After a mid-decade slump, HBO is back to its starry best on the drama side, finding success by investing in blood and horses. (And, in the case of Game of Thrones, both!) But reinventing its comedy brand has proven to be a stickier wicket. The brain-dead lifestyle porn of Entourage and How to Make It in America was a poor match for the Occupy era, and the twee amblings of Bored to Death struggled to connect with audiences outside of Mr. Ned’s Tailor Shop. More recently, Enlightened proved to be a critical hit, but not yet a commercial one. With the networks still dominating mainstream laughs and nichier, riskier fare succeeding elsewhere on the basic-cable grid, HBO has found itself boxed in and outflanked, unable to settle on a comedy strategy that fits its prestige brand. This Sunday’s debut of a new 10 p.m. sitcom block doesn’t solve the problem, it only serves to accentuate it — albeit in awfully interesting ways.
By Mark Lisanti at
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Before we begin, it should be stipulated that awards shows are boring. They have always been boring, and they will continue to be boring until the Earth hurtles into the sun, which will almost certainly occur during the 18th hour of 10,464th Annual Academy Awards Psychocast, finally freeing us of the curious need to complain about why we aren't more entertained by famous people trading gold statues and listing their business obligations.
Yesterday afternoon the Hollywood Foreign Press Association confirmed that Ricky Gervais will return to host the Golden Globes for the third time. Considering how hilariously mean Gervais was the first two times, this sounds great, right? Well, no, not really.
Ice Cube is in talks for a fourth Friday movie with New Line, which he would write, produce, star, and possibly direct. And Tiny Lister, a.k.a. Debo from the first Friday, told TMZ that he recently had a conversation with Chris Tucker on the dude's private jet, and he's possibly interested in coming back to play Smokey. If that fails, though, they should seriously consider Kal Penn, as Kumar, for Cube’s sidekick. Anyway, this sounds fantastic. Grade: A [Deadline]
On second thought, Universal Pictures has decided not to move forward with Ron Howard's insane-seeming three-movie, two-miniseries mega-adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, which would have sent Javier Bardem's kids to private school and been one of the most expensive and ambitious productions in history. Instead, they'll more wisely spend the money on the next dozen Fast & Furious sequels. Grade: A [Deadline]
Anger Management, Charlie Sheen's sitcom adaptation of the 2003 Adam Sandler-Jack Nicholson movie, was upgraded from "pipe dream" to "pipe dream with a press release" yesterday with the announcement that Lionsgate subsidiary Debmar-Mercury will distribute the show in the unlikely event that it ever finds a network or a show-runner. "I chose Anger Management because, while it might be a big stretch for me to play a guy with serious anger management issues, I think it is a great concept," said Sheen in the release. Hilarious. Grade: D [HR]
