HBO is really feeling the pinch, I guess.
'Deadwood' creator scrambling to save HBO drama
By Gail Shister
Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist
Buddy, can you spare $60 million?
With HBO's Deadwood hanging on by a bootstrap, creator David
Milch hopes to raise enough outside cash to save his
brilliant - and expensive - western.
"I'm doing what I can," Milch says. "Any financial
participation could take the pressure off. HBO hasn't said
no... . If I were a gambling guy, which I am, I'd say odds
are less than even money."
Milch says he's looking into possible tie-ins with casinos
and theme parks as well as with the actual community of
Deadwood, S.D. Imaginative marketing, he calls it.
Here's an imaginative marketing thought: If he really gets
desperate, Milch could hit up his old Yale fraternity
brother, George W. Bush.
Or not.
Deadwood launches its third season June 11. With a huge
ensemble cast and lavish period sets, production costs are
north of $5 million an episode. A full season's order is 12
episodes.
Milch had always planned on four "chapters" for Deadwood. He
says everything was a go for season four when production
wrapped about six weeks ago.
Then HBO told Milch it was cutting its offer to six episodes.
And it let expire the contract options of the cast, including
stars Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, Jim Beaver and Molly
Parker.
"The actors were as shocked as I was," Milch says. "I don't
think there was any calculation or deception on HBO's part,
and I'm not saying I was betrayed. I think HBO tried as hard
as they could to find a way to make it work. Things changed
for them financially."
Milch gets it. Despite critical acclaim, the obscenity-laden
Deadwood, set in a lawless mining camp in the Dakotas in the
late 1870s, "was not the next big thing in terms of being a
Sopranos-sized hit. They needed a number of eyes we weren't
providing them.
"That's their business. They have to look at things that
way." But producing only half as many episodes for next
season? To Milch, that had no six appeal.
"For my part, I did not want to accept a short order. We
couldn't have done the work the way we wanted. I didn't want
to limp home. My old man used to say, 'Never go anyplace
where you're only tolerated.' "
HBO does more than tolerate the mad genius who helped create
NYPD Blue, and he knows it. For starters, Milch himself
maintains that no other network would have done Deadwood in
the first place.
Moreover, Milch is deep into another HBO project - a spring
drama called John From Cincinnati, described as "surf noir."
Says Milch: "It's pretty strange, I'll say that for it." (And
Milch knows from strange.)
Meanwhile, Deadwood has a sliver of a chance for a fourth
season, he says, but it would require an extraordinary
suspension of disbelief.
"I suppose if there's tremendous disaffection with the
[Cincinnati] pilot, the actors would be willing to come back,
even if they had taken other jobs.... It's not impossible,
but I'm absolutely assuming there won't be a season
four."
Bottom line for Milch is the work. He expects the same from
his audience. As for HBO, well, that's a Deadwood horse of a
different color.
"For me, trying to stay sane is a full-time job without
trying to figure out what's going on in someone else's
mind."
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> You can search right from your
browser? It's easy and it's free. See how.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/_7bhrC/NGxNAA/yQLSAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 May 2006 EDT