Apple TV+ has canceled “The Mosquito Coast” after two seasons, according to media reports.
The decision arrives fresh on the heels of the end of Season 2, the finale of which dropped two weeks ago.
Loosely based on Paul Theroux’s bestselling 1981 novel, “The Mosquito Coast” stars Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman. The story follows Allie Fox (Theroux), an idealist inventor who puts his family in jeopardy in order to escape the U.S. government, cartels and bounty hunters.
A previous movie adaptation of the book starred Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix. The first two seasons served as prequel material to the Peter Weir-directed film, which came out in 1986.
Also Read:
‘The Mosquito Coast’ Season 2 Trailer: Justin Theroux Seeks Refuge in a Guatemalan Jungle
The show’s second season watched the Fox family flee Mexico to seek shelter in a community of refugees led by an old friend of Allie.
The decision arrives fresh on the heels of the end of Season 2, the finale of which dropped two weeks ago.
Loosely based on Paul Theroux’s bestselling 1981 novel, “The Mosquito Coast” stars Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman. The story follows Allie Fox (Theroux), an idealist inventor who puts his family in jeopardy in order to escape the U.S. government, cartels and bounty hunters.
A previous movie adaptation of the book starred Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix. The first two seasons served as prequel material to the Peter Weir-directed film, which came out in 1986.
Also Read:
‘The Mosquito Coast’ Season 2 Trailer: Justin Theroux Seeks Refuge in a Guatemalan Jungle
The show’s second season watched the Fox family flee Mexico to seek shelter in a community of refugees led by an old friend of Allie.
- 1/21/2023
- by Dessi Gomez
- The Wrap
Apple TV+ has canceled “The Mosquito Coast” after two seasons.
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, “The Mosquito Coast” follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox, a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the U.S. government, cartels, and hitmen.
In the latest chapter, viewers found the Fox family barely escaping Mexico with their lives, venturing deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. This new refuge creates trouble for the Foxes though when they become entangled in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family. At odds about whether to settle down or keep moving, Allie and Margot pursue different paths to secure their family’s future. The outcome of which will either unite the family or tear it apart forever. The Season 2 finale aired earlier this month.
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, “The Mosquito Coast” follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox, a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the U.S. government, cartels, and hitmen.
In the latest chapter, viewers found the Fox family barely escaping Mexico with their lives, venturing deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. This new refuge creates trouble for the Foxes though when they become entangled in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family. At odds about whether to settle down or keep moving, Allie and Margot pursue different paths to secure their family’s future. The outcome of which will either unite the family or tear it apart forever. The Season 2 finale aired earlier this month.
- 1/21/2023
- by BreAnna Bell
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Allie Fox and his family won’t be returning to The Mosquito Coast as Apple TV+ has opted not to proceed with a third season of the drama series. The decision comes two weeks after Season 2 ended its run with an explosive finale.
The series is loosely based on Paul Theroux’s bestselling 1981 novel, but fans won’t get to see it move into more famous territory from the book and its movie adaptation starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix.
Related Story TV Series Fading To Black In 2023 & Beyond: Photo Gallery Of Canceled Shows Related Story Timothée Chalamet Wants A Bite Of The Apple In Streamer's New Brand Campaign – Watch Related Story 'The Blacklist' Star Amir Arison Joins Ridley Scott's Apple Series 'Sinking Spring'
The Mosquito Coast, which stars Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman, centers on Allie Fox...
The series is loosely based on Paul Theroux’s bestselling 1981 novel, but fans won’t get to see it move into more famous territory from the book and its movie adaptation starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix.
Related Story TV Series Fading To Black In 2023 & Beyond: Photo Gallery Of Canceled Shows Related Story Timothée Chalamet Wants A Bite Of The Apple In Streamer's New Brand Campaign – Watch Related Story 'The Blacklist' Star Amir Arison Joins Ridley Scott's Apple Series 'Sinking Spring'
The Mosquito Coast, which stars Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman, centers on Allie Fox...
- 1/21/2023
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
Apple TV+ has unveiled the season two trailer for “The Mosquito Coast,” the acclaimed drama adapted from the best-selling novel, starring Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish, and Gabriel Bateman. The 10-episode second season will make its global debut with the first episode on Friday, November 4, followed by new episodes every Friday through January 6, 2023, on Apple TV+. Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, “The Mosquito Coast” follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox, a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the U.S. government, cartels, and hitmen. In season two, after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, the Foxes venture deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. This new refuge creates trouble for the Foxes though when they become entangled in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family.
- 10/13/2022
- by Hollywood Outbreak
- HollywoodOutbreak.com
Apple TV+ shared the season two trailer for “The Mosquito Coast,” a drama series adapted from the novel of the same title, starring Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman.
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, “The Mosquito Coast” Season 2 picks up on the family after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, venturing deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. This creates trouble when they become entangled in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family.
The show is executive produced by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, Stefan Schwartz, Evan Katz, Rupert Wyatt, author Theroux and series star Theroux. Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer and Peter Jaysen serve as executive producers for Veritas Entertainment Group. The series is created for television and executive produced by Neil Cross. Developed by Cross & Tom Bissell, the series is...
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, “The Mosquito Coast” Season 2 picks up on the family after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, venturing deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. This creates trouble when they become entangled in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family.
The show is executive produced by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, Stefan Schwartz, Evan Katz, Rupert Wyatt, author Theroux and series star Theroux. Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer and Peter Jaysen serve as executive producers for Veritas Entertainment Group. The series is created for television and executive produced by Neil Cross. Developed by Cross & Tom Bissell, the series is...
- 10/13/2022
- by Katie Reul, EJ Panaligan and Michaela Zee
- Variety Film + TV
The trailer for The Mosquito Coast season two appears to confirm the new season will be even more intense than the first. Justin Theroux returns to lead the cast of the action drama based on his uncle Paul’s bestselling novel.
Justin Theroux reprises his role as Allie Fox. Melissa George returns as Margot Fox, Logan Polish is back as Dina Fox, and Gabriel Bateman returns as Charlie Fox.
Series creator Neil Cross, Justin Theroux, Mark V. Olsen, Will Scheffer, Stefan Schwartz, Evan Katz, Rupert Wyatt, and Paul Theroux executive produce. Veritas Entertainment Group’s Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer, and Peter Jaysen are also involved as executive producers.
Season two will premiere on November 4, 2022, followed by new episodes of the 10-episode season on subsequent Fridays. The finale is set for January 6, 2023.
Fyi – The song featured in the video is “Looking for the Rain” by Unkle.
The Plot, Courtesy of Apple...
Justin Theroux reprises his role as Allie Fox. Melissa George returns as Margot Fox, Logan Polish is back as Dina Fox, and Gabriel Bateman returns as Charlie Fox.
Series creator Neil Cross, Justin Theroux, Mark V. Olsen, Will Scheffer, Stefan Schwartz, Evan Katz, Rupert Wyatt, and Paul Theroux executive produce. Veritas Entertainment Group’s Bob Bookman, Alan Gasmer, and Peter Jaysen are also involved as executive producers.
Season two will premiere on November 4, 2022, followed by new episodes of the 10-episode season on subsequent Fridays. The finale is set for January 6, 2023.
Fyi – The song featured in the video is “Looking for the Rain” by Unkle.
The Plot, Courtesy of Apple...
- 10/12/2022
- by Rebecca Murray
- Showbiz Junkies
Is there hope for the Foxes to make it out of their latest pickle alive?
Apple TV+ today unveiled the trailer for The Mosquito Coast Season 2, and it looks more intense than ever.
The acclaimed drama is adapted from the best-selling novel, and stars Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish, and Gabriel Bateman.
The 10-episode second season will make its global debut with the first episode on Friday, November 4, followed by new episodes every Friday through January 6, 2023, on Apple TV+.
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, The Mosquito Coast follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox, a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the U.S. government, cartels, and hitmen.
"In season two, after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, the Foxes venture deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees,...
Apple TV+ today unveiled the trailer for The Mosquito Coast Season 2, and it looks more intense than ever.
The acclaimed drama is adapted from the best-selling novel, and stars Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish, and Gabriel Bateman.
The 10-episode second season will make its global debut with the first episode on Friday, November 4, followed by new episodes every Friday through January 6, 2023, on Apple TV+.
Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel, The Mosquito Coast follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox, a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the U.S. government, cartels, and hitmen.
"In season two, after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, the Foxes venture deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees,...
- 10/12/2022
- by Paul Dailly
- TVfanatic
Allie Fox (Justin Theroux) and his family seek temporary refuge from their enemies deep in the Guatemalan jungle in the trailer for Season 2 of “The Mosquito Coast,” out Nov. 4.
The Apple TV+ drama picks up after the Foxes – consisting of genius inventor Allie, his wife Margot (Melissa George) and their two children (Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman) – narrowly escape from Mexico. Their next stop is a community of refugees led by one of Allie’s old friends. Though it seems like a solution, things quickly move into dangerous territory again when they get caught up in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family.
