Headline, Industry News

CanWest Primetime Acquisitions

Wednesday May 23rd 2007

TORONTO, CanWest MediaWorks today announced details of its 2007-2008 primetime acquisitions for Global Television and E!.

This season, CanWest will introduce 15 of the year’s most coveted new series. Featuring the best in marquee talent and award-winning producing, they join the broadcaster’s wide-ranging slate of returning hits.

With a total of seven series back for their sophomore run – including breakouts ‘Heroes’ and ‘Brothers & Sisters’ – and an additional six series returning for their third season – CanWest has created the country’s freshest, most vibrant primetime schedules.
"Over the last two seasons, CanWest has brought Canadian viewers more of television’s new primetime hits than any other broadcaster," said Barbara Williams, Senior Vice President, Programming & Production for CanWest MediaWorks. "With this week’s acquisitions, we’re looking forward to building on that track record. Our audiences are going to see compelling new programs on both Global and E! that will entertain them, engage them, and keep them talking."

Along with Kathleen Dore, President, Canadian Television for CanWest MediaWorks, Williams will unveil the 2007-08 Primetime Schedules for Global and E! in Toronto on Wednesday, June 6th.

New CanWest Dramas premiering this season include…Latin family epic, CANE: from Exec Producers Cynthia Cidre (Mambo Kings) and Jimmy Iovine (8 Mile), starring Emmy and Golden Globe Winner Jimmy Smits…Hi-tech drama, BIONIC WOMAN: from Battlestar Galactica Exec Producer David Eick and starring Michelle Ryan (EastEnders)…The female mind revealed in CASHMERE MAFIA: from Exec Producer Darren Starr (Sex and The City), starring Lucy Liu and Frances O’Connor…Romantic time-travel mystery, JOURNEYMAN: from Emmy Award-winning writer-producers Kevin Falls and Alex Graves (The West Wing), starring Kevin McKidd (Rome)…And gritty legal drama, CANTERBURY’S LAW: from Exec Producers Denis Leary and Jim Serpico (Rescue Me, The Job), starring Julianna Margulies
(The Sopranos, ER).

Comedy and more on CanWest feature big-buzz arrivals including…TV Newser, BACK TO YOU: from Exec Producers Steven Levitan, Christopher Lloyd and Director James Burrows, starring Emmy Winners Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton…And Vegas-inspired musical drama VIVA LAUGHLIN: from Tony and Emmy Award winner Hugh Jackman, starring Lloyd Owen and Melanie Griffith.

CanWest MediaWorks ALL-NEW SERIES for 2007-2008:

BACK TO YOU
(30 min; comedy)

In the 90s, the local TV news scene in Pittsburgh was dominated by one team: Chuck Darling (Kelsey Grammer) and Kelly Carr (Patricia Heaton). They had that elusive chemistry all news teams need – at least on-screen.

Off-screen, Chuck was a bit of an egomaniacal womanizer, Kelly a bit of an uptight know-it-all. Now, years later, egos collide as the team reunites to take the newscast back to No. 1.

CAST: Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond), Fred Willard (Anchorman), Ty Burrell (In Good Company)

CANE
(1 hour; drama)

This multi-generational, Latin family saga explores the evolution of the American Dream – past, present and future. Internal struggles and external rivalries surround a Cuban-American family who has built an empire in the sugar and rum industries. Will family allegiance come first, or will their secrets and acrimonious conflicts over love, lust and control of the family fortune be their downfall?

CAST: Alona Tal, Eddie Matos, Hector Elizondo, Jimmy Smits (The West Wing), Lina Esco, Michael Trevino, Nestor Carbonell, Paola Turbay, Polly Walker (Rome), Rita Moreno, Sam Carmen

BIONIC WOMAN
(1 hour; drama)

Struggling as a bartender and surrogate mom to her teenage sister, Jaime Sommers didn’t think life could get much harder. But when a devastating car accident leaves her at death’s door, Jaime’s only hope for survival is a cutting-edge, top-secret technology that comes at a hefty price. With a whole new existence and a debt to re-pay, Jaime must figure out how to use her extraordinary abilities for good, while weighing the personal sacrifices she will have to make.

