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Lorne Michaels Says He’s Not Leaving ‘SNL’ Anytime Soon But Stays Quiet About ‘Tonight Show’ At HRTS Lunch

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Tuesday April 16, 2013 @ 2:26pm PDTTags: Hollywood Radio & Television Society, Lorne Michaels, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show

“I’ll do it as long as I possibly can. I think that there will be a day when I’ll look at it and say I don’t have the edge I used to,” said Lorne Michaels today about his future at Saturday Night Live. A seasoned and cool operator, the late night executive producer of course did not say when that day might be and if it would be related to his taking over The Tonight Show next year. In fact, Michaels didn’t say a lot about the Tonight Show Tuesday at a Comedy On TV luncheon hosted by the Hollywood Radio and Television Society on Tuesday in Beverly Hills. Of course, that’s what was on everyone’s mind now that Michael’s protégé Jimmy Fallon has formally been tipped by NBC to take over the show next year. Michaels’ one Tonight Show comment was about the plan to move the show back to New York after over 40 years out in Burbank. “Jimmy’s from New York, the show appeals to New York, I think New York is different from when Carson left and New York was on its ass,” the soon-to-be Tonight Show EP remarked. Fellow Canadian and former SNL regular Martin Short moderated the sitdown with the multiple Emmy-winner and past and future ruler of late night. “It worked out that way,” Michaels joked when Short asked if he really ruled late night. Michaels’ recent appointment as the upcoming Executive Producer of The Tonight Show means he is in control of NBC’s 11:30 PM slot six of the seven nights of the week.

Related: Lorne Michaels: The Real NBC Late Night King 
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Alec Baldwin — NBC Late-Night Host?

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday April 9, 2013 @ 5:10pm PDTTags: Alec Baldwin, Last Call with Carson Daly, Lorne Michaels, NBC
Nellie Andreeva

The NBC late-night saga continues. With the Tonight Show transition set, the attention is shifting to the other members of the network’s late-night lineup. NBC brass had been hinting of wholesale changes, and that may include … Read More »

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‘SNL’s Nasim Pedrad To Star In NBC’s John Mulaney Comedy Pilot, Michael Nathanson Joins CBS’ Rottenberg/Zuritsky Comedy

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday April 2, 2013 @ 7:40pm PDTTags: John Mulaney, Lorne Michaels, Nasim Pedrad
Nellie Andreeva

With time on pilot castings running out, Lorne Michaels called upon his Saturday Night Live co-star Nasim Pedrad for a lead role in NBC’s untitled John Mulaney multi-camera comedy pilot, which Michaels is executive producing. Written/exec produced by Mulaney and exec produced by Robert Carlock, the project  is a young ensemble loosely based on Mulaney’s life. It centers on John (Mulaney), whose naïve and often pointles, desire to “be a good person” challenges his friendship with his roommates, the sweet, intelligent, and lazy Jane (Pedrad) and Seymour (Griffin Newman). Elliott Gould and Martin Short co-star. If the pilot doesn’t go forward, CAA-repped Pedrad is expected to continue on SNL, where she has been since 2009. Read More »

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‘Girls’, ‘Louie’, ‘Doctor Who’, Lorne Michaels Among Peabody Award Winners

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Wednesday March 27, 2013 @ 7:35am PDTTags: Girls, Lorne Michaels, Peabody Awards

Athens, Ga. – Thirty-nine recipients of the 72nd Annual Peabody Awards were announced today by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The winners, chosen by the Peabody board as the best in electronic media for the year 2012, were named in a ceremony in the Peabody Gallery on the UGA Campus.

The latest Peabody recipients reflect diversity in content, genre and sources of origination.

They include “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s HBO comedy-drama about the young and the feckless in New York; “Putin, Russia and the West,” a compelling portrait of a modern-day czar; “Rapido y Furioso (Fast and Furious),” Univision’s Mexican perspective on the infamous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive gun-tracking debacle; “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” a sterling magazine series that springboards from athletics; “Robin’s Journey,” a public-service campaign created around “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts’ treatment for a rare blood disease; and “Design Ah!,” an imaginative Japanese series aimed at developing children’s creative vision.

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Lorne Michaels: The Real NBC Late Night King

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Saturday March 23, 2013 @ 12:06am PDTTags: Lorne Michaels, Seth Meyers
Nellie Andreeva

For decades, the host of The Tonight Show has been crowned NBC’s late-night king. But through the years, one figure has been looming larger than any host or executive in NBC’s late night, producer Lorne Michaels, and the … Read More »

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NBC Picks Up Multi-Camera Comedy Pilot From Lorne Michaels Starring John Mulaney

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday January 25, 2013 @ 12:07pm PSTTags: John Mulaney, Lorne Michaels
Nellie Andreeva

NBC has given the green light to an untitled multi-camera comedy from Saturday Night Live writer John Mulaney and SNL honcho Lorne Michaels. The … Read More »