The trailer opens with Allie ensuring his family, “We’ve made it; everything’s gonna be different from now on.” Despite the idyllic scenery and newfound community, Margot isn’t convinced that they’re safe: “You want to make us a home,” she tells her husband.
The Apple TV+ drama picks up after the Foxes – consisting of genius inventor Allie, his wife Margot (Melissa George) and their two children (Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman) – narrowly escape from Mexico. Their next stop is a community of refugees led by one of Allie’s old friends. Though it seems like a solution, things quickly move into dangerous territory again when they get caught up in a conflict between a local drug lord and his family.
The trailer opens with Allie ensuring his family, “We’ve made it; everything’s gonna be different from now on.” Despite the idyllic scenery and newfound community, Margot isn’t convinced that they’re safe: “You want to make us a home,” she tells her husband.
- 10/12/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Justin Theroux in “The Mosquito Coast,” now streaming on Apple TV+ Based on Paul Theroux’s best-selling novel and starring Justin Theroux, Melissa George, Logan Polish, and Gabriel Bateman, “The Mosquito Coast” follows the dangerous journey of Allie Fox, a brilliant inventor and stubborn idealist, who uproots his family on a dangerous quest to find refuge from the U.S. government, cartels, and hitmen. In season two, after barely escaping Mexico with their lives, the Foxes venture deep into the Guatemalan jungle to meet up with an old friend and her community of refugees. This new refuge creates trouble for the Foxes though when they become entangled in a conflict between the scions of a local drug lord. At odds about whether to settle down or keep moving, Allie and Margot pursue different paths to secure their family’s future. The outcome of which will either unite the family or tear it apart forever.
- 10/1/2022
- by Hollywood Outbreak
- HollywoodOutbreak.com
Paramount Network shared the official trailer for the fifth season of “Yellowstone,” which returns on Nov. 13 with two episodes. The new trailer opens with Kevin Costner’s John Dutton being sworn in as Governor of Montana, and previews the chaos that immediately follows.
“Yellowstone” comes from “Wind River” director Taylor Sheridan, and the show’s cast alongside Costner includes Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, Brecken Merrill, Forrie Smith, Denim Richards, Ian Bohen, Finn Little, Ryan Bingham and Gil Birmingham. Mo Brings Plenty, Wendy Moniz, Jen Landon and Kathryn Kelly have been upped to series regulars. The upcoming season will also feature the return of Josh Lucas as young John Dutton alongside Jacki Weaver, Kylie Rogers and Kyle Red Silverstein with Kai Caster, Lainey Wilson, Lilli Kay and Dawn Olivieri joining the cast.
Watch the trailer below.
Also in today’s television news:
Events
Netflix and...
“Yellowstone” comes from “Wind River” director Taylor Sheridan, and the show’s cast alongside Costner includes Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, Brecken Merrill, Forrie Smith, Denim Richards, Ian Bohen, Finn Little, Ryan Bingham and Gil Birmingham. Mo Brings Plenty, Wendy Moniz, Jen Landon and Kathryn Kelly have been upped to series regulars. The upcoming season will also feature the return of Josh Lucas as young John Dutton alongside Jacki Weaver, Kylie Rogers and Kyle Red Silverstein with Kai Caster, Lainey Wilson, Lilli Kay and Dawn Olivieri joining the cast.
Watch the trailer below.
Also in today’s television news:
Events
Netflix and...
- 9/29/2022
- by EJ Panaligan
- Variety Film + TV
The coming-of-age film Paper Spiders will open a virtual version of the Dances With Films Festival, the producers announced today.
Dwf:la’s 2020 lineup has more than 200 titles, including narrative features, documentaries, pilots, web series, music videos, short films, and films by young people. The entire festival, running Thursday August 27 through Sunday September 6, will be in real time, allowing interactive experiences, including a virtual red carpet, lounges with trivia nights and signature cocktails, panel discussions, and Q&a sessions.
Ticket prices will be lowered this year, owing to the virtual setup. Pre-sale tickets start at $11 through August 26 and then will go to $15. Tickets will be available on the website, http://dwfla.com
Paper Spiders stars Lili Taylor, Stefania Lavie Owen, Peyton List and Max Casella. The film is directed by Inon Shampanier and written by Shampanier and Natalie Shampanier. The story is a bittersweet coming of age mother/daughter tale that...
Dwf:la’s 2020 lineup has more than 200 titles, including narrative features, documentaries, pilots, web series, music videos, short films, and films by young people. The entire festival, running Thursday August 27 through Sunday September 6, will be in real time, allowing interactive experiences, including a virtual red carpet, lounges with trivia nights and signature cocktails, panel discussions, and Q&a sessions.
Ticket prices will be lowered this year, owing to the virtual setup. Pre-sale tickets start at $11 through August 26 and then will go to $15. Tickets will be available on the website, http://dwfla.com
Paper Spiders stars Lili Taylor, Stefania Lavie Owen, Peyton List and Max Casella. The film is directed by Inon Shampanier and written by Shampanier and Natalie Shampanier. The story is a bittersweet coming of age mother/daughter tale that...
- 8/12/2020
- by Bruce Haring and Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Television has been an overwhelming comfort while millions have been doing their part and social distancing in the fight against the spread of coronavirus. And because so much TV is being consumed, both old and new, we couldn't help but think how some of our old favorites would handle the current situation. How would your favorite character be social distancing? How would some dearly departed medical shows handle the very real pandemic? So, we asked those who helped bring those shows to life over the years how their series would handle life in the time of coronavirus. Created for American television by Big Love's Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen, Getting On ran for three seasons on HBO. The...
- 4/1/2020
- E! Online
Exclusive: Jane Fleming, a producer and president emeritus of Women In Film, and Dear White People and Real Women Have Curves producer Effie Brown have joined the board of advisors at Dwf-la, the new name of the annual Los Angeles-based film festival Dances With Films.
The additions, which also include bringing aboard Fine Line Films acquisitions executive Jackie Tepper as Dwf-la’s first producing partner, will bolster the group’s plan to grow as a destination for filmmakers and buyers (a void partially left in the city by the shuttering of the Los Angeles Film Festival after last year).
“Jane and Effie have both been leaders for many years where they have both been recognized for their achievements while breaking the glass ceiling,” festival co-founder Leslee Scallon said. “They are not only exceptional and successful producers, but leaders in their field. With Jane and Effie joining our advisory board, this...
The additions, which also include bringing aboard Fine Line Films acquisitions executive Jackie Tepper as Dwf-la’s first producing partner, will bolster the group’s plan to grow as a destination for filmmakers and buyers (a void partially left in the city by the shuttering of the Los Angeles Film Festival after last year).
“Jane and Effie have both been leaders for many years where they have both been recognized for their achievements while breaking the glass ceiling,” festival co-founder Leslee Scallon said. “They are not only exceptional and successful producers, but leaders in their field. With Jane and Effie joining our advisory board, this...
- 10/4/2019
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Audiences first got to know Niecy Nash as a comedic actress on shows like “Reno 911.” But the short-lived HBO series “Getting On,” which mixed comedy with plenty of drama, gave Nash a chance to show off another side of her acting skills — something that she’s since put on display in the TNT comedic drama “Claws” and the Netflix limited series “When They See Us.”
“I spent a lot of time in my career being told that I could only do one thing,” Nash told Variety‘s “My Favorite Episode” podcast. “You do broad comedy, that’s your lane. And I’m like, no, I can do something else. When I finally got the opportunity, this was the first time to step into those waters. Tonally, it was so different for me. Visually was very different from me. I do a lot of TV where I have on five packs of hair,...
“I spent a lot of time in my career being told that I could only do one thing,” Nash told Variety‘s “My Favorite Episode” podcast. “You do broad comedy, that’s your lane. And I’m like, no, I can do something else. When I finally got the opportunity, this was the first time to step into those waters. Tonally, it was so different for me. Visually was very different from me. I do a lot of TV where I have on five packs of hair,...
- 7/1/2019
- by Michael Schneider
- Variety Film + TV
MGM Television is teaming with Emmy-nominated creator/showrunners Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen to adapt T.C. Boyle’s Pen/Faulkner Award winning, landmark immigration-themed novel The Tortilla Curtain as a premium series, from HertzbergMedia and Nice Media Studios.
Written by Scheffer and Olsen, Tortilla Curtain the series is a darkly comedic look at immigration through the lens of a liberal white couple living in an upscale housing development atop Topanga Canyon and the undocumented Mexican couple living in the ravine below. Their lives become forever enmeshed when the white man hits the Mexican man with his car and flees the scene.
HertzbergMedia’s Alex Hertzberg and Nice Media Studio’s Sam Sokolow will executive produce.
MGM Television will produce the series and will supervise the writing of the Tortilla Curtain pilot in-house. MGM will internationally distribute. Lindsay Sloane, MGM’s Senior Evp,...
