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EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: I scooped yesterday that HBO had done a secret deal for an Untitled Roger Ailes Project being executive produced by Fox News rivals from MSNBC. Today I’ve received this email from HBO Films President Len Amato: “We recently decided not to pursue the Ailes project. It had become clear to us before even receiving a script that due to our company’s CNN affiliation the film could never be seen as objective.” Interesting, because today I’ve confirmed that none of the dealmakers have yet been informed by HBO that the project isn’t going forward. “HBO was trying hard to keep the project under wraps,” one of the dealmakers tells me. My reporting blew that.
Related: HBO Targeting Roger Ailes With Movie Produced By MSNBC Rivals
The HBO movie would have been based on the upcoming manuscript by media writer Gabriel Sherman who has written two cover stories for New York magazine on Ailes and Fox News, including his mammoth article “The Elephant In The Green Room” which prompted complaints from the Fox News CEO. Last year, Sherman signed a book contract with Random House which at one point was tentatively titled The Loudest Voice In The Room: An Inside Account Of The Rise Of Fox News but isn’t formally titled now. NYC-based Hotchkiss and Associates made the HBO deal for the film rights to Sherman’s book tentatively titled The Loudest Voice In The Room on behalf of the Ross Yoon Agency. Executive producing this latest HBO project are two of Ailes’ competitors: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Their deal was negotiated by WME Entertainment, the Hollywood agency run by Ari Emanuel who is a Democratic activist (and the brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama White House chief of staff).
HBO appears obsessed by GOP Conservatives. There have been movies about the 2000 Bush vs Gore election standoff and Sarah Palin and most recently a TV series featuring George W Bush’s severed head. Sources told me Sherman is still researching the book and plans to finish writing it by the end of the summer for a 2013 publishing date. A cagey HBO exec’s response to me when I called before about the project was: “Nothing much to say. No book yet to read. No script. We’ll wait to see what the script looks like and then decide whether to develop further.” It’s commonplace for Time Warner’s premier pay TV channel to sign up books before they’re published and then turn them into TV movies. In this TV movie, a source tells me, “HBO prefers to take on Fox News through Ailes. The idea is that it should make Fox News look like a Mafia, and you get into this through Ailes, sidestepping Murdoch, not approaching the story head on.” Meanwhile, the New York Daily News recently reported that Ailes was helping conservative writer Zev Chafets fast-track a book about Ailes and the cable-news network. The Daily News reported Fox News granted extensive access to Chafets, published by Penguin’s conservative Sentinel imprint in the fall.
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Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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A tear forms in the eyes of the ten people that had planned on watching this.
A tear forms in the eyes of the many people that may have been employed by this project.
Drug Cartels employ people, whats your point?
TEN? I seriously doubt that BSDNC’s audience has as many as nine additional friends. I was interested to find out that HBO is apparently still on the air though. I chucked it in 1991 and just assumed everyone else had as well…
You’re a little late to the “I ditched HBO in —-” contest. The winner was the guy who cancelled his subscription in 1970, two years before they launched.
Hey Rich, how about go watch Night At The Museum for the 500th time I am sure it is still playing on HBO.
Len Amato just wants to rip off journalism and modern politics for his subject matter for movies. It’s like Lifetime for men of a certain age over there. Instead of abused women it’s all about how absolute power corrupts absolutely — over and over again.
There’s been a marginalization of dramatic subject matter since Temple Grandin won every award. I doubt HBO will ever make a dramatically meaningful or surprising film again.
People like him (canceling HBO in 1970) are just SOOO smart!
Ha, ha! Love it.
I have also thought to myself that the series Big Love was aimed at discrediting Mitt Romney. The series began in ’06 just before the election. HBO is on my list of networks, entertainers, etc… that I will no longer watch.
Looks as if HBO can’t stand truth in the news, so they will go for the fantasy land of CNN and every other Spud Trader that comes down the trail
How does it feel to be the most powerful person in Hollywood, Nikki? You are a beast!
Nikki has the distinction of reporting info that others cannot/will not report. That’s a novelty in the news business. How I wish every reporter in media had her balls. . . .
Sexy beast!
Maybe AMC will do it now that HBO turned it down.
I guess Conservatives whine and get whatever they want, like the spoiled babies they are.
They have a point of view. At least they stand up for it. Why should they care if HBO wussed out?
Let me tell you why I watch HBO. Trublood and Game of Thrones. Maybe i will watch a movie here and there but i mostly keep my channel on FoxNews with an occassional switch over to MSNBC or CNN to see what they are talking about. Dont know what my choices tell you but this is who I am.
Right… Because its the conservatives that always have their hands out asking for more.
is Nikki Finke conservative now? SHE broke the story nimrod.
