that to there being a large number more of them out there, so obviously there is a greater chance of finding one that is talented than from a smaller sample of people. Is that fair? Of course not, but it’s a reality (unfortunately). How about we hire based on talent instead of tokenism? It’s not like females or blacks can’t get a project up and running.
Yes, this is obviously very comparable to slavery, voting rights, and internment camps. And you say I’m the one with my head buried in the sand? But let’s dispense of the personal attacks – I apologise for my remarks.
Let’s say that, for example, there is one black writer for every ten white writers out there (which compared to reality may be generous, I have no clue). This is talking about all writers out there trying to get a job, by the way, not ones that are employed. We are also assuming that they are all of equal talent, as race (or sex, for that matter) does not affect how good a writer one is. From that sample, would you not expect that more white writers would be employed as they would make up 90% of the writers out there? And if the situation were reversed and 90% of the writers were black, would you not expect there to be more black writers employed?
I am not saying that we should just not care, equality is an important thing, but I don’t think the solution is to just hire certain people for the sake of it. That *is* tokenism and it doesn’t help the problem at all. Hire colourblind and based on the quality only.
To do that, I think the solution is to encourage more diverse writers out there to write more and more, so that the make-up is one black for every white, and one female for every male, and so on. If the make-up is equal, but the employment make-up is unequal, then I will have huge issues with whoever is hiring these writers. So, write as much as you can, Elia. Keep at it. And if you know some females or blacks (or Asians, or any race for that matter) that also would like to write but don’t think that they will make it, tell them to do it anyway. It all helps and that is the key to success.
Can’t you take legal action against him in that free country of yours?
But for the record, that wasn’t part of my argument. I was talking about the writers themselves, not the hiring process… Obviously that sort of thing is disgusting.
These two have practically no sense of emotional story left between them. Look forward to a big action show with hollow characters.
All these comments about “crimes before they happen,” and in the story I’m seeing there’s no such reference. Has the story been altered since it was first published without any indication? Hasn’t Deadline caught on YET? That just ain’t kosher.
To me the show sounds like a quaint, short-lived little TV show called, “The Equalizer.”
equalizer was short lived? i’ll be very happy with 88 episodes.
Equalizer was like a high school star jock. That one is like record breaker in multiple Olympic Games. It’s like Equalizer on steroids, if steroids are was on steroids.
Maybe it is 1960 big fellah cause there isn’t one show of color on the top four networks. And I’m not talking about sidekick roles or the Rhimes big bag of colorful character’s projects, although I admire Shonda a great deal.
That show will have strong black woman as star. And Shonda’s next success will came with show with another strong black woman as star.
Mitch,
I find it pathetic how much white people don’t want to address the issue of discrimination, still retreating into denial about it. You have entire commercial networks, which we all support with our ad dollars, with no African American, Asian, or Hispanic shows on them (why do you think we need a BET?), just exclusively shows about white people, with an oh-so-generous token minority or two in a supporting role. This may shock you but non-whites don’t exist to be extras in the lives of white people as much as you may think so.
And I find the patronizing “How about we hire based on talent instead of tokenism” attitude that white people keep spouting on these boards more than insulting. Now all of a sudden after generations of favoring whites just because they’re white, you’ve all become champions for colorblind hiring? Yeah, right. If they’re hiring based on talent then why are so many of these Hollywood movies and tv shows, created almost entirely by white people, so godawful? Talent? Maybe if these tv execs looked elsewhere i.e. at people who don’t look exactly like them, the tv landscape wouldn’t consist so much of cop shows, lawyer shows and vampires over and over and over. How about some new points of view, huh?
hilarious. why don’t you just ask the development execs to run on creative instincts instead of marketing focus group numbers. if the networks could make money off of all minority casts those shows would be on broadcast instead of BET. The Game was on the CW for three years and couldn’t garner half the audience it’s getting on BET. it’s not like minorities didn’t know it existed, they just didn’t tune into it on the CW. (and don’t give me “they didn’t advertise it, they moved it around, blah, blah, blah — they built it and nobody came) again, this town is not a meritocracy. never has been. not even when the discrimination against women and minorities was overt and more rampant than it is today. back then it was less talented white males being favored over more talented white males. don’t get distracted. focus. adapt and overcome. you really have no other choice unless you want out. sometimes talent wins. the WGA didn’t give the Paddy Chayefsky lifetime achievement award to a white male the other night. good luck!
I find it amazing, and telling, that the comments on this story were of course reduced to a debate on employment-by-race. I’m black, and I refuse. Is Deadline a site for bitter writer’s to come and vent frustrations, because I just followed a Google hyperlink.
Anyway, I’d rather discuss thoughts on the show rather than humor the plights and woes from the government cheese line – I do sympathize and wish you all well though.
I don’t see where the Minority Report comparisons are coming from…am I missing another synopsis? In the one I’m seeing, it says nothing about pre-cog’s or stopping crimes before they happen.
One thing I will say is that I have to give the benefit of the doubt to any project that happens to be the brainchild of someone with the last name Nolan. They have been pretty reliable as of late, wouldn’t you say? I’m in.
Anonymous — What exactly is the fucking alternative to color-blind hiring practices?
Quotas? Seriously? Do they REALLY make any sense to you?
Every conversation I’ve ever heard about promoting “diversity” and “fairness” in this Industry seems always to come down to… wait for it, kids…
QUOTAS!
I know I’m very late but you are so right. You stated it like it is and some who CAN’T WRITE will resort to name calling when they can’t formulate an intelligent arguement. The bottomline is you can’t argue with the truth.
I thought this was already greenlit a while ago. At least casting has been going on since January 10th in LA & NY without being placed on hold. ??
WTH happened in this post? JJ can work with whomever he wants to; it’s not his responsibility to fix Hollywood’s diversity issue. Besides, the last time he tried, we got Undercovers. Anyway, I’ll definitely be checking this out – just one of these two would have been enough, but both of them definitely makes me wanna check it out.
Actually, this premise sounds like it may have far older roots – check the Leslie Charteris novel, “The Saint in New York” in which the hero, Simon Templar, is recruited by a civic leader to eliminate the underworld crime bosses who operate with seeming impunity with the collusion of corrupt officials. The novel was made into an entertaining movie starring Louis Hayward as Templar, a r
lords who have seized control
To complete my comment, which was cut short, Templar is potrayed as a dashing rogue wanted by authorities on several continents, who deals his own brand of often lethal justice to the real miscreants of society.
Congrats, Jonah! A VERY talented writer with a very creative mind,I will be looking forward to “Person of Interest”!