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News: NBC Green-lights End Times Series Reuters November 13, 2003 Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&ncid=763&e=6&u=/nm/20031113/tv_nm/leisure_armageddon_dc NBC Enlists 'Omen' Writer for Armageddon Story By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES - You'll never believe what those crazy TV marketing gurus will get up to next: Executives at NBC think the end of the world may be an ideal promotional platform for next year's fall season. Hey, there may be nothing like an apocalypse to boost ratings. The network has hired "The Omen" screenwriter David Seltzer to develop the script for a mini-series about a physicist and a nun racing to avert the apocalyptic final showdown between God and Satan as foretold in the Book of Revelations, NBC said on Wednesday. The untitled project is envisioned as a six-to-eight-part drama that would premiere after NBC's final Summer Olympics telecast in late August of 2004, airing an hour a week leading into September, a spokesman for the General Electric-owned network said. Although the project is one of many in the earliest stages of development at the major networks, Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety said NBC has made a premium six-figure commitment for the script, a sign of its commercial potential. If successful in drawing the big ratings of a big-event mini-series, the story of contemporary Armageddon could prove to be a powerful launch pad in advertising NBC's 2004 fall schedule. Seltzer, whose credits include the 1976 supernatural classic "The Omen," which starred Gregory Peck as the "father" of a little Antichrist named Damien, said that the Apocalypse is an especially timely subject given the current state of world events. "What the Book of Revelation predicted is at hand," Seltzer said in a statement issued by NBC. "Nuclear brinkmanship, worldwide terrorism, collapsing economies and environmental atrocities make it clear that the critical mass of injury to this planet is sufficient to bring down the wrath of God and put the biblical prophecies into play. "What is not written in the Bible is whether man can do anything about it. This is where our story begins," he said. Executive producer Gavin Palone said he sees the project as having a "larger potential audience than any show on television." Indeed, a number of network dramas dealing in spiritual themes have proven popular in prime time, including the long-running CBS series "Touched By an Angel the WB's "7th Heaven" and the new CBS drama "Joan of Arcadia." |
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