CAST: Michelle Ryan (EastEnders), Mae Whitman (State of Grace), Miguel Ferrer (Crossing Jordan), Chris Bowers (Rescue Me), Will Yun Lee Witchblade), Molly Price (Third Watch)

CASHMERE MAFIA
(1 hour; drama)

Four successful women support each other through rocky marriages, rival colleagues, kids’ recitals and the hunt for the perfect Manhattan loft. From producer Darren Star (Sex and the City) and writer Kevin Wade (Working Girl) comes a compelling, intimate look at an ensemble of high-powered women and their willingness to have it all – without giving an inch.

CAST: Lucy Liu (Ally McBeal, Charlie’s Angels), Frances O’Connor (Iron Jawed Angels), Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings), Bonnie Somerville
(NYPD Blue, Kitchen Confidential)

VIVA LAUGHLIN
(1 hour; drama)

Executive produced by Tony and Emmy Award winner Hugh Jackman (The Boy from Oz, X-Men) and directed by Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness), comes this rollicking musical about Ripley Holden and his family as they attempt to run a casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Eternal optimist and businessman Ripley Holden (Lloyd Owen) is on the brink of success when his casino, that’s nowhere near completion, loses its financing. Forced to ask his biggest rival, Nicky Fontana (Hugh Jackman), for help, Holden can’t help but see the sunny side of things. Using upbeat contemporary songs to accentuate the drama and humor and advance the story, the series is based on the hit BBC show "Viva Blackpool".

CAST: Lloyd Owen (Miss Potter), Melanie Griffith (Twins), Carter Jenkins
(Surface), D.B. Woodside (24), Ellen Woglom, Eric Winter, Madchen Amick
(Joey), P.J. Byrne, guest starring Hugh Jackman (X-Men)

JOURNEYMAN
(1 hour; drama)

A romantic mystery-drama about Dan Vasser, a San Francisco newspaper reporter and family man, who inexplicably begins to travel through time and changes people’s lives. Along the way, he must deal with difficulties at work and at home due to his sudden disappearances. Things get more complicated as Dan travels through the decades – he may be able to reunite with his long-lost fiancée but what about his present-day life with his wife and son?

CAST: Kevin McKidd (Rome), Moon Bloodgood (Day Break), Gretchen Egolf
(Martial Law), Reed Diamond (Homicide: Life on the Street), Charles Henry Wyson

LIFE
(1 hour; drama)

Offbeat Detective Charlie Crews is given a second chance when he returns to the force after years in prison. Thanks to close friend and attorney, Constance Griffiths, Crews comes back from serving time for a crime he didn’t commit with a decidedly different philosophy on life, not to mention unique insights into crime solving. As he re-enters a world that’s moved on without him, Crews must walk through the painful cobwebs of his past.

CAST: Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers), Melissa Sagemiller (Sleeper Cell),

Sarah Shahi (Rush Hour 3), Robin Weigart (Deadwood), Adam Arkin (Chicago Hope)

CANTERBURY’S LAW
(1 hour; drama)

Elizabeth Canterbury is a rebellious female defense attorney who’s willing to bend the law in order to protect the wrongfully accused. Putting her career on the line to take on risky and unpopular cases, Canterbury’s not easily discouraged – even when her career takes a toll on her personal life. From executive producers Denis Leary and Jim Serpico (Rescue Me, The Job).