Clearly you didn’t read the article.
At least when they “get what they want” they don’t expect somebody else to pay for it.
Why not…Leftist Hollywood and the Alphabet Media have been getting away with dominating the microphone, and the conversation for decades.
Get used to it…We are not your father’s audience.
You mean like the occupiers, or the million man march, or the attempt to steal the 2000 election, or the whiners in Milwaukee leaving the state rather than voting?
We try and usually win. We’ll see what November brings.
The lights come on the roaches scatter
“The film could never be seen as objective.” Really, Len? Tell me when HBO starts making satires of Left Wing politics and Left Wing politicians, and your words might have a ring of truth.
Without their yearly SNL-meets-watered-down-Larry Gelbart satire of the right, is anything interesting even going on at HBO films?
Well, they do have a firm (ahem) commitment to T&A.
Well, it’s definitely not going to be on ABC but maybe Showtime can manage it.
Will fit right in (thematically and ethically) with “Shameless”…
HBO moves further to the left every year. I feel dirty watching HBO even if it’s part some some free for 3 months deal.
Nikki, you scuttled their movie! Good for you!
Again, don’t forget the recent HBO doc “41,” a laughable whitewash of George HW Bush by his very close friend Jerry Weintraub. Do they really expect us to believe that was an objective piece? It was certainly a piece of something.
I dumped my HBO over a year ago, I don’t miss it. I wonder if there’s a John Edwards flick in the works? Or Elliot Spitzer? Or Anthony Weiner?
This comment about conservatives whining and being crybabies is EXACTLY what one would expect from a liberal drone… No thought needed, just revert to 4th grade rhetoric… What’s scary is, 47 percent of America is just this childish… What eases my mind though, they are usually to lazy to vote unless they are promised something “free”….
SO TRUE !!!
Oh, please, Republicans play the victim card all the time. You’re all doing it right now, acting like big, bad HBO is beating up on the GOP. Or take the mythical “War on Christmas.” There is no war on Xmas. Never has been. But once the GOP/Fox victimhood machine gets done, suddenly there’s some national crisis in which secular, liberal heathens are attacking traditional Christian values, etc. It’s pure political theater.
How about the “war on women”? Oh, wait, that’s a liberal idea. Sorry, my friend – liberals are KNOWN for playing the victim card. “Hate crimes”, sexism, racism, etc. That’s because they’re so wimpy and can’t fend for themselves.
The Intolerant “Haters” from the left will never be able to accept the fact that FOX News has been “Beating The Pants” off all the other pathetic news networks almost from the inception of the news channel.
You Cry-Babies just can’t stand their success, but there’s not a DAMN thing you can do about it except generate more Hate Speech, go after the sponsor and of course, personally attack everyone associated with the network because you idiots on the left can’t defeat any political arguments using intellect . . .
You say liberals can’t use their intellect to win political arguments? All you do is call liberals idiots, crybabies, and haters. What a mountain of intellect you are. As for your mutterings about how liberals are just jealous of FNC’s ratings. Dude, this liberal doesn’t even watch cable news. It’s all terrible.
Please, please, please: Give us a strong example of liberal “Hate Speech” — without using Bill Maher.
I couldn’t agree more with you… I swear EVERYTHING that happens in the world, that’s negative, all Conservatives do it say it’s the liberals fault.. Everything is blamed on Obama, it’s such a joke!
Hmmm..now let me see…there’s Keith Olbermann, Chris Rock, Canye West, Jon Stewart, Al Sharpton, Alec Balwin, 95% of Hollywood, Current TV, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS…need I go on?
Your right Johnny. If we conservatives complained about every example of media bias, there would not be enough time in the day to talk about anything else. But please notice, we’re only pointing it out. No one trying to shut-up opposing view points. You can’t say the same, can you?
Aside from the “you are, no YOU are!” arguments here, it is obvious there are deep ideological differences between Liberals and Conservatives. Both claim to be for righteousness. However,on the Liberal side, the righteousness has its base in humanism, while Conservatives have theirs in God-based Judeo-Christian philosophy. While the comfort zone is where both ideologies overlap, what is generally highlighted is the differences which are extremely divisive. Personally, I’ll take the God based ideology, because I freely admit I’m not as wise as God.
Me too! Amen.
“big, bad HBO”
Well, they don’t get any bigger or badder than HBO *in Hollywood*.
It is a massive, massive money machine with unprecedented profitability.
And, at the end of the lunch in Hollywood, nothing else matters…
Nice job, Nikki. You let a big pig get away!
