Caffeinated Clint
Today it was announced that Spyglass were in the John Hancock-stage of taking over fiscally-fucked MGM. Spyglass head honchos Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, the gents behind such films as “The Sixth Sense” and “Wanted”, will serve as Co-Chairman and CEOs of the embattled studio following its emergence from bankruptcy.
Should shareholders approve of the pre-packaged Bankruptcy plan, the new-and-improved MGM will likely get to work swiftly on the long-awaited “Hobbit” and James Bond films. It will take about 30 days after the deal goes through for MGM to officially escape the red patch, so don’t expect to hear anything about the “Rings” prequel or the new Daniel Craig-starring 007 movie until December at the earliest.
But in addition to films, Variety says MGM are adding a list of TV spin-off’s to their to-do roster. On the way are new TV series based on “RoboCop”, one based on Thomas Harris’ “Silence of the Lambs”, and another based on [WTF] the Oscar Winning “Dances with Wolves”.
The “Wolves” one is a head-scratcher – what could they possibly do with that!? A mini-series, in the vein of “Lonesome Dove”, might work but a fully-fledged series based on the adventures of ‘Dances’ and Stands-with-a-fist? That I have to see.
A “Silence of the Lambs” TV series might also be interesting. Assumingly, MGM don’t have the thumbs up to tell stories from Harris’ other Lecter books, so the TV show would have to solely fix on Hannibal’s incarcerated adventures from “Lambs” – and whatever new stories they come up with. Picturing a young Rachel Nichols or Dakota Fanning playing plucky rookie FBI Agent Clarice Starling who, week after week, seeks Hannibal the Cannibal’s advise in capturing the baddie of the week.
“RoboCop”? no surprise there. The Paul Verhoeven film has spawned quite a few series – including, most recently, a fairly decent TV mini-series titled “RoboCop : Prime Directives”. With Darren Aronofsky’s film version stalled, not surprising to hear MGM are pushing to get the metal giant back on… well, any screen. Like Rocky and Inspector Clouseau, Robo’s one of their strongest properties.
Again, it won’t be before Christmas until we start hearing about some of Spyglass/MGM’s new film and TV series plans.
