TV Script Deals: Jon Feldman Sells Drama To ABC, Samuel L. Jackson Sells To CBS

COMMENTS (13)

• The Jon Harmon Feldman sounds similar to his old series Tru Calling with Eliza Dushku who used to relive days to prevent murders. Cast her as the news reporter and it’s kinda back.

  Comment by J.R. — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 5:31am PDT  Reply to this post

• Really? Really? For the life of me, I can’t figure out why broadcast television is in a creative slump……

  Comment by Theo — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 7:08am PDT  Reply to this post

• Wow, way to rip off Early Edition.

  Comment by Chad — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 7:20am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Why does this non talent keep getting deals? He runs a terrible writers room. He antagonizes on screen talent. His ideas are ripped off from other movies or TV shows. He’s off putting and hard to deal with. His track record is lousy and yet there is always a deal for him.

    Does he know where some bodies are buried?

    What am I missing? Please explain.

    Comment by Fiona — Thursday September 1, 2011 @ 4:18am PDT  Reply to this post

• Nearly everything is referred to as “Moonlighting-meets-” when discussing a show about opposites attracting with light banter and chemistry and a bit of action mixed in. But shut up. Not only does it almost never work out (let’s remember the short-lived “Standoff”, which was torn between being “Moonlighting” and sticking to the procedural structure that networks get hard-on’s from), it usually turns out the series who are given this “Moonlighting-meets-” label actually are nothing like “Moonlighting” and they just said this because it sounds good (“Bones”, “Castle”, everything!).

  And as great as Moonlighting was, I think the TV world romanticizes it a bit too much. Because outside of seasons 1 & 2, what you have is a mess of a series that by today’s standards would have been gone faster than “Early Edition” was from all of our collective minds once it too bit the dust in 2000 (sans you diehard fans out there whom I respect).

  Jon Feldman, his past four series on ABC being discarded and thrown away like a bad coffee from an intern, deserves a hit and a solid show at this point. So good luck Jon! Maybe under the new Paul Lee dynasty he’ll be given that chance. This concept does indeed sound worthy and fun if done right. But here’s food for thought – and having worked in Network tv and development (hell) and just being around town, I know this for a fact (as factual as anything can be in hollow-wood) – even when Networks say they want the next MOONLIGHTING, once they have it as a series they are just going to force it into becoming a standard, boring procedural which, if it goes off the main story (you know, into fun character land), then they’ll gripe &make the showrunner tone down the humor and fun and (again) character development. These Networks, they love a procedural, they want a procedural, they’ve convinced themselves they need a procedural, they just pretend they don’t… until they actually greenlight the series and start giving their notes.

  Comment by Plus Vernon — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 7:38am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Why does Jon Feldman “deserve” a hit. His shows have all been discarded, because his writing isn’t just light, it’s lightweight. It’s so LCD and lame. The exact type of guy who keeps getting pilots that you read and scratch your head. And sometimes they even make them. This will never be a series. In his wildest dreams if Feldman knocks it out of the park and writes his best pilot ever, maybe it gets picked up. But even in that implausible scenario, no way it’ll last a season. I just can’t figure out why the execs paying for this don’t know that.

    Comment by Woo — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 9:01am PDT  Reply to this post

  • Totally agree with you Plus V – but this is network TV and ABC’s demo is OLDER WOMEN. They want the hot detective/ex con and saucy reporter or cop to team up and have the pent up sexual tension that is part of the cookie cutter procedural studios/nets have been successful with for a long long time. What we need is to see shows created for a different demo using high concept ideas like this in ways that surprise us…

    Comment by OldGuard — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 10:32am PDT  Reply to this post

• From the mind of Feldman comes……another rehash of a middlebrow series. I have worked with him, and he’s no Glenn Caron. Of course, Glenn is no picnic, but at least he *has* ideas.

  Comment by Desiccated Old Man — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 8:27am PDT  Reply to this post

• I can only hope that I’m continually handed opportunities after repeated failures. Oh, wait I’m not white. Nevermind.

  Racial antipathy aside, in what mind does “Moonlighting meets Early Edition” sound like a good idea? Alas I am but a lowly wannabe different only in the sense that my mediocre ideas have not blossomed into cancelled mediocre television shows. By all means let’s dig up this corpse and prop it up at the dinner table.

  Comment by FunkDubious — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 9:48am PDT  Reply to this post

• Did anybody elses brain hurt after reading the Feldman synopsis?

  Comment by Anon — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 10:41am PDT  Reply to this post

• Feldman’s show isn’t kind of like Early Edition, it is EXACTLY like Early Edition. No originality needed in Hollywood anymore, thank you very much, we only accept Derivatives.

  Comment by DFacs — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 11:42am PDT  Reply to this post

• Don’t mean to interrupt all the Feldman bashing, don’t know him. But I do know Rob Bragin, and he is a great guy and a terrific writer, and I congratulate him on his awesome news.

  Comment by A friend — Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 1:03pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Yikes, heavy personal bashing, and from what i know, undeserved. Jon’s a good and smart guy, very hardworking and i hope this works out for him.

  Comment by PerfectPat — Tuesday September 6, 2011 @ 12:13pm PDT  Reply to this post