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It’s official: HBO has picked up Aaron Sorkin’s hourlong cable news network pilot to series. The now untitled drama (formerly More As This Story Develops), which has been a virtual lock for a series order, centers on a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his newsroom staff (Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel, Thomas Sadoski), and their boss (Sam Waterston). Together they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements. The size of the order for the series is yet to be determined, but it should be around 10 episodes.
Sorkin wrote the pilot after lengthy research during which he spent time at Keith Olbermann’s and Chris Matthews’ MSNBC shows as well as behind the scenes at Fox News Channel and CNN programs. Sorkin executive produced the pilot, which was directed by Greg Mottola, with Scott Rudin and Alan Poul. This is Sorkin’s fourth series after Sports Night, the Emmy-winning The West Wing and Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip, and the first one on cable. Sorkin, who won an Academy Award in March for penning The Social Network, is now the second writer-creator to do an HBO series right after winning an Oscar. Alan Ball followed his Academy Award for American Beauty with HBO’s Six Feet Under.
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Let me guess…people will be talking very fast and they will treat their job (no matter what it is) as if the fate of the world depends on it.
LMAO indeed they will!
oh YES man! you totally zingered aaron sorkin!! farout.
And every single character will have the exact same IQ, the same sense of humor, the same dark side, the same inflection, the same sense of pathos and the same, oh… the same EVERYTHING. I’m not a fan. I get a headache listening to them.
Stop trying to make Olivia Munn work.
Who produces the pilot/where was it shot?
Her character is the least recurring and they shot in LA.
Olivia Munn is awesome and I will only watch this show because she is on it!
go away, fanboy or her agent/manager/publicist. no one cares what you think.
“Together they set out on a patriotic and quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal entanglements.”
Great news! I have the pilot script and I think it’s absolutely brilliant.
Awesome news!!! So excited for Olivia Munn. Now she’s on a tv series where she can curse.
plant
yeah, I can’t wait to see Olivia on HBO!
Can’t wait to see what Sorkin can bring to cable. Enjoyed all his shows and of course The Social Network. Great cast too (although Olivia Munn is a little random).
What would be awesome is if the news network in the show strove to do real reporting and rejected any agendas or slant (i.e. Fox, MSNBC). Obviously that doesn’t fly in the real world anymore but hey, what a great fantasy. Definitely would qualify as ‘quixotic’.
Nowadays facts have a liberal bias apparently and factual discussion or scientific evidence are codewords for liberal propaganda, so … it is pretty hard to have a fact based reporting program/channel that would not be accused of having liberal bias for just reporting the inconvenient facts.
While I wish it was season 2 of Studio 60, I’m so freaking excited by this pick-up!
So you’re the one who liked Studio 60?
There are TWO of us, sir!
Make that three of us.
Looks like we have evidence that God exists. They dropped that title. Praise Jeebus.
Make that three. I LOVED “Studio 60,” and if the show had premiered on HBO or Showtime we’d still be watching it today.
Four, but I may not count because I`m Canadian.
I’ve watched the entire run of Studio 60 at least 3 times. That was a terrific show.
It was, except for one thing: for a show about a comedy show, the actual show-in-show comedy was AWFUL.
Mr. Sorkin is the best writer working in this medium. Can’t wait to see what he comes up with!
The premise does sound exciting and refreshing, and we know we always get the best from Sorkin and Sam Waterston, but I hope the best stuff won’t get edited out. I’m looking forward to it. God knows HBO needs a transfusion, stat!
If anyone wants the script, just reply me your email and i’ll send it your way.
Hell, I’d love to read the pilot script!
Yes Please. Thanks!
I’d love to see the script for the pilot. The whole cast is stellar. John Gallagher Jr. is a great NYC/Broadway talent so nice to see him get even more exposure and Aaron Sorkin is a great writer. I loved “Sports Night”
i appreciate it. thank you for offering.
I just signed up for HBO with my cable company so I could watch this show. I’m a huge Sam Waterston fan so I can’t wait to see what he does with this role.
I hope they just have news reporting and don’t slant it too far left or too far right. I want to be entertained, not preached to.
I’d also love a copy of the script for the pilot.
Thanks for offering.
I would love to have a copy of the script. thank you for your offer.
Thanks for the kind offer. I would love to read the script!
Totally late tot he party, but I’d love a read!
Thanks Alex
Wait, hold on: are the people in this show good at their jobs? I don’t believe it.
I was hoping that HBO and Aaron would do a TV-Series based on “Network” the 1976 film.
If I could be in the writers room of one show on television it would be this one.
You have no idea how wrong you are about this fantasy.
I wish there was a way to “like” this comment.
If you were in that writer’s room, you would experience what it feels like to have another human being completely deny your presence and the possibility that — on day 3 of prep with no script — you could actually contribute something.
That’s a lot of white people. Hear the script is great.
Oh boy, just what we need, another ubberliberal exigesis for the “doing god’s work” liberal dummies
at HBO written by brain-addled ultra-lib Sorkin. Watch for the shivs going out in this little
Upper West Side school play when it airs: redneck conservatives, bloviating senators, saintly
minority characters pleading the whole panoply of dead cat causes. HBO nailed it’s standard
to the make-believe leftist world years ago making sure everyone from the Sopranos to
America’s funniest putz Larry David got their shots in at the GOP, Bush and anybody to the
right of its deluded concept of center. Prepare for an ineviable scene showing an Obama character or surrogate triumping over red state America.
Howie, Y U so full o’ hate? ?_??
Haha. Last minute casting of newly created “urban” lead character in answer to complaints over lack of diversity in 3…2…
“His new executive producer” because we must have a “fish out of water” character who can be the “eyes and ears” of the audience.
Would be great if Emily Mortimer’s character was a corporate shark brought in to cut costs in the news division (which is what’s happening everywhere) and they thin down the cast by 2-2 people by the end of the first 10 episodes – right before Waterson downsizes Mortimer in the last few minutes.
HBO doesn’t need any transfusion. They’ve got Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. The only thing that needs changing is for Boardwalk Empire to increase the action a little bit because people complained about it being slow. But, that’s really a minor change.
Any word on the investigation into whether Fox News was involved in the News Corp phone-hacking scandal? Now there’s a story arc for Mr. Sorkin. I find it difficult to believe that News Corp confined their nefarious activities to the U.K.
“I find it difficult to believe that News Corp confined their nefarious activities to the U.K.”
And I find it hard to believe that it is confined to News Corp.
I’ll bet my bottom dollar that every tabloid in England knew how to ‘hack’ phone voice mail (default=press ’0,0,0,0′ or ’1,2,3,4′) and did.
But this is how Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip started…everybody loved the concept, loved the pilot…and then the series quickly degenerated into navel-gazing on how to put on a TV show.
I really hope Sorkin can avoid that trap this time. West Wing was one of the best TV shows ever made. I want to see him succeed again.
I. Hope. He. Fails.
Super talented guy, but PLEASE don’t make this show as trite or self-important as that unwatchable piece of shit they called Studio 60. Let it have the Social Network tone and irony!
… Please!!
This is a show I would look forward to watching. Sorkin is a smart, compelling writer. I hope the execution is a good as the script.
Another reason I’m glad I dropped HBO last spring, I don’t miss it at all.
Love the haters here. Sorkin won an Oscar! What have you done?
Agree with earlier post re Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – great show which fell victim to economic conditions – still holding out hope for Series 2!