Update from JMS

[Infested Londo]

Ugh... And I was kinda hoping for a TV series .


At least let's hope it's gonna feature all the good old actors... Just gimme Garibaldy, Sheridan and Londo and I'm set

I REALLY don't want another hey-they're-almost-B5 actors... I want the real deal, damnit!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Aug.29.2003 - Yes, there's one or two things percolating n the B5 universe that may be of interest, but neither of them are series deals.

August 29th??? Hey, I get a pass on the charge of "not paying attention." That was the day I had the closing for two condos, not to mention packing and moving. I had been without internet or phone service since the 26th, thanks to the morons at Bell South, wouldn't have phones until the 31st and wouldn't have DSL until a week later. (And didn't bother unpacking and reassembling my PC until I did.)

Less likely given JMS's hints is that a second problem

"project"

Freudian slip?

...or a TV miniseries on a Warner Brothers affiliated network? (unless you'd consider them to be a "partner." Depends on how disfunctional you consider the WB family to be, I guess.)

The only "Warner Bros. affliated network" is The WB. Yes, that would be considered a partner, and not because Warner Bros. is dysfunctional. Although the various Warner entities are more independent than those at most studios, even at Fox and Paramount the TV production part of the studio is separate from the TV and/or cable networks. The studio would still be "selling" a series for a per-episode fee to the network, and the network would have to agree on the fee an other terms - whether that network is called ABC, Fox, F/X or The WB.

The WB isn't a possibility for all the reasons they've never been a possibility for anything B5-related since the end of S4. 1) The powers-that-be still bear a grudge over the studio's attempt to create the PTEN network, and won't have anything to do with anything tainted by association with PTEN. 2) A space-based sci-fi adventure series would not fit the mix of shows they already have or their core audience. The mini-networks like UPN and The WB aren't as broadbased as the majors. They have defined themselves as appealing to small niche audiences which they can concentrate for advertisers who want to hit those markets. That's what makes them financially viable. Adding a show that doesn't fit with your demographics makes no sense in the long run. (As TNT eventually discovered about B5, which is probably one of the things that made them so desperate to get out of the Crusade deal.)

(ASIDE: Look, if The WB were a possibility, shouldn't they have done something by now? They had the chance to do B5 S5, pick up the reruns, do Crusade, resuce Crusade when TNT killed it, commission the Lengend of the Rangers pilot, and pick up a Rangers series after Sci-Fi turned it down. They have done none of this. Why do people still keep bringing The WB up like it was some kind of live alternative for B5? Talk about those who refuse to learn from history... )

Regards,

Joe

 

[KoshN]

Less likely given JMS's hints is that a second problem

"project"

Freudian slip?

Definitely!

The WB isn't a possibility for all the reasons they've never been a possibility for anything B5-related since the end of S4. 1) The powers-that-be still bear a grudge over the studio's attempt to create the PTEN network, and won't have anything to do with anything tainted by association with PTEN.

Sounds like it's time for those PTB to hit the street looking for other employment.

2) A space-based sci-fi adventure series would not fit the mix of shows they already have or their core audience.

So who needs a core audience? Just look at Skiffy. They don't need to be niche, and they're even smaller than The WB and UPN.

(ASIDE: Look, if The WB were a possibility, shouldn't they have done something by now? They had the chance to do B5 S5, pick up the reruns, do Crusade, resuce Crusade when TNT killed it, commission the Lengend of the Rangers pilot, and pick up a Rangers series after Sci-Fi turned it down. They have done none of this. Why do people still keep bringing The WB up like it was some kind of live alternative for B5? Talk about those who refuse to learn from history... )

Because the recent and surprising (to Warner Brothers) success of the B5 DVDs may have the power to change minds at The WB?

 

[Chris Springob]

But you don't turn a 2 hour movie script into a 6 or 10 hour mini-series script.

Do we know that there *is* a script yet, and not just a concept?

The whole nature of the story you can tell in each form is totally different. One does not easily become the other.

You mean like "Dune"?

A mini-series that lasts 6 hours with commercials is only 4.5 hours without the commercials. That's only twice as long as a feature film. There *are* examples of different versions of the same story having a factor of two difference in running time. Like "Dune". Or like the Bakshi version of "Lord of the Rings" vs. the Peter Jackson version. There have also been mini-series that only ran 4 hours with commercials (like "V"), which narrows the gap even further.

Film vs. mini-series was also just one example that I gave. It could be Film vs. TV movie or some other format I haven't thought of vs. yet another format I haven't thought of. I don't know how likely this is. I was just wondering if, in the age of giant media companies with their hand in both TV and film, there was any precendent for a studio to consider multiple possible formats for a concept, at least in the early planning stages like this?

