NBC Picks Up Wonder Woman

[doctorD]

According to Deadline.com NBC has picked up David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman will fly this pilot season after all. New NBC entertainment president Bob Greenblatt capped a day of high-profile pilot pickups with a surprise order to David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman reboot. Additionally, he formally greenlighted another hourlong project from an A-list showrunner, Michael Patrick King's Mann's World. Both shows hail from Warner Bros. TV. Meanwhile, the commitment to the J.J. Abrams/WBTV-produced drama Odd Jobs starring Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn, whose script came in very late, is being rolled to next season when it will be applied to the same or new Bad Robot project. And Greenblatt has passed on the Josh Schwartz/WBTV supernatural drama Ghost Angeles starring Rachel Bilson.

WBTV took Kelley's Wonder Woman spec out to the networks in the first week of January. At the time, NBC was the most interested but, with Greenblatt still on the sidelines, the network couldn't commit to the type of license fee that the studio was seeking in order to do the show Kelley had envisioned, and WBTV decided to shelve the project. With Greenblatt now firmly taking the reins and Kelley just delivering one of the most promising new series for NBC this season, Harry's Law, NBC stepped up to greenlight Wonder Woman. The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.

Mann's World, which King will also direct, is a one hour drama following the complicated life of Allan Mann, a celebrity hair stylist in glamorous Los Angeles as he navigates the complexities of his business, his family life, and his goal to stay relevant in a world that moves quickly. The project is already casting.

The orders for Wonder Woman and Mann's World come hours after Greenblatt greenlighted musical pilot Smash, based on an idea by and executive produced by Steven Spielberg.

Source

[Tyger]

But will Wonder Woman really work in Boston?

[Show spoiler]Yes, I saw the show's set in LA. Joke ruiner.

[kernel_thai]

Originally Posted by Tyger

But will Wonder Woman really work in Boston?

[Show spoiler]Yes, I saw the show's set in LA. Joke ruiner.

And that simple fact would have deterred a lesser man

Maybe Themyscira will be in Boston

[Batman1980]

Will watch this if it gets good writers and they cast Princess Diana properly.

[WyldeMan45]

David E. Kelly? That's a big heaping cup of pass for me.

[ChiefSequatchie]

This must be why they put her in that crappy looking leather pants and jacket in the comics!

[EricJ]

So, will this be another victim of Birds of Prey syndrome?:
"Pitch a comic-book show to the female empowerment-fantasy sisterhood, because they're the only ones who glue themselves to a network TV show anymore, and hope the comic-book guys tune in"?

(Uh...it don't work. Just ask the Bionic Woman and Sarah Connor. )

[STARSCREAM]

Originally Posted by ChiefSequatchie

This must be why they put her in that crappy looking leather pants and jacket in the comics!

This show better have her in her original outfit!

[bainbridge's_stache]

I'm kinda worried it will go the whole Ally McBeal route. I don't mind the short skirts, but I do mind the dumbing down of a strong female character to appeal to a mainstream audience.

And, if there's no bustier and hot pants, it's a fail!

[PrivatePixel]

Originally Posted by Darth Anakin

Will watch this if it gets good writers and they cast Princess Diana properly.

I have the same reservations with this proposed series that I had with Bionic Woman: for me, Lynda Carter will always be Wonder Woman, in the same way that I associate Lindsay Wagner with her role as Bionic Woman. Michelle Ryan was poorly cast for the 2007 series, and I expect NBC to do the same with Wonder Woman, even with Kelley at the helm.

[kernel_thai]

Originally Posted by PrivatePixel

I have the same reservations with this proposed series that I had with Bionic Woman: for me, Lynda Carter will always be Wonder Woman, in the same way that I associate Lindsay Wagner with her role as Bionic Woman. Michelle Ryan was poorly cast for the 2007 series, and I expect NBC to do the same with Wonder Woman, even with Kelley at the helm.

I never liked the Lynda Carter version so Im over that. Bionic Woman failed not only because of Michelle Ryan but because the writers seemed way more interested in Katie Sackhoff's character than in their lead.

