Tuesday, August 08, 2000
Clooney's TV work victim of his success
By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When Fail Safe aired in April, George Clooney talked about his desire to produce live TV shows for CBS as often as four times a year.
It's not going to happen.
In fact, Mr. Clooney probably will not produce a live CBS special for the 2000-2001 season, says CBS Television President Les Moonves.
“He's got 100 things in the air,” Mr. Moonves told me during the recent TV critics press tour in Pasadena, Calif. CBS' only live production scheduled for fall is Julie Andrews' On Golden Pond.
The success of The Perfect Storm — which has earned $165 million at the box office in six weeks — has vaulted the former ER star into movie superstardom, Mr. Moonves says.
“After The Perfect Storm, I think George is going to be a $20-million-plus guy,” Mr. Moonves says. Translation: The 1979 Augusta High School graduate can demand $20 million per feature film, far more than he could make in TV.
It also means that Mr. Clooney, 39, may not appear in Murrow and Me, a CBS movie announced three years ago as part of his network development deal. Murrow and Me, being written now, will dramatize the legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight with Sen. Joseph McCarthy over the senator's Communism scare in the early 1950s.
Mr. Moonves had wanted Mr. Clooney to produce and star in the movie. “Now the chances of him doing both are less and less,” he says.
The CBS executive praised Mr. Clooney's work producing Fail Safe, the network's first live drama in decades. It received five Emmy nominations (direction, technical direction, casting, sound mixing and lighting).
“You needed George Clooney's power to get that kind of production on the air,” Mr. Moonves says.
He's pleased by the actor's big-screen success. It confirms the talent Mr. Moonves saw a decade ago, while running Warner Bros. Television. He hired Mr. Clooney for Lee Horsley's Bodies Of Evidence (1992-93), Sela Ward's love interest in Sisters (1993-94) and ER (1994-99).
“George and I talk every two weeks. We're pals,” Mr. Moonves says.
Good night: Sports Night is dead, make no mistake about it.
“It was very difficult for us, but we thought that that was the decision we had to make,” says Stu Bloomberg, the ABC Entertainment co-chairman who canceled the smart comedy.
Sports Night, which won two Emmys last season, has been nominated for four nonperformance Emmys (casting, cinematography, directing, picture editing).
Talks about continuing the show on Showtime or HBO have fallen through because creator Aaron Sorkin does not want to continue writing both Sports Night and The West Wing (nominated for 18 Emmys, including best drama).
Radio highlight: Patty Loveless chats with callers on Country Live Tonight at 11 p.m. on WUBE-FM (105.1).
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