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EXCLUSIVE: Jeffrey Reiner is finalizing a deal to direct the NBC drama pilot Wonder Woman, David E. Kelley’s reimagening of the iconic D.C. comic. In the reboot, from Warner Bros. TV, Wonder Woman — aka Diana Prince — is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life. The project was a late spec buy by NBC made by new chief Bob Greenblatt late last month. McG had been in talks to direct the pilot but couldn’t make a deal because of a scheduling conflict with a feature commitment. Reiner has a solid track record on NBC. He served as director/co-executive producer on Friday Night Lights for the series’ early run on NBC. He has directed 3 pilots so far, all going to series. Two of them were for NBC, Trauma in 2009 and The Event last year, and one for cable sibling Syfy, the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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Don’t forget, he also directed the pilot of Caprica.
The Caprica pilot was good. The restv of the series sucked.
I excuse him for for the pilots of The Event and Trauma because I’ve heard of instances where Jeff Zucker would meddle into a project with his own ideas. I heard Zucker zucked up Coupling. So, I’m wondering if Jeffrey Reiner could produce a better pilot with an NBC regime who supports the creative types.
I don’t think we can yet say how Comcast will treat creatives in comparison with Zucker, Silverman, etc. They’re primarily a utility company, after all.
I was referring to Bob Greenblatt who has a great reputation from his days at Fox and Showtime.
“Scheduling conflict”? More like he finally got around to reading the script and realized how bad it is. Though that hasn’t exactly stopped him before.
Good luck to Reiner, because that script is a giant turd. It felt like David E. Kelley couldn’t wait to put Wonder Woman at a press conference or have her pontificate in front of the Senate, but forget about any action or turns to the story. Not sure Welles, Hawks, Scorsese and Spielberg working together could bring any life to that inert mess.
Wonder Woman – Diana Prince is a vigilante balancing her life as a corporate executive? Did David E. Kelley read a Wonder Woman comic before writing the script or just use the names? She is a freaking Amazon with special powers not the female version of Bruce Wayne! This has SUCK all over it even without Zuckerberg or McG involved.
Jeff Reiner is one of the best directors you’re ever going to find in television. What he did with the Caprica pilot still amazes me. And there is nothing I wish for him more than to run as far away from Wonder Woman as possible. Please, Jeff, you are sooo much better than this. Don’t do it.
This just sounds like a total crapfest.
Another M.A.W.M. with crap TV shows getting another shot to make more crap. There should be term limits for these guys.
Elia” you are 100% becoming one of my favorite contributors on this website. You have a brand and you stick to it. Keep sticking it to whitey
Agreed. Elia – you used to annoy me. Now, I look for you. Keep it up.
Now let’s not get too upset. A pilot is only a pilot: the pitch that the producers have to use to sell it to network executives (execs are people who don’t read or understand comics, unless their executives with Internet firms). The show is bound to get better once it gets off the ground.
i’m all for super hero movies and television shows. and reiner has the hutspa to pull off something great. what our ‘hero’ flicks are missing are powerful characters. wonder woman should be someone who looks the part, athletic! wonder woman was an amazon! there needs to be character actors strong in this aesthetic to bring back some “kick ass” to the super hero genre. super hero men need to be super human beings. sylvester stallone, arnold schwarzenagger, clint eastwood, john wayne & the likes were heros that inspired me.
hollywood is doing great in the super heros… more now than ever and it can only get better once men and women of greater confidence fill the boots of the heros.
just my opinion. ; -)
T
Kelley’s script is awful. Truly embarrassing. and the truth is that greenblatt hates it, and only greenlit it (and michael king’s) because warner’s dropped the penalties on all the other pilots they sold to bromstad and co. before he took over.
This is exactly what I’ve heard as well. The sad part is that David E. Kelley has had an amazing career and produced many great shows, but the things he’s writing now haven’t just been bad, they seem old-fashioned. Even top writer/producers like Wells and Abrams have their hits and misses, but you don’t finish reading their lesser scripts and wonder if they’ll ever do anything good again. I really wish Kelley would take some time off, watch some dramas considered more state-of-the-art like ‘Mad Men’, ‘Breaking Bad’ or ‘Boardwalk Empire’, then set out to top them. But I’m not sure that’s going to happen…
I love Wonder Woman. Have since I was learning to read. I want a Wonder Woman project to succeed because of this love. That said, she’s one of the toughest characters to make work because A: she’s more complex, even from the point of origin, than the others, and B: because an essential part of her has been excised since (her creator) Marston’s death – her ethos. I think without someone getting a real handle on Marston’s “Submission to a benevolent mistress” philosophy, she won’t work properly. Kelley seems to be giving her a more corporate twist on the Potter/Perez re-working from the 80′s, but even that only works with charismatic creatives on the book.
If this is going to work at all, the showrunner & directors must have a very firm grasp on who and what their Wonder Woman is. I’m not sure I’m seeing signs of that, at this point.
If they are going to make a Wonder Woman series they better take off the corporate executive trying to balance her extraordinary life. It’s Wonder Woman she can do anything. Give her something more interesting as a plot line. She is an Amazon, born a warrior. And the fiercest warrior in Themyscira, why in th world would she choose to live the life of an executive? I would understand if like in the Justice League cartoon they made her a representative of her nation, but an executive? To me the life of an executive sounds too plain and boring for her.
With kelly and reiner sure hit.