David Nutter To Direct & Executive Produce Bruno Heller’s CBS Legal Drama Pilot

COMMENTS (11)

• I’d love to know just how bad that Christine Lahti pilot was to be his only one not picked up.

  Comment by M — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 10:15am PST  Reply to this post

  • @M — it was so bad it was funny.

    Comment by Well... — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 11:22am PST  Reply to this post

    • So bad it was funny? Did you see it? You are dismissing a very strong pilot, one of the strongest of that year. It not getting picked up had very little to do with its quality. This guy is a force of nature when it comes to making good pilots. The odds of achieving his kind of success are astronomical. One of his pilots did not go to series and you knock it? Really?

      Comment by Really? — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 12:41pm PST  Reply to this post

      • The pilot was a rip off of another pilot they should have picked up the year before but it was not vertically integrated with CBS network. Talented director. Not his fault.

        Comment by Hy — Saturday January 26, 2013 @ 6:04am PST  Reply to this post

        • Clearly Nutter can shoot the hell out of something, but did he read this pilot? It’s no MENTALIST. This script is so wooden & premise is trite. Bruno must’ve had a pretty hefty penalty if CBS chose not to shoot. Nutter is this project’s best hope.

          Comment by Hmm — Saturday January 26, 2013 @ 2:12pm PST  

• So this is basically a lock-in for next season?! The Mentalist will probably be back for the final season. But where would CBS air this? I suspect the NCIS spinoff may take the Tuesday 10pm for the start and ensure an NCIS-night. Viewers seem to be happy with the current scheduling. That leaves only Friday or Sunday…..

  Comment by meowmeow — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 10:42am PST  Reply to this post

• Nice guy. Wish him the best.

  Comment by Tara — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 10:46am PST  Reply to this post

• Wiil it *ever* matter that there’s a difference between getting a series on the air and getting a successful series on the air? He’s got a helluva list of credits to be sure. It’s even impressive. But of those 17 pilots, nine never made it to year two.

  Comment by Eddie — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 10:56am PST  Reply to this post

  • No, it doesn’t make a difference. You know how difficult it is for a script to even go to pilot, let alone go to series. You talk about year two when in this biz making it to year one is damn near a miracle.

    Comment by Paco — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 12:50pm PST  Reply to this post

• Have known David a long time. It’s unusual that someone brings that kind of passion to the work — he willingly burned a budding movie career by going public in an LA Times op-ed piece when his 1st movie Disturbing Behavior was taken out of his hands by the studio and “re-edited” for public release — and has remained a nice guy throughout.
  Tough director, though. Demanding. Which is partly the point. The book on him is that he creates stars, he doesn’t use already-made stars.
  As for how many of those 17 failed to stick: He’ll be the 1st to tell you that he sees his job as setting up a template in the opener, recommending a list of episode directors to hire from there, and then leaves it to others to take over after that
  He’s no slouch in episodic, either: He’s done Sopranos, ER and did a terrific Game of Thrones last year, toward season’s end. So he isn’t just a one-trick pilot pony.
  I don’t have a dog in this hunt, by the way: I don’t work for him, and I don’t work for WB. I just know the way he rolls. Bruno Heller and CBS have landed a good one, but then they probably know that already.

  Comment by A.S. — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 11:28am PST  Reply to this post

• David’s a hell of a director and a hell of a nice guy. Pretty awesome to be able to nail both of those.

  And 8 out of 17 to year 2 certainly ain’t bad when viewed against the overall data of show longevity or lack thereof.

  Comment by gothar — Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 11:42am PST  Reply to this post