6 Questions about HBO's 'Gay Sex and the City' pilot

Hera help me!

HBO has greenlit a pilot dubbed as a 'Gay Sex and the City' (cringe). Here's the premise:

The untitled project hails from Brothers and Sisters' David Marshall Grant and Bored to Death's Sarah Condon and revolves around the thirtysomething trio also grappling with the complexities of life and the modern gay experience. Michael Lannan (Remember Me) penned the script, which Grant supervised. Andrew Haigh will helm the pilot, which is based on Lannan's feature script Lorimer.

Sounds original... Anywho, I looked into this story and this is what I know:

• Jonathan Groff is the lead
• It's about three gay thirtysomethings living in San Francisco
• And the cast will 'grapple with all the options in contemporary life and the complexities of the modern gay experience'

Okay, so here comes the questions.

1. What is a Modern Gay Experience? With so many sub-cultures and themes within our community, can we say there is a modern gay way? And by who standards are we coining this phrase from? I smell Privilege.
2. A Gay Sex and the City? Child Cheese, SATC was already gay, what can you do it? Add songs and break out dance numbers?
3. It takes place in San Fran... Great, so will we see Gay life from a White male perspective? 
4. Will any gay character of color be in the main storylines? And if so, I hope they are not sexless, assistants, side-kicks, drag-queens or a NeNe Leaks/Charro carbon copy.
5. Will the stories be something new or a reflection of the tired gay Web series that keep popping up like zits on a teenager's face?
6. 'Girls' was a game changer. Will this series challenge the stereotypes and themes we have seen over and over again?

I know we haven't seen it, but so far I'm not sure if it will be something I'm waiting for every week. 

New Pics: Wonder Woman Pilot

FYI: I will have the pilot shortly to do a review

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Wonder Woman Pilot script gets Rewrites

Well it's been awhile since I've talked about the Wonder Woman pilot. Being at the WW shoot gave me a little hope about it and I express the word LITTLE. Then a few days later, I received the script.

I was nervous to read it, but I knew I had to see this updated version of WW. After reading it 4 times, I was hurt. It SUCKED! It was nothing like the Diana I knew; it was someone else. And you could tell it was written by someone who wasn't familiar with her or her history.

Many others within the industry and in the geek world felt the same way. In fact, this outcry has force rewrites to the pilot (Thank Hera!).

io9 has the scoop on certain pieces:

• The original pilot script starts with a young African American man, Willis, finding out he's been accepted to college — and then keeling over with blood coming out of all his openings on his face because he was given some harmful experimental steroids. I'm pretty sure we never see Willis again in the December 2010 draft. But in the revised version, Wonder Woman goes to visit him in the hospital, and spends a lot of time with him — even promising to give him a ride in her plane if he gets better. And she convinces Willis' mother not to seek vengeance on the people who did this to her son, because the mom has other kids who need her. Getting vengeance is Wonder Woman's job, instead.

• And the actual fight scene is a lot longer and more detailed — at one point, the December 2010 draft just says "A SERIES OF FAST CLOSE UP CUTS — LEGS, ARMS... DIFFICULT TO TELL WHO'S WINNING AND WHO'S LOSING." But the revised version dispenses with that ambiguity and gets down and dirty. A whole new sequence is added where one bad guy gets a knife to Wonder Woman's throat, and she jams her thumb into his eye. Another guy, she deals with by getting on her back and using both legs to kick him into the air. The final bad guy chooses to surrender, so she knocks him out.

• And the relationship between Steve and Diana seems more fleshed out, with it being even clearer that they still have the hots for each other.

They still doing rewrites, hoping to toughen Diana (At the end of the earlier script, she balls up in bed and cries in her pajamas). But will it be enough to wow the NBC bigwigs? And will it wow us?

Only time will tell.

The Wonder Woman Pilot will have the Original Costume

When WW fans saw the new costume for the pilot, we cringed and some cried. Then when NBC start filming the pilot, changes were made that satisfied most of geek squad.

However, many of us still hoped for THE COSTUME. You know, the real Wonder Woman attire. Well, NBC many have fooled us all. Apparently, there are 3 WW costumes which includes the original look:

NBC president Robert Greenblatt, the particular outfit sported by the superheroine in the Hollywood Boulevard set photos spied last month was always in Diana Prince’s closet. In fact, in addition to that and the “shiny” look unveiled in the original publicity still, there’s a third version that has yet to leak — and it should make fans of the original series very happy.