Written by Scheffer and Olsen, Tortilla Curtain the series is a darkly comedic look at immigration through the lens of a liberal white couple living in an upscale housing development atop Topanga Canyon and the undocumented Mexican couple living in the ravine below. Their lives become forever enmeshed when the white man hits the Mexican man with his car and flees the scene.
HertzbergMedia’s Alex Hertzberg and Nice Media Studio’s Sam Sokolow will executive produce.
MGM Television will produce the series and will supervise the writing of the Tortilla Curtain pilot in-house. MGM will internationally distribute. Lindsay Sloane, MGM’s Senior Evp,...
- 3/1/2019
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
The creators of Big Love and Getting On are tackling T.C. Boyle's novel The Tortilla Curtain as their next TV project.
Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen will adapt the book for MGM Television, which plans to shop it as a premium series. No outlet is attached yet.
Published in 1995, The Tortilla Curtain is a darkly comedic story about immigration, told through the lens of a liberal white couple living in an upscale development in Topanga Canyon, Calif., and an undocumented Mexican couple living in the ravine below. Their lives become intertwined when the white man hits the Mexican man ...
Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen will adapt the book for MGM Television, which plans to shop it as a premium series. No outlet is attached yet.
Published in 1995, The Tortilla Curtain is a darkly comedic story about immigration, told through the lens of a liberal white couple living in an upscale development in Topanga Canyon, Calif., and an undocumented Mexican couple living in the ravine below. Their lives become intertwined when the white man hits the Mexican man ...
George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead will be featured at the Salem Horror Fest, and we have info on the special screening. Also in today's Horror Highlights is an excerpt from Nicholas Forristal's Domitianus, stills from Midnighters, Dances with Films 2017 details, and the trailer for A24's Good Time.
Salem Horror Fest: Press Release: "Salem, Ma. - Salem Horror Fest, in partnership with the Peabody Essex Museum and CinemaSalem, today announced four weeks of screenings, parties, concerts, panels and exhibits that explore societal themes of fear and anxiety in horror at the Halloween capital of the world; Salem, Massachusetts
Amidst the notorious backdrop of the 1692 Witch Trials, the festival will feature a city-wide program set to kick off at the Peabody Essex Museum on Thursday, September 21 as part of the Pem/Pm evening party series in conjunction with their upcoming exhibit “It’s Alive” Classic Horror and Sci-Fi...
Salem Horror Fest: Press Release: "Salem, Ma. - Salem Horror Fest, in partnership with the Peabody Essex Museum and CinemaSalem, today announced four weeks of screenings, parties, concerts, panels and exhibits that explore societal themes of fear and anxiety in horror at the Halloween capital of the world; Salem, Massachusetts
Amidst the notorious backdrop of the 1692 Witch Trials, the festival will feature a city-wide program set to kick off at the Peabody Essex Museum on Thursday, September 21 as part of the Pem/Pm evening party series in conjunction with their upcoming exhibit “It’s Alive” Classic Horror and Sci-Fi...
- 5/17/2017
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Over a decade ago, HBO was looking to launch a second successful drama series to join its runaway hit The Sopranos. After a few tries, the network bet on novice creators, Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer, backed by producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and a provocative premise: a series about a polygamist family man. Long before it was cool for movie stars to do TV, the project was able to get Bill Paxton with the help of Paxton’s Apollo 13 co-star Hanks. Big Love became…...
- 2/28/2017
- Deadline TV
Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer and their Anima Sola Productions are continuing their relationship with HBO. The pair have signed a new two-year overall deal, and are currently in development on a new hourlong drama project for the premium cabler. Specifics are being kept under wraps, but the satirical drama will explore modern relationships, identity, and politics in our times of hyper technological change. Olsen and Scheffer are co-creating the show…...
- 7/7/2016
- Deadline TV
True to independent films, Dances with Films film festival will be celebrating its 19th year and sharing the festival week with the Los Angeles Films Festival in June.
Over 100 independent films will be shown from June 2nd through June 12th at the family Hollywood’s Tcl Chinese Theaters.
The festival based solely on merit and discoverability and mandating that all competitive films have no known actors, writers, directors or producers.
Legendary producer Steve Tisch joined the Dwf esteemed Advisory Board last festival season. One of the most successful producers in the motion picture industry, Steve has produced such films as Risky Business, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Weather Man, Seven Pounds, Knowing, The Taking of Pelham 123, The Back-Up Plan, and Hope Springs. A pantheon of industry heavyweights, Dwf’s Advisory Board also includes: Cindy Cowan, Jonathan Dana, Steve Elzer, Kevin Kasha, Eriq La Salle, Michael Lehmann, Mike Macari, Valerie McCaffrey,...
Over 100 independent films will be shown from June 2nd through June 12th at the family Hollywood’s Tcl Chinese Theaters.
The festival based solely on merit and discoverability and mandating that all competitive films have no known actors, writers, directors or producers.
Legendary producer Steve Tisch joined the Dwf esteemed Advisory Board last festival season. One of the most successful producers in the motion picture industry, Steve has produced such films as Risky Business, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Weather Man, Seven Pounds, Knowing, The Taking of Pelham 123, The Back-Up Plan, and Hope Springs. A pantheon of industry heavyweights, Dwf’s Advisory Board also includes: Cindy Cowan, Jonathan Dana, Steve Elzer, Kevin Kasha, Eriq La Salle, Michael Lehmann, Mike Macari, Valerie McCaffrey,...
- 5/9/2016
- by Gig Patta
- LRMonline.com
In the olden days — like, say, a year or two ago — TV critics held a slight edge on the folks who made year-end movies and music best-of lists. New albums keep dropping well into December, and Hollywood holds back some of its biggest pictures for the holiday break, but television? Shows debut in the fall, wrapped up in the spring and took the summer off. That's the way it was, for decades. Then the streaming services arrived, and started uploading entire new seasons just about anytime — including this past weekend,...
- 12/14/2015
- Rollingstone.com
Attention: There is a lot of TV on these days, that's a known fact. However, another known fact is this: HBO's Getting On deserves your attention. The lovably dark comedy starring Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash and Mel Rodriguez is returning for a third and final (sob!) season of six episodes and E! News has your exclusive first look at the show you Must be watching. Getting On hails from the co-creators of Big Love, Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, and follows the lives of the doctors and nurses in the Billy Barnes Extended Care Facility. They're caring for the elderly, even if the healthcare system fails them and the bureaucracy kills them. Don't you want to see the show that finally got...
- 10/9/2015
- E! Online
The shocking story of a former Texas Justice of the Peace-turned-convicted murderer will be the subject of Preserve, Protect, And Defend, a movie in development at HBO Films. It is being written by Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer as well as filmmaker Craig Zobel (Compliance), who is set to direct. Preserve, Protect, And Defend tells the true story of 47-year-old Eric Williams, a disgraced Texas Justice of the Peace who enlisted the help of his wife to plot…...
- 3/5/2015
- Deadline TV
There's a show on TV that is so subtle, smart and hilarious. It's called Getting On and it just began its second six-episode season on HBO. In addition to the new season, you can catch up with the full first season out on DVD on Tuesday. We have an exclusive—and hilarious—look at what you've been missing in the form of one great Getting On gag reel. The series, created by Big Love's Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer and based on the UK series created by Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, stars Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein, Mel Rodriguez and Niecy Nash as staffers at a beleaguered geriatric extended care facility. More: Getting On is the best show you're not...
- 11/10/2014
- E! Online
HBO's Getting On is the best show on TV you're not watching.
Adapted from the British series of the same name by Big Love co-creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the comedy stars Laurie Metcalf(Roseanne), Alex Borstein (MadTV, Family Guy) and Niecy Nash (Reno 911) as members of the medical staff at a geriatric extended care ward of fictitious Southern California hospital — a place where senior citizens go to die and the people who work there aren't sure what they're living for.
Alt TV: Offbeat shows you should be watching
Sure, that doesn't sound like a recipe for gut-busting laughter, which may be why HBO debuted the six-episode first season at the end of 2013 with little to no fanfare. "They didn't tell anyone that it was on!" Borstein tells TVGuide.com....
Read More >...
Adapted from the British series of the same name by Big Love co-creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the comedy stars Laurie Metcalf(Roseanne), Alex Borstein (MadTV, Family Guy) and Niecy Nash (Reno 911) as members of the medical staff at a geriatric extended care ward of fictitious Southern California hospital — a place where senior citizens go to die and the people who work there aren't sure what they're living for.
Alt TV: Offbeat shows you should be watching
Sure, that doesn't sound like a recipe for gut-busting laughter, which may be why HBO debuted the six-episode first season at the end of 2013 with little to no fanfare. "They didn't tell anyone that it was on!" Borstein tells TVGuide.com....
Read More >...
- 11/8/2014
- by Adam Bryant
- TVGuide.com - Features
HBO's Getting On is the best show on TV you're not watching.
Adapted from the British series of the same name by Big Love co-creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the comedy stars Laurie Metcalf(Roseanne), Alex Borstein (MadTV, Family Guy) and Niecy Nash (Reno 911) as members of the medical staff at a geriatric extended care ward of fictitious Southern California hospital — a place where senior citizens go to die and the people who work there aren't sure what they're living for.
