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Cinemax Orders Contract Killer Drama Pilot Based On Max Allan Collins’ ‘Quarry’ Books

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday April 3, 2013 @ 3:00pm PDTTags: Cinemax, Max Allan Collins, Quarry
Nellie Andreeva

Cinemax has given a pilot order to Quarry, a drama project based on the series of novels by Max Allan Collins (Road To Perdition graphic novel). Written by Graham Gordy and Michael D. Fuller, Quarry is set in the 1970s and centers on a Marine sniper who, upon his return home from Vietnam in 1973, finds himself shunned by those he loves and demonized by the public. Combat-hardened and disillusioned, he’s recruited into a network of contract killers and corruption spanning the length of the Mississippi River. John Hillcoat is set to direct the pilot, co-produced by Anonymous Content. Hillcoat, Gordy and Fuller, all CAA and Anonymous clients, executive produce with Anonymous’ Steve Golin, David Kanter, Matt DeRoss and Keith Redmon. READ MORE »

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‘Hell On Wheels’ Creators To Adapt Australian Drama ‘The Straits’ For Cinemax

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday April 1, 2013 @ 4:16pm PDTTags: Cinemax, The Straits
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Cinemax has put in development The Straits, a drama series adaptation of the 2012 Australian series starring Brian Cox. Hell On Wheels … Read More »

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Cinemax’s ‘Banshee’ Wraps Solid First Season

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday March 18, 2013 @ 12:38pm PDTTags: Banshee, Cinemax, TV Ratings
Nellie Andreeva

BansheeAs all eyes are on the ratings for last night’s Season 2 finale of HBO’s Girls (expected any minute now), the season-finale numbers for Banshee, which airs on HBO sibling Cinemax, also came out today. … Read More »

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Dougray Scott & Milauna Jackson Join Cast Of Cinemax’s ‘Strike Back’ For Season 3

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday March 14, 2013 @ 8:24am PDTTags: Cinemax, Dougray Scott, Milauna Jackson, Robson Green, Strike Back
Nellie Andreeva

Dougray Scott (Desperate Housewives), Milauna Jackson (Blood Done Sign My Name) and Robson Green (Wire In The Blood) have been added to the cast of Cinemax‘s action drama Strike Back as it … Read More »

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Cinemax Renews ‘Banshee’ For Season 2

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday January 29, 2013 @ 10:03am PSTTags: Banshee, Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

Cinemax has renewed Banshee for a second season three weeks into the action series’ freshman run. The second season of the drama, executive produced by Alan Ball, Jonathan Tropper, David Schickler, Peter Macdissi and Greg Yaitanes, will air in 2014. In its January 11 premiere, Banshee drew a respectable 483,000 viewers at 10 PM and 965,000 over three airings. This is the first truly homegrown Cinemax series, having started as a project in development at sibling HBO. It joins Strike Back as the second Cinemax series to score a second-season renewal. Read More »

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Cinemax’s ‘Banshee’ To Premiere Jan. 11

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday December 20, 2012 @ 11:25am PSTTags: Banshee, Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

Cinemax‘s new drama series Banshee, executive produced by Alan Ball, will debut on Friday, January 11 at 10 PM. The action series starring Antony Starr as an ex-con and master thief who assumes the identity of … Read More »

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Cinemax Developing Mob Drama From Overbrook & Writer Chad St. John

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday November 29, 2012 @ 2:13pm PSTTags: Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

HBO’s sister channel Cinemax has put in development Kingpin, an hourlong drama from Black List writer Chad St. John (Ronin) and Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment. It is one of two drama projects St. John and Overbrook are collaborating on, along with Watchlist, which recently sold to Fox. Both are executive produced by St. John, his wife Viruna Arend and Lassiter.

