HBO Not Proceeding With Fox News’ Roger Ailes TV Movie Produced By MSNBC Rivals: “CNN Affiliation” Cited As The Reason
EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: I scooped yesterday that HBO had done a secret deal for an Untitled Roger Ailes Project being executive produced by Fox News rivals from MSNBC. Today I’ve received this email from HBO Films President Len Amato: “We recently decided not to pursue the Ailes project. It had become clear to us before even receiving a script that due to our company’s CNN affiliation the film could never be seen as objective.” Interesting, because today I’ve confirmed that none of the dealmakers have yet been informed by HBO that the project isn’t going forward. “HBO was trying hard to keep the project under wraps,” one of the dealmakers tells me. My reporting blew that.
Related: HBO Targeting Roger Ailes With Movie Produced By MSNBC Rivals
The HBO movie would have been based on the upcoming manuscript by media writer Gabriel Sherman who has written two cover stories for New York magazine on Ailes and Fox News, including his mammoth article “The Elephant In The Green Room” which prompted complaints from the Fox News CEO. Last year, Sherman signed a book contract with Random House which at one point was tentatively titled The Loudest Voice In The Room: An Inside Account Of The Rise Of Fox News but isn’t formally titled now. NYC-based Hotchkiss and Associates made the HBO deal for the film rights to Sherman’s book tentatively titled The Loudest Voice In The Room on behalf of the Ross Yoon Agency. Executive producing this latest HBO project are two of Ailes’ competitors: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Their deal was negotiated by WME Entertainment, the Hollywood agency run by Ari Emanuel who is a Democratic activist (and the brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama White House chief of staff).
HBO appears obsessed by GOP Conservatives. There have been movies about the 2000 Bush vs Gore election standoff and Sarah Palin and most recently a TV series featuring George W Bush’s severed head. Sources told me Sherman is still researching the book and plans to finish writing it by the end of the summer for a 2013 publishing date. A cagey HBO exec’s response to me when I called before about the project was: “Nothing much to say. No book yet to read. No script. We’ll wait to see what the script looks like and then decide whether to develop further.” It’s commonplace for Time Warner’s premier pay TV channel to sign up books before they’re published and then turn them into TV movies. In this TV movie, a source tells me, “HBO prefers to take on Fox News through Ailes. The idea is that it should make Fox News look like a Mafia, and you get into this through Ailes, sidestepping Murdoch, not approaching the story head on.” Meanwhile, the New York Daily News recently reported that Ailes was helping conservative writer Zev Chafets fast-track a book about Ailes and the cable-news network. The Daily News reported Fox News granted extensive access to Chafets, published by Penguin’s conservative Sentinel imprint in the fall.
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Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, don't get your facts wrong, and don't bore me.
A tear forms in the eyes of the ten people that had planned on watching this.
A tear forms in the eyes of the many people that may have been employed by this project.
Drug Cartels employ people, whats your point?
TEN? I seriously doubt that BSDNC’s audience has as many as nine additional friends. I was interested to find out that HBO is apparently still on the air though. I chucked it in 1991 and just assumed everyone else had as well…
You’re a little late to the “I ditched HBO in —-” contest. The winner was the guy who cancelled his subscription in 1970, two years before they launched.
Hey Rich, how about go watch Night At The Museum for the 500th time I am sure it is still playing on HBO.
Len Amato just wants to rip off journalism and modern politics for his subject matter for movies. It’s like Lifetime for men of a certain age over there. Instead of abused women it’s all about how absolute power corrupts absolutely — over and over again.
There’s been a marginalization of dramatic subject matter since Temple Grandin won every award. I doubt HBO will ever make a dramatically meaningful or surprising film again.
People like him (canceling HBO in 1970) are just SOOO smart!
Ha, ha! Love it.
I have also thought to myself that the series Big Love was aimed at discrediting Mitt Romney. The series began in ’06 just before the election. HBO is on my list of networks, entertainers, etc… that I will no longer watch.
Looks as if HBO can’t stand truth in the news, so they will go for the fantasy land of CNN and every other Spud Trader that comes down the trail
How does it feel to be the most powerful person in Hollywood, Nikki? You are a beast!
Nikki has the distinction of reporting info that others cannot/will not report. That’s a novelty in the news business. How I wish every reporter in media had her balls. . . .
Sexy beast!
Maybe AMC will do it now that HBO turned it down.
I guess Conservatives whine and get whatever they want, like the spoiled babies they are.
They have a point of view. At least they stand up for it. Why should they care if HBO wussed out?
Let me tell you why I watch HBO. Trublood and Game of Thrones. Maybe i will watch a movie here and there but i mostly keep my channel on FoxNews with an occassional switch over to MSNBC or CNN to see what they are talking about. Dont know what my choices tell you but this is who I am.
Right… Because its the conservatives that always have their hands out asking for more.
is Nikki Finke conservative now? SHE broke the story nimrod.
Clearly you didn’t read the article.
At least when they “get what they want” they don’t expect somebody else to pay for it.
Why not…Leftist Hollywood and the Alphabet Media have been getting away with dominating the microphone, and the conversation for decades.
Get used to it…We are not your father’s audience.
You mean like the occupiers, or the million man march, or the attempt to steal the 2000 election, or the whiners in Milwaukee leaving the state rather than voting?
We try and usually win. We’ll see what November brings.
The lights come on the roaches scatter
“The film could never be seen as objective.” Really, Len? Tell me when HBO starts making satires of Left Wing politics and Left Wing politicians, and your words might have a ring of truth.
Without their yearly SNL-meets-watered-down-Larry Gelbart satire of the right, is anything interesting even going on at HBO films?
Well, they do have a firm (ahem) commitment to T&A.
Well, it’s definitely not going to be on ABC but maybe Showtime can manage it.
Will fit right in (thematically and ethically) with “Shameless”…
HBO moves further to the left every year. I feel dirty watching HBO even if it’s part some some free for 3 months deal.
Nikki, you scuttled their movie! Good for you!
Again, don’t forget the recent HBO doc “41,” a laughable whitewash of George HW Bush by his very close friend Jerry Weintraub. Do they really expect us to believe that was an objective piece? It was certainly a piece of something.