I just watch entertainment channels to be entertained. I watch news channels to be entertained. I don’t expect these media outlets to do more than that. But if you claim to inform me than you better give me more than the extremely left wing bias I see. Please do better, I challenge you.
Name one instance of liberal bias in the mainstream media. Just name one. I’m sure such moments exist. Tell me about one. I want to know.
It would be easier to quote you the times that the Liberal Media WASN’T being biased…they are far and few between.
Andrea Mitchell selectively editing Mitt Romney’s speech to make him look like he was amazed at a sandwich dispenser at Wawa, and not at private sector ingenuity. Ed Schultz selectively editing Rick Perry to make it seem like his use of the phrase “black cloud” referred to Obama, instead of the economy, which he said in the very next sentence. That’s just 2 on MSNBC alone. Wake up.
Andrea Mitchell (MSNBC) deliberately editing a Romney appearance at a sandwich store to make it look like he didn’t know how sandwiches are made. When the rest of Romney’s quote was restored, it revealed how Romney was praising the private sector’s ability to innovate and create more efficient means of production. Clueless Ragnar. . ..
How about when Mary Mapes, one of the producers responsible for the CBS News story on GWB’s national guard service, admitted to being in contact with advisers from John Kerry’s presidential campaign during the research of that story?
Ragnar – you can’t win here. If you don’t think there is bias in news – both on the right and on the left, then you’re just incredibly dumb.
The story on the forgery that CBS used to smear President Bush is a good example. The bomb NBC put in the bumper of Pinto to make it look like it would blow up if hit in the rear. The editing of Zimmerman’s phone call to 911 to make him look like a racist is another good one. NBC and MSNBC get caught regularly in fabrications and lies. The vulcarity from the mouths of MSNBC announcers toward women and blacks who are conservative is almost nightly.
The replay of the dude who walked the wire across Niagara Falls.
All his references to GOD were cut out.
Here’s one. Between 2004 and 2008 the New York Times ran 173 stories on Gitmo. Since 2008?
HBO, you’re still dead to me.
Well, I never wanted a tv-movie style take on Ailes and Fox anyway; I want a thoroughly verified and backed-up DOCUMENTARY. I mean, the crying babies on the right would still call it a smear and claim it’s all lies, but at least SOME people would be forced to look at the hard evidence and see Fox for what it is.
Of course, hardly anyone would WATCH it, but maybe it would shame the rest of the so-called “left-wing” media (you know, the ones that never met a corporation they wouldn’t bend over backwards for) to stop cow-towing to the conservative B.S. factory. (Never gonna happen, I know; if the Murdoch empire goes down in flames tomorrow, they’d all be racing for the “privilage” of being the Republican party’s new attack dog.But a man can DREAM about the return of actual JOURNALISM to TV, can’t he?)
Hmmmmm. Let’s see now.
‘HBO Films President Len Amato: “We recently decided not to pursue the Ailes project. It had become clear to us before even receiving a script that due to our company’s CNN affiliation the film could never be seen as objective.”’
I just looked up the word “objective” It means:
objective — adj 1. existing independently of perception or an individual’s conceptions: are there objective moral values? 2. undistorted by emotion or personal bias 3. of or relating to actual and external phenomena as opposed to thoughts, feelings, etc
So do I understand that the PRESIDENT of HBO Films its affiliate CNN are not “seen as objective”???? O.K. then if they can’t “be seen as objective” then they MUST be seen as “DISTORTED by emotion or personal bias” (definition #2.) So since he admits they are both seen as biased, could I reasonably assume that bias is to the conservative side? (Here’s a hint: CHYEAH!! RIGHT!!!!) Soooo ya think maybe they’re seen as biased to the liberal side?? OH MY!!! LEN, PLEASE SAY IT ISN’T SO!!!!
To liberals, “balanced” means “Left”, “FAR Left” and “EXTREME LEFT”. If they have to hear a Conservative point of view it’s like fingernails on a blackboard to them. You go running around admitting there actually IS another point of view out there and the shock to their systems will send them all into therapy or over a cliff. Next thing you know you’ll be telling them “intellectual” is NOT a synonym for “liberal”.
BTW, for you lefty, lemming losers still blasting FOX, take a look at the ratings. YOU force people to FOX because YOUR idea of media is totally void of any TRUTH, INTELLECT or INTEGRITY!! DO NOT call it “Journalism” (unless you put the word “YELLOW” in front of it.) And don’t hate FOX for that. IF YOU hadn’t gone left decades ago FOX would be just another average show.
silly
You mean “Kow-tow” a submissive, deferential prostration signifying obiescence to a dictator or emperor. Sort of like democrats to The One. . .
