![Paramount Pictures]()
The studio laid off between 30 and 40 employees across all its departments on Wednesday. During the past month, Viacom has made layoffs at many of its units, with deep cuts at some divisions like MTV. Speaking at an investor conference on Monday, company CEO Philippe Dauman said that a company restructuring should be completed by the end of the month and result in $250 million in savings.
(THR)
Leo originally starred on the NBC series
Homicide: Life on the Street, has won an Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award and also appears on this summer’s
Wayward Pines. The new CBS show is a high-octane medical procedural following second-year residents at the top hospital in New York, as they attempt to balance their “god complexes” with their humanity. Leo will play an attending physician and a den mother to the second-year residents.
(VAR)
Book by Scott Selby was published in 2012 by Berkley. Jacob Crane & Jonathan Stewart will adapt for Lynn Harris and Matti Leshem to produce through their Weimaraner Republic Pictures banner. In the wake of World War II, a young U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps officer, Jack Hunter, uncovers a dangerous Nazi conspiracy for a Fourth Reich. This is the true story of how Hunter tracked down the men behind the conspiracy and altered the course of history forever.
(DH)
Independent Film Project’s Screen Forward Labs will be a year-long program and incubator for the creators of serialized projects who "push storytelling forward." Eight applicants will be selected each year and provided mentorship, six months free residency at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP and $10,000 of services aimed at helping them to develop cutting-edge, serialized work.
(IW)
Director of
The Grey is on board to helm
Motorcade for the studio, about a disgraced Secret Service agent in the right place at the right time when terrorists attack the US President’s motorcade in Los Angeles. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are producing and Billy Ray wrote the latest draft of the script.
(EMP)
The massive schedule poses one problem to anyone attending the week-long film love-fest: there’s no way to see them all. In fact, there’s probably no way to see even half of the feature films playing this year’s festival. Which means you need a service like this one, which culls together a list of the must see movies of SXSW 2015.
(FSR)
David Ellison’s production house will partner with MGM and Paramount TV on the project, which is still in the scripting phase with Jason Smilovic and Todd Katzberg, and has yet to announce any cast members or a director. Indeed, it’s not even clear if the show will be presented as a mini-series or something more.
(COL)
Michael Green, the TV vet who wrote the 2011
Green Lantern and co-wrote the upcoming
Blade Runner sequel. He’ll be tasked with putting a new spin on the 1934 novel by Agatha Christie which has been adapted numerous times, most notable in 1974 by Sidney Lumet. Ridley Scott and Simon Kinberg are producing for 20th Century Fox.
(SF)
The first look at the acclaimed documentary about Kurt Cobain, the film premiered at Sundance, shows at South By Southwest on March 18th, and hits HBO on May 4th.
(CB)
A great logline is a vital step — arguably
the most important step — in writing your screenplay. If you don’t understand what your story is fundamentally about, and can’t distill it into a gripping, potential-packed one- or two-line summary, you’re not ready to move forward.
(SM)
