You are viewing the archive: “Paul Attanasio”

Divine Intervention? Showtime’s ‘Vatican’ Project Gets Boost From Papal Changeover

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday February 15, 2013 @ 3:08pm PSTTags: Paul Attanasio, Ridley Scott, Showtime, Vatican
Nellie Andreeva

Talk about perfect timing. For several years, House executive producer Paul Attanasio and Sony TV had been working on a show set at the Vatican. They pitched it to Showtime last fall and, after months of discussions, the pay cable network greenlighted the project to pilot in the final days of 2012 with Ridley Scott attached to direct in his pilot directing debut. With Attanasio and Scott on board, Vatican already appeared a formidable contender for a series pickup. Then lightning struck — literally. On Monday, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation, thrusting the inner workings of the Vatican into the spotlight. Hours later, a lightning bolt struck the Vatican’s St Peter’s Basilica, which perfectly illustrates what the odds are of real events mirroring a fictional TV show.

As conceived, Vatican is a provocative contemporary genre thriller about spirituality, power and politics set against the modern-day political machinations within the Catholic church. Like Pope Benedict, the show’s fictional Pope Sixtus VI hails from Bavaria. Attanasio’s script even makes a fleeting mention of the Pope resigning. While I hear the reference is just a point in an argument, it is getting attention because of Benedict’s real-life resignation, the first in almost 600 years. What’s more, Vatican deals with a papal changeover as Pope Sixtus dies, what is exactly what the Catholic world is going through right now.

The Vatican has visibly picked up steam since the Pope’s Monday announcement. In the past four days, the pilot began assembling a strong cast led by Emmy winner Kyle Chandler, who signed on along with Matthew Goode and Sebastian Koch.

The real-life events at the Vatican also may have influenced the decision of Vatican producers where to shoot the pilot. While an array of European cities had been discussed, including Prague and Budapest, they’ve ultimately settled on Rome, where Vatican City is located. (The series would shoot in London). I hear the pilot is slated to begin filming April 9, which theoretically could overlap with the election and coronation of the new Pope. Pope Benedict officially resigns February 28. A conclave of cardinals has to convene at the Sistine Chapel 15-20 days later to begin the election process, which takes days until white smoke from the Chapel’s chimney signals a new leader of the Catholic Church has been chosen. His coronation takes place the next Sunday or Holy day. Given the sudden nature of Pope Benedict’s resignation, there is no obvious successor, and the voting process may drag on. (UPDATE: In another instance of life imitating art, speculation is intensifying that New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan could become the next Pope. Vatican‘s lead character is New York Cardinal Thomas Duffy, played by Chandler.) Even if the cardinals wrap things quickly, Showtime and Sony TV could conceivable get a second unit on the ground to film and incorporate the events on the show should they choose to.

Comments (13)

Showtime Greenlights Vatican Drama Pilot From Paul Attanasio, Ridley Scott To Direct

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Thursday December 20, 2012 @ 3:51pm PSTTags: Big Deals TV, Paul Attanasio, Ridley Scott, The Vatican
Nellie Andreeva

Paul AttanasioIn Showtime’s first pilot order for 2013, the pay cable network has greenlighted a high-profile drama from Oscar nominees Paul Attanasio and Ridley Scott. Titled The … Read More »

Comments 36

Paul Attanasio To Rewrite ‘Scarface’ Remake At Universal

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Tuesday October 16, 2012 @ 6:32pm PDTTags: Paul Attanasio, Scarface, Universal Pictures
Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Paul Attanasio has been set by Universal Pictures and producers Marc Shmuger and Martin Bregman to rewrite Scarface from the original draft by David Ayer. The film is a contemporary spin on the story first told in the 1932 film and then in 1983. Attanasio’s credits include the series House, along with Donnie Brasco and Quiz Show. CAA and attorneys Melanie Cook and Cathy Halberg at Ziffren just made his deal. Shmuger is working through his Global Produce banner and Bregman produced the remake of the film.

Scarface was first done in 1932 and then turned into the iconic 1983 film that starred Al Pacino as Cuban gangster Tony Montana. As I’ve reported, the film is not intended to be a remake or a sequel. It will take the common elements of the first two films: An outsider, an immigrant, barges his way into the criminal establishment in pursuit of a twisted version of the American dream, becoming a kingpin through a campaign of ruthlessness and violent ambition. The studio is keeping the specifics of where the new Tony character comes from under wraps at the moment, but ethnicity and geography were important in the first two versions. In the 1932 Scarface, an Italian (Paul Muni) took over Chicago, and in the Brian De Palma-directed remake, a Cuban cornered the cocaine trade in 1980s Miami, only to be consumed by it. Read More »

Comments 35

Greg Kinnear To Star In Legal Drama Project From Paul Attanasio; All Nets Interested

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Friday September 28, 2012 @ 1:10pm PDTTags: Greg Kinnear, Paul Attanasio, Rake
Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: After years of courtship by TV networks, Greg Kinnear has committed to doing a series. The Oscar-nominated actor is attached to star and co-executive produce a U.S. version of the popular Australian legal comedic drama Rake. House executive producer Paul Attanasio will executive produce through his Atelier banner will and supervise the script, which will be written by the Australian series’ co-creator Peter Duncan. In an unusual move, the Sony Pictures TV-produced project is currently being shopped to both broadcast and cable networks. I hear all major broadcast nets are taking the pitch, but it is not clear whether the show will end up on network or cable.

Rake follows the chaotic world of a criminal defense lawyer, Cleaver Greene (Kinnear). Brilliant, iconoclastic and innately self-destructive, he has a mind-numbing lack of discretion and a total inability to pause before speaking his mind. From bigamists to cannibals and everything in between, the clients Cleaver loves the most are those whose cases appear to be utterly hopeless without him realizing that he, himself, is perhaps the most desperate case of all. Read More »

Comments (16)