“There was an initial outcry about the long pants – you know, skintight pants as opposed to those little shorts [worn by Lynda Carter in the original TV series],” Greenblatt concedes to TVLine.com. “But the shorts were always planned. They are actually used in the final confrontation when she beats Veronica Cale (played by Elizabeth Hurley).”

“We haven’t made any changes from what was planned,” the NBC boss reiterates. “But it’s always good to hear the feedback. I’d rather have people really passionately engaged in conversation, even if they hate something, than be kind of bored.”

I wonder about these 3 costumes. I still think the public outcry changed the the first look. But now, I want to see the final costume. Hopefully, they will be filming that scene soon.

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WATCH: Footage of NBC's Wonder Woman in Action

I was very fortunate to see and capture the filming of Wonder Woman chasing a villain down Hollywood. The costume has improved and it looks cute.

Please enjoy the clip (my partner put it together)

New Pics: Wonder Woman Pilot

Here are some pics for tonight's filming in Hollywood. More to come!

NYT's interview with David E. Kelley on Wonder Woman

The New York Times' The Vulture interviewed David E. Kelley about his work and more importantly, Wonder Woman. Check out his view on the WW show

Speaking of inviting scrutiny: Wonder Woman. Why did you decide to take this on?
Well I first said no, for all the obvious reasons. It’s not really what I do; it’s not a genre that’s in my wheelhouse. But then I started thinking about, What if there were such a person in today’s world and what must it be like to be her? And I was imagining the sense of social isolation that she must feel, that she indeed would probably be a rather complicated beast. When I started thinking about all the complications and potential layers to this superhero, I just got more and more intrigued. It was also something I was a little bit afraid of. That’s good, too. Any writer should get out of his or her comfort zone, and this was way outside of mine. 

So I took a deep breath and decided to go for it. I did not truthfully commit to doing it until I wrote the script. I was going to try writing it, and if I failed on my own terms, I would say no. If I thought, Yeah, this is something I believe in, then I’d turn it in. And it was something I ultimately did get behind. It was hard, but I had a good time writing it. And Warner Bros. and DC both responded very positively — and off we went.

Then you had to find your Wonder Woman.
It was not an easy search, but it went far quicker than I ever imagined. After writing this script, I remember looking at several people and going, "Yeah, now good luck trying to find her." She’s got to be strong, smart, emotionally accessible — and oh yeah, an Amazon! Good luck. I remember speaking to DC, and saying, "We may have to compromise on the physicality. We need to go with the best actress. And if the best actress is five-foot-five, we have to be open to that, because there’s too many layers for this character to also demand that she be nearly six feet tall." And then lo and behold, in comes this girl named Adrianne Palicki.

I had seen her on Friday Night Lights and I always liked her work, but I didn’t get a sense of her stature. I guess he was sitting down in a lot of the scenes. So she stood up, and we met — eyeball to eyeball — she smiled ... and I knew during the course of the conversation that this was Wonder Woman. I just knew it. I had an instinctive feeling that this was her. So then she read. And she was. And she is.

I'm sorry, but if he had to do all that to write Diana, then maybe there's an issue here. It just feels like he was forcing himself vs. other writers who would be passionate about Diana and her history. I also wished that WB and DC would have taken a little more ownership of this situation. I wonder if they laid out specific details of this character. It feels like they didn't and I think (I know I'm assuming) we will pay for it in the end.

New 'Hero' show picked up on NBC

NBC tries to keep the superhero theme alive with a new pilot, called 'The Cape'.

NBC on Thursday picked up two more pilots: hourlong "The Cape" and the comedy "Outsourced." "Cape," from "Empire" creator Tom Wheeler, is a light drama with a comic book sensibility. Set in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles, it centers on a former cop framed for a crime who becomes the Cape, a masked hero, to clear his name and reunite with his son.

The project, from UMS and BermanBraun, was set up at NBC in the fall with a premium script commitment. Wheeler wrote the script and is exec producing with Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman.

Gail was the producer of Angel and Buffy, so there's some promise.

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The Walking Dead pilot has been picked up by AMC

This sounds good.

AMC has greenlighted the hit comic, The Walking Dead, as a pilot.

AMC is looking to extend its perfect development record with the pickup of two new drama pilots, "Walking Dead" and "The Killing." They mark the fourth and fifth pilots ordered by the basic cable network, with its first three, "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad and "Rubicon" all going to series.

"Walking Dead" is based on Robert Kirkman's popular comic book. It chronicles the month and years following a zombie apocalypse. Frank Darabont is the project's writer, director and exec producer, with Anne Hurd and David Alpert also exec producing.

This is great. I know they will do it justice.

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