Alt TV: Offbeat shows you should be watching
Sure, that doesn't sound like a recipe for gut-busting laughter, which may be why HBO debuted the six-episode first season at the end of 2013 with little to no fanfare. "They didn't tell anyone that it was on!" Borstein tells TVGuide.com....
Read More >...
Adapted from the British series of the same name by Big Love co-creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the comedy stars Laurie Metcalf(Roseanne), Alex Borstein (MadTV, Family Guy) and Niecy Nash (Reno 911) as members of the medical staff at a geriatric extended care ward of fictitious Southern California hospital — a place where senior citizens go to die and the people who work there aren't sure what they're living for.
Alt TV: Offbeat shows you should be watching
Sure, that doesn't sound like a recipe for gut-busting laughter, which may be why HBO debuted the six-episode first season at the end of 2013 with little to no fanfare. "They didn't tell anyone that it was on!" Borstein tells TVGuide.com....
Read More >...
- 11/8/2014
- by Adam Bryant
- TVGuide - Breaking News
Getting On is back for season two this November! What's that? You didn't know there was a Getting On season one? Shame! The HBO comedy from Big Love's Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer stars Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash, Laurie Metcalf and Mel Rodriguez as healthcare professionals in a dumpy geriatric extended care facility. It's wickedly smart with biting humor and probably the best show you're not watching. Check out the trailer for the upcoming second season, which will be paired with the equally brilliant The Comeback, starting November 9 on HBO. The first season, which is on HBO Go right now, so you know what to do, featured Dr. Jenna James (Metcalf) doing a fecal study, guest stars Molly Shannon...
- 9/29/2014
- E! Online
“Getting On” did not get a heck of a lot of promotion from its pay-tv network — HBO — but that was somewhat by design, the comedy's creators told journalists Thursday at the Television Critics Association panel. While Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer didn't request their channel not provide them a strong lead-in, they quickly adopted the mentality of a small, indie project. “The show premiering late in the year, Nov. 26 — being a short season — created the narrative that we were being dumped there,” Scheffer told critics at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “This show was never planned to...
- 7/10/2014
- by Tony Maglio
- The Wrap
HBO's Getting On is comfortable with its underdog status. The modestly rated comedy from Big Love's Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer centering on a group of nurses (and doctors) who care for the elderly bowed in November to little fanfare. The series, which was embraced by critics, was renewed for a second season of six episodes in February. Producers told reporters Thursday at the Television Critics Association's summer press tour that the show's November rollout and lack of a major marketing push was done by design in order to match the tone of the show. "The show was never planned
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- 7/10/2014
- by Lesley Goldberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
I love it when my friends take on hugely ambitious and relevant projects for the screen. This us why we do it, yes?, this cinema thing....
Our Producer pal Lisa Bellomo has put together a Us / Israeli co production on Kickstarter to bring to screen the Dear Sugar phenom which is an avidly, hugely followed advice column relevant to women and the gay community worldwide.
Producer Lisa Bellomo has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finance this animated short film based on best-selling author Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar advice column. Israeli animator David Polonsky, art director and lead artist for the acclaimed Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning animated film Waltz With Bashir, will animate the film.
The short is based on The Baby Bird, the column that launched the Dear Sugar phenomenon ( read it Here). Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer (Getting On, Big Love) have written the screenplay adaption and Alex Borstein (Family Guy, Mad TV) will be the voice of Sugar.
In 2010 the Dear Sugar online advice column launched on TheRumpus.net and garnered a devoted underground following. Two years later the captivating voice was revealed to be that of American memoirist and novelist, Cheryl Strayed. Each column is like a short film because each tells a story unto itself. And whether Sugar is bestowing her “advice” to a grieving mother who has just miscarriage, or a father mourning the death of his young gay son and regretting the things he didn’t say, or as in our film, to a young woman grasping to find the meaning in her life, Sugar’s words of wisdom are delivered with compassion and a raw sense of direct honesty. It’s that quality that results in a deeply authentic exchange between Sugar and her questioners. It is an advice column unlike any other.
The animation will be done in Israel and David Polonsky is the perfect person to oversee it for this film. Like the Dear Sugar columns, Waltz With Bashir also jumps back and forth between present day and flashbacks of traumatic memories from the past. That movie’s particular style of animation – which has a documentary feel to it - effectively captures the characters complex emotions, as they try to make sense of their lives. In that way it’s not unlike our Baby Bird story. Of course David and his animation partner Yoni Goodman will create a distinctive animation style for Sugar, but the Waltz With Bashir template is a good model for this project.
They're determined to get this Dear Sugar short film produced, but the big dream is that this short will be just the beginning for Sugar on the screen. Once the short is complete, the plan is to submit the film to domestic and international film festivals, and hope to premiere it at the Sundance Film Festival. After that, who knows…a feature film…a television series…The sky’s the limit because in the words of Sugar, “The best thing you can possibly do with your life, is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it”.
Check out the Kickstarter campaign here: http://ow.ly/wWESP
Follow them on twitter and instagram: [At]dearsugarfilm...
Our Producer pal Lisa Bellomo has put together a Us / Israeli co production on Kickstarter to bring to screen the Dear Sugar phenom which is an avidly, hugely followed advice column relevant to women and the gay community worldwide.
Producer Lisa Bellomo has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finance this animated short film based on best-selling author Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar advice column. Israeli animator David Polonsky, art director and lead artist for the acclaimed Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning animated film Waltz With Bashir, will animate the film.
The short is based on The Baby Bird, the column that launched the Dear Sugar phenomenon ( read it Here). Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer (Getting On, Big Love) have written the screenplay adaption and Alex Borstein (Family Guy, Mad TV) will be the voice of Sugar.
In 2010 the Dear Sugar online advice column launched on TheRumpus.net and garnered a devoted underground following. Two years later the captivating voice was revealed to be that of American memoirist and novelist, Cheryl Strayed. Each column is like a short film because each tells a story unto itself. And whether Sugar is bestowing her “advice” to a grieving mother who has just miscarriage, or a father mourning the death of his young gay son and regretting the things he didn’t say, or as in our film, to a young woman grasping to find the meaning in her life, Sugar’s words of wisdom are delivered with compassion and a raw sense of direct honesty. It’s that quality that results in a deeply authentic exchange between Sugar and her questioners. It is an advice column unlike any other.
The animation will be done in Israel and David Polonsky is the perfect person to oversee it for this film. Like the Dear Sugar columns, Waltz With Bashir also jumps back and forth between present day and flashbacks of traumatic memories from the past. That movie’s particular style of animation – which has a documentary feel to it - effectively captures the characters complex emotions, as they try to make sense of their lives. In that way it’s not unlike our Baby Bird story. Of course David and his animation partner Yoni Goodman will create a distinctive animation style for Sugar, but the Waltz With Bashir template is a good model for this project.
They're determined to get this Dear Sugar short film produced, but the big dream is that this short will be just the beginning for Sugar on the screen. Once the short is complete, the plan is to submit the film to domestic and international film festivals, and hope to premiere it at the Sundance Film Festival. After that, who knows…a feature film…a television series…The sky’s the limit because in the words of Sugar, “The best thing you can possibly do with your life, is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it”.
Check out the Kickstarter campaign here: http://ow.ly/wWESP
Follow them on twitter and instagram: [At]dearsugarfilm...
- 6/6/2014
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
Despite its less-than-stellar performance in the ratings, HBO has decided to renew "Getting On" for a second season. The order is for six episodes -- a figure that matches the total number of episodes in the current season -- and comes on the heels of HBO's decision not to renew its other freshman comedies, "Hello Ladies" and "Family Tree." Co-created by Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer -- the duo behind HBO's long-running and critically acclaimed series "Big Love" -- "Getting On" chronicles the day-to-day of three women who work in the female geriatric ward at a hospital. Starring Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash, the series uses humor to expose the absurd bureaucracy of the healthcare system. Olsen and Scheffer adapted the series from a British format of the same name, which ran for three seasons on BBC4.
- 2/19/2014
- by Shipra Gupta
- Indiewire
The Vampire Diaries is introducing some new blood — including its first-ever teen gay character.
The CW series has tapped Chris Brochu (CSI: NY, NCIS: LA) to recur as Luke, a charming gay student at Whitmore with a secret agenda who bonds with Elena and Caroline.
More from TVLineTVLine Items: Real Time With Bill Maher Renewed, Netflix's Untamed Starring Eric Bana and MoreSuits: L.A. Casts Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Vet Alice Lee (Exclusive)SNL Taps Kristen Wiig, Ryan Gosling to Host April Episodes
Meanwhile, Heather Hemmens (Hellcats) is joining the cast as Enzo’s love interest, Maggie, who was...
The CW series has tapped Chris Brochu (CSI: NY, NCIS: LA) to recur as Luke, a charming gay student at Whitmore with a secret agenda who bonds with Elena and Caroline.
