Lifetime: Bigger movies, “Project Runway” and moving into comedy

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Lifetime had a very classy upfront presentation today in New York City, on the top floor of the Hearst building.

Joan Allen was there to promote the Georgia O’Keeffe biopic that she produced and stars in —it fell out, shall we say, at HBO and was snapped up by Lifetime. (It was directed by the hilarious Bob Balaban, who brought in ‘Bernard and Doris’ on the cheap for HBO, so you know he can.) Joan brought along Jeremy Irons, who apologized to the crowd for appearing in the film with a mustache and glasses. Because, yes, Lifetime is all about having hot men in its shows and movies. It is television for folks who are interested in womanly stuff and who also like to look at hot dudes.

Tim Gunn! But we are burying the important stuff! So there was the awkward/triumphant ‘Project Runway’ moment! The exceedingly delightful Tim Gunn was there. So his TV show will be on the air on Aug. 20. ‘Finally!’ he said. He told the crowd that he felt great relief that the show ‘has come out of the ether.’

And at lunch, who was sitting next to Andrea Wong, Lifetime’s president, but Bob (not Harvey! Not at all Harvey!) Weinstein with a Diet Coke; the brothers (and their other co-producing parties) had been in a sloppy legal battle with Bravo parent company NBC Universal over the Weinstein Company’s sale of ‘Proj Run’ to Lifetime. Also, Nina Garcia was there but pretty much everyone was too scared to talk to her.

They ran some super-vague clips from ‘Project Runway.’ It was like seeing lost family footage, in a way: like something you’d forgotten but warmly remember. ‘Fantastic,’ said Bob into his salad (it had little eggs). That show, when it at long last comes, will be followed by ‘Models of the Runway,’ which, for better or worse, gives us a 30-minute window into the lives of exceedingly tall and hungry young women.

So late last year, Lifetime hired JoAnn Alfano as its executive vice president of entertainment; she had not long before left Broadway Video, which produces ’30 Rock’ and ‘SNL.’ This summer she is putting up ‘Drop Dead Diva,’ which had been briefly with Fox, and is about a stupid, thin girl who gets jammed supernaturally in the body of a smart, chunky girl. They played clips for the press today, which featured Margaret Cho as the sassy Asian best friend and some really hot guy as her tough boss. ‘I love this,’ said Bob Weinstein.

Scripted Comedy There are three scripted original comedies in production, led by stars Cybill Shepherd, Valerie Bertinelli (who was referred to as ‘America’s Sweetheart’) and Sherri Shepherd — what’s up with all the Shepherds?

Drama And there are some dramatic things, including a TV adaptation/revision of ‘Mona Lisa Smile’ about the ladies struggling with lady things in the 1950s lady college, and ‘Mystic Pizza: Another Slice’ (!!!), which is a two-hour pilot.

Movies There are movies, though there are fewer on future slates. May 30 brings ‘Maneater,’ from the book by Brian Grazer’s soon-to-be or already ex-wife, Gigi Levangie Grazer, and starring Sarah Chalke, a.k.a. ‘Other Becky,’ for whom this is not her first time at the Lifetime rodeo. There is a cougar movie which has as the boy Ashton Kutcher (not ironic!); one with Gina Gershon where she is not a cougar; and many other things, including, in 2010, the first film productions of Patricia Cornwell books and something about Garth Brooks’ ‘Unanswered Prayers.’

Unscripted In unscripted, well, there is lots (something like nine shows in total between returns and development, and at least two of them had to do with dieting and two with children) but let us only discuss ‘Deadbeat Dads,’ which was a pilot at Fox but is now perhaps the best match of show and network to date in the history of TV, as it follows this guy Jim as he goes around and collects child support from, yes!, BAD DADS. This is so genius; every woman in America will cry and cheer. There was some other stuff, obviously, but how could you even care after seeing a clip of this? I could not; presumably Bob Weinstein’s mind was blown as well.

So What’s JoAnn Up To? Us: It looks like you’re spending!

JoAnn Alfano: No. We’re not. My budgets have not grown at all. Whatever we’re doing, we’re doing for the
dollar. In terms of the movies, we’re not doing as many movies as Lifetime used to. But we upped the budgets on those -- big casts, big names. So that enhances the qualities of the movie.

Us: Are you satisfied with unscripted?

Alfano: This was my first eight months. From where I stand today from where I came in, I’m pretty happy. We have a diverse slate, we now have leading properties in three genres, and we’re breaking into comedy. It takes time. Comedy’s hard, but we really believe in ‘Rita Rocks.’ We want to push into the comedy business—but not fast!

Us: I was talking to a network person today who had a show come on in, like, April, and they were already like, it’s toast. Do you have more luxury here?

Alfano: Toast, well, we can’t be toast. That’s why we take so few bets. You know, ‘Army Wives’ is going on to its third season. There hasn’t been another drama since then that’s gone on the network, for whatever the reason is, they didn’t feel they had the right property, so you’re not just going to put on a show for the sake of putting on a show unless you believe in it.... So we will give ‘Diva’ a real shot. I think cable works a little differently too. Even when you change time periods on shows, it takes people a while to find things, because there’s such a huge marketplace. You need to try to give it a shot.’

-- Choire Sicha