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In Shondaland’s first sale outside of ABC, Shonda Rhimes’ ABC Studios-based company has landed a put pilot commitment at Fox for Wildwood, a 1980s dramedy written by Diane Ruggiero (The Ex List). Set in 1985 Wildwood, New Jersey, this coming-of-age dramedy centers on a wise-beyond-her-years teenager who poses as an adult in order to land a job at a popular bar on the Jersey Shore. Over the course of a summer fueled by romance, intrigue, and 80s 
music, she must balance her obligations to her chaotic Irish-Italian family with the new secret life she leads. ABC Studios and Shondaland are producing, with Ruggiero, Rhimes and Betsy Beers executive producing. This is the second period one-hour project Shondaland has in the works for next season. In August, the company sold to ABC Gilded Lillys, a 1895 drama written by The Nine co-creator KJ Steinberg. It is one of two projects the company has at ABC, along with a legal drama penned by Jenna Bans. Ruggiero is with UTA and Principato-Young, Shondaland with ICM.
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This is for FOX? It sounds like an ABC Family show. Only slightly less edgy…
It seems like 90% of the shows sold this season are so strongly geared towards the female audience. What happened to shows like Miami Vice or Magnum or Equalizer or A-Team– anything for us guys?
How about, at least, some shows that both sexes could watch. Even this fall with Charlie’s Angels and Pan Am and Playboy Club– IN GENERAL, it seems like the nets could care less about us guys tuning in. I’m sure there is the rare exception in sales this season but the overall trend is undeniable.
How do you do a great male action driven show on network television? Seems all of the shows will be watered down and soapy, de-emphasizing violence, real danger, language, masculinity, etc… The A-Team was a procedural for all intents and purposes from a bygone era. So was Air Wolf. All the male characters on network TV today are trying to get in touch with their feminine side. How do get men to watch this stuff? You don’t.
You want great male driven stuff, seems like you have to go to the movies or watch stuff like Strike Back on Cinemax.
If they film this show any place other than Wildwood, NJ, I refuse to watch. And if they don’t use the line “Watch the tram car please” then they don’t even know anything about Wildwood.
That may be all they get right. Anyone who had property in the Wildwoods in the 80s knows that it was a pit at that time – major economic depression into the 90s and the bar scene was not anything that ends with ‘medy’. Setting this in the 50s or even early 60s maybe – but the 80s? Clueless. Totally clueless.
We lived in the Crest. It wasn’t that bad. I worked a little bit at a stand on the Boardwalk in the late 90′s as a teen. I still visit every summer and love it. I guess they can always get away to Cape May on the show.
Yeah the Crest is nice. Funny how everyone down there calls it ‘The Crest’ instead of ‘Wildwood Crest’ – like they just dont want to be tagged with Wildwood. But its not the same – they are ‘The Wildwoods’ – three towns, and Wildwood is just one of them.
One thing about the 80s, early 90s – and Jersey Gal was right on – is that the major tourist block at that time was the French Canadian. Wildwood was cheap and marketed itself to that group – so much that Canadian currency was often taken and a lot of places advertised ‘we speak francais’. Talk to anyone who waitressed at the time and they will tell you stories about our neighbors to the north.
We bought in the Crest in 1994…what a great vacation place…i worked the first and second year at a great restaurant in the Crest and then at the Cape May Lewes Ferry as a bartender…my family has enjoyed the shore so much….i now do volunteer work at The Nature Center in Cape May and think I have learned more from the shore than any other place I’ve traveled to or lived…this should be a great show!!!
hahahaha. oh man, you hit that on the head! dodging old ladies on bikes and tram cars in your fluorescent tank tops or spud mackenzie shirt…
That’s a big secret… working at a bar and all.
WAY TO GO, DIANE! Wrote the funniest ep of FREE AGENTS and so many of VERONICA MARS. (And I loved Ex List–after the pilot.)
Wildwood makes Seaside Heights look like the Hamptons.
You totally have that backwards. Seaside is the hole. Sure North Wildwood used to be interesting to put it politely, but Wildwood Crest, Cape May, they’re some of the nicest parts of the entire Jersey Shore. And the Boardwalk in Wildwood with their Six Flags level of roller coasters makes Seaside look like a kiddie park. This area would be great for filming something on location. I just don’t know if a show would want to be there for months at a time, especially in the off season.
Like the Jersey girl above said – back in the 80s it did. Trying to clean up now but Wildwood was awful in the 80s – most of the people were part time residents or single parents looking for the cheap housing. Tons of unemployment, drugs and a scary tacky boardwalk. Then come Senior Week and its a zoo. Wildwoods big unsolved cold cases come from the 80s and early 90s. Sounds like one of those involved spent a week down Wildwood once. Sorry – some places you just have to have lived there awhile to know.
So is Grey’s Anatomy going to get even worse (if that’s at all possible) now that Shonda has yet another show to distract her? One would think ABC would do to Shonda what they did to Marc Cherry when he got distracted by another show (that failed to get picked up) during season two of Desperate Housewives when the quality severely diminished – bar her from doing any other show so she could focus on doing one properly.
If I as a woman stereotyped men in such a cliched fashion, you’d rightly scream foul, yet you willingly portray yourselves as nothing but cavemen.
Um, no… We just don’t like watching Desperate Housewives, Pan Am, Playboy Club, Charlie’s Angels, Hawthorne, The New Girl, The Closer, The Good Wife, or any of that other pandering to chick crap.
Give me The Shield. Give me Wiseguy. Give me The Wire. Give me Miami Vice.
You can have this show about the chick working in the bar.
I wish shonda rhimes got her own cable channel so I can just block it on my DVr
remember one thing, if this show or any other like it don’t make it. network tv will keep trying until they hit a gold mine? so it will become chick tv.
I could always identify a Ruggiero episode of “Veronica Mars” because the characters were always a little more vivid, their dialogue a little extra sparkly. Congrats to her.
“Veronica Mar’s” was one of the greatest shows ever. If Ruggiero can put her scarstic wit in “Wildwood” great things will happen. Anything Ruggiero writes should be great! I was in Wildwood in the 80′s and had a blast.
Nets are banking on boys tuning into cable for their fix. Good Wife is decent as a straight legal procedural – gender aside. It does not bother me that lead is a female. Actually like Margueles work here brings an intetesting perspective to role. Baranski is good as well, and if you need a boy to make you watch, four decent male actors in supporting roles.
As for The other female demo driven shows you metion a couple (Pan Am & New Girl) appear to have an audience which pays the bills, and i have Game of Thrones, Justified, Sons of Anarchy and Boardwalk Empire. All available on cable.
Plenty of testy driven poduct out there.
Exactly. The major broadcast nets clearly are going for broke with the female audience and not caring about male viewership. Cable is where men have to look for content that appeals to them.
more of a CW fit?