More from TVLineTVLine Items: Real Time With Bill Maher Renewed, Netflix's Untamed Starring Eric Bana and MoreSuits: L.A. Casts Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Vet Alice Lee (Exclusive)SNL Taps Kristen Wiig, Ryan Gosling to Host April Episodes
Meanwhile, Heather Hemmens (Hellcats) is joining the cast as Enzo’s love interest, Maggie, who was...
- 2/19/2014
- by Vlada Gelman
- TVLine.com
There’s great news for fans of the new show “Getting On,” as HBO has announced it will get a second season.
According to a report, the medical comedy about the goings on of a dilapidated hospital’s geriatric wing will produce six more episodes, though there’s not a Season 2 premiere date just yet.
Based on the BBC Worldwide Productions show of the same name, “Getting On” was brought Stateside by “Big Love” honchos Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer.
As a result, it seems the cast of Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash and Mel Rodriguez can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
According to a report, the medical comedy about the goings on of a dilapidated hospital’s geriatric wing will produce six more episodes, though there’s not a Season 2 premiere date just yet.
Based on the BBC Worldwide Productions show of the same name, “Getting On” was brought Stateside by “Big Love” honchos Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer.
As a result, it seems the cast of Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash and Mel Rodriguez can breathe a collective sigh of relief.
- 2/19/2014
- GossipCenter
HBO's under-the-radar comedy "Getting On" will return for a second season, which means you have time to catch up on the six-episode hospital-set series about doctors and nurses in a women's geriatric wing.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the second season will also be six episodes long. Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash are all scheduled to return on a date yet to be determined.
The HBO series is based on an award-winning British show of the same name, with the adaptation written by "Big Love" creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. The fate of the show was still in the air after the network canceled fellow freshmen comedies "Hello Ladies" and "Family Tree."...
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the second season will also be six episodes long. Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash are all scheduled to return on a date yet to be determined.
The HBO series is based on an award-winning British show of the same name, with the adaptation written by "Big Love" creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. The fate of the show was still in the air after the network canceled fellow freshmen comedies "Hello Ladies" and "Family Tree."...
- 2/19/2014
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
Getting On has been renewed for a second season by HBO! Wait, you haven't heard of Getting On? Well, let's change that. The HBO comedy hails from Big Love creators Will Scheffer and Mark V. Olsen. It stars Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash and was host to guest stars including Molly Shannon, June Squibb and Telma Hopkins. Metcalf plays Dr. Jenna James, the head of an extended care geriatric unit. Borstein and Nash are the nurses to the elderly patients. It's based on the hit BBC series of the same name and is hilarious. Read: Why You Should Be Watching HBO's Getting On The first season of six episodes premiered in November 2013 to 520,000 viewers. Season two will again be six...
- 2/19/2014
- E! Online
HBO has finalized a deal for a second-season pickup of offbeat medical comedy Getting On, starring Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash and Mel Rodriguez. The order is for six episodes, matching the size of Getting On‘s first season. HBO brass had been high on the show, an adaptation of the BBC series, and had been looking to renew it contingent of sorting out budget issues. Well received by critics, Getting On was a modest ratings performer but also was a word-of-mouth success as it didn’t get a big marketing push at launch. It is unclear what the renewal will mean for CBS comedy pilot The McCarthys, which cast Metcalf as the female lead in second position while the HBO comedy’s fate was still up in the air. Related: HBO Adapting British Thriller Drama Series ‘Utopia’ With David Fincher & Gillian Flynn Adapted by Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer,...
- 2/19/2014
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
HBO is going on with Getting On. The premium cable network has renewed the medical comedy starring Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The second season will again consist of six episodes. Based on the British series of the same name, Getting On centers on the doctors and nurses who comprise a women's geriatric wing at a beleaguered hospital as they struggle with the realities of caring for the elderly amid an overwhelmed heath care system. The HBO adaptation hails from Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer and their Anima Sola Productions banner. The duo penned
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- 1/7/2014
- by Lesley Goldberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Will Scheffer speaks candidly with Susan Kouguell about the Getting On series, adapting material, collaborations, and more.
With their fingers on the pulse -- actually ten steps ahead of -- societal happenings and hot button topics, co-creators, executive producers, and writers on their Emmy and Golden Globe-winning HBO series Big Love, Will Scheffer and his partner Mark V. Olsen are fearless when tackling “difficult” subject matters in their television and film projects. With humor and pathos, Scheffer and Olsen continue to confront timely and challenging issues with their new series for HBO’s Getting On.
Will Scheffer is a playwright, writer/producer and filmmaker. His plays have been produced and developed across the country, including Playwright's Horizons, Naked Angels, The Public Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theater, where he’s had four plays in The Marathon. His first screenplay In the Gloaming, starring Glenn Close and directed by Christopher Reeve, was produced by HBO in 1997, and won many awards, including five Emmys. An attorney and member of the New York Bar, Mark V. Olsen has created, written, and produced several screenplays, teleplays, pilots and miniseries. For HBO, he wrote Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, Cabrina USA. In 2010, after being published in Best Plays of 1999, Olsen’s play Cornelia opened at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Together, Scheffer and Olsen produced the independent feature based on Scheffer’s play by the same name, Easter in 2002, and that same year they created HBO’s acclaimed drama Big Love.
Kouguell: The HBO Web site synopsis describes Getting On: ‘The show follows the daily lives of overworked nurses and doctors as they struggle with the darkly comic realities of tending compassionately to their aging charges in a rundown, red-tape-filled hospital extended-care wing, blending outrageous humor with unexpected moments of tenderness.’ Anything else you would add to this description?
Scheffer: The show is about relationships -- as all our shows are -- the power struggles that come out of marriages between couples, or among small groups of individuals that work together out of choice or necessity. Getting On is about healthy and unhealthy codependence. It’s about love. It’s about how women in largely patriarchal systems learn to take their own power. It’s about class struggle and how it goes largely pushed into unconsciousness in our society and it’s about how the elderly, illness and the death experience is also compartmentalized in our society.
Getting On is largely about how we all deal with the process of aging and how we all care for the elderly. Like taxes and death, Mark and I think eldercare is becoming an unavoidable reality in our lives whether we like to deal with it or not. It’s becoming a shared fact of our existence, and Getting On tries to create a funny, safe place where an audience can find humor and compassion in that reality.
Kouguell: British television series like The Office have been successfully adapted for American TV. Getting On ran in Britain from 2009 – 2012. How did you come upon this show?
Scheffer: Mark and I had seen it in London while we were taking a vacation from our last season of Big Love and we were both dealing with caring for our aging mothers. We fell madly in love with the series and coincidentally had been working up a show of our own, set in the world of American eldercare. When we saw it we thought we should just adapt this series for American television. It’s an easier way to pitch an idea, and of course it gives us all this glorious material to work with.
Joanna Scanlon, Vicki Pepperdine, Jo Brand and Peter Capaldi, created an amazing show about the healthcare system in Great Britain and we felt it docked in perfectly with the kind of dark comedy we had in our heads about managed care in America and all the firsthand experiences we were going through with our moms.
Kouguell: What challenges and inspirations have you found while adapting this series?
Scheffer: The largest challenge, of course, is how to reimagine the characters and situations of the British version for an American audience and not to just “do a translation.” I think it was harder to translate a British show into American English than it might be to translate a Danish format such as The Killing or an Israeli format, such as In Treatment or Homeland.
You can be deceived into thinking you can just Americanize the dialogue and that is a huge trap when you love the original material. We had to fight that impulse. Also, we had to take the style of the British version, which is extremely “jump-cutty” and roughly assembled and improvised, and work backwards, almost to create our own “docu-comedy” style. We knew we weren’t going to do The Office but we didn’t know how challenging it would be to structure a script and a season the way we do and then make it look rougher. We love the result but it was extremely challenging for us as writers and for our entire creative team to discover our own style.
Our inspiration was largely drawn from our own ongoing experiences and then the actors we cast and the creative team we assembled. Adapting for these actors became a sublime treat and working with artists like Migel Arteta, Pam Martin, Tami Reiker, Jim Denault, Heather Persons, and also a lot of our Big Love team also was invaluable. And we had Jane Tranter, Julie Gardner, and Amy Hodge from BBC Worldwide as producing partners and they were incredible to work with. We got so much creative support from them.
This show (more than any other we’ve worked on) was a collaborative effort. Michael Lombardo, Casey Bloys and Francesca Orsi were very involved in our editorial process and I think this (sometimes uncomfortable) creative mix of smart people actually made the show different and better than what our vision alone foresaw. This was a rare instance of a lot of chefs in the kitchen actually producing a better stew.
Kouguell: How have you made it your own?
Scheffer: It was impossible not to make it our own. We lived a lot of what is seen on the show. Mark’s mom was in a small boarding care facility, which we were lucky to land her in when she developed dementia, and we had to bring her out to Pasadena to be near us. The caregivers and women there infuse our show. That was where we found tenderness and compassion. My mom was in the New York City healthcare system. She lived in a great assisted living apartment building, but when she got kicked out of hospitals and into Medicare “Rehabs” or what they call “skilled nursing facilities” the experience wasn’t so compassionate.