Part and parcel of the Republican ethos is their insistence on the characteristics of legend be accepted as the whole truth. This is how Joe Kennedy built HIS brand and the Republicans followed suit. All the Republicans gotta have a “family compound” now, have you noticed? Kennebunkport, Romney now in New Hampshire; originality is not their strong suit. But there’s always a story BEHIND the official story and, to HBO’s credit, they pursue these stories and they’re not all just about politics. Is it that HBO has a liberal bias? Or is it when there’s a disingenuous “legend” afoot, and there’s a story behind the story, these days, hard-core Republican interests (“Too Big to Fail” for instance) are often, if not always, nearby. Ailes is a powerful and fascinating guy. HBO should follow through. If they do it right the film could be about the pitfalls of conflict-of-interest in media conglomerates as well. Maybe that’s the reason why they have elected not to do it. Time Warner doesn’t wanna go there. Perhaps you can’t do Ailes’ story right without offering up a critique of that. But “conflict of interest” regarding CNN? It took them over two decades to come up with this all of a sudden? Sounds like there’s a story, behind the story, behind the story.
Sounds like you’re reading wayyyyy to far in to it and are actually looking forward to an FNC/Ailes hit piece while attempting to comment under the auspices of objectivity. What probably happened is that some executives realized how uniquely biased they have become and wanted to stop the subscriber bleed they’re currently experiencing.
What is wrong with you? Seriously, those attacks are just stupid. What point do you think you’re making by attacking conservatives as not being “original” because rich Republicans, like rich people in general, have family “compounds”? There’s nothing WRONG with that and such things have been going on for thousands of years and will forever unless some evil tyrant makes it impossible.
“Is it that HBO has a liberal bias?”
Yes, you idiot. Did you even read the article? It’s bloody obvious, and this article doesn’t even list half of the reasons why.
A truly excellent post, Canof. Keep writing!
HBO heads off surge in subscriber cancellations.
TOO late
HBO and/or CNN “seen as objective”?!?
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me too!!!!
HBO is great, and I doubt half the people claiming they just dropped it for being too liberal have ever subscribed to it at all.
This could have been a very interesting TV movie. Why assume it had to be a hatchet job? Why so much fear and venom over a TV movie on a pay cable channel? It’s silly when there’s an uproar about a movie about the Kennedys, and it’s silly now.
By the way, Joe and Mika are great. Do check out their show, whatever side of the political spectrum you’re on!
“Why assume it had to be a hatchet job?”
Because we’re not idiots in the general or “useful” (as you are) sense. Because leftists are seemingly incapable of making ANYTHING about conservatives that is objective. Because HBO in particular has produced many anti-conservative hatchet jobs (and ridiculous glowing stories about liberals chock full of revisionist history) already.
HBO is not great as long as it has Bill Maher on it. For you to say it is great tells me more about you than it does about HBO.
Just look at these two responses by Sand and Webster. Harsh, accusatory, and negative. There’s no attempt at engagement. There’s no attempt to discuss these issues in a civil manner, the way people used to be raised by their parents to do. Did your parents not raise you to be civil and decent people, you two? If you are religious, or have ever attended a house of worship, did all those lessons and sermons fall on deaf ears?
Oh, their defense is predictable enough. “Well you Democrats…” Sure, some liberals and progressives are rude, too. But it amazes me how much conservatives apparently look up to people they despise as role models, because they always try to justify their own bad behavior based upon what people on the Left supposedly do. There’s not even a token attempt to be better than their opponents. They’re just looking for any excuse to get into the muck, and indulge their worst selves.
Some days I feel sad for people like you. For the arc of history bends toward justice and equality, what we believe in. And in the end, you’ll just be gone.
“Why assume it had to be a hatchet job?”
Well, there is the decapitated head of Bush for one…if there were ever a claim for a literal *hatchet* job…
Well what do you know about that? Could it be that on the basis of this original story alone, HBO has already lost thousands of subscribers and that’s why they bailed on this hit piece? Too late HBO….everyone always knew your ” original ” programming was left wing….but your latest project in collaboration with left wing MSNBC was the last straw…You people at HBO can’t possibly believe that making a 180 will make any difference do you?
Industrialists don’t take it kindly when you try to expose their minister of propaganda. FYI: The “left vs. right” debate is the best way to keep sheep distracted from what’s really going on. Pay attention to what happens not what gets said, and follow the money trail ….
As long as Maher is still on HBO, I’ll keep it canceled.
Who cares what HBO does? Does anyone still pay for their service anyway?
Yeah, but only for True Blood and Game of Thrones. I may well just abandon it, though, and purchase episodes of both off iTunes now that I have an Apple TV box in my living room.
Thank God for Roger Ailes and Fox!