Also, Joe--as long as I have your attention, I was wondering about the comment you made in an earlier post about WB being pleasantly surprised by the demographics of those who have purchased the DVDs. I was wondering what you were basing that on. Has some demographic information from the DVD sales been released? Or are you basing this off of the demos of B5 viewers from the last 10 years? If it's the latter, isn't this information that WB would already have had before the DVDs came out?

BTW, and totally off-topic, but am I the only one who sees Chris's last name and immediately thinks "Squarepants"?

Yes, you're the only one.

 

[MartinRoth]

So who needs a core audience? Just look at Skiffy. They don't need to be niche, and they're even smaller than The WB and UPN.

I think you're missing the important distinction between "core" and "niche"...

 

[MartinRoth]

Yes, that "not far from the truth" caught me too. Could be he's just trying to be cryptic at this early stage. Or, maybe the projects really AREN'T TV or a movie, but something LIKE that, say a video game. I hope it's not just a video game!

Audio drama, anyone?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

So who needs a core audience? Just look at Skiffy.

They have a core audience and they are getting the ratings they need. The fact that you aren't a part of that audience, and that the material they air is not your idea of science fiction means nothing to them.

Because the recent and surprising (to Warner Brothers) success of the B5 DVDs may have the power to change minds at The WB?

There is no "Warner Bros." and DVD sales are not going to impress The WB. Look, you sell 200,000 copies of a DVD boxed set, and you've got a solid hit. Attract 200,000 households to watch your TV show and you're headed for cancellation. You basically need a couple of million viewers to attract enough advertising to make a profit on broadcast television - at a minimum. (You need 15 to 20 million to be considered a big hit.) But you don't need millions of people to show up at U.S. theaters to make a profit on a modestly budgeted SF film. At $7 or $8 a ticket domestic, plus overseas, plus ancillary income from home video, pay per view, premium cable, broadcast TV and cable and broadcast reruns, you can reach break even and get into the black a lot faster and with a lot fewer warm bodies with a feature film than with a TV series.

So, again, if The WB does not see B5 as attracting millions of the kind of viewers they are already delivering to their advertisers, they ain't going to be interested in the show just because it sells well on DVD. Look at it this way: no matter how well The Man Show does in the ratings, there is no way in Hell that either Oxygen or Lifetime are going to pick up that series from Comdey Central. It wouldn't matter in either case if the two networks and the studio that produces The Man Show were all owned by the same parent company. When a show doesn't work for your audience, it doesn't work.

Chris:

No, there almost certainly isn't a script at this stage. The normal progression is pitch meeting, treatment (for which the studio pays), first script draft (for which the studio also pays.) But before you go into pitch your story or write a treatment, you have to have an idea of what your story is, and what it isn't - which could provide one reason for checking to see if someone like Jason Carter might be interested.

You mean like "Dune"?

No. Not talking about The Lord of the Rings, either. Those are adaptations of existing works, but they do actually make my point. Neither of them was amenable to being adapted into a movie of approximately two hours length. The nature of the stories is such that they cannot be told that way - not in any way that is at all faithful to the originals. That's why both Lynch's Dune and Bakshi's LotR were failures, commercially and artisitically. They sucked becuase nobody involved with them was smart enough to realize that they couldn't be done the way they were doing them.

In the case of the next B5 project(s), if they come to JMS with one idea (mini-series) he will select a storyline from the known events of the story timeline that would work at mini-series length. If they want a feature film he's going to pick a different storyline that will fit that format. The studio is not going to come to him and say, "Let's do the Teep War. It will either be a mini series or a feature film, we haven't decided yet." If they did, JMS would either say, "No, that story can't be padded out to mini-series length" or "No, that story has to be a mini-series, I can't do that in two hours, if you want a feature film, it will have to be X".

(Except that we know that he wrote a treatment for a Teep War feature film back in 1998, so I doubt he'd consider that as a mini.)

Yes, you're the only one.

Yeah... Keep telling yourself that. :devil:

Regards,

Joe

 

[Chris Springob]

OK, fair enough Joe. But I'd still like to get your response to the other question I posed to you in my last post:

"Also, Joe--as long as I have your attention, I was wondering about the comment you made in an earlier post about WB being pleasantly surprised by the demographics of those who have purchased the DVDs. I was wondering what you were basing that on. Has some demographic information from the DVD sales been released? Or are you basing this off of the demos of B5 viewers from the last 10 years? If it's the latter, isn't this information that WB would already have had before the DVDs came out?"