We used all of our personal knowledge of hospital life (which is considerable) and researched the hell of American geriatric care. We also imbued the show with our style and taste, which I would call simply: “Laughing and crying is good to do at the same time.” We cast actors who were vivid and real and very un-tv. They were all so talented and fiercely brave. We shot each episode in only three days. It’s unlike any TV show or film we’ve ever done.
Kouguell: Talk about your adaptation process.
Scheffer: We definitely started with all of the original material. We had no scripts though, so we had to first transcribe all the episodes from film (or video, as it were). We then picked and chose the material we knew was gold and worked endlessly on how we could compose a season structure -- knowing we had to compress their first two seasons of nine episodes into our first season of six.
We had some strong ideas of what we needed to do in order to achieve an American version as we had our ‘make someone happy campaign,’ which was based on our research of the Disneyfication of hospitals. We also knew we wanted to shake up the pilot and create a real dramatic reason of why there was a new head nurse (Patsy) coming into the ward and why Dr. Jenna James was stuck over here.
The British show has all these gold nuggets but since they worked in a more improvisational mode and we’re much more scripted, we had to take their nuggets and weave them into our structural considerations. Also, once we saw how the pilot worked with our cast, we identified a kind of idea of what each episode should have in it, to fulfill what we saw as a winning episode structure.
Our cast was so talented we knew we could always have a physical slapstick element and real emotional stakes side-by-side. We wanted each episode to have a laugh out loud scene that played against the dark comedy and realities of what happens in an extended care wing.
Also, the show was rebuilt in the editing room. We actually took more time to edit an episode than we did to shoot it. We had plenty of material but we essentially rewrote the show many, many times from before production, through rehearsals, and then in the editing room. When we completed the first episode I turned to Mark and said, “Oh my God, we actually made a black comedy.” Something which we knew was really hard to do and we made one that had a heart.
Kouguell: How do your characters in Getting On depart from the original British series?
Scheffer: The characters are very similar to the original ones except of course they are completely different. Jenna James is Doctor Moore in principal, but Laurie Metcalfe brings a fierceness and virtuosity to the role that makes the character’s inner life more roiling with insecurity. We began to see that in the world of the show, all the other characters saw Dr. James as imperious and incompetent at the same time, but failed to see what the audience saw -- a woman who is falling apart inside.
Nurse Dawn, as played by the multi-talented Alex Borstein, became more co-dependent, needing to always please Jenna, and also blatantly psychologically immature. Her core is the same as Joanna’s wonderful Den, a woman without an inherent self-esteem but I think our Dawn became more outrageously confused.
All our characters are less constrained and polite than the British cast. I would say that you see “America versus our British cousins” in the way all the characters become more visceral. Didi differs the most. In the British show she’s played by the amazing comedienne Jo Brand, as a retiree coming back into the workforce. Niecey, in what I think is a transformative role for her, is younger and of color. I think she retains what Kim (Jo Brand) is to the show, its tender heart, but somehow Niecey manages to bring her comedy skills yet delivers such a subtle earthiness to her performance; she is the beating heart at the center of the show.
It’s a hard question when I answer it, because in a way I see that the characters essentially are the same but completely different at the same time. It’s in the writing but it’s what these actors brought to all their roles. There was only one right actor for each of these roles and they all give award-worthy performances in my book. They just made the characters their own, which is what you want from an actor and we began to write to who we saw they were becoming in the parts. I think the old saying about casting being 99 percent of a successful production was what we knew we had to achieve for this show. It was really hard to cast, but we held out for the perfect actor for each role and they delivered.
Kouguell: What drew you to this material and why did you feel that it could be ‘translated’ for an American audience?
Scheffer: The British show is about the “National Health” and three women who are “getting on” in years, and also together. Our show translated that into eldercare, a women’s ward. It’s a subtle but profound translation. If you compare the shows they look like -- well sisters.
We just knew that we had to do this show. We wanted to create a place where our friends and family, our audience who we knew was aging and dealing with dementia and death in their loved ones, could come and laugh. Even if they were afraid to watch us, we knew once they did, they would want to be in our world with these characters. It’s scary but it’s life. And it can be funny and sad at the same time. It hits close to home and that’s a good thing.
Kouguell: This is the second HBO series you and Mark have collaborated on as executive producers and writers. Describe your work process and collaboration.
Scheffer: We are a married team so when we do a show we are with each other 24/7 365 days a year. Mark and I talk everything through but don't actually write together. We take turns on drafts, passing them back and forth for multiple revisions. Sometimes I'll write the first draft and he'll revise and sometimes he'll write the first draft. On set it's looser and we'll have to revise together but we prefer to actually write in our own space. The "fantasy" image of having desks facing each other and tossing lines back and forth doesn't work for us.
We definitely complement each other and make a good team. And we’ve survived thus far. The marriage seems to get stronger in the roil of collaboration. It does test our mettle, though.
In production we do everything -- from writing, to casting, to directing, to editing, to selling the show -- we’re there and uber-controlling. But we’re also extremely collaborative. We want to create a “safe set” and work environment where everyone wants to be. When people enjoy coming to work they do their best work. We make sure that condition is met. We treat everyone the same, including ourselves. Even though we get to be the auteurs, as it were, we treat our PAs the same way we treat our Dp, and we submit ourselves to the same conditions we expect from our team. We give ourselves over completely to a show. I credit Mark with expecting a standard of excellence. We depend on each other for different aspects of the work, but Mark’s ability to focus and dig is one of the things that make our collaborations successful. He’s my “closer.”
Kouguell: You describe the show as a ‘docu-comedy’ – please detail.
Scheffer: The British version was so raw and the camera just followed the actors and it was all done 360 degrees, with natural light and there was no worry about continuity and we loved that feel. So in principal, we tried to recreate that. We shot the same way in a real location. We used only two cameras and our Dp’s operated one and moved constantly around a 360 space with natural lighting. We felt that the show’s essence was in that “seed.” It felt like a documentary. We wanted the audience to feel like they were observers of life.
It turned out that we had to do a lot of “reverse engineering” to make our show. It became a different beast. Our show still is very gritty and it jump cuts -- but we learned we had to write in the jumps. We had to structure them. That was really hard to figure out because the British show was more “assembled.” We had to write in those moments when the scene was jumping and we began to have a principal that the jumps furthered the dramatic action of the scene. We did this in the editing room, too.
Our show had to become its own animal, and the “docu-comedy” style that we identified in the original became a different kind of “docu-comedy.” I think the two versions complement each other. In a way, we did with the British show what we do together as writers. We collaborated with it. We make a good team.
“Docu-comedy” is not The Office; it’s not an imposed, hand-held camera style. It’s an ethic. It’s more about trying to capture the truth of what it feels like to be in the midst of the insanity of crisis. What it feels like to be in that world that lives between life and death all the time. It’s about surrendering to it and reveling in the surreal quality of it all. Finding death as being a vital part of life. Not shying away from it. Living into it.
To learn more about Getting On go to: http://www.hbo.com/getting-on
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University and presents international seminars. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com .
With their fingers on the pulse -- actually ten steps ahead of -- societal happenings and hot button topics, co-creators, executive producers, and writers on their Emmy and Golden Globe-winning HBO series Big Love, Will Scheffer and his partner Mark V. Olsen are fearless when tackling “difficult” subject matters in their television and film projects. With humor and pathos, Scheffer and Olsen continue to confront timely and challenging issues with their new series for HBO’s Getting On.
Will Scheffer is a playwright, writer/producer and filmmaker. His plays have been produced and developed across the country, including Playwright's Horizons, Naked Angels, The Public Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theater, where he’s had four plays in The Marathon. His first screenplay In the Gloaming, starring Glenn Close and directed by Christopher Reeve, was produced by HBO in 1997, and won many awards, including five Emmys. An attorney and member of the New York Bar, Mark V. Olsen has created, written, and produced several screenplays, teleplays, pilots and miniseries. For HBO, he wrote Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, Cabrina USA. In 2010, after being published in Best Plays of 1999, Olsen’s play Cornelia opened at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Together, Scheffer and Olsen produced the independent feature based on Scheffer’s play by the same name, Easter in 2002, and that same year they created HBO’s acclaimed drama Big Love.
Kouguell: The HBO Web site synopsis describes Getting On: ‘The show follows the daily lives of overworked nurses and doctors as they struggle with the darkly comic realities of tending compassionately to their aging charges in a rundown, red-tape-filled hospital extended-care wing, blending outrageous humor with unexpected moments of tenderness.’ Anything else you would add to this description?
Scheffer: The show is about relationships -- as all our shows are -- the power struggles that come out of marriages between couples, or among small groups of individuals that work together out of choice or necessity. Getting On is about healthy and unhealthy codependence. It’s about love. It’s about how women in largely patriarchal systems learn to take their own power. It’s about class struggle and how it goes largely pushed into unconsciousness in our society and it’s about how the elderly, illness and the death experience is also compartmentalized in our society.