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Anne Hathaway & Lorne Michaels To Be Honored At CDG Awards

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday December 20, 2012 @ 1:25pm PSTTags: Anne Hathaway, Costume Designers Guild Awards, Lorne Michaels

Anne Hathaway, Lorne Michaels and costume designers Judianna Makovsky and Eduardo Castro will be honored at the 15th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards gala on February 19, 2013. Hathaway will receive the Lacoste Spotlight Award … Read More »

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HBO Orders Comedy Pilot From Bruce Eric Kaplan, Jason Reitman And Lorne Michaels

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday December 14, 2012 @ 11:30am PSTTags: Big Deals TV, Jason Reitman, Lorne Michaels
Nellie Andreeva

HBO has picked up People In New Jersey, a half-hour comedy pilot written and executive produced by Bruce Eric Kaplan, with Juno and Up In The Air helmer Jason Reitman set to executive produce and direct the pilot and Saturday Night Live chief Lorne Michaels on board to executive produce. People In New Jersey is described as a hilarious, poignant look at life today as seen through the prism of an adult brother and sister living in New Jersey. They each struggle to get through the day, asking themselves the big questions, the little questions, and everything in between. Kaplan wrote People In New Jersey on spec and took it to Reitman and his producer Helen Estabrook, who loved it and came on board. Kaplan, Reitman, Michaels and Estabrook executive produce with Andrew Singer. Read More »

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No Oscars Host Or Producer Yet: Outgoing Academy President Tom Sherak Tried And Failed To Hire Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Thursday August 2, 2012 @ 4:18pm PDTTags: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Hawk Koch, Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels

EXCLUSIVE… UPDATED WITH MORE DETAILS:   Tom Sherak now will go down in Oscars history as giving new definition to the word chutzpah. The outgoing president of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences tried to pull a fast one on the incoming president Hawk Koch who was just voted in Tuesday night. Choosing the producer and host of the Oscars is probably the most important job of the AMPAS president. Yet Sherak, despite knowing he himself was a lame duck, nevertheless broke protocol and tried to hire the 85th Academy Awards hosts for the February 24th, 2013, telecast which should be Koch’s responsibility. Sherak solicited TV and film producer Lorne Michaels and NBC Late Night host Jimmy Fallon. The choices were understandable because Fallon had done a good job hosting the Emmys in 2010, while Michaels is the longtime executive producer of Saturday Night Live. On the other hand, the recent trend has been away from a TV host like Fallon and instead towards bonafide movie stars. Deadline learned that Sherak went to the Academy’s Board Of Governors on his own initiative and said, “If I can find a producer, would you be interested?” The Board said yes.

But insiders tell me they felt Sherak’s request was blatantly inappropriate. Hawk Koch, who still didn’t know if he’d be voted in as AMPAS president, was 1st VP and openly expressed reservations. Koch told colleagues Sherak shouldn’t be doing this with a mere matter of weeks before the elections and complained to Sherak about it. The two men agreed with the Academy’s COO Ric Robertson to set a deadline for locking in a producer on the Wednesday before the AMPAS president and officers elections the very next Tuesday.

Immediately, Disney/ABC which airs the Oscars objected to Sherak’s choices because Fallon competes with Jimmy Kimmel’s show and is the soon-to-be-successor to Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show. “When the idea came up of Fallon, we made it clear that we were not happy about that. It was ridiculous to think we would want to give him that big platform,” a Disney insider tells me. “We had no objection to Lorne.” Technically, Disney/ABC can’t tell the Academy what to do since AMPAS controls the Oscars telecast. But the objection was an obstacle to Sherak’s plans, and ”he never got the deal done”, one of my sources says. Sherak’s search was called off within 6 days of the new AMPAS president’s election when he couldn’t meet the deadline. “Now the  negotiations are dead,” I’m told. An Academy spokeswoman also is confirming that neither Fallon nor Michaels has been hired.

Related: Behind-The-Scenes Of Hawk Koch’s Academy Win
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No ‘SNL’ For Mitt Romney This Season, Says Lorne Michaels

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Wednesday May 2, 2012 @ 11:13am PDTTags: Lorne Michaels, Mitt Romney, NBC, Saturday Night Live

Mitt Romney SNLMitt Romney will not be appearing on Saturday Night Live this season, Lorne Michaels said today. “We only have three shows left and they’re pretty jammed-packed,” the executive producer said during a conference call. “It might be in the fall, but we’ll never know, that’ll all depend on his availability.” SNL’s 37th season wraps up May 19. It will return in September in the heat of the presidential election campaign. In early April, Michaels extended an invitation to the former Massachusetts Governor to appear on the show, and Romney expressed interest in taking SNL up on the invite. “Of course,” Romney said, “it would depend on the nature of the skit. I want it to be funny.” Today Michaels confirmed he had some “communication” with the Romney campaign about the presumptive GOP nominee coming on, but then “the primaries overtook everything.”