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Or are you basing this off of the demos of B5 viewers from the last 10 years? If it's the latter, isn't this information that WB would already have had before the DVDs came out?"

Probably not. High ups at WB do not normally attend SciFi Conventions.

 

[Chris Springob]

But they do have access to Nielsen rating demographics.

 

[kin_of_zathras]

I'm sure the new project will involve the original cast and not Crusade. Remember its the B5 DVDs that are doing well, not Crusade (yet), so they'll want to exploit that.

 

[KoshN]

There is no "Warner Bros." and DVD sales are not going to impress The WB.

So, "Warner Brothers" isn't tha parent company over The WB, Warner Home Video, Warner Brothers Domestic Television Production, and whatever other bits and pieces there are?

So, "Warner Brothers" wouldn't have any influence over The WB?

Attract 200,000 households to watch your TV show and you're headed for cancellation. You basically need a couple of million viewers to attract enough advertising to make a profit on broadcast television - at a minimum. (You need 15 to 20 million to be considered a big hit.) But you don't need millions of people to show up at U.S. theaters to make a profit on a modestly budgeted SF film. At $7 or $8 a ticket domestic, plus overseas, plus ancillary income from home video, pay per view, premium cable, broadcast TV and cable and broadcast reruns, you can reach break even and get into the black a lot faster and with a lot fewer warm bodies with a feature film than with a TV series.

Well then that rules out TV (miniseries, or a movie). There's no place to broadcast it. Can't go to The WB, Sci-Fi, TNT, UPN, or any of the majors. What are they going to do, create a new channel to air their products? <s> The only thing left would be a series of feature films, which will take eons to get through.

However, JMS said:

"The only thing I will say is that they're not print projects, so if you were to assume it's for TV or film you wouldn't be too far off...but that neither of them are series."

I wonder why he didn't exclude TV as well as print, since no channel is interested in B5-anything. After Sci-Fi's rights run out, B5 and Crusade will be off the air, the remaining DVDs (S4, S5, the movies and Crusade) may be produced and sold, and that'll be it, as far as TV is concerned.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

A Movie Of the Week could be distributed to either the TV companies or film theatres or both.

 

[MartinRoth]

So, "Warner Brothers" isn't tha parent company over The WB, Warner Home Video, Warner Brothers Domestic Television Production, and whatever other bits and pieces there are?

Er, no. That parent company would be Time Warner. A rather large company, you might say, with annual revenues in the billions of dollars, and thus unlikely to even notice at any high level such a small revenue stream as the DVD sales for a single TV series.

Well then that rules out TV (miniseries, or a movie). There's no place to broadcast it. Can't go to The WB, Sci-Fi, TNT, UPN, or any of the majors.

Why would you say that? It looked to me that the discussion was only about broadcast television such as the WB network, which is pretty much out of the question, especially for a series.

But cable runs on a much smaller scale and is certainly a possibility, particularly if you're talking about a movie or special.

The only thing left would be a series of feature films, which will take eons to get through.

A series of feature films? Where'd this series bit come from? What about a feature film?

 

[MartinRoth]

A Movie Of the Week could be distributed to either the TV companies or film theatres or both.

Very unlikely. The unions are different, the contracts are different, the production techniques are different.

If you produce a feature film and go right to TV, you've wasted a whole lot of money.

If you produce a TV movie and want to distribute it like a feature film, you have all kinds of contractual issues to resolve (involving spending lots more money, of course), and you usually have a product which isn't going to look very good on the big screen. I believe it's been done, but you could probably count the number of times it's been done on the fingers of one hand.

 

[GeoKuutio]

Holy mother of Jesus! First I read about that Farscape could have a proper ending, then there's this! I should really start to execute rituals in my room. If this isn't the proper moment, then... then the proper moment just doesn't exist!

And of course: YEEEHAAAW!!!

 

[A_M_Swallow]

A Movie Of the Week could be distributed to either the TV companies or film theatres or both.

Very unlikely. The unions are different, the contracts are different, the production techniques are different.

The same story line can be used in a pitch for either. Deciding on the quality of the scenery and the number of lines used by the cameras can wait until which part of Warner Brothers will pay for the project has been determined.

If you produce a feature film and go right to TV, you've wasted a whole lot of money.

Welcome to the British film "industry".

If you produce a TV movie and want to distribute it like a feature film, you have all kinds of contractual issues to resolve (involving spending lots more money, of course), and you usually have a product which isn't going to look very good on the big screen. I believe it's been done, but you could probably count the number of times it's been done on the fingers of one hand.

The pilot for Buck Rodgers will do nicely.

