Archive for the 'Other Projects' Category

ABC gave the go-ahead on Monday to adapt Scruples, the 1978 novel by Judith Krantz, into a possible drama series.

The author’s son, Tony — a former CAA agent turned successful producer and director – will shepherd the pilot with Natalie Portman, who will also serve as an executive producer on the project. This is the actress’ first attempt at producing a series.

The book was a bestseller and follows the life of Wilhelmina Hunnewell Winthrop, aka Billy, a previously plump woman who loses weight, becomes fabulously cool, and survives a very rich (and very old) first husband. She ends up opening up a Beverly Hills clothing boutique called “Scruples.”

The script is from Bob Brush and Mel Harris and will be produced through Warner Bros. TV, which has the rights to Scruples after making the 1980 miniseries that starred Lindsay Wagner.

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New York Daily News is reporting that PETA has developed a series of postage stamps to help raise awareness about animal abuse. The stamps will showcase the faces of 20 of the most famous vegetarians in history. The stamps will be available on PETA’s website through December and possibly into January, just in time for us to send out those holiday cards. The collection will include the faces of celebrities such as Russell Simmons, Woody Harrelson, Natalie Portman, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, Bryan Adams, Leona Lewis, Paul McCartney, Pamela Anderson, Bob Barker, Stevo-O, and Ellen DeGeneres.

Natalie’s first post-baby project: playing Fran Kubelik, the Shirley MacClaine role, in The Apartment for Jason Reitman’s staged reading at LACMA. So far, the rest of the cast includes JK Simmons as Sheldrake, Ken Jeong as Dobisch, Nick Kroll as Kirkeby, Mindy Kaling as Miss Olsen, Collette Wolfe as Sylvia, and Jake Johnson as Dr. Dryfeuss.

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Four years after Tony Krantz left his TV producing career to focus on feature directing, he is mounting a big push in television with 8 projects set up at various broadcast networks, including a Scruples adaptation at ABC, which he is executive producing with Natalie Portman.

Krantz, who was head of primetime packaging at CAA and CEO of Imagine Television before he embarked on a feature directing career, started building his Flame Ventures into an independent TV production company last year when it sold 5 broadcast projects. With the hire of Reece Pearson as head of development, the company has stepped up its TV efforts, selling 8 projects in the past few weeks. Flame is using an indie model similar to that employed by DreamWorks TV where projects are sold directly to the networks and then laid off at the nets’ affiliated studios.

At ABC, the company has Scruples 2. It is based on the 1978 novel by Krantz’s mother, Beverly Hills novelist Judith Krantz, who also penned a sequel in 1992. Bob Brush and Mel Harris will write the adaptation and exec produce with Natalie Portman, her producing partner Annette Savitch and Krantz. Warner Bros. TV is producing as it has the rights to the property via the 1980 Scruples miniseries starring Lindsay Wagner, which it produced.

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Natalie is the face of Dior’s new beauty campaign “Dior Forever”. The campaign is for the Dior Diorskin Forever Compact and DiorSkin Forever Fluid products. The makeup offerings will first hit stores in Asia this September.

Natalie has partnered with FINCA International, a microfinancing charity, to promote its women’s entrepreneurship community, “Lend A Hand.” FINCA says for as little as $50, a donor can help a woman in need start up her own business in a developing country. However, this microfinancing strategy is a little different than most. Once the person in need pays back the loan, it is forwarded to another person who has applied for funds instead of repaying the original lender. Natalie says that the strategy creates a perpetual succession of loans that “touches life after life until the cycle of poverty is broken.”