A serious take on WW that is well written and well acted is still a tough sell because strong women characters dont seem to do well on tv. If it's anything less than top drawer it prolly will be lucky to finish the season.

[doctorD]

It appears that Jeffrey Reiner is finalizing a deal to direct the NBC pilot for the show according to Deadline.

EXCLUSIVE: Jeffrey Reiner is finalizing a deal to direct the NBC drama pilot Wonder Woman, David E. Kelley's reimagening of the iconic D.C. comic. In the reboot, from Warner Bros. TV, Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life. The project was a late spec buy by NBC made by new chief Bob Greenblatt late last month. McG had been in talks to direct the pilot but couldn't make a deal because of a scheduling conflict with a feature commitment. Reiner has a solid track record on NBC. He served as director/co-executive producer on Friday Night Lights for the series' early run on NBC. He has directed 3 pilots so far, all going to series. Two of them were for NBC, Trauma in 2009 and The Event last year, and one for cable sibling Syfy, the Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica.

Source

[PS3-Playb3yond]

They better make the right choice because casting is everything if this is going to work....like Smallville.

[john_1958]

http://www.reelzchannel.com/movie-news/10321/david-e-kelleys-wonder-woman-tv-series-is-d-o-a/

no wonder woman

[rkolinski]

"Diana Prince can hop back into her magic Boeing. Because her new TV-series pilot — much like her invisible plane — is now something the world, presumably, will never see.

After days of speculation, NBC has officially given the high-booted “Wonder Woman” the boot, deciding to pass on picking up the series from producer David E. Kelley and DC parent Warner Bros., Entertainment Weekly reported late Thursday night.

The memory of Lynda Carter’s high-camp superhero is again safe.

Kelley’s aim was to “reinvent” Wonder Woman as an L.A. crimefighter by night and a “modern” executive by day. Right there, truth be told, things began to get suspect for the hero with the Golden Lasso.

The project attracted attention when the fresh-faced Adrianne Palicki of “Friday Night Lights” fame was cast as the Amazon.

The would-be series drew even more heat when Palicki was first unveiled in full cheap-suited costume. Given her blue boots and rock-star pants, some fans railed that she looked less like a fantastic Hollywood streetfighter and more like a plastic Halloween streetwalker.

(This, a year after the comic-book Diana had donned a costume that led some to wonder whether Ms. Prince had taken a summer job at Wet Seal.)

There were also raised eyebrows over why TV’s Wonder Woman had lost much of her star-spangled, “spirit of ‘76” fashion touch that Lynda Carter rocked so well in more bicentennially minded times. Favoring costuming nods to Greek myth over the Stars and Stripes, did David E. Kelley have something against apple pie, Betsy Ross and the good ol’ U.S. of A., the thinking went.

NBC, on the other hand, may have just had something against cornball reinvention.

Thanks for the memories, Adrianne Palicki. Bracelets raised, may you live to fight another day, in a project worthy of your talents.

Till then, we’ll always have Lynda." [Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rB2G_blog.html]

[spidy]

Business woman by day and crime fighter by night? That's not WW that's Batman. And Batman didn't sell figures of himself either. I think this may have been a smart move by NBC. The Lynda Carter version wouldn't work today and I don't think this show would have either. Just my 2 cents.

[kernel_thai]

I think they had the right idea but bad execution. Smallville worked because they disguised a super hero show as a night time soap. Kelley was trying to do the same thing. He was trying write a vigilante show that was actually about WW. Problem is he was walking a tightrope between keeping the fan base happy and appealing to a larger audience. Every time he tried to do something to gain broader appeal, the fans cried foul.

[doctorD]

Too little too late but here is another picture of Adrienne in the classic WW outfit.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by spidy

Business woman by day and crime fighter by night? That's not WW that's Batman. And Batman didn't sell figures of himself either.

That's not Batman, that's Ozymandias.

[STARSCREAM]

I'm hoping they will release the pilot so we can see what it was like. She looked good in the pics we are getting now. I wanna see her in action.