Golden Globes are Out, Letterman Re-Ups, Spielberg Keeps Busy

December 2006 News

Sharing the wealth: I don't know whether the foreign press got the same memo that the Emmy voters received, but the former distributed the Golden Globe nominations fairly evenly this year. ABC's Grey's Anatomy and Showtime's Weeds tied for the most nominations, with four, and PBS's Elizabeth I was right behind them with three. The star of that miniseries, Helen Mirren, scored a neat hat trick, with two Best Actress TV nominations (the other one coming for Prime Suspect: The Final Act) and one Best Actress movie nomination for The Queen. Click here for the full list of nominees.

Letterman signs, Leno sues: CBS announced on December 4 that David Letterman has re-upped with The Late Show. Letterman will now be with the show at least through 2010, one year after fellow talk-show host and rival Jay Leno (right) is scheduled to end his Tonight Show run.

Speaking of Leno, he is one of several parties in a lawsuit against humor writer Judy Brown and her publishers. Brown's 19 books allegedly reprinted stand-up routines by Leno, Rita Rudner, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld and others without getting permission first.

Controversy at The View: "Blame it on George" seemed to be the theme of Danny DeVito's recent appearance on The View. During the episode, DeVito went on a rant against one George (President Bush), a couple of days later, another George (Clooney) backed up DeVito's alibi of being drunk at the time. "We were doing shots of limoncello [the night before] and that's all I have to say about it," Clooney told Matt Lauer. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's refusal to dump Miss USA Tara Conner sparked a war of words between Trump and Rosie O'Donnell. Trump has threatened to sue, which may or may not materialize. One thing is clear — the feud hasn't hurt ratings.

Prolific producer: Steven Spielberg (left) has quite a few projects in the works for Fox. Besides executive-producing the network's new filmmaker reality show, On the Lot, Spielberg is also developing a drama set in the world of fashion (based on his idea) and another drama with time travel. Plus, he plans to produce a six-hour miniseries adaptation of The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub.

Also in development: Oprah Winfrey has signed a deal with ABC for two primetime reality shows, both with self-explanatory titles: The Big Give, and Your Money or Your Life. The Farrelly brothers also working on two projects; they just got a script order from Fox for The Rules for Starting Over, a sitcom about dating, and are developing a pilot for I'm With Stupid for NBC.

Over at CBS, Greg Garcia, creator of My Name is Earl, has a put pilot commitment for Fugly, a comedy about three siblings who move to Hollywood after one of them gets a beauty makeover. Comedy Central has ordered a pilot of Out of Bounds, a comedy about a Long Island sports talk radio show, and also is considering baseball comedy Three Strikes, from Jon Stewart's production company.

Pulling the plug: NBC halted production on Raines, the new drama with Jeff Goldblum. The network had originally ordered 13 episodes, but stopped production after seven episodes. It's still scheduled to air in March, though, which is better than you can say for Day Break, Show Me the Money, and Help Me Help You. All three were among the plethora of shows ABC introduced this year, and all three have been cancelled.

In memoriam: Actor Peter Boyle died December 12 at 71. Though he started his career in more serious roles, he was best-known for two comic roles: the monster who just wanted love in Young Frankenstein, and the grouchy, obnoxious father on Everybody Loves Raymond. Joseph Barbera, the co-founder of Hanna-Barbera, died December 18 at 95. Before striking out on their own, Barbera and William Hanna worked for MGM, and won seven Oscars for the Tom and Jerry shorts. Their company, Hanna-Barbera, was responsible for, among other characters, Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and the Scooby-Doo gang.

-- A. Wu