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Superhero Scribes Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz Set Deal For First Novel

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday November 15, 2011 @ 7:43am PSTTags: Ashley Miller, Laurie MacDonald, Martin Campbell, Marty Adelstein, Michael London, Shawn Levy, Walter Parkes, Zack Stentz
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz, whose recent credits include Thor and X-Men: First Class, have made a deal with the Penguin imprint Razorbill to publish their first novel. Colin Fischer is about a 14-year-old boy with severe Asperger’s syndrome and a unique way of viewing the world. He’s constantly tormented by a bully named Wayne, a troubled kid from the rough side of town. When a gun goes off in the school cafeteria, Wayne’s pinned for the misdeed by police and the school principal. Colin’s hyper-rational mind perceives Wayne is innocent and he sets out to unravel the mystery. He enlists Wayne to be his assistant, and an unlikely detective team is created. The writers plan to turn the novel into a feature. They most recently scripted The Fall Guy for DreamWorks and producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, with Martin Campbell recently signing on. They are also adapting the Lev Grossman fantasy novel Magicians for producers Michael London, Shawn Levy and Marty Adelstein. The scribes are repped by WME and Principato-Young.

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NBC Buys Legal Drama From ‘Outlaw Country’ Scribes, Producer Michael London

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Tuesday November 1, 2011 @ 12:32pm PDTTags: Groundswell Productions, Josh Goldin, Major Crimes, Michael London, NBC, Rachel Abramowitz, Sony Pictures TV
Nellie Andreeva

With their Nashville pilot Outlaw Country heating up for a series pickup at FX, Josh Goldin and Rachel Abramowitz have sold a second drama project to NBC. The legal … Read More »

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Fox To Adapt Fantasy Novel ‘The Magicians’ To Series With ‘X-Men: First Class’ Scribes

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Wednesday October 5, 2011 @ 7:08pm PDTTags: 20th Century Fox TV, Ashley Miller, Fox, Michael London, Shawn Levy, Zack Stentz
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Fox has preemptively bought Magicians, a drama series adaptation of Lev Grossman’s popular fantasy novel, with a script commitment plus penalty. It will be written by X-Men: First Class and Thor co-writers Ashley Miller & Zack Stentz and produced by Michael London (Milk), Shawn Levy and Michael Adelstein. Based on Grossman’s book, which is described as Harry Potter for grown-ups, the one-hour drama follows a group of 20-somethings in New York who study magic and have access to a magical world. London had optioned the novel, which was published in 2009, while 21 Laps/Adelstein had a deal with Miller and Stentz, who have extensive TV background having worked on such series as Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. All joined forces on the series project, which will be executive produced by Miller, Stentz, London, Levy, Adelstein and Becky Clements. Following the success of The Magicians, Grossman wrote a sequel, The Magician King, which was published in August.

Contemporary dramas with fairytale elements are hot for a second consecutive broadcast development season. The previous one yielded 2 new series in the genre, ABC’s Once Upon a Time and NBC’s Grimm. This time around, Magicians joins a project from Michael Green, which recently landed a put pilot commitment at ABC. It centers on a female cop who discovers a magical world that exists within New York City. Read More »

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Indie Thriller ‘Captive’ Eyes Arnold Schwarzenegger For Lead

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday September 9, 2011 @ 12:40pm PDTTags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Furla, Groundswell Productions, Michael London, Nicolai Fuglsig, Randall Emmett
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Days after closing a deal for The Expendables 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger is in talks to star in Captive, an action thriller that is out to directors with the intention of shooting next year. Emmett/Furla Films is … Read More »

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HBO Sets Pulitzer Prize Winner ‘A Visit From The Goon Squad’ For Series Treatment

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Wednesday April 20, 2011 @ 2:28pm PDTTags: HBO, Michael London
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: It has been some week for Brooklyn-based author Jennifer Egan. Her novel A Visit From The Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize, and she cited the HBO series The Sopranos as her inspiration. Now, Egan has closed a deal with HBO to develop her sprawling tale into a TV series. Groundswell’s Michael London will be executive producer and Jocelyn Hayes Simpson will be co-exec producer. Egan will be a consultant. The network hasn’t yet set a writer to draft the series pilot, but it will happen quickly, I’m told.

The book was published last summer by Knopf and slowly built a head of steam. It focuses on a coterie of characters first introduced as they orbit the world of punk rock in 1980s San Francisco. Their lives are explored for the next 30 or so years, with interlocking stories that deal as much with changes in the lives of the characters as it does changes in technology. Egan uses unorthodox methods to tell her tale. One chapter is about how, in 2015, babies use touch screens to download music they like. Another chapter is written as a PowerPoint presentation by a 12-year-old girl, and the subject is famous rock songs that have pauses in the middle. During the chapter, the teen reveals much about her life. The Pulitzer committee described the book as “an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed.” Read More »

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Google Founders Will Get Film Treatment

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Thursday August 19, 2010 @ 12:52pm PDTTags: Eric Schmidt Google, Facebook, Google, Groundswell Productions, Internet, Ken Auletta, Larry Page, Michael London, Sergey Brin, The Social Network
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: The founders of Facebook aren’t the only game-changing geeks poised to have their story told on a movie screen. Michael London’s Groundswell Productions has teamed with producer John Morris to acquire movie rights to the Ken Auletta book Googled: … Read More »

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