After five weeks of negotiations between CBS and 20th Century Fox TV over a midseason order for CIA drama pilot Chaos, the project, once considered a shoo-in for a spot on the schedule, now appears dead after the options on the actors expired at midnight last night. There was a lot of afterhours back-and-forth last night, with CAA, which is behind the Tom Spezialy-written drama, making a last-ditch effort to bring the two sides together. But no last-minute agreement was reached in what is described a classic example of political gamesmanship between two companies that don’t trust each other. I hear a lot of people on both sides are shell-shocked today as Chaos has been well liked at both the network and the studio and had been on the verge of a series order for so long. There is a slim chance that if a deal is made today, the project could get resurrected and the actors could be asked to come back, but the chance is indeed slim.
CBS originally was expected to make a decision on Chaos immediately after its May 19 upfront presentation so, if picked up, producing studio 20th TV could sell the drama at the LA international screenings the following week. The midseason order came on the last day of screenings, but 20th TV didn’t accept it because it was for 8 episodes as opposed to the standard 13-episode pickup, making the series hard to impossible to sell internationally through studio's output deals. Another non-starter for 20th TV: CBS asked for reshoots on the Brett Ratner-directed pilot but refused to split the cost for them with the studio. After 10 days of little movement, CBS, which didn’t feel it needed more than 8 episodes with another midseason drama, the Criminal Minds spinoff, already picked up for 13, upped the Chaos order to 13 episodes (including the pilot). But the larger order came with a lower license fee, $100,000 less per episode, and again wasn’t accepted by the studio, putting the two sides in another standoff. The license fee was eventually raised to its original level by CBS but disagreement over splitting the cost for the pilot reshoots remained, joined by a new big sticking point: the series’ budget. With its international window closing as many foreign buyers had already fulfilled their quotas with the slew of new drama series offered by the broadcast and cable networks this year, 20th TV indicated that it would have to produce the series more economically to offset lost international revenue and was looking to film Chaos out of state, taking advantage of tax incentives elsewhere. The studio was considering filming the series in Dallas, which offers tax breaks, or Vancouver, which offers more European look fitting the international elements in the CIA drama. Being closer to Los Angeles and in the same time zone, Vancouver also would've worked better for Spezialy and the other producers, who would have had to shuttle between location and the writers room in Los Angeles. That proved unacceptable to CBS, which wanted assurances that the series will keep the high quality of the pilot and asked 20th TV to commit to a budget of $3.1 million an episode. Additionally, the network was concerned that Vancouver would not provide the “blue sky” look they were looking for the series. 20th TV would commit to delivering a high quality series but not to a budget dictated by the network. Exacerbating the standoff even further, CBS asked to take over production of the show but was turned down by 20th TV. And while all this was going on, Spezialy lost the writers he had wanted for the series, including Reaper creators Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters who eventually joined another 20th TV series, Terra Nova.
Over the past five weeks, CBS and 20th TV never met eye-to-eye, ultimately letting Chaos die last night with the expiration of the actors’ options – a heartbreaking result for Spezialy who wrote and produced a good pilot that became a victim of the still-fragile economics of producing primetime series and good ol' Hollywood gamesmanship.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Drama 'Chaos' Left To Die After CBS And 20th TV Can't Agree On Order
View Comments