CAST: Julianna Margulies (The Sopranos, ER), Ben Shenkman (Love Monkey), Jocko Sims (Dreamgirls), Linus Roache (Kidnapped), Trieste Dunn

IN PLAIN SIGHT
(1 hour; drama)

Mary McCormack (Traffic: The Miniseries, The West Wing) stars as Mary Shannon, a U.S. Federal Marshal living a secret life. Working for the highly secretive Witness Protection Branch she must juggle the lives of relocated Federal Witnesses – career criminals, compulsive liars, thieves and murderers
– in addition to her own intensely dysfunctional family, including a delinquent sister, Nichole Hiltz (NYPD Blue, Strong Medicine) and an in-denial mother, Lesley Ann Warren (Desperate Housewives, Will & Grace). Directed by Mark Piznarski (Veronica Mars, Everwood), executive produced by Paul Stupin
(Dawson’s Creek, Beautiful People) and written and Exec-Produced by David Maples (Home Improvement, Huff).

CAST: Frederick Weller (Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Shape of Things) as Marshall Mann, Todd Williams (Tilt, Third Watch) as Bobby D., Cristian de la Fuente (CSI: Miami) as Raphael

WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB
(1 hour; drama)

Four working women in San Francisco – a detective, a district attorney, a medical examiner and a reporter – use their expertise and unique talents to solve murder cases. Through their unique friendship, they realize that pooling their resources during investigations leads to undiscovered clues and answers in both work and their personal lives. Based on James Patterson’s bestselling novels.

CAST: Angie Harmon (Law & Order), Aubrey Dollar, Elizabeth Ho, Canadian Laura Harris (Dead Like Me)

NEW AMSTERDAM
(1 hour; drama)

A New York homicide detective unlike any other – John Amsterdam is brilliant, mysterious, reckless, magnetic – and immortal. A mixed blessing, Amsterdam’s immortality has spanned over three centuries and lovers and children have died while he remains young. According to the spell, not until he finds his true love will Amsterdam ever be truly whole and ready to return to his mortal state.

CAST: Nikolaj Coster Waldau (Firewall), Alexie Gilmore (Descent), Stephen Henderson, Zuleikha Robinson (Rome)

KID NATION
(1 hour; reality)

A reality-based series in which 40 kids will have 40 days to build a new world – in a ghost town that died during the 19th Century. These kids, ages 8-15, will spend more than a month without their parents in Bonanza City, N.M., learning how to cook their own meals, haul their own water and even run their own businesses. Fighting the urge to break every rule they’ve ever known, they will cope with regular childhood emotions and situations, including homesickness and peer pressure.

K-VILLE
(1 hour; drama)

Two years after Hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans is still in chaos. Criminals roam the streets with AK-47s, many cops have quit, and the jails, police stations and crime labs still haven’t been rebuilt. But the cops who remain have courage to burn and a passion to reclaim their city. From the Victorian mansions of the Garden District to the rubble of the Lower 9th Ward, the stakes could not be higher in K-VILLE.

CAST: Cole Hauser (The Break-Up), Tawny Cypress (Heroes), Anthony Anderson (‘Til Death), Blake Shields, John Carroll Lynch (Zodiac),

Maximiliano Hernandez (Law & Order)

Life Is Wild
(1 hour; drama)

A New York veterinarian uproots his second wife and their two sets of children and moves to a South African game reserve, run by his father-in- law. While they are definitely outsiders, the family is nevertheless beginning to love the breathtaking vistas of the bush country and the vibrant culture enveloping them. Based on the highly acclaimed British series, Wild at Heart.

CAST: Leah Pipes (Clubhouse), K’sun Ray (Smith), Judith Hoag
(Armageddon), Andrew St. John (General Hospital), Mary Matilyn Mouser

SWINGTOWN
(1 hour; drama)

Set in the 1970s, an era of provocative change, Swingtown centers around one family’s move into an affluent Chicago suburb, only to discover their neighbours share much more than just recipes. Introduced to a world of possibility, including open marriages, Bruce and Susan Miller are confronted with personal choices, experimentation and shifting attitudes. From Director Alan Poul (Six Feet Under).

CAST: Canadian Molly Parker (Deadwood), Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), Grant Show (Melrose Place), Lana Parrilla (24), Shanna Collins (Wildfire), Aaron Howles, Brittany Robertson
(Freddie)