FOX at TCA Press Tour: new ‘Glee Project’, Saturday animation lineup, more

Credit: FOX

FOX is among the latest networks to make the rounds at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. Here are some of the news bits discussed at the event:

-The network announced a development deal with Oscar-nominated director M. Night Shyamalan for a ten-to-twelve episode drama series, to debut in 2014. The projected, titled Wayward Pines, is based on the novel Pines by Blake Crouch. FOX described the limited event series as similar to the cult classic Twin Peaks. The series follows Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke as he travels to the town of Wayward Pines, Idaho in search of two missing federal agents.

In comedy news, Seth Rogen will guest star on the Feb. 19 episode of The Mindy Project, titled “The One That Got Away”, playing the role of Sam, the first boy Mindy (Mindy Kaling) ever kissed. Rogen started his career on the beloved, short-running Judd Apatow TV series Freaks and Geeks.

Via: Paste

-The network has plans to start airing a late-night Saturday animated comedy bloc, which will serve as the on-air component to their digital, multi-platform animation. The bloc will premiere on Saturday, July 27 at 11:00 p.m. and air until 12:30 a.m. ET/PT. Some of the shows will mimic Adult Swim’s quarter-hour format, drawing comparisons to Cartoon Network’s popular late-night lineup. As if attempting to distract from such comparisons, FOX has enlisted a considerable array of voice talent, which includes Ken Marino, Peter Serafinowicz, Megan Mullally, Vincent Kartheiser, Mandy Moore, Patton Oswalt and Britta Phillips.

The series planned for the lineup include Axe Cop, an action-comedy about a superhero who only gets two minutes of sleep a night and only eats birthday cake. Axe Cop and his partner, Flute Cop, “unleash their unique brand of vigilante justice on bad guys everywhere – including stopping Hitler from creating an army of evil zombie robots and helping BAT WARTHOG MAN find the villain who stole all his best friends!”

Also on the lineup is High School USA!, which follows a group of millennial students facing the difficulties of growing up in the modern world. The show will deal with a variety of heavy subject matter, such as cyber-bullying, Adderall-addiction and sexting mishaps. The series comes from Community’s Dino Stamatopoulos and will feature the voices of Mandy Moore and Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser.

The final project is an untitled project from twin comedians Kenny and Keith Lucas, and will follow the brothers’ animated counterparts, who inherit their uncle’s old van and start a moving company called Va¢ation Boy$.

Via: Cinema Blend

-FOX entertainment president Kevin Reilly lamented the underwhelming performance of the network’s slate of Tuesday night comedies. “Of all the frustrations we had in the fall, our Tuesday comedy bloc was probably the biggest one, because I believe in those shows,” said Reilly, who admitted that the network would have been better served committing the lion’s share of the promotional effort to the returning New Girl, building it as the anchor for the bloc, as opposed to spreading the promotional wealth equally among the comedies in the lineup. “I still would’ve gone with those comedies, but I would’ve really promoted ‘New Girl’ — solely ‘New Girl’ — rather than a bloc, because they didn’t know the other shows, and we needed ‘New Girl’ to be even stronger and more of a destination, and I think that suffered by being lumped in with other shows they didn’t quite know.”

Reilly also suggested it’s “a real possibility” that he would order the next season of “Glee” early, so that Oxygen could produce another season of “The Glee Project”. For the reality series to be filmed on time, renewal would have to come before May, when networks make their decisions on what shows to renew. The network honcho said he was pleased with the divided storylines between Lima and New York this season, and its success has finally put an end to Reilly’s proposed Kurt/Rachael spin-off series. With the graduation of several more characters this spring, a reporter floated the question of whether the show might simply leave Lima altogether; Reilly responded that he had yet to talk to showrunner Ryan Murphy about the direction of the series in the future.

As for The X Factor, Reilly remains pleased with how the show is performing, despite the fact that the show suffered a drop from last season, and continued to fall short of the expectations nurtured by the addition of Britney Spears and Demi Lovato to the judging panel. “It just unfortunately didn’t get to the level of expectations,” he said, although he told HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall that the show still turns a profit for the network.

Via: HitFix