Aaron Sorkin Considering a Steve Jobs Biopic; Obama's Old Speechwriter Sold a Script
Today in movies and entertainment: Aaron Sorkin is being courted to write a Steve Jobs biopic, former White House speechwriter Jon Lovett sells a White House comedy, and Warner Bros. is going to stop shipping Harry Potter movies in December.
Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is "one of the writers being courted" by Sony to adapt Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography into a movie. Reps for Sorkin and the studio declined to comment, but a source familiar with the talks indicates to the Los Angeles Times that Sorkin is "considering the prospect but had made no decisions." That seem to imply the assignment is his if he wants it. Sorkin wrote movingly about Jobs for Newsweek after the Apple's founder's death about the time Jobs tried to convince him to write a Pixar movie. [Los Angeles Times]
Former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett only left the White House last month to break in as a writer in Hollywood, but NBC has already snatched up 1600 Penn, a half-hour comedy about a fictional president's goofy family. Lovett co-created the project with Modern Family director Jason Winer and Book of Mormon star Josh Gad. Presumably, it's now only a matter of time before FX gives Grover Norquist his own comedy block. [Variety]
Warner Bros. announced it will stop shipping copies of the Harry Potter movies to retailers as of Dec. 29, but don't expect the series to disappear like magic. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the move is "clearly intended to boost sales of the biggest box office franchise of all time" heading into the holiday season and notes Disney has been employing a similar strategy for years "pulling them from shelves for a period of time before making them available again at a later date." [The Hollywood Reporter]
Netflix stock may be getting hammered, but the company's foray into original programming, House of Cards, has added Rick Cleveland, Sarah Treem, and John Melfi to its roster of producers. Those may not be household names, but all three have been involved in highly-regarded television over the years: Cleveland was an executive producer and writer on Mad Men, Treem wrote all of the third season of In Treatment, and Melfi was a producer on Rome and Sex & the City. They join David Fincher, who is directing the pilot for the Kevin Spacey political drama and executive producing the series. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Six weeks into the new TV season, Vulture is looking at what's worked and what's worked so far for the four major networks. In the case of NBC, it's hard to pick out the bright spots. Sunday Night Football continues to be solid (except when the games are 55-point blowouts) and the new Will Arnett-Christina Applegate comedy Up All Night is "not struggling in its role as the lead-off hitter" on Wednesdays, which is not the same thing as being a hit. What's not working? "Pretty much everything else on NBC. Seriously, the Peacock is having a truly awful fall," writes Josef Adalian. In addition to new shows like The Playboy Club failing to ignite, old staples like Law and Order: SVU and The Office have seen their ratings tail off as well. It's truly a sign of a barren schedule, Adalian writes, when a network's "most-watched series is sophomore Harry's Law, and during the week ending October 16, it just barely cracked Nielsen's top 40." [Vulture]