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Who Should Replace Brett Ratner?

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday November 9, 2011 @ 5:47am PSTTags: 84th Annual Academy Awards, Adam Shankman, Brett Ratner, Eddie Murphy, Harvey Weinstein, Joe Roth, Laurence Mark, Lorne Michaels, Oscars, Tina Fey
Mike Fleming

After Brett Ratner’s spectacular self-inflicted demise as Oscarcast producer, the Academy gets down to business finding a replacement to join Don Mischer in picking up the … Read More »

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TCA: Comedy ‘Up All Night’ Takes Oprah Route With Workplace Change

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Monday August 1, 2011 @ 4:11pm PDTTags: Lorne Michaels, Maya Rudolph, NBC, Oprah Winfrey, TCA Press Tour, Television Critics Association, Up All Night

Diane Haithman is contributing to Deadline’s coverage of TCA.

At this afternoon’s TCA panel on the new NBC comedy Up All Night — a new-baby sitcom starring Will Arnett and Christina Applegate as exhausted parents and Maya Rudolph as Applegate’s … Read More »

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‘Bridesmaids’ Actress Pair Sell Comedy Pitch To Paramount

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday May 13, 2011 @ 5:02pm PDTTags: John Goldwyn, Lorne Michaels, Melissa McCarthy, Paramount Pictures
Mike Fleming

Mike & Molly star Melissa McCarthy and Annie Mumolo have sold to Paramount Pictures an untitled laffer pitch that will be written as a star vehicle for McCarthy. McCarthy and Mumolo star in the Judd Apatow-produced Bridesmaids, which Mumolo wrote with Kristen Wiig. Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn produce. The comedy was … Read More »

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Will Arnett To Co-Star In NBC’s Emily Spivey Comedy Pilot

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday March 30, 2011 @ 4:30pm PDTTags: Christina Applegate, Emily Spivey, Lorne Michaels, Maya Rudolph, Will Arnett
Nellie Andreeva

NBC’s untitled Emily Spivey comedy pilot is building a star-studded cast. Arrested Development alum Will Arnett has closed a deal to join Christina Applegate and Maya Rudolph in the project, executive produced by Saturday Night Live honcho Lorne … Read More »

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Maya Rudolph To Star In NBC Comedy Pilot Produced By Lorne Michaels

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday March 25, 2011 @ 11:35am PDTTags: Emily Spivey, Lorne Michaels, Maya Rudolph, NBC
Nellie Andreeva

Saturday Night Live alumna Maya Rudolph is reuniting with her former SNL boss Lorne Michaels, ex-SNL writer Emily Spivey and NBC on Spivey’s comedy pilot for the peacock network, which Michaels is executive producing.

Word is Rudolph is set for the … Read More »

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‘SNL’s’ Kenan Thompson At Center Of ‘Party Starters’

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday March 23, 2011 @ 11:57am PDTTags: John Goldwyn, Lorne Michaels, Movie Deals, Movies, Saturday Night Live, TV
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: It’s become tradition for members of the Saturday Night Live cast to get their shots in features put together by the show’s longtime executive producer Lorne Michaels. The latest? Kenan Thompson, who’s at the center of a deal for … Read More »

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Christina Applegate To Star In NBC’s Emily Spivey Comedy Pilot

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday March 18, 2011 @ 9:45am PDTTags: Christina Applegate, Emily Spivey, Lorne Michaels, NBC
Nellie Andreeva

NBC and Lorne Michaels have won the Christina Applegate sweepstakes. The actress, who had been inundated by offers this pilot season, has closed a deal to topline NBC’s untitled Emily Spivey comedy pilot, lifting the contingency on the project. The … Read More »

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International Emmys: Rupert Murdoch Becomes Awards Presenter; Israel’s ‘Traffic Light’ Wins Best Comedy

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday November 22, 2010 @ 11:51pm PSTTags: 2010 International Emmy Directorate Award, 2010 International Emmy Founders Award, Alec Baldwin, Emmys, Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels, Rupert Murdoch, Simon Cowell
Nellie Andreeva

Just how important is Simon Cowell to News Corp.? The reality star/producer, who served as a judge on Fox’s juggernaut American Idol and is now prepping an U.S. version of The X Factor for the network, received an International Emmy … Read More »

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Jeff Zucker Roasted By Former And Soon-To-Be-Former NBC Colleagues

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Monday November 1, 2010 @ 3:44pm PDTTags: Alec Baldwin, Brian Williams, Jeff Zucker, Katie Couric, Lorne Michaels, Mark Feuerstein, NBCU Jeff Zucker, Steve Burke NBC Universal, TV
Nellie Andreeva

Katie Couric, Alec Baldwin, Brian Williams, Mark Feuerstein and Lorne Michaels took turns roasting outgoing CEO of NBC Universal Jeff Zucker at the Center for Communication’s annual Frank Stanton award luncheon at the Pierre Hotel in New York today. According to news reports, … Read More »

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