Getting On is largely about how we all deal with the process of aging and how we all care for the elderly. Like taxes and death, Mark and I think eldercare is becoming an unavoidable reality in our lives whether we like to deal with it or not. It’s becoming a shared fact of our existence, and Getting On tries to create a funny, safe place where an audience can find humor and compassion in that reality.
Kouguell: British television series like The Office have been successfully adapted for American TV. Getting On ran in Britain from 2009 – 2012. How did you come upon this show?
Scheffer: Mark and I had seen it in London while we were taking a vacation from our last season of Big Love and we were both dealing with caring for our aging mothers. We fell madly in love with the series and coincidentally had been working up a show of our own, set in the world of American eldercare. When we saw it we thought we should just adapt this series for American television. It’s an easier way to pitch an idea, and of course it gives us all this glorious material to work with.
Joanna Scanlon, Vicki Pepperdine, Jo Brand and Peter Capaldi, created an amazing show about the healthcare system in Great Britain and we felt it docked in perfectly with the kind of dark comedy we had in our heads about managed care in America and all the firsthand experiences we were going through with our moms.
Kouguell: What challenges and inspirations have you found while adapting this series?
Scheffer: The largest challenge, of course, is how to reimagine the characters and situations of the British version for an American audience and not to just “do a translation.” I think it was harder to translate a British show into American English than it might be to translate a Danish format such as The Killing or an Israeli format, such as In Treatment or Homeland.
You can be deceived into thinking you can just Americanize the dialogue and that is a huge trap when you love the original material. We had to fight that impulse. Also, we had to take the style of the British version, which is extremely “jump-cutty” and roughly assembled and improvised, and work backwards, almost to create our own “docu-comedy” style. We knew we weren’t going to do The Office but we didn’t know how challenging it would be to structure a script and a season the way we do and then make it look rougher. We love the result but it was extremely challenging for us as writers and for our entire creative team to discover our own style.
Our inspiration was largely drawn from our own ongoing experiences and then the actors we cast and the creative team we assembled. Adapting for these actors became a sublime treat and working with artists like Migel Arteta, Pam Martin, Tami Reiker, Jim Denault, Heather Persons, and also a lot of our Big Love team also was invaluable. And we had Jane Tranter, Julie Gardner, and Amy Hodge from BBC Worldwide as producing partners and they were incredible to work with. We got so much creative support from them.
This show (more than any other we’ve worked on) was a collaborative effort. Michael Lombardo, Casey Bloys and Francesca Orsi were very involved in our editorial process and I think this (sometimes uncomfortable) creative mix of smart people actually made the show different and better than what our vision alone foresaw. This was a rare instance of a lot of chefs in the kitchen actually producing a better stew.
Kouguell: How have you made it your own?
Scheffer: It was impossible not to make it our own. We lived a lot of what is seen on the show. Mark’s mom was in a small boarding care facility, which we were lucky to land her in when she developed dementia, and we had to bring her out to Pasadena to be near us. The caregivers and women there infuse our show. That was where we found tenderness and compassion. My mom was in the New York City healthcare system. She lived in a great assisted living apartment building, but when she got kicked out of hospitals and into Medicare “Rehabs” or what they call “skilled nursing facilities” the experience wasn’t so compassionate.
We used all of our personal knowledge of hospital life (which is considerable) and researched the hell of American geriatric care. We also imbued the show with our style and taste, which I would call simply: “Laughing and crying is good to do at the same time.” We cast actors who were vivid and real and very un-tv. They were all so talented and fiercely brave. We shot each episode in only three days. It’s unlike any TV show or film we’ve ever done.
Kouguell: Talk about your adaptation process.
Scheffer: We definitely started with all of the original material. We had no scripts though, so we had to first transcribe all the episodes from film (or video, as it were). We then picked and chose the material we knew was gold and worked endlessly on how we could compose a season structure -- knowing we had to compress their first two seasons of nine episodes into our first season of six.
We had some strong ideas of what we needed to do in order to achieve an American version as we had our ‘make someone happy campaign,’ which was based on our research of the Disneyfication of hospitals. We also knew we wanted to shake up the pilot and create a real dramatic reason of why there was a new head nurse (Patsy) coming into the ward and why Dr. Jenna James was stuck over here.
The British show has all these gold nuggets but since they worked in a more improvisational mode and we’re much more scripted, we had to take their nuggets and weave them into our structural considerations. Also, once we saw how the pilot worked with our cast, we identified a kind of idea of what each episode should have in it, to fulfill what we saw as a winning episode structure.
Our cast was so talented we knew we could always have a physical slapstick element and real emotional stakes side-by-side. We wanted each episode to have a laugh out loud scene that played against the dark comedy and realities of what happens in an extended care wing.
Also, the show was rebuilt in the editing room. We actually took more time to edit an episode than we did to shoot it. We had plenty of material but we essentially rewrote the show many, many times from before production, through rehearsals, and then in the editing room. When we completed the first episode I turned to Mark and said, “Oh my God, we actually made a black comedy.” Something which we knew was really hard to do and we made one that had a heart.
Kouguell: How do your characters in Getting On depart from the original British series?
Scheffer: The characters are very similar to the original ones except of course they are completely different. Jenna James is Doctor Moore in principal, but Laurie Metcalfe brings a fierceness and virtuosity to the role that makes the character’s inner life more roiling with insecurity. We began to see that in the world of the show, all the other characters saw Dr. James as imperious and incompetent at the same time, but failed to see what the audience saw -- a woman who is falling apart inside.
Nurse Dawn, as played by the multi-talented Alex Borstein, became more co-dependent, needing to always please Jenna, and also blatantly psychologically immature. Her core is the same as Joanna’s wonderful Den, a woman without an inherent self-esteem but I think our Dawn became more outrageously confused.
All our characters are less constrained and polite than the British cast. I would say that you see “America versus our British cousins” in the way all the characters become more visceral. Didi differs the most. In the British show she’s played by the amazing comedienne Jo Brand, as a retiree coming back into the workforce. Niecey, in what I think is a transformative role for her, is younger and of color. I think she retains what Kim (Jo Brand) is to the show, its tender heart, but somehow Niecey manages to bring her comedy skills yet delivers such a subtle earthiness to her performance; she is the beating heart at the center of the show.
It’s a hard question when I answer it, because in a way I see that the characters essentially are the same but completely different at the same time. It’s in the writing but it’s what these actors brought to all their roles. There was only one right actor for each of these roles and they all give award-worthy performances in my book. They just made the characters their own, which is what you want from an actor and we began to write to who we saw they were becoming in the parts. I think the old saying about casting being 99 percent of a successful production was what we knew we had to achieve for this show. It was really hard to cast, but we held out for the perfect actor for each role and they delivered.
Kouguell: What drew you to this material and why did you feel that it could be ‘translated’ for an American audience?
Scheffer: The British show is about the “National Health” and three women who are “getting on” in years, and also together. Our show translated that into eldercare, a women’s ward. It’s a subtle but profound translation. If you compare the shows they look like -- well sisters.
We just knew that we had to do this show. We wanted to create a place where our friends and family, our audience who we knew was aging and dealing with dementia and death in their loved ones, could come and laugh. Even if they were afraid to watch us, we knew once they did, they would want to be in our world with these characters. It’s scary but it’s life. And it can be funny and sad at the same time. It hits close to home and that’s a good thing.
Kouguell: This is the second HBO series you and Mark have collaborated on as executive producers and writers. Describe your work process and collaboration.
Scheffer: We are a married team so when we do a show we are with each other 24/7 365 days a year. Mark and I talk everything through but don't actually write together. We take turns on drafts, passing them back and forth for multiple revisions. Sometimes I'll write the first draft and he'll revise and sometimes he'll write the first draft. On set it's looser and we'll have to revise together but we prefer to actually write in our own space. The "fantasy" image of having desks facing each other and tossing lines back and forth doesn't work for us.
We definitely complement each other and make a good team. And we’ve survived thus far. The marriage seems to get stronger in the roil of collaboration. It does test our mettle, though.
In production we do everything -- from writing, to casting, to directing, to editing, to selling the show -- we’re there and uber-controlling. But we’re also extremely collaborative. We want to create a “safe set” and work environment where everyone wants to be. When people enjoy coming to work they do their best work. We make sure that condition is met. We treat everyone the same, including ourselves. Even though we get to be the auteurs, as it were, we treat our PAs the same way we treat our Dp, and we submit ourselves to the same conditions we expect from our team. We give ourselves over completely to a show. I credit Mark with expecting a standard of excellence. We depend on each other for different aspects of the work, but Mark’s ability to focus and dig is one of the things that make our collaborations successful. He’s my “closer.”
Kouguell: You describe the show as a ‘docu-comedy’ – please detail.