 

[KoshN]

Er, no. That parent company would be Time Warner.

OK. I thought there was another company/level inbetween the level of say Warner Home Video and Time Warner.

Why would you say that {"Well, that rules out TV.")? It looked to me that the discussion was only about broadcast television such as the WB network, which is pretty much out of the question, especially for a series.

Sorry, that was colored by my local TV reception perceptions. Locally, the only channels that can be received "broadcast" (i.e. via an antenna), are CBS (20% snow), NBC (40% snow) and ABC (90% snow). UPN and The WB are ~99.99% snow. All of the channels flutter a lot due to these big shiny metal things that take off regularly from the airport that's between me and all the stations.

But cable runs on a much smaller scale and is certainly a possibility, particularly if you're talking about a movie or special.

OK, where would it go?

2 - Hallmark - Cable
4 - PBS - Broadcast
5 - Religious - Cable
6 - CBS - Broadcast
7 - Fox - Broadcast
8 - ABC - Broadcast
9 - PBS (identical to 4) - Broadcast
10 - The WB - Broadcast
12 - NBC - Broadcast
15 - WGN (Chicago) - Cable
16 - The Weather Channel - Cable
17 - Discovery - Cable
18 - Black Entertainment - Cable
19 - UPN - Broadcast
20 - QVC (shopping) - Cable
21 - LEAC021 Leased Access - Cable
22 - CSPAN - Cable
23 - TV Guide - Cable
24 - MTV - Cable
25 - USA - Cable
26 - Nickelodeon - Cable
27 - ESPN - Cable
28 - ESPN2 - Cable
29 - Fox Sports Network - Cable
30 - HorseRacing TV - Cable
31 - PCNC WPXI News (NBC affiliate) - Cable
32 - CNN - Cable
33 - CNN Headline News - Cable
34 - Fox News Channel - Cable
35 - TBS - Cable
36 - TNT - Cable
37 - TLC - Cable
38 - ABC Family - Cable
39 - Cartoon - Cable
40 - Disney - Cable
41 - A&E - Cable
42 - Lifetime (for women)
43 - SPIKETV (for men)
44 - VH1
45 - Religious - Cable
46 - HISTORY - Cable
47 - AMC - Cable
48 - PCN (Pennsylvania stories) - Cable
49 - FOOD - Cable
50 - ANIMAL PLANET/SHOPNBC - Cable
51 - HomeGardenTV - Cable
52 - MSNBC - Cable
53 - CNBC - Cable
54 - COMEDY - Cable
55 - Religious - Cable
56 - PAX - Cable
57 - TVLAND - Cable
58 - Travel - Cable
59 - OXYGEN (for women) - Cable
60 - SCIFI - Cable
61 - CSPAN2 - Cable
62 - FX - Cable
63 - CourtTV - Cable
64 - CountryMusicTV - Cable
65 - Golf - Cable
66 - HBO - Premium Cable
67 -STARZ - Premium Cable
68 - Cinemax - Premium Cable
69 - Showtime - Premium Cable
70 - ENCORE - Premium Cable
99 - Home Shopping Network

A series of feature films? Where'd this series bit come from? What about a feature film?

I was hoping for a miniseries, something over 2 hours in length, so that it could include an arc, and maybe finish off the Crusade storyline. Lacking a miniseries on TV (of say 6 to 8 hours in length with comercials), a series of connected theatrical features (ala "Star Wars" or "Lord of the Rings" would be my next choice). The downside is that a series of theatrical features would take place over at least 3 years and probably closer to 5 or 10 years, and you just know that Warner Brothers would not have enough faith in the project to shoot all three at once like was done with "Lord of the Rings."

 

[MartinRoth]

The same story line can be used in a pitch for either. Deciding on the quality of the scenery and the number of lines used by the cameras can wait until which part of Warner Brothers will pay for the project has been determined.

At the very earliest stages, this is certainly true, yes. But it's going to have to end up as one or the other, well before distribution takes place.

(And before anyone tries to "catch" me on this -- if it's produced as a feature film, it is, of course, likely to make it to TV eventually, but that's a secondary use.)

Welcome to the British film "industry".

I probably should've been more specific and indicated that I was speaking about the U.S. media industry. I thought it would be taken for granted in this context, since that's where any new B5 project is likely to be produced.

The pilot for Buck Rodgers will do nicely.

Hm. That might be one finger. I don't know enough about that one to argue the point.

Then again, having actually watched it, I'm not sure I'd want to use that as an example of what to do with a B5 project...

 

[gangster]

KoshN,
If you have a clear view of the southern sky, go satellite. I've had Direct TV since it first came out and love it.