Kingpin centers on a crafty and careful mid-level drug trafficker trying to get out of the business. He is blackmailed back into it by a dirty DEA agent — who’s really a dirty CIA agent, because the agency can no longer work with murderous cartels — who plans to make the trafficker a puppet kingpin…a tidbit the trafficker and his partners will wish someone would have told them. Read More »

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Cinemax Eyes New Incarnation Of ‘Hunted’ With Frank Spotnitz And Melissa George

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday November 15, 2012 @ 8:15am PSTTags: BBC, Cinemax, Frank Spotnitz
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: The BBC-Cinemax series Hunted won’t go beyond its current freshman season after BBC One opted not to renew the espionage drama for a second season. But Cinemax is working with series creator Frank Spotnitz on a new incarnation of the show about spy Sam Hunter (Melissa George). “We are making plans with creator and executive producer Frank Spotnitz and star Melissa George to present a new chapter in the Sam Hunter mythology,” Kary Antholis, President, HBO Miniseries and Cinemax Programming, said in a statement to Deadline. “We are very pleased with what Hunted has done for Cinemax’s brand and are very excited about what lies ahead.”

Because of the project’s setup –  BBC originally commissioned eight episodes from Shine-owned British production company Kudos Film and Television before Cinemax came on board as producer/U.S. distributor — I hear continuing the series in its current form proved impossible without partner BBC. That has led to Cinemax brass looking for another way to keep the premise and the Sam Hunter character alive while also assuming greater creative control. In a complex co-production agreement like the one on Hunted, it is hard for each of the partners to realize their vision for the show as decisions are often made by compromise. Additionally, for a pay cable network, doing a series with a public broadcaster like the BBC imposes certain restrictions on the content that could be featured. Read More »

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Cinemax’s ‘Strike Back’ Renewed For Third Season

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday October 3, 2012 @ 8:45am PDTTags: Cinemax, Strike Back
Nellie Andreeva

Strike Back RenewedCinemax has renewed its first primetime drama series Strike Back for a third season with a 10-episode order for a 2013 premiere. The third season, which will shoot in South Africa and Hungary, will once again be produced by Cinemax/HBO, Left Bank and Sky, which will air the series in the U.K. Returning for season three will be Left Bank’s Andy Harries as executive producer, series producer Michael Casey and head of production Marigo Kehoe. Others returning for season three include director Michael Bassett and writers Simon Burke, James Dormer and Richard Zajdlic. As it did with the second-season renewal announcement, Cinemax would not confirm which cast members will continue in Season 3 “due to plot spoilers in upcoming episodes of season two.”

The Strike Back renewal comes two weeks before the premiere of Cinemax’s second original primetime drama, Hunted. It will be followed by Banshee in 2013.

Read More »

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HBO To Launch HBO Nordic In Sweden, Norway, Finland & Denmark

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Wednesday August 15, 2012 @ 9:02am PDTTags: Cinemax, HBO, Netflix

The Nordic region is a hotbed of action today. Netflix this morning announced it would expand into Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland by the end of the year and now here comes HBO. The … Read More »

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Cinemax On New Espionage Series ‘Hunted’: TCA

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday August 1, 2012 @ 4:30pm PDTTags: Cinemax, HBO, TCA

Ray Richmond contributes to Deadline’s TV coverage.

In the first Cinemax press conference at TCA in nearly 20 years, creator, exec producer and chief writer Frank Spotnitz and star Melissa George dropped by to promote the hotly-anticipated new original espionage series Hunted that premieres on the HBO sister network in October. Hunted is an eight-episode drama featuring George as an operative for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that may have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Spotnitz told the roomful of reporters and critics that his years working for The X-Files prepared him well for this show. “Back on that show, we began to realize that you could read clues and then wait two or three years before picking up that thread again”, he said, “and people would love you for it, because you’re rewarding their attention and intelligence. It was clear that it was very hard to be as smart as your audience”. Another thing that Spotnitz took away from his X-Files experience was this: “Be ambitious, be as great as you can, and trust in the people watching to be able to piece things together on their own. People are much more engaged in a show if they aren’t being spoon-fed everything”.

Related: Aaron Sorkin Denies Firing ‘Newsroom’ Writing Staff Read More »

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Cinemax Picks Up William Petersen/GK-tv’s Hitman Drama ‘Hurt People’ With Pilot Order

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday April 19, 2012 @ 3:37pm PDTTags: Big Deals TV, Cinemax, Hurt People, William Petersen
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Hurt People, GK-tv’s drama project starring and executive produced by William Petersen, has landed at Cinemax. The HBO sister network has ordered a pilot from the project, which marks Petersen’s return to television after his nine-year starring turn on CSI. Written by Peter Macmanus, Hurt People centers on Hollis Brown (Petersen), a veteran hitman employed by the crime family that killed his wife. Brown has been enlisted to hunt down his estranged daughter who is intent on destroying those responsible for her mother’s death. Petersen is executive producing the pilot with his producing partner Cynthia Chvatal, Macmanus and GK-tv’s Graham King, Tim Headington and Craig Cegielski. Macmanus’ manager Beth Stine is attached as supervising producer. After they liked the original script by former AMC production executive-turned-writer Macmanus, Petersen and Chvatal teamed with GK-tv to develop it. The project was taken out a month ago, targeting mosty cable networks because of its darker tone.