Scheffer: The British version was so raw and the camera just followed the actors and it was all done 360 degrees, with natural light and there was no worry about continuity and we loved that feel. So in principal, we tried to recreate that. We shot the same way in a real location. We used only two cameras and our Dp’s operated one and moved constantly around a 360 space with natural lighting. We felt that the show’s essence was in that “seed.” It felt like a documentary. We wanted the audience to feel like they were observers of life.
It turned out that we had to do a lot of “reverse engineering” to make our show. It became a different beast. Our show still is very gritty and it jump cuts -- but we learned we had to write in the jumps. We had to structure them. That was really hard to figure out because the British show was more “assembled.” We had to write in those moments when the scene was jumping and we began to have a principal that the jumps furthered the dramatic action of the scene. We did this in the editing room, too.
Our show had to become its own animal, and the “docu-comedy” style that we identified in the original became a different kind of “docu-comedy.” I think the two versions complement each other. In a way, we did with the British show what we do together as writers. We collaborated with it. We make a good team.
“Docu-comedy” is not The Office; it’s not an imposed, hand-held camera style. It’s an ethic. It’s more about trying to capture the truth of what it feels like to be in the midst of the insanity of crisis. What it feels like to be in that world that lives between life and death all the time. It’s about surrendering to it and reveling in the surreal quality of it all. Finding death as being a vital part of life. Not shying away from it. Living into it.
To learn more about Getting On go to: http://www.hbo.com/getting-on
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University and presents international seminars. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com .
- 1/2/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
Everybody loves a sleeper hit, right? Right! Therefore, you should be watching HBO's Getting On. Get in before it's absurdly cool to watch this terrific show and then brag to all your friends that you told them to watch Getting On. It's too good to be a one season wonder. We all remember The Comeback, right? Set in a geriatric extended care facility, this comedy, adapted for the Us by Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, takes no prisoners. It's smart, sweet and just the comedy you've been looking for. Still not convinced you should be watching this dark medical comedy? Fine, twist our arm, we'll present reasons. 1. Laurie Metcalf, Niecy Nash & Alex Borstein: Yes, Emmy winner...
- 12/20/2013
- E! Online
Nothing is less interesting to me than a TV series about doctors. Hospital shows take place in astoundingly self-centered, even self-helpy, universes where strangers suffer and die so doctors can learn life lessons. (Everything happens for a reason!) Week after week, procedural medical shows like House, Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs, and ER wheel(ed) in opportunities for thin, beautiful, hyper-articulate doctors to demonstrate their intelligence and/or compassion. TV’s idealization of doctors personally strikes me as rather strange, as no one I know actually likes them. (Calm down, doctor readers. I’m sure your mothers love you very much.) Big Love showrunners Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer apparently agree, because they adapted the doctor-skewering BBC series Getting On for American viewers. (They kept the name.) The HBO series is a warts-and-all look at hospital life, taking place in a geriatric wing overseen by a physician-researcher who studies shit. She...
- 12/11/2013
- by Inkoo Kang
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
HBO launched two new, smaller-scale comedies last night -- "Getting On," a remake of a British series, and Australian import "Ja'mie: Private School Girl." The network's now put the first episodes of both online for free viewing on YouTube. Laurie Metcalf ("Roseanne"), Alex Borstein ("Family Guy) and Niecy Nash ("Reno 911!") star in "Getting On," which is set in the extended care ward of a Long Beach hospital and comes from "Big Love" creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. Here's our review of the series -- the first episode is directed by Miguel Arteta ("Youth in Revolt") and is online but not, unfortunately, embeddable -- check it out yourself here. "Ja'mie: Private School Girl" is Australian mockumentary series created by and starring Chris Lilley. An HBO, BBC and Australian Broadcasting Corporation co-production, the six-part comedy series find Lilley reprising the role of Ja'mie King, an obnoxious high school girl who appeared in.
- 11/25/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
HBO has a bittersweet comedy airing November 24 that takes us inside an extended stay medical ward, where the little indignities of aging and being at the mercy of hospital staff is less so with an ensemble of seasoned comedic actors who run this specialized wing . Based on the same-named BBC series, Getting On is a charmingly slow and quiet comedic effort adapted for HBO by Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. Laurie Metcalf stars as the unwilling and neurotic medical director of the extended-care unit in a struggling hospital, with Alex Borstein, Niecy Nash and Mel Rodriguez playing the unit's nurses. It is Nash who makes this effort fly for me, her deadpan delivery...
- 11/24/2013
- by April Neale
- Monsters and Critics
Yes, I know: you don’t want to watch a TV show about old people.
You don’t want to watch them dying, or worse, continuing to live in a hospital’s geriatric extended-care floor, with other patients who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s. And you definitely don’t want to see those old people using the chairs as toilets, or screaming at the nurses in a foreign language, or hooking up right there in the lounge, in full view of the hospital’s horrified staff.
You don’t want to watch these things because you probably think they’re sad.
You don’t want to watch them dying, or worse, continuing to live in a hospital’s geriatric extended-care floor, with other patients who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s. And you definitely don’t want to see those old people using the chairs as toilets, or screaming at the nurses in a foreign language, or hooking up right there in the lounge, in full view of the hospital’s horrified staff.
You don’t want to watch these things because you probably think they’re sad.
- 11/22/2013
- by Melissa Maerz
- EW.com - PopWatch
Some HBO series roll out with much fanfare, but upcoming comedy "Getting On" is looking to get a quieter premiere on the premium network. A remake of the British series of the same name set in the geriatric wing of a hospital, the American "Getting On" will kick off a six-episode season on Sunday, November 24th at 10pm. The half-hour series comes from "Big Love" creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer and stars Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash, with Miguel Arteta directing the pilot. The just-released trailer for the series, below, suggests it follows closely in the steps of the UK original in look and feel.
- 10/22/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
Here's the first teaser for the upcoming HBO comedy Getting On, starring Laurie Metcalf, Niecy Nash, and Alex Borstein. The show, set in the women's geriatric wing of a run-down hospital, is based on a critically beloved British series of the same name. Big Love's Mark V. Olsen and Will Sheffer are behind the American version, which bodes pretty well for the whole endeavor. ...
- 9/30/2013
- by Margaret Lyons
- Vulture
"Big Love" creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer are getting more love from HBO: Their adaptation of the British series "Getting On" has landed an order for six episodes. The BBC Four version of "Getting On," which aired in 2009, centered on employees at a backwater hospital who look after elderly patients while grappling with red tape and political correctness. Also read: HBO Orders Pilot From 'Big Love' Producers Scheffer has said that the "Getting On" project is "very, very personal" to him and Olsen, due to the subject matter. "When we proposed...
- 3/21/2013
- by Tim Kenneally
- The Wrap
"Enlightened" may be no more, but HBO remains in search of more comedies to add to its lineup. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the premium network's just given a series greenlight to one of its pilots. HBO's given a six-episode order to "Getting On," a remake of the bleakly funny 2009-2012 BBC series of the same name written by and starring Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan (with "The Thick of It" star Peter Capaldi directing several of the 15 total episodes). This U.S. take on the BAFTA-winning comedy comes from Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, the co-creators of "Big Love," by way of their Anima Sola Productions company. Geoff Atkinson, the producer of the U.K. series, will serve as an executive producer alongside Lisa Bellomo and Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner of BBC Worldwide Productions. Olsen and Scheffer, who wrote the pilot, oversaw five seasons of...
- 3/21/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer are returning to HBO’s primetime. The pay cable network has picked up the duo’s comedy pilot Getting On to series with a six-episode order. An U.S. version of the award-winning BBC Four medical comedy of the same name, HBO’s Getting On stars Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash. Set in a women’s geriatric extended care wing of a down-at-the-heels hospital as put-upon nurses, it follows anxious doctors and administrators as they struggle with the darkly comic, brutally honest and quietly compassionate realities of caring for the elderly in an overwhelmed healthcare system. BBC Worldwide Prods. is producing. The creators and stars of the original series, Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, executive produce the HBO series. Olsen and Scheffer, who wrote the adaptation through their overall deal at HBO, are executive producing though their Anima Sola Prods.
- 3/21/2013
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
Mere days after canceling Enlightened after two seasons, HBO has picked up one of its comedy pilots to series. The premium cable network has given a six-episode series order to Getting On, a reformat of the BAFTA Award-winning comedy series of the same name, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The HBO adaptation hails from Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer and their Anima Sola Productions banner, who penned the pilot for BBC Worldwide Productions. Anima senior vp Lisa Bellomo will produce alongside BBC Worldwide Productions' Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner. Original series producer Geoff Atkinson will
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- 3/21/2013
- by Lesley Goldberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Jo Brand sitcom Getting On is to be remade for a Us audience. Big Love creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffe are developing a pilot based on the BBC Four series, The Wrap reports. The UK original - written by and starring Brand, Vicki Pepperdine, and Joanna Scanlan - began in July 2009 and has run for two series. The show follows the lives of nurses who care for elderly patients at an NHS hospital. "When we proposed the (more)...
- 8/15/2012
- by By Morgan Jeffery
- Digital Spy
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