Related: William Petersen Returns To TV As Star, Producer Of GK-tv’s Hitman Drama Series Read More »

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Trio Cast In Cinemax Series ‘Banshee’

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday March 2, 2012 @ 5:00am PSTTags: Banshee, Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

Banshee, Cinemax’s upcoming action drama series executive produced by Alan Ball, has cast its first 3 regulars: Matt Servitto (Harry’s Law), Trieste Dunn and Daniel Ross Owens. The 10-episode series, written by authors Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler, centers on … Read More »

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Alan Ball’s Drama ‘Banshee’ Gets Series Order At Cinemax, Greg Yaitanes To Direct

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday January 25, 2012 @ 8:54am PSTTags: Alan Ball, Banshee, Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Alan Ball, creator/executive producer of HBO’s hit vampire drama series True Blood, is getting another series, this time on HBO’s sister network Cinemax. Cinemax has given a 10-episode order to Banshee, an action drama executive produced by Ball and … Read More »

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Rhona Mitra To Join Cinemax Action Drama ‘Strike Back’ As Female Lead In Season 2

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday January 6, 2012 @ 5:54pm PSTTags: Cinemax, Strike Back
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: I’ve learned that Rhona Mitra is finalizing a deal to land the new female lead on Cinemax’s Strike Back in the action drama’s upcoming 10-episode second season. She will play the beautiful, cunning and ultimately ruthless Capt. Rachel Dalton … Read More »

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Production On Cinemax’s ‘Transporter’ On Hold After Star Chris Vance Gets Injured

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday October 13, 2011 @ 8:05pm PDTTags: Cinemax, Transporter
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Filming of Cinemax’s upcoming series Transporter has been temporary suspended after the series star, Chris Vance was injured while shooting an action sequence. I hear no return has been set and the hiatus is expected to last at least 2 weeks. “We want to ensure Chris’ return to peak physical condition before putting him back in front of the camera to continue shooting this fast-paced, action-packed series,” executive producer/showrunner Steve Shill said. Transporter had been shooting in Toronto, with production on the series’ 12-epiosde order slated to continue through November. Read More »

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Cinemax Renews ‘Strike Back’ For Season 2

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday October 6, 2011 @ 10:02am PDTTags: Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

Cinemax’s first primetime drama series Strike Back is a keeper. HBO’s sibling cable network has picked up a 10-episode second season of the action series to air next year. Filming will begin in South Africa in early 2012. Returning as … Read More »

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Action Drama From Frank Spotnitz Is A Go At Cinemax, Melissa George To Star

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday September 22, 2011 @ 10:05am PDTTags: BBC, Cinemax, Melissa George
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Melissa George has been tapped as the lead in the BBC-Cinemax spy thriller series Nemesis aka Morton, which was created by former X-Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz. BBC One commissioned eight episodes of the project back in January, with Cinemax recently coming on board. Cinemax will co-produce Nemesis with BBC and the UK’s Shine-owned production company Kudos Film and Television, in association with Big Light. In the vein of Bourne Identity, Nemesis is a suspense thriller set in the world of international espionage. It centers on a highly skilled operative (George) for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that might have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Once she returns to the firm, she must perform her secretive duties without knowing who to trust and who wants her dead. In addition to writing, Spotnitz is executive producing Nemesis with Kudos’ Stephen Garrett, Jane Featherstone and Alison Jackson. S.J. Clarkson will direct the first two episodes of the series, which will start production this fall in Europe and North Africa. Read More »

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Cinemax Developing Action Vigilante Drama

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday August 31, 2011 @ 6:00pm PDTTags: Cinemax
Nellie Andreeva

On the heels of Strike Back and Transporter, Cinemax is developing another action drama series, Sandbox. It centers on a group of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who return to the Coachella Valley to